Year: 2024

NASA inspector general blasts Boeing’s management relating to its work on SLS’s new more powerful upper stage

9:52 am

Boeing's schedule slips in building SLS's upper stage
Boeing’s schedule slips in building SLS’s upper stage

In a report issued today [pdf], NASA’s inspector general harshly criticized the Boeing managment and operations at its Michoud facility, where the company is developing SLS’s new more powerful upper stage. From the report’s executive summary:

Quality control issues at Michoud are largely due to the lack of a sufficient number of rained and experienced aerospace workers at Boeing. To mitigate these challenges, Boeing provides training and work orders to its employees. Considering the significant quality control deficiencies at Michoud, we found these efforts to be inadequate. For example, during our visit to Michoud in April 2023, we observed a liquid oxygen fuel tank dome—a critical component of the SLS Core Stage 3—segregated and pending disposition on whether and how it can safely be used going forward due to welds that did not meet NASA specifications. According to NASA officials, the welding issues arose due to Boeing’s inexperienced technicians and inadequate work order planning and supervision. The lack of a trained and qualified workforce increases the risk that Boeing will continue to manufacture parts and components that do not adhere to NASA requirements and industry standards.

The report also notes that delivery of that upper stage has been delayed from 2021 to 2027 (as shown by the graph to the right, taken from the IG report), and its cost has risen from $962 million to almost $2.8 billion. It also notes quite bluntly that:

Boeing’s quality management system at Michoud does not effectively adhere to industry standards or NASA requirements, resulting in production delays to the SLS core and upper stages and increased risk to the integrated spacecraft. … Boeing’s process for addressing contractual noncompliance has been ineffective, and the company has generally been nonresponsive in taking corrective actions when the same quality control issues reoccur.

Sound familiar? It should. These issues appear to be the same kind of quality control problems that have plagued Starliner, and are also the same kind of problems that had NASA reject Boeing’s bid to provide cargo to its Lunar Gateway station, and state while doing so that it will no longer consider future Boeing bids until the company straightens itself out.

It appears from today’s inspector general report that Boeing has fixed nothing. The report recommends some additional supervision of Boeing from NASA, and more importantly suggests the agency “institute financial penalties for Boeing’s noncompliance with quality control standards.”

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French startup Exploration Company has so far obtained almost $800 million in contracts

9:30 am

The French startup The Exploration Company has so far obtained almost $800 million in contracts to provide cargo ferrying services to space stations using its Nyx unmanned freighter.

During a presentation at the International Space Station Research & Development Conference (ISSRDC), The Exploration Company’s chief commercial officer, Dana Baki, outlined the company’s progress since its founding. According to Baki, the company has raised $70 million in funding and grown to 130 employees across four countries. The headline figure was, however, the $770 million in contracts won, of which 10% came from space agencies and the other 90% from private space station providers Axiom Space, Vast, and Starlab.

This French company recognized early on that if all four space stations get built, they will all need regular cargo deliveries, and that SpaceX’s cargo Dragon and Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus would be hard pressed to fill the need. Thus the demand for its untested capsule. The contracts are likely contingency-based, meaning the stations are not committing any significant money until Nyx becomes operational.

One other interesting note: The only proposed station that did not offer Exploration a contract was Blue Origin’s Orbital Reef. Though one of Blue Origin’s partners is Sierra Space, which will provide cargo ferrying capacity with its Dream Chaser mini-shuttles, it seems signing up a redundant back up would be wise. Another partner, Boeing, is supposed to use Starliner to provide crew ferrying capability, with cargo an option, but that remains an unknown considering the problems with Starliner.

It is unlikely Blue Origin has signed a deal with SpaceX, and I have not seen any news that it signed a deal with Northrop. Thus, it has no known viable backup at the moment.

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Rocket Lab completes first static fire test of new more powerful rocket engine

9:16 am

Neutron first stage deploying second stage with satellite
Neutron first stage deploying second stage with satellite

Rocket Lab yesterday announced it has successfully completed the first static fire test of its new Archimedies rocket engine, designed to be used on its new larger Neutron rocket scheduled for launch next year.

Archimedes performed well and ticked off several key test objectives, including reaching 102% power, anchoring the engine’s design ahead of Neutron’s first flight scheduled for mid-2025 – a schedule that would make Neutron the fastest a commercially developed medium-class launch vehicle has been brought to market. With the hot fire complete and full qualification campaign now underway, the Rocket Lab team is moving into full production of flight engines.

The design of Neuton is clever, as shown in the graphic to the right. In order to reuse as much as possible, the fairing encloses both the payload and upper stage. Before stage separation, the fairing will open, allowing the upper stage and its payload to be deployed. Afterward it remains with the first stage, which will land vertically back at the launch site.

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WISE/NEOWISE space telescope mission ends after fourteen years

9:11 pm

Comet NEOWISE, photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope
Click for full image.

Launched in 2009, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) was shut down today after almost fourteen years of successful observations, with its first years dedicated to creating an infrared survey of the sky. In 2013, after two years of hibernation, it was reactivated and renamed NEOWISE (for reasons that I have always found absurd), with the goal over the next thirteen years of mapping the sky for near Earth objects.

By repeatedly observing the sky from low Earth orbit, NEOWISE created all-sky maps featuring 1.45 million infrared measurements of more than 44,000 solar system objects. Of the 3,000-plus near-Earth objects it detected, 215 were first spotted by NEOWISE. The mission also discovered 25 new comets, including the famed comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE that streaked across the night sky in the summer of 2020.

A Hubble image of that comet is to the right.

The mission was ended because the telescope’s orbit is now too low to provide good data. It is expected to re-enter the atmosphere and burn up before the end of the year.

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Florida proves that too many professors at public colleges might be better employed as dish washers

1:35 pm

Most of all beware this boy.’
As noted by the Spirit of Christmas Present in Dickens’ The Christmas
Carol, “This boy is ignorance, this girl is want. Beware them both,
but most of all beware this boy.” It appears Florida has taken this
warning to heart. Click for movie.

Last year the Republican-controlled state government in Florida passed legislation requiring its public universities to do what are called “post-tenure reviews” on all their tenured professors every five years, as part of an effort to eliminate what Governor Ron DeSantis called “deadweight” and “unproductive tenured faculty.” The bill not only limited the ability of professors to protest termination decisions, it was also aimed at eliminating “diversity, equity, and inclusion” programs across the board.

At the University of Florida the first round of tenure review has now produced some startling numbers, literally proving DeSantis’ claims.

The report said that, out of 262 professors up for review, 31 “either retired, entered retirement agreements or resigned during the review period.” A further 34 didn’t meet expectations and five were dubbed unsatisfactory. Add those categories up, and it’s 27 percent.

In other words, when faced with a real review of their qualifications, more than a quarter of the professors either quit or were removed. Though it is unclear whether those who quit did so because they knew they’d be fired anyway, that conclusion is a reasonable one to make. By resigning, they avoid having a stain on their record and thus increase their chances of getting work elsewhere.
» Read more

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Archeology on ISS?

11:51 am

Archeologists have now published a paper outlining what they call the first archeology project in space, documenting the changes that have occurred at six different locations on the International Space Station during a 60 day period.

[The archeologists] had the astronauts use adhesive tape to define one-meter areas of the International Space Station and document them with daily photographs to study how the spaces were used over 60 days in 2022. The squares were placed in a handful of work and leisure locations on the space station, including the U.S. galley table, workstations, experimental EXPRESS racks and on the wall across from the latrine where astronauts kept their toiletries.

The team’s findings provide the first glimpse into how astronauts adapt to life and conduct research without gravity, how international cooperation plays out in the tight quarters, how they use their space for work and leisure while in orbit, and more. By cross-referencing the photos with astronaut activity reports, the researchers found that the area near the exercise equipment and latrine, while not designated for any particular purpose, had been used as storage for toiletries, resealable bags, and a rarely used computer. The equipment maintenance area was actually used for storage, with little maintenance carried out there. [emphasis mine]

This research has some value, but on the whole its substance I think is overrated. When you build a home, the rooms have generally accepted purposes (kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, office, living room) but with some of those rooms it is expected that the homeowners will bring their own needs and desires to the place and use them as they please. The study above demonstrates this perfectly with the highlighted sentence. Though one area was designed to be a repair workbench, the astronauts found it more convenient or necessary to all such work elsewhere, and repurposed the maintenance area more practically.

At the same time, neither a space station nor an interplanetary spaceship are like homes. Both are actually entire worlds packed into a small space, so a lot of thinking has to go into designing them. It is in this area this research has some value. We are still learning what “rooms” will generally be needed in such long term space vessels, and this study can provide some data for this purpose.

Even so, I remain skeptical. It will likely be much cheaper and faster to simply talk to the astronauts who have lived on ISS to get their imput on how the interior space of a future interplanetary spaceship or station should be designed. In fact, the best thing to do would be to hire astronauts to help with the design process. That’s what the Soviets did in designing Soyuz. Asking archeologists for this information is nice, but seems very distant from the real issue. And it creates work on the station that might be better used doing something else.

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Scientists propose much more efficient method for warming Mars to habitable temperatures

10:30 am

Global map of ice scarps on Mars
Global map of known exposed scarps of ice on Mars. North and south of the
white hatched lines, near surface ice and glaciers are common.

Scientists have now proposed much more efficient method for warming the climate of the planet Mars by as much 50 degrees Fahrenheit, enough to melt much of the near-surface ice in the middle latitudes and thus make the planet habitable.

This new method, using engineered dust particles released to the atmosphere, could potentially warm the Red Planet by more than 50 degrees Fahrenheit, to temperatures suitable for microbial life—a crucial first step towards making Mars habitable.

The proposed method is over 5,000 times more efficient than previous schemes to globally warm Mars, representing a significant leap forward in our ability to modify the Martian environment. What sets this approach apart is its use of resources readily available on Mars, making it far more feasible than earlier proposals that relied on importing materials from Earth or mining rare Martian resources.

You can read the paper here. From the abstract:
» Read more

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PLD targets October to begin construction of launch facilities in French Guiana

10:10 am

The Spanish rocket startup PLD is now targeting October to begin construction of its launch facilities in French Guiana, using the long abandoned launch site of France’s first rocket.

PLD Space plans to start building launch facilities for its Miura 5 rocket in October from the Diamant site at Guiana Space Centre, cofounder and chief business development officer Raúl Verdú told SpaceNews. Diamant has been dormant for decades after once being used for the French rocket of the same name, and “in the area where we are there is nothing,” Verdú said, “we have to do everything from scratch.”

The company hopes to do its first orbital launch in 2025.

Control of the French Guiana spaceport reverted back from Arianespace to the French space agency CNES (which has always owned it) in 2022, and since then CNES has signed deals with seven European rocket startups. PLD appears to be moving the fastest towards the first private commerical launch there.

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Brooklyn startup wins NASA contract to develop wireless communication technology for use on the Moon

9:55 am

The Brooklyn startup Yank Technologies has won a $150K NASA contract to develop wireless communication technology for use on the Moon.

Yank Technologies plans to develop two systems for the lunar surface: Wireless Power Receiver Converters for lunar rovers and Resonant Inductive Connectors for high voltage power transmission on the Moon and Mars.

The Wireless Power Receiver Converters are designed to improve rover efficiency and reduce mass by integrating multiple converters into a single-stage converter that supports various voltages. These converters also enhance charging reliability by accommodating misalignment and varying distances.

Resonant Inductive Connectors are designed to maintain reliable connections with high-voltage lines despite the presence of lunar regolith or Martian dust. Unlike traditional connectors, which are prone to wear and unreliable connections, these connectors are built to withstand harsh environments.

The award was likely made in late June as part of an small business award of similar development contracts to about 250 companies. Though wireless techology is well established, in this case the goal is to lower the weight of this equipment while making it space-hardened. While such work is routinely required, this contract highlights the detail work necessary for making operations on an alien planet practical.

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Rocket Factory Augsburg completes 2nd static fire test of first stage

9:47 am

The German startup Rocket Factory Augsburg has apparently completed a second static fire test of the first stage of its RFA-1 rocket.

The test occurred on the launchpad the company will use to launch at the Saxaford spaceport in the Shetland Islands. Video of the test is available here.

The test itself lasted for approximately 15 seconds and included five of the company’s Helix rocket engines. While this is one more than the previous test, it’s still short of the full nine-engine complement that will be utilized aboard every RFA ONE first stage.

A full static fire test of all nine engines is still necessary before launch. The rocket’s upper stage has already completed its full test compaign and is on the way to Saxaford for stacking.

The hope is that the first orbital test launch will occur before the end of the year, but for that to happen Rocket Factory must get its launch license from the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). Based on how slow it approved its only previous launch license for Virgin Orbit (bankrupting the company because it took so long), no one should be expect a launch this year.

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Chinese Long March 6A upper stage breaks up into debris shortly after deploying satellites

9:37 am

Ground and satellite reconnaissance data now indicates that the upper stage of the Chinese Long March 6A rocket that on August 6 launched the 18 satellites in a proposed Chinese 14,000 satellite internet constellation broke up into numerous pieces shortly after deploying the satellites.

The detection was made by the company Slingshot Aerospace, which tracks orbital spacecraft looking for the appearance of this kind of space junk.

This is actually the second time recently that an upper stage of a Long March 6A has broken up shortly after launch. In December 2022 the same thing was detected following a November launch.

All told, this relatively new Chinese rocket has launched seven times, and has had its upper stage break up twice. Apparently, China not only doesn’t care if the lower stages of its many rockets crash on top of its own citizens, it is quite okay with littering near-earth orbital space with debris. It needs to fix the upper stage of this rocket now, so such break-ups no longer occur.

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