Tag: engineering

India about to do first drop test of its home-built version of an X-37B

10:31 am

India’s space agency ISRO is now preparing for the first drop test of its own home-built version of an X-37B mini-shuttle, designed to remain in orbit for a period of time, return to Earth on a runway, and then be reused.

According to ISRO officials, the RLV [Reusable Launch Vehicle] wing body will be carried using a helicopter to an altitude of three to five km and released at a distance of about four to five km ahead of the runway with a horizontal velocity. After the release, the RLV will glide, navigate towards the runway and land autonomously with a landing gear in the defence airfield near Chitradurga.

A prototype of the RLV was flown on a suborbital test flight in 2016, landing in the ocean. The pending test would be the first to attempt a runway landing, essential if the spacecraft is to safely return to Earth and then be reused.

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Arizona court kills local government’s real estate deal for World View

10:19 am

The Arizona court of appeals last month ruled that a land deal between Pima County and the high altitude balloon company World View was unconstitutional, and could not go forward.

Per the agreement, the county would fund the construction of facilities, including a 135,000-square-foot manufacturing facility, with office spaces and a launch pad, on property it already owned. World View would then lease the property from the county for 20 years. In return, the company would hire more than 400 employees, with an average salary of over $55,000, and spend $32.3 million on equipment.

Twenty years of lease payments were expected to total around $14 million, estimated to be the property’s value at that time. World View would then have the option to buy the facility for $10.

Six years ago the Goldwater Institute sued, saying this deal was illegal according to the state’s constitution. Last month the court agreed, killing the deal.

Since World View remains in operation in these facilities, Pima County will have to renegotiate at market rates. How that will effect the company itself, which now hopes to begin flying near-space tourist flights by 2024, charging $50K per person, remains unknown.

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Another Indian rocket startup tests engine

10:09 am

According to India’s space agency ISRO, it recently provided the facilities for the Indian rocket startup company Agnikul Cosmos to complete a static fire engine test of its second-stage rocket engine.

The agency fired Agnikul’s fully 3D-printed second-stage rocket engine Agnilet for a duration of 15 seconds. Agnilet is a regeneratively cooled 1.4 kN semi-cryogenic engine that uses Liquid oxygen and Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF) as propellants. According to Agnikul, the engine is capable of generating 3kN of thrust at sea level and would propel the upper stage of Agnibaan, the company’s under-development launch vehicle.

The company had said it hoped to complete its first launch this year, but that appears highly unlikely. Nonetheless, it has raised at least $14.1 million in investment capital.

Thus, it appears India now has two private rocket companies gearing up for launch in ’23, Agnikul Cosmos and Skyroot.

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Astra to lay off 16% of its workforce

9:59 am

Astra, having abandoned its Rocket-3.3 in order to develop its larger Rocket-4 smallsat launcher, announced yesterday that is laying off 16% of its workforce as part of this change in direction.

The decision to abandon Rocket-3.3 has at this time removed the company as an operational rocket company, and has thus put it behind several other competitors which are now gearing up for launch. Its third quarter report also showed a $41 million loss this year, 26% larger than the same quarter last year.

As a result, the company’s stock value has declined 94%, and is now selling for 58 cents per share. If that price does not rise above $1 before April of next year, NASDAQ has said it would delist it.

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German rocket startup unveils 2nd stage

9:52 am

The German rocket startup Rocket Factory Augsburg this week unveiled the second stage of its planned rocket, with its Helix engine attached.

This second stage will be used for engine tests in Sweden.

“The campaign will feature three main tests: The first test will last a few seconds, followed by one for around 10 seconds, then the full flight duration. Every engine is acceptance tested. Then each engine is fired a second time during stage acceptance and then started a third time for flight. We have already proven that we can fire the same engine 3x without switching out components with our long-duration hot-fire campaign. Now we want to repeat that achievement with a full upper stage.”

The company hopes to use this stage in the first orbital test flight of its RFA-1 rocket, targeting a launch late next year. That rocket will use nine more Helix engines in its first stage, and will thus be able to put into orbit slightly more mass than Firefly’s Alpha rocket or payload.

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Tianzhou-4 freighter undocks from Tiangong-3, while Tianzhou-5 prepares for launch

9:42 am

Chinese engineers have undocked the Tianzhou-4 unmanned freighter from their Tiangong-3 space station, even as other engineers complete the stacking of Tianzhou-5 on its rocket and move it to its launch site.

Tianzhou-4 remains in orbit. At some point it will be de-orbited to burn up over the ocean, but China’s state-run press has not said when. In the past engineers have kept these cargo freighters in orbit after undocking for long periods in order to test their capabilities.

Though the launch date for Tianzhou-5 on its Long March 7 rocket was also not revealed by today’s press report, earlier reports suggest the launch is targeting November 12th.

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Virgin Orbit’s first launch from UK delayed by red tape

9:35 am

We’re here to help you: The first launch of a satellite from the United Kingdom, launched by Virgin Orbit by taking off from a runway in Cornwall, is experiencing prolonged delays getting its license approved by the British bureaucracy.

While the company says there are no specific issues holding up approval, the permit remains unapproved. Virgin Orbit had hoped initially to launch in the summer, but could not, and this delay has also delayed its later launches and thus reduced its profits in 2022, forcing it to obtain extra investment capital from Richard Branson’s Virgin Group in order to pay the bills.

Meanwhile, the British bureaucracy struggles to issue the licenses.

The delays have attracted the attention of a House of Commons committee, which released a report Nov. 4 criticizing those delays and calling for more personnel to be assigned to reviewing license applications. “For this initial set of licence applications, the Department for Transport must provide additional resource to the CAA [Civil Aviation Authority] to ensure that the licensing process does not impede the feasibility of a launch this year,” the report stated.

A source familiar with the CAA’s licensing activities, speaking on background, noted that the CAA now had about 50 people working on license applications, up from the 35 mentioned in the report. That included one person seconded to the CAA from the U.S. Federation Aviation Administration’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation.

As always, private enterprise gets it done, while government requires dozens of people and months to simply fill out forms. Worse, we all know the CAA is going to say yes. The delay is simply a game to justify its existence, not to really accomplish anything.

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Cygnus successfully berthed at ISS

9:06 am

Cygnus approaching ISS on November 9, 2022

Despite on of its two solar panels only partly deployed, astronaut Nicole Mann was able to use the robot arm on ISS to grab Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus freighter and bring it into its port, where ground engineers successfully berthed it.

The image to the right is a screen capture from NASA TV as Cygnus approached. You can see the problematic panel at the bottom. Though it has folded out from its initial stored position, it has not opened up fully.

The freighter will stay docked to ISS until late January, during which the crew will unload about four tons of cargo and then fill it with garbage before sending it to burn up over the ocean. We should expect NASA and Northrop Grumman to also plan a spacewalk to not only inspect the panel to figure out what failed, but to see if it can still be deployed.

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Cygnus freighter continues to target ISS rendezvous tomorrow

5:19 pm

Though one of its two solar panels remains undeployed, engineers and Northrop Grumman and NASA have proceeded with four engine burns so as to rendezvous with ISS tomorrow, November 9th, with arrival in the early morning hours.

Expedition 68 NASA astronaut Nicole Mann will capture Cygnus with the station’s robotic arm, with NASA astronaut Josh Cassada acting as backup. After Cygnus capture, ground commands will be sent from mission control at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston for the station’s arm to rotate and install it on the station’s Unity module Earth-facing port.

According to this NASA update, it appears that NASA managers are confident that the stuck solar panel is not blocking the grapple point, preventing the arm from grabbing the capsule. At the same time, the wording in the update is just a bit vague, and also suggests that before this capture occurs they will be inspecting Cygnus very carefully.

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SLS launch delayed until November 16

3:57 pm

In order to give them time to make sure all is right after the coming tropical storm, NASA managers have decided to delay the first test flight of SLS two days until November 16.

A launch during a two-hour window that opens at 1:04 a.m. EST on Nov. 16 would result in a splashdown on Friday, Dec. 11. If needed, NASA has a back-up launch opportunity on Saturday, Nov. 19, and will coordinate with the U.S. Space Force for additional launch opportunities.

At the moment they have decided to keep the rocket on the launchpad, as they expect it will be able to withstand the predicted storm. If the predictions change however they still have the option to roll it back into the assembly building.

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Japan issues license allowing Ispace to do private business on Moon

9:51 am

With the launch of Ispace’s first lunar lander, Hakuto-R, only two weeks away, the private company has obtained a license from the Japanese government to conduct private transactions on the Moon.

The license allows Ispace to complete a contract awarded by NASA in December 2020, to acquire regolith from the lunar surface to sell to the space agency. During M1, Ispace is expected to collect regolith that accumulates on the footpad of the landing gear during the touchdown on the surface, photograph the collected regolith and conduct an “in-place” transfer of ownership of the lunar regolith to NASA. After ownership transfer, the collected material becomes the property of NASA, under the Artemis program. Under the contract, the lunar regolith will not be returned to Earth.

Under a second contract awarded to Ispace’s subsidiary [Ispace EU] … Ispace EU will acquire the lunar material on its second mission scheduled for 2024 as part of the HAKUTO-R program. An application for Mission 2 will be submitted to obtain a separate authorization.

This mission will also land the UAE’s first lunar rover, Rashid.

According to the Outer Space Treaty, it is the responsibility of each nation to regulate the private operations of its citizens in space. This action thus follows the laws that Japan has passed to supervise commercial space companies.

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Bad news for Branson

9:43 am

Two stories today suggest that Richard Branson’s space empire continues to totter.

First, a judge ruled that the fraud lawsuit against Branson by other stockholders in the suborbital tourist company Virgin Galactic can go forward.

The suit claims Branson concealed safety problems while he sold off the bulk of his own stock at top dollar. Only after he had dumped his stock were those problems revealed, and the stock price plummeted, now trading at less than 10% of the peak in February 2021, when Branson sold.

Second, it appears that though Branson’s satellite orbital company Virgin Orbit is operational, it is not going to launch as many satellites this year as expected, and thus required an investment of $25 million on November 4th from Branson’s Virgin Group to stay liquid.

Branson clearly wanted to be a major player in space. In the end, he has mostly failed, though once again Virgin Orbit remains a viable launching company for smallsats.

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JAXA test fires Japan’s new H3 rocket

9:31 am

Delayed two years because of engine cracks, Japan’s space agency JAXA yesterday successfully completed a static fire test of its new H3 rocket.

JAXA aims to conduct the first launch of an H3 rocket before the end of this fiscal year. The space agency will spend about two weeks analyzing data from the latest test to determine whether it was successful.

Two first-stage engines were fired for about 25 seconds during the test, causing smoke to billow from the base of the rocket towards the sea.

Assuming no new issues are found in the test data, Japan hopes to complete the first H3 launch in 2023.

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India’s first private rocket company prepares for its first test suborbital launch

9:23 am

Skyroot, India’s first startup private rocket company, has now scheduled the first test launch of a suborbital version of its Vikram rocket for sometime between November 12the and 16th, depending on weather.

The rocket will be sent into space from ISRO’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre spaceport in Sriharikota, off the Andhra Pradesh coast.

The space sector was opened up to facilitate private sector participation in 2020. In 2021, Skyroot became the first space technology startup to ink an MoU with ISRO for sharing facilities and expertise.

…The company’s COO & co-founder, Naga Bharath Daka, said “The Vikram-S rocket getting launched is a single-stage sub-orbital launch vehicle, which would carry three customer payloads and help test and validate the majority of technologies in our Vikram series of space launch vehicles.” The four-year-old Skyroot has successfully built and tested India’s first privately developed cryogenic, hypergolic-liquid, and solid fuel-based rocket engines. The R&D and production activities extensively use advanced composite and 3D-printing technologies.

The company has raised $51 million in private investment capital, the most ever raised by a private Indian rocket company.

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Webb’s mid-infrared instrument restored to full operations

9:16 am

Engineers have figured out the issue on the mid-infrared instrument on the Webb Space Telescope that was causing increased friction during operations, and are now ready to return it to full operations.

The team concluded the issue is likely caused by increased contact forces between sub-components of the wheel central bearing assembly under certain conditions. Based on this, the team developed and vetted a plan for how to use the affected mechanism during science operations.

An engineering test was executed Wednesday, Nov. 2, that successfully demonstrated predictions for wheel friction. Webb will resume MIRI MRS science observations by Saturday, Nov. 12.

Webb has three other infrared instruments, looking at different infrared wavelengths, so this issue had not prevented the telescope from doing most of its observations. Losing MIRI however would have been a very bad blow, this soon after launch.

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Hurricane threatens SLS on launchpad

8:53 pm

A storm, now rated subtropical, that is expected to cross the east coast of Florida on November 10th with the possibility that it could strengthen into a hurricane now threatens NASA’s SLS rocket that is on its Florida launchpad preparing for its first test flight on November 14, 2022.

A map of the storm’s presently predicted track can be seen here.

NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida is currently in a HURCON (Hurricane Condition) IV status, which includes implementing checklists and preparations for the storm as the agency continues to prioritize its employees in the Kennedy area. Based on current forecast data, managers have determined the Space Launch System rocket and Orion will remain at Launch Pad 39B. Teams at Kennedy will continue to monitor the weather, make sure all personnel are safe, and will evaluate the status of the Monday, Nov. 14, launch attempt for the Artemis I mission as we proceed and receive updated predictions about the weather.

Depending on the storm’s track in the next 24 hours, as well as its strength, NASA managers have the option of returning the rocket to the assembly building to protect it. If they do so, however, it is certain the November 14th launch date will be scrubbed. As they have a window of a number of additional dates [pdf] through November 27th, I suspect they will then aim for one of those dates.

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One of two solar panels on Cygnus capsule fails to deploy

3:46 pm

The failure of one of the two solar panels on Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus capsule to deploy today shortly after launch might cause some issues with getting the spacecraft docked to ISS.

Northrop Grumman has reported to NASA that Cygnus has sufficient power to rendezvous with the International Space Station on Wednesday, Nov. 9, to complete its primary mission, and NASA is assessing this and the configuration required for capture and berthing.

The capsule does not dock directly with the station, but is instead grabbed by a robot arm, which then brings it into its port. The grapple point that the arm uses is on the end where the solar panels are, with the docking port at the capsule’s other end. What is not presently clear is whether that point is blocked by the undeployed panel.

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Hubble takes a long exposure of spiral galaxy

9:12 am

A Hubble long exposure of a spiral galaxy
Click for original image.

This morning’s cool image on the right, reduced and sharpened to post here, comes courtesy of the Hubble Space Telescope.

NGC 7038 lies around 220 million light-years from Earth in the southern constellation Indus. This image portrays an especially rich and detailed view of a spiral galaxy, and exposes a huge number of distant stars and galaxies around it. That’s because it’s made from a combined 15 hours worth of Hubble time focused on NGC 7038 and collecting light. So much data indicates that this is a valuable target, and indeed, NGC 7038 has been particularly helpful to astronomers measuring distances at vast cosmic scales.

The press release focuses on how astronomers will use this data to refine the techniques they use to estimate distances to astronomical objects. However, a deep field image of this galaxy offers a wealth of other data. Note the reddish streams of dust along and between the spiral arms. This dust, as well as the bright patches in those arms likely signal star-forming regions. And I expect the details in the full resolution image, too large to make available on a webpage, would tell astronomers a lot about what is going on in the galaxy’s central regions.

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Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket launches Cygnus freighter to ISS

8:57 am

Capitalism in space: Early this morning Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket successfully completed its second launch this year, lifting off from Wallops Island and carrying a Cygnus freighter for ISS.

This launch is also the next-to-last for this version of Antares. Northrop Grumman is using up the last few first stages built in the Ukraine that use Russian engines, after which it will send the next three Cygnus capsules into space using SpaceX’s Falcon 9. It hopes to introduce a new Antares using a Firefly first stage following that.

The leader board in the 2022 launch race remains the same:

51 SpaceX
48 China
19 Russia
9 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise still leads China 73 to 48 in the national rankings, but trails the rest of the world combined 76 to 73.

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Iran test launches first stage of new solid-fueled rocket

8:57 pm

According to Iran’s state-run press, on November 5, 2022 it successfully completed a test launch of the first stage of its new Ghaem-100 solid-fueled rocket.

Amir Ali Hajizadeh, head of the Revolutionary Guard’s aerospace division which developed the Ghaem 100, said the rocket would be used to launch Iran’s Nahid satellite for the telecommunications ministry, state media reported.

Saturday’s operation tested the first sub-orbital stage of the rocket, the reports added.

There are so many unknowns about this story it would be foolish to speculate.

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