Tag: policy

ArianeGroup ships the 1st Ariane-6 core and upper stages to French Guiana

10:08 am

Capitalism in space: ArianeGroup today announced that the first completed stages for its new Ariane-6 rocket have been shipped to French Guiana for testing.

The Ariane 6 core stage and upper stage intended for the combined tests on the launch pad in French Guiana have left the ArianeGroup sites in Les Mureaux and Bremen and begun their journey to Europe’s Spaceport. These stages will be integrated by ArianeGroup in the Launcher Assembly Building (BAL) to create the central core for the Ariane 6 combined tests model.

The press release provided no information on the schedule for the tests or the first launch. An earlier release had targeted the second quarter of ’22 for the inaugural launch, but based on today’s press release I would suspect that scheduled is very tentative.

This press release marks another major change in how Europe will launch rockets. No longer is the government-run Arianespace in charge. Instead, the commercial partnership of Airbus and Safran, dubbed ArianeGroup, is running things. In exchange for building this new rocket this partnership demanded a greater share of the profits and full control, something the European Space Agency (ESA) had denied them under Arianespace. This new arrangement was devised in the hope it would give this private partnership a direct interest in making a profit, thus cutting costs and encouraging innovation.

However, because ESA is still very very closely involved in every step, it is uncertain whether this arrangement will achieve its goals. Moreover, there are indications that ArianeGroup itself is somewhat risk adverse. For example, in designing Ariane-6 both decided to forego re-usability. Their rocket is thus more expensive than SpaceX, and has had trouble garnering launch contracts.

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Webb deployment resumes, with continuing success

9:50 am

After a day delay to assess the telescope’s earlier operation in space, engineers yesterday resumed the deployment of the James Webb Space Telescope’s sun shield.

First they began tensioning the shield’s first of five layers, completing that operation in about five and a half hours.

Next the engineers proceeded to tighten layers two and three, completing that task in about three hours.

Today they have begun tightening the last two layers. A live stream of this slow and relatively unexciting process (as long as nothing goes wrong) is available from NASA here.

Based on what has been done so far, it appears that the deployment of the sun shield, considered the most challenging part of Webb’s deployment, is going to complete successfully. While the unfolding and deployment of the mirror still must be done, getting the sun shield deployed eliminates one of the great concerns that has kept both astronomers and engineers awake nights for decades.

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South Korea pinpoints cause of October launch failure

9:39 am

The new colonial movement: South Korea’s space agency KARI has completed its investigation of the launch failure in October of its first entirely home-built Nuri rocket, revealing that the support structures for the rocket’s helium tanks were designed incorrectly, and allowed the tanks to break free during launch.

“The support structures holding helium tanks inside the third-stage oxidizer tank were not properly designed to account for a force referred to as buoyancy,” KARI said in a Dec. 29 statement. Buoyancy, the upward force exerted by a fluid that pushes an object, rises along with a rocket’s altitude, which was not accounted for, according to KARI.

The helium tanks with the faulty anchors were inside the upper stage’s oxidizer tank, which was filled with liquid oxygen needed for the rocket’s ignition. With the helium tanks coming loose, they disrupted pipelines within the oxidizer tank and led the liquid oxygen to leak, resulting in early termination of the ignition, KARI explained.

The helium is used to keep the tank pressurized as it uses up its oxygen so that oxygen will continue to flow to the engine. Thus, they sit inside the oxygen tanks, and when they came loose they damaged its internal pipes.

Though they can fix the problem, it will likely cause a delay in the second Nuri launch attempt, presently scheduled for May.

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Update on Starship/Superheavy development

9:30 am

Link here.

The article first provides a detailed review of the past year’s effort, which leads to laying out the possibilities for 2022. Key quote:

With the FAA citing its plans to issue the Final Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA) for the SpaceX Starship / Super Heavy project no earlier than the end of February, SpaceX can claim the review process is the schedule driver. However, [Superheavy] Booster 4 [intended for Starship’s first orbital flight] has yet to conduct a Static Fire test, likely including an eventual full 29 engine firing. Further evolutions of the Ship and Booster are yet to come online, with a plan to go to nine engines on Ship and 33 engines on the Booster, all moving to the Raptor 2 variant.

In other words, there is a lot of work that needs to be done before SpaceX can actually fly that first orbital flight of Starship/Superheavy, and that even if the FAA rubberstamped the approval of its environmental reassessment of the Boca Chica site today, SpaceX would likely not be able to launch that orbital flight for several months anyway.

The article also suggests that SpaceX has made big progress in rethinking the Raptor manufacturing process, and has aimed those changes for the production of the Raptor-2 engine, which will also be about 20% more powerful than the Raptor engines presently being installed.

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2021: The year that private enterprise took over rocketry

2:50 pm

The year that just ended, 2021, was for the field of rocketry the most successful year since the launch of Sputnik in 1957. In a year when the world was still racked by COVID panic and its oppressive restrictions on both private and public life, the global launch industry was able to rack up the most launches ever, successfully completing 134 launches and topping the previous best year, 1975, by one.

The chart below shows all successful launches by every nation in the 21st century. It also shows in the U.S. the breakdown of those launches by private companies.
» Read more

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Sunspot update: The Sun blasts off!

10:16 am

Over the weekend NOAA posted its monthly update to its graph showing the long term trends in the Sun’s sunspot activity. As I do every month, I have posted that graph below, annotated to show the previous solar cycle predictions and thus provide context.

In December the Sun’s sunspot activity not only continued the pattern of the past two years — whereby sunspot activity has consistently exceeded the prediction of NOAA’s solar scientist panel — the amount of activity shot up like a rocket. December 2021 saw the most sunspots in a single month since September 2015, when the Sun was about a third of the way into its ramp down from the solar maximum in 2014.

» Read more

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A review of China’s space program

8:42 am

Link here. The article covers China’s achievements in ’21, then reviews the status of its rocket development program. The key quote to me however was this, describing the upcoming plans for the assembly of China’s space station:

In 2022, China is expected to launch two more crew rotations to the Tiangong station using its Shenzhou spacecraft. The first, Shenzhou 14, is expected in May, while the second one will launch in November. Both missions will launch aboard Chang Zheng [Long March] 2F/G rockets. Two more modules for the space station are also planned to launch in the course of the year.

These new modules are the laboratory cabin modules (LCMs). The first is named Wentian, meaning Quest for the Heavens, while the second is Mengtian, or Dreaming of the Heavens. Both will launch on Chang Zheng 5B rockets, with Wentian currently scheduled to lift off in May or June, with Mengtian planned to launch in August or September.

This means that — assuming China has not reworked the design of its Long March 5B rocket — a large out-of-control core stage will be crashing to Earth in the the spring and late summer.

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Biden administration commits to operating ISS through 2030

5:46 pm

The Biden administration yesterday announced that it has committed NASA to operating the International Space Station (ISS) through 2030, a six year extension to the previous end date of 2024.

Today’s abrupt announcement on a federal holiday comes one day after Biden and Putin had a “serious and substantive” telephone conversation about the situation in Ukraine where Russian troops are massed at the border. Biden has said that if Russia invades Ukraine the United States and its allies will respond with more economic sanctions. A Russian official told reporters later that Putin warned Biden that any such sanctions “could result in a ‘complete rupture’ of relations” between the two countries, according to the New York Times.

…Asked why the ISS extension was announced today and if it is related to the Biden-Putin call, a NASA spokesperson told SpacePolicyOnline.com only that it has “been in the works for months.”

A White House commitment to 2030 falls short of setting the date in law, but demonstrates U.S. intentions at least as long as Biden is President. Whether the other partners, especially Russia, agree will be interesting to watch. ESA’s Director General, Josef Aschbacher, welcomed the news, but it will be the 11 ESA members who participate in the program who make the decision.

The article gives a good overview of the political issues, and notes accurately that it will be very difficult to operate the station if Russia and the U.S. part ways and Russia leaves the partnership.

What the article did not mention is the fragile state of some of Russia’s modules. Both Roscosmos and NASA know that the Zvezda module, the second oldest on ISS, is showing very worrisome signs of aging, including many stress fractures that have caused small airleaks. The Russians themselves have admitted that the module is failing, and have added that because of this fact the Putin government has begun work on a new and independent Russian station.

It is unclear if ISS could function if Zvezda became unusable. At a minimum its capabilities will be reduced. At worst it might not be safe to occupy.

The Biden administration and NASA can extend ISS on paper as much as they want, but reality suggests that it will be a dangerous challenge to keep the station running until 2030. The real solution is to get as many private commercial American stations launched in the next few years, so that when Zvezda fails, there will be viable options to ISS.

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Iran finally admits rocket launch on December 30th was a failure

5:33 pm

One day after implying that the test launch of Iran’s Simorgh orbital rocket on December 30th was actually a suborbital flight and was a success, that same official admitted yesterday that this was not true, that the plan had been to put three satellites in orbit, and that the launch was a failure.

Ahmad Hosseini, an Iranian defense ministry spokesman, revealed that the rocket failed to put its three payloads into orbit after the rocket was unable to reach the required speed, according to the news agency.

“For a payload to enter orbit, it needs to reach speeds above 7,600 (meters per second). We reached 7,350,” he said in a documentary broadcast on state TV.

It was Hosseini who claimed the launch was a success the day earlier, implying that the low speed was because the flight was intended to be suborbital. Either he knows nothing about rocketry (very likely), or is merely a mouthpiece who was ordered to change his story when the first story was laughed out of the room (also very likely).

The article at the link focuses on France’s condemnation of the launch, claiming it was a ballistic missile.

France’s foreign ministry said the launch was in breach of UN Security Council resolutions, Reuters reported. “We call on Iran not to launch further ballistic missiles designed to be capable of carrying nuclear weapons, including space launchers,” the ministry said.

Simorgh however is not a ballistic missile. Everything I have read about it suggests it is designed to put payloads in orbit, not deliver bombs to other parts of the globe. A ballistic missile is technically a very different thing. It usually uses solid rockets which can be stored for long periods and launched at a moment’s notice. Simorgh uses hypergolic fuels which — though they can be used on ballistic missiles — are rarely used for that purpose because of their toxic nature.

At the same time, these facts about Simorgh should not make us think Iran is not a threat. If you can develop the manpower and technical know-how to built an orbital rocket, you will also have increased your ability to build missiles. Iran is without doubt working to develop both.

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The unfurling of Webb’s sun shield begins

5:18 pm

Engineers have begun the multi-day unfurling and deployment of the sun shield on the James Webb Space Telescope.

The first step is to deploy two booms on each side of the telescope that draw the shield itself outward.

The deployment of the first boom was held up several hours to give engineers time to make sure the protective covers had, in fact, rolled off to the side of the sunshade pallets as required.

“Switches that should have indicated that the cover rolled up did not trigger when they were supposed to,” NASA said in a blog post. “However, secondary and tertiary sources offered confirmation that it had.”

“The deployment of the five telescoping segments of the motor-driven mid-boom began around 1:30 p.m., and the arm extended smoothly until it reached full deployment,” NASA said.

Engineers then sent commands to deploy the second sunshade boom, which extended smoothly and locked in place at 10:13 p.m., finally giving Webb its iconic kite-like shape.

Next the shield has to be tightened in place, which will also separate and tighten in place the shield’s five layers. According to the schedule, the four layers will be tensioned today, with the fifth tomorrow.

The step-by-step deployment is outlined in detail here, and updates to the most recently completed step after it is finished.

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A small victory in Nevada against COVID mandates illustrates the ongoing corrupt politicizing of all of American culture

12:31 pm

Might still exist in Nevada
Might still exist in Nevada.

First the good news: An elected Nevada legislative commission last week overturned an extension proposed by the state’s board of health of its mandate that all college students in the state get COVID shots or be banned from school.

Initially approved in August by the Nevada State Board of Health, the emergency provision was set to last only 120-days, according to The Nevada Independent. When the mandate expired last week and was sent to the Legislative Commission for review, the Commission chose not to make it permanent, with all six Republican lawmakers voting against the mandate and all six Democrats for it.

The tie means the mandate is not renewed.

This small victory for freedom and against irrational discrimination and blacklists illustrates some fundamental points about the entire COVID madness as well as America’s evolving culture.
» Read more

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SpaceX raises another $337 million in investment capital

9:45 am

Capitalism in space: In an SEC filing yesterday SpaceX revealed that it has raised another $337 million in investment capital.

The company raised in 2021 a total of $1.85 billion, and over the last six years has raised close to $7 billion total. While some of that capital is being used to finance its Starlink internet constellation of satellites, most is being funneled into the development of its totally reusable heavy lift Starship/Superheavy rocket.

The eagerness of investors to put money behind SpaceX is a strong vote of confidence in the company, coming from totally independent sources.

Adding in the $2.9 billion dollar contract from NASA for building a lunar lander version of Starship, SpaceX has raised about $10 billion total for building this rocket.

Whether that will be enough of course is not yet known. Based on SpaceX’s past work it should be. That however assumes the federal government’s bureaucracy doesn’t throw a serious wrench in the process, something it right now appears to be doing by stalling the orbital test flight of Starship/Superheavy.

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