Category: Points of Information

Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.

Momentus test orbital tug successfully raises orbit using water-ionized thrusters

9:29 am

Momentus’s Vigoride test orbital tug has successfully raised its orbit using a ion thrusters that use water as their fuel, proving that the tug can be used to bring smallsats launched as secondary payloads to their preferred orbits.

According to tracking data, Vigoride-5 is in an orbit at an average altitude of 524.3 kilometers as of late May 7, about two kilometers higher than it was in early April, when the maneuvers started. The vehicle’s orbit had been gradually decaying since its launch in early January on the SpaceX Transporter-6 smallsat rideshare mission, descending about five kilometers before the maneuvers started.

The test of the MET is a major milestone for Momentus, which is relying on the technology to propel its tugs that will deliver satellites to their desired orbits. Technical problems with its first tug, Vigoride-3, launched nearly a year ago, kept the company from testing the MET on that vehicle.

Vigoride-5 is carrying a single smallsat, for Singapore-based Qosmosys, that it will release, although the companies have not disclosed the planned orbit for that spacecraft. The tug will also operate a hosted payload from Caltech to demonstrate space-based solar power technologies for several months.

The company already has another Vigoride in orbit that launched in April, carrying its own set of payloads for orbital transport.

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Webb takes infrared image of the disk of dust and debris surrounding Fomalhaut

4:57 pm

Fomalhaut debris disk as seen in the infrared by Webb
Click for original image.

Using the mid-infrared instrument on the Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have obtained a new high resolution infrared image of the disk of dust and debris that surrounds the star Fomalhaut, and (surprise!) have it to be more complex than they previously believed.

That image is to the right, annotated by the science team.

Overall, there are three nested belts extending out to 14 billion miles (23 billion kilometers) from the star; that’s 150 times the distance of Earth from the Sun. The scale of the outermost belt is roughly twice the scale of our solar system’s Kuiper Belt of small bodies and cold dust beyond Neptune. The inner belts – which had never been seen before – were revealed by Webb for the first time.

The dust cloud identified in the outer ring is possibly left over from a recent collusion of larger bodies.

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May 8, 2023 Quick space links

12:54 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. I meanwhile am at a space symposium in Tucson today, so posting has been light. I should be home in time to do some work later this afternoon.

  • Virgin Galaxtic to resume flights in May

    • The company is calling the May flight, carrying two Italian astronauts and delayed more than two years, its final checkout prior to beginning commercial flights in June..

 

 

 

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Sinuous ridge inside Martian canyon

9:25 am

Sinuous ridge inside a Martian canyon
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on February 7, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the camera team labels a “sinuous ridge within valley.”

The location is at 30 degrees south latitude, right on the edge of the southern of the two 30-60 degree mid-latitude bands where orbital images show many glacial features. Closer to the equator and there is little or no evidence of near surface ice on Mars. Farther from the equator from this latitude and the evidence of near surface ice increases, becoming very dominant the closer to the poles you get.

At this spot, it appears there is little near surface ice. The channel has ripple sand dunes inside it, and the sinuous ridge appears to be bedrock. Similarly, the plateau above the channel also appears like bedrock, the craters showing no evidence of splatter that is common where there is near surface ice.

What made the channel? And what made that a sinuous ridge inside it?
» Read more

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China’s X-37B copy lands successfully after 276 days in orbit

8:35 am

China’s reusable mini-shuttle, essentially a copy of Boeing’s X-37B, has completed its second flight, landing in China on a runway after 276 days in orbit.

The project will provide a more convenient and inexpensive way to access space for the peaceful use of space in the future, according to the statement.

The reusable test spacecraft launched from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert Aug. 4 (UTC), 2022. The spacecraft released an object into orbit, U.S. Space Force tracking data revealed late last year. The small satellite operated in very close proximity to the spaceplane.

This apparent second flight on the secretive spacecraft differs from its first mission in 2020. That flight saw the spaceplane orbit for four days.

During the flight the spaceplane made numerous orbital maneuvers.

Like the X-37B, this reusable mini-shuttle allows China to do many technology experiments in orbit and then return them to Earth for analysis.

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Rocket Lab successfully launches two NASA hurricane monitoring cubesats

6:11 pm

Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket today successfully placed NASA’s two Tropics hurricane monitoring cubesats into orbit, lifting off from New Zealand ((May 8th New Zealand time).

This is the first of two Rocket Lab launches to get the entire four-satellite Tropics constellation into orbit, with the second schedule for two weeks from now.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

29 SpaceX
16 China
6 Russia
4 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads China 33 to 16 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 33 to 28.

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May 5, 2023 Quick space links

4:48 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, who has also noticed, as I have, that the news in commercial space has been slow this week.

 

 

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Brain terrain on top of Martian mountains

12:28 pm

Brain terrain at high elevation on Mars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on March 26, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It is labeled by the scientists “Brain Terrain on Floor of Crater in Warrego Valles.”

Brain terrain is a geological feature entirely unique to Mars that remains unexplained in any way by geologists. The scientists know it is almost certainly related to near-surface ice and its sublimation into gas, but their theories as to its precise formation process remain incomplete and unconvincing, even to them.

In this case the brain terrain’s interweaving nodules seem to show flow patterns, but strangely those patterns go around depressions and hollows. Yet, the overall flow direction also seems to point downhill towards the slope on the image’s right edge.
» Read more

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Hubble captures shadows on star’s outer accretion disk cast by inner accretion disk

11:07 am

Shadows cast on star's accretion disk
Click for original image.

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope’s images taken five years apart have captured the changing shadows cast by a star’s inner accretion disk onto its outer accretion disk.

Those images are to the right, reduced and rearranged to post here. From the caption:

Comparison images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, taken several years apart, have uncovered two eerie shadows moving counterclockwise across a disc of gas and dust encircling the young star TW Hydrae. The discs are tilted face-on as seen from Earth and so give astronomers a bird’s-eye view of what’s happening around the star.

The [top] image, taken in 2016, shows just one shadow [A] at the 11 o’clock position. This shadow is cast by an inner disc that is slightly inclined to the outer disc and so blocks starlight. The picture on the [bottom] shows a second shadow that emerged from yet another nested disc at the 7 o’clock position, as photographed in 2021. What was originally the inner disc is marked [B] in this later view.

The shadows rotate around the star at different rates like the hand on a clock. They are evidence for two unseen planets that have pulled dust into their orbits. This makes them slightly inclined to each other. This is a visible-light photo taken with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph. Artificial colour has been added to enhance details.

An artist’s conception of the system, as seen from an oblique angle, is available here. All told, this solar system of disks kind of resembles a spinning gyroscope, with its different rings tilted at different angles to conserve angular momentum.

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Celestis recovers astronaut’s remains from suborbital rocket explosion

10:06 am

Celestis, the company that specializes in sending people’s ashes into space, has successfully recovered the remains of a former Apollo astronaut Philip Chapman (who never flew in space) after the suborbital rocket they were on exploded four seconds into flight.

“All 120 flight capsules are safely in the hands of launch personnel and will be returned to us awaiting our next flight as soon as UP and Spaceport America complete their investigation and any required fixes are implemented,” Celestis said in a statement on Wednesday. The recovered payloads are set to fly again on board the company’s upcoming Perseverance Flight. The company said it only launches a “symbolic portion” of ashes or DNA sample from its participants.

Celestis has sent remains of many celebrities as well as ordinary customers on a number of orbital and suborbital flights over the years. The recovery of the remains and their expected reflight in this case enhances its business model, since none of its customers want their ashes lost in a rocket failure, before reaching space.

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Lockheed Martin reorganizes its space divisions to better compete in the new commercial market

9:58 am

Lockheed Martin today announced that it is reorganizing its space divisions to make them better aligned with the new commercial market, and thus better able to win market share.

The company will streamline its operation from “five lines of business to three,” the first focused on commercial space, the second focused on classified military projects, and the third focused on military missile work.

As a big space company, Lockheed Martin has made a great effort in recent years to break into the commercial rocket industry. It was a major investor in Rocket Lab, and is also a major investor in the rocket startup ABL, which it is sending a lot of business. It also realigned its satellite construction business to focus on smallsats, including investing a lot of money in the smallsat company Terran Orbital.

This reorganization is clearly an effort to underline these changes. Whether it will work remains to be seen. Often such reorganizations in big older corporations end up being nothing more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

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