Tag: engineering

Rogozin: Expect delays for future Russian lunar probes

9:45 am

China/Russian Lunar base roadmap
The so-called Chinese-Russian partnership to explore
the Moon.

According to a statement by Dmitry Rogozin, head of Roscosmos, yesterday in the Russian state-run press, the launch of two unmanned probes to the Moon, Luna-26 and Luna-27, are likely to be postponed due to “the current circumstances.”

“As for the Luna-26 lunar orbiter and the Luna-27 heavy lander mission, possibly, it will be adjusted taking into account that in the current situation we will be spending the main financial and industrial resources on increasing the orbital group. Now it is more important,” the space chief emphasized.

The Roscosmos CEO also asked for understanding if the mission is postponed. “Science is very important but now we are talking about the viability of Russia’s orbital group, about bringing it to a new level, its work as a group of double and military designation. Yet we are not postponing the lunar missions for long,” he added.

Rogozin added that Luna-25, scheduled for launch this year, has not been postponed.

Apparently the more than $1 billion of income that Roscosmos has lost by its refusal to launch OneWeb’s satellites is forcing it to make choices. For the government, the priority has to be launching communications, weather, navigation, and military surveillance satellites. Being tight on cash, Rogozin thus has no recourse but to favor those launches over any purely science missions.

This decision also demonstrates that Russia’s so-called partnership with China to explore the Moon, as shown in the graphic to the right that was released by China and Russia in June 2021, is pure hogwash. as I noted then:

Of the three Russian missions, Luna 25 is scheduled to launch later this year, making it the first all-Russian-built planetary mission in years and the first back to the Moon since the 1970s. The other two Russian probes [Luna-26 and Luna-27] are supposedly under development, but based on Russia’s recent track record in the past two decades for promised space projects, we have no guarantee they will fly as scheduled, or even fly at all.

Rogozin also said yesterday that he plans further talks with China in May to further their partnership concerning lunar exploration and building a lunar base. Let me translate: “We need cash to launch anything, and hope the Chinese will provide some.”

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As Curiosity retreats from rough country, scientists look at the future geology it will see

3:51 pm

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Cool image time! For the past two weeks the Curiosity science team has been gingerly and slowing backing the rover off from the very rough terrain of the Greenheugh pediment, as shown on the overview map to the right. The blue dot indicates Curiosity’s present position, with the red dotted line marking its original planned route, now abandoned.

The main question remains: Where to go next? At this point the science team is still debating their exact path forward. As Catherine Weitz of the Planetary Science Institute explained to me in an email today,

The Curiosity team is still working out the details. Maybe in another month or so the new route will be finalized so stay tuned.

No matter what route they eventually choose, the white arrows mark one of the more interesting upcoming geological features that the scientists very much intend Curiosity to reach. In a paper published at the end of March in which Weitz was the lead author, they describe this “marker horizon” as follows:
» Read more

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China plans a constellation of communications/GPS-type satellites around Moon

9:43 am

The new colonial movement: According to a statement by one Chinese official on April 24th, China now plans to launch a constellation of communications/GPS-type satellites that will orbit the Moon and provide support for its unmanned and manned missions to the surface.

China will take the lead in demonstrating a small, lunar relay communication and navigation system, Wu Yanhua, deputy director of the China National Space Administration (CNSA), told Chinese media on April 24. The first launch for the small constellation could take place in 2023 or 2024, according to Wu, who added that countries around the world are welcome to jointly build it.

That first launch will likely be a relay satellite to support the first unmanned landers/rovers targeting the lunar south pole. It will also likely be the first of several satellites designed to provide service long term for China’s planned manned lunar base, what it has dubbed the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS). Though announced as a project partnered with Russia, expect a large bulk of the work to be done by China.

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Dunes on Jupiter’s volcano moon Io?

9:35 am

Dunes on Io?
Click for full image.

The uncertainty of science: According to a just published paper, scientists now propose that the dune-like ridges long known to exist on Io, Jupiter’s volcano-covered moon, might actually be dunes, even though Io has no real atmosphere.

The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and annotated to post here, was taken by the Galileo while it orbited Jupiter from 1995 to 2003. It illustrates what the scientists believe is the proposed process:

McDonald and his colleagues used mathematical equations to simulate the force required to move grains on Io and calculated the path those grains would take. The study simulated the movement of a single grain of basalt or frost, revealing that the interaction between flowing lava and sulfur dioxide beneath the moon’s surface creates venting that is dense and fast moving enough to form large dune-like features on the moon’s surface, according to the statement.

In what might be a monumental understatement about the reality of interplanetary geology, McDonald said this in the press release: “This work tells us that the environments in which dunes are found are considerably more varied than the classical, endless desert landscapes on parts of Earth.”

Damn right. The possibility of unexpected geology of all kinds on the millions of planets, moon, and asteroids not yet studied is endless, and guaranteed.

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SpaceX’s Freedom spacecraft docks with ISS

9:15 am

Capitalism in space: As planned SpaceX’s Freedom capsule successfully docked with ISS last night, delivering four NASA astronauts to ISS for a five-month mission.

This launch was the sixth manned flight to ISS by SpaceX, and the seventh overall, with two of those seven launches entirely commercial and paid for by private customers. It appears that, based on already announced plans, that ratio between government and private customers should continue during the next few years, though beyond that expect the private launches to eventually outpace the government ones. When that begins to happen SpaceX might decide to expand its fleet from the four capsules (Endeavour, Resilience, Endurance, and Freedom) it presently operates.

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Ukrainian rocket for Nova Scotia spaceport so far unaffected by war

9:07 am

Capitalism in space: According to the CEO of Maritime Launch Services, the Canadian company that is building a spaceport in Nova Scotia, work on the Ukrainian Cyclone-4M rocket that the spaceport wants to offer customers has as yet not been impacted by the invasion by Russia.

Steve Matier, CEO of Maritime Launch Services, says daily planning work continues with the makers of the Cyclone-4M rocket, who are based in Dnipro, Ukraine. Matier said in an interview Tuesday his company still hopes to conduct its first launch sometime in 2023, once it gets final construction and environmental approval from the province for its proposed facilities near Canso, N.S.

However, Matier also said the first launches from the spaceport will not use the Cyclone. Instead, these launches would use smaller unnamed rockets putting smaller payloads in lower orbit. Since the company’s initial business model had been to offer to satellite customers not only the spaceport but the rocket, this statement suggests the company has changed that business model and is now marketing the spaceport to other rocket companies.

Matier’s comments were in connection with the announcement that Maritime has now become a publicly traded company.

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Ingenuity photographs Perseverance’s abandoned parachute on 26th flight

10:05 am

Perseverance's parachute, as photographed by Ingenuity
Click for full image.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

In the past week the Mars helicopter Ingenuity successfully completed its 26th and 27th flights, with the first specifically planned to fly over the parachute that had been used by Perseverance when it landed on Mars on February 18, 2021. The first photo to the right, enhanced, cropped, and reduced to post here, is the color photo of that parachute that Ingenuity took during that flight on April 20th. Near the top of the frame you can also see the equipment used to attach the chute to the rover. The photo looks to the southwest.

The map to the right indicates the flight paths for both hops, both slightly more than 1,000 feet total. The green dot marks Ingenuity’s position yesterday, the red dot Perseverance’s position. The small white dot indicates the parachute’s location.

On April 8th Perseverance had snapped a picture of the parachute, from the position indicated by the black dot. Since that photo was taken from a distance, it could not show much. Ingenuity’s more recent photo from overhead however captures the chute quite clearly, and suggests that in the year since landing the weak Martian wind has shifted its edges slightly while depositing some dust on its surface.

You can see the changes at the edges by comparing Ingenuity’s picture with a photo taken on February 19, 2021 by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). In Ingenuity’s picture the near edge of the parachute especially appears to have become bunched up over time, suggesting the prevailing and strongest winds have come from the south.

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SpaceX successfully launches 4 astronauts into orbit

1:05 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX early this morning successfully used its Falcon 9 rocket to launch its new capsule, Freedom, carrying four astronauts into orbit and heading to a docking with ISS this evening.

The first stage successfully landed on the drone ship in the Atlantic, completing its fourth flight.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

16 SpaceX
11 China
5 Russia
2 ULA
2 Rocket Lab

The U.S. now leads China 23 to 11 in the national rankings. In fact, at this moment the U.S. leads all other nations combined, 23 to 19.

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Watch first flight of SpaceX’s fourth capsule, Freedom, carrying four NASA astronauts

10:23 pm

The next launch of a NASA crew to ISS is scheduled to occur tonight at 3:52 am (Eastern) using SpaceX’s new capsule, Freedom, the fourth in the company’s fleet of manned spacecraft. Note too that the first stage of this Falcon 9 rocket will be making its fourth flight into space.

I have embedded the live stream below. As I write this, at 1:19 am (Eastern) the crew has just entered the capsule. Go here for details about the flight, which will be a five month mission.

Commander Kjell Lindgren, veteran of one previous expedition on the space station, leads the four-person crew awaiting liftoff Wednesday. He will be joined by pilot Bob Hines and mission specialist Jessica Watkins, two first-time fliers from NASA’s astronaut corps. European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, a native of Italy who spent nearly 200 days in orbit in 2014 and 2015, rounds out the crew.

If the launch goes well, Freedom will dock with ISS about sixteen hours later.

If you watch, I must once again note that every person you see aiding the astronauts will be a SpaceX employee. Except for some of the announcers and NASA’s mission control for operating ISS, the launch mission control and everything else is run by this privately owned commercial company.

» Read more

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SpaceX’s signs up another airline to use Starlink Wi-Fi on its planes

9:48 am

Capitalism in space: Hawaiian Airlines has now become the second commercial airline company to agree to use SpaceX’s Starlink Wi-Fi on its airplanes.

Hawaiian Airlines said Monday that it will offer free wireless internet service from SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network on flights between Hawaii and the U.S. mainland, Asia and Oceania. The airline said it is in the early stages of putting the service in place on some aircraft next year.

Honolulu-based Hawaiian said it’s the first deal between Elon Musk’s space company and a major airline, although charter operator JSX announced a deal with SpaceX last week.

Expect all the American airlines to soon switch to Starlink. The low orbit of the satellites and its high speed make it superior to the other satellite options presently available.

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InSight scientists publish paper describing last year’s big Martian quakes

9:43 am

Figure 5: global map of located Martian quakes

The InSight science team has now published a paper [pdf] describing in detail what they gleaned from the two large earthquakes the lander detected on Mars last year, measuring 4.1 and 4.2 magnitudes.

The map above, figure 5 of their paper, marks their best estimate of the quakes’ locations, dubbed S0976a and S1000a. From the caption:

Mars surface relief map showing InSight’s location (orange triangle), the location of other located mars-quakes (magenta dots) that cluster around 30° distance, close to Cerberus Fossae, and S0976a, located within Valles Marineris just north of Sollis Planum. Because no back azimuth can be determined for S1000a, its location is predicted to be somewhere within the shaded region between 107° and 147° from InSight. The event’s preferred distance (116°) is marked with the white dashed line. The black dotted lines mark radii around InSight up to 80°.

A review of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) high resolution images of that part of Valles Marineris where S096a occurred will likely uncover a whole bunch taken since last August, all attempting to detect any actual surface changes produced by quake. I think I’ll do that review, and see if I can spot something.

The paper also notes the uniqueness of S1000a, which lasted 94 minutes, the longest so far detected on Mars. The complexity of its signal also makes locating it difficult, though the most likely possible locations — indicated by the white dashed line in the map above — crosses through the Tharsis Bulge where Mars’ biggest volcanoes are found.

Sadly, InSight will likely shut down before the end of this year due to loss of power, so until another seismometer is sent there no further Martian quakes will be detected.

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SLS rocket rolled back to VAB

9:13 am

NASA’s SLS rocket has now been rolled back to the vehicle assembly building (VAB) so that engineers can assess the various problems that prevented the agency from completing a full dress rehearsal countdown last week.

Over the next several days, the team will extend the work platforms to allow access to SLS and Orion. In the coming weeks, teams will work on replacing a faulty upper stage check valve and a small leak within the tail service mast umbilical ground plate housing, and perform additional checkouts before returning to the launch pad for the next wet dress rehearsal attempt.

More details about these problems can be found here.

The bottom line is that these engineering fixes are certain to take at least two months to fix. Then NASA must decide what next to do. If it decides to redo the dress rehearsal countdown, then an actual launch cannot happen sooner than July, and only if they proceed directly to launch after completing the rehearsal. If the rocket is rolled back to the VAB after the next rehearsal the launch will be delayed further, into August or September.

And all that assumes the next rehearsal goes perfect, something that seems unlikely based on what has happened so far.

The delays are a problem because the first stage’s two strap-on solid rocket boosters are already well past their “use-by” date of January ’22. The possibility that NASA will have to unstack this rocket and replace these boosters is growing. If that happens the launch cannot occur sooner than early ’23, if then.

Worse, these delays cause all other subsequent SLS launches to be delayed as well. Right now the manned mission to the Moon, presently scheduled for ’25, is likely going to be pushed back to ’26.

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