Year: 2024

SpaceX wins launch contract for Dragonfly mission to Titan

8:58 am

NASA yesterday announced that it has awarded the launch contract for sending its Dragonfly mission to Titan to SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket.

The firm-fixed-price contract has a value of approximately $256.6 million, which includes launch services and other mission related costs. The Dragonfly mission currently has a targeted launch period from July 5, 2028, to July 25, 2028, on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Dragonfly is a truly cutting edge mission. Though we have relatively limited information about Titan’s atmosphere and the environment on its surface, it will attempt to fly there like a helicopter, landing and taking off multiple times.

And though there are certainly additional costs required for such a mission, that quarter-billion dollar contract price probably triples what it normally costs SpaceX for a Falcon Heavy mission. Even if it requires the expending of all three first stages, the company is almost certainly getting a big windfall from this deal.

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November 25, quick space links

3:21 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

  • Landspace touts upgrades it is planning for its Zhuque-3 rocket
    It hopes to do the first three launches in 2025 using the older version, and then upgrade. A comparison of its Zhuque-2 and Zhuque-3 rockets can be viewed here. Zhuque-2 has launched three times successfully, though nothing in the past year. Zhuque-3 will attempt to reuse its first stage.
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Martian mountains amidst a deep sea of sand

11:17 am

Overview

A Martian mountain surrounded by a sea of sand
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on July 9, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The white dot on the overview map above marks the location, inside the deep enclosed and very large 130-mile-wide depression dubbed Juventae Chasma.

The mountain in the picture raises above the sand sea that surrounds it from 1,000 to 2,300 feet, depending on direction, as the downhill grade of the sand sea is to the east. Thus, on the west the mountain rises less, while on the east the height is the greatest.

The inset illustrates the extent of the sand sea. It covers the ground for many miles in all directions. The way the sand surrounds these mountains suggests the prevailing winds blow from the west to the east. In fact, the facts suggest that this sand is volcanic ash that was blown into Juventae from many eruptions that occurred over time to the west, where it got trapped. The wind and gravity deposited the sand into the 20,000 to 25,000-foot-deep chasm, where the wind was insufficient to lift it out again.

One wonders how deep that sand sea might be. The lack of any surface features at all suggests it could be quite deep, burying everything but the highest peaks. In fact, if a geologist could drill a core through that sand I suspect he or she might be able to document the entire eruption history of much of Mars.

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Italy to resume use of its San Marco spaceport off the coast of Kenya

9:21 am

Italy's offshore San Marco spaceport
Click for full map.

Italy has now decided to re-open its long unused San Marco spaceport facility off the coast of Kenya, resuming launches from its off-shore launch platform.

During its active life beginning in 1967 a total of eight launches occurred from this site, with the last flight occurring in 1988.

In late 2023, the Minister of Enterprise and Made in Italy, Adolfo Urso, first proposed reopening the facility for rocket launches. While unsubstantiated by other sources, local publication MalindiKenya.net reported at the time that the move would be used to create an “ideal launch base for the Italian Vega launcher, thus avoiding paying France for the use of the French Guiana base.”

In October 2024, during a presentation just before the 75th International Astronautical Congress kicked off, Minister Urso explained that the country had decided to move ahead with its plans to once again launch rockets from the Luigi Broglio Space Center.

The present plans will have the site managed by the Kenya Space Agency, established in 2017, with Italy providing the rockets and satellites, all of which are expected to be smallsats. It appears that the rocket company Avio, which builds the Vega-C rocket, might be aiming to use this site as an commercial launchpad, thus allowing it to bypass the French-run French Guiana spaceport. Located close to the equator and on the coast, this site would offer satellite companies a very wide range of orbits.

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Launches galore in the past twelve hours

8:49 am

The past twelve hours was quite busy at spaceports worldwide, with two American companies completing three different launches from three different spaceports, while China added one of its own.

First China launched two radar-mapping satellites, its Long March 2C rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China. No word on where its lower stages, that use very toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China. Though this launch was first, it actually took place in the early morning of November 25th, in China.

Next, Rocket Lab completed two launches, though one was not an orbital flight. First it completed its second of four planned launches of its HASTE suborbital version of its Electron rocket, lifting off from Wallops Island in Virgina. HASTE had been quickly improvised by the company when it realized there was a real market for hypersonic suborbital testing, and Electron could be refitted for that purpose. This launch actually occurred prior to the Chinese launch.

Then Rocket Lab launched five more satellites for the satellite company Kineis, the third of five, its Electron rocket lifting off from one of its two launchpads in New Zealand.

Finally, SpaceX in the early morning of November 25th launched 23 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The first stage completed its thirteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

121 SpaceX
54 China
14 Russia
13 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 140 to 81, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 121 to 100.

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Unloading of new Progress docked to ISS delayed due to “toxic smell”

10:02 pm

The unloading of cargo from the new Progress freighter that docked to ISS on November 23, 2024 halted immediately after hatch opening because of a “toxic smell” detected by the Russian astronauts.

The crew then proceeded with air leak checks in the docking port, but after opening the hatch between Poisk and Progress, it had to be closed immediately due to toxic smell and possible contamination hazard in the form of droplets, according to communications between the US mission control in Houston and the ISS crew in late hours Moscow Time on November 23.

Various systems aboard the ISS were activated to scrub the station’s atmosphere from possible contamination, while the hatch of the Poisk module leading into the pressurized cargo compartment of the Progress M-29 spacecraft remained closed. In particular, the Trace Contaminant Control Sub-assembly, TCCS, was turned on aboard the US Segment. The Russian crew was also reported donning protective equipment and activating an extra air-scrubbing system aboard the Russian Segment, which operated up to a half an hour.

By the end of today mission controllers from both Russian and the U.S. declared the air cleared and normal, and have begun unloading operations.

The cause remains unexplained.

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SpaceX launches 20 Starlink satellites

11:54 pm

SpaceX tonight successfully launched another 20 Starlink satellites, 13 of which had direct-to-cell capabilities, the Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California. (Note that the live stream starts late, missing the launch itself).

The first stage completed its 15th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

120 SpaceX
53 China
14 Russia
12 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 138 to 80, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 120 to 98.

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New Glenn on the launchpad and vertical for the first time

9:10 am

The first completely assembled New Glenn, on the launchpad
The first completely assembled New Glenn,
on the launchpad

Blue Origin’s first New Glenn rocket to be fully stacked and ready for launch was finally placed vertical on its Cape Canaveral launchpad late November 21, 2024.

For the first time, the company placed a fully integrated, flight-capable rocket on the launch pad Thursday evening. The company rolled the rocket out of the hangar at Launch Complex 36 (LC-36) earlier. A static fire test with the full 98-meter-tall (320 ft) rocket is forthcoming, though a specific date hasn’t been announced.

…The upcoming integrated static fire test would be the first time that Blue Origin fuels a full-assembled. flight-ready New Glenn rocket. It previously conducted a static fire test of its upper stage, which saw a 15-second burn of the two BE-3U engines.

The picture to the right was released by the company that night.

No launch date has been announced. The present payload for this launch is the company’s own Blue Ring orbital tug on a Pentagon-supported test flight. The original payload, two smallsat NASA Mars orbiters built by Rocket Lab, had to be pulled when Blue Origin’s generally leisurely approach meant that it was unable to get the rocket ready in time to meet the October launch window.

That leisurely approach to business will have to end if Blue Origin really wants to compete in today’s modern aerospace industry.

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Distinct gully draining the side of a Martian crater

12:51 pm

Distinct gully in 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 August 20, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The science team labels the entire picture simply as “gully,” obviously referring to that distinct and somewhat deep hollow in the middle of the picture.

Most gullies that have been found on Mars tend to look more eroded and rougher than this hollow. Here, it appears almost as if the process that caused this gully occurred relatively recently, resulting in its sharp borders that have not had time to crumble into softer shapes.

The crater interior slope is about 1,500 feet high. Whatever flowed down it however did not do it in an entirely expected manner. As it flowed it curved to the west, so that the impingement into the glacial material that fills the crater floor is to the west of the gully itself. Either that, or that impingement was caused by a different event at a different earlier time.
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