Tag: spaceflight

Virgin Orbit to expand its fleet of 747s used with its LauncherOne rocket

9:52 am

Capitalism in space: Virgin Orbit has signed a deal with L3 Harris Technologies to buy two more 747s airplanes to airlift its LauncherOne rocket during launches.

L3Harris will modify one of the newly acquired aircrafts to serve as an additional airborne launch pad for Virgin Orbit’s small satellite launch service, with delivery expected in 2023. L3Harris will also overhaul the platform with a new cargo configuration, which is expected to allow Virgin Orbit to deliver its rockets and ground support equipment in the same aircraft that will launch from foreign spaceports.

The companies previously collaborated to produce Virgin Orbit’s flagship aircraft “Cosmic Girl,” the first customized 747-400 aircraft to carry and deploy payloads to Low Earth Orbit under Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne program.

This deal once completed will give Virgin Orbit a fleet of three 747s for launching its rocket. The deal also suggests the company now has enough launch business to justify this expansion.

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Orbex unveils a full-scale prototype of its Prime smallsat rocket

9:46 am

Prime rocket prototype on launchpad

Capitalism in space: Orbex today unveiled a full-scale prototype of its Prime smallsat rocket, positioned on its own launchpad at the Sutherland Space Hub spaceport in Scotland, now under construction.

The photo to the right shows that prototype, held vertical with its own strongback. From the press release:

With the first full integration of the Orbex rocket on a launch pad now complete, the company is able to enter a period of integrated testing, allowing dress rehearsals of rocket launches and the development and optimisation of launch procedures. Orbex recently revealed their first test launch platform at a new test facility in Kinloss, a few miles from the company’s headquarters at Forres in Moray, Scotland.

Note that Sutherland Space Hub is not the SaxaVord Shetland Island spaceport also being developed in Scotland. The two are competing with each other to successfully complete the first launch from the United Kingdom in history. Also competing for this honor is an airport in Cornwall, which has a deal with Virgin Orbit to do its own launch later this year. And regardless who wins this race, the three sites will likely give the UK the first European-based spaceports in history.

The United Kingdom’s decision in 2016 to shift from a single government-run spaceport to competition and capitalism appears to be now finally paying off.

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The future factions in space become clearer

9:17 am

Based on two stories yesterday, it appears that the future alliances between nations in space are now beginning to sort themselves out.

First there was the signing ceremony announcement of Columbia becoming the nineteenth nation to sign the Artemis Accords with the U.S. and the third Latin American country to do so.

The Artemis Accords were created by the Trump administration as an international treaty to bypass the restrictions on private property imposed by the Outer Space Treaty. By signing bilateral agreements with as many nations as possible, the U.S. thus creates a strong alliance able to protect those rights in space.

The full list of signatories so far: Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Canada, Columbia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, Singapore, South Korea, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, and the United States.

In the second story, France and India — both of whom have so far resisted signing the Artemis Accords — announced their own bilateral agreement intended to strengthen their partnership across many fronts, from security to economic development to the Ukraine war. The agreement also included this paragraph on the subject of space:
» Read more

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Scientists propose new theory to explain mysterious slope streaks on Mars

10:28 am

Slope streaks on Mars
Click for full image.

In a paper published earlier this month, scientists have proposed a new theory to explain the the origin of slope streaks on Mars, a unique Martian geological feature that at first glance look like a stainlike avalanches which also appear to do nothing to change the surface topography. (See earlier posts here and here for a description of this strange Martian phenomenon.)

Essentially, data from the orbiters suggests that carbon dioxide frost develops just under the surface during the night. In equatorial regions this frost mixes with dust (allowing it to exist even in these warmer climates). When the morning light hits the frost it causes it to sublimate away, which in turn causes the appearance of slope streaks as the dust is released from the frost.

From the paper’s abstract:

At sunrise, sublimation-driven winds within the regolith are occasionally strong enough to displace individual dust grains, initiating and sustaining dust avalanches on steep slopes, forming ground features known as slope streaks. This model suggests that the CO2 frost cycle is an active geomorphological agent at all latitudes and not just at high or polar latitudes, and possibly a key factor maintaining mobile dust reservoirs at the surface.

The cool image above, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on October 28, 2020 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and shows an excellent example of two very spectacular large slope streaks, one long and narrow and another short and wide. Located at 23 degrees, this is an area where no ice has yet been found near the surface.

This new theory joins two other popular theories attempting to explain slope streaks. The others postulate that the streaks are either dust avalanches of a different type or the percolation of a brine of chloride and/or perchlorate in a thin layer several inches thick close to the surface.

None have been proven. None likely fit all the known data at this point.

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CAPSTONE Moon satellite shipped to New Zealand by Terran Orbital

9:57 am

Capitalism in space: Terran Orbital has completed construction of the CAPSTONE Moon smallsat and has now had it shipped to New Zealand for its launch on a Rocket Lab Electron rocket no earlier than May 27th.

Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, a Terran Orbital Corporation, built the spacecraft for the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, otherwise known as CAPSTONE. The 12U CubeSat includes a radio tower on top that extends its size from a traditional 12U form factor.

CAPSTONE will not go directly to the Moon but instead, follow a “ballistic lunar transfer” that will take it out as far as 1.5 million kilometers before returning into lunar orbit. That transfer, which will take about four months to complete, is designed to save propellant, making the mission feasible for such a small spacecraft. The CAPSTONE payload and its software are owned and operated by Advanced Space for NASA.

CAPSTONE will use Rocket Lab’s Proton upper stage to get it to the Moon. It will then test maneuvering as well as communicating in the lunar halo orbit that NASA wants to use with its Lunar Gateway space station. It will also be proving out the use of this kind of smallsat for future interplanetary missions.

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Blue Origin announces passengers on next suborbital New Shepard flight

9:50 am

Capitalism in space: Blue Origin yesterday announced the six people who will fly on its next suborbital New Shepard flight.

The company did not reveal the flight date. Nor did it say who is paying for their ticket and how much. In fact, Blue Origin has still not revealed what it is charging per ticket. It is appears however that at least one or more passengers are not paying, and were chosen instead for their PR value, including the apparent “woke” desire of Jeff Bezos to achieve as many ethnic “firsts” as possible.

It is nice that Blue Origin appears to be making money from its suborbital division. It would be much much better however if the company was be making orbital launches with its New Glenn rocket, which were originally supposed to begin in ’20 and now likely won’t start happening until ’23, at the very earliest.

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InSight detects 5 magnitude Martian quake, the largest detected so far

9:39 am

The seismometer deployed by the Martian lander InSight has now detected its largest quake yet on Mars, with an estimated magnitude of 5.

NASA’s InSight Mars lander has detected the largest quake ever observed on another planet: an estimated magnitude 5 temblor that occurred on May 4, 2022, the 1,222nd Martian day, or sol, of the mission. This adds to the catalog of more than 1,313 quakes InSight has detected since landing on Mars in November 2018. The largest previously recorded quake was an estimated magnitude 4.2 detected Aug. 25, 2021.

The timing was very fortunate. Only three days later the power being generated by InSight’s dust-covered solar panels dropped too low, and the lander went into safe mode. Though its mission has been extended through the end of this year, the inability of the solar panels to produce energy because of dust has been predicted to shut down operations sooner. While it might be possible to restart science operations, this most recent safe mode situation could very well be that moment.

Meanwhile, scientists will analyze the data of this most recent large quake to attempt to pinpoint its location. They will also study it to gain a better understanding of the interior structure of Mars.

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Momentus gets final launch permits for its space tug

9:30 am

Capitalism in space: After a year delay due to government security concerns, Momentus has finally gotten all the launch permits required for a launch later this month on a Falcon 9 of its space tug, Vigoride, on its first orbital test flight.

In late April Momentus had gotten FCC approval. Now it has gotten clearance from the FAA. The FAA had blocked last year’s launch because of security concerns related to the foreign connections of several of the company’s founders/investors. Those individuals have now left the company, clearing the way for license approval.

The delay however caused Momentus to lose several customers while allowing another space tug competitor, Launcher, to catch up.

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South Korea’s new president wants bigger space effort closely tied to U.S.

9:20 am

The new president of South Korea, Yoon Suk-yeol, has made it clear that when he takes office today his policy will be to expand that nation’s space effort while tying that effort more closely with NASA and the U.S. military.

[His goals] include establishing an independent aerospace agency offering integrated management of civil and military space programs in Sacheon, South Gyeongsang Province, home to nearly 100 aerospace companies, and developing a high-power rocket for independent satellite launches in the near term and lunar and Mars exploration in the long-run.

…Yoon has also promised to facilitate the public-to-private transfer of space technologies, reform regulations and launch a space industry cluster to grow the country’s nascent domestic space industry. In line with this, the science ministry recently selected five universities that will be subsidized $4 million each over the next five years in return for running education programs designed to nurture skilled space engineers.

“Countries jockey for position in the space industry to secure a competitive edge in national security and future competitiveness,” Yoon wrote in his election manifesto, pledging to make South Korea “one of seven most advanced space powers in the world by 2035.”

However, the first space-related task of Yoon’s adminstration, which merely accelerates what the previous South Korean government had been doing, will likely be to replace the Russian rockets that South Korea presently has contracts with to launch several satellites.

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Astra signs deal to launch from SaxaVord Spaceport in Shetland

9:12 am

Capitalism in space: Astra today announced an agreement with the SaxaVord Spaceport in the Shetland Islands to begin launches from that United Kingdom location, beginning in 2023.

These launches will be the first by Astra outside the U.S. It is the second American company to sign on with SaxaVord, with Lockheed Martin’s ABL rocket company smallsat startup planning its own first launch there later this year. SavaVord also has a launch deal with a French company, Venture Orbital Systems, which hopes to launch later this decade.

None of these however could be the first launch from the United Kingdom since the 1960s. Virgin Orbit has a deal to launch from a runway from a Cornwall airport later this year. Furthermore, the rocket company Orbex is planning to launch its Prime rocket from a differenct spaceport in Sutherland, Scotland.

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Yawn: Rogozin tweets threats to Musk, Musk shrugs

8:58 am

In yesterday’s non-news Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Roscosmos which runs Russia’s entire aerospace industry, issued a threat against Elon Musk for supplying the Ukraine Starlink service in its war against the Russian invasion, and Musk responded with an almost cheerful quip.

On Sunday (May 8), Musk posted on Twitter a note that he said Rogozin, the head of Russia’s federal space agency Roscosmos, had sent out to Russian media. The note claimed that equipment for SpaceX’s Starlink satellite-internet system had been delivered to Ukrainian marines and “militants of the Nazi Azov battalion” by the U.S. military. “Elon Musk, thus, is involved in supplying the fascist forces in Ukraine with military communication equipment,” Rogozin wrote, according to an English translation that Musk posted. (He also tweeted out a Russian version.) “And for this, Elon, you will be held accountable like an adult — no matter how much you’ll play the fool.”

This sounds very much like a threat, as Musk acknowledged in a follow-up tweet on Sunday. “If I die under mysterious circumstances, it’s been nice knowin ya,” he wrote. Musk’s mom, Maye, didn’t appreciate that glib response, tweeting, “That’s not funny” along with two angry-face emojis. The billionaire entrepreneur responded, “Sorry! I will do my best to stay alive.” (It was Mother’s Day, after all.)

Musk’s light-hearted response only stands to reason, considering Rogozin’s loud-mouthed track record. Nothing he says really matters, so why should Musk care that much. Musk probably posted Rogozin’s comments out of amusement more than anything else..

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China launches Tianzhou freighter to space station

3:50 pm

The new colonial movement: China today successfully used its Long March 7 rocket to launch a new Tianzhou unmanned cargo freighter to its Tiangong space station.

The cargo is for the station’s next crew, scheduled to launch in June for a six month mission, during which two new large modules will be added to the station.

The launch took place at China’s sea coast Wenchang spaceport, so its expendable lower stages all fell harmlessly in the ocean.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

18 SpaceX
15 China
6 Russia
3 Rocket Lab
2 ULA

U.S. private enterprise still leads China 26 to 15 in the national rankings, as well as the entire world combined 26 to 24.

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Curiosity climbing out of Gordon Notch hollow

10:08 am

Panorama showing the upcoming steep climb
Click for full image. For original images go here, here, here, here, and here.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Cool image time! The panorama above was created from five photos taken by Curiosity’s right navigation camera on May 4, 2022 as the rover worked its way upward out of Gordon Notch Hollow, the small valley it had left when it attempted to cross the Greenheugh Pediment to the west and was forced to retreat back into when engineers found the rough terrain on the pediment too much for the rover’s wheels.

The overview map to the right provides context. The blue dot marks Curiosity’s present position on Mars, on its 3,465 Sol since landing. The yellow lines mark the area viewed in the panorama, taken two Sols earlier. The red dotted line marks the original planned route, now abandoned. The white arrows indicate one of the more interesting upcoming geological features, dubbed by scientists the “marker horizon,” a distinct layer found in many places on the flanks of Mount Sharp.

On the panorama above the red dotted line is my guess as to the planned route out of Gordon Notch Hollow.
According to the science team’s most recent update on May 4th:
» Read more

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The payload’s view during a Spinlaunch test

8:43 am

Spinlaunch prototype suborbital launcher
Spinlaunch’s prototype launcher

Capitalism in space: Spinlaunch has released a video showing what a Spinlaunch test launch looked like from the payload’s perspective.

I have embedded that video below. This was the company’s eighth test launch, all of which appear to have only gotten to about 30,000 feet or so. The payload camera does not turn on until the payload has been released and is ascending upward. Try to ignore the dramatic music, which of course is nothing but fake PR.

Three things are revealed. One, the acceleration at launch quickly drops as the payload ascends. Second, the payload’s wild spin appears intended, to help stabilize its flight. Third, its descent is slow, suggesting the release of parachutes.
» Read more

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China releases to the public some of the datasets from the Chang’e-5 lunar mission

10:44 am

China announced today that it has made available to the public the data from some of the instruments that flew on its November 2020 Chang’e-5 sample return lunar mission.

The instruments involved were the mission’s landing camera, panoramic camera, lunar mineralogical spectrometer, and regolith penetrating radar.

The data is supposedly available here, but you have to be able to read Chinese to find it.

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Chinese pseudo company Linkspace to try suborbital vertical rocket test this year

10:39 am

The Chinese pseudo-company Linkspace announced in a press release May 5th that it will attempt to vertically launch and land a first stage booster to suborbital space before the end of the year.

The rocket will later be transported to Lenghu in the northwestern Chinese province of Qinghai, the site of LinkSpace’s earlier tests. The team aims to launch the 47.5-foot-tall (14.5 meters) RLV-T6 to an altitude of around 62 miles (100 kilometers) and land it safely using landing legs and grid fins, similar to the way that the first stage of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket touches down.

The rocket to be tested is almost exactly the same height as SpaceX’s Falcon 9 first stage, so apparently this test will be a test of a full scale prototype of Linkspace’s own first stage. If successful, the company will be able to soon followup with reusable launches.

Linkspace had performed small scale vertical rocket tests three years ago, and then disappeared for unknown reasons. Its reappearance now suggests the Chinese government has approved its effort and will thus allow it to go forward.

Note: I call all the so-called private companies coming out of China “pseudo” because none function like an independent company privately owned. They might raise Chinese investment capital and work to earn profit, but anything they design or build is closely determined by the communist Chinese government. None builds anything without that supervision, and should the government change its mind the company will quickly be shut down.

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Ingenuity in trouble

8:38 am

The engineering team yesterday revealed that several days earlier the Mars helicopter failed to communicate with the rover Perseverance as scheduled, now believed to have been caused by “a low-power state.”

Data downlinked indicates that the communications dropout on May 3, Sol 427 of the Perseverance rover’s mission at Mars, was a result of the solar-powered helicopter entering a low-power state, potentially due to the seasonal increase in the amount of dust in the Martian atmosphere and lower temperatures as winter approaches. The dust diminishes the amount of sunlight hitting the solar array, reducing Ingenuity’s ability to recharge its six lithium-ion batteries. When the battery pack’s state of charge dropped below a lower limit, the helicopter’s field-programmable gate array (FPGA) was powered down.

This state then caused the helicopter’s clock to get out of sync with the clock on Perseverance, so that when the rover tried to communicate the helicopter was not listening.

Engineers regained communications on May 5th, but the helicopter remains in trouble. Its batteries are no longer fully charged, which means it doesn’t have enough power to heat Ingenuity through the longer cold nights of winter that presently exist in Jezero crater.

The engineers have established a plan to get the batteries back up to full charge, but it means the heaters will no longer attempt to warm the helicopter as much. The result could be damaged parts not able to withstand those colder temperatures.

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Why a big Earth mountain would hardly be noticed on Mars

5:46 pm

A big mountain lost on Mars
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on February 13, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a cliff escarpment that, based on a rough estimate of MRO’s elevation data, ranges from 10,000 to 13,000 feet high. Because the sun is only about 32 degrees above the western horizon, the shadows are long and distinct and bring out the features quite dramatically.

On Earth, a mountain 13,000 feet high would generally be named, because there are really not that many of them. If it was a cliff face dropping down into a canyon, which this Martian cliff is, it would be quite unique and probably be one of the most popular tourist spots on the globe. For comparison, the rim of the Grand Canyon in the national park, visited by millions, is only 4,000 to 6000 feet in elevation. This cliff on Mars is more than twice as deep, and yet, it is hardly the most spectacular canyon rim on the red planet.

The overview map below explains this.
» Read more

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Lunar samples from Chang’e-5 confirm fuel and oxygen can be mined from surface

10:50 am

Chinese scientists studying the lunar samples returned by Chang’e-5 probe have confirmed earlier studies of Apollo lunar samples that it is possible to extract oxygen and fuel from the Moon’s soil.

After analyzing the Chang’e-5 lunar soil, the team found the sample contains iron-rich and titanium-rich substances, which could work as a catalyst to make oxygen using sunlight and carbon dioxide.

The team proposed a strategy using lunar soil to electrolyze water from the moon and the astronauts’ life support system into oxygen and hydrogen. The process is powered by sunlight. The carbon dioxide exhaled by moon inhabitants can be collected and combined with hydrogen to yield the fuel methane, also catalyzed by lunar soil, according to the study. With this method, no external energy apart from sunlight would be used to produce oxygen and fuel to support life on a moon base, said the researchers.

What is new about these results are the proposed techniques and components used to make the process practical. The science team is now proposing testing it on future Chinese Moon missions

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Citizens enlisted to find changes to Comet 67P/C-G during Rosetta mission

9:56 am

The European Space Agency (ESA) and Zooniverse have partnered to create a new citizen science project, allowing anyone to more easily review the archive of high resolution photos taken by Rosetta of Comet 67P/C-G and look for changes that occurred during the probe’s mission to the comet.

“The Rosetta archive, which is openly accessible to scientists and the public, contains a vast amount of data collected by this extraordinary mission that have only been partially explored,” says Bruno Merín, head of ESA’s ESAC Science Data Centre near Madrid, Spain. “In the past few years, astrophotographers and space enthusiasts have spontaneously identified changes and signs of activity in Rosetta’s images. Except for a few cases, though, it has not been possible to link any of these events to surface changes, mostly due to the lack of human eyes sifting through the whole dataset. We definitely need more eyes!”

This is why ESA partnered with the Zooniverse, the world’s largest and most popular platform for people-powered research. The new Rosetta Zoo project presents a particular set of data: pairs of images collected by Rosetta’s OSIRIS camera showing Comet 67P’s surface before and after perihelion.

Volunteers are invited to view images of roughly the same region side by side and identify a variety of changes, from large-scale dust transport to comet chunks that moved or even vanished. Sometimes this may require zooming in or out a few times, or rotating the images to spot changes on different scales, getting up close and personal with the iconic comet.

Using Rosetta Zoo will require no software, nor will anyone need to register to use it. You simply go to the website and begin comparing pairs of images, for as long as you wish, marking differences you spot of the same locations.

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Virgin Galactic delays commercial suborbital flights again

9:42 am

See update below.

Capitalism in space: In releasing its quarterly report, Virgin Galactic revealed that it is once again delaying the beginning of commercial suborbital flights, pushing back those first flights until the first quarter of 2023.

The net loss for Q1 2022 was $93 million, which was higher than Q4 2021 net loss of $81 million but less than the $130 million loss for the first quarter of 2021.

Flight tests of Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity suborbital space plane that were supposed to take place this summer have been pushed back to the fourth quarter. And the start of commercial service has been delayed from the fourth quarter to 2023. The company said the delays were due to supply chain and labor constraints.

You can read the full quarterly report here.

The company also says it still has 800 reservations for those commercial flights, which suggests that once flights begin it will have plenty of business for at least a period of time, depending on how frequently it can launch and how many passengers can fly each time.

UPDATE: The overhype of all of Richard Branson’s hi-tech projects, such as Virgin Galactic, was further illustrated by this other story from February about Branson’s well publicized project to build a hyper-loop transportation system in West Virgina.

Hyperloop was over-hyped. As the Financial Times first reported, Virgin Hyperloop laid off about half of its staff, as it makes a major shift it its goals. “The U.S. company said 111 people were laid off on Friday as it refocuses on delivering a cargo version of the experimental transportation system.”

Hat tip John Harman.

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SLS launch delayed until August, at the earliest

9:34 am

In describing its plans for doing a second dress rehearsal countdown of its SLS rocket in June, NASA officials yesterday noted that they have delayed the actual launch until an August launch window so they will have time to do a third dress rehearsal before that launch.

But Free warned the issues are complex and it’s possible more than one tanking test will be required to thoroughly test the complex systems in the SLS rocket and their interaction with the ground systems that provide propellants, power and other critical elements. He said the August launch windows would “allow us to do two wet dress rehearsal attempts if we need them.”

“We are optimistic that we only need one more based on everything we’ve been able to do thus far to fine tune our tanking procedures,” he said. “But we also want to be realistic and upfront with you that it may take more than one attempt to get the procedures where we need them.”

According to this SpacePolicyOnline report, NASA has also mapped out additional launch windows for September through December.

In reviewing every news story about yesterday’s press conference, I could not find any that asked the agency about the status of SLS’s two solid rocket strap-on boosters. Both have now been stacked for more than seventeen months, and by August will have been stacked for twenty months, eight months past NASA’s use-by rule of one year. Either the past rules were too conservative, or NASA is simply ignoring the possibility that those boosters might no longer be viable. In either case, it is disappointing no reporter asked about this.

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SpaceX launches another 53 Starlink satellites

9:16 am

Capitalism in space: Early this morning SpaceX successfully launched 53 Starlink satellites, using and landing the Falcon 9’s first stage for the twelfth time.

The fairings halves were flying for their third and sixth times. This was also SpaceX’s sixth launch in less than a month.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

18 SpaceX
14 China
6 Russia
3 Rocket Lab
2 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 26 to 14 in the national rankings, as well as all the entire world combined 26 to 23.

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Endurance successfully splashes down, returning 4 astronauts after a 6 month mission

11:50 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX’s Endurance spacecraft successfully splashed down tonight off the coast of Florida, bringing home four astronauts after a six month mission on ISS.

This event capped a remarkable month for SpaceX. It launched two manned missions to ISS (one of which was entirely private) while returning two (including that private mission after seventeen days). In between the company also launched three Falcon 9 rockets putting satellites into orbit. All told, in the four weeks since the April 8th launch of the Axiom private manned mission to ISS, SpaceX completed five launches, all of which successfully landed the first stages for later reuse.

More important, everything on every one of those launches and splashdowns went like clockwork, with no problems, delays, or glitches. The only thing that delayed anything was the weather, something no one can do anything about.

Rocket engineering is hard, maybe the hardest technical challenge facing humans. The high quality of SpaceX’s work however is beginning to make it seem routine.

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Boeing moving headquarters from Chicago to DC

2:23 pm

Rearranging deck chairs on the Titantic: Boeing today announced that it is moving its headquarters from Chicago to Washington, DC, so as to place its corporate executives closer to key federal officials.

Boeing is a major defense contractor, and the move will put executives close to Pentagon leaders. Rival defense contractors including General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman are already based in the D.C. area. Company executives would also be near the Federal Aviation Administration, which certifies Boeing passenger and cargo planes.

Gee, for more than a half century Boeing was based entirely in Seattle, and somehow got lots of federal contracts and built great airplanes and spacecraft. It moved to Chicago in 2001 to be more centrally located, but instead put its top managers distant from its actual manufacturing and design headquarters. The result has not been very cheerful.

Now Boeing is moving even farther from Seattle, just so its executives can hobnob with politicians, go to fancy cocktail parties, and figure out easier who to pay off with political donations. Who cares if the actual design and manufacturing work continues to be shoddy and poorly supervised? What really counts is getting contracts to build bad stuff that either doesn’t work or is delivered late and overbudget for our corrupt federal government.

As proof, see this other story today: Starliner’s protective window cover falls off during capsule move to VAB.

From CBS space reporter Bill Harwood:

During the rollover to pad 41, as the Starliner neared the Vehicle Assembly Building, a protective window cover somehow fell off the capsule and tumbled to the road.

You can see video of this absurdity at the link. As this was not actually part of the capsule but a protective cover, it appears no damage to Starliner occurred. That it occurred at all however once again tells us of the serious quality control problems at the company.

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Axiom buys robot arm grapple points from the Canadian company MDA

10:33 am

Capitalism in space: For the first time, a private space station company, Axiom, has purchased 32 space station robot arm grapple points, or interfaces, from the Canadian company MDA that builds the robot arms on ISS for NASA.

The MDA interfaces aboard Axiom’s space station will also include those that allow the existing Canadarm2 on the International Space Station (ISS) to build and assemble the new Axiom Station. Once that stage is complete, MDA’s Canadarm3 interfaces will act as permanent robotic system fixture points on the outside of Axiom Station, forming the foundation for future robotic arm integration and utilization once it separates from the ISS and operates independently.

This deal means that eventually Axiom is going to purchase its own MDA-built robot arm.

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Stratolaunch completes 5th test flight of giant Roc airplane

10:21 am

Capitalism in space: Stratolaunch yesterday successfully completed the fifth test flight of its giant Roc airplane, now being designed for testing hypersonic vehicles in flight.

You can read the press release here [pdf], which stated the following:

The fifth flight debuted a new pylon on the aircraft’s center wing that will be used to carry and release Talon-A hypersonic vehicles. The hardware is comprised of a mini-wing and adapter that is constructed with aluminum and carbon fiber skins. It weighs approximately 8,000 pounds and occupies 14 feet of Roc’s 95-foot center wingspan, allowing for adequate space between the aircraft’s dual fuselages for safe vehicle release and launch. The state-of-the-art structure also features a winch system that will load Talon onto the platform from the ground, expediting launch preparation and reducing the need for ground support.

The company has been building two Talon hypersonic vehicles, and now has a third under construction. This third Talon is intended to be reuseable. All will be used as part of the company’s contract with the Air Force to test hypersonic technology, with the first flights now scheduled for ’23.

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Phantom Space orders more than 200 rocket engines from Ursa Major

9:58 am

Hadley engine from Ursa Major

Capitalism in space: The smallsat startup rocket company Phantom Space today announced it has ordered more than 200 rocket engines from the rocket engine company Ursa Major.

The order includes Ursa Major’s 5,000-Pound Thrust Hadley engines and the new 50,000-pound thrust Ripley engines. By using Ursa Major’s Hadley engines, Phantom’s Daytona rocket is slated for orbital launch in 2023, just three years after Phantom Space was formed. Under the terms of the agreement, Ursa Major will supply hundreds of its Hadley engines in different configurations including ground test and upper-stage vacuum variants, as well as numerous Ripley engines for planned upgrades to the Daytona vehicle.

The CEO of Phantom Space, Jim Cantrell, gave me a tour of its facility here in Tucson only three weeks ago, during which I took the picture above of a Hadley engine being tested and prepared for further static fire tests.

Cantrell had been the founder of Vector, his earlier failed attempt to create a smallsat rocket company. He clearly has not let that failure stop him.

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NASA to conduct second SLS launch dress rehearsal in June

9:47 am

In announcing a press conference later today about the status of NASA’s SLS rocket, the agency revealed it now plans to conduct a second SLS launch dress rehearsal in June.

NASA’s SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft arrived back at Kennedy’s Vehicle Assembly Building April 26 after a 10-hour journey from launch pad 39B. Since their arrival, teams have worked to replace a faulty upper stage check valve and repair a small leak within the tail service mast umbilical ground plate housing. The teams also have been performing additional checkouts while the spaceport’s supplier of gaseous nitrogen makes upgrades to their pipeline configuration to support Artemis I activities.

We will likely find out NASA’s new launch schedule for the rocket today.

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China’s Long March 2D rocket launches 8 satellites

9:43 am

China today used its Long March 2D rocket to place eight Earth observation satellites into orbit as part of a larger constellation.

The Jilin-1 constellation, now consisting of 50 Earth observation satellites since its first launch in 2015, is China’s first-ever commercial remote-sensing satellite system. The system is operated by Chang Guang Satellite Technology Corporation, also known as Charming Globe, a commercial spinoff of the Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics, and Physics in the northeast Chinese city of Changchun.

The constellation is planned to consist of 138 satellites by 2025, and the satellites will be orbiting at 535 km altitude above Earth. The constellation, featuring types of satellites with different capabilities, will ultimately be capable of revisiting any point on Earth every ten minutes, with an interim thirty-minute capability being achieved with sixty satellites in orbit.

China claims the data from this constellation will be for commercial use. Don’t be surprised however if its primary customer turns out to be China’s military.

As the rocket launched from one of China’s interior spaceports, its first stage crash landed in China. No word on whether it used parachutes or grid fins to control that landing.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

17 SpaceX
14 China
6 Russia
3 Rocket Lab
2 ULA

The U.S. still leads China 25 to 14 in the national rankings, with the U.S. leading all other nations combined 25 to 23.

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