engineering – Page 360 – Behind The Black

Update on CAPSTONE in lunar orbit

February 8, 2023 8:58 pm Robert Zimmerman

Link here. The key takeaway is that this commercial privately built and operated lunar smallsat is doing what it was designed to do, even as its operators continue to overcome periodic technical problems.

For example, beginning January 26th the spacecraft stopped receiving commands from ground controllers. The problem solved itself when on February 6th “an automatic command-loss timer rebooted” the spacecraft. Meanwhile,

CAPSTONE has completed more than 12 orbits in its near-rectilinear halo orbit – the same orbit [that will be used by Lunar] Gateway – surpassing one of the mission’s objectives to achieve at least six orbits. The mission team has performed two orbit maintenance maneuvers in this time. These maneuvers were originally scheduled to happen once per orbit, but the mission team was able to reduce the frequency while maintaining the correct orbit. This reduces risk and complexity for the mission and informs plans for future spacecraft flying in this orbit, like Gateway.

Essentially, mission controllers are figuring out the best and most efficient methods for eventually maintaining Lunar Gateway’s orbit around the Moon, when it gets there.

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Engineers struggle to salvage Lunar Flashlight cubesat

February 8, 2023 8:52 pm Robert Zimmerman

Because of thruster failures shortly after its December 11, 2022, NASA’s technology test lunar orbiter cubesat Lunar Flashlight has been unable to reach its planned orbit around the Moon.

Instead, first engineers have attempted an improvisation with the one thruster that had not initially failed, and when that did not work are now hoping to instead use the Earth’s gravity to shift its present path so that it will periodically fly over the Moon’s south pole, when it could possible still use its lasers reflectometer to gather data in the permanently shadowed craters there.

[Other than the thrusters, t]he rest of the CubeSat’s onboard systems are fully functional, and the mission recently successfully tested its four-laser reflectometer. This mini-instrument is the first of its kind and is designed and calibrated to seek out surface ice inside the permanently shadowed craters at the Moon’s South Pole.

As a engineering test satellite, everything that has happened has been to the good, as it has allowed these engineers to push this cutting edge cubesat technology to the limit.

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Dormant volcanic vent on Mars

February 8, 2023 12:36 pm Robert Zimmerman

Click for original image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on November 19, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the science team labels “Intersecting Fissures.”

These fissures stand out distinctly on this terrain. If you look at an MRO context camera image, showing a wider view, you can see that the surrounding plain is relatively featureless, with few craters. Except for some strange and inexplicable dark streaks close by to the east, some mottled but flat terrain to the north, and a long but very faint similar east-west fissure to the south, this runelike fissure is the only major topological feature for miles around.

That context camera image also shows that this fissure sits on top of a very faint bulge, with hints that material had flowed downhill from the fissure’s western and southern outlets. Located very close to the equator, it is unlikely that any of those flow features are glacial, and in fact they do not have that appearance in the context camera picture. Instead, they have the look of Martian lava, fast-moving and far less viscous than Earth-lava, and thus able to cover large areas much more quickly.

Thus, all the evidence says that this feature is a dormant volcanic vent, sitting on a flood lava plain. And the overview map below cements this conclusion.
» Read more

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The landing sites for two upcoming lunar landers

February 8, 2023 9:51 am Robert Zimmerman

Click for interactive map.

The approximate landing sites for two different lunar landers have now been revealed.

The map to the right, with the south pole indicated by the white cross, shows both, plus the planned landing site for Russia’s Luna-25 lander, presently targeting a summer ’23 launch. The green dot marks Luna-25’s landing site, inside Boguslawsky Crater.

The red dot marks the landing site in for India’s Chandrayaan-3 lunar lander/rover, now tentatively scheduled for launch by the end of ’23. This mission will put a small rover on the surface, and is essentially a redo of the failed Chandrayaan-2 mission from 2019.

The yellow dot in Malapert-A crater is now the likely landing site for Intuitive Machines Nova-C lander. This site is a change from the spacecraft’s original landing site in Oceanus Procellarum (where Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander is now going). In making this change, the launch of Nova-C also slipped to late June 2023, from the previously announced launch date of early 2023.

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ULA stacks Vulcan-Centaur rocket for ground tests prior to first launch

February 8, 2023 9:14 am Robert Zimmerman

ULA’s new Vulcan-Centaur rocket has finally been stacked in the company’s assembly facility at Cape Canaveral, ready to be rolled out for its first launchpad fueling tests prior to its first launch, tentatively scheduled for the end of March.

The odds of that launch date being met is quite uncertain. Right now neither the rocket’s payloads nor its solid rocket strap-on boosters have been added, and before that will happen the company plans to first roll the rocket out to the launchpad, do fueling and countdown tests. It will then roll it back to the assembly building to stack those components, and then roll it back to the launchpad for launch.

To meet that launch target everything must go perfectly during these preliminary operations, something that is generally unexpected for a rocket’s first launch. ULA however has an advantage, in that it has already done much of this testing using a dummy Vulcan, and it also has decades of experience launching rockets.

Much rides on this first launch. The payloads include Astrobotic’s first lunar lander, Peregrine, as well as Amazon’s first two test satellites for its Kuiper internet constellation. Also, ULA needs to complete two successful launches in order to get certified to begin its commercial launches for the military.

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Virgin Orbit narrows cause of launch failure to $100 component

February 8, 2023 9:04 am Robert Zimmerman

Though its investigation is not completed, Virgin Orbit has narrowed the cause of its January 9th launch failure from Cornwall to a $100 component in the second stage engine of its LaunchOne rocket.

Speaking on a panel at the SmallSat Symposium in Mountain View, California, Dan Hart said it was still premature to formally declare the root cause of the failed Jan. 9 flight of the company’s LauncherOne rocket on the “Start Me Up” mission from Spaceport Cornwall in England. However, he said while that investigation continues, evidence was pointing to a component in the rocket’s second stage engine.

“Everything points to, right now, a filter that was clearly there when we assembled the rocket but was not there as the second stage engine started, meaning it was dislodged and caused mischief downstream,” he said. He didn’t go into details about that component, other than to say that it was not an expensive item. “This is like a $100 part that took us out.”

Hart said the company would no longer use that filter and was “looking broadly” at other potential fixes.

No timeline as to when the company will complete the investigation or resume launches has been released. Since both the FAA and the UK’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch are involved, we should expect it to take longer than necessary.

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Relativity’s Terran-1 rocket on launchpad for final tests prior to first launch

February 8, 2023 8:59 am Robert Zimmerman

Relativity has once again stacked its Terran-1 rocket on its launchpad at Cape Canaveral for its final ground tests prior to first launch, hopefully later this month.

The launch date has not been announced, nor has a specific schedule for those tests, which will likely include several dress rehearsal countdowns where the rocket will be fueled as if for launch.

Terran-1 is a smallsat rocket, most of which has been 3D printed. If successful, Relativity plans to follow it in 2024 with the 3D printed Terran-R, which would be comparable in size and power to SpaceX’s Falcon 9. The company also claims that rocket will be entirely reusable.

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Perseverance and Ingenuity begin the journey up onto Jezero Crater’s delta

February 7, 2023 11:17 am Robert Zimmerman

Perseverance's view ahead, February 7, 2023
To see the original images, go here and here.

Click for interactive map.

After two years of detailed exploration on the floor of Jezero crater, the rover Perseverance and its Mars helicopter scout Ingenuity have finally begun the climb up onto the delta that in eons past flowed into Jezero Crater.

The panorama above was created from two Perseverance images taken by its right navigation camera on February 7, 2023 (Sol 699) (here and here), looking forward and uphill. On the overview map to the right the blue dot marks Perseverance’s location, with the yellow lines indicating the approximate area covered by this mosaic. The red dotted line in both images indicate approximately the rover’s eventually path.

Ingenuity’s present position is marked by the green dot. This is where the helicopter landed after completing its 42nd flight on February 4, 2023. Planned to fly 823 feet for 137 seconds, Ingenuity actually flew a slightly shorter distance, 814 feet, in that length of time. The difference is probably the result of Ingenuity’s need to find a good landing spot, and the one it found was slightly closer to its take-off point.

The flight however took the helicopter uphill, scouting the terrain that Perseverance plans to drive. While there is no terrain here that is much of a challenge for the rover, having the helicopter’s ground images in advance allows its operators to plan longer drives, as those images will help tell them what obstacles to avoid and route to choose.

The green oval indicates the area that Perseverance has left its first ten core samples for later pickup and return to Earth.

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Japan’s H3 rocket’s first launch delayed due to problem in “flight system”

February 7, 2023 9:24 am Robert Zimmerman

Japan’s space agency JAXA announced today that it will delay the first launch of its new H3 rocket for two days, to February 15, 2023, in order to fix an unidentified problem in the rocket’s “flight system.”

The H3 rocket’s first launch is already three years behind schedule. In 2022 the launch was delayed for a full year due to the discovery of defects in its main engines.

This government-controlled rocket was supposed to allow Japan to compete in the international launch market. It does not appear at this point that it will be able to do a very good job at that task. Though Mitsubishi is the main contractor, it appears JAXA is in charge and owns it. Such arrangements rarely produce a cheap, efficient, and reliable product for the commercial market.

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Virgin Galactic’s WhiteKnightTwo mother ship unveiled after major overhaul

February 7, 2023 9:15 am Robert Zimmerman

Virgin Galactic yesterday rolled its WhiteKnightTwo mother ship from its hanger after a 15-month overhaul in preparation for taxi and flight tests.

After some initial taxi and flight tests in Mojave in California, the plane will fly to New Mexico for further flight tests with Unity attached. Company officials hope to complete these test flights by the end of March, and then begin commercial flights shortly thereafter.

In comparing the pictures released yesterday at the link above with this 2009 picture, it appears the company completely replaced the central bar that connects the plane’s two passenger sections. In the older picture, that bar was not straight, but was built like a very shallow upside-down “V”, with the center point where a SpaceShipTwo spacecraft was attached.

The new bar is straight, and appears more robust.

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Russian engineers recommend staying with ISS through 2028

February 7, 2023 9:02 am Robert Zimmerman

Russian engineers yesterday concluded that ISS is technically capable of being operated through 2028.

However, Russia’s committee system for making any decisions is not done. This first analysis was done by Roscosmos’ top managers and its lower level engineers.

The proposed decision will now be considered at a meeting of the Scientific and Technical Council of Roscosmos. Based on its results, the state corporation will draft a message the Russian government.

At that point the Putin government will have to decide on an exit date from ISS. According to the article by Russia’s state-run press, “the minimum configuration of Russia’s own orbital outpost” will be in orbit by 2028, thus giving the government the option to leave ISS. We shall see.

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