Tag: competition

Firefly to try again to complete first launch of its Alpha rocket

8:14 pm

UPDATE: After a first abort about T-minus 4 minutes at around midnight, the launch team quickly recycled for a new launch at 12:52 am. At T-0 the rocket then aborted at launch.

There is still more than an hour in the launch window, so assuming they can rapidly pin down the cause of the abort, another attempt is possible, though unlikely. CONFIRMED: They will try again tomorrow, with the same launch window.

Though frustrating, these repeated launch attempts are actually wonderful real time training for Firefly’s launch team. The rocket is still in good condition, and they get to practice analyzing a situation under pressure and acting quickly to move forward.

Capitalism in space: Firefly will once again attempt to complete the first successful launch of its Alpha rocket tonight, with the launch scheduled for 12:01 am (Pacific) from Vandenberg Space Force Base. The launch window lasts two hours, so if they have an abort for a minor fixable reason there is a good chance they will still be able to cycle around and try again.

I have embedded below the live feed from Everyday Astronaut, which begins at around 10 pm (Pacific), two hours before the launch.

This will be their second attempt, with the first failing one year ago when one engine in the first stage shut down prematurely due to a loose connection. They attempted to launch this second rocket for the first time earlier this month, but had to scrub due to weather.

The rocket carries five small satellites, including one, Serenity, that was built by BtB reader (and supporter) Joe Latrell, builder of cubesats in a shop behind his garage.
» Read more

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Master Du – A donkey gets a manicure

6:01 pm

An evening pause: This guy, Master Du, specializes in trimming the hoofs of donkeys that have become deformed and need specialized work. (Make sure the closed captions are on to get some translation of the narration.) This is how it is done in China. I wonder how that compares to the techniques used in the U.S., and other nations.

Hat tip Diane Zimmerman, who found this work so interesting she ended up watching Master Du videos for more than an hour.

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SpaceX to upgrade 2nd Kennedy launchpad for manned launches

10:13 am

In order to create some increased redundancy, SpaceX and NASA have agreed to upgrade the company’s second launchpad at Cape Canaveral, LC-40, so that both it and pad LC-39A can launch manned Dragon capsules.

This plan grew out of concern by NASA that the new Starship orbital launchpad was too close to LC-39A, and could possibly damage it during a launch. Should that happen, and no back-up launchpad was available, the agency would have no way to get astronauts up to ISS, since Boeing’s Starliner is not yet operational. Because of that concern, NASA made it clear that no Starship launches could occur in Florida until this issue was resolved.

The solution? Make LC-40 a manned launchpad too.

Nothing is known about the nature of the modifications that LC-40 will require. But more likely than not, NASA will require SpaceX to develop something similar to Pad 39A’s facilities. That would involve building a new crew access tower, crew access arm, escape system (39A uses baskets and ziplines), and an on-site bunker for astronauts.

It is also likely that no Starship launches at Kennedy will occur until this work is done and a manned launch from LC-40 takes place. Though this could delay Starship somewhat, I expect not significantly. Before SpaceX is ready to launch operationally in Florida, it still has to do a lot of testing and development of Starship/Superheavy in Boca Chica, work that could take several years. I also suspect that it will get the launchpad work done relatively quickly, especially if NASA agrees to pay for it.

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Astra’s last rocket failure pinpointed to upper stage engine

9:33 am

Astra has determined that the launch failure in June 2022 was because the upper stage engine of its Rocket 3.3 rocket was burning fuel faster than it was supposed to.

“We’ve determined that the upper stage shut down early due to a higher-than-normal fuel consumption rate,” the update reads. “We have narrowed the root cause to an issue with the upper stage engine. We have also completed many rounds of ground testing, including multiple tests that yielded results consistent with the failure condition in flight.”

When the failure happened, the company had quickly determined that the upper stage had shut down prematurely. The investigation has now determined that it had simply run out of fuel, because of that higher-than-intended burn rate.

While they say they will next institute corrective measures, that seems unlikely for this engine. In August Astra announced it would no longer launch Rocket 3.3, and was instead shifting to the development of a newer bigger rocket, Rocket-4. It now appears that decision was made based on the results of this investigation. The engine probably has fundamental issues that could not be resolved easily.

This decision to cease use of Rocket 3.3 essentially removed Astra as an operational rocket company. Whether the company can re-enter the launch market with a new rocket however remains very unclear.

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Is China-Russia partnership to build lunar base dead?

9:49 am

China/Russian Lunar base roadmap
The so-called Chinese-Russian partnership to explore
the Moon.

In 2021 China and Russia announced a long term plan to jointly explore the Moon, with the project eventually leading to the construction of a joint lunar base.

The graphic to the right comes from that announcement. It lists all lunar missions being built by both Russia and China, and outlined the step-by-step process in which both will work together to build that base.

At the time I noted the likelihood of serious Russian delays, since confirmed. I then noted this:

This decision [by Russia to delay] also demonstrates that Russia’s so-called partnership with China to explore the Moon …is pure hogwash.

Russia’s track record in space since the fall of the Soviet Union has been poor. It hasn’t been able to complete almost any project on time, with many dying stillborn. Most of the time Russian authorities make big announcements of big plans, but nothing ever gets built.

It appears now that China has recognized this reality. In presentations at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Paris last week, China repeatedly offered payload space on its many planetary missions — as listed to the right — to outside nations and even private concerns.

Based on China’s recent track record, those missions will fly, and will likely fly close to their predicted launch dates. Since its space program is designed by China to promote itself, it hopes to get others to participate for propaganda reasons. It also hopes it can then steal some technology from that partnership, as also shown by its long term track record.

What China’s presentations at IAC did not do, however, was mention Russia.

The only visible representation of potential Russian [participation] came in a slide listing future Chinese Chang’e and Russia Luna missions, alongside graphics of the Chinese Long March 9 super heavy-lift rocket and a large Russian launch vehicle. The slide was taken straight from ILRS handbook released to coincide with the St. Petersburg event in 2021, and Russia nor its missions were not explicitly named.

It is hard to say if the lack of representation of Russian involvement reflects a change in Beijing’s thinking or a sensitivity to the current geopolitical context. But China appears to face a dilemma for its grandest space ambitions so far.

It appears China has recognized the paper tiger nature of its partnership with Russia. It hasn’t precluded the partnership, but it realizes that its program to explore the Moon and the solar system must move forward independent of Russia, or else Russia will act like a lead weight to slow it down.

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Celestron to modify commercial amateur telescope for space use

9:19 am

Capitalism in space: Amateur telescope manufacturer Celestron has signed a deal to adapt one of its more expensive ground-based telescopes for use in space.

Trans Astronautica Corp. announced an agreement Sept. 27 with telescope manufacturer Celestron to develop a space-qualified version of the company’s Rowe-Ackermann Schmidt Astrograph (RASA) ground-based telescope. “We’ve been using Celestron’s RASA telescopes in our space domain awareness and asteroid prospecting systems, and we found them to be very affordable, high-quality optical systems,” Joel Sercel, TransAstra founder and CEO, told SpaceNews. “We looked at the designs and we realized it would not be that hard to adapt them for space use.”

Over the next year, TransAstra plans to modify the RASA telescope design and substitute materials to produce a telescope that can withstand radiation exposure, temperature swings, and the vibration and shock loads of space launch.

TransAstra provides tracking data on space junk to both the commercial and defense industry. It also has a new deal to use its telescopes to provide schools use of these telescopes for educational purposes. The goal is to put this capability into orbit.

The future ramifications however are profound. Once Celestron has a commercial relatively inexpensive telescope capable of operating in space (or on the Moon), it will not take long before customers begin lining up eager to buy and launch it. Think about it: though there will be engineering issues to overcome, the cost of placing one of these telescopes on one of the new commercial lunar landers for operation on the Moon will not be far beyond the budgets of many amateur astronomers, some of whom spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on their own ground-based observatories.

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Radar data from Zhurong finds no ice to a depth of 260 feet

9:46 am

Zhurong's ground-penetrating radar data

Overview map

Chinese scientists today finally published their results from the ground-penetrating radar instrument on their Mars rover Zhurong, revealing that to a depth of 260 feet (80 meters), it detected no clear signal of water ice.

Figure 2 of their paper, posted above, summarizes their results. It shows the radar profile to 328 feet (100 meters) depth along Zhurong’s route, as shown in the map to the right, with the last bit of its recent travels ending somewhere in the blue circle. From the paper:

Our low-frequency radar imaging profile shows radar signals within the depth range of 0–80 m (Fig. 2a), precluding the existence of a water-rich layer within this depth range as the existence of water would strongly attenuate the radar signals and diminish the visibility of deeper reflections. The estimated low (less than 9) dielectric permittivity (Fig. 2c) further supports the absence of a water-rich layer as water-bearing materials typically have high (greater than 15) dielectric permittivity.

We further tested this assessment with thermal considerations by conducting a heat conduction simulation based on available thermal parameters estimated from previous studies (Methods). Our thermal simulation results … show that the Zhurong landing area has an annual average temperature of around 220K in the RoPeR detection depth range, which is much lower than the freezing point of pure water (273K), and also lower than the eutectic temperatures of typical sulfate and carbonate brines, but slightly above those of perchlorate brine systems. This observation suggests that the shallow subsurface of the Zhurong landing area could not stably contain liquid water nor sulfate or carbonate brines, consistent with the radar imaging result.

The data suggests that below the surface topsoil layer, the regolith, there are two distinct layers of material that the scientists interpret as possible evidence of past catastrophic floods. That conclusion however is very very uncertain. The main take-away is that in the northern lowland plains of Utopia Planitia at 25 degrees north latitude, where Zhurong landed, Mars is definitely a dry desert, with no water close to the surface.

This data also suggests that if you establish a colony anywhere in Mars’ dry equatorial regions within 30 degrees latitude of the equator, you will likely have to travel north or south a considerable distance to get to easily accessible ice. The global map of Mars below shows the regions where ice is most evident, north and south of 30 degrees latitude.
» Read more

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Two Chinese launches: Long March 2D and Long March 6 put satellites into orbit

9:16 am

China successfully completed two launches in the past twelve hours, placing four satellites into orbit in total.

First, in the evening of September 26th, a Long March 2D rocket launched a “remote sensing” satellite into orbit. This was then followed in the morning of September 27th with the launch of a Long March 6 rocket, putting three “experimental” Earth observation satellites into orbit. We know nothing more about any of these satellites.

The article at the link lists a third launch, of a Kuaizhou-1A rocket, but I have already reported that.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

43 SpaceX
41 China
12 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
6 ULA

American private enterprise still leads China 60 to 41 in the national rankings. Against the entire world combined, the U.S. now trails 60 to 61.

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September 26, 2022 Quick space links

2:56 pm

Courtesy of stringer Jay, who trolls Twitter so I don’t have to.

Mostly shows views of the Earth.

At the link the reason given is the “problems with the delivery of foreign-made parts.” Or to put it more bluntly, the sanctions against Russia due to its unprovoked invasion of the Ukraine has blocked many sophisticated computer parts that Russia cannot make itself.

All fantasy at this point. Russia’s been promising a next generation capsule replacing Soyuz for more than a decade.

Video at the link. The test occurred on September 23, 2022. No word yet on when they plan to launch.

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Astroscale to partner with UK companies to develop mission to remove two defunct orbiting satellites

9:44 am

Capitalism in space: The Japanese-based company Astroscale has signed an agreement with the United Kingdom’s space agency to develop a mission — in partnership with a number of UK companies — to remove two defunct orbiting satellites.

The COSMIC mission will be developed in collaboration with 10 UK-based partner companies in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland including: MDA UK, Thales Alenia Space UK, Nammo, GMV-NSL, NORSS, Goonhilly, Satellite Applications Catapult, Willis Towers Watson, and other advisory and industrial partners.

What Astroscale brings to the table is its magnetic capture system that it has already tested in orbit.

This is also the second contract Astroscale has won in Europe for its space junk removal technology. In May it signed a deal with OneWeb to de-orbit two of its satellites.

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China’s Kuaizhou-1A rocket launches two satellites

9:36 am

Early today China’s smallsat Kuaizhou-1A rocket successfully launched two “experimental” satellites into orbit from an interior spaceport.

The satellites are part of a classified program, so little is known about them.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

43 SpaceX
39 China
12 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
6 ULA

American private enterprise still leads China 60 to 39 in the national rankings and the entire world combined 60 to 59.

Tomorrow ABL Space will attempt to launch from Alaska its RS1 smallsat rocket for the first time. Later in the week Firefly will make its second attempt to launch its Alpha rocket successfully. I will embed the live streams, if available.

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SpaceX successfully launches 52 Starlink satellites

4:42 pm

Capitalism in space: Using its Falcon 9 rocket SpaceX today successfully put another 52 Starlink satellites into orbit.

The first stage successfully landed on a drone ship in the Atlantic, completing its fourth flight. The two fairing halves each completed their fourth and fifth flights, respectively.

Note: The Biden administration yesterday gave SpaceX the okay to activate Starlink in Iran, in order to provide that country’s citizens an option for obtaining information blocked by its government.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

43 SpaceX
38 China
12 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
6 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 60 to 38 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 60 to 58.

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