Tag: Portal

ULA rolls Vulcan core first stage to launchpad for tank tests

9:26 am

Capitalism in space: ULA yesterday rolled out a test Vulcan core first stage to its launchpad for a variety of tests in preparation for its first launch, now delayed until next year.

The rocket’s core stage will undergo Pathfinder Tanking Tests (PTT) at Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. It is outfitted with two development BE-4 engines that will be replaced by flight engines before launch. The tanking, or fueling, tests will validate launch pad infrastructure, evaluate countdown procedures, and train the launch team.

That these launchpad tests were delayed until now suggests that ULA had hoped to do them with the flightworthy engines, and then follow-up quickly with Vulcan’s first orbital launch in the fall. With the admission this week by both Blue Origin and ULA that the flightworthy BE-4 engines would not be delivered this summer as promised, ULA probably decided it was better to get this testing done now with the development engines, in order to save prep time for when the flightworthy engines finally arrive.

Thus, the delays at Blue Origin are costing ULA money. Once the flightworthy engines are installed, ULA will still need to do static fire launchpad tests, which means they will have to do much of this test program all over again. The extra countdown rehearsals are of course beneficial, but they are an extra expense, and also require extra time.

ULA’s CEO, Tory Bruno, has tried very hard to streamline ULA’s operations so they are more efficient and thus more competitive. Blue Origin’s failure to deliver on time is making Bruno’s effort very difficult.

It also shows that SpaceX’s policy of building as many of its components in-house, instead of depending on outside contractors, makes sense. And that all of the new rocket companies are doing the same proves that others agree. ULA’s dependence on others for its rocket engines will thus in the long run put it at big competitive disadvantage.

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Spanish judge invalids agreement to build TMT in Canary Islands

9:05 am

The consortium attempting to build the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), blocked by protesters in Hawaii, has now had its back-up location in the Canary Islands blocked by a Spanish judge, who last month invalidated the agreement between the consortium and local authorities.

[A]n administrative court in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the capital of the Spanish archipelago, ruled last month that the 2017 concession by local authorities of public land for the tentative project was invalid. The ruling was dated on July 29, but only became public this week after local media reported about the decision.

In the ruling obtained by The Associated Press, Judge Roi López Encinas wrote that the telescope land allocation was subject to an agreement between the Canary Astrophysics Institute, or IAC, and the telescope’s promoter, the TMT International Observatory (TIO) consortium. But the judge ruled that the agreement was not valid because TIO had not expressed an intention to build on the La Palma site instead of at the Hawaii site.

In other words, it appears the agreement was ruled invalid because the TMT builders had not made a firm commitment about building at the Canary Islands.

At this moment it truly looks like TMT is dead. It has no alternative site, and its political support in Hawaii is nil. While the Democratic Party politicians that rule that state have mouthed support for it, almost all their actions since the protests began has been to help the protesters and stymie construction.

What I think will soon begin happening is that the partners in TMT will begin to back out, switching their support to the other large ground-based telescopes being planned, the Giant Magellan Telescope and the European-Extremely Large Telescope. Since these are both being built in Chile, the loss of TMT means that there will be no large ground-based telescope coverage of the northern sky.

The real solution? Stop building ground-based telescopes. Put them in space, where such political issues won’t exist, and the view will be unimpeded by either the atmosphere or the tens of thousands of new satellites expected to launch in the coming years.

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Blue Origin successfully completes another unmanned suborbital flight with New Shepard

8:47 am

Capitalism in space: Only one month after its first passenger flight, Blue Origin today successfully completed another suborbital flight with its New Shepard booster/capsule, this time flying 18 commercial payloads for NASA and others.

These details about the spacecraft itself I think are significant:

The New Shepard booster, Tail 3, and its associated capsule, RSS H.G. Wells, flew the mission. Tail 3 is dedicated to uncrewed science missions like NS-17, and this was Tail 3’s 8th flight.

…Blue Origin expects to fly one more New Shepard mission this year with sister ship Tail 4 and the crew-capable capsule RSS First Step

In other words, Blue Origin now has two working New Shepard spacecraft. This will allow them to eventually up their launch pace.

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Perseverance’s upcoming targets: sand ripples, rocks, and a lot of dust

2:17 pm

Ingenuity's view during 12th flight

Cool image time! The photo to the right was one of ten color images taken by Ingenuity on its twelfth flight on August 15, 2021. This photo is one of two images looking the same area from slightly different positions in order to create a stereoscopic view, with the other image found here.

The ground the helicopter was scouting, dubbed South Seitah, is an area that the Perseverance team hopes to send the rover. Ingenuity’s images from this flight will not only tell them whether the terrain is safe to traverse, it will allow them to map out a route that will avoid problems while effectively targeting the most interesting rocks.

The photo shows a lot of Martian dust, with a good portion forming small sand dune ripples. The rocks appear to be bedrock pavement stones, which because these are on the floor of the crater and the lowest elevation, likely hold the oldest geology that Perseverance will see on its journey in Jezero Crater. For this reason the science team is spending a lot of time studying that floor, and will make probably several drilling attempts to obtain samples.

The terrain in general looks entirely safe for the rover to travel. I expect the science team will thus continue north, crossing to North Seitah, rather than backtrack and travel over already traversed ground. Initially they had decided to avoid this ground because they feared it might be too rough for the rover. I suspect they were just being overly cautious at the start of the mission, and will now work past that fear.

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Musk’s Boring Co offers to dig tunnel for resident transportation during launch closures

1:49 pm

Capitalism in space: Elon Musk’s Boring Company has proposed digging a tunnel so that people can still access Boca Chica’s beaches even during periods when SpaceX is doing launch operations and needs to close the surface roads.

The Boring Company (TBC) met with Cameron County officials to discuss the possibility of a tunnel project running from South Padre Island (SPI) to Boca Chica Beach.

The Boring Company pitched the idea of an SPI-Boca Chica tunnel to Cameron County administrator Pete Sepulveda Jr. and county engineer Benjamin Worsham early this summer. Cameron County officials have been thinking of giving people access to part of Boca Chica Beach even during closures.

The county has said it likely cannot afford to pay for such a thing, but Musk’s company is still proposing to do an in-depth study to find out what will be necessary to make it happen.

It could very well be that Musk might find some cash to help pay for this himself. The public relations would be excellent, and it would I think be the right thing to do. It is also possible that the local communities will have more cash themselves because of the booming economy SpaceX is bringing them.

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Blue Origin BE-4 engine delayed again

10:14 am

In an interview ULA’s CEO Tory Bruno revealed that Blue Origin is not going to deliver the first two flightworthy BE-4 engines this summer, as promised, with delivery now probably not until the end of the year.

“I will not get them before the end of the year,” said Tory Bruno, CEO of ULA, in an exclusive Denver Business Journal interview ahead of this week’s Space Symposium industry gathering in Colorado Springs. “It will be shortly into the beginning of the 2022 calendar year, and anywhere in there will support me being able to build up a rocket and have that Vulcan waiting on my customer, Astrobotic.”

…“We’ve actually be been able to accommodate this, but I’ll be straight with you, the dates we’ve set up for them now— we really don’t have the ability to make any big moves after this,” Bruno said. “I need them to diligently work through the plans we have and get done on time.”

ULA needs to launch its new Vulcan rocket twice in order to get approved for its first military launch, now expected in less than 12 months. They thus no longer have any schedule margin.

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China completes two launches

2:23 pm

China today successfully completed two launches, using from different spaceports its Long March 2C and Long March 3B rockets.

The 2C launched a two demo internet communications satellites designed to eventually be used in a large constellation similar to the constellations of SpaceX and OneWeb. The launch also included a third unidentified communications satellite.

The 3B placed in orbit what is believed to be a military reconnaissance satellite.

Both rockets dumped their first stages somewhere in the interior of China. No word on whether those stages carried parachutes or grid fins to better control their landing, or crashed near habitable regions.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

29 China
20 SpaceX
13 Russia
4 Northrop Grumman

The U.S. still leads China 31 to 29 in the national rankings.

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Wind-blown dark material on Mars

11:59 am

Dark wind-blown material on Mars
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on May 13, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a cluster of small depressions from which has blown dark material across the ground to the south. The full image also shows two craters north and south of this cluster that have similar dark material blown from their interiors.

When I first looked at this image, I wondered if the dark material and these depressions signaled a recently active volcanic vent where magma had spewed upward to stain the nearby ground. See for example this recent post about what some scientists believe might the most recent volcanic event so far found on Mars. I emailed several scientists for their thoughts, all of whom said this appears to not be active volcanism but merely windblown dark material.

Kim Seelos, science operations lead for MRO’s visible-near infrared spectrometer, put it simply. “My own reading of this image is that the dark areas here are likely akin to wind streaks.” Instead of the dark material being thrown from the depressions by a volcanic event, it was swept to the south by the prevailing winds.

How that dark material got into the depressions, and why it was so comparably darker than the surrounding terrain, remains unclear. David Horvath of the Planetary Science Institute in Arizona speculated that the low hills just north of the dark patch might be a factor.
» Read more

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First hi-res radio wavelength images of metal asteroid Psyche

9:46 am

Psyche in thermal

Using the ALMA telescope in Chile astronomers have obtained the highest resolution radio images of the surface of the metal-rich asteroid Psyche yet obtained. The image to the right is from their just published paper. From the article:

These new images reveal that some regions of the asteroid have surface temperatures different from the average, indicating that Psyche’s composition is not uniform. The researchers also found that Psyche has a relatively high thermal inertia compared to other asteroids, yet it radiates approximately 60% less heat than would be expected for an object with such a high inertia. The researchers hypothesize that this is because the asteroid’s surface is at least 30% metal. However, the light reflecting off Psyche’s surface is unpolarized, which would not be the case for an object with a smooth or solid metallic surface. They therefore hypothesize that metallic grains are spread throughout its surface material, causing the light to scatter.

Though Psyche is large, 178 by 144 by 101 miles, it is not spherical like Ceres, the largest asteroid in the asteroid belt at 580 miles diameter. Thus, somewhere from the size of Psyche to the size of Ceres we move from an irregular asteroid body to a spherical planetary body, as it appears most planetary scientists define planets.

The probe Psyche is scheduled to launch in August ’22 to arrive at Psyche in ’26.

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ISS spacewalk postponed due to “minor medical issue”

9:16 am

NASA announced yesterday that a spacewalk planned for today on ISS has been postponed because of ” a minor medical issue” involving American astronaut Mark Vande Hei.

This issue is not a medical emergency. The spacewalk is not time-sensitive and crew members are continuing to move forward with other station work and activities. Teams are assessing the next available opportunity to conduct the spacewalk following the SpaceX CRS-23 cargo resupply launch planned for Aug. 28 and upcoming Russian spacewalks.

The NASA announcement provided no other information, which is unfortunate. While Vande Hei’s medical privacy must be respected, his decision to not disclose the issue will only fuel some foolish speculation that is likely false. It is always better to be transparent.

Update: It appears the medical issue was a pinched nerve, which will likely cause the spacewalk to be delayed into September at the soonest.

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Ispace’s 3rd lunar lander to be larger, built entirely in U.S.

9:06 am

Capitalism in space: The private Japanese company Ispace announced yesterday that its third lunar lander will be larger (to provide more payload space for customers) and built entirely in U.S. (to better garner NASA contracts).

The lander, being developed by the company’s U.S. office in Denver, will fly as soon as 2024 on the company’s third mission to the moon.

A major difference in the new design, company officials said in interviews, is the payload capacity. While the lander ispace is building for its first two missions in 2022 and 2023 can carry 30 kilograms of payload to the lunar surface, the new lander will have a payload capacity of 500 kilograms to the surface. It will also be able to deploy an additional 2,000 kilograms of payloads to lunar orbit.

The company is also hardening the lander to survive the two week long lunar night.

The decision to shift operations to the U.S., and partner with U.S. companies General Atomics and Draper, makes Ispace a viable competitor for later NASA contracts, which in turn can encourage other privately funded payloads to sign on.

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Boeing to buy part of Virgin Orbit for $3.2 billion

3:18 pm

Capitalism in space: In a stock market merger/investment deal, Boeing is going to buy a part ownership in Virgin Orbit for $3.2 billion, with the deal to close by the end of the year.

After the deal completes, Branson’s Virgin group will hold about 68 per cent of Virgin Orbit. Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, Mubadala Investment Company, is an existing investor in Virgin Orbit and will have about 17 per cent, while the Pipe and other private investors will hold about 15 per cent of the group. Boeing’s share was not disclosed.

My first thought was that Boeing wanted to get into a space company that was doing things better than anything Boeing was trying. And considering that Virgin Orbit a Richard Branson space company, albeit one with some real success, that indicates how badly everything else is at Boeing

My second thought was: Where is Boeing getting the cash? My impression is that because of its various problems with the 737-Max, it has sold almost no planes in the past two years, and has even had to refund money from many purchasers. Its cash flow with Starliner is nil until they fly it. SLS has brought them money as the contract is cost-plus, but hardly enough to pay for this deal.

My third thought was that this deal indicates the continuing cash problems at Branson’s Virgin Group. The Wuhan panic cut airline traffic significantly. It appears Branson is still digging for cash to bail out these operations.

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