Tag: engineering

ESA awards Spanish launch startup PLD a million-plus development contract

9:06 am

Capitalism in space: The European Space Agency (ESA) today awarded the Spanish launch startup PLD a €1.3 million contract to develop a payload deployment system for its Miura-5 orbital rocket, expected to make its first launch in 2025.

Designed to release all types of satellites with as much flexibility as possible, the payload system – called MOSPA for Modular Solution for Payload Adapter – will allow PLD Space to offer its customers a wider range of missions and services, including accommodation of CubeSats, nanosatellites and microsatellites. The development of the modular payload adapter will be done in partnership with OCCAM Space. The goal is to create the hardware to be as light as possible while also being as adaptable as possible to launch more satellites and meet market demands.

“PLD space has proven itself with its first launch last year, and we look forward to seeing the experience applied to the Miura 5 launch services development,” says ESA’s Jorgen Bru, “The payload adapter development engaged today was chosen to increase market competitiveness and ensure that many different types of satellites and customers can fly.”

This contract once again signals ESA’s shift from depending solely on its own launch company, Arianespace, to instead obtaining launch contracts from as many private, independent, and competing European companies as possible. Arianespace, for many reasons (some not its fault), failed to develop rockets capable of competing with SpaceX, and also failed to get them developed on time. ESA presently has no launch capability, and has had to sign contracts with SpaceX to get its payloads into orbit.

The shift is ground-shaking. It suggests that in the next two decades Europe should have a half dozen competing rocket companies of its own, all striving for business and thus all working hard to come up with ways to reduce launch costs. Under the Arianespace monopoly, little innovation took place, launch costs never dropped, and though for many years it controlled a majority of the launch market, it could never make a profit.

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Rocket Lab successfully launches Japanese commercial space junk demo satellite

10:45 am

Rocket Lab today successfully launched a commercial test mission of commercial space junk removal satellite, dubbed ADRAS-J and built by the Japanese company Astroscale, in partner with Japan’s space agency JAXA. It is designed to demonstrate the ability to make a close rendezvous of a large piece of space junk and then photograph and inspect it closely to determing it precise condition to facilitate later removal efforts.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

15 SpaceX
8 China
2 Iran
2 Russia
2 Japan
2 India
2 Rocket Lab

A lot of launch entities grouped at 2. Expect Iran and Japan to fall away as Russia, India, and Rocket Lab continue to launch regularly this year, with Russia and Rocket Lab eventually outpacing India.

American private enterprise now leads the entire world combined in successful launches 18 to 16, with SpaceX still trailing the entire world combined (excluding American companies) 15 to 16.

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Japan and India successfully complete launches

11:18 am

Japan and India today completed launches of different rockets, one on its first successful test launch.

First, early this morning Japan’s new H3 rocket successfully reached orbit for the first time, on its second attempt. The first attempt had problems, first with a launch abort at T-0 when the solid-fueled strap-on boosters failed to ignite. On the launch attempt the upper stage failed. Today’s launch was a complete success, placing a dummy payload into orbit.

Japan’s space agency JAXA however needs to learn how to run a launch in a professional manner. Minutes prior to launch an announcer began a second-by-second countdown, and continued this for minutes after the launch. Not only was this unnecessary and annoying, it made the real updates impossible to hear. India used to do this in its first few live streams, but quickly recognized the stupidity of it. In addition, the person translating the updates clearly knew nothing about rocket launches, so her translations were tentative and often completely misunderstood what had just happened.

All of this makes JAXA look like a second rate organization, which might also help explain its numerous technical failures in recent years.

About twelve hours later, at mid-day in India, India’s space agency ISRO successfully launched its GSLV rocket, placing a commercial radar environmental satellite into orbit.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

15 SpaceX
8 China
2 Iran
2 Russia
2 Japan
2 India

American private enterprise still leads the entire world combined in successful launches 17 to 16, with SpaceX trailing the entire world combined (excluding American companies) 15 to 16.

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The alien surface of Mars

11:13 am

The alien surface of Gediz Vallis
Click for original image.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Cool image time! The picture above, brightened slightly to post here, was taken on February 15, 2024 by the right navigation camera on the Mars rover Curiosity. It looks east at the looming cliff face of the mountain Kukenan that the rover has been traveling beside for the last six months. On the overview map to the right the yellow lines indicate roughly the area covered by this picture. The blue dot marks Curiosity’s present position, while the green dot marks its position on February 5, 2024. As you can see, the rover is making slow but steady progress uphill into Gediz Vallis.

This image illustrates the alien landscape of Mars quite beautifully. First, there is absolutely no life in this picture. On Earth you would be hard pressed to find any spot on the surface that doesn’t have at least some plant life.

Second, there is the rocky layered nature of this mountain. When the Curiosity science team first announced its future route plans (the red dotted line) to drive into this canyon back in 2019, the orbital images of these layers from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) had suggested the terrain here would be reminiscent of The Wave in northern Arizona, a smooth series of curved layers smoothed nicely over time by the wind.

As you can see, there is no smoothness here. Instead, every single layer here is infused with broken rock, suggesting that each layer is structurally weak. As erosion exposes each, the layer breaks up, crumbling into the chaos in this picture. The curved nature of the terrain at the bottom of the picture however does suggest that some sort of flow once percolated down this canyon, either liquid water or glacial ice, carving the layers into this curved floor.

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Rocket Lab begins maneuvers to bring Varda’s capsule back to Earth

9:46 am

With the FAA finally giving its okay (six months late), Rocket Lab has now begun the orbital maneuvers required to bring Varda’s small manufacturing capsule back to Earth at the Utah test range.

For more than eight months in space, Rocket Lab’s 300kg-class spacecraft has successfully provided power, communications, ground control, and attitude control to allow Varda’s capsule to grow Ritonavir crystals, a drug commonly used as an antiviral medication for HIV and hepatitis C.

Due to the initial planned reentry date being adjusted from late 2023, Rocket Lab’s spacecraft has been required to operate for more than double its intended orbital lifespan, which it has done without issue.

If all goes as planned, the capsule will land on February 21, 2024. Whether those drugs are still viable and sellable remains unknown. The delay due to government red-tape might have made them useless.

Nonetheless, a success in recovering those samples, viable or not, would establish Varda’s business plan. With three more missions planned, all to be launched and controlled by Rocket Lab, it will be positioned well for the future, its capsule a method for manufacturing a number of products in weightlessness that are needed on Earth but can only be made in space.

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India deorbits a defunct satellite early, in a controlled manner

9:20 am

India’s space agency ISRO yesterday successfully deorbited its defunct Cartosat-2 satellite, using the satellite’s leftover fuel to bring it down in a controlled manner, about three decades sooner than its orbit would have decayed naturally.

The satellite was launched in 2007 to provide detailed ground images of India, and completed its mission in 2019. As noted in ISRO’S press release:

ISRO opted to lower its perigee using leftover fuel to comply with international guidelines on space debris mitigation. This involved reducing collision risks and ensuring safe end-of-life disposal, following recommendations from organizations like the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UN-COPOUS) and the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC).

While such actions are a good thing, that governments in India and Europe are suddenly making a big deal about it now — after almost 3/4s of a century of inaction — is not for those reasons, but to lay the political groundwork for allowing the international community, led by the UN, to impose new regulations on all space efforts, both government and private.

Be warned. They are the government, and they are here to help you.

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China targets May 2024 for launch of its Chang’e-6 lunar sample return mission

9:10 am

The Moon's far side
The Moon’s far side. Click for interactive map.

China is now working to a May 2024 launch of its Chang’e-6 lunar sample return mission to bring back about four pounds of material from the far side of the Moon.

The map to the right, created from a global mosaic of Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) imagery, shows the planned location of Chang’e-6’s landing site, in Apollo Basin. The landing site of China’s previous mission to the Moon’s far side, Chang’e-4 and its rover Yutu, is also shown. Both are still operating there, since landing five years ago on January 2, 2019.

Chang’e-6’s mission will be similar to China’s previous lunar sample mission, Chang’e-5, which included a lander, ascender, orbiter, and returner. It launched in November 23, 2020, landed a week later, and within two days grabbed its samples and its ascender lifted off. The samples were back on Earth by December 16, 2020.

There are indications however that Chang’e-6 might spend more time on the surface before its ascender lifts off with samples.

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The shoreline of a Martian lava sea

3:45 pm

The shoreline of a Martian lava sea
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on October 2, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The science team labeled this a “lava margin.” The darker material on the right is apparently a newer deposit of lava, flowing on top of the lighter lava on the left. The newer deposit is only about three feet thick, so it had to have flowed fast almost like water to cover this large area with such a thin layer before freezing. Even so, this new lava layer has a roughness greater than the older layer below it. Either the older layer is smoother because of erosion from wind over eons, or the lava in these two layers was comprised of slightly different materials that froze with different textures.

The small ridges appear to be wrinkle ridges, created when material shrinks as it freezes.

This margin marks the edge of a very large flood lava event, as illustrated by the overview map below.
» Read more

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OSIRIS-REx brought home twice as much material from Bennu than planned

10:17 am

The inside of OSIRIS-REx's sample return capsule
The material found inside the sample return
capsule. Click for original image.

Curators cataloging the material returned by OSIRIS-REx’s sample capsule from the asteroid Bennu have now completed weighing the material,l and have discovered that the spacecraft grabbed more than twice as much material from Bennu as planned.

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft delivered 4.29 ounces (121.6 grams) of material from asteroid Bennu when it returned to Earth on Sep. 24, 2023; the largest asteroid sample ever collected in space and over twice the mission’s requirement. The mission team needed at least 60 grams of material to meet the mission’s science goals, an amount that had already been exceeded before the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM) head was completely opened.

More than 60 grams were recovered outside the capsule that had stuck to it during touch-and-go operations. Once they were able to open the capsule and weigh the material inside, they found it had captured as much stuff, so that in total the mission brought back a double complement of material.

This material will now be distributed to scientists worldwide for study. It is likely that it will overturn almost all assumptions presently held about the make-up of the solar system’s asteroid population, since previous to the recent asteroid sample return missions of OSIRIS-REx and Japan’s Hayabusa-2 our only samples came from material that survived after burning through the Earth’s atmosphere. That journey resulted in an incomplete and biased census, with the most delicate material destroyed.

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Space Force cancels major satellite contract with Northrop Grumman

10:02 am

The Space Force today announced it has cancelled a major multi-satellite contract with Northrop Grumman, worth almost a billion dollars, because of cost overruns and scheduling delays.

Northrop was formally notified last month of the termination within “our restricted Space Business,” the defense contractor said in a regulatory filing, using jargon for classified programs. The filing offered no details on the classified satellite or the reasons it was called off, which were provided by people who commented on condition of anonymity because of its secret status.

Based on previous contract announcements, this cancellation appears to be the contract awarded to Northrop Grumman in August 2023, as part of two awards, one to Northrop and the second to Lockheed Martin, with each building 36 satellites of a 72 satellite communications constellation. The Northrop contract was valued at $733 million.

Apparently in the six months since, the Space Force found that Northrop Grumman wasn’t doing a satisfactory. Whether Lockheed Martin will pick up the contract to replace Northrop however is not clear. The Space Force might put it up for bid again.

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SpaceX successfully launches Intuitive Machines Odysseus lunar lander

11:20 pm

South Pole of Moon with landing sites

SpaceX has successfully launched Intuitive Machines commercial Nova-C-class Odysseus lunar lander, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral at 1:05 am (Eastern) on February 15th.

This was the third launch in less than eleven hours today, and the second launch by SpaceX. The first stage successfully completed its 18th flight, landing back at Cape Canaveral.

The green dot on the map to the right shows the planned landing site for Odysseus, next to a crater with a permanently shadowed interior, though it will have no way to travel into it. This will also be the closest landing to the Moon’s south pole, and if all goes well, will take place eight days from today, where it will operate for about ten Earth days. You can find out more about the lander’s payloads and mission from the press kit [pdf].

It must be emphasized that like India’s Vikram lander and Pragyan rover, Japan’s SLIM lander, and Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander, Odysseus is mostly an engineering test to prove out the landing systems. If this spacecraft does any science on the lunar surface that will be a bonus.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

14 SpaceX
8 China
2 Iran
2 Russia

American private enterprise now leads the entire world combined 16 to 14 in successful launches, with SpaceX by itself is now tied the rest of the world combined (excluding American companies) 14 to 14.

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Russia launches Progress freighter to ISS

8:34 pm

Russia today (February 15th in Kazakhstan) successfully used its Soyuz-2 rocket to launch a Progress freighter to ISS.

As happens on launches from Kazakstan to ISS, the rocket’s core stage and strap-on boosters crashed within Kazakstan inside planned crash zones.

This was supposed to be the third launch today, but SpaceX’s second launch today, this time of 22 Starlink satellites, was scrubbed due to weather and reschduled 24 hours till tomorrow at Vandenberg. There is still one more launch scheduled today, SpaceX launching Intuitive Machines Nova-C lunar lander at 9:57 pm (Pacific).

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

13 SpaceX
8 China
2 Iran
2 Russia

American private enterprise still leads the entire world combined 15 to 14 in successful launches, with SpaceX by itself now trailing the rest of the world combined (excluding American companies) 13 to 14.

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