Tag: spaceflight

A galaxy with a ring

9:34 am

A galaxy with a ring
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, and appears part of a long term survey of nearby ringed galaxies. From the caption:

MCG+07-07-072 has quite an unusual shape, for a spiral galaxy, with thin arms emerging from the ends of its barred core to draw a near-circle around its disc. It is classified, using a common extension of the basic Hubble scheme, as an SBc(r) galaxy: the c denotes that its two spiral arms are loosely wound, each only performing a half-turn around the galaxy, and the (r) is for the ring-like structure they create. Rings in galaxies come in quite a few forms, from merely uncommon, to rare and astrophysically important!

Lenticular galaxies are a type that sit between elliptical and spiral galaxies. They feature a large disc, unlike an elliptical galaxy, but lack any spiral arms. Lenticular means lens-shaped, and these galaxies often feature ring-like shapes in their discs. Meanwhile, the classification of “ring galaxy” is reserved for peculiar galaxies with a round ring of gas and star formation, much like spiral arms look, but completely disconnected from the galactic nucleus – or even without any visible nucleus! They’re thought to be formed in galactic collisions.

This galaxy is about 320 million light years away, and is also known as Abell 426. Though astronomers think that these various shapes of galaxies, from barred to lenticular to ringed, are formed from a variety of galactic collusions and interactions with each galaxy’s nucleus, that remains nothing more than an educated guess. The complexity of galaxy evolution, involving billions of years and millions of stars, is barely in its infancy, and requires a lot of assumptions because our observations only involves a mere nanosecond in that grand history.

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Dawn Aerospace completes new round of flight tests of its small-scale rocket-powered airplane

9:17 am

The crew and Mk-II prototype
The crew and Mk-II prototype

The space startup Dawn Aerospace on August 7, 2024 announced the successful completion of a second set of flight tests of its small-scale rocket-powered Mk-II Aurora airplane, reaching speeds just below the speed of sound, with the goal in the next round of flights to set several major records and lay the groundwork of building a reuseable orbital spaceplane that can launch and land on a runway, and do so twice in one day.

The campaign (dubbed Campaign 2-2) saw three flights completed in late July. In flight three, we achieved a maximum speed and altitude of Mach 0.92 (967 km/h) and 50,000ft (15.1km). That is 3x and 5x of what we had achieved in the previous campaign – a massive jump in demonstrated performance.

We are now poised to fly supersonic in Campaign 2-3, scheduled for September. But that is just the beginning. In many respects, the Mk-II is slated to be the highest-performance vehicle to take off from a runway. By the end of 2025, we’re looking to climb faster than an F15, fly higher than a Mig 25, faster than an SR-71, and, ultimately, be the first vehicle to fly above the Karman line; 100km altitude (the generally accepted definition of “space”), twice in a single day.

Some of these records have stood for over 50 years.

The company has so far spent $10 million on this project, and has raised a total of $20 million. Nor is this Dawn’s only effort. It builds and sells thrusters for smallsats, and is also selling to smallsat makers its own docking and refueling port.

The press release at the link is very detailed, and worth perusing. Four of the company’s founders come from the rocket field, with the fifth from aviation. Their goal, to build from scratch a commercial orbital spaceplane using private funds entirely, is quite laudible but incredibly challenging. It remains to be seen whether they can do it. That the company has diversified successfully into the satellite industry is very encouraging however.

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SpaceX launches another 23 Starlink satellites

8:50 am

After a launch abort less than a minute before launch yesterday, SpaceX successfully launched another 23 Starlink satellites this morning, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The first stage completed its 17th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The past three days for SpaceX was quite busy, as my readers can easily see: Three launches in three days. It appears the company is working hard to recover its launch pace from the several week pause after an upper stage had a leak on a July 11th launch.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

80 SpaceX
33 China
10 Rocket Lab
8 Russia

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 95 to 49, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world combined, including American companies, 80 to 64.

The launch schedule for the rest of the week will be as busy, with the Russians launching a Progress freighter to ISS, India launching its SSLV rocket, and SpaceX having two more launches on its manifest.

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FAA red tape apparently stalling the next Starship/Superheavy orbital test launch

9:37 pm

Superheavy being captured by the tower chopsticks at landing
Superheavy being captured by the tower chopsticks at landing.
Click for video.

Back in mid-June, shortly after 4th orbital test flight of SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy rocket, it appeared based on an FAA statement that the company could proceed with the next test flight as soon as it was ready to fly.

Subsequently, Elon Musk said the company expected to be ready by early August. There were also indications that the company wished to attempt a chopstick landing of Superheavy back at the launch tower at Boca Chica. Such an attempt however would require approval from the FAA, as the flight profile would not be the same as the previous flight.

I and others speculated that SpaceX would forego that chopstick landing in order to fly the fifth test flight quickly, while simultanously requesting permission from the FAA for such a landing on a later test flight. My thinking was that this would allow test flights to proceed with as little delay as possible.

Though it remains unknown whether or not the next test flight will include that chopstick landing attempt, it does appear that FAA red tape is blocking the next flight. In an update from NASASpaceflight.com about the work at Boca Chica posted on August 9, 2023 was a link to a SpaceX tweet the day before that said the following:
» Read more

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SpaceX launches two broadband satellites for the Space Force and Norway

8:49 pm

SpaceX tonight successfully launched two broadband satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

The satellites will provide improved broadband service in the Arctic regions for both the Space Force and Norway, which partnered with Northrop Grumman to build the satellites.

The Falcon 9 first stage completed its 22nd flight, tying the record of one other booster for the most reuses. It landed on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

79 SpaceX
33 China
10 Rocket Lab
8 Russia

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 94 to 49, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world combined, including American companies, 79 to 64.

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Rocket Lab launches commercial radar satellite

7:52 am

Rocket Lab early this morning successfully launched a radar satellite for the company Capella, its Electron rocket lifting off from its launchpad in New Zealand.

This was Rocket Lab’s fifth launch for Capella. It is also the tenth launch for Rocket Lab this year, maintaining a pace of more than one launch per month. It remains uncertain at this moment whether the company can reach its goal of 20 launches for the year.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

78 SpaceX
33 China
10 Rocket Lab
8 Russia

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 93 to 49, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world combined, including American companies, 78 to 64.

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SpaceX launches an additional 21 Starlink satellites

10:25 am

SpaceX early this morning successfully launched an additional 21 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage completed its 21st flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. Note how a first stage is now used more than twenty times, and it almost goes without notice.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

78 SpaceX
33 China
9 Rocket Lab
8 Russia

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 92 to 49, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world combined, including American companies, 78 to 63.

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Are these Martian terraced mesas or pits?

2:52 pm

Are these Martian pits or mesas?
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on July 2, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). I have purposely enhanced the contrast to bring out the strangely shaped and terraced features.

What I cannot figure out from any data available to me is whether these terraced features are mesas rising up, or pits descending down. The resolution in the global mosiac of Mars created both from MRO’s context camera and its elevation data is simply not good enough. It suggests these are pits, but the sunlight is coming from the west, which based on the shadows suggest these could be pits or mesas.

In fact, the dark lines that appear to distinguish the terraces might not be shadows at all, but simply darker material that contrasts with the lighter material on each side.
» Read more

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SpaceX’s new Raptor-3 methane-fueled engine is so advanced the CEO of ULA doesn’t understand it

12:31 pm

SpaceX's new Raptor-3 engine
Click for original image.

When Elon Musk on August 2, 2024 proudly tweeted a picture of SpaceX’s new Raptor-3 methane-fueled engine, the third iteration of the engine it uses on this Starship/Superheavy rocket, Tori Bruno, the CEO of ULA, looked at the image (to the right) and complained that Musk and SpaceX were touting pictures of a “partially assembled engine.” As Bruno tweeted:

They have done an excellent job making the assembly simpler and more producible. So, there is no need to exaggerate this by showing a partially assembled engine without controllers, fluid management, or TVC systems, then comparing it to fully assembled engines that do.

It turns out that this engine is so advanced that Bruno — the CEO of SpaceX’s best competitor — didn’t understand it. Both Musk and SpaceX’s CEO Gywnne Shotwell immediately responded with images of this same engine operating during hot fire tests. As Shotwell tweeted, “Works pretty good for a ‘partially assembled’ engine :).”

Musk in one of his first tweets describing the engine’s specifications was also right when he described it as “Truly, a work of art.” Look at it. For what is the most powerful rocket engine ever built it looks as streamlined and a simple as the slant-6 car engine I had in my 1969 Plymouth Valient, built long before environmental regulations caused car engines to become incredibly overbuilt and complicated.

This little anecdote illustrates quite starkly how advanced SpaceX is over its competitors. It is now building rocket engines with technology beyond the immediate understanding of the CEO of the United States’ second largest rocket company.

Almost a decade after SpaceX successfully reused a Falcon 9 first stage, and now does it routinely, no other rocket company as yet to do the same, and only one company, Rocket Lab, is doing flight tests in an attempt to eventually do so.

SpaceX has no competition because too many of its competitors are simply not trying to compete. It is both sad and shameful.

Hat tip to reader Rex Ridenoure.

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Crazily eroded rock on Mars

11:15 am

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

A crazily eroded rock in Jezero crater
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken today by the Perseverance Mars rover, using its SHERLOC-WATSON close-up camera at the end of its robot arm.

The size of this rock is tiny, no more than a few inches across. The many holes remind me of surface limestone on Earth. When it rains, the water dissolves the limestone, and so holes will develop and grow over time. You can see this process if you spray very hot water on top of a block of ice.

The problem is that it doesn’t rain on Mars. Lava can sometimes freeze and look this way, but is it lava? The blue dot on the overview map above shows where Perseverance was two days earlier. The rover team has not updated that map so it is not known exactly where the rover was when it snapped this picture today. Nor has the science team posted an update on their activities since June 27th.

These strange features however mirror somewhat the same surface features seen back in June, when the rover was on the north side of Neretva Vallis, so it is likely this rock was produced by the same geological processes. I will however not guess what those processes were.

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NASA inspector general blasts Boeing’s management relating to its work on SLS’s new more powerful upper stage

9:52 am

Boeing's schedule slips in building SLS's upper stage
Boeing’s schedule slips in building SLS’s upper stage

In a report issued today [pdf], NASA’s inspector general harshly criticized the Boeing managment and operations at its Michoud facility, where the company is developing SLS’s new more powerful upper stage. From the report’s executive summary:

Quality control issues at Michoud are largely due to the lack of a sufficient number of rained and experienced aerospace workers at Boeing. To mitigate these challenges, Boeing provides training and work orders to its employees. Considering the significant quality control deficiencies at Michoud, we found these efforts to be inadequate. For example, during our visit to Michoud in April 2023, we observed a liquid oxygen fuel tank dome—a critical component of the SLS Core Stage 3—segregated and pending disposition on whether and how it can safely be used going forward due to welds that did not meet NASA specifications. According to NASA officials, the welding issues arose due to Boeing’s inexperienced technicians and inadequate work order planning and supervision. The lack of a trained and qualified workforce increases the risk that Boeing will continue to manufacture parts and components that do not adhere to NASA requirements and industry standards.

The report also notes that delivery of that upper stage has been delayed from 2021 to 2027 (as shown by the graph to the right, taken from the IG report), and its cost has risen from $962 million to almost $2.8 billion. It also notes quite bluntly that:

Boeing’s quality management system at Michoud does not effectively adhere to industry standards or NASA requirements, resulting in production delays to the SLS core and upper stages and increased risk to the integrated spacecraft. … Boeing’s process for addressing contractual noncompliance has been ineffective, and the company has generally been nonresponsive in taking corrective actions when the same quality control issues reoccur.

Sound familiar? It should. These issues appear to be the same kind of quality control problems that have plagued Starliner, and are also the same kind of problems that had NASA reject Boeing’s bid to provide cargo to its Lunar Gateway station, and state while doing so that it will no longer consider future Boeing bids until the company straightens itself out.

It appears from today’s inspector general report that Boeing has fixed nothing. The report recommends some additional supervision of Boeing from NASA, and more importantly suggests the agency “institute financial penalties for Boeing’s noncompliance with quality control standards.”

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Rocket Lab completes first static fire test of new more powerful rocket engine

9:16 am

Neutron first stage deploying second stage with satellite
Neutron first stage deploying second stage with satellite

Rocket Lab yesterday announced it has successfully completed the first static fire test of its new Archimedies rocket engine, designed to be used on its new larger Neutron rocket scheduled for launch next year.

Archimedes performed well and ticked off several key test objectives, including reaching 102% power, anchoring the engine’s design ahead of Neutron’s first flight scheduled for mid-2025 – a schedule that would make Neutron the fastest a commercially developed medium-class launch vehicle has been brought to market. With the hot fire complete and full qualification campaign now underway, the Rocket Lab team is moving into full production of flight engines.

The design of Neuton is clever, as shown in the graphic to the right. In order to reuse as much as possible, the fairing encloses both the payload and upper stage. Before stage separation, the fairing will open, allowing the upper stage and its payload to be deployed. Afterward it remains with the first stage, which will land vertically back at the launch site.

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WISE/NEOWISE space telescope mission ends after fourteen years

9:11 pm

Comet NEOWISE, photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope
Click for full image.

Launched in 2009, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) was shut down today after almost fourteen years of successful observations, with its first years dedicated to creating an infrared survey of the sky. In 2013, after two years of hibernation, it was reactivated and renamed NEOWISE (for reasons that I have always found absurd), with the goal over the next thirteen years of mapping the sky for near Earth objects.

By repeatedly observing the sky from low Earth orbit, NEOWISE created all-sky maps featuring 1.45 million infrared measurements of more than 44,000 solar system objects. Of the 3,000-plus near-Earth objects it detected, 215 were first spotted by NEOWISE. The mission also discovered 25 new comets, including the famed comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE that streaked across the night sky in the summer of 2020.

A Hubble image of that comet is to the right.

The mission was ended because the telescope’s orbit is now too low to provide good data. It is expected to re-enter the atmosphere and burn up before the end of the year.

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Archeology on ISS?

11:51 am

Archeologists have now published a paper outlining what they call the first archeology project in space, documenting the changes that have occurred at six different locations on the International Space Station during a 60 day period.

[The archeologists] had the astronauts use adhesive tape to define one-meter areas of the International Space Station and document them with daily photographs to study how the spaces were used over 60 days in 2022. The squares were placed in a handful of work and leisure locations on the space station, including the U.S. galley table, workstations, experimental EXPRESS racks and on the wall across from the latrine where astronauts kept their toiletries.

The team’s findings provide the first glimpse into how astronauts adapt to life and conduct research without gravity, how international cooperation plays out in the tight quarters, how they use their space for work and leisure while in orbit, and more. By cross-referencing the photos with astronaut activity reports, the researchers found that the area near the exercise equipment and latrine, while not designated for any particular purpose, had been used as storage for toiletries, resealable bags, and a rarely used computer. The equipment maintenance area was actually used for storage, with little maintenance carried out there. [emphasis mine]

This research has some value, but on the whole its substance I think is overrated. When you build a home, the rooms have generally accepted purposes (kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, office, living room) but with some of those rooms it is expected that the homeowners will bring their own needs and desires to the place and use them as they please. The study above demonstrates this perfectly with the highlighted sentence. Though one area was designed to be a repair workbench, the astronauts found it more convenient or necessary to all such work elsewhere, and repurposed the maintenance area more practically.

At the same time, neither a space station nor an interplanetary spaceship are like homes. Both are actually entire worlds packed into a small space, so a lot of thinking has to go into designing them. It is in this area this research has some value. We are still learning what “rooms” will generally be needed in such long term space vessels, and this study can provide some data for this purpose.

Even so, I remain skeptical. It will likely be much cheaper and faster to simply talk to the astronauts who have lived on ISS to get their imput on how the interior space of a future interplanetary spaceship or station should be designed. In fact, the best thing to do would be to hire astronauts to help with the design process. That’s what the Soviets did in designing Soyuz. Asking archeologists for this information is nice, but seems very distant from the real issue. And it creates work on the station that might be better used doing something else.

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Scientists propose much more efficient method for warming Mars to habitable temperatures

10:30 am

Global map of ice scarps on Mars
Global map of known exposed scarps of ice on Mars. North and south of the
white hatched lines, near surface ice and glaciers are common.

Scientists have now proposed much more efficient method for warming the climate of the planet Mars by as much 50 degrees Fahrenheit, enough to melt much of the near-surface ice in the middle latitudes and thus make the planet habitable.

This new method, using engineered dust particles released to the atmosphere, could potentially warm the Red Planet by more than 50 degrees Fahrenheit, to temperatures suitable for microbial life—a crucial first step towards making Mars habitable.

The proposed method is over 5,000 times more efficient than previous schemes to globally warm Mars, representing a significant leap forward in our ability to modify the Martian environment. What sets this approach apart is its use of resources readily available on Mars, making it far more feasible than earlier proposals that relied on importing materials from Earth or mining rare Martian resources.

You can read the paper here. From the abstract:
» Read more

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PLD targets October to begin construction of launch facilities in French Guiana

10:10 am

The Spanish rocket startup PLD is now targeting October to begin construction of its launch facilities in French Guiana, using the long abandoned launch site of France’s first rocket.

PLD Space plans to start building launch facilities for its Miura 5 rocket in October from the Diamant site at Guiana Space Centre, cofounder and chief business development officer Raúl Verdú told SpaceNews. Diamant has been dormant for decades after once being used for the French rocket of the same name, and “in the area where we are there is nothing,” Verdú said, “we have to do everything from scratch.”

The company hopes to do its first orbital launch in 2025.

Control of the French Guiana spaceport reverted back from Arianespace to the French space agency CNES (which has always owned it) in 2022, and since then CNES has signed deals with seven European rocket startups. PLD appears to be moving the fastest towards the first private commerical launch there.

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Brooklyn startup wins NASA contract to develop wireless communication technology for use on the Moon

9:55 am

The Brooklyn startup Yank Technologies has won a $150K NASA contract to develop wireless communication technology for use on the Moon.

Yank Technologies plans to develop two systems for the lunar surface: Wireless Power Receiver Converters for lunar rovers and Resonant Inductive Connectors for high voltage power transmission on the Moon and Mars.

The Wireless Power Receiver Converters are designed to improve rover efficiency and reduce mass by integrating multiple converters into a single-stage converter that supports various voltages. These converters also enhance charging reliability by accommodating misalignment and varying distances.

Resonant Inductive Connectors are designed to maintain reliable connections with high-voltage lines despite the presence of lunar regolith or Martian dust. Unlike traditional connectors, which are prone to wear and unreliable connections, these connectors are built to withstand harsh environments.

The award was likely made in late June as part of an small business award of similar development contracts to about 250 companies. Though wireless techology is well established, in this case the goal is to lower the weight of this equipment while making it space-hardened. While such work is routinely required, this contract highlights the detail work necessary for making operations on an alien planet practical.

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Rocket Factory Augsburg completes 2nd static fire test of first stage

9:47 am

The German startup Rocket Factory Augsburg has apparently completed a second static fire test of the first stage of its RFA-1 rocket.

The test occurred on the launchpad the company will use to launch at the Saxaford spaceport in the Shetland Islands. Video of the test is available here.

The test itself lasted for approximately 15 seconds and included five of the company’s Helix rocket engines. While this is one more than the previous test, it’s still short of the full nine-engine complement that will be utilized aboard every RFA ONE first stage.

A full static fire test of all nine engines is still necessary before launch. The rocket’s upper stage has already completed its full test compaign and is on the way to Saxaford for stacking.

The hope is that the first orbital test launch will occur before the end of the year, but for that to happen Rocket Factory must get its launch license from the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). Based on how slow it approved its only previous launch license for Virgin Orbit (bankrupting the company because it took so long), no one should be expect a launch this year.

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Chinese Long March 6A upper stage breaks up into debris shortly after deploying satellites

9:37 am

Ground and satellite reconnaissance data now indicates that the upper stage of the Chinese Long March 6A rocket that on August 6 launched the 18 satellites in a proposed Chinese 14,000 satellite internet constellation broke up into numerous pieces shortly after deploying the satellites.

The detection was made by the company Slingshot Aerospace, which tracks orbital spacecraft looking for the appearance of this kind of space junk.

This is actually the second time recently that an upper stage of a Long March 6A has broken up shortly after launch. In December 2022 the same thing was detected following a November launch.

All told, this relatively new Chinese rocket has launched seven times, and has had its upper stage break up twice. Apparently, China not only doesn’t care if the lower stages of its many rockets crash on top of its own citizens, it is quite okay with littering near-earth orbital space with debris. It needs to fix the upper stage of this rocket now, so such break-ups no longer occur.

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Gaia space telescope identifies more than 350 asteroids with candidate moons

9:24 am

Using the Gaia space telescope, astronomers have identified 352 asteroids that the data suggests have smaller satellite asteroids in orbit around them.

In its data release 3, Gaia precisely pinpointed the positions and motions of 150 000+ asteroids — so precisely that scientists could dig deeper and hunt for asteroids displaying the characteristic ‘wobble’ caused by the tug of an orbiting companion (the same mechanism as displayed here for a binary star). Gaia also gathered data on asteroid chemistry, compiling the largest ever collection of asteroid ‘reflectance spectra’ (light curves that reveal an object’s colour and composition).

These results need to be confirmed by direct observation, as this method does involve some assumptions and uncertainties. If these numbers are confirmed however it will give planetary scientists a better census on the percentage of asteroids with moons, which in turn can be used to create better models of the formation of the solar system as well as the evolution of asteroids over time. At the moment scientists predict about one out of every six asteroids will have a moon. This data suggests that number might be high.

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SpaceX sets August 26, 2024 as new launch date for Polaris Dawn private manned mission

9:15 am

Jared Isaacman
Jared Isaacman

According to a post on X yesterday, SpaceX has rescheduled the launch of the private Polaris Dawn manned orbital flight to August 26, 2024. The flight is financed entirely by billionaire Jared Isaacman, who will also command the mission (his second in space).

The mission will launch on a Falcon 9, with the Dragon Resilience spacecraft carrying four private astronauts. During the orbital flight the capsule will attempt to fly as high as 870 miles, the highest any human will have flown since the Apollo missions. It will then attempt the first spacewalks by a private citizen ever. They will open a hatch, and Isaacman will push himself outside.

The schedule change from July 31st is almost certainly due to the uncertainties surrounding the return of Starliner from ISS, which have also caused uncertainties in the launch date of SpaceX’s next manned mission to ISS. With only two launchpads in Florida for both missions (plus other required launches), a lot of juggling has been required.

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August 7, 2024 Quick space links

3:49 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

 

 

  • Another relatively boring press release of an image from Europe’s Mars Expresss orbiter

    • I post so few images from Mars Express because Europe releases so few, and when they do, they don’t usually provide enough good information to understand what one is looking at. For example, this release never really tells us the global location of the picture, info that is crucial to understanding it. I could look it up, but the image itself is just not that interesting.

 

 

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Another “what the heck?” image from Mars

1:15 pm

What the heck is this?
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on April 14, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and shows what the scientists simply label as “exposed crater floor materials.”

I label it as another one of my “what the heck?” images, showing features that in some ways defy understanding or explanation. The picture shows a small area of the floor of an unnamed 14-mile-wide crater, with its rim indicated. Though clearly visible in orbital photos, the crater is nonetheless heavily eroded and even appears partly buried, possibly by flood lava.

The complex floor features however are not anything usually seen in flood lava terrains. The terrain colored blue in the color strip likely indicates coarse material like sand or rocks or rough bedrock, while the reddish terrain suggests the surface is heavily coated with dust.
» Read more

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Firefly wins a 20-launch contract from L3Harris

11:26 am

The rocket startup Firefly has been awarded a new 20-launch contract from the aerospace company L3Harris, and is an add-on to an earlier three-launch contract signed in 2023.

The deal calls for two to four launches per year beginning in 2027. The launches will take place at Firefly’s launchpad at Vandenberg in California, and will likely be for mostly military or surveillance payloads.

It appears that Firefly is beginning to grab business from both SpaceX and Rocket Lab, a very healthy development. Its rocket’s capabilities falls somewhere in between both, so it has developed its own customer niche.

All will change of course when Rocket Lab’s larger Neutron rocket becomes operational.

Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay.

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NASA has decided to consider bringing Starliner down unmanned

10:32 am

Starliner docked to ISS
Starliner docked to ISS.

It appears that upper management at NASA has decided to force the agency to consider bringing Starliner down unmanned and extending the ISS mission of the two Starliner astronauts to a nine month mission.

The situation is definitely complicated, and no change as yet as been made. The schedule of dockings to ISS has been reconfigured to make this option possible. It appears this is the present plan:

First, they need to upgrade the software on Starliner for an unmanned mission. Apparently the present software on board is not satisfactory for an unmanned docking, even though a different Starliner has already done an unmanned docking last year. For this mission, the software relied on the astronauts to take over manually should there be an issue during undocking. In the previous unmanned demo, the software would react and prevent a problem. For reasons that make no sense, the software on the manned mission did not have this capability. Reinstalling this software will give them the option to send the two astronauts down on Dragon and returning Starliner unmanned.

Second, the next Dragon manned mission has been delayed until late September to allow time for these software upgrades, as well as give NASA and Boeing more time to analyze the situation and decide if a manned return on Starliner is possible. If they decide to not use Starliner, the Dragon capsule would come up to ISS with only two astronauts, and the two Starliner astronauts would then join them on their six month mission, coming home in the spring. For the Starliner astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams this would mean their mission will now be 8-9 months long, far longer than the original one-two week mission.

As to why these options are now being considered, it appears to me that both Boeing and NASA engineers were willing to return the astronauts on Starliner, but have been ordered to consider these options by higher ups. It appears that the last hot-fire thruster tests on ISS left everyone with some uncertainties about the situation. Engineers are fairly certain that the reasons some thrusters did not fire as planned during docking was because teflon seals expanded because of heat to block fuel flow. The problem is that these seals showed no problem at all in the most recent test on ISS. That difference creates some uncertainty as to whether they have really identified the cause of the problem. Imagine having an intermittent problem your car mechanic cannot constently make happen.

Because the thrusters did work as intended, Boeing and NASA seemed ready to return Starliner manned. In the agency review last week it appears others at the top were less sanguine (including Bill Nelson, NASA’s administrator), and demanded these new options be considered. Based on this speculation, it is almost certain Starliner will come home empty.

Whether this will have significant consequences remains uncertain. During the press briefing today, NASA officials said the agency might still certify Starliner for operational manned missions even if the capsule comes home unmanned.

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A supernova overpowers a spiral galaxy

9:34 am

A supernova overwhelms a small galaxy

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken in early 2023 by the Hubble Space Telescope because a ground-based automated sky survey had detected a new supernovae in late 2022 in this galaxy. The spiral galaxy is dubbed LEDA 857074, and is interesting because of its bright central bar and dim and broken spiral arms.

That supernova is the bright spot inside the galaxy’s central bar. It is so bright that it almost looks like someone accidently pasted a white dot there using a graphics program. From the caption:

Astronomers have catalogued millions of galaxies, so while today tens of thousands of supernovae are detected annually, the chance that one is spotted in any particular galaxy is slim. We also do not know how actively LEDA 857074 is forming stars, and therefore how often it might host a supernova. This galaxy is therefore an unlikely and lucky target of Hubble, thanks to this supernova shining a spotlight on it! It now joins the ranks of many more famous celestial objects, with its own Hubble image.

The galaxy itself had been studied by almost no one until this supernova was discovered in it.

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Orbital tug startup Impulse Space increases the kinds of satellites it will offer rides to geosynchronous orbit

9:16 am

The orbital tug startup Impulse Space, founder by former SpaceX engineer Tom Mueller, has announced new plans to make it possible for its tugs to take more kinds of satellites to geosynchronous orbit.

First, the company is revising the design of its larger Helios tug, set to do its first commercial mission in 2027, to carry multiple satellites ranging in weight from 300 to 5000 kilograms. Second, it is upgrading its already-flown smaller Mira tug so that it can be attached to Helios and act as a secondary tug once Helios gets to geosynchronous orbit.

The first Mira demo mission, launched in November 2023, had some communications and software issues but was still considered an overall success. The next mission will fly later this year.

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European aerospace company Safran to open production facility in U.S.

9:06 am

The European aerospace company Safran, which presently partners with Airbus to build the Ariane-6 rocket, has announced that it will open a production facility in Colorado for manufacturing its electrical propulsion thrusters used by satellites.

The American facility will focus on U.S. government and commercial customers, with the French line focusing on customers in the rest of the world. “With this double manufacturing line, we are able to provide trust and confidence to both U.S. domestic, national programs as well as commercial programs,” he said.

The thrusters produced by the two lines will be identical other than the sourcing of components for its power processing unit. The units produced in the United States will use U.S. components while those made in France will use foreign components.

The thruster, called the EPS X00, or “X-hundred”, is a new design and is expected to launch on satellites beginning in 2026. This announcement lets American companies know it is available to them as well. Being built in the U.S. it avoids the strict State Department ITAR regulations that would make it difficult for Safran to sell its European-built thrusters to American satellite companies.

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Axiom changes its CEO

8:59 am

Axiom's space station assembly sequence
The assembly sequence for Axiom’s space station while attached to ISS.
Click for original image.

After founding and leading Axiom for the past eight years, CEO Mike Suffredini, has decided to transfer to the company’s board of directors and pass the company’s leadership to someone else.

“I have dedicated over 40 years to advancing humanity through human spaceflight, including the past eight-plus years alongside Dr. Kam Ghaffarian at Axiom Space,” said Suffredini. “For personal reasons, I have decided to step down as CEO, effective August 9th. I will remain as an advisor to ensure a smooth transition and continue my role as a board member.”

Dr. Ghaffarian, Axiom Space’s Executive Chairman and co-founder, will assume the role of interim CEO until a permanent successor is appointed. His extensive experience and deep industry knowledge make him well-suited to lead the company during this period.

Suffredini’s a long career at NASA before founding Axiom was crucial in establishing the company’s success. He knew how to avoid all the pitfalls of working with the government agency, and was able to negotiate the right deals to make the partnership with NASA proceed smoothly. That inside knowledge probably allowed his company to beat out Bigelow Aerospace, which had been the first to build commercial space station modules but has now faded from sight.

The result is that Axiom was to fly commercial passenger flights to ISS using Dragon capsules, and is going to likely be one of the first commercial stations to begin operations. (The race to be first is presently being led by Axiom and Vast, with Vast looking to be slightly ahead.)

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Lufthansa signs deal with Airbus to train its astronauts for the Starlab space station

8:46 am

the proposed Starlab space station
the proposed Starlab space station

Airbus has now signed an agreement with Lufthansa for it to train the astronauts Europe will fly to the Starlab space station, being built by a consortium of American, European, and Japanese companies.

US-based Voyager Space and Airbus signed an agreement in August 2023 to jointly pursue the development of the Starlab space station. The pair is currently targeting 2028 for the launch of the low Earth orbit destination, with commercial activities commencing in 2029. This timeline will allow for a small window of overlap with International Space Station operations before the orbiting laboratory is decommissioned in 2030.

In a 6 August announcement on Twitter, Airbus Defence and Space revealed the expanding team behind the development of Starlab. The list included Hilton Hotels for crew lodging design, Northrop Grumman for the development of an autonomous docking system for resupply spacecraft, and Lufthansa Aviation Training (LAT) for the training of future Starlab astronauts. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, MDA Space, Palantir, and Ohio State University round out the partnership.

Though Voyager Space is supposed to be leading the project and obtained the seed money from NASA to get it started, the nature of this announcement suggests that it is Airbus who is really in charge at this time. At a minimum, the partnership has definitely transferred much control from the U.S. to Europe.

This shift should not be a surprise, since it became clear shortly after the August 2023 deal was signed that Europe had decided to focus its investment energies on Starlab and make it the European space station for the future.

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