SpaceX scrubbed its Falcon 9 commercial launch of six Orbcomm satellites tonight because of an issue with the rocket’s second stage.
The next launch opportunity is Saturday evening, and based on other sources it sounds like they hope to fly then.
As China’s Yutu lunar rover barely continues to survive, unable to move, its scientists prepare to publish their results.
But other systems and scientific instruments — a panoramic camera, infrared and X-ray spectrometers and a ground-penetrating radar — are operating normally, says Zheng: “The rover can still carry out measurements from the fixed location and send scientific data to the ground station.” …
Yutu’s penetrator radar has detected several layers underneath its path, says Long Xiao, a planetary scientist at China University of Geosciences in Wuhan. Under the surface soil, known as regolith, it found a layer of debris from a crater-forming impact and two layers of lava flows, made of basalt.
Though the rover lost its ability to rove within days of landing on the Moon, the mission is certainly an overall success for China. When they send their next rover to the Moon this first experience will serve them very well.
Recognizing the competition: In a speech in Singapore, the head of Arianespace said that the company urgently needs to overhaul its Ariane 5 rocket in order to meet tough competition from SpaceX and Russia’s Proton rocket.
“We have a newcomer in America with SpaceX. Yes, competition is increasing, but when competition is increasing, we need to be more and more agile,” said Israel. While recognising that Arianespace was the market leader, “we have to ask ourselves one question: what should we do to remain the leader? Europe is very serious about launchers, and Europe will not give up when it comes to launchers.”
For Arianespace this speech is a very good thing, as it demonstrates again that Israel — and the company — are aware of the competitive challenge put forth by SpaceX and are not making believe it doesn’t exist.
The competition heats up? The Dnepr rocket launch of 37 satellites yesterday also included the launch of the first private Russian satellite.
TabletSat-Aurura owned by the company SPUTNIX weighs 26.2 kg and is made to operate for one year. It is intended for remote Earth sensing in the interests of a private company. The satellite was made using Russian technologies and a minimum of foreign components. Its cost is about one million US dollars.
Igor Komarov, the head of the United Rocket and Space Corporation, said “the launch of Aurora, the first Russian private satellite, is a successful example of public-private partnership in the field of space exploration as private companies clearly cannot fulfill their strategic tasks without the state. ,,, I am confident that cooperation between the state and private aerospace agencies in designing and manufacturing high-tech craft will become an important stimulus for further development of Russian competitive technologies.”
SPUTNIX Director-General Andrei Potapov said his company’s plans included “creating a cluster of small spacecraft and craft for super high-definition aerial video surveying and imaging with a resolution of down to one meter per pixel”. [emphasis mine]
Why do I have doubts about this Russian achievement? The reasons are twofold.
» Read more
A detailed look at tomorrow’s Falcon 9 commercial launch of six Orbcomm satellites.
Launch is set for 6:08 pm (Eastern). If all goes well, SpaceX will also attempt another soft vertical splashdown of the first stage in its continuing effort to make that first stage reusable.
A Russian Dnepr rocket today successfully placed in orbit the largest number of satellites, 37, ever launched on a single rocket.
This launch once again illustrates the increasing capabilities of tiny satellites. More and more, it is becoming possible to do a lot more in orbit with a lot less.
Two low-cost, car battery-sized Canadian space telescopes were launched successfully in Russia today.
The important detail here is this quote:
“BRITE-Constellation will exploit and enhance recent Canadian advances in precise attitude control that have opened up for space science the domain of very low cost, miniature spacecraft, allowing a scientific return that otherwise would have had price tags 10 to 100 times higher,” [emphasis mine]
Most nanosats and cubesats have not had the kind of precise attitude control of larger satellites, which is one of their limitations. If the technology is now maturing so that these tiny satellites can be pointed as accurately as bigger payloads, it will mean that unmanned satellites are going to get smaller very quickly. This lowers cost and increases the customer base, creating more business for launch companies.
Rosetta’s comet has unexpectedly gone to sleep.
An image snapped earlier this month by ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft shows its target comet has quietened, demonstrating the unpredictable nature of these enigmatic objects. The picture was captured on 4 June by Rosetta’s scientific camera, and is the most recent full-resolution image from the narrow-angle sensor. It has been used to help fine-tune Rosetta’s navigation towards comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, which was 430 000 km away at the time.
Strikingly, there is no longer any sign of the extended dust cloud that was seen developing around nucleus at the end of April and into May, as shown in our last image release. Indeed, monitoring of the comet has shown a significant drop in its brightness since then.
Rosetta’s approach for the next few months and arrival at the comet in August should be quite exciting.
The competition heats up: SpaceX today released a new video of the most recent Falcon 9R vertical take-off and landing test flight.
Video below the fold. The flight was to test the deployment and use of fins for controlling the stage during its return to Earth. Watch them unfold and adjust themselves beginning at about 1:15 into the video. In the second half you can see them near the top of the stage.
» Read more
The competition heats up: The new Russian rocket Angara is now scheduled for its first test launch on June 27.
According to the article this decision will be finalized tomorrow. The flight itself will be suborbital. The article also provides a wealth of information about the history, development, and configuration of this rocket. Very worthwhile reading.
In an interview today, a Russian official stated that they expect the Proton rocket to resume operations by September.
It appears that they are reluctant this time to rush back without being absolute certain they have corrected the problems that caused the most recent launch failure last month.
The competition heats up: Like SpaceX, China is investigating ways to recover the first stages of its rockets.
China is also the only launch provider in the world that presently beats SpaceX’s commercial prices. If they succeed in making their first stages reusable they will put themselves in a very strong competitive position.
