Falcon 9 – Page 48 – Behind The Black

SpaceX successfully launches another 53 Starlink satellites

October 27, 2022 6:24 pm Robert Zimmerman

SpaceX tonight successfully used its Falcon 9 rocket to launch another 53 Starlink satellites into orbit, lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The first stage completed its eighth flight, landing successfully on a drone ship in the Pacific. As of this writing, the satellites have not yet deployed, though they are in their planned orbit.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

49 SpaceX
45 China
18 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 69 to 45 in the national rankings, though it trails the rest of the world combined 72 to 69. At 69 successful launches, the U.S. is now just one launch behind its national record of 70 set in 1966.

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Relativity edges closer to first launch

October 25, 2022 9:59 am Robert Zimmerman

Relativity has begun stacking its Terran-1 rocket with a goal of soon rolling it out to the launchpad for static fire tests.

The launch date itself remains uncertain. Though the company hopes to lift-off before the end of the year, it also has not committed to that goal.

“We are confident in our tech readiness to launch this year, and we’re still marching toward that,” Ellis said. “But there are a few external factors as we’re getting close to the end of the year that could impact the timeline for us. It’s not a guarantee, but it could.”

Those external factors include other spaceport users in Florida, including uncertainty around the mid-November launch of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket, and blackout periods as part of the military’s Holiday Airspace Release Plan. This effectively precludes launches around Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day due to the high volume of airline flights.

Ellis said the company is progressing well toward securing a launch license for “Good Luck Have Fun,” and noted that the Federal Aviation Administration accepted its methodology for debris mitigation as well as its trajectory analysis software.

The article at the link adds some additional details about the company’s plans. This Terran-1 rocket appears to be its equivalent of SpaceX’s Falcon-1. The company plans to quickly replace it with its much larger Terran-R rocket, comparable to the Falcon-9 in power and price. And it already has won $1.2 billion in launch contracts, and hopes to launch within two years.

I wonder if Terran-R will launch before Blue Origin’s much touted but repeatedly delayed New Glenn rocket. The article itself appears to think so, since it focuses entirely on the competition between SpaceX and Relativity, as if Blue Origin and New Glenn do not even exist.

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OneWeb paid ISRO about $130 million for two GSLV launches

October 23, 2022 8:56 pm Robert Zimmerman

It appears that OneWeb agreed to pay India’s space agency ISRO about $130 million for two GSLV launches, putting up 36 satellites on each launch.

When asked how much his business would spend to have 72 satellites launched, OneWeb Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal told reporters in India that it would be more than Rs 1,000 crore.

Rs 1,000 crore translates to about $130 million, which means OneWeb paid about $65 million per launch, which is comparable to SpaceX’s standard Falcon 9 price, before discounts for using previously launched boosters.

It also appears that at present this deal is the only one between ISRO and OneWeb, and that the remaining 576 satellites that OneWeb needs to launch to complete its constellation are still open for others. At present, SpaceX and Relativity have contracts, though it is unclear how many each will launch. I suspect SpaceX will be the majority, since Relativity has not even completed its first test launch. It is also possible that ISRO will get more contracts based on its first launch success.

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ESA delays first Ariane-6 launch to late in 2023

October 20, 2022 10:02 am Robert Zimmerman

The European Space Agency has once again delayed the first Ariane-6 launch, shifting it to the fourth quarter of 2023.

Even so, officials warned that this is merely “a planned date,” and that static fire tests of both the first stage and second stage must first be completed before the launch can go forward.

Ariane-6 was initially supposed to begin launching in 2020, putting it three years behind schedule. Furthermore, it has struggled to obtain customers, as it is entirely expendable and thus expensive and not competitive with SpaceX’s Falcon 9.

Since Ariane-6 is delayed and the Ariane-5 rocket’s has only a few launches left before retirement, ESA officials also noted that it has now been forced to buy two launches from SpaceX.

The launches include the Euclid space telescope and the Hera probe, a follow-up mission to NASA’s DART spacecraft which last month succeeded in altering the path of a moonlet in the first test of a future planetary defence system. “The member states have decided that Euclid and Hera are proposed to be launched on Falcon 9,” ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher told reporters after a meeting of the 22-nation agency’s ministerial council.

The launches will take place in 2023 and 2024 respectively.

The irony is that ESA is probably going to save a lot of money launching with the Falcon 9, rather than its own Ariane-6. In fact, I would not be surprised if the total SpaceX price for both launches equals one Ariane-6 launch. Furthermore, SpaceX gets this business because its own American competitors, ULA and Blue Origin, have also failed to get their new rockets flying on time.

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SpaceX launches 54 Starlink satellites

October 20, 2022 9:37 am Robert Zimmerman

SpaceX today successfully used its Falcon 9 rocket to launch 54 Starlink satellites.

The first stage completed its 10th flight, landing on its drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

48 SpaceX
45 China
15 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 68 to 45, and is tied with the entire world combined 68 each. Note that SpaceX’s 48 launches so far this year matches the entire total for the U.S. last year.

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SpaceX simplifies smallsat rideshare program, effectively slashing prices

October 19, 2022 10:11 am Robert Zimmerman

SpaceX has reworked its smallsat rideshare program to allow smaller satellite customers to book directly with the company, effectively slashing the prices they are charged.

While it technically hasn’t reduced its prices, SpaceX will now allow satellites as small as 50 kilograms to book directly through the company at its virtually unbeatable rate of $5500 per kilogram. Before this change, customers with small satellites would either have to pay for all the extra capacity they weren’t using, boosting their relative cost per kilogram, or arrange their launch services with a third-party aggregator like Spaceflight or Exolaunch.

Part of the reason for this change is the shift by SpaceX to a new satellite deployment platform that allows for a wider variety of satellites of all sizes. Some tiny satellites will no longer have to rely on an aggregator’s own deployment platform.

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Isaacman’s next private mission to space now scheduled for March ’23

October 19, 2022 9:53 am Robert Zimmerman

Jared Isaacman’s next private mission on a Dragon capsule, dubbed Polaris Dawn, has now been scheduled for March ’23, during which the first spacewalk by a private citizen will occur.

The mission is planned to last five days, will have a crew of four led by Isaacman, and will also attempt the highest Earth orbit flown by any manned mission. From the mission’s webpage:

At approximately 700 kilometers above the Earth (434 miles), the crew will attempt the first-ever commercial extravehicular activity (EVA) with SpaceX-designed extravehicular activity (EVA) spacesuits, upgraded from the current intravehicular (IVA) suit.

It is not clear if one or all four of the crew members will participate in that spacewalk. At a minimum, all four must be in suits that can work during a spacewalk, since their Dragon capsule does not have an airlock.

The mission will also be used as to raise funds for St. Jude Children’s Hospital, as was done during Isaacman’s first flight, Inspiration4, in the fall of 2021.

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Both the Pentagon and Europe are looking for ways to fund Starlink for the Ukraine

October 18, 2022 9:13 am Robert Zimmerman

According to an article in Politico today, both the U.S. military and the European Union (EU) are investigating ways in which either could fund the cost for providing Starlink to the Ukraine, rather than remaining a voluntary donation by SpaceX.

The most likely source of funding, several government and industry officials said, would be the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which has been used to acquire a range of weapons and services for the Ukraine war effort.

The Starlink issue also came up during a meeting of the European Union’s foreign ministers on Monday, as the countries discussed whether to contribute funding to ensure Ukrainians keep their access to the service. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis told POLITICO after the meeting that EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell raised the subject of paying to keep the service running in Ukraine, but the effort is still in its early stages.

It also appears there are discussions to find a back-up to Starlink. At the moment however the only possible option would be OneWeb, and it is not clear its design would work for the soldier in the field.

Regardless, considering the amount of cash being thrown at military contractors for the war — much of which is likely worthless and simply pork — it seems entirely reasonable to devote some to Starlink, a technology that has actually made a difference.

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ESA looking to SpaceX to launch Euclid space telescope

October 18, 2022 9:02 am Robert Zimmerman

Capitalism in space: Having lost its Soyuz launch vehicle for its Euclid space telescope because of the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, the European Space Agency (ESA) is now looking at SpaceX as a possible option.

At a meeting of NASA’s Astrophysics Advisory Council, Mark Clampin, director of the agency’s astrophysics division, said his understanding is that the European Space Agency was leaning towards launching its Euclid mission on a Falcon 9 in mid to late 2023.

NASA is a partner on Euclid, a space telescope that will operate around the Earth-sun L-2 Lagrange point 1.5 million kilometers from Earth to study dark energy, dark matter and other aspects of cosmology. The 2,160-kilogram spacecraft was to launch on a Soyuz rocket from French Guiana in 2023.

Europe has for years used its own rockets for its science missions. However, right now the Falcon 9 appears the only option. The last launches of Europe’s Ariane-5 rocket are already assigned, and the new Ariane-6 rocket has not yet flown, is behind schedule, and its early launches are also already reserved.

Nor does ESA have other options outside of SpaceX. Of the rockets powerful enough to do the job, ULA’s Atlas-5 is also being retired, and the Vulcan rocket is as yet unavailable. Blue Origin’s New Glenn is years behind schedule, with no clear idea when it will finally launch.

A final decision is expected soon. ESA could either go with SpaceX, or simply delay several years until Ariane-6 is flying.

If SpaceX gets the job however it will once again demonstrate the value of moving fast in a competitive environment. While its competitors have dithered and thus do not have their rockets ready, SpaceX has been flying steadily for years, so it gets the business.

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SpaceX successfully launches communications satellite

October 14, 2022 10:32 pm Robert Zimmerman

SpaceX tonight successfully launched a Eutelsat communications satellite using its Falcon 9 rocket.

The first stage completed its third mission, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The fairings completed their fourth flight.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

47 SpaceX
44 China
14 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 67 to 44 in the national rankings. It now leds with the entire world combined 67 to 66.

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Ispace targets November 9-15 launch window for first commercial lunar lander

October 13, 2022 9:07 am Robert Zimmerman

The private Japanese company Ispace has now scheduled the launch of its commercial lunar lander Hakuto-R on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for a November 9-15, 2022 launch window.

Though the lander’s primary goal is to see if this lander will work, it also includes several customer payloads, the most significant of which is the Rashid rover from the United Arab Emirates. Rashid, which is about the size of a Radio Flyer red wagon, will operate for one lunar day, about two weeks. While its main mission is to test the engineering and to train the engineers who built it, it will have two cameras for taking pictures. In addition, on its wheels are test adhesive patches of different materials, designed to see how each material interacts with the Moon’s abrasive dust.

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