Tag: quick space links

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

• Rocket Lab is selling the helicopter it had planned to use to catch Electron 1st stages

Their decision to reuse the stages after quickly pulling them from the water made the helicopter extraneous.

 

• China claims completion of an in-orbit experiment on liquid metal thermal management on its space station

I honestly don’t know what this means. Have they used some form of liquid metal to manage the station’s temperature? Or have they figured out a way to control and manage liquid metals in weightlessness?

 

• Several solar storms are expected to hit Earth in the next few days

I make two predictions: 1) Nothing of significance will happen, though we will have great auroras. 2) Some news outlets will write a story with some variation of this headline: “Were we lucky to dodge a solar disaster this time?”

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

• An review of Blue Origin activities at its launch site at Cape Canaveral

The article claims the company is picking up the pace of its operations, but neither Jay or I noticed that much of great significance. More is happening, but not to the extent that should make anyone hold their breath.

 

• Virgin Orbit receives more than thirty indications of interest under bankruptcy procedures

What is important is that several of these offers want to keep the company intact and operating as is. If they win, then Virgin Orbit as a launch company survives.

 

• Water park built behind Wenchang launch pads:

It is unclear what this “park” is exactly. It appears to be some sort of water control system surrounded by landscaping.

 

• Short video showing the present global satellite coverage of SpaceX’s Starlink constellation

There are now about 4,000 satellites in orbit.

 

• Graph showing 1st quarter orbital launches vs payload mass

Not surprisingly, SpaceX has put 10x more mass into orbit than its nearest two competitors, China and Russia.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. I meanwhile am at a space symposium in Tucson today, so posting has been light. I should be home in time to do some work later this afternoon.

• Virgin Galaxtic to resume flights in May

The company is calling the May flight, carrying two Italian astronauts and delayed more than two years, its final checkout prior to beginning commercial flights in June..

 

• Buzz Aldrin promoted to Brigadier General

He is also now officially ranked as a Guardian in the Space Force.

 

• China’s next Tianzhou cargo freighter to station has 20% more cargo space

The extra space was created by moving some components from the cargo module to the service module. The freighter, which launches this week, has other enhancements as well.

 

• SpaceX’s entire fleet of Florida recovery ships at dock

As noted at the tweet, it is rare for all the ships to be together considering SpaceX’s busy launch schedule.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, who has also noticed, as I have, that the news in commercial space has been slow this week.

• Tianzhou-5 has undocked from Tiangong-5 but will fly in formation and then redock to different port, after the present Shenzhou crew departs

The Chinese are clearly practicing the formation flying that will be required almost continually when they launch their Hubble-class orbiting optical telescope next year.

 

• Orbex breaks ground on first launchpad at Sutherland spaceport in Scotland

Orbex is another smallsat rocket startup that hopes to launch its orbital Prime rocket from Sutherland before the end of the year.

 

• Delayed Rocket Lab launch now hopes the weather will allow a lift-off on May 8, 2023 (New Zealand time), or 9 pm (Eastern) on May 7th

A launch attempt last week was canceled due to weather.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

• Chinese pseudo-company touts its next launch in June of it recoverable orbital unmanned capsule

According to the tweet thread, the company has done other suborbital flights. The concept is essentially a steal of Russia’s own unmanned orbital capsule that it has been flying both materials and biological experiments for decades.

 

• Short movie of Zhurong images as it approached its back cover and parachute in July 2021.

Nothing new here. Zhurong remains in hibernation, or dead, depending on what happens next.

 

• Images and video showing Europe’s robot arm on ISS moving Russia’s airlock to Nauka in yesterday’s spacewalk

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

• SpaceX releases video taken from one fairing on its descent after release from Falcon Heavy

Quite cool. As the tweet notes, this “was the hottest and fastest [fairing return] we’ve ever attempted.”

 

• NASA whines it might not have enough plutonium for future deep space missions

Most of this is simply lobbying for more money. The shortage of plutonium will only matter if NASA’s planetary program gets a gigantic budget boost.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

• Axiom once again touts images of its first space station under construction by Thales Alenia

These are the same two images the company posted on April 10th, so either nothing is happening, or they are simply not telling us anything.

 

• Some Chinese operation dubbed HIT has built a vacuum chamber to test the impact of lunar dust on equipment

The idea is to simulate the lunar environment and find out ways to eliminate dust issues.

 

• China touts the construction progress for its first commercial launchpad at its coastal Wenchang spaceport

It appears the launch tower will be completed one month early, in May, with the foundation hole for the second pad 96% dug.

 

• Court approves Virgin Orbits proposed bankruptcy plan

The company hopes with this plan it will be bought whole by a single buyer and thus saved. There remains no guarantee that will happen. The auction will now occur on May 18th.

 

• A diagram detailing the status of the number Starship and Superheavy prototypes already built or under construction

All told, completed or parts of 11 Starships exist, as well as completed or parts of 8 Superheavies.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

• Blue Origin has over 10K employees, as claimed by someone who appears to work there

This is a Reddit discussion, so nothing is confirmed. Someone else notes the company has over 7500 employees according to Linkedin, while another notes again Bezos’ billion dollar per year commitment to the company. None of that has yet produced an orbital rocket, or a robust production line of BE-4 rocket engines.

 

• New Glenn “2nd stage simulator” vertical at Cape Canaveral

To be used to test the upper stage? Its engines? A dummy stage? And when? New Glenn development started almost a decade ago. One wonders.

 

• The fairings used on Falcon Heavy launch yesterday marked the 100th reuse of used fairings

 

• Chinese pseudo-company Galactic Energy touts is copycat Merlin engine

No word on when it goes into operation

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

• The flight path and drop zones for the expendable Long March 7 stages to be launched on May 10th

This launch will carry the next Tianzhou cargo spacecraft to China’s Tiangong-3 station. The drop zones will this time be over the ocean, not on people’s heads in China or elsewhere.

 

• China to create office to coordinate international participation on its planned moon base

This is China’s response to the Artemis Accords, but do not expect more than a handful of nations outside of Russia to sign on.

 

• Phantom signs deal with proposed spaceport in Australia

The spaceport, Arnhem Space Centre (ASC), is being developed by Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA), and hopes to attract international rocket companies. Phantom meanwhile hopes to complete its first launch first quarter of 2024.

 

• Rocket Lab touts its next NASA launch on May 1st

Just some pictures of the rocket on the launchpad.

 

• It appears ISRO has delayed the launch of its lunar lander Chandrayaan-3 to 2024

The delay was mentioned almost as an aside in the press release. As recently as March all looked good for a June 2023 launch, so this delay appears very puzzling.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

• Astra to sell propulsion systems to satellite company

Though Astra needs to buy its main upper stage rocket engines from Ursa Minor, it has still developed its own smaller altitude systems which it can (and now has) marketed to others.

 

• Russia claims it will build a nuclear-powered space tug for use in connection with the Chinese lunar base

Based on Chinese news outlets, it doesn’t appear they are depending on Russia’s tug. According to Jay, “The Chinese were talking about nuclear propulsion a few days ago for their Kuiper probes, but nothing about a joint effort with Russia. If anything, the Chinese will buy the plans and that will be it.”

 

• Blue Origin celebrates opening of new office in Phoenix

My heart be still. More desk space for Blue Origin managers! That’ll certainly get New Glenn launched sooner.

 

• China publishes its own analysis of Superheavy/Starship launch

This is all part of China’s design research, whereby you don’t create anything but simply copy what others achieve. To do that well however you need to study what others do very aggressively.

 

• NASA’s pick to be first black astronaut on Moon decides to denigrate his own mission as well all whites

The astronaut, Victor Glover, invoked a 1970s racist song called “Whitey on the Moon” during an interview. The song strongly implies that the 1960s Apollo missions were simply another expression of the oppression of blacks by the white race.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

• Interesting Twitter discussion about the Hakuto-R1 lunar landing failure

The most interesting comment, based on inconclusive and confusing data, is this: “From the Doppler profile, it looks like it descended, landed, then something went badly wrong and it accelerated back off the surface – just speculation based on radio obs.”

 

• ULA CEO Tory Bruno publishes paper outlining his thoughts on maintaining U.S. space assets agains attack

Bruno’s approach is very thoughtful and clearly presented. He concludes that the best approach is the one with the most variety, with both low and high orbit constellations providing communications and data. Why am I not surprised?

 

• The spacewalk plan to shift two solar panels on China’s Tiangong-3 space station to better locations

This effort is reminiscent of similar things the Russians did on both its Salyut and Mir stations.

 

• Rocket Lab says its preparations for two launches in New Zealand of NASA’s TROPICS satellites are on schedule

The first is scheduled for May 1, 2023 (New Zealand time), with the second on May 16th.

 

• Russia official extends its partnership on ISS until at least 2028

No surprise. What this really tells us is that Russia’s own space station is continuing to fall behind schedule, and will not be ready for launch by 2027, as previously predicted.

 

• Russia touts strength of Chinese-Russian space partnership by citing visit by official to China

Yeah, right. And I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you. The Chinese will make nice noises, but they know that they can expect nothing from Russia. If something shows up, great, but it would be dangerous to depend on it.

 

• For the first time since 2021, Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo (VSS Unity) completes a glide test flight

Their next goal is a powered flight with six crewmembers, targeting the second quarter of this year.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

• A three second video of a proposed Chinese interstellar spacecraft

Pure sci-fi at this point.

 

• The next Tianzhou cargo freighter to China’s Tiangong-3 station being prepped for May 10th launch

 

• China touts its Long March 9 Starship/Superheavy copy, with reuse of second stage coming as soon as the 2040s!

China’s design of this rocket changes every time it realizes the American rocket it is copying has gotten changed, or won’t work well. First it was duplicating SLS. Then it switched to Starship/Superheavy, but keeps revising it as SpaceX’s designs evolve.

 

• The paper outlining the new InSight results about Mars’ core

It is worthwhile reading, as it reveals the level of uncertainty behind its conclusion that the inner core is liquid, and made up of lighter materials and not iron..

 

• NASA reveals it will not reuse the Orion capsule that flew around the Moon on the first SLS launch

The avionics inside the capsule will be reused, but the capsule will only be used as an “environmental test article for future Artemis missions.” The irony is that even Boeing with Starliner is now planning on reusing its capsules. NASA is not, despite spending more than $20 billion developing Orion.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, who sent them on time but are being posted late because the creator of this website dropped the ball.

• A detailed analysis of Amazon’s proposed Kuiper constellation

Lots of great potentialities, but as always with Bezos space-related companies, little actual achievement, as yet.

 

• Global map of Mars produced by Tianwen-1 orbiter images

More significant is the announcement that Zhurong remains in hibernation mode.

 

• China’s space agency makes three rocket engines available for its pseudo-companies to buy

It also claims it can produce 300 engines per year.

 

• Another outsider’s perspective on the Starship/Superheavy test launch

I agree with Jay, her analysis is very refreshing, with exactly the right outlook.

 

• NASA considering shifting New Horizons from Kuiper Belt observations to solar observations, sooner that expected

The article is written entirely against this change, which if approved would occur in October 2024 instead of 2025. Though the New Horizons team is doing good research, they have not yet found another Kuiper asteroid target that New Horizons can get close to, and NASA management might be thinking the spacecraft could be better used studying the Sun from these distances.

 

• Celebrating the anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, 33 years ago today

The link shows video of the launch of Discovery, carrying Hubble.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

• Cygnus departs ISS

This was the Cygnus that had a solar panel deployment issue in November.

 

• Astra gets a tentative Space Force launch contract for its Rocket-4

The Space Force program is designed to encourage new companies. Astra still has to demonstrate its new Rocket-4 will fly to get full payment.

 

• China touts its proposed Long March 9 copy of Superheavy/Starship

As Jay says, “Wow! Wait that looks familiar….. 30 Raptor…err…YF-79 engines?”

 

Next, a whole bunch of post-flight items relating to the Starship/Superheavy test launch:

• Picture of launchpad damage
• Another picture of launchpad damage
• Update from Musk about launchpad damage
• Someone shows off a Starship tile that he found washed up on the beach
• Someone else shows off a Starship tile that she found washed up on the beach
• NEXTRAD weather radar data showing the flight
• FAA grounds SpaceX’s Starship rockets after explosion minutes into launch

The last story from Politico suggests first that the Biden administration and the federal bureaucracy fully intends to treat SpaceX and Starship/Superheavy differently than all other rocket startups, and second Politico is all-in on that effort.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

• Blue Origin touts its “nozzle room in our Huntsville engines factory”

What I see is a room with not a lot going on.

 

• A solar eclipse as seen by two Chinese weather satellites

As Jay notes, not much else on Twitter as everyone is talking about the SpaceX Superheavy/Starship test launch.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

• Video of the explosion during a recent Centaur stage test

According to the tweet by ULA CEO Tory Bruno, “Hydrogen leak. H2 accumulated inside the rig. Found an ignition source. Burned fast. Over pressure caved in our forward dome and damaged the rig.” They still need to locate the source of the leak.

 

• China’s spaceport deal with Middle East nation Djibouti has been cancelled

The deal had been announced in January. I suspect Djibouti was pressured by the U.S. to cancel, since we have so many military bases there.

 

• Firefly touts its project to build a medium-lift launch vehicle, larger than its Alpha rocket

The link however only shows pictures of the construction of the buildings where the rockets will eventually be built.

 

• Graphic showing the landing sequence for Hakuto-R1’s planned April 25th lunar landing

 

• Road closure notice for Boca Chica on April 17th, with back up dates on April 18th and 19th

I do not think this is for the launch itself, but for the wet dress rehearsal countdown and static fire test SpaceX said it would do before launch.

 

• Russian movie, The Challenge, shot on ISS, to be released in 20 countries

The list kind of indicates the allies (or potential allies if the U.S. continues to screw up) for the new Chinese/Russia axis: “China, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia and North Macedonia, Palestine, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the UAE, Iran and Sudan.”

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, sent these out on time but was stymied when his email bounced back hours later.

I say, better late than never.

• A stock analyst reviews the possible buyers of ULA should the sales rumor be true

He concludes that Lockheed Martin is the mostly likely buyer. His analysis makes great sense.

 

• NASA official expresses confidence that New Glenn will launch its ESCAPADE Mars orbiters on time in 2024

ESCAPADE was originally going to launch as a secondary payload with Psyche, and lost that launch when Psyche was delayed. Whether New Glenn will be ready for its 2024 launch window however remains very unknown, especially because this same official has admitted the launch date is still “approximate and provisional,” and there already are reports that New Glenn won’t make its first launch until 2025.

 

• Russian documentary about its Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan

I haven’t yet watched it. It is 38 minutes long and in Russian, though if you set the subtitles to English you’ll get a rough auto-translation.

 

• Russia now says it will launch its Venera-D mission to Venus in June 2031

As Anatoly Zak correctly notes, this mission was originally supposed to launch in 2013. That would make it only eighteen years behind schedule, assuming Roscosmos can meet that 2031 date, an assumption that is wildly unrealistic.

 

• Firefly successfully completes full duration static fire test of Alpha rocket first stage set for launch this month

The Space Force payload is aimed at proving the ability to launch rapidly.

 

• China touts its concept of a lunar brick-making robot it plans to launch on its Chang’e-8 mission

Nothing here but some pretty pictures.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

• Flight path over China of Long March 4B launch scheduled for April 16, 2023

As Jay says, “Watch your heads!”

 

• Results of Relativity’s investigation into Terran-1 launch failure

Posting this as a series of images in tweets is very clumsy, but if you read all the images in the first three tweets in the thread, you will get the full report.

 

• Venus balloon project team disbands due to NASA cancellation

The team had completed two flight tests of a small scale balloon prototype, but budget issues have killed the mission.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

• Blue Origin releases another PR video touting its wonderfulness

This video is absolutely worth watching (if you can tolerate the smug self-righteous blather), because it reveals quite starkly the utter vapidness of the company. There is no content here, just empty feel-good propaganda. At no point does the video tell us specifically what Blue Origin is doing to achieve its goals, strongly suggesting it is failing to do anything.

And this almost a decade after the company announced it was building its orbital New Glenn rocket, which is still at least two years from launch. Think about what SpaceX has achieved in that same time.

 

• Virgin Orbit seeking expedited bankruptcy sale

If successful the company could be auctioned off by May.

 

• The new director at Goddard took her oath of office on a copy of Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot

Sagan was an avowed leftist. No surprise that a government official would swear and oath by him.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, who also prodded me into doing that earlier post today about the coming regulatory sledgehammer against commercial human spaceflight.

• Axiom shows off two images of its space station module being built by Thales Alenia

The sooner this is finished and in orbit, the better.

 

• A photo of the Centaur-5 explosion during testing

The picture really doesn’t tell us much. Though ULA’s CEO Tori Bruno said this “anomaly” during testing will not impact the first launch of Vulcan-Centaur in May, we shall have to wait and see.

 

• Images of JUICE, ESA’s mission to study the Moon’s of Jupiter, just before being enclosed in Ariane-5 fairings

JUICE is presently scheduled for launch on April 13, 2023.

 

• China touts completion of new rocket engine test stand, the largest in Asia

It will be used to test new more powerful kerosene-fueled engines.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, now back from a well-deserved vacation.

• During “extreme structural load testing” of the Centaur upper stage of ULA’s Vulcan rocket, CEO Tory Bruno reported “an anomaly”

No one was hurt, and according to Bruno this incident is “very unlikely” to impact the Vulcan-Centaur being prepared for launch in May. Though more details are not available, I suspect this was a test-to-failure, and the failure occurred slightly earlier than expected, but not so early as to be a concern.

 

• The SpaceX ocean fleet ships pass near Florida

One drone was coming home with a Falcon 9 first stage, while another drone plus the ship that picks up the fairings were heading to sea for an upcoming launch.

 

• Several images from Rocket Lab of the most recently recovered Electron 1st stage

From the tweet: “Once again the stage took reentry in its stride and the Rutherford engines are in great shape. Next step is to analyze and requalify components to inform our future recovery efforts.”

Rocket Lab officials has indicated that they are beginning to think they can simply reuse stages after splashdown in the ocean, rather than capture them by helicopter in the air. The data from this stage will help them make this decision.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

• OneWeb’s next launch of 36 satellites now scheduled by ISRO no sooner than March 26th

The launch will complete OneWeb’s constellation in orbit.

 

• Rocket Lab delays Electron launch from Wallops to March 16th due to high winds

 

• Op-ed touts need to transfer space regulation to Office of Space Commerce

The false argument put forth is that this new department will simplify regulation. The reality is that it is simply going to add another bureaucratic layer to the regulatory process whose leaders will be pushing to build their own empires.

 

• More hints that engineers in Russia suspect a manufacturing defect in their Soyuz/Progress coolant systems

The tweet wonders if the problem could pop up on the Soyuz now in orbit, and wonders how long it can remain in orbit safely.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

• Next Rocket Lab launch presently scheduled for Wednesday, March 15th, with a 6-8 pm (Eastern) launch window

The launch is from Wallops Island in Virgina, using the company’s Electron rocket.

 

• Axiom to build the spacesuits to be used by the next American astronauts on the Moon

This isn’t news, as the contract was issued to Axion in September 2022. The company and NASA are simply unveiling the suit to the public, with typical PR fanfare.

 

• Chinese scientist provides update on Zhurong, which remains silent because of dust

Apparently they have found from orbital images that its solar panels are dust-covered, the result of the heavy winter dust storm season. They remain hopeful that with time and the arrival of Martian summer the dust will be blown off and they can reactivate the rover.

 

• Another Twitter report of Kazakhstan’s seizure of Roscosmos’ property at Baikonur

This was first reported on in the March 8th quick links, but today’s tweet adds that the seizure is due to a Russian debt to Kazakhstan of two billion rubles. The consequences of the seizure for future Russian launches remains unclear however.

 

• Amazon unveils user terminals for its Kuiper satellite constellation

The terminals look “futuristic”, but maybe that’s because they will be like all of Jeff Bezos’ futuristic projects, only in the future.

 

• PLD touts picture of its suborbital Miuri-1 rocket on the launchpad in Spain

No launch date is mentioned, though it does appear the company is getting close.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

• Short video of Buran being airlifted to Baikonur for its launch in 1988

It is amazing how authoritarian societies so rarely come up with original ideas. Buran and the Energia rocket that launched it definitely included some improvements over the space shuttle, but they were still copies, nonetheless.

 

• Short video showing the retrieval of one of SpaceX’s fast boats, used during Dragon crew splashdown

Simple, efficient, and quick.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

• Japanese planetary probe company Ispace to go public

The company plans to list its shares on the Toyko stock exchange, prior to the landing of Hakuto-R1 on the Moon in April.

 

• Asteroid discovered with potential to hit Earth in 2046

At present the risk, even if it hit the Earth, is small. The asteroid’s size is estimated roughly to be about 150 feet across, with a less than 1 in 600 chance of a collision even in 2046.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

• Blue Origin faces two discrimination lawsuits

Both suits accuse the company of weeding out older employees, exclusively based on age. I wonder if many of those older workers simply had the knowledge and experience to realize working for Blue Origin was turning out to be a dead end.

 

• Rocket Lab schedules next Electron launch from Wallops for March 11th

 

• China’s government amends its space regulations to require controlled de-orbit of all rocket stages

This regulation means the core stage of future Long March 5B must be controllable, and will not crash randomly somewhere on Earth. We shall see.

 

• Kazakhstan takes possession of launchpad Russia hoped to use for its as yet unlaunched Soyuz-5 rocket

The Soyuz-5 was to replace the Ukraine’s Zenit rocket, but has been plagued by delays. This action by Kazakhstan, as yet unconfirmed, would likely kill the project, as the rocket now has no launchpad.