India’s PSLV rocket today successfully put two Singapore satellites into orbit, one a radar satellite and the other a large cubesat testing smallsat communication technologies.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
25 SpaceX
16 China
6 Russia
3 Rocket Lab
3 India
American private enterprise still leads China 28 to 16 in the national rankings, and is tied at 28 with the entire world combined.
An evening pause: From the youtube page:
This amazing piece of ground breaking onboard footage allows us to ride onboard one of the Gulf sponsored JWA Ford GT40s for a lap of the Le Mans circuit in 1968. This early onboard coverage was such a big deal, Stirling Moss does the narration. Its cool to see the Le Mans circuit as it was, without chicanes and with primitive safety features.
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
Starship/Superheavy at T+4:02, just after the self-destruct command
was issued
In the past twenty-four hours we have another wonderful demonstration of the utter bankruptcy of the American press in the manner in which it has decided to describe yesterday’s first test launch of Starship/Superheavy. Here are just a few headline examples:
Every single one of those headlines implies that the explosion was the launch’s failure. If you read the linked articles you find that many repeat that implication in their reports.
None are correct. » Read more
After some hints in the past month that the not-yet-released new space policy of the Modi government of India would favor commercial space over the government agencies that have run India’s space program from inception, the newly released space policy [pdf] confirms those hints.
Essentially, the policy transfers power from India’s space agency ISRO — which has always controlled all Indian launches and space development — to other government agencies, which in turn are tasked not to develop new space projects but to “ensure a level playing field for the utilization of all facilities created using public expenditure, by prioritizing their use among Government entities and [private companies].”
The policy is unlike any government document I have ever read from India. It is short, direct, clearly written, and to the point. It clearly takes control of space from ISRO and gives supervisory control to two new agencies, the Indian National Space Promotion & Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACEe) and NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), both of which are tasked to encourage the development of an independent private commercial space industry.
The policy is of course not perfect, as the power of the government bureaucracy in India is deep and wide. ISRO still has the task of developing new space technologies, such as India’s human spaceflight program. Whether it will be required to slowly become a customer of commercial resources rather then being the builder of its own we shall have to wait and see. NSIL in turn has been given ISRO’s past commercial responsibilities — such as launching rockets for profit — so that that the government bureaucracy can still compete with the private sector for market share.
All in all, however, it appears that the Modi government wishes to mimic the changes that have occurred in the U.S., transitioning from a government-run space program to a privately owned space industry from which the government buys what it needs (as outlined in my 2017 policy paper Capitalism in Space).
The scientists whose prediction of a more active upcoming solar maximum that has so far turned out more accurate than the consensus prediction have now updated their prediction, lowering it somewhat but also predicting the maximum will occur one year early, in 2024 instead of 2025.
The team’s finalized forecast for the current cycle expects it to peak in late 2024, one year earlier than NASA and NOAA had predicted. The cycle, the team thinks, will reach about 185 monthly sunspots during its maximum and thus be somewhat milder than what the team originally forecasted. This peak intensity will place this cycle at about the average compared to the historical record.
In other words, now that we are about halfway to maximum, they have concluded that while NOAA’s prediction was too low, their prediction was too high. They have now adjusted their expectations to be closer to what they now think will happen.
A short solar cycle however has historically corresponded to much higher sunspot activity. If this new prediction is correct (a short cycle with a mild maximum), it will mean that the Sun is still behaving in ways that the solar science community does not understand, or can predict.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on March 2, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and was taken not as part of any specific research request but by the MRO science team to fill a gap in its schedule while also maintaining the camera’s temperature. Sometimes these somewhat random times show nothing of interest. Sometimes they are fascinating, as in this case.
The photo shows what appear to be a spray of small impacts on an easily melted surface. Imagine spraying hot molten lava on a sheet of ice. Instead of creating a crater with an upraised rim, on impact each droplet would quickly melt a hole.
Did these small impacts all occur at the same time? My guess is yes, based on the overview map below.
» Read more
An official from Astrobotics confirmed this week that an explosion during testing of the Centaur upper stage of its new Vulcan rocket will delay that rocket’s first launch for at least one to two months, from May to June or July.
On March 29, Tory Bruno, the CEO of Colorado-based spacecraft makers United Launch Alliance LLC, announced on his personal Twitter account that ULA’s Vulcan Centaur V rocket had experienced “an anomaly,” which preceded a tweet he shared on April 13 that showed a video of an explosion that occurred outside of a testing rig that housed the ULA rocket. He alluded to a hydrogen-related leak as being a possible culprit and in response the next day to other replies, Bruno said in a tweet that “June/July” will be the next earliest estimated launch timeline.
That timeline is the same one that John Thornton, CEO of North Side-based Astrobotic, shared during a speech as part of a kickoff event for the Aviation and Robotics Summit in the Strip District on Tuesday.
The main payload on that Vulcan inaugural launch is Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander, carrying several NASA science instruments to the Gruithusien Domes region on the Moon, as indicated by the white dot on the picture above.
Rocket Lab engineers, having tested a previously flown Rutherford engine numerous times after recovering it from a launch in May 2022, have now approved that engine for reflight, and are inserting into their Electron rocket assembly line for launch sometime in the third quarter of this year.
The company also revealed that it has now completely abandoned the use of a helicopter in first stage recovery, and will instead pick up all first stages after they have splashed down in the ocean.
Extensive analysis of returned stages shows that Electron withstands an ocean splashdown and engineers expect future complete stages to pass qualification and acceptance testing for re-flight with minimal refurbishment. As a result, Rocket Lab is moving forward with marine operations as the primary method of recovering Electron for re-flight. This is expected to take the number of Electron missions suitable for recovery from around 50% to between 60-70% of missions due to fewer weather constraints faced by marine recovery vs mid-air capture, while also reducing costs associated with helicopter operations.
Rocket Lab will assess the opportunities for flying a complete pre-flown first stage booster following the launch of the pre-flown Rutherford engine in the third quarter this year.
Rocket Lab is presently the only operational American company besides SpaceX that is aggressively pursuing reuse of its rocket. ULA says it wishes to recover and reuse the engines of its still-unflown Vulcan rocket, but development of this concept has been very slow. Many other new companies claim their rockets will be reusable, but none has yet even launched.
According to statements by North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-un published in its state-run press, that country is only weeks away from launching a spy satellite into orbit.
[S]ome observers said the North may attempt to launch the satellite ahead of President Yoon Suk Yeol’s upcoming state visit to the U.S. later this month. “There is a high possibility that North Korea may attempt a launch around April 23-24, on the basis that weather conditions are favorable, to show off that it has the upper hand on the Korean Peninsula issue by putting it on the table during the South Korea-U.S. summit,” Yang Mu-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies, said.
Some observers, however, projected that it will take a few more months for the North to put the satellite into orbit given the time needed for technical preparations.
North Korea has completed two previous orbital launches, using its solid-fueled rocket missile technology. It is presently unclear if this new launch will use the same, or fly something new.
The local city council in Brook Park, Ohio, yesterday approved by a vote of 7-0 the purchase of nearly thirteen acres by the British company Blue Abyess to allow it to quickly build its proposed private astronaut training facility.
The Brook Park location will be built around a very large, 150-foot deep, multi-level pool. It’s an area that can replicate what life would be like in outer space and allow for the necessary training, dubbed astronaut boot camp for space exploration. “They’re not swimming pools. They’re aimed at industry, whether that’s marine offshore energy, maritime defense, subsea technology, human performance in extreme environments, or how do humans cope with green space environments,” Vickers said.
Officials say this project could be a huge economic driver, potentially bringing more than 100 jobs to the area.
In addition, it will likely generate major interest from tourists.
The facility will also include a hotel for those private astronauts, whether commercial or tourist. Located next to the Glenn Research Center, the company hopes to provide its services to both the public and NASA.
Starship and Superheavy, having just cleared the tower
In a spectacular first orbital launch attempt, SpaceX’s Superheavy and Starship successfully lifted off, clearing the tower and continuing through max-Q (maximum dynamic pressure). It then reached about 24 miles altitude when the rocket began to slowly spinn just prior to main engine cutoff and stage separation. At that point, because engine cutoff and separation had not occurred as planned, the engineering team used the flight termination system to destroy it so as to eliminate any risk to anyone on the ground.
As the announcers noted repeatedly, if the rocket simply cleared the tower they would consider this a magnificent success, considering that they had never fired Superheavy before in a real countdown. That Superheavy performed exactly as it should for almost its entire flight means SpaceX is that much closer to getting Starship into orbit than one would think at this stage of testing.
» Read more
One of my readers, who wishes to go by is nickname Doubting Thomas on Behind the Black, went to Boca Chica earlier this week with the hope of seeing the live first orbital launch of Superheavy with Starship stacked on top. Unfortunately, the launch on April 17, 2023 was scrubbed, and he could not remain in Boca Chica for the now rescheduled launch early tomorrow morning on April 20th.
He sent me some pictures of that experience, however, which I post here with his permission. The best of course is the one to the right, of Starship stacked on Superheavy on the launchpad. This was taken before the roads were closed, and shows how incredibly close the general public can get to that launchpad simply by driving past on a public road.
The next few pictures give us a glimpse at the options people have for viewing future Boca Chica launches.
» Read more
