Tag: quick space links

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

• The present state of the space insurance business

A very interesting and informative article on the state of the insurance business for rockets and satellites

• Images of China’s Tiangong-3 station, from in space and from the ground

Here, here, and here. The first was taken from the Tianzhou-4 cargo ship after it undocked. The second is a nice short movie. The third’s ground-based telescope was a bit unsteady, to put it mildly.

• NASA decides to continue Lunar Trailblazer, despite cost overruns

This might be throwing good money after bad, but then, that is what the government does routinely.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, who also clued me into the two previous posts, which I decided to give more attention to. Thanks Jay!

• Chinese pseudo-company AAEngine tests landing legs for suborbital rocket

This sounding rocket is apparently based on the 2nd stage of an orbital version the company is building.

• Thales Alenia Space completes next Cygnus, ready for shipment to U.S.

I am not sure if Thales installs the solar panels. If so, I suspect they will want to wait before shipment in order get a report on why one panel did not deploy on the Cygnus now in orbit. It is also possible that Northrop Grumman installs the panels, and will handle any revisions after delivery.

• A closer look at Virgin Orbit’s financial picture

Apparently, the delays in the UK are seriously hurting the company. Because they only have one 747 carrier plane, Cosmic Girl, they can only do one launch at a time, which means later launches — and the revenue they produce — are pushed back. The company thus desperately needs a second 747 so the delays on one launch don’t impact others.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

• OneWeb signs deal to build ground station in Angola

It will become operational in the second half of ’23, and will provide internet service to several nearby African nations. It also is planned as the first of several in Africa.

• SpaceX celebrates completion of 200th Raptor-2 engine

Just to get a little perspective, SpaceX built these 200 engines in about two years. In that same time, Blue Origin has struggled to build two BE-4 engines for ULA.

• Spain panics and shuts its airport in fear of Long March 5B core stage

Though I mince no words in my criticism of China for letting this stage crash uncontrolled, Spain’s action to shut down its airport was absurd.

There remains some uncertainty about the final impact point, which might actually be two, suggesting the stage broke in half early.

• China shows off its Merlin engine knockoff

Obviously, China’s ability to build this gives their space effort great capabilities, even if they steal the work of others.

Courtesy of Jay, BtB’s stringer.

• SpaceX celebrates completion of the 200th Falcon 9 second stage

Jay also notes that according to Elon Musk, “Falcon 9 now holds record for most launches of a single vehicle type in a year.”

• Rocket Lab completes solar panels for NASA’s Lunar Gateway space station

The panels were built by the company’s “New Mexico team.”

• SLS’s rollout to the launchpad for its first test launch to begin on November 4th at noon

The launch is still scheduled for November 14th, sending an Orion capsule around the Moon for a multi-week mission.

• Orbital sensors built by HEO Robotics capture images of China’s out-of-control Long March 5B core stage

There is a two frame movie at the link, made from that imagery.

• Roscosmos shuts down the Russian Space magazine

It appears this magazine began publication in 2006, and was financed by Roscosmos. It also appears that the Russians no longer have the funds to pay for it.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

• Chinese pseudo-company Space Pioneer shows illustration of proposed rocket spaceplane for point-to-point transportation

This is one I’ll believe when I see something real, not an illustration.

• Last Ariane-5 launch delayed until June 2023 due to issues with payload

“The delays are the result of Covid-caused business slowdowns and the lingering effects of an arsonist attack at prime contractor OHB SE in Bremen, Germany.”

• Long March 3B launch window opens tomorrow

The payload is a Chinese communications satellite.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, who reads Twitter so we don’t have to.

• Recent image of Tenacity, Sierra Space’s first Dream Chaser cargo spaceship

Maybe finally this spacecraft is getting close to launch, years late.

• Watching the November 6th launch of Antares carrying Cygnus cargo freighter

Jay says it succinctly: “This will be the second to the last flight of the Antares 220 rocket. After that, the next three flights of Cygnus be on Falcon 9 rockets, and then the new Antares 330 rocket powered by Firefly engines.” Antares 330 is targeting 2025 for first launch.

• ULA CEO Tori Bruno posts image of both flightworthy BE-4 engines, about to be mounted on Vulcan

Better late than never I guess. And these engines were certainly late.

• Chinese X-37B-copy spaceplane releases an object, suggesting an upcoming deorbit burn

Apparently on its previous flight it released an object also just prior to its return to Earth. No guarantee the same thing will happen this time, but the event is noted.

• Roscosmos official admits loss of foreign commercial business, creating budget shortfall

Gee, ya think maybe screwing OneWeb might not have been wise, from a business standpoint?

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. To my readers, I am having an off day, so please forgive the low output from me.

• China schedules December 3rd orbital launch of rocket fueled by oxygen-methane

The other methane-fueled rocket engines come from SpaceX (on Starship/Superheavy) and Blue Origin. ULA was supposed to have launched with Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine two years ago. The launch won’t happen before 2023. SpaceX’s first Starship orbital attempt could happen any time before the end of the year.

This Chinese rocket could thus be the first methane-fueled rocket to reach orbit.

• Australia agrees to let the sample return capsule from Japan’s Mars Moon Exploration mission (MMX) to Phobos land there

The tentative return date is 2029. The launch itself is set for next year.

• ULA Atlas-5 launch of NOAA satellite on November 1st will include inflatable heat shield test

From the link:

Launching with JPSS-2 is NASA’s Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator (LOFTID) technology demonstration. After JPSS-2 safely reaches orbit, LOFTID will follow a re-entry trajectory from low-Earth orbit to demonstrate the inflatable heat shield’s ability to slow down and survive re-entry.

• Firefly adds former NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine to its own advisory board

This is merely the company bringing Bridenstine in to grease the wheels of Washington’s increasingly oppressive bureaucracy. He won’t add any engineering or management skills to Firefly, in the slightest.

Courtesy of stringer Jay, who trolls Tweeter so we don’t have to.

• Astrobotic to display its Peregrine lunar lander on November 3 in Pittsburgh

Peregrine is scheduled to launch on ULA’s first Vulcan launch, the date of which remains uncertain because of the long delay by Blue Origin of its BE-4 rocket engine.

• Dream Chaser’s cargo logistics module photographed inside the processing facility in Florida

I think the picture shows the interior of the equivalent of a cargo container that will be placed inside Dream Chaser

• Firefly receives the first payload to fly on its Blue Ghost lunar lander

Dubbed RadPC, it will demonstrate a radiation tolerant computer both on the way to the Moon as well as on its surface.

• China claims it is assembling more Kuaizhou-1A rockets to launch more satellites in the Xingyun “internet of things” constellation

More about the Xingyun constellation here.

• CNN claims Biden is negotiating with SpaceX to send Starlink terminals into Iran

This story, based entirely on anonymous sources, appears to be questionable, and could simply be an example of the Biden administration attempting before election day to make believe it is trying to help the protesters in Iran, something the Democrats have for years been loath to do.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, who trolls Twitter so we don’t have to.

• Chinese pseudo-commercial company Landspace successfully tests oxygen-methane engine

Most of China’s pseudo companies have ridden on the coattails of the military’s solid rocket missile technology, supervised by the military. Landspace is now trying to branch out into liquid fueled engines.

• Chinese scientists produce a tectonic map of the Moon

Their paper is here. From the abstract:

The map provides a state-of-the-art illustration of structures and tectonic units of different periods, the distributions of 9 types of linear structures, including 18976 elements (358 inferred deep faults, 1335 shallow faults, 11046 wrinkle ridges, 474 rillles, 816 grabens, 2583 crater-floor fractures, 227 lobate scarps, 1882 impact fractures and 255 impact crater chains), and 5 types of circular structures, including 2501 elements (271 volcanic vents, 47 domes, 46 mascons, 3460 impact craters and 81 impact basins).

• NASA history: 50 years ago the stacking and assembly of Skylab (America’s first space station) began

• NASA’s Super Guppy transport aircraft apparently suffered an engine failure, forcing a landing

No injuries or damage. The plane, after taking off from Orlando appears to have had to quickly turned around and land, about 22 minutes later.

• Rocket Lab prepares for first launch from Wallops in December

The company originally wanted to launch two years ago, but was blocked by NASA’s bureaucracy, which was incredibly slow in approving and updating the flight termination software.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

• Northrop Grumman delivers two strap-on solid rocket boosters for Vulcan’s first launch

Though the launch is now tentatively scheduled for the 1st quarter of 2023, no launch can occur until Blue Origin finally delivers to ULA the second flightworthy BE-4 engine, years behind schedule. In related news:

 

• Jeff Bezos receives the Galileo Prophets of Philanthropy Award at the Vatican this week

Jay’s comment: “Oh for the love of … I just ate. How much did that award cost? I think he spent more money on his chick-a-dee to his right than the BE-4!

• Amateur astronomer Philip Smith out of New York tracks Tiangong-3

The image at the link was taken on October 11th, right after the Wentian module was moved to the side port, in preparation for the arrival of the next module, Mengtian, at the end of this month. A second image of Tiangong-3 by Smith can be seen here.

• Chinese PR on twitter is likely run by China’s People’s Liberation Army, not its space or science institutes

This fact, obvious for years, was discovered by China ‘N Asia Spaceflight, which operates out of India and is one of Jay’s main China’s Twitter sources.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, who trolls twitter so the rest of us don’t have to.

• Amazon will launch two Kuiper test satellites on first Vulcan launch

That launch is tentatively scheduled for the first quarter of ’23, but don’t bet on it. Moreover, this means Amazon is gambling its first Kuiper launch on an untested rocket.

Even if it does happen, Kuiper has taken years to get started, and is way behind SpaceX’s Starlink constellation, even though both were first announced at about the same time.

• Electron arrives at Wallops for December launch

This will be first launch by Rocket Lab from Wallops, only two years behind schedule because of delays from NASA’s bureaucracy.

Thanks to BtB’s stringer Jay, who trolls Twitter so I don’t have to.

• Tory Bruno, CEO of ULA, explains why Vulcan uses Centaur-4 instead of Centaur-3 for upper stage

He mentions ULA spent $200 million to manufacture Centaur-4. Yet, he still can’t launch the Vulcan rocket without the first stage, and the first stage depends not on his engines, but on Blue Origin’s long delayed and not yet flightworthy BE-4 engine.

• UK bureaucracy questions Viasat’s takeover of Inmarsat

I covered this in August, but now the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is setting a deadline, October 13, for the companies to explain why their merger won’t destroy Starlink. Otherwise it will initiate a full probe, blocking the merger.

Typical government stupidity. There is no way this merged company will destroy Starlink. If anything, these companies are merging to survive the competition from Starlink.

• China’s second lunar sample return mission, Chang’e-6, targeting a mid-2024 launch

It plans to collect samples from the Moon’s far side.

• Russians are targeting October 12, 2022 for Proton rocket launch

This will be the first Proton launch since December ’21.

• SpaceX scrubs commercial launch today, reschedules for tomorrow

The decision was made about 30 minutes before launch, and is attributed to a desire to provide time to do more checkouts of the rocket.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, who trolls Twitter so I don’t have to.

• Foundation in place for Rocket Lab’s Newton facility at Wallops

• Wentian module shifted to the side in preparation of docking of next big module, Mengtian

A robot arm made the move at China’s Tiangong-3 space station. Wentian docked at the main port, so that it sat in a straight line with the Tianhe main module. Moved to the side, the station is now in an L-shape, so that Mengtian can dock with that center port. Once docked, the same robot arm will shift it to the port opposite Wentian, so that the station is T-shaped.

• China has issued the launch path for the Long March 5B that will launch Wentian sometime between October 31st and November 5th

The drop zone for the Long March 5B’s solid boosters is in the ocean, to the southwest of the Philippines. The core stage of course will reach orbit, and unless something as changed (unlikely), will crash uncontrolled somewhere on Earth within a week of launch.

• South Korea to budget $32.9 million to replace Russian launch contracts

The money will buy for two satellites that the Russians are presently contracted to launch, but will not due to sanctions. Reports suggest South Korea is talking to either SpaceX or Arianespace, but only SpaceX could do the launch at this low price.

• Astroscale wins three year $35 million development loan

This bank’s approval was probably encouraged by several recently won contracts by Astroscale.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

• Video of full duration minute static fire test of Blue Origin’s BE-4 rocket engine

The video was actually posted by ULA CEO Tory Bruno. Blue Origin then reposted it. As one commenter there said, “I bet if @torybruno hadn’t posted it, you’d never have posted it.”

The test looked good, but ULA still needs two flight engines, and only has one so far.

• China touts the seventeen nations that are flying experiments to its Tiangong-3 space station

• The Zhuhai Airshow in China from November 8 to 13 will feature a fullscale model of Tiangong-3

Jay jokes, “Free little red books if you dress like Mao.”

• China claims its Long March 8 costs 1/3 that of the Falcon 9

This might even be true, simply because China’s labor costs are so tiny compared to the U.S. Sometimes those labor costs are even free (since China does use slave labor).

• UC-San Diego signs deal with Sierra Space to do stem cell research on Orbital Reef space station

I wonder if UC-San Diego will also require Sierra Space to segregated astronauts by race, as it does on its campus.

• Lynk Global will launch smallsat 5G test satellite in December

The goal is to eventually launch a 50 satellite constellation to provide 5G to its cell phone customers.

• Astronauts successfully return from ISS in Soyuz capsule

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, who trolls Twitter so I don’t have to.

• Blue Origin sources say first flight engine should ship soon

I will believe it when it actually happens.

• Camera on Falcon 9 fairing captures plume of 2nd stage and 1st stage engine firings

Just a cool image.

• Dmitry Rogozin in line to take over as head of Russian occupied territories in the Ukraine

More specifically, the “Crimean Federal District which will include Crimea and the occupied territories of Donbass, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions.” If so, Rogozin’s head is essentially being put on the block. Ukrainian partisan forces have been very successful at killing such leaders.

I guess this is a reward by Putin for Rogozin’s skill at losing Russia billions in commercial satellite sales.

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, who trolls Tweeter so I don’t have to.

• Want a NASA rocket engine once intended for SLS? GSA has seven for sale!

The engine is the J-2X, a supposed upgrade of the Saturn-5’s J-2 upper stage engines. GSA is selling the components for seven, the auctions to be found here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

• ArianeGroup releases pr video pushing its space plans for the future

Its proposed rocket family will look very familiar to those familiar with SpaceX.

• Scientists publish observations of a fast radio burst using China’s giant FAST radio telescope

FAST is essentially a larger version of the now-shuttered Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico. It is hard to say if it is being used to its full potential at this time, as China right now doesn’t have that many qualified radio astronomers. This is why for a long while it tried to get foreigners to run it, unsuccessfully. With time, however, this will change.

• China’s Tianwen-4 planetary spacecraft will include a Jupiter probe and a Uranus probe

It also appears they plan to fly it past both Venus and some asteroids on its way to the outer solar system.

• Timeline graph showing China’s deep space planetary missions over the next decade-plus

It is is Chinese, so it would be nice if one of my readers who can read Chinese provides some explanation.