The crew and passengers for Axiom’s fourth tourist flight to ISS

Axiom this week publicly introduced the international crew and passengers for its fourth tourist flight to ISS, presently planned for this spring.

During a Thursday press conference, former NASA astronaut and Axiom commander Peggy Whitson introduced her team. Shubhanshu Shukla will pilot the fourth mission to the ISS. He has been a fighter pilot for 15 years and will be the first Indian pilot to travel to the ISS.

The private mission also carries the first astronauts from Poland and Hungary to stay aboard the space station. Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski is an ESA astronaut representing Poland. Tibor Kapu is a mechanical engineer who was selected as an astronaut for Hungary’s Hungarian to Orbit (HUNOR) program in May of last year.

Axiom had made deals with India, Poland, and Hungary years ago to fly astronauts in space, and this flight fulfills those deals. Launched on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, their Dragon capsule will spend 14 days in space, most of which will be docked to ISS.

Musk posts a silly tweet saying Trump wants SpaceX to rescue the Starliner astronauts and the press goes stupid again

Yesterday Elon Musk posted what appeared to be a completely silly tweet stating that Trump “has asked SpaceX to bring home the 2 astronauts stranded on the Space_Station as soon as possible. We will do so. Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long.”

Since a Dragon capsule for bringing these astronaut back to Earth is already docked to ISS and is scheduled to return in April, there is nothing really new about Musk’s tweet. Moreover, that April return was delayed an extra two months because of SpaceX, not Boeing or Biden. The company had requested that extra time to prepare the next crew capsule for launch, because it is a new capsule never used before.

It is of course possible that Trump requested SpaceX and NASA to reconsider this extra two month delay, and move the crew return back to February, but that change would either require SpaceX to find a different older capsule for the next crew, fly the new capsule sooner than planned, or have the total number of NASA astronauts on ISS reduced to just one until the new capsule launches with the new crew in March. None of these options seems wise.

I suspect nothing will change, and Musk was merely trolling the press. And the press mostly fell for it, hook, line, and sinker.

Most of these stories fail to outline the reasons for the most recent delays, having nothing to do with Biden. The last four especially make it sound as if SpaceX has suddenly been enlisted for a rescue mission, a claim that is utterly false.

None have been able to get any confirmation of any change of schedule from NASA or SpaceX, suggesting that Musk’s tweet was entirely blarney that a smart press would have ignored without that confirmation. Our stupid mainstream press however could not do that. It went whole hog based on nothing.

Until NASA announces a change in schedule there simply is no story here, and that’s what I am reporting.

Vast signs deal with SpaceX for two ISS tourist missions

Depending on whether it gets NASA contractual approval, the space station startup Vast has now signed a deal with SpaceX for flying two tourist missions to ISS.

These two missions expand Vast’s launch manifest with SpaceX, which includes the company’s Falcon 9 rocket delivering Haven-1 to low-Earth orbit and a subsequent Dragon mission to fly crew to the commercial space station. Haven-1 will also be supported by Starlink laser-based high-speed internet.

Axiom, which has flown three tourist missions to ISS and has a fourth planned, is also bidding for the next two tourist slots NASA has made available for ISS in the coming years. It is not clear who will get those slots. Axiom has the advantage it has done it before, but the rumors that it lost money on those flights and now has a cash shortage work against it. Vast hasn’t yet flown, but it is moving fast to fly and occupy Haven-1 next year. NASA might want to give it at least one of those slots to balance the scales.

Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay.

Axiom to speed up assembly of its space station

Axiom's new module assembly sequence
Axiom’s new module assembly sequence

Capitalism in space: In order to be able to fly its space station independent of ISS more quickly, Axiom has rearranged the order it will launch some modules.

Originally, the plan was to attach Habitat 1 (AxH1) first, before the power and thermal module. Now, the on-orbit assembly sequence will start with the Payload Power Thermal Module (AxPPTM), followed by AxH1, an airlock, Habitat 2 (AxH2), and finally the Research and Manufacturing Facility (AxRMF). “The result – free-flight capability after the launch and berthing of PPTM,” [Mark Greeley, Axiom Space COO and station program manager,] explained, “[will allow] us to add modules while on orbit once we have separated from station. Our goal is to ensure a smooth transition from a government to a commercial platform, maintaining a continuous human presence on orbit to serve a community of global customers and partners, to include NASA.”

The AxPPTM primary structure will be built by Thales Alenia Space in Turin, Italy, and then relocated to Houston no earlier than fall 2025, where the integration of the internal structure and systems will take place at Axiom Space facilities.

The new sequence is shown in the graphic above. This change will allow Axiom to fly free two years sooner than previously planned, in 2028. It appears NASA pushed for this change possibly because it considers remaining attached to ISS until 2030 a risk that should be avoided. NASA apparently is increasingly concerned about the state of Russia’s Zvezda module, and fears it might have a catastrophic failure due to the stress fractures in its hull. The sooner Axiom can get free of ISS the better.

This modification also appears to include some major changes from previous Axiom graphics. It appears the airlock module and its solar panels have undergone a major design change.

Below is my present ranking for the launch of the four space stations being designed and built:

  • Haven-1, being built by Vast, with no NASA funds. The company is moving fast, and plans to launch and occupy it in 2025 for a 30 day mission. It will then build its mult-module Haven-2 station.
  • Axiom, being built by Axiom, which has also launched three tourist flights to ISS. Though there are rumors it is experiencing cash flow issues, today’s announcement suggests those rumors might be unfounded.
  • Orbital Reef, being built by a consortium led by Blue Origin and Sierra Space. Though Blue Origin has apparently done little, Sierra Space has successfully tested its inflatable modules, including a full scale version, and appears ready to start building the station’s modules for launch.
  • Starlab, being built by a consortium led by Voyager Space, Airbus, and Northrop Grumman.

New manned Dragon capsule forces NASA to shuffle ISS crew launch and return schedules

In order to give SpaceX more time to complete work on a new manned Dragon capsule, raising its fleet of capsules to five, NASA has shuffled its springtime ISS crew launch and return schedules.

The change gives NASA and SpaceX teams time to complete processing on a new Dragon spacecraft for the mission. The new spacecraft is set to arrive to the company’s processing facility in Florida in early January. “Fabrication, assembly, testing, and final integration of a new spacecraft is a painstaking endeavor that requires great attention to detail,” said Steve Stich, manager, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.

…NASA and SpaceX assessed various options for managing the next crewed handover, including using another Dragon spacecraft and manifest adjustments. After careful consideration, the team determined that launching Crew-10 in late March, following completion of the new Dragon spacecraft, was the best option for meeting NASA’s requirements and achieving space station objectives for 2025.

This decision however impacts the return of the Dragon crew presently on board ISS, including the two astronauts launched in June on Boeing’s Starliner capsule and whose stay was extended from its initial length of one-to-eight weeks to more than six months when NASA made the decision to bring Starliner home unmanned. Instead of returning in February 2024, that crew will now have to return after the next crew arrives in late March.

Most of the press has focused on this two month extension to the Starliner crew, but to me the real news is that SpaceX is building a fifth manned capsule, as yet unnamed. Having five reusable capsules will give the company greater flexibility. I suspect SpaceX decided to build this additional capsule because, in addition to its ISS missions for NASA, it is going to be flying in 2025 both an Axiom mission to ISS as well as a 30-day mission to Vast’s Haven-1 space station. That latter mission will tie up one manned capsule for many months both before and after that long flight.

“Toxic smell” at Progress hatch was hypergolic fuel

Figure 3 from September Inspector General report
Figure 3 from September Inspector General report, annotated to show Zvezda and Poisk locations.

According to information obtained by Anatoly Zak at RussianSpaceWeb.com, the “toxic smell” detected by Russian astronauts immediately after opening the hatch to unload the newly docked Progress at ISS was actually a small but very dangerous amount of hypergolic fuel left over from the previous Progress freighter.

[T]he working hypothesis was that the ground control failed to perform a routine purging of propellant lines between the station and Progress MS-27 before its undocking. As a result, highly toxic residue of hypergolic propellant remaining in the lines could easily spill into the main cavity of the docking mechanism on Poisk, once Progress MS-27 undocked from the module, an industry source told RussianSpaceWeb.com. After the arrival of Progress MS-29, the interior of the docking mechanism between the space station and the cargo ship was re-pressurized trapping the propellant residue and letting it into the station after opening of the hatches. [emphasis mine]

If true, this incident indicates a shocking level of incompetence, sloppiness, or even malice at Russian mission control. How can mission controllers forget to do a “routine purging” of hypergolic fuel, especially when it is known that this very dangerous fuel — which can dissolve skin if you allow yourself to get in contact with it — can “easily spill” into the docking port where people will travel?

The Russian government pays its top-level engineers very little, even as those engineers watch often bungling managers rake in big bucks through legal deal-making as well as bribery and embezzlement (only rarely caught and punished). These circumstances have been suggested as behind the various suspicious leaks in Soyuz and Progress capsules as well as the new Nauka module. In the case of the Soyuz, it was clearly caused by someone drilling a hole on the ground before launch and then fixing it with a makeshift patch that was certain to fail during the mission in space. Both the Progress and Nauka leaks also suggested a similar cause. The Russians told NASA its investigation discovered who drilled that Soyuz hole, but never revealed what it had found. As for the Progress and Nauka leaks, no investigation results were ever even discussed.

There is something distinctly rotten within Roscosmos, a rottenness that it appears Russia is doing little to fix. More likely it can’t really fix it, because the Putin administration in the late 2000s made Russia’s aerospace industry a remake of the Soviet Union, a single government-run corporation that owns everything and blocks all competition. Since then it has shown a steady decline in its ability to accomplish much and the steady growth of problems such as this.

The sooner Americans no longer have to partner with Russia the better. We must hope that NASA can at least get to 2030 and its planned retirement of ISS without a major failure. This leak occurred within the Poisk docking module that is attached to the larger Zvezda module where air is leaking from the station due to serious stress fractures in its hull. Each docking puts more stress on Zvezda, risking a catastrophic failure, so much so that it is now NASA policy to close the hatch between the American and Russian halves of the station whenever such dockings take place.

Unloading of new Progress docked to ISS delayed due to “toxic smell”

The unloading of cargo from the new Progress freighter that docked to ISS on November 23, 2024 halted immediately after hatch opening because of a “toxic smell” detected by the Russian astronauts.

The crew then proceeded with air leak checks in the docking port, but after opening the hatch between Poisk and Progress, it had to be closed immediately due to toxic smell and possible contamination hazard in the form of droplets, according to communications between the US mission control in Houston and the ISS crew in late hours Moscow Time on November 23.

Various systems aboard the ISS were activated to scrub the station’s atmosphere from possible contamination, while the hatch of the Poisk module leading into the pressurized cargo compartment of the Progress M-29 spacecraft remained closed. In particular, the Trace Contaminant Control Sub-assembly, TCCS, was turned on aboard the US Segment. The Russian crew was also reported donning protective equipment and activating an extra air-scrubbing system aboard the Russian Segment, which operated up to a half an hour.

By the end of today mission controllers from both Russian and the U.S. declared the air cleared and normal, and have begun unloading operations.

The cause remains unexplained.

Russia and SpaceX complete launches

Both Russia and the American company SpaceX successfully completed launches this morning. First, Russia sent a new Progress freighter on its way to ISS, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan. The cargo ship is planned to dock with ISS in two days.

Next SpaceX put another 24 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The first stage completed its 20th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

119 SpaceX
53 China
14 Russia
12 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 137 to 80, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 119 to 98.

NASA reveals that it and Russia disagree about the danger posed by the airleak on ISS

Figure 3 from IG report
Figure 3 from September Inspector General report, annotated by me to show Zvezda location.

In a public session yesterday by a NASA commission focused on accessing the safety condition of ISS, officials revealed that the commission and Russia disagree about the root causes behind the airleak and cracks in the docking section of the Zvezda module on the Russian half of ISS, as well as the risk of a catastrophic failure. According to the commission’s head, former astronaut Bob Cabana.

The Russian position is that the most probable cause of the PrK cracks is high cyclic fatigue caused by micro vibrations. NASA believes the PrK cracks are likely multi-causal including pressure and mechanical stress, residual stress, material properties and environmental exposures.

The Russians believe that continued operations are safe, but they can’t prove that to our satisfaction. The U.S. believes that it’s not safe, but we can’t prove that to Russian satisfaction that that’s the case. So while the Russian team continues to search for and seal the leaks, it does not believe catastrophic disintegration of the PrK is realistic and NASA has expressed concerns about structural integrity of the PrK and the possibility of a catastrophic failure.

Because of this disagreement American astronauts now close the hatch between the Russian and American halves of ISS whenever a docking to Zvezda is taking place, and apparently keep that hatch closed until unloading of the docked spacecraft is complete. The Russians in turn only open the hatch to the docking section of Zvezda when they need to load or unload material into the freighter docked there, and coordinate with American astronauts whenever they do so.

Engineers from the two nations continue to discuss the issue, and hope to result their disagreement and come up with a joint plan.

Ultimately, this issue indicates the certain end of ISS in the near future, and adds ugency to the need to get some of those commercial space stations operating in orbit.

Cargo Dragon docked to ISS boosts station

For the first time a cargo Dragon capsule used its Draco attitude thrusters to test their ability to adjust or raise ISS’s orbit.

NASA and SpaceX monitored operations as the company’s Dragon spacecraft performed its first demonstration of reboost capabilities for the International Space Station at 12:50 p.m. EST on Friday. The spacecraft’s Draco thrusters adjusted the station’s orbit through a reboost of altitude by 7/100 of a mile at apogee and 7/10 of a mile at perigee, lasting approximately 12 minutes and 30 seconds.

This posting is late because of my Grand Canyon trip, but I’m posting this now to make sure it is on the webpage. The goal of the test was to prove another American method for adjusting ISS’s orbit, in order to replace the Russian Progress capsules which now do the job. This test proved Dragon’s thrusters can be used for small orbital adjustments, but whether it can do major orbital corrections remains unclear. A previous test using Cygnus had already showed it could do the job.

Sierra Space announces plans to build a second Dream Chaser cargo spaceplane

With the first launch of Sierra Space’s first Dream Chaser reusable unmanned cargo mini-shuttle, Tenacity, now scheduled for May 2025, the company has announced that it is beginning work on a second cargo spaceplane, dubbed Reverence, along with a mission control center to operate its fleet in orbit.

Sierra Space spokesperson Alex Walker shared the new May 2025 estimate and said work on Reverence, also known as DC-102, will resume once the team returns to Colorado — but declined to clarify when that would happen. At that point, Walker said, it will likely be another 18 months before the second spaceplane is complete. In addition to the fleet of cargo-carrying craft, Sierra Space is also working on a crewed variant of the vessel, labeled the DC-200 series, and a national security DC-300 variant.

Company officials say each mini-shuttle is good for 15 flights, so having both vehicles gives the company a total of 30 flights to sell to various space station and orbital customers.

Selling to others outside NASA may be necessary, because Tenacity is four-plus years behind schedule. By the time it begins flying ISS will already be approaching retirement in only a few short years.

The company intends these new Dream Chaser projects to work in tandem with its LIFE inflatable modules, which are presently being developed as part of the Blue Origin-led Orbital Reef space station. And while much of work on the rest of that station appears moribund, it appears that Sierra is developing everything needed for its own space station. We should therefore not be surprised if Sierra decides to bid on NASA’s next space station funding round independent entirely of the Orbital Reef partnership.

It certainly is assembling all the pieces needed for a station, without any help from Blue Origin.

NASA denies press reports that Sunita Williams on ISS has health issues

After the Daily Mail in the UK reported that it appeared that Sunita Williams on ISS appeared “gaunt” in recent pictures and might have health issues due to her unexpectedly long stay in space, NASA today issued a denial, stating unequivocally that she “is in good health.”

The pictures used to suggest she is “gaunt” are mostly based on the shape of her face, but this means nothing. Weightlessness shifts things about. The Daily Mail report used the analysis of those photos by a doctor in Seattle.

While the two have put on a positive front in their public comments and interviews, a recent photo tells a different story, according to Dr Vinay Gupta, a pulmonologist and veteran in Seattle. Dr Gupta told DailyMail.com: “What you’re seeing there in that picture is somebody that I think is experiencing the natural stresses of living at a very high altitude, even in a pressurized cabin, for extended periods. Her cheeks appear a bit sunken – and usually it happens when you’ve had sort of total body weight loss,” Dr Gupta added.

“I think what I can discern by her face and her cheeks being sunken in is that [she] has probably been at a significant [calorie] deficit for a while.”

As a general rule, it is considered to be unethical for a doctor to make any diagnosis from a distance based on press reports. Gupta might be right, but more likely he is basing these opinions on very incomplete data. In this case I would generally trust NASA’s denial, especially becauase Williams is a very experienced astronaut who has done previous long missions on ISS.

Unidentified astronaut from recent ISS mission released from hospital

Though NASA’s press release provided little informationto protect the astronaut’s privacy, including his or her name, the unidentified astronaut who was held overnight for observation after returning from a seventh-month stay on ISS mission has now been released from the hospital.

After an overnight stay at Ascension Sacred Heart Pensacola in Florida, the NASA astronaut was released and returned to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston Saturday. The crew member is in good health and will resume normal post-flight reconditioning with other crew members.

This has happened before. Readapting to a 1G environment after months in weightlessness can be difficult, even if one does all the exercises required while in orbit.

Four astronauts complete 7-month mission and return to Earth

In the early hours of the morning today SpaceX’s Endeavour capsule safely splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico near Pensacola, Florida, bringing three Americans and one Russian back from ISS after seven months in orbit.

After launching March 3 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, and Jeanette Epps, as well as Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, spent 232 days aboard the space station.

Recovery teams from NASA and SpaceX quickly secured the spacecraft and assisted the astronauts during exit. The crew now will head to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, while the Dragon spacecraft will return to SpaceX facilities at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida for inspection and refurbishment for future missions.

This completed Endeavour’s fifth flight to ISS, ranging in length from 17 to 235 days in length.

Dragon Endeavour undocks from ISS to bring 4 astronauts home

After more than a month delay resulting first from the issues with Starliner and then by poor weather in the splashdown zones, SpaceX’s Endeavour capsule today finally undocked from ISS, with a planned splashdown on October 25, 2024 at approximately 3:29 am (Eastern) off the coast of Florida. I have embedded the live stream of that splashdown below.

The capsules brings home three Americans and one Russian after a seven-month-long mission.
» Read more

EPA to NASA: We intend to regulate how you dispose ISS, and that’s only the start

The FAA to SpaceX
The EPA and its supporters to the American space industry:
“Nice industry you got here. Sure would be a shame if
something happened to it.”

It appears the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and a number of activist groups are now lobbying for the right to regulate whether anything in orbit can be de-orbited into the oceans, beginning with how NASA plans to dispose of the International Space Station (ISS) when the station is de-orbited into the ocean sometime before 2030.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is evaluating how the disposal of the International Space Station into the ocean will need to be regulated but has not shared the details of any specific concerns or aspects of regulation. “EPA’s Office of Water is coordinating with the Office of General Counsel on this complex issue. The agency does not have a timeline for this evaluation,” EPA spokeswoman Dominique Joseph told SpaceNews.

“Sixty-six years of space activities has resulted in tens of thousands of tons of space debris crashing into the oceans,” said Ewan Wright, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of British Columbia and a junior fellow of the Outer Space Institute, an interdisciplinary group of experts working on emerging space sustainability issues.

While Wright is later quoted as saying that disposal in the ocean is “the least worst option,” the article at the link includes quotes from several other academics, all claiming that such an option must be stopped at all costs, because it threatens to “cause great damage” to the ocean. These “experts” make this claim by comparing ISS’s de-orbit with the dumping of old ammunition from World War I as well as plastic forks now.
» Read more

SpaceX launches two astronauts to ISS, setting new annual launch record for the U.S.

SpaceX this morning launched two astronauts to ISS in the fourth flight of the Freedom Dragon capsule, the Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage completed its second flight, landing back at Cape Canaveral. Freedom will dock with ISS tomorrow.

While most news stories will focus on the rescue aspect of this mission, its crew reduced by two so that the two astronauts launched in June on Boeing’s Starliner capsule can come home on it in February, the real news story is that with this launch the United States set a new record for the number of launches in a single year. With this launch the U.S. has completed 111 successful launches in 2024, exceeding the record set last year’s of 110 launches. And this record was achieved in less than three quarters of the year. At this rate is it very likely the U.S. will double the record of 70 set in 1966 that lasted until 2022.

China meanwhile completed its own launch late yesterday, its Long March 2D rocket placing what China’s state-run press described as “its first reusable and returnable test satellite,” designed to do orbital operations and experiments, return to Earth with those materials, and then later relaunch again. This is very similar to the commercial capsules that the startup Varda is flying and using to produce pharmaceuticals for sale.

The rocket lifted off from China’s Jiquan spaceport in northwest China. No word where its lower stages, using toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

95 SpaceX
44 China
11 Russia
11 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 111 to 67, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world, including American companies, 95 to 83.

NASA inspector general: Air leak in Zvezda module on ISS increased significantly in 2024

Figure 3 from IG report
Figure 3 from IG report, annotated by me to show Zvezda location.

According to a new report [pdf] from NASA’s inspector general, the air leaks in the Russian Zvezda module on ISS increased significantly in 2024, reaching “the highest level of risk in its risk management system,” and more than six times the normal planned leak rate for the station (see the box in the lower corner of the figure above).

[I]n February 2024 NASA identified an increase in the leak rate, and the Agency and Roscosmos continue to assess the risk that the increase poses to the module’s structure. In May and June 2024, ISS Program and Roscosmos officials met to discuss heightened concerns with the increased leak rate. The ISS Program subsequently elevated the Service Module [Zvezda] Transfer Tunnel leak risk to the highest level of risk in its risk management system. According to NASA, Roscosmos is confident they will be able to monitor and close the hatch to the Service Module prior to the leak rate reaching an untenable level. However, NASA and Roscosmos have not reached an agreement on the point at which the leak rate is untenable.

To mitigate potential impacts from the air leaks, NASA and Roscosmos continuously monitor leak rates and close the hatch to the Service Module when access is not required, sealing the module to minimize air loss while isolating the leak. While it is possible for the ISS to function if the hatch is closed permanently, it could impact cargo delivery because there would be one less cargo delivery port. Closing the hatch permanently would also necessitate additional propellent to maintain the Station’s altitude and attitude. Although the root cause of the leak remains unknown, both agencies have narrowed their focus to internal and external welds. As of June 2024, there was no indication of other leaks on the Station.

The transfer tunnel is the section of Zvezda that connects it to ISS. Though the report is very careful not to say anything specific about the cause of the leak, the evidence strongly suggests it is caused by stress fractures in the module’s hull, fractures that indicate a serious and dangerous long term issue. The tunnel however cannot be replaced without replacing Zvezda, and Zvezda cannot be replaced without detaching the entire Russian section from ISS, something that is likely very difficult and maybe impossible to do. And even if it could be replaced, Russia does not have the capability or the money right now to build a replacement.

The report also noted that keeping the station operating through 2030 faces other challenges, including the lack of redundancy for getting cargo and crew to ISS, the increasing difficulty of obtaining spare parts for the station, the long term damage from micrometeoroids and orbital debris, and finally, the unknown commitment of Russia, which at this point has not yet decided whether it will remain a partner after 2028.

All these issues underline the need for the four American private commercial space stations to reach orbit and get operational before 2028.

Two Russian astronauts mark one year in orbit

Russian astronauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolay Chub today marked the one year anniversary of their launch in 2023, thus marking another Russian yearlong mission in space.

The two cosmonauts were sent to the orbit aboard the Soyuz MS-24 manned spacecraft, which blasted off from the Baikonur space launch center on September 15, 2023. The third crew member on board was NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara, who returned to the Earth on April 6, 2024. Kononenko and Chub, as well as NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson, will travel back aboard the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft, whose departure is scheduled for September 23.

Their return next week will not mark a record for the longest flight in space. That belongs to Valeri Polykov, who occupied the Soviet-built Mir space station in the mid-1990s for one year, two months, and two weeks in the mid-nineties, or 438 days. The second longest flight was by Sergey Avdeev, 380 days on Mir in 1998-1999, with the third longest flight by Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitry Petelin, and Franco Rubio, 371 days in 2022-2023.

When Kononenko and Chub return on September 23rd, their flight will 373 days long, passing the 2022-2023 mission.

Note that only one American is on this list. A few have flown almost a year, but only Rubio has made it, and that was forced on him unplanned because of problems with the Soyuz capsule that brought him into orbit. He was forced to stay up an extra six months and come down on the next Soyuz.

The reason for this lack of long American flights is entirely NASA’s fault. It has consistently resisted doing such long missions, even holding the Russians back during the first two decades of ISS’s operation. The Russians no longer follow NASA’s timidity, and have been doing more such missions, because such missions will be the only way to gather the necessary medical data needed for future missions to Mars.

Meanwhile, NASA hesitates, and sometimes touts eleven-month missions (such as Scott Kelly’s) as year-long missions, a blatant lie that our propaganda press repeats mindlessly. I fully expect the first planned year-long American mission will be done privately, outside of our government, once Starship begins flying regularly.

Russia launches three astronauts to ISS

Russia this morning successfully launched a new crew to ISS, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from Baikonur in Kazakhstan.

With this launch there are now nineteen humans in orbit, a new record. This includes the three Chinese astronauts on China’s Tiangong-3 space station, the four astronauts on the private Polaris Dawn mission, the three astronauts on this Soyuz, and the nine astronauts on ISS (four from a Dragon launch, two from the Starliner launch, and three from a previous Soyuz launch).

The Soyuz capsule will dock with ISS this afternoon.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

89 SpaceX
38 China
10 Rocket Lab
10 Russia

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 104 to 58, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 89 to 73.

Starliner lands in New Mexico unmanned without problems

Boeing’s Starliner manned capsule landed last night at White Sands in New Mexico, the undocking, de-orbit, and descent occurring as planned with no hitches.

The mission however was not a full success. Intended as the first manned demo flight of the capsule, it did not complete that demonstration. It took astronauts up to ISS, but did not bring them home. NASA made the decision that the technical problems during launch and docking to ISS were sufficient enough to preclude putting the astronauts back on board for the return flight.

NASA says it “will review all mission-related data” before deciding whether to certify the capsule for operational manned flights. The agency has essentially two choices. First, it could decide that the successful return with no hitches of this manned flight, even with no one on board, fulfilled Boeing’s obligations. It will certify the capsule, allowing Starliner’s next manned mission to fly with NASA paying the bill. Doing so however would likely expose NASA to a lot of bad publicity, since the press right now sees Boeing as the root of all technical evil, and will pile on to the agency for putting safety last.

Second, NASA could avoid that bad press and play hard-nosed and demand another manned demo flight, on Boeing’s dime, as required by contract. If so, however, expect Boeing to refuse to do it, citing the cost and the company’s fiscal responsibility to its shareholders. Even if successful Boeing is unlikely to ever recover those costs through passenger sales.

Based on this negotiating situation, I predict NASA will choose the former. The successful landing suggests this is probably the right decision. It however will not do so immediately, but will release a series of announcements touting the positive results from its review of that “mission-related data”. By dribbling out each positive result bit-by-bit, the goal will be to soften the press so that when the agency finally certifies Boeing for that next manned mission and thus agrees to pay for it, the press will not pile on so hard.

At least, that will be the agency’s hope. The mainstream propaganda press however doesn’t usually read NASA press releases, and even when it does it knows so little about the subject that it almost always comes to the wrong conclusion. Moreover, its present desire to attack Boeing in all conditions will likely help it report these stories badly.

Will NASA give up on Starliner after its present contracts are completed?

According to an article today at Ars Technica, there are indications that NASA will not buy any further flights of Boeing’s Starliner capsule after it finally completes its present three-launch contract.

NASA hasn’t decided if it will require Boeing to launch another test flight before formally certifying Starliner for operational missions. If Starliner performs flawlessly after undocking and successfully lands this weekend, perhaps NASA engineers can convince themselves Starliner is good to go for crew rotation flights once Boeing resolves the thruster problems and helium leaks.

In any event, the schedule for launching an operational Starliner crew flight in less than a year seems improbable. Aside from the decision on another test flight, the agency also must decide whether it will order any more operational Starliner missions from Boeing. These “post-certification missions” will transport crews of four astronauts between Earth and the ISS, orbiting roughly 260 miles (420 kilometers) above the planet.

NASA has only given Boeing the “Authority To Proceed” for three of its six potential operational Starliner missions.

Apparently NASA has not decided whether to commit to any more Starliner operational manned flights behind those first three.

There are obvious good reasons for NASA’s hesitancy, most of which center on Boeing and its inability to get Starliner flying without technical problems. One that isn’t as obvious however is ISS itself. Boeing has taken so long in getting Starliner flying that the end of ISS in 2030 is now looming. There are only so many manned flights that NASA needs to buy before the station is decommissioned. Afterward the agency will still need to hire ferrying services to the new privately owned stations, but it is too far in the future to consider either SpaceX or Boeing for those decisions.

That sonar-type sound heard on Starliner’s speakers was simply feedback

In a short post today NASA noted that the mysterious sonar-type sound heard on Starliner’s speakers over the weekend was nothing more than simple feedback caused by an “audio configuration between the space station and Starliner” and that the sound stopped when that configuration was adjusted.

The space station audio system is complex, allowing multiple spacecraft and modules to be interconnected, and it is common to experience noise and feedback. The crew is asked to contact mission control when they hear sounds originating in the comm system. The speaker feedback Wilmore reported has no technical impact to the crew, Starliner, or station operations

In other words, this is not a rare event, and from the beginning was not considered by the astronauts, ground engineers, or NASA management to be a matter of concern. The fix was apparently simple and straightforward, and is part of the work done whenever any new vehicle gets docked and tied into ISS’s systems.

It appears however to have caused many in the news media and in the space world to go nuts simply because it was linked to Starliner and Boeing. This is similar to the recent pattern of assigning all blame to Boeing whenever any Boeing-built plane has technical problems, even if that plane had been purchased by the airline decades earlier and its maintenance was solely the responsibility of the airline for that long.

Boeing is definitely a company in trouble, on many levels. We shouldn’t however look for problems there in the company when they clearly don’t exist.

NASA names revised crew for next manned Dragon mission to ISS

NASA today named the two astronauts who will fly on the next manned Dragon mission to ISS, to be launched on September 24, 2024 for a six month mission, where they will be joined by the two astronauts who launched on Boeing’s Starliner in June but now will return with them when their Freedom capsule returns in February 2025.

NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov will launch no earlier than Tuesday, Sept. 24, on the agency’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission to the International Space Station. NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson, previously announced as crewmates, are eligible for reassignment on a future mission. Hague and Gorbunov will fly to the space station as commander and mission specialist, respectively, as part of a two-crew member flight aboard a SpaceX Dragon.

The updated crew complement follows NASA’s decision to return the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test uncrewed and launch Crew-9 with two unoccupied seats. NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who launched aboard the Starliner spacecraft in June, will fly home with Hague and Gorbunov in February 2025.

With Starliner now scheduled to return on September 6th and Freedom not arriving until around September 24th, there will be an eighteen day period when Wilmore and Williams will have a limited and more risky lifeboat option on ISS. If an incident should occur that requires station evacuation there is room to squeeze them inside SpaceX’s Endeavour Dragon capsule presently docked there, but they will return without flight suits. Their Dragon flight suits will not arrive until September 24th, on the next Dragon. The suits they used on Starliner will not work on Dragon.

Starliner will return unmanned; crew will return in February 2025 on Dragon

Starliner docked to ISS
Starliner docked to ISS.

In a briefing today, NASA’s administrator Bill Nelson announced that Boeing’s Starliner capsule, launched in June on its first manned mission, will return unmanned and that the two astronauts it brought to ISS — Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams — will return in February 2025 as part of the crew of the next Dragon manned mission, scheduled to launch in late September.

Nelson made it a point to note that NASA’s past inactions to protect astronauts on two different shuttle missions, thus leading to their deaths, was a factor in this decision. The agency now decided safety must come first, and since Starliner’s return abilities still carry uncertainties that relate directly to safety, it decided to use a more reliable and tested Dragon capsule to return those astronauts back to Earth. During the entire briefing and Q&A session it became very clear that NASA is now paying very close attention to its engineers and their conclusions, rather than dismissing those conclusions because of other management concerns, as it did during those previous two shuttle failures.

Nelson also stated that NASA still wants to use Starliner as a second crew vehicle to ISS. He noted that he has spoken to Boeing’s new CEO, who apparently committed to getting Starliner fixed and operating. It remains undecided whether another test manned flight will be required of Boeing (at Boeing’s cost) before NASA certifies it as an operational vehicle. Whether any other customers will be willing to use the capsule remains unlikely until Boeing has flown a lot of Starliner NASA flights with no problems.

At this moment they are looking to bring Starliner back in early September, using a simplified undocking system to get the vehicle away from ISS quickly. The next Dragon mission will launch no earlier than September 24th carrying two astronauts and two empty flight suits that Wilmore and Williams use during their return.

Russia launches Progress cargo spacecraft to ISS

Russia tonight (August 15th in Russia) successfully launched a Progress freight to ISS, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan.

Rendezvous and docking with ISS scheduled for August 17, 2024 in the early morning.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

80 SpaceX
33 China
10 Rocket Lab
9 Russia

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 95 to 50, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world combined, including American companies, 80 to 65.

Axiom’s next commercial manned mission to ISS delayed until 2025

Axiom’s next commercial manned mission to ISS, dubbed Ax-4, which had been targeting an October 2024 launch date, has now been delayed until 2025 because of “required interagency approval processes.”

NASA’s only announcement describing the delay was a tweet on X, which stated the following:

The Ax-4 crew members are pending approval to fly to the orbiting lab by the Multilateral Crew Operations Panel.

Neither Axiom nor NASA provided further comment or explanation. The mission will fly three passengers from India, Poland, and Hungary and be commanded by Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut who now fulfills that role for Axiom. Since the three passengers are all government astronauts, it is possible that the bureaucracies from all three nations, plus NASA and its ISS partners, are entangled in negotiations far more complex than necessary.

This situation highlights quite clearly why both billionairs Jared Isaacman and Chun Wang have signed on with SpaceX to flight orbital missions — avoiding a docking with ISS — that require no permissions from NASA. Wang for example announced his deal yesterday, for a flight that is targeting a launch before the end of the year. Though that schedule is tight and might not be met, it appears the mission will likely fly before the Axiom one, which has been planned now for quite awhile.

Archeology on ISS?

Archeologists have now published a paper outlining what they call the first archeology project in space, documenting the changes that have occurred at six different locations on the International Space Station during a 60 day period.

[The archeologists] had the astronauts use adhesive tape to define one-meter areas of the International Space Station and document them with daily photographs to study how the spaces were used over 60 days in 2022. The squares were placed in a handful of work and leisure locations on the space station, including the U.S. galley table, workstations, experimental EXPRESS racks and on the wall across from the latrine where astronauts kept their toiletries.

The team’s findings provide the first glimpse into how astronauts adapt to life and conduct research without gravity, how international cooperation plays out in the tight quarters, how they use their space for work and leisure while in orbit, and more. By cross-referencing the photos with astronaut activity reports, the researchers found that the area near the exercise equipment and latrine, while not designated for any particular purpose, had been used as storage for toiletries, resealable bags, and a rarely used computer. The equipment maintenance area was actually used for storage, with little maintenance carried out there. [emphasis mine]

This research has some value, but on the whole its substance I think is overrated. When you build a home, the rooms have generally accepted purposes (kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, office, living room) but with some of those rooms it is expected that the homeowners will bring their own needs and desires to the place and use them as they please. The study above demonstrates this perfectly with the highlighted sentence. Though one area was designed to be a repair workbench, the astronauts found it more convenient or necessary to all such work elsewhere, and repurposed the maintenance area more practically.

At the same time, neither a space station nor an interplanetary spaceship are like homes. Both are actually entire worlds packed into a small space, so a lot of thinking has to go into designing them. It is in this area this research has some value. We are still learning what “rooms” will generally be needed in such long term space vessels, and this study can provide some data for this purpose.

Even so, I remain skeptical. It will likely be much cheaper and faster to simply talk to the astronauts who have lived on ISS to get their imput on how the interior space of a future interplanetary spaceship or station should be designed. In fact, the best thing to do would be to hire astronauts to help with the design process. That’s what the Soviets did in designing Soyuz. Asking archeologists for this information is nice, but seems very distant from the real issue. And it creates work on the station that might be better used doing something else.

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