Marbles, Magnets, and Music (Synchronized)
An evening pause: Hat tip Phill Oltmann.
Tag: commercial
Testing of Blue Origin’s BE-4 rocket engine continues
Though he released few details, a Blue Origin company official noted at a conference last week that the company has been continuing its tests of the BE-4 engine.
“We’re getting longer duration burn times. We’re going though validating the turbomachinery very closely,” said Jim Centore, group lead for orbital mission operations at Blue Origin, during a panel discussion on launch systems at the conference. Centore didn’t disclose many details about those tests, such as thrust levels or the burn times, either of individual tests or cumulatively. “We’re continuing to make good progress,” he said. “We’ll continue that for the next several months.”
The BE-4 is the linchpin for numerous other future rockets. Blue Origin wants to use it for building its New Glenn rocket. ULA is considering it as the first stage engine for its Vulcan rocket. In both cases, design and construction of the rockets themselves can’t really proceed until the engine is locked down.
Lorde – Glory and Gore
An evening pause: Strange, but done incredibly well.
Hat tip Wayne DeVette.
Atlas 5 successfully puts NOAA weather satellite in orbit
ULA’s Atlas 5 rocket today successfully placed a NOAA weather satellite in orbit.
The leaders in the 2018 launch standings:
7 China
4 SpaceX
3 Japan
3 ULA
2 Russia
Conor Oberst – You Are Your Mother’s Child
An evening pause: Hat tip Edward Thelen.
Interorbital completes static fire test of upper-stage engine
Capitalism in space: The smallsat rocket company Interorbital (IOS) today released a short video showing a successfully static fire test of the upper-stage engine for its Neptune rocket.
The IOS rocket team successfully completed the first test of Interorbital’s NEPTUNE series launch vehicle’s liquid upper-stage rocket engine (GPRE 0.75KNTA). Engine performance was well within its design parameters, generating a sea-level thrust of 750 pounds and a sea-level specific impulse of 245 seconds. This translates to a thrust of 1,000 pounds and a specific impulse of 300 seconds in a vacuum (with expansion nozzle). The ablatively-cooled rocket engine is powered by the hypergolic combination of White Fuming Nitric Acid (WFNA) and Turpentine/Furfuryl Alcohol. These high-density storable auto-igniting propellants power all IOS liquid rocket engines. Interorbital’s N1 launch vehicle utilizes two GPRE 0.75KNTA engines for its second stage and a single GPRE 0.75KNTA engine for its third stage.
I have embedded the video below the fold. This is the first real news update from Interorbital in months. In April 2017 they looked like they were close to a launch, but until today there were no further updates. Part of the issue appears that they changed their approach for manufacturing their rocket in order to save cost, and this might have thrown a wrench in their schedule.
David Byrne + NYC – Heroes
An evening pause: The event is one where the audience is enlisted to participate as a back-up choir for the night’s main performance.
Hat tip Wayne DeVette.
Stratolaunch completes initial taxi tests
This past weekend Stratolaunch successfully completed its second series of taxi tests, reaching a speed of 40 knots (46 miles per hour) as it moved down the runway.
[I]n December Stratolaunch capped off the year with a successful low-speed taxi test. During the taxi, the vehicle reached a top speed of 28 miles per hour (45 kilometers per hour) as it headed down the runway. Following the test, Aircraft Program Manager George Brugg stated, “This was another exciting milestone for our team and the program. Our crew was able to demonstrate ground directional control with nose gear steering, and our brake systems were exercised successfully on the runway. Our first low-speed taxi test is a very important step toward first flight.”
Last weekend, Sratolaunch kicked off 2018 with two days of additional taxi tests. Most notably, the tests included reaching the maximum taxi speed of 40 knots (46 miles per hour). According to Allen, these tests allowed the team to “verify control responses.”
There is a tiny 35 second video of this last test at the link.
The article provides a lot of details about Stratolaunch and its future, including the suggestion that the giant airplane could become the main launch platform for Orbital ATK’s Pegasus rocket. Pegasus presently has only one launch listed on its manifest, using its L1011 Stargazer airplane.
Sasha & the Starlight – So Nice
An evening pause: Hat tip Edward Thelen.
Smoking battery at Rocket Lab facility
Capitalism in space: Rocket Lab is investigating why one of the rocket batteries for its Electron rocket started smoking over the weekend.
Rocket Lab is investigating what caused a rocket battery to overheat and start smoking at its manufacturing facility near Auckland Airport on Sunday night. Rocket Lab spokeswoman Morgan Bailey said fire emergency services were called as a precaution to its site in Mangere at 7pm on Sunday after a battery on an Electron rocket overheated and started smoking.
She said she did not know what action was being made on the rocket when the battery overheated, but the company was looking into it.
No one was hurt in the incident.
They are clearly being tight-lipped about this, partly because of the bad press it might cause and partly because they don’t wish to reveal proprietary information.
Note that this article has me rethinking Rocket Lab as an American company. Based on this article their operations and manufacturing are both in New Zealand. It seems that even if the company was conceived and officially incorporated in the U.S., the rocket is a New Zealand born baby.
A detailed look at SpaceX’s attempt to recovery its rocket fairings
Link here. The article contains lots of good information and background, including some cost figures that suggest this recovery scheme will only work if they can recovery a lot of fairings while doing a lot of launches. Since SpaceX’s goal is to do a lot of launches, the numbers seem reasonable.
Bobbie Gentry – Ode To Billie Joe
An evening pause: Performed live on the BBC in 1968.
Hat tip Jeff Poplin.
SpaceX successfully launches Spanish radar satellite
Capitalism in space: SpaceX today successfully launched a Spanish radar satellite.
They also intended to try to recover the rocket’s fairing, but they did not telecast this, and there is no word yet whether they were successful. In fact, their low-key approach here suggests a shift in policy. Previously, SpaceX was eager to show off its test programs. Now, this silence suggests a desire to throttle back on that openness, possibly in order to protect their proprietary engineering.
Update: It appears that at least one fairing half landed in the water intact, though that also means they were unable to catch it. According to a Musk tweet at the link, the fairing missed the ship net by “a few hundred meters.” Musk also indicates the need for larger chutes in the future. Either way, I wonder if the fairing in the water can still be reused.
The 2018 launch standings:
7 China
4 SpaceX
2 ULA
2 Russia
2 Japan
As a nation, the U.S. now has 7 launches total, tying China.
Celtic Woman – A Spaceman Came Travelling
An evening pause: Who really knows what happened? Or what will?
Bigelow establishes company to market its private space stations
Capitalism in space: Bigelow Aerospace yesterday established a marketing company to research and find potential customers for its private space stations.
“You’ll need deep pockets if you’re interested in staying aboard a Bigelow station; prices will likely run in the ‘low seven figures,'” Bigelow said today. He doesn’t expect tourist jaunts to make up the bulk of his business, however. “What we’ve always anticipated and expected is that we would be very involved in helping foreign countries to establish their human space programs, and be able to facilitate whatever their needs were in whatever context that they wanted to pursue,” he said. “The corporate world, obviously, is huge, and [leveraging] that is also our intent.”
Bigelow already says it will launch to of its large B330 modules in 2021, with another aimed for lunar orbit in 2022. I must note that the 2021 launch date appears to be year later then earlier announcements.
Chet Atkins & Jerry Reed – Muleskinner Blues
An evening pause: Hat tip Jeff Poplin.
More details about SpaceX’s fairing recovery plans
Link here. The article has some additional excellent images, but it was this paragraph that I thought was most significant:
To oversimplify, after launch, the payload fairing separates (mechanically) from the second stage once Falcon 9 or Heavy has left behind the majority of Earth’s atmosphere. After separation, each fairing half orients itself for a gentler reentry into the atmosphere with cold nitrogen gas thrusters, likely the exact same thrusters used in part to achieve Falcon 9’s accurate and reliable landings. Due to their massive surface area and comparatively tiny weight, fairing halves effectively become exceptionally finicky and awkward sails falling through the atmosphere at insane velocities, with the goal generally being to orient each half like a boat’s hull to provide some stability. Once they are low enough, assuming they’ve survived the journey from TEN TIMES THE SPEED OF SOUND and 62 MILES above Earth’s surface to a more reasonable ~Mach 0.5 and maybe 5 miles of altitude, the fun parts begin. At this point, each fairing half deploys a GPS-connected parachute system (a parasail, to be exact) capable of directing the massive hunks of carbon fiber and aluminum to a very specific point on the surface of the ocean.
What we don’t yet know is whether SpaceX will have cameras on the fairing, and if so, whether they will make those images available to the public, during launch.
Planetary Resources misses fund-raising target
Capialism in space: Planetary Resources has failed to meet a recent fund-raising target.
A spokeswoman for Planetary Resources, Stacey Tearne, told GeekWire that financial challenges have forced the company to focus on leveraging the Arkyd-6 mission for near-term revenue — apparently by selling imagery and data. “Planetary Resources missed a fundraising milestone,” Tearne explained in an email. “The company remains committed to utilizing the resources from space to further explore space, but is focusing on near-term revenue streams by maximizing the opportunity of having a spacecraft in orbit.”
Tearne said no further information was available, and did not address questions about employment cutbacks. However, reports from other sources in the space community suggest there have been notable job reductions. For what it’s worth, Planetary Resources had more than 70 employees at last report.
When this company first appeared with a big splash, shouting its plans to mine asteroids, I said “Bunk, it’s going to be a smallsat telescope company for years to come, either looking at the Earth or into space.” And that is where we are. The “near-term revenue streams” hinted at above are certainly the kind of earth-observation imaging that numerous other smallsat companies are providing. Whether Planetary Resources can compete with the large number of already established smallsat earth-observation companies, however, is the big question.
Mining asteroids by commercial companies for profit makes sense, and will eventually happen. I think, however, that this company oversold its abilities when it tried to convince everything that this is what it planned to do, right away.
Metric – Twilight Galaxy
An evening pause: Hat tip to Edward Thelen for pointing me to this group.
Giant net to catch Falcon 9 fairing
This link provides a series of pictures, taken from a distance, of the giant net, and the structures that hold it up, that will be used by the SpaceX barge ship to try to catch the rocket’s fairing during its next launch later this week. (See comments.)
Hat tip reader Kirk Hilliard. The pictures don’t show the barge itself, but they do give a sense of the size of the net. This suggests that SpaceX has equipped the fairing with small jets capable of guiding it to the barge, where it will be caught as it falls at high speed. It could also be that they have found that the fairing itself can act as a parachute and slow itself down as it descends, meaning that impact will not be that intense.
Regardless, I wonder if they will have any cameras on board either the fairing or the barge, and whether they will broadcast them live as it comes down. I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t, as it would possibly reveal proprietary information, but the images would certainly be impressive to see.
If they succeed, they will have a rocket that is almost entirely reusable, with only a single 2nd stage engine (out of 10 total) and the second stage itself not reused.
Posted from the Israeli city of Tiberius on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.