Tag: commercial

Rocket Lab introduces a suborbital version of its Electron rocket for hypersonic flight testing

9:24 am

Rocket Lab today announced the availability of a suborbital version of its Electron rocket, dubbed HASTE, designed to do frequent hypersonic flight tests, with its first commercial flight scheduled in the first half of this year.

HASTE is evolved from Rocket Lab’s flagship Electron launch vehicle, which has been providing reliable access to orbit since 2018 and has successfully deployed satellites for NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), the NRO (National Reconnaissance Office), DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and the U.S. Space Force. HASTE employs the same innovative carbon composite structure and 3D printed Rutherford engines as Electron but has a modified Kick Stage for hypersonic payload deployment, a larger payload capacity of up to 700 kg / 1,540 lbs, and options for tailored fairings to accommodate larger payloads.

It appears that Rocket Lab is attempting to grab market share from Stratolaunch’s Roc/Talon hypersonic testbed, which is gearing up to do its own first hypersonic test flights this year.

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Lockheed Martin tests in-orbit cubesat rendezvous

9:16 am

Using two cubesats released separately after launch, Lockheed Martin has successfully tested maneuvering and rendezvous in space.

The two cubesats, each the size of a toaster, were deployed 300 kilometers above geostationary orbit from a ring-shaped secondary payload that carried multiple smallsats. They were released three days apart about 750 kilometers away from each other and a month later they were navigating within 400 meters of each other, Karla Brown, Linuss program manager, told reporters during a news conference at Lockheed Martin’s technology center at the Catalyst Campus.

One of the cubesats performed the role of servicing vehicle and the other was the resident space object. She said she expects the satellites to come even closer, to about 200 meters as the experiment continues. The more significant goal that was accomplished was proving AI algorithms that would be needed to perform a space servicing mission, Brown said.

Maybe the most interesting aspect of this project however is how it is funded. This is old-fashioned R&D (research & development), funded not by the government but by Lockheed Martin as part of a a suite of related in-space servicing projects. Before the arrival of the military-industrial complex post World War II, such work was always paid for in house by the private sector. This commercial R&D was often given great freedom to experiment, in the hope that it would result in new products producing profits.

With the arrival of lots of government money in the 1950s and 1960s, that private R&D money dried up. Big space companies would instead only do the research and development that was funded by the government, either by NASA or the Pentagon. As a result, innovation dried up as well.

The return of private R&D likely means we shall once again see more innovation, since it will once again be done to search out new innovative ways to do things.

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Orbit Fab raises $28.5 million in private investment capital

9:03 am

The satellite servicing company Orbit Fab has raised $28.5 million in private investment capital, adding to the $21 million it had already obtained from contracts with the U.S. military.

Orbit Fab’s goal is very specific, to provide refueling services for satellites of all types. To encourage companies to sign on to its service, it markets its own refueling port that satellite companies can add to their satellites.

The company hopes to fly its first of three test refueling missions for the military next year.

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Watching the second attempt to launch Starship/Superheavy to orbit

5:37 pm

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

SpaceX’s second attempt of an inaugural orbital test launch of SpaceX’s massive Superheavy first stage with its orbital Starship spacecraft stacked on top has now been rescheduled for Thursday, April 20, 2023, with a 62-minute launch window opening at 8:28 am Central.

I have embedded SpaceX’s live stream of that launch below, which will begin around 7:15 am (Central). You can also see an independent 24/7 live stream from LabPadre, showing the launchpad from many different angles and available here. NasaSpaceFlight.com also has a 24/7 live stream showing multiple angles here. For both, to see links to their many camera angles click on “more” in the text.

Though both of these independent live streams provide alternative view angles of the launch, both will rely on SpaceX’s main live stream, embedded below, for actual updates on the countdown status.

The flight plan is shown in the graphic above. Assuming all goes as planned, most of the action will occur in the first ten minutes, at which time Starship will cut off its engines and be in orbit. It will then coast for a little over an hour when it will re-enter the atmosphere to splashdown in the Pacific north of the Hawaiian Islands.

As I have noted many times, the historical significance of this rocket cannot be overstated. It is twice as powerful as NASA’s Saturn-5 rocket and almost three-times as powerful as NASA’s new SLS rocket, and went from concept to launch in about seven years. Its development was funded entirely by private investment capital, at a fraction of the cost of either of the government’s rockets. And it will be completely reusable once operational, reducing the cost exponentially of getting large 100-ton payloads into orbit.

And most important, it was developed by free Americans, following their own personal dreams.
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April 17, 2023 Quick space links

2:11 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stinger Jay.

  • Blue Origin expects to return its New Shepard rocket to flight by the end of 2023

    • In the article a Blue Origin official claims the delay in the investigation is because of the FAA’s involvement, but she also says she isn’t allowed to provide details, a claim that FAA officials immediately deny when asked. While we certainly should expect the involvement of a government agency to slow things down, this person’s duplicity suggests that the blame comes as much from Blue Origin.

 

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Starship/Superheavy launch scrubbed

6:22 am

Because of “a pressurization issue”, SpaceX engineers decided to scrub today’s first test launch of Starship/Superheavy. The launch team then made this launch attempt a wet dress countdown rehearsal, ending at T-40 seconds.

Because of the amount of fuel and oxygen involved, turn-around will take 48 hours, meaning the next launch attempt will likely occur on Wednesday, April 19, 2023, probably at the same approximate time in the morning.

Stay tuned for more details.

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Watching the launch of Starship/Superheavy

10:08 pm

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

UPDATE: Launch scrubbed. To get to new links for watching the live stream in the second launch attempt, now scheduled for April 20, 2023, go here.

Original post:
————-
The first orbital test launch of SpaceX’s massive Superheavy first stage with its orbital Starship spacecraft stacked on top is now scheduled for a launch in a two-and-a-half hour long launch window beginning at 8 am (Central) on Monday, April 17, 2023.

I have embedded SpaceX’s live stream of that launch below, which will begin around 7 am (Central). You can also see an independent 24/7 live stream from LabPadre, showing the launchpad from many different angles and available here. NasaSpaceFlight.com also has a 24/7 live stream showing multiple angles here. Though both of these independent live streams provide alternative view angles of the launch, both will rely on SpaceX’s main live stream, embedded below, for actual updates on the countdown status.

If the launch is scrubbed on April 17th, SpacX has backup dates on April 18th and 19th. The flight plan and time line is shown in the graphic above.

The monumental significance of this rocket cannot be overstated. It is the most powerful rocket ever built, capable of putting more mass into orbit than either the Saturn-5 or NASA’s new SLS rocket.

It took less than seven years from concept to launch. Compare that to SLS, which was proposed in 2004 and only launched last year, two decades later.

It has been been entirely developed with private funds. Though SpaceX does have a NASA contract for building a Starship lunar lander, little of that contract’s funds have yet been distributed to the company. From private funds SpaceX has raised about $10 billion, most of which has been channeled into this rocket’s development, with a small unknown amount used to develop Starlink. Compare that once again to SLS, which has cost about $60 billion to build.

Finally, it is being designed to be completely reusable, thus reducing the cost exponentially for putting large 100-ton payloads into orbit. If successful, Starship/Superheavy will very quickly make the human exploration and colonization of the solar system possible.

And it will do so not as a government project that is part of a government program, but as a private sector product, conceived by individual Americans freely following their dreams, and developed for profit, quickly and efficiently.

Let freedom ring!
» Read more

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SpaceX successfully launches 51 payloads using Falcon 9

11:57 pm

SpaceX tonight successfully used its Falcon 9 rocket to launch 51 payloads into orbit, including a whole range of microsats, cubesats, and orbital tugs.

The first stage completed its tenth flight, landing at Vandenberg Space Force Base. The fairings completed their second and fifth flights respectively. As of posting the satellites have not yet deployed.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

24 SpaceX
15 China
6 Russia
3 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads China 27 to 15, and the entire world combined 27 to 26. SpaceX by itself trails the entire world, including American companies, 24 to 29.

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FAA issues Starship launch license; SpaceX schedules launch for April 17th

4:53 pm

Starship stacked on top of Superheavy
Starship prototype #24 stacked on top of Superheavy prototype #7

FAA just sent out an email notice announcing that it has issued SpaceX the launch license for the first orbital test launch of Superheavy/Starship.

After completing an evaluation of all applicable Vehicle Operator License requirements, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a commercial Vehicle Operator License to SpaceX for launches of the Starship/Super Heavy Launch Vehicle Program in Cameron County, TX.

The affected environment and environmental impacts of Starship/Super Heavy operations at the Boca Chica Launch Site had been analyzed in the 2022 Final Programmatic Environmental Assessment for the SpaceX Starship/Super Heavy Launch Vehicle Program at the SpaceX Boca Chica Launch Site in Cameron County, Texas. Since the 2022 Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA), SpaceX provided the FAA with additional information regarding Starship’s planned landing, Super Heavy’s planned soft water landing, and the Launch Pad Detonation Suppression System. In accordance with FAA Order 1050.1F, Environmental Impacts: Policies and Procedures, the FAA prepared the Written Re-evaluation of the 2022 Final Programmatic Environmental Assessment for the SpaceX Starship/Super Heavy Launch Vehicle Program at the Boca Chica Launch Site in Cameron County, Texas to describe and evaluate this additional information.

Based on the Written Re-Evaluation, the FAA concluded that the issuance of a vehicle operator license for Starship/Super Heavy operations conforms to the prior environmental documentation, that the data contained in the 2022 PEA remains substantially valid, that there are no significant environmental changes, and all pertinent conditions and requirements of the prior approval have been met or will be met in the current action. Therefore, preparation of a supplemental or new environmental document is not necessary to support the Proposed Action.

In plain English, the FAA (and other federal agencies) have finally agreed that this launch will do nothing to change the conclusions of the environmental reassessment report that was approved in June 2022. That these agencies decided apparently decided to rehash that approved environmental reassessment for a launch that was also approved in that reassessment suggests that there are individuals in these agencies salivating for an opportunity to squelch SpaceX.

SpaceX has now set April 17, 2023 as the launch date, with its live stream going live in two days. I will embed that live stream late on April 16, 2023, for those who wish to watch it here.

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