Tag: competition

ULA stacks Vulcan-Centaur rocket for ground tests prior to first launch

9:14 am

ULA’s new Vulcan-Centaur rocket has finally been stacked in the company’s assembly facility at Cape Canaveral, ready to be rolled out for its first launchpad fueling tests prior to its first launch, tentatively scheduled for the end of March.

The odds of that launch date being met is quite uncertain. Right now neither the rocket’s payloads nor its solid rocket strap-on boosters have been added, and before that will happen the company plans to first roll the rocket out to the launchpad, do fueling and countdown tests. It will then roll it back to the assembly building to stack those components, and then roll it back to the launchpad for launch.

To meet that launch target everything must go perfectly during these preliminary operations, something that is generally unexpected for a rocket’s first launch. ULA however has an advantage, in that it has already done much of this testing using a dummy Vulcan, and it also has decades of experience launching rockets.

Much rides on this first launch. The payloads include Astrobotic’s first lunar lander, Peregrine, as well as Amazon’s first two test satellites for its Kuiper internet constellation. Also, ULA needs to complete two successful launches in order to get certified to begin its commercial launches for the military.

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Virgin Orbit narrows cause of launch failure to $100 component

9:04 am

Though its investigation is not completed, Virgin Orbit has narrowed the cause of its January 9th launch failure from Cornwall to a $100 component in the second stage engine of its LaunchOne rocket.

Speaking on a panel at the SmallSat Symposium in Mountain View, California, Dan Hart said it was still premature to formally declare the root cause of the failed Jan. 9 flight of the company’s LauncherOne rocket on the “Start Me Up” mission from Spaceport Cornwall in England. However, he said while that investigation continues, evidence was pointing to a component in the rocket’s second stage engine.

“Everything points to, right now, a filter that was clearly there when we assembled the rocket but was not there as the second stage engine started, meaning it was dislodged and caused mischief downstream,” he said. He didn’t go into details about that component, other than to say that it was not an expensive item. “This is like a $100 part that took us out.”

Hart said the company would no longer use that filter and was “looking broadly” at other potential fixes.

No timeline as to when the company will complete the investigation or resume launches has been released. Since both the FAA and the UK’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch are involved, we should expect it to take longer than necessary.

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Relativity’s Terran-1 rocket on launchpad for final tests prior to first launch

8:59 am

Relativity has once again stacked its Terran-1 rocket on its launchpad at Cape Canaveral for its final ground tests prior to first launch, hopefully later this month.

The launch date has not been announced, nor has a specific schedule for those tests, which will likely include several dress rehearsal countdowns where the rocket will be fueled as if for launch.

Terran-1 is a smallsat rocket, most of which has been 3D printed. If successful, Relativity plans to follow it in 2024 with the 3D printed Terran-R, which would be comparable in size and power to SpaceX’s Falcon 9. The company also claims that rocket will be entirely reusable.

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Virgin Galactic’s WhiteKnightTwo mother ship unveiled after major overhaul

9:15 am

Virgin Galactic yesterday rolled its WhiteKnightTwo mother ship from its hanger after a 15-month overhaul in preparation for taxi and flight tests.

After some initial taxi and flight tests in Mojave in California, the plane will fly to New Mexico for further flight tests with Unity attached. Company officials hope to complete these test flights by the end of March, and then begin commercial flights shortly thereafter.

In comparing the pictures released yesterday at the link above with this 2009 picture, it appears the company completely replaced the central bar that connects the plane’s two passenger sections. In the older picture, that bar was not straight, but was built like a very shallow upside-down “V”, with the center point where a SpaceShipTwo spacecraft was attached.

The new bar is straight, and appears more robust.

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Russian engineers recommend staying with ISS through 2028

9:02 am

Russian engineers yesterday concluded that ISS is technically capable of being operated through 2028.

However, Russia’s committee system for making any decisions is not done. This first analysis was done by Roscosmos’ top managers and its lower level engineers.

The proposed decision will now be considered at a meeting of the Scientific and Technical Council of Roscosmos. Based on its results, the state corporation will draft a message the Russian government.

At that point the Putin government will have to decide on an exit date from ISS. According to the article by Russia’s state-run press, “the minimum configuration of Russia’s own orbital outpost” will be in orbit by 2028, thus giving the government the option to leave ISS. We shall see.

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SpaceX successfully launches commercial communications satellites

7:28 pm

SpaceX tonight successfully used its Falcon 9 rocket to place a commercial geosynchronous satellite into orbit for the company Hispasat.

The first stage successfully completed its sixth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The 2023 launch race:

9 SpaceX
5 China
1 Rocket Lab
1 Japan
1 Russia

American private enterprise now leads China 10 to 5 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 10 to 7.

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ULA closing facility in Texas that makes parts for the retiring Atlas-5 rocket

3:42 pm

ULA has announced that it is shutting down its facility in Harlingen, Texas, that makes parts for the company’s soon-to-be retired Atlas-5 rocket.

The facility will shut down at the end of this year, with a loss of about 100 jobs.

This closure is actually a very positive sign for ULA. It indicates that it is streamlining its operations. For example, construction of the Vulcan rocket that replaces the Atlas-5 is all done in Alabama. One of the reasons Atlas-5 cost so much was the widespread distribution of its ULA facilities, probably done to satisfy congressional demands.

With Vulcan, ULA has instead been much more focused on making it less expensive so it can compete with SpaceX. Thus, it simplified its construction, putting everything in Alabama. (Choosing Alabama was likely to satisfy the most powerful senator at the time, porkmeister Richard Shelby (R-Alabama), who has now retired.)

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Space station builder Voyager raises $80 million in private investment capital

8:36 am

Capitalism in space: Voyager Space, one of three companies that NASA has provided funds to build a private space station, has now raised $80 million in private investment capital.

The funding includes participation from NewSpace Capital, Midway Venture Partners and Industrious Ventures, according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings and other documents viewed by TechCrunch. Seraphim Space also participated, TechCrunch has confirmed. The funding was filed with the SEC on January 27.

The company is building Starlab in partnership with Nanoracks (which is the majority owner of Voyager) and Lockheed Martin, which has already received $160 million from NASA.

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Spanish airport to become a rocket spaceport

10:19 am

Teruel airport in Spain, located about 200 miles east of Madrid, has announced plans to expand its operations to make itself a rocket spaceport.

At a recent conference, it was announced that PDL Space plans to operate satellite micro launchers from the little-known airport, located some 300km east of the capital Madrid.

Another company, Sceye, plans to install stratospheric spacecraft at the airport, which, since coming into commission ten years ago, has been used primarily as a maintenance centre for large aircraft.

The airport is located in the eastern interior of Spain. Any orbital launches will have to cross considerable parts of the country, as well as other European and African countries. This however might not be a problem for the moment, as PDL at present appears to be building suborbital rockets.

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Yuma funds and applies for spaceport

10:13 am

The city of Yuma in Arizona has provided $250 million to fund the cost for applying for an FAA license for a building a spaceport there.

The city hopes to build the spaceport just east of San Luis on a plot of land it owns, which is near the border, and right next to the Arizona State Prison complex. The spaceport itself would be a concrete slab, with aerospace companies bringing their own launching equipment.

Something however is fishy about this story. It doesn’t cost $250 million to put together such a license, unless Yuma also expects serious opposition that it will need to fight in court. And it should, as any launches from Yuma will have to cross parts of Mexico, and without that country’s permission such a spaceport will likely be blocked.

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China to build space ground stations in Antarctica

10:06 am

According to a report on China’s state-run press that has now been deleted, China plans to build satellite ground stations in Antarctica for use by its ocean-observation satellites.

Official space industry newspaper China Space News reported Feb. 2 that a subsidiary of the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC), a giant state-owned defense and space contractor, won a bid to construct a ocean observation satellite ground system. The project is being overseen by the National Satellite Ocean Application Service (NSOAS) and is stated to be part of a long-term marine economic development plan.

Renders of the 43.95 million yuan ($6.52 million) project show four radome-covered antennas at Zhongshan in East Antarctica. It is unknown if these are new and additional to antennas already established at the base. The antennas will assist data acquisition from Chinese satellites that orbit in polar and near-polar orbits. Satellites in these orbits are visible near the poles multiple times a day, allowing more frequent opportunities for downlink than with stations at lower latitudes.

Such ground stations could of course do many other things, including aiding military satellite surveillance.

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