Tag: engineering

Rocket Lab wins launch contract to launch quickly, within two months

10:11 am

Rocket Lab yesterday announced that it has scheduled a new Electron launch for October 19, 2024, based on a contract it signed with a “confidential commercial customer” only two months ago.

The expedited mission will be Rocket Lab’s fastest turnaround to date: from signed contract to launch date in less than two months.

If successfully, it will also be the company’s 12th launch in 2024, completed in the year’s first 10 months. Its previous record for successful launches in a single year, nine, was set in 2022, and that took the entire year to accomplish. Though this record is certainly impressive, it appears at this time that the company will not meet its goal of 20 launches in 2024, though it might not miss it by much.

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Sierra Space wins NASA contract to develop trash compactor for use in space

9:47 am

Sierra Space yesterday announced that it has won a NASA contract to develop trash compactor for use in space and test it on ISS by 2026.

The system’s goals will not only be to reduce the volume of waste, but to recover all the water contained within it.

Current primary waste systems in space cannot reclaim water or effectively reduce the volume of trash in a manner necessary for long-term space travel. The TCPS [Sierra’s compactor] is being developed to recover nearly all the water from the trash for additional use. This capability may be vital not only for deep space exploration but also for commercial orbital facilities or extraterrestrial bases. As a stand-alone system, TCPS only requires access to power, data, and air-cooling interfaces and it provides a simple user interface to facilitate crew interactions.

The key to this development is that it isn’t being developed by NASA solely for ISS. Sierra will own the product, and design it to be used on any in-space operation, from space stations to lunar bases.

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NASA to phase out its government-built communications satellite constellation, rely on commercial services

9:41 am

Capitalism in space: NASA yesterday announced that beginning on November 8, 2024 it will begin the phase out of its government-built TDRS communications satellite constellation, requiring all future missions to use commercial services for communications and data transmission.

As of Friday, Nov. 8, the agency’s legacy TDRS (Tracking and Data Relay Satellite) system, as part of the Near Space Network, will support only existing missions while new missions will be supported by future commercial services.

…While TDRS will not be accepting new missions, it won’t be retiring immediately. Current TDRS users, like the International Space Station, Hubble Space Telescope, and many other Earth- and universe-observing missions, will still rely on TDRS until the mid-2030s. Each TDRS spacecraft’s retirement will be driven by individual health factors, as the seven active TDRS satellites are expected to decline at variable rates. 

NASA in 2022 already issued contracts to six commercial communication companies to provide these services, Inmarsat, Kuiper Government, SES, SpaceX, Telesat, and Viasat. Yesterday’s annoncement involves NASA’s long term plan to retire the TDRS constellation.

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Axiom unveils its spacesuit design

2:57 pm

Axiom's moonsuit
Click for original image.

Axiom today unveiled its proposed spacesuit for NASA’s Moon missions, designed in partnership with the fashion company Prada.

The graphic to the left, cropped and reduced to post here, shows the suit. The letters refer to detailed descriptions contained in the full image.

The suit accommodates a wide range of crewmembers, including males and females from the first to 99th percentile (anthropomorphic sizing). It will withstand extreme temperatures at the lunar south pole and endure the coldest temperatures in the permanently shadowed regions for at least two hours. Astronauts will be able to perform spacewalks for at least eight hours.

The AxEMU incorporates multiple redundant systems and an onboard diagnostic system to ensure safety for crewmembers. The suit also uses a regenerable carbon dioxide scrubbing system and a robust cooling technology to remove heat from the system. It includes advanced coatings on the helmet and visor to enhance the astronauts’ view of their surroundings, as well as custom gloves made in-house featuring several advancements over the gloves used today. The spacesuit architecture includes life support systems, pressure garments, avionics and other innovative systems to meet exploration needs and expand scientific opportunities.

It appears the suit follows the design concept of the Russian Orlan suit, with access in and out using the backpack as the access hatch.

Axiom had won the $228 million contract to build this suit in 2022. In two years it is now testing the suit as it nears what it calls “the final development stage.” Compare that with NASA’s failed effort over fourteen years and a billion dollars to create its own suit, never getting much past powerpoint presentations.

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Airbus to eliminate 2,500 jobs in its space and defense divisions

12:00 pm

Airbus has decided that through 2026 it will eliminate 2,500 jobs in its space and defense divisions.

The Airbus cuts come just months after it said in its second-quarter earnings report that the space division was affecting its financial performance. In those earnings, it took a charge of 989 million euros ($1.08 billion) against the space business, relating to an audit of costs in the division and projected lower revenues.

According the company’s press release, the cuts will be targeting what appears to be a bloated management structure.

Intended measures will include creating a more effective and efficient organisational structure for the Division, especially with regard to headquartered functions.

The company does not plan to lay off anyone against their will. Instead, it will work out a buy-out program, the details of which are not yet known, that will encourage employees to leave voluntarily.

The issues here are probably related to the failure of the Ariane-6 rocket, which though now operational is too expensive to compete effectively in the modern launch market. Though it is built by ArianeGroup, a joint partnership of Airbus and Safran, its losses will percolate back to Airbus itself. That the cuts will target upper management also makes sense. Why does Airbus’s space division need a large payroll at its headquarters if it has shifted its space operations to the subsidiary ArianeGroup?

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Proposed commerical spaceport in Nova Scotia signs launch deal with rocket startup Reaction Dynamics

10:50 am

UPDATE: My first version of this post was fundamentally incorrect. I had confused the new Canadian rocket startup Reaction Dynamics (RDX) with the renamed Raytheon (RTX). Because some of the content relating to Raytheon and the comments is still relevant, I have placed that content below the fold so that readers will understand the context of those comments..

Maritime Launch Services, the company that has been trying to build a commerical spaceport in Nova Scotia since 2016, has now signed a launch deal with a small new Canadian rocket startup, Reaction Dynamics, to do a suborbital test launch.

This new partnership between the two Canadian space companies will begin with a pathfinder launch designed to reach the edges of space. The low impulse launch will push the limits toward a future orbital launch by reaching the Karman Line, the internationally recognized edge of Space.

Under the terms of the MOU, Maritime Launch and Reaction Dynamics [RDX] will work towards a Pathfinder mission that will enable a first ever orbital launch of a Canadian vehicle from Canadian soil on the coast of Nova Scotia. These missions will be supported by RDX’s patented, cutting-edge hybrid rocket technology. Building on the success of the first launch, both companies will work toward the first commercial missions of the Aurora vehicle.

This Nova Scotia spaceport has had a complex and difficult history. Initially it was going to offer launches using a Ukrainian-built rocket, but that plan fell through with Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine. It then opened the spaceport to any rocket company, but it appears it has gotten few takers. Now it is working with Reaction Dynamics to once again provide its own launch services. We shall see how this plays out.
» Read more

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NASA appears to be about to drop Boeing’s Starliner from its manned mission schedule in 2025

10:17 am

In a short announcement outlining its planned two manned ISS missions for 2025, NASA by omission revealed that it now does not expect Boeing’s Starliner capsule to be ready for the second manned flight in July 2025, as previously planned.

Previous updates had noted what capsule would launch the astronauts, with the plan to have Dragon launch the February 2025 crew and Starliner the July 2025 crew. It was assumed in those earlier updates that Starliner would be certified for operational use after the completion of its first manned demo this past summer. This new update does not provide this capsule information, instead saying the following:

The timing and configuration of Starliner’s next flight will be determined once a better understanding of Boeing’s path to system certification is established. This determination will include considerations for incorporating Crew Flight Test lessons learned, approvals of final certification products, and operational readiness.

Meanwhile, NASA is keeping options on the table for how best to achieve system certification, including windows of opportunity for a potential Starliner flight in 2025.

It appears NASA is pulling back from that certification, based on the various technical issues experienced by Starliner during that demo mission, issues that eventually forced NASA to return the capsule unmanned. As such, this announcement yesterday suggests that there is serious negotiations going on between Boeing and NASA as to what will happen next. It appears the agency wants Boeing to fly another demo mission — on Boeing’s dime — before putting astronauts on board and paying for a mission. The Starliner contract was fixed price, and until Boeing successfully completes that manned demo mission NASA is not obligated to pay it any additional funds.

I suspect Boeing is telling NASA it can’t afford to do this, and if NASA doesn’t pony up some bucks for that demo flight it will simply not do it, and NASA will be stuck with just SpaceX as its manned ferry to ISS.

Unconfirmed reports had suggested NASA was considering issuing Boeing a separate contract to do a cargo mission to ISS using Starliner, thus allowing it to pay the company to fly a test mission outside of the fixed price contract. This NASA update yesterday suggests these negotiations are on going, but likely cannot be completed until after the election. A new administration might balk at such a deal.

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Astrolab unveils small prototype unmanned rover

9:50 am

Astrolab, one of three companies with NASA design contracts to develop a manned lunar rover, yesterday unveiled a small prototype unmanned rover that the company has designed to test on the Moon and actually hopes to launch on Astrobotic’s Griffin lander.

In a presentation at the International Astronautical Congress here Oct. 15, Astrolab announced plans to build the FLEX Lunar Innovation Platform, or FLIP, rover for launch as soon as the end of 2025. The half-ton rover will have a payload capacity of 30 to 50 kilograms.

A key purpose of FLIP is to test key systems for its larger FLEX, or Flexible Logistics and Exploration, rover, maturing their technology readiness levels (TRLs). “We want to raise the TRL of our technologies ahead of our other missions,” said Jaret Matthews, founder and chief executive of Astrolab. FLIP will test the same battery modules that the larger FLEX will use and has the same tires as FLEX. Other technologies Astrolab plans to test on the smaller rover include actuators, power systems and communications.

Though no deal has been announced, FLIP was clearly designed to match the fit of NASA’s now canceled VIPER rover that was to be launched on Astrobotic’s Griffin lander. Griffin is still being prepped for its lunar mission to be launched in 2025, but no longer has that prime payload. It is very obvious that Astrolab is vying to make FLIP that prime payload.

If so, the company will have once again demonstrated the advantages of private enterprise. NASA spent almost a billion on VIPER, going so much over budget and behind schedule that the agency had to cancel it. Astrolab has now come up with a replacement in almost no time at all, for likely pennies on the dollar. It is for sure simpler, but it also is likely to fly and test engineering, while VIPER will not.

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ESA releases first section of grand mosaic of the sky to be produced by Euclid

9:29 am

Euclid's first released mosaic
For original images, go here, here, and here.

The European Space Agency (ESA) yesterday released the first mosaic section of a grand atlas of the sky that its recently launched Euclid space telescope was designed to produce.

The image to the right, assembled from several images but of very low resolution to post here, will give my readers an idea of Euclid’s capabilities. The top image shows this first mosaic in green, made up of 260 photos, laid on top of the sky atlases produced by the Gaia and Plank orbiting telescopes. As you can see, it covers only about 12% of the sky, but was also produced in only the last six months, since science observations began in February. When complete, the Euclid atlas will cover one third of the sky, and provide very high resolution data for that entire area.

The middle image provides a close-up of that mosaic, albeit in very low resolution.

This first piece of the map already contains around 100 million sources: stars in our Milky Way and galaxies beyond. Some 14 million of these galaxies could be used to study the hidden influence of dark matter and dark energy on the Universe. “This stunning image is the first piece of a map that in six years will reveal more than one third of the sky. This is just 1% of the map, and yet it is full of a variety of sources that will help scientists discover new ways to describe the Universe,” says Valeria Pettorino, Euclid Project Scientist at ESA.

The bottom image, once again at low resolution to post here, zooms into only one small section of that mosaic, and illustrates the high level of detail each Euclid image will contain. Though the details in this photo seem a bit fuzzy, at full resolution they remain remarkably sharp. To get an idea of how good that resolution is, see an earlier Euclid close-up photo released in May.

Euclid doesn’t take pictures with the quite the resolution of Hubble (its primary mirror at 1.2 meters diameter is half the width). While Hubble was designed to zoom in at specific objects and do so over and over if desired, Euclid will instead provide a high resolution snapshot of the entire sky, at a resolution almost as good, in both optical and infrared wavelengths.

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China launches “Earth observation satellite”

8:56 am

China today successfully launched what its state-run press described as an “Earth observation satellite,” its Long March 4C rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China.

No word on where the rocket’s first stage, using very toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China. As for the satellite, it was described as something to “be used in a variety of fields including land surveys, urban planning, road network design, crop yield estimation and disaster relief.”

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

100 SpaceX
47 China
11 Russia
11 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 117 to 70, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world, including American companies, 100 to 87.

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China launches “satellite group” using Long March 6A rocket

11:23 am

According to China’s state run press, it today successfully launched what it simply describes as “a new satellite group,” its Long March 6A rocket lifting off from its Taiyuan spaceport in northeast China.

This tweet appears to show video of the launch, though once again there is little information.

First, we have no idea where the rocket’s lower stage and four strap-on stide boosters crashed inside China, doing so at night when no one can see them coming down. Second, we have no idea whether China has made any upgrades to the Long March 6A upper stage, which on four previous launches has broken apart and scattered space junk after deploying its payload in orbit.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

100 SpaceX
46 China
11 Russia
11 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 117 to 69, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world, including American companies, 100 to 86.

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Army successfully completes one-year commercial satellite pilot program

10:05 am

Capitalism in space: The U.S. Army has now successfully completed a one-year pilot program whereby it purchased the use of commercial communications satellites from both Intelsat and SES, rather than attempt to build and launch its own satellites.

Under the pilot, the Army selected satellite operators Intelsat and SES to provide “satcom as a managed service,” a model where the provider handles all satellite communications functions — from setup and maintenance of equipment to network management and technical support — through a subscription-based contract.

The project, officially completed on Sept. 30, is now raising questions about whether the Department of Defense will expand its reliance on commercial satcom providers for long-term military communications needs. David Broadbent, president of Intelsat’s Government Solutions, said that while the pilot program demonstrated the efficiency of managed services, it is still uncertain if the Army will fully embrace this model for future satellite communications (satcom) procurement.

It appears that the Pentagon’s bureaucracy is uncomfortable with the idea, and is resisting expanding the program beyond this one test. For decades the military has designed, built, owned, and operated its own satellites. That approach has created a very large job-base within the military that feels threatened by the idea of out-sourcing this work to the private sector. That approach however has also in the last two decades done a poor job of providing the Pentagon the communications satellites it needs on time and on budget.

Whether the Pentagon will change to this new approach, as NASA mostly has, will likely hinge on who wins the election in November. A Harris administration will likely provide little guidance one way or the other, but will also likely take the side of the bureaucrats in power now. A Trump administration is much more likely to force a change.

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