Tag: European Space Agency

A new map of the magnetosphere of Mercury

12:11 pm

Map of Mercury's magnetosphere
Click for original.

Using data obtained during the June 2023 fly-by by the European-Japanese probe BepiColombo, scientists have now published a new detailed map of the magnetic field that surrounds Mercury.

That map is to the right. From the caption:

A textured sphere representing Mercury is shown with magnetic field lines compressed on the sunward side and streaming out into a tail on the nightside. The BepiColombo spacecraft’s trajectory is drawn passing through the magnetosphere from dawn to dusk, close to the planet’s surface. Various features in the magnetosphere are depicted and labelled with text. Following the order in which they were detected by the spacecraft, this includes the bow shock, magnetopause, low-latitude boundary layer, cold ion cloud, plasma sheet horn and ring current.

You can read the peer-reviewed paper here [pdf]. Note that this research does not include data obtained during BepiColumbo’s fourth fly-by of Mercury in September. Furthermore, the spacecraft will do two more fly-bys before arriving in orbit in 2026, where it will then separate into two separate orbiters in complementary orbits. Thus, this magnetic map of Mercury is merely a rough draft, and will be significantly refined by the end of the mission.

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ESA awards Polish rocket startup €2.4 million contract

9:33 am

The European Space Agency (ESA) has awarded a Polish rocket startup, dubbed SpaceForest, €2.4 million to upgrade its suborbital Perun rocket that the company has test launched twice in last year.

Perun runs on modified paraffin, commonly used as candle wax, and so its propellant is non-toxic. The rocket can be launched on a mobile launch pad, allowing for easy deployment at launch facilities around Europe. Last year, SpaceForest launched two full-scale models of its Perun rocket that flew to 22 km and 13 km altitude from the coastal town of Ustka, Poland, on the Baltic Sea.

This company is now the second Polish rocket startup to have successfully tested its rocket. The Łukasiewicz Institute of Aviation has completed suborbital test flights of its ILR-33 Amber 2K rocket, and has a deal to fly its next test from Norway’s commercial Andoya spaceport.

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Investigation into upper stage failure during Ariane-6’s first launch completed

8:38 am

The Ariane-6 rocket investigation team, including people from the European Space Agency (ESA), CNES (France’s space agency), ArianeGroup (which built and owns the rocket), and Arianespace (which presently manages the rocket), has identified the issue that caused the rocket’s upper stage failure during the rocket’s first launch in July.

In a 16 September update, the Task Force announced that the investigation had identified a single temperature measurement that “exceeded a predefined limit” as the root cause of the anomaly. The tripped limit caused the software to trigger a shutdown of the APU which ensured the rocket’s Vinci upper stage engine could not be restarted for the final burn.

In order to remedy this issue and ensure a similar shutdown does not occur in the future, the ignition preparation sequence, specifically the APU chill-down sequence, has been changed. The updated flight software is already being tested as teams prepare for the rocket’s first commercial flight which is set to take place before the end of the year.

Because of that incorrect temperature, the upper stage did not do its final burn, thereby stranding the stage and two demonstration return capsules in the wrong orbit. This prevented the test return of both capsules, as well as the test planned de-orbit of the stage over the ocean.

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Arianespace successfully completes the last launch of Avio’s Vega rocket

9:29 pm

Tonight the last launch of the Vega rocket, built by the Italian company Avio and managed by Arianespace, successfully lifted off from French Guiana, placing a European Earth observation satellite into orbit.

The launch was delayed several years because of a failure during a previous launch that required a major redesign of an engine. Further delays took place when Avio literally lost the tanks for the rocket’s upper stage, and had to improvise a solution (which has never been explained fully).

The rocket will now be replaced by the Vega-C, which after several more launches will be entirely owned and managed by Avio, which will market it to satellite customers without any significant participation of the government middleman Arianespace.

This was only the second launch by Europe in 2024, so the leader board of the 2024 launch race does not change.

86 SpaceX
37 China
10 Rocket Lab
9 Russia

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 101 to 56, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies 86 to 71.

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Due to thruster problem, the Mercury orbiter BepiColombo will arrive at Mercury almost one year late

9:05 am

The joint ESA and JAXA Mercury mission BepiColombo will now reach its destination eleven months late because its ion electric thrusters are producing less thrust than expected.

The spacecraft is actually made up of two orbiters, one built by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the second built by Japan’s space agency JAXA. During launch and the journey to Mercury each is attached to a third spacecraft called the Mercury Transfer Module (MTM), which has the large electric ion thrusters used for making the mid-course corrections prior to and after each fly-by of the Earth (once), Venus (twice), and Mercury (six) before finally entering orbit around Mercury. It has already completed the Earth, Venus and three Mercury fly-bys.

In April 2024 engineers discovered that during a mid-course correction on April 26st the MTM’s thrusters failed to produce the desired thrust.

Engineers identified unexpected electric currents between MTM’s solar array and the unit responsible for extracting power and distributing it to the rest of the spacecraft. Onboard data imply that this is resulting in less power available for electric propulsion. ESA’s BepiColombo Mission Manager, Santa Martinez explains: “Following months of investigations, we have concluded that MTM’s electric thrusters will remain operating below the minimum thrust required for an insertion into orbit around Mercury in December 2025.”

In order not to lose the mission entirely, the science team has come up with a new trajectory that will have it fly past Mercury on its fourth fly-by on September 4, 2024 only 103 miles above the surface, 22 miles closer than originally planned. This will give it a larger slingshot speed boost to help make up for the under-powered thrusters. It will then make its planned fifth and sixth Mercury fly-bys in December ’24 and January ’25, the adjusted route having it arrive in Mercury orbit eleven months later than planned, in November 2026.

This new plan however means that the pictures taken this week during the Mercury fly-by will provide some nice high resolution details, far better than those produced by the earlier fly-bys.

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Juice completes Earth fly-by, heads for Venus fly-by

9:07 am

Earth as seen by Juice
Earth as seen by Juice during fly-by.
Click for original image.

The European probe Juice yesterday successfully completed a close fly-by of the Earth and was thus successfully slingshoted on its way to its next fly-by, of Venus, on its way to Jupiter.

This fly-by was actually a double event. First Juice zipped past the Moon the day before, coming within 435 miles. Then, only one day later it passed the Earth at a distance of 4,230 miles, thus completing the first dual fly-by of the both the Earth and the Moon.

The flyby of the Moon increased Juice’s speed by 0.9 km/s relative to the Sun, guiding Juice towards Earth. The flyby of Earth reduced Juice’s speed by 4.8 km/s relative to the Sun, guiding Juice onto a new trajectory towards Venus. Overall, the lunar-Earth flyby deflected Juice by an angle of 100° compared to its pre-flyby path.

The inherently risky flyby required ultra-precise, real-time navigation, but is saving the mission around 100–150 kg of fuel. In the month before the flyby, spacecraft operators gave Juice slight nudges to put it on exactly the right approach trajectory. Then they tracked Juice 24/7 between 17–22 August.

The Venus fly-by will occur in August 2025, followed by additional Earth flys in September 2026 and January 2029. The spacecraft will finally arrive in Jupiter orbit in July 2031, where it is designed to study the large icy moons (Europa, Gandymede, and Calisto) of that gas giant.

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Juice completes fly-by of Moon

9:58 am

Juice's view of the Moon
Click for original image.

Europe’s Juice probe to Jupiter yesterday successfully completed its close fly-by of the Moon, shifting its path as it prepares for a close fly-by of the Earth today.

The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken during yesterday’s flyby. At its closest approach Juice was only 435 miles above the lunar surface. It will pass the Earth today at a distance of 4,230 miles.

If the Earth fly-by today is successful, Juice will then do flybys of Venus in August 2025, Earth in September 2026, and Earth again in January 2029, arriving in Jupiter orbit in July 2031, where it is designed to study the large icy moons (Europa, Gandymede, and Calisto) of that gas giant.

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Gaia space telescope identifies more than 350 asteroids with candidate moons

9:24 am

Using the Gaia space telescope, astronomers have identified 352 asteroids that the data suggests have smaller satellite asteroids in orbit around them.

In its data release 3, Gaia precisely pinpointed the positions and motions of 150 000+ asteroids — so precisely that scientists could dig deeper and hunt for asteroids displaying the characteristic ‘wobble’ caused by the tug of an orbiting companion (the same mechanism as displayed here for a binary star). Gaia also gathered data on asteroid chemistry, compiling the largest ever collection of asteroid ‘reflectance spectra’ (light curves that reveal an object’s colour and composition).

These results need to be confirmed by direct observation, as this method does involve some assumptions and uncertainties. If these numbers are confirmed however it will give planetary scientists a better census on the percentage of asteroids with moons, which in turn can be used to create better models of the formation of the solar system as well as the evolution of asteroids over time. At the moment scientists predict about one out of every six asteroids will have a moon. This data suggests that number might be high.

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Arianespace finally schedules last Vega launch

9:04 am

After improvising an upper stage fix because the rocket’s Italian manufacturer, Avio, literally lost the stage’s tanks, Arianespace on July 31, 2024 finally scheduled the last Vega rocket launch, targeting a September 3, 2024 lift off from French Guiana.

The change to the upper stage was required after the company managed to lose two of its four propellant tanks. As the production line for the AVUM upper stage tanks had been shut down in anticipation of the rocket’s retirement, Avio was forced to find a way to instead utilize the larger propellant tanks from the Vega C AVUM+ upper stage. With this process now complete, the company has a clear path toward the rocket’s swan song.

This rocket has been replaced by the more powerful Vega-C. Control and ownership on future launches has also been shifted from Arianespace back to Avio as part of Europe’s transition from using a government-run launch monopoly (Ariancespace) to relying on multiple competitive and independent private companies.

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Astroscale wins contract to deorbit OneWeb satellite

8:50 am

The orbital tug company Astroscale has won a $15 million contract from both the UK and European space agencies to launch a mission to rendezvous, grab and then deorbit a defunct OneWeb communications satellite.

The company, originally from Japan, has established operations in both the U.S. and Europe in order to win contracts from those regions, and had already signed contracts with OneWeb, several UK companies, the the European Space Agency (ESA), and the UK Space Agency for this project. This new contract apparently releases the money from both ESA and the UK.

The mission, dubbed ELSA-M, is will fly no later than April 2026, will be built by Astroscale’s UK division in Oxford, and is a follow-up of the ELSA-d mission that in 2021 demonstrated rendezvous and proximity operations but was unable to complete a docking using Astroscale’s magnetic capture system because of failed thrusters. I suspect the reason this new deal was finally approved is because of Astroscale’s more recent successes in another mission for Japan’s JAXA space agency, ADRAS-J, rendezvousing and flying in proximity to an old abandoned H2A rocket upper stage.

The new mission will attempt once again to prove the practicality of Astroscale’s magnetic capture system, which it is trying to convince all satellite companies to include on their satellites.

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ESA’s Juice probe to Jupiter prepares for first Earth+Moon slingshot fly-by

10:35 am

Graphic showing Juice's upcoming duel fly-by
Graphic showing Juice’s upcoming duel fly-by.
Click for original image.

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) first mission to Jupiter, dubbed Juice (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) is about to do the first ever back-to-back fly-bys of the Moon and then the Earth immediately afterward in order to slingshot it forward on its long journey to the gas giant.

The graphic to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, shows the plan. Juice will first fly past the Moon, shifting its path slightly, and then zip past the Earth one day later, its trajectory then under-going a much larger change.

The lunar-Earth flyby will see Juice pass just 700 km [435 miles] from the Moon’s surface at 23:16 CEST on 19 August and 6807 km [4230 miles] from Earth’s surface almost exactly 24 hours later at 23:57 CEST on 20 August.

Using the gravity of the Moon to slightly bend Juice’s trajectory first will improve the effectiveness of the much larger gravity assist at Earth. However, the dual flyby requires extraordinarily precise navigation and timing, as even minor deviations could send Juice in the wrong direction.

The engineering teams have already been doing simulations to make sure they get this complex maneuver right. If all goes right, the spacecraft will then do flybys of Venus in August 2025, Earth in September 2026, and Earth again in January 2029, arriving in Jupiter orbit in July 2031.

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Europe’s Gaia space telescope in trouble

9:34 am

Launched in 2013 and now functioning more than six years after the completion of its primary mission to measure precisely the distances to over a billion stars, the European Space Agency’s Gaia space telescope has experienced several major technical issues this spring related to a micrometeorite hit and a failure of the electronics of one of its CCDs.

The micrometeorite hit occurred in April.

The impact created a little gap that allowed stray sunlight – around one billionth of the intensity of direct sunlight felt on Earth – to occasionally disrupt Gaia’s very sensitive sensors. Gaia’s engineers were in the middle of dealing with this issue when they were faced with another problem.

The spacecraft’s ‘billion-pixel camera’ relies on a series of 106 charge coupled devices (CCDs) – sensors that convert light into electrical signals. In May, the electronics controlling one of these CCDs failed – Gaia’s first CCD issue in more than 10 years in space. Each sensor has a different role, and the affected sensor was vital for Gaia’s ability to confirm the detection of stars. Without this sensor to validate its observations, Gaia began to register thousands of false detections.

The cause of the electronics failure remains unsolved, though it is believed related to the major solar storm that swept by at about the same time.

As a result of these issues, the telescope’s data stream will be significantly reduced. How long it will remain in operation remains unclear. At some point the cost will outweigh the amount of data obtained.

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Europe targets 2031 for the first mission of its own lunar lander

10:48 am

The European Space Agency (ESA) has approved a target date of 2031 for the first mission of its own unmanned lunar lander, dubbed Argonaut, and launched on the most powerful version of the Ariane-6.

On 16 July, the agency published a call for Argonaut Mission 1 Phase A/B1 development aimed at demonstrating the technical and programmatic feasibility of the Argonaut mission concept. The call included a proposed launch date of 2031 for the first Argonaut mission to the Moon.

The Argonaut lunar lander will be launched aboard an Ariane 64 rocket. Once operational, ESA envisions it being used for a wide variety of applications, from cargo logistics to acting as an in-situ resource utilization plant. The agency has already completed pre-phase A studies for what it calls the European Charging Station for the Moon. This system would be launched aboard an Argonaut lunar lander and would essentially act as a gas station on the Moon that would be used to support crewed missions on the surface of the Moon.

As I’ve noted previously, ESA routinely sets a glacial pace on all its government-run projects. Do not expect this government lander to fly on this schedule. More likely by 2031 there will be many cheaper and available options from the private sector, and European companies wanting to put payloads down on the Moon will turn to those, especially because Argonaut is apparently being forced to use the expensive expendable Ariane-6 rocket. The cost for going on Argonaut is simply going to be too high.

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ESA announces asteroid mission to Apophis

9:06 am

Apophis' path past the Earth in 2029
A cartoon showing Apophis’s path in 2029

The European Space Agency (ESA) today announced that is beginning work on an asteroid mission, dubbed Ramses, to the potentially dangerous asteroid Apophis when it makes its next close-fly of the Earth in 2029.

Ramses needs to launch in April 2028 to allow for an arrival at Apophis in February 2029, two months before the close approach. In order to meet this deadline, ESA requested permission to begin preparatory work on the mission as soon as possible using existing resources. This permission has been granted by the Space Safety programme board. The decision whether to commit to the mission in full will take place at ESA’s Ministerial Council Meeting in November 2025.

Using a suite of scientific instruments, the spacecraft will conduct a thorough before-and-after survey of the asteroid’s shape, surface, orbit, rotation and orientation. By analysing how Apophis changes during the flyby, scientists will learn a lot about the response of an asteroid to external forces as well as asteroid composition, interior structure, cohesion, mass, density, and porosity.

Based on the track record of European space projects, which appear to always proceed at a glacial pace with late problems that cause the missions to miss their launch window (with the launch of the Franklin Mars rover as the poster child), the project is getting started far too late to meet its launch date of April 2028. We shall see if Europe surprises us this time and gets the project off the ground as planned.

Right now the only confirmed mission to Apophis is OSIRIS-APEX, which was redirected to the asteroid after it delivered its samples from Bennu to Earth. Many others have been proposed, including a commercial mission, but none appear to be confirmed or under construction.

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Watch the first launch of Europe’s Ariane-6 rocket

9:14 am

Europe’s Ariane-6 rocket, first proposed in 2014 and about four years behind schedule, will finally make its first launch at 2 pm (Eastern) today.

I have embedded the live stream below.

The rocket was conceived by the European Space Agency (ESA) as an attempt to compete with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. It failed to do this from day one, since the rocket was from day one designed to be expendable. By the 2020s it became clear to European satellite companies and government agencies that its launch cost would be far higher that the Falcon 9, and these companies and agencies have therefore resisted signing launch contracts with ArianeGroup. In fact, if Amazon had not decided in ’22 to give the Ariane-6 a contract for 18 launches to put up its Kuiper satellites, the rocket would have almost no launches in its manifest.

This situation was made even more starkly evident at the end of June, when the European governent weather company Eumetsat cancelled its Ariane-6 contract and switched to the Falcon 9.

Though the unelected bureaucrats and apparatchiks in the European Union are trying to require the use of Ariane-6, ESA and Europe’s rocket future resides in the independent rocket startups (Rocket Factory Augsburg, Isar Aerospace, Hyimpulse, PLD). Because they are in competition with each other as well as SpaceX, and are not saddled with heavy government interference, they can focus on innovating to lower cost. Expect them to quickly begin launching in the next three years, with reusability soon to follow.

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ESA approves taking the Vega-C rocket away from Arianespace

9:12 am

The council that runs the European Space Agency (ESA) today approved a resolution that shifted ownership of the Vega-C rocket away from government-run Arianespace and giving it back to its builder, the Italian aerospace company Avio.

Arianespace and Avio have agreed that Arianespace will remain the launch service provider and operator for Vega and Vega-C launch services until Vega flight 29 (VV29), scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2025. For Vega-C launches following VV29, the customers who have already contracted with Arianespace will be offered the possibility to transfer their contracts to Avio as the new launch service provider and sole operator of Vega.

Arianespace will primarily focus with ArianeGroup on the Ariane 6 exploitation to best meet the customer needs.

The council also agreed with France’s plan to allow independent commercial rocket startups to launch from French Guiana. Control of that spaceport has also been taken from Arianespace and returned to its owner, the French space agency CNES.

Essentially, this decision ties Arianespace’s future to Ariane-6, which is likely to disappear once its present manifest of launches, mostly for Amazon’s Kuiper constellation, gets launched.

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Arianespace calls for Europe to require all European space payloads use European rockets

9:57 am

Arianespace, whose many-decade-long European launch monopoly is presently threatened by a wave of new rocket startups and an effort by European governments to created a competitive launch industry of many companies, has now urged Europe to require that all European space payloads use European rockets.

Arianespace head of public affairs Charlotte Lang has advocated for legislation that would require European missions to be launched aboard European rockets. Lang made the comments during the “Ensuring Long Term Autonomous Access to Space for Europe” panel on the first day of The European Space Forum conference. “The EU should enforce the principle of European launcher preference,” said Lang.

In a follow-up statement, Arianespace reiterated “the need for the EU to legislate that European missions are launched from European territory using launchers and technology manufactured in Europe by European providers.” The company identified the European Union’s planned IRIS² constellation as the “perfect opportunity to advance this initiative.”

Arianespace is like Blue Origin. It can’t get its rockets built and flying at a competitive price, so instead it advocates lawfare to limit competition in order to give it a favored position when it bids on future launch contracts.

In the case of Europe, I think this Arianespace effort will generally fall on deaf ears. The trend among numerous European governments (Germany, France, Italy) is to encourage new rocket companies to compete with Arianespace, in order to create options. These governments will of course wish to favor these new European rocket companies with any contract awards, but they will also not want to tie their hands with the kind of legislation Arianespace proposes. They all discovered in the past two years what could happen if they do that, when Arianespace failed to get Ariane-6 launched on time, and Europe ended up with no launch capabilities. During that time period they still had the option to use other non-European options (such as SpaceX). Having that flexibility in the future makes great sense.

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Slovenia becomes 23rd member nation of the European Space Agency

9:05 am

Formerly part of Yugoslavia and largely aligned with the communist bloc during the Cold War, Slovenia has now signed on to become the 23rd member nation of the European Space Agency (ESA).

Slovenia has been working with ESA since 2008, when it signed a first Cooperation Agreement, followed by a European Cooperation Agreement. This cooperation was strengthened with its accession to associate membership in 2016, which it upgraded in 2020 with a new Agreement for an enhanced Association. This included a provision that after its expiration in 2025, Slovenia can apply for ESA membership.

Slovenia’s membership still needs to be ratified, but that is expected.

Increasingly Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine has proven to be incredibly stupid. It has not only trapped Russia in a quagmire that it can’t easily escape, with victory nowhere in sight, it has caused all of its other neighbors to look west, away from Russia, out of fear of getting invaded themselves. Slovenia is just the most recent example.

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ESA signs deal with Vast to use its Haven-1 space station

2:51 pm

Vast Haven-1 station inside Falcon-9 fairing
Vast Haven-1 station inside Falcon-9 fairing

The European Space Agency (ESA) and the commercial space station startup Vast today signed an agreement that sets the initial terms for ESA to use Vast’s first space station, Haven-1, as well as any space stations to follow.

The agreement outlines the parties’ intention to foster human spaceflight, science, technology and commercialisation development and explore collaboration in low Earth orbit destinations other than the International Space Station. The collaboration will initially focus on exploring opportunities for access to space for Europe through the Vast Space Stations. These could include:

  • Access to the Vast Space Stations for ESA and its Member States, for astronaut missions and research activities as well as commercial business development.
  • Supporting European industry to supply subsystems and equipment for future Vast Space Stations.
  • Vast making use of future qualified European LEO cargo and/or crew transportation services, at market rates and commercially viable terms and conditions, also as a means for offsetting future ESA Astronaut Missions.
  • Vast and ESA jointly supporting European industry in getting certified for docking to future Vast Space Stations.

This deal is actually a very big deal, as Vast’s Haven-1 space station is the only one under construction that does not have a deal with NASA. It is being financed privately and will at first simply be a one module habitat set to launch as early as August 2025 on a Falcon 9 rocket, with the first 30-day 4-person manned mission to follow almost immediately on a Dragon capsule. Vast’s work is closely linked with SpaceX, as its station also has a deal to use Starlink for communications.

The plan is to add more modules in the coming years to build up to a full station.

This deal not only indicates that this independent station is going to give the NASA-supported stations some real competition, it indicates that Europe is committed to doing the same. Now that Europe has abandoned the government-owned and international cooperation model it has used for decades with decidedly mixed results and switched to the capitalism model, where it is merely a customer buying things from a competing private sector, it is doing so full speed ahead, without any hesitation.

The independence of this station also frees it and its customers from the heavy rules that NASA routinely imposes on anyone who deals with it. This aspect gives Vast a competitive advantage that many will clearly wish to take advantage of.

This deal is therefore a challenge that better be recognized by NASA and the other commercial stations. If they don’t react properly they could find themselves left in the dust completely.

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ESA requests information from European rocket startups

9:16 am

The European Space Agency (ESA) has released a request for information from European rocket startups to outline their capabilities and plans so that ESA can assess whether they qualify for future launch contracts.

Currently, ESA is working towards publishing a competitive tender in early 2025 for the award of contracts to allow European launch providers to demonstrate their ability to provide the capacity to serve institutional mission needs. To better define this competitive tender and align the challenge in the best possible way to incentivize providers, ESA has published a Request for Information call. “This Campaign will let economic operators express their views and expectations on the future of European access to space and actively participate in the definition of the European Launcher Challenge,” explains the call.

The call is limited to companies in Europe. The information the companies provide will then be used by ESA to shape the actual contract offers in 2025. The long term goal is for independent and competing European rocket companies to replace the Ariane-6, and provide a fleet of rockets of all types capable of launching European payloads faster and for much less money.

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French startup captures Russian satellite maneuvering close to another geosynchronous satellite

9:09 am

The French startup Aldoria has released a short movie taken by its ground telescopes showing a Russian “inspector” satellite maneuvering close to another geosynchronous satellite.

In a recent operation, Aldoria detected a sudden close approach by the Russian Luch Olymp K-2 (Luch-2) to a satellite positioned in geostationary orbit (GEO). This manoeuvre occurred on April 12, around 35,780 km in altitude, highlighting the increasing complexity of space activities. Luch Olymp 2, known for its unusual manoeuvres was predicted, by Aldoria, to closely approach the satellite prior to the observed manoeuvre. The original Luch-1, launched in 2014, was known for similar abnormal behaviour, creating a heightened sense of vigilance within the space community. Luch-2, like its predecessor, has a history of unusual manoeuvring near other satellites in geostationary orbit, which has also generated suspicions regarding its mission.

You can see the video here.

In the past year it appears the entire aerospace industry in Europe has come alive, no longer captured by the European Space Agency’s government-owned commercial arm, Arianespace. Instead, there are companies popping up everywhere, doing the kinds of entrepreneurial work American companies have been known to do since the founding of the country.

The competition for business and the amount of innovation in space should get very brisk in the next few years.

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Avio completes static fire test of the upper stage of its grounded Vega-C rocket

9:03 am

The Italian company Avio yesterday completed a full static fire test of the solid-fueled upper stage of its grounded Vega-C rocket, proving that the second redesign of its nozzle now works.

The initial post-test review indicates that the new nozzle assembly performed as expected throughout the scheduled 94 seconds burning time of the test, simulating a nominal in-flight performance.

The Zefiro-40 is a 7.6 m tall rocket motor, loaded with over 36 tonnes of solid propellant. For this test the motor was installed on its horizontal test bench. Zefiro-40 is developed and manufactured by Avio in their Colleferro factory near Rome, Italy.

A second firing-test will be conducted after the summer to confirm the data collected today. Avio engineers will review the data from the first test to prepare for a second test in October that will then qualify the second stage Zefiro-40 solid rocket motor for a return-to-flight by end 2024 from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.

The nozzle — originally built in the Ukraine — had failed during a launch in December 2022. Then Avio’s first redesign failed in a ground test in July 2023.

With this launch, the Vega-C is poised to resume operations by the end of the year. Those operations will be different however in one major respect. While previously the rocket was built by Avio but owned and controlled by the European Space Agency’s commercial arm, Arianespace, its ownership has been transferred back to Avio. Arianespace is now merely a “launch service provider” according to the press release. I suspect this means that Arianespace handles the launch in French Guiana, something that will also soon be taken from it because control of that spaceport is also being returned to the French space agency CNES.

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ESA awards contracts to two companies to build unmanned orbital freighters

10:02 am

The European Space Agency (ESA) today awarded contracts worth 25 million euros each to two European companies — the French startup The Exploration Company and the established Italian contractor Thales-Alenia — to begin development of their own unmanned freighters capable of bringing cargo to and from orbit.

During phase 1 development, the selected companies will mature the design of their respective vehicles, focusing on mission requirements, architectures, technology maturation, and de-risking activities. This phase of development is expected to run from June 2024 to June 2026.

Phase 2 of the initiative will see the companies develop and execute a demonstration mission that must be launched by the end of 2028. However, the commencement of Phase 2 will be subject to decisions and appropriations made at ESA’s next ministerial-level council meeting, which will take place in late 2025.

These contracts only cover phase 1. If successful, these capsules will compete with the cargo capsules that SpaceX, Northrop Grumman, and Sierra Space fly in providing supplies to the four commercial space stations presently being built.

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ESA narrows Ariane-6 launch date to first two weeks in July

9:24 am

In an announcement today, the European Space Agency (ESA) narrowed the launch window for the first launch of its new Ariane-6 rocket to the first two weeks in July.

It also stated that the final launch date will be revealed in the first week of June, during presentations at an air show in Berlin, Germany.

In the next month the rocket will undergo a full dress rehearsal countdown on the launchpad. It will then be “drained of fuel in preparation” for the actual launch.

This rocket is built and mostly owned by the private consortium ArianeGroup, made up of a partnership of Airbus and Safran, and working in conjunction with ESA. Though Arianespace, ESA’s long time commercial arm, is mentioned as ESA’s “launch service provider” for this launch, it is very clear that it is being pushed aside and will soon become irrelevant. The rocket is four years behind schedule and being entirely expendable it is too expensive to compete in the modern launch market. The member nations of ESA have rejected it, and so they are shifting to a capitalism in space model, whereby they no longer have a government commercial “launch service provider” like Arianespace, but instead buy launch services from competing private European rocket companies.

Europe’s problem is that it will take time to develop these private companies. In the interim it will be forced to use Ariane-6, but likely only for a few years. There are at least five new rocket companies in Europe, with three (Rocket Factory Augsburg, PLD, and Hyimpulse) having already completed their first launch tests.

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NASA signs new agreement with ESA to partner on Franklin Mars rover

9:41 am

NASA yesterday signed a new agreement with the European Space Agency (ESA) that confirmed its previous commitment to help land ESA’s Franklin rover on Mars.

With this memorandum of understanding, the NASA Launch Services Program will procure a U.S. commercial launch provider for the Rosalind Franklin rover. The agency will also provide heater units and elements of the propulsion system needed to land on Mars.

Previously NASA had committed $30 million to pay for that launch provider, as yet undetermined. It now wants $49 million for the Franklin mission, with the extra money likely to pay for the new additional equipment outlined in this agreement.

Whether NASA gets this money from Congress however remains unknown. It has not yet been appropriated.

This overall European project has been fraught with problems. It was first designed as a partnership with NASA. Then Obama pulled NASA out in 2012, and ESA switched to a partnership with Russia, which was to provide the rocket and lander. Then in 2022 Russia invaded the Ukraine and Europe broke off all its partnerships with Russia.

Since then ESA has signed a deal with the company Thales Alenia to build the lander.

As these political foibles were going on, the rover also had parachute issues that forced ESA to cancel its original launch date in 2022, using the Russian rocket.

It is likely Congress will approve this additional funding, though it seems to me that Europe should be able to afford paying for its own launch, especially if it is buying that service from the much cheaper U.S. market.

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Potentially serious problem on BepiColombo Mercury mission

10:14 am

According to the European Space Agency (ESA), engineers have discovered what could be a potentially serious problem on BepiColombo mission that is presently on its way to Mercury.

The solar arrays and electric propulsion system on the Mercury Transfer Module are used to generate thrust during the spacecraft’s complex journey from Earth to Mercury.

However, on 26 April, as BepiColombo was scheduled to begin its next manoeuvre, the Transfer Module failed to deliver enough electrical power to the spacecraft’s thrusters.

A combined team from ESA and the mission’s industrial partners set to work the moment the issue was identified. By 7 May, they had restored BepiColombo’s thrust to approximately 90% of its previous level. However, the Transfer Module’s available power is still lower than it should be, and so full thrust cannot yet be restored.

The press release implies that this issue won’t prevent the spacecraft from entering orbit around Mercury as scheduled in December 2025, but one wonders how that could be if it doesn’t have sufficient power to do the proper course correction during its last major flyby of Mercury in September 2024. If it misses its precise route in ’24 it could miss Mercury entirely in ’25.

Engineers are analyzing the situation to see what can be done to get it to Mercury, while also trying to figure out what caused this power problem in the first place in order to fix it.

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ESA is taking the Vega rockets away from Arianespace and giving it to the company that builds it

9:47 am

Capitalism in space: The European Space Agency (ESA) is in the process of taking control of the Vega family of rockets away from its commercial arm, Arianespace, and returning that ownership to the Italian company, Avio, that builds those rockets.

In late 2023, ESA member states agreed to allow Avio to market and manage the launch of Vega C flights independent of Arianespace. When the deal was initially struck, 17 flights were contracted through Arianespace to be launched aboard Vega vehicles. While these missions are still managed by Arianespace, Avio is working with the launch provider to strike a deal that would allow the Italian rocket builder to assume the management of all Vega flights.

The article’s focus is on a new contract that ESA has just awarded to Vega through Arianespace. noting that this contract will likely be shifted to Avio before launch in 2025.

This decision continues the process of slowly killing off Arianespace. Instead of relying on this government entity to build and market its launch operations, ESA is instead going to become a customer only, relying on competing commercial rocket companies for its launch services. When Avio completes its takeover of Vega, Arianespace will only be responsible for the Ariane-6 rocket, which is built by ArianeGroup and essentially owns it as well. Expect that rocket to be shifted completely to ArianeGroup. At that point Arianespace will no longer have any reason for existing, and will be shut down.

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First and second stages of first Ariane-6 rocket are now assembled and on the launchpad

8:48 am

Having integrated together the core first stage and the upper stage of the first Ariane-6 rocket, engineers have now lifted both vertical on the launch pad in preparation for its launch sometime in June or July.

Next two strap-on boosters will be attached to the core stage, as well as the payloads made up of eighteen different smallsats and experiments, including two test re-entry capsules testing their ability to bring payloads safely back to Earth.

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PLD Space announces its upcoming plans

9:22 am

Capitalism in space: Having received in late January a $43.5 million grant, bringing its total funding to more than $120 million, the Spanish rocket startup PLD Space today announced its upcoming plans.

[T]he company intends to inaugurate the first serial space rocket factory in Spain in mid-2024. The facilities will also enable vertical integration of the launchers. The industrial site, whose building work is already underway, will house the factory for the first MIURA 5 units [the company’s orbital rocket] as well as the company’s head offices. In total, PLD Space will be able to count on 18,400 square metres of industrial facilities in Elche (Alicante).

…Also scheduled for 2024, construction work is to begin on the launch base at the European CSG spaceport in Kourou (French Guiana), which belongs to CNES [France’s space agency]. This site, covering over 15,700 square metres, will host MIURA 5’s first launches.

That France is now leasing launch facilities to private companies illustrates starkly how Europe is steadily abandoning Arianespace, the European Space Agency’s government-run commercial company. Instead, Europe is now choosing competition and private enterprise as its model. Expect these new companies, including PLD, to achieve big things in the coming years.

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ESA awards Thales Alenia contract to build Mars lander for Franklin rover

8:40 am

Oxia Planum drainages
The drainage patterns at the Franklin rover
landing site

Click for paper [pdf].

The European Space Agency (ESA) today awarded the Italian company Thales Alenia a €522 million contract to build the entry, descent, and landing module for ESA’s Franklin rover, now scheduled for launch in 2028.

Under this contract, Thales Alenia Space will lead the definition of the Entry, Descent and Landing Module and maintenance activities for the transfer module (carrier) and the rover, including upgrades and replacement of time-sensitive elements. A full audit and tests will be carried out on the rover to ensure its readiness for the new mission. In addition, replacement of some payload elements is planned, such as integration of the new Enfys infrared spectrometer. The batteries and tanks will be replaced on the carrier module as well as potential adjustments to align with the updated trajectories to Mars. New developments on the descent module and landing pad are also required, because the European avionics part of the descent module will be reused.

This contract was necessary because the project was initially a partnership with Russia, whereby Russia provided this lander as well as the launch services. That partnership was severed after Russia invaded the Ukraine, which caused this mission to Mars to be delayed four to six years.

NASA then chipped in $30 million to help pay for launch out of Cape Canaveral, though no launch company has been announced. I suspect both ESA and NASA wish to wait before making a deal, considering how launch costs are dropping. At present it is impossible to predict the landscape of that market in 2028.

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