Freedom successfully splashes down in the Atlantic
Freedom has successfully splashed down in the Atlantic. The crew and capsule is still in the ocean and must be recaptured, but that should be pro forma.
Tag: capitalism
Skyrora’s first suborbital rocket launch fails shortly after liftoff
Capitalism in space: The first launch attempt of a suborbital rocket for Skyrora, a rocket startup from the United Kingdom, failed on October 8, 2022 shortly after liftoff.
The launch was from Iceland, with the rocket crashing in the ocean about 1,600 feet from the pad. No one was injured. The rocket, Skylark-L, was designed for a suborbital flight to test equipment that will be used in the orbital rocket, Skyrora-XL.
Skylark-L is Skyrora’s 11m suborbital rocket, capable of reaching 4x the speed of sound and an altitude of over 125 km. 70% of the technology tested in the Skylark-L launch attempt will be applied to the systems of the Skyrora-XL vehicle, providing a key incremental learning opportunity to increase technological readiness ahead of vertical orbital launch next year.
As this was an engineering flight, the failure is actually a good thing, as it will provide Skyrora’s engineers information about changes needed to make their rocket function properly. Don’t expect that first orbital launch however next year, as the company promises. These things always take longer than expected.
Watching return of ISS crew on Freedom
The SpaceX manned capsule Freedom has undocked from ISS, carrying three astronauts completing a six month mission, with a scheduled splashdown planned for 4:50 pm (Eastern) off the western coast of Florida.
I have embedded NASA’s live stream below, for those that wish to watch. Note that though NASA inserts itself into this event, once the spacecraft has left ISS everything — including all workers involved in splashdown operations — is solely under the supervision of SpaceX, with NASA’s participation only that of a customer, albeit a very powerful one. This is a capsule and splashdown designed, built, run, and most important, owned by a private American company, not the government.
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Ispace targets November 9-15 launch window for first commercial lunar lander
The private Japanese company Ispace has now scheduled the launch of its commercial lunar lander Hakuto-R on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for a November 9-15, 2022 launch window.
Though the lander’s primary goal is to see if this lander will work, it also includes several customer payloads, the most significant of which is the Rashid rover from the United Arab Emirates. Rashid, which is about the size of a Radio Flyer red wagon, will operate for one lunar day, about two weeks. While its main mission is to test the engineering and to train the engineers who built it, it will have two cameras for taking pictures. In addition, on its wheels are test adhesive patches of different materials, designed to see how each material interacts with the Moon’s abrasive dust.
Dennis Tito signs deal to fly on 2nd manned Starship mission around Moon
Capitalism in space: Dennis Tito, the first tourist to fly in space and now 82-years-old, has signed a deal with SpaceX for both him and his wife Akiko to fly on 2nd manned Starship mission around Moon.
His weeklong moonshot — its date to be determined and years in the future — will bring him within 125 miles (200 kilometers) of the lunar far side. He’ll have company: his wife, Akiko, and 10 others willing to shell out big bucks for the ride.
Tito won’t say how much he’s paying; his Russian station flight cost $20 million.
The couple recognize there’s a lot of testing and development still ahead for Starship, a shiny, bullet-shaped behemoth that’s yet to even attempt to reach space. “We have to keep healthy for as many years as it’s going to take for SpaceX to complete this vehicle,” Tito said in an interview this week with The Associated Press. “I might be sitting in a rocking chair, not doing any good exercise, if it wasn’t for this mission.”
The bottom line is that this deal, combined with the two other passenger Starship deals SpaceX has already signed, demonstrates that there is a solid market for Starship, even before its first launch. Expect that market to boom once the rocket begins operations.
Will Tom Cruise ever actually shoot a movie in space?
Capitalism in space: According an interview last week from Donna Langley, chairman of Universal Film Entertainment Group, the company is arranging for Tom Cruise to film scenes of a movie on ISS, where Cruise will also be the first non-professional to do a spacewalk.
“That’s the plan. We have a great project in development with Tom that does contemplate him doing just that,” she said, “taking a rocket up to the space station and shooting and hopefully being the first civilian to do a spacewalk outside of the space station.”
She said the film request came from Cruise directly and that he is in close collaboration with director Doug Liman, who previously worked with Cruise in 2014’s “Edge of Tomorrow” and is also known for “The Bourne Identity” franchise, “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” and “Jumper.”
This claim might be true, but producers associated with Cruise have been making such claims now for three years, none of which have come even close to happening. I am sure the project is being discussed, and even pushed hard, but based on what has actually happened, this announcement could simply be a way to generate buzz for Cruise’s next film, whether or not he flies.
Nonetheless, I fully believe that Cruise is the source of this idea, and wants to do it, given his habit of doing his own stunts in his movies.
SpaceX fully stacks Starship/Superheavy in preparation for launch
Starship about to be stacked on Superheavy, using
the launch tower’s chopstick arms. Click for full image.
For the first time in six months SpaceX engineers have stacked Starship prototype #24 on top of Superheavy prototype #7, with the intention of running a dress rehearsal countdown and a full static fire test of Superheavy’s 33 engines, all in preparation for the first orbital test flight before the end of this year.
According to CEO Elon Musk, Booster 7 and Ship 24 will attempt Starship’s first full-stack wet dress rehearsal (WDR) once all is in order. The prototypes will be simultaneously loaded with around 5000 tons (~11M lb) of liquid oxygen and methane propellant and then run through a launch countdown. Diverging just before ignition and liftoff, a WDR is meant to be more or less identical to a launch attempt.
…If the wet dress rehearsal goes to plan, SpaceX will then attempt to simultaneously ignite all 33 of the Raptor engines installed on Super Heavy B7, almost certainly making it the most powerful liquid rocket ever tested. Even if all 33 engines never reach more than 60% of their maximum thrust of 230 tons (~510,000 lbf), they will likely break the Soviet N-1 rocket’s record of 4500 tons of thrust (~10M lbf) at sea level. It would also be the most rocket engines ever simultaneously ignited on one vehicle. SpaceX will be pushing the envelope by several measures, and success is far from guaranteed.
Depending on the results of these tests, the stacked rocket will either require further modifications, or could even proceed directly to launch.
We are thus seeing a true race between SpaceX’s privately developed and funded rocket and NASA’s government developed and funded SLS rocket. Which will launch first? Right now the race is neck-and-neck, though that is deceiving since SpaceX began development twelve years after NASA started work on SLS. Even if SLS launches first, SpaceX will have clearly shown that private enterprise does things faster (7 years vs 18 years) and for far less money (about $9 billion vs $46 billion).
October 11, 2022 Quick space links
Courtesy of Jay, BtB’s stringer.
- Astra wins engine contract with Maxar
These are small orbital thrusters used on satellites. Whether this deal will save the stock remains unclear.
- Virgin Orbit about to fly its airplane and rocket to Cornwall for launch
The company says the flight across the Atlantic will occur this week. When the launch will occur still depends on the UK government’s approval of permits.
- Pseudo Chinese company DeepBlue tests rocket engine
The company also claimed the test attempted to simulate engine firings needed for a first stage landing.
- Upcoming schedule of launches to Tiangong-3
Mengtian on a Long March 5B on October 31st, Tianzhou-5 freighter on a Long March 7 on November 6th, and the next manned mission on Shenzhou-15 on a Long March 2F on November 26th.
- Russia claims it used lazer to take out several Starlink satellites
We have had no confirmation.
New rocket startup focusing on new concepts to make upper stage reusable
Capitalism in space: Another new rocket startup, Stoke Space, is working to develop a new innovative reusable design for its upper stages.
Most commonly, a traditional rocket has an upper stage with a single engine. This second-stage rocket engine has a larger nozzle—often bell-shaped—to optimize the flow of engine exhaust in a vacuum. Because all parts of a rocket are designed to be as light as possible, such extended nozzles are often fairly fragile because they’re only exposed above Earth’s atmosphere. So one problem with getting an upper stage back from Earth, especially if you want to use the engine to control and slow its descent, is protecting this large nozzle.
One way to do that is to bury the engine nozzle in a large heat shield, but that would require more structure and mass, and it may not be dynamically stable. Stoke’s answer was using a ring of 30 smaller thrusters. (The tests last month only employed 15 of the 30 thrusters). In a vacuum, the plumes from these nozzles are designed to merge and act as one. And during reentry, with a smaller number of smaller thrusters firing, it’s easier to protect the nozzles.
Will this company succeed? Who knows? It is presently very early in development. However, that its founders are former engineers from SpaceX and Blue Origin is encouraging, especially based on this comment about why the Blue Origin guy, Andy Lapsa, left that company:
“I love Jeff [Bezos]’s vision for space,” Lapsa said in an interview with Ars. “I worked closely with him for a while on different projects, and I’m basically 100 percent on board with the vision. Beyond that, I think I would just say that I will let their history of execution speak for itself, and I thought we could move faster.”
Lapsa apparently was part of the exodus of high level managers and engineers that occurred at Blue Origin after Bezos hired Bob Smith as CEO. All complained of the company’s far-too-cautious management style under Smith.
SpaceX launches two Intelsat communications satellites
Capitalism in space: SpaceX today successfully launched two Intelsat communications satellites using its Falcon 9 rocket.
The first stage completed its fourteenth flight, landing successfully on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The leaders in the 2022 launch race:
46 SpaceX
42 China
12 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 ULA
American private enterprise now leads China 66 to 42 in the national rankings, and the entire globe combined 66 to 62.
Engineers regain full control of CAPSTONE
After a month of careful tests and analysis, engineers today successfully regained full control of the CAPSTONE lunar orbiter, on its way to the Moon.
The most likely cause of the anomaly was identified as a valve related issue on one of the spacecraft’s eight (8) thrusters. The partially open valve resulted in thrust from the associated thruster whenever the propulsion system was pressurized. To attempt a recovery from this condition, the mission team conducted multiple tests on the vehicle and evaluated extensive telemetry and simulation data and then formulated a plan for attempting recovery of the vehicle’s full 3-axis control.
This recovery sequence was uploaded to the spacecraft yesterday (Thursday) and was executed early this morning (Friday 10/7). Initial telemetry and observation data after the recovery attempt points to a successful recovery of the system which has now regained 3-axis attitude control. The updated spacecraft attitude has oriented the spacecraft solar arrays to the Sun and implemented an orientation for the downlink antennas which significantly improves data downlink performance as compared to the pre-recovery attitude.
The spacecraft is not out of the woods yet. The engineers still need to figure out how to do future course corrections with “the possible presence of a valve that remains partially open.”
Nonetheless, that they have successfully regained full control means they have a very good handle on the issue, which bodes well for the lunar orbital insertion maneuver on November 13, 2022.
Rocket Lab successfully launches NOAA satellite
Capitalism in space: Rocket Lab today successfully used its Electron rocket to place a NOAA satellite into orbit, designed to gather data from ground-based sensors.
This was the company’s eighth successful launch in 2022, the most it has achieved in any single year. No attempt was made to recover the first stage on this launch.
The leaders in the 2022 launch race:
45 SpaceX
41 China
12 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 ULA
American private enterprise now leads China 65 to 41 in the national rankings, and the entire globe combined 65 to 61. The 65 successful launches so far this year is now the second most successful American year in rocketry, exceeded only by the 70 launches in 1966. With almost three months left to go in the year, 2022 looks like it will top that record, by a lot.
SpaceX meanwhile has a launch scheduled for later today, after getting scrubbed yesterday at T-30 seconds because of detected minor helium leak.