Year: 2023

German students about to attempt launch of suborbital hybrid rocket

10:17 am

A student project at the University of Stuttgart in Germany is about to attempt the first suborbital launch of a hybrid rocket that has the possibility of setting a new altitude record for student-built rockets.

The hybrid rocket is 7.80 m long and weighs around 70 kg. It was built by around 60 students from the University Group HyEnD of the University of Stuttgart. “It’s one of the most powerful and advanced student-built hybrid rockets in the world,” says Max Öchsle, HyEnD project manager. With this, the students have big plans: They want to beat their own altitude record of 32 km for student-built hybrid rockets, which they set in 2016.

The students also hope to cross the boundary into space at an altitude of 100 km. In addition to the world record for hybrid rockets, this also makes the world record for student-built rockets in general possible. The previous record is 103.6 km and was set by the University of Southern California (USCRPL) team in 2019. “The world record is within our reach. We could indeed beat it,” says Öchsle. Öchsle is well aware that the record depends on other factors such as the weather.

The launch window begins on April 14th, and extends until April 25th, will take place at the new Esrange commercial spaceport in Sweden, and will be live streamed by the spaceport. Updates on the project can be found at the project’s own website.

What makes this particular student project interesting to me is its location, in Germany. That nation presently has three startup rocket companies racing to be the first to reach orbit. These students are clearly aiming for jobs with this emerging German rocket industry, and if successful at this project will bring to that industry some very sophisticated abilities.

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Museum offers $25k for recovery of meteorite that landed in Maine April 8th

9:55 am

Meteorite landing track

Because a instrument operated by NOAA picked up radar data of an asteroid fall over Maine on April 8, 2023, it has been possible for NASA scientists to publish a track, shown to the right, of where any pieces of the meteorite might have landed.

As a result, the Maine Mineral and Gem Museum has offered a $25k reward to anyone who turns in the first piece weighing more than one kilogram.

The $25,000 reward is only for the first kilogram, but Pitt said that the museum will also buy other fireball pieces that are found. “Depending upon the type of meteorite this is, specimens could easily be worth their weight in gold,” he said.

The American Meteor Society received six witness reports of Saturday’s fireball, half of which were in northeast Maine. One of the witnesses described the meteorite as having a “long glowing tail (but no smoke).” Another said that it was “bright red” while the tail was “very white.”

The museum also emphasized that any meteorite hunters must get landowner permission before entering private land.

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Hakuto-R1 now scheduled to land on Moon on April 25th

9:41 am

Lunar map showing Hakuto-R1's landing spot
Hakuto-R1’s planned landing site is in Atlas Crater.

The private company Ispace yesterday announced that their Hakuto-R1 lunar lander, presently in orbit around the Moon, will attempt a landing on April 25, 2023, landing in Atlas Crater.

At approximately 15:40 on April 25, 2023, (UTC), the lander is scheduled to begin the landing sequence from the 100 km altitude orbit. During the sequence, the lander will perform a braking burn, firing its main propulsion system to decelerate from orbit. Utilizing a series of pre-set commands, the lander will adjust its attitude and reduce velocity in order to make a soft landing on the lunar surface. The process will take approximately one hour.

Should conditions change, there are three alternative landing sites and depending on the site, the landing date may change. Alternative landing dates, depending on the operational status, are April 26, May 1, and May 3, 2023.

The lander carries several commercial payloads, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Rashid rover. Ispace says the landing will be publicly live streamed, with more details to follow.

The company has from the beginning been treating this entire mission as an engineering test, with ten major goals, all related to proving out the lander’s systems. It has now completed eight of those goals, with a successful landing and successful operations on the surface the last challenges. If Hakuto-R1 succeeds, Ispace will become the first private company to complete a privately funded planetary mission to the Moon.

Furthermore, the company is already planning its second lunar landing mission, Hakuto-R2 in 2024, and a third more ambitious lunar mission for NASA, partnering with the American company Draper.

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April 12, 2023 Quick space links

5:49 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

 

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Triple crater on Mars

1:19 pm

Triple crater on Mars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on January 22, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists have labeled simply as a “triple crater,” a very apt description.

What caused this? The most obvious explanation is the arrival almost simultaneously of three pieces. As this asteroid or comet entered the thin Martian atmosphere as a single object, that atmosphere was thick enough to break it into three parts but not enough to destroy it entirely. When it hit the ground, the top piece hit first, with the center and bottom pieces following in sequence, thus partly obscuring the previous hits.

The smaller surrounding craters could either be additional pieces from the bolide, or secondary impacts from ejecta thrown out at impact.
» Read more

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Tennessee’s Republicans move to represent the left, not their constituents

12:21 pm

What Tennessee's Republicans are doing
A picture of Tennessee’s Republicans

Capitulating as always: In response to calls from Tennessee’s very small and very minor Democratic Party — including its normal mobs of screaming protesters, some of which routinely threaten violence — the Republican governor of Tennessee, Bill Lee, is now demanding new gun laws aimed at making it easier to take guns away from Tennessee citizens.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee called Tuesday for state lawmakers to pass a law aimed at preventing guns from getting in the hands of people who are a danger to themselves or others.

The Republican governor also said he will sign a new executive order later Tuesday aimed at strengthening background checks on firearm purchases. “I’m asking the General Assembly to bring forward an order of protection law,” Lee said in a news conference at a Nashville police station. “A new, strong order of protection law will provide the broader population cover, safety, from those who are a danger to themselves or the population. “This is our moment to lead and to give the people of Tennessee what they deserve.” [emphasis mine]

Yeah, he wants to give it to them, good and hard. And apparently he has support from the Republican House Speaker Cameron Sexton, and Republican Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, who is the Senate speaker.
» Read more

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FCC makes official its regulatory power grab beyond its statutory authority

10:22 am

We are here to help you! The FCC yesterday officially launched a new stand-alone Space Bureau which will be focused on institutionalizing the many new regulations the FCC has proposed for controlling how satellites are built and de-orbited.

The Space Bureau was carved out of the FCC’s International Bureau to help the regulator handle its increasing workload in the industry. The restructuring effectively splits the International Bureau into two units: the Space Bureau and the Office of International Affairs (OIA) that will handle the FCC’s work with foreign and international regulatory authorities more generally.

While the bureau’s first leader, Julie Kearney, claimed the goal of this reorganization is to streamline licensing, she also made it clear that she will also be using her new position to make the proposed new regulations on satellite construction and deorbit the law of the land, even though Congress never gave the FCC this particular regulatory power.

Based on Congress’s general weakness and willingness in the past half century to cede power to the administrative state, Kearney and the FCC will likely succeed. For example, though a bill has been introduced in Congress to address the FCC’s power grab, it basically endorses it.

In other words, the bureaucrats in DC now essentially write the laws, Congress bows meekly to approve them, and then the bureaucracy moves to enforce them.

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Does India’s new space policy shift operations from the government to the private sector?

10:06 am

On April 6, 2023 the Modi government of India announced that it had approved a new space policy, describing it as designed to boost private commercial space over the government-run operations of its space agency ISRO.

At the time, and still to this day, the actual text of that policy has not been released. However, an article today from India provides some analysis of this policy, based on statements by several government officials, and suggests that the goal of that policy is the same as NASA’s has been for the past decade, shift from being the builder of spacecraft and rockets to simply being the customer buying those products from the private sector. The key statement illustrating this came from Dr. S. Somnath, chairman of ISRO.

Speaking to the media, Somnath said that the new policy is focused on strengthening the participation of private players in India’s space program. The ISRO chairman also said that the new policy outlines a framework under which the private sector can use ISRO facilities for a small fee. The policy also looks upon private players to create new infrastructure in the space sector.

In what can be seen as a critical move, Somnath told the media that “ISRO will not do any operational and production work for the space sector and focus its energies on developing new technologies, new systems and research and development.” This essentially means that the routine production and launches that the ISRO was so caught up with until now will be handled by the private sector completely.

In other words, ISRO’s effort to capture market share by launching its rockets (dubbed GSLV, PSLV, and SSLV) for profit will eventually end. The Modi government instead wants the private sector to do this work, with rockets it builds and owns.

Even if we assume this analysis is correct, replacing ISRO’s rocket with private rockets however cannot happen quickly. While India has a vibrant commercial space industry, it presently only has two startup rocket companies, Agnikul and Skyroot, neither of which is close to reaching orbit. For NASA, the transition from running and owning everything to being a customer took about a decade. Expect the same transition in India to take as long, assuming the Modi government stays firm against the resistance that will surely come from its government bureaucracy, and any later administrations hold to this policy as well.

Furthermore, that the policy text has not been made public strongly suggests that the Modi government recognizes that it will face strong opposition within India’s very large and powerful bureaucracy, which is far larger and stronger than even the U.S.’s administrative state in DC. Fighting that bureaucracy in India is going to be very difficult, if not impossible.

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Relativity ends Terran-1, will move to developing more powerful Terran-R

9:40 am

According to Tim Ellis, the head of the rocket company Relativity, it has decided to end any further work on its small test rocket, Terran-1 following its first failed launch and shift all work to developing its more powerful Terran-R rocket.

The company feels good about the data collected from the flight, as Terran 1 made it further into space than the debut launches from a majority of small rocket companies. It also validated the company’s test and launch program, he said, and its approach to 3D printing large parts of a rocket. “Terran 1 was always meant to develop technologies that were pushing the bounds for what was needed for Terran R,” Ellis said.

But now, it’s time to move on. Relativity Space is negotiating with NASA to move the one existing commercial launch on Terran 1—the Venture Class Launch Services Demonstration 2 mission—onto another rocket, possibly the Terran R. In other words, there will be no more Terran 1 launches.

Ellis also described some major changes in the design of Terran-R. The company will no longer attempt to make the second stage reusable, it will no longer 3D-print its entire structure, its first stage will be more powerful and will be flown and reusable like SpaceX’s Falcon 9, and its first launch will be pushed back from 2024 to 2026.

This decision means that Relativity will not become an operational and competitive rocket company for another three years, at the soonest. However, should it succeed in achieving these new plans for Terran-R, it will have a rocket that can directly compete with SpaceX, while beating out anything either ULA or Blue Origin can at this time offer. For example, the rocket will be able to put from 23 to 33 tons into low Earth orbit, which is more than the Falcon 9 (20 tons) and not much less than the Falcon Heavy (50 tons), and generally better than Vulcan (27 tons). As noted at the link:

[T]he US government (as well as commercial satellite customers) would very much like a second company to step forward and challenge SpaceX on innovation, price, and reliability. Ellis correctly sees that this lane remains open with questions about Vulcan’s long-term future, Blue Origin’s slow movement on New Glenn, and Rocket Lab’s focus on a smaller medium-lift rocket, Neutron.

Whether this new strategy will work depends entirely on whether Relativity can deliver by 2026. If it does so, it will very likely beat Blue Origin into orbit, and be chosen by the military to replace it as one of the Pentagon’s launch providers. It will also make ULA’s position more vulnerable, because Vulcan will no longer be the only other option, and it will likely not be able to compete with the prices offered by SpaceX and Relativity.

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SpaceX announces it will be providing a webcast for Starship’s first orbital flight

9:03 pm

Starship/Superheavy flight plan for first orbital flight
Click for original image.

SpaceX today revealed the details for its live stream of the first orbital launch of Superheavy/Starship, now targeting a launch date around April 21, 2023, depending on when the FAA issues the launch license.

A live webcast of the flight test will begin ~45 minutes before liftoff. As is the case with all developmental testing, this schedule is dynamic and likely to change, so be sure to stay tuned to our social media channels for updates.

I will embed that live stream here on Behind the Black. Stay tuned for more information.

The flight plan is shown above. The website also provides a detailed timeline. If launch manages to pass through Max-Q and get to stage separation, Superheavy will do a flip to do a soft targeted landing in the Gulf of Mexico. Starship will continue into orbit, and then fire its engines to return to Earth to do a soft targeted landing in the Pacific northeast of the Big Island of Hawaii.

That is the plan. Much can go wrong along the way, considering Superheavy has never flown once, no less with Starship stacked on top. Furthermore, Starship has never flown in its present iteration. Previous suborbital tests were using much earlier prototypes vastly different that this prototype, #24 in the series.

Regardless whether all goes perfectly or some things fail, the launch will be a success because it will provide SpaceX data for future test flights, which are waiting in the wings.

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