Tag: spaceflight

Alaskan spaceport schedules first commercial launch

8:45 am

The spaceport in Kodiak, Alaska, has announced that its first commercial launch is now scheduled for mid-April.

The Coast Guard has notified mariners of the launch, which is scheduled for some time between April 6-13, the Kodiak Daily Mirror reported Monday.

Alaska Aerospace has launched 19 rockets in collaboration with government agencies including NASA, the U.S. Air Force and the Missile Defense Agency since the spaceport opened in 1998. But in recent years, the publicly owned corporation has partnered with commercial launch companies amid the growth of the private spaceflight industry. In preparation for the launch, berms are in place to protect the launch pad and surrounding facilities. A glass structure has been placed on top of a shipping container, which will serve as a mission control center.

Sources with knowledge of the industry have refused to name the company that will launch in April due to a non-disclosure agreement, the Daily Mirror reported. But the launch will not be from Vector Space Systems or Rocket Lab — two companies that have known contracts with Alaska Aerospace.

If not Rocket Lab or Vector, this suggests another smallsat company, such as Interorbital, Firefly, or Arca, or even a company I have not spotted up to now. If so, this will certainly heat up the competition in the smallsat rocket industry.

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Port of Los Angeles approves SpaceX portside construction site

10:22 pm

The Port of Los Angeles has granted SpaceX approval to begin construction of a booster construction and refurbishment facility on a large abandoned lot with direct ocean berthing access.

A request summary completed on March 6 details SpaceX’s proposal, laying out a bright future of rocket manufacturing for the abandoned 18-acre lot at Berth 240, one that might soon support “composite curing, cleaning, painting, and assembly [of commercial transportation vessels]” that “would need to be transported by water due to their size.

The article then speculates that this facility will be used to build SpaceX’s BFR. Maybe so, but my guess is that the facility is needed now for bringing reused Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy boosters back after launch and prepping them for reuse.

While it is likely to take a fair amount of time to prepare the lot for the construction of a facility capable of manufacturing advanced composite rocket components, the wording in the Port documentation also suggests that SpaceX means to transfer its Falcon 9 recovery work to the new berth as soon as it’s available. Indeed, the comparatively massive space would give SpaceX far more room for recovery operations with the drone ship Just Read The Instructions (JRTI), and could potentially become a one-stop-shop for booster recovery and refurbishment. As of now, boosters recovered on the West Coast are transported to the Hawthorne factory for all refurbishment work, operations that themselves already require brief road stoppages to accommodate the sheer size of Falcon 9.

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Firefly Aerospace shows off its Lightning-1 rocket engine

9:15 am

Capitalism in space: Firefly Aerospace earlier this week did a demonstration static fire test of its Lightning-1 rocket engine, designed as the upper stage engine for its Alpha rocket.

Currently under development, the engine will power the upper stage of the company’s 95-foot-tall (29-meter-tall), two-stage Firefly Alpha rocket. The full vehicle will be capable of sending some 2,200 pounds (1000 kilograms) into low-Earth orbit (LEO) for about $10 million. Additionally, it will be able to send 1,300 pounds (600 kilograms) into a 310-mile (500-kilometer) Sun-synchronous orbit.

These numbers suggest to me that this rocket will be comparable to India’s PSLV. At $10 million per launch, it will beat everyone else in that rocket class. They expect to do their first test orbital launch sometime in late 2019.

Firefly Aerospace had gone bankrupt because of a successful lawsuit against it by Virgin Galactic. It then found new backers and came back from the dead.

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Tiangong-1 reentry window narrowed

8:57 am

Tiangong-1 re-entry map

New estimates by the European Space Agency of when China’s Tiangong-1 space station prototype will re-enter the atmosphere have now been narrowed to one week, centered on around April 4.

The map on the right, created by the Aerospace Corporation, indicates the latitudes where the module is most likely to fall. Yellow is the more likely, green is less likely, and blue is no chance at all. Note that Aerospace has not yet narrowed its re-entry window, still holding it at two weeks centered on April 4.

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China launches military surveillance satellite

8:45 am

China today successfully launched a military surveillance satellite using its Long March 2D rocket, designed to put smaller payloads in low Earth orbit.

I think the 2D would compare nicely with India’s PSLV rocket.

The leaders in the 2018 launch standings:

8 China
5 SpaceX
3 Japan
3 ULA
2 Russia
2 Europe

The U.S. and China are presently tied at 8. Note also that I am now counting Rocket Lab as a New Zealand rocket, not an American one.

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Putin promises a Russian Mars mission in 2019

8:50 am

The new colonial movement: In a documentary released this week Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged that his country will send an unmanned mission to Mars in 2019, and that it will be aimed at studying water at the red planet’s poles.

This is funny. Putin is likely referring to ExoMars 2020, which Russia is partnering with the European Space Agency (ESA). In that mission, Russia is providing the rocket and the descent and landing technology for ESA’s rover. To claim that this is a Russian mission is a bit of an over-statement, since the only Mars-related equipment Russia is building involves the landing, and the ESA is also participating in that work.

Nonetheless, Putin’s words here illustrate how the competition is heating up. Every nation wants its share of the exploration of the solar system, and they are beginning to ramp up their efforts to make that happen.

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New spaceport bill becomes law in the United Kingdom

8:39 am

The new colonial movement: A new bill designed to encourage the establishment of private or public spaceports in the United Kingdom has now become law.

If you wish to read the entire law, you can download it here [pdf] My quick review suggests it deals only with the regulations and liability issues necessary to encourage the creation of spaceports, which is confirmed by the language in the press release above.

In other words, the UK punted. Initially there were suggestions this law would try to deal with the property right issues related to the Outer Space Treaty. I suspect that as they reviewed those issues, the government realized they couldn’t do much about them, without changing the treaty itself, and decided to focus on what they could change. This law is aimed at bringing spaceport business to the United Kingdom, and in that I hope it works.

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China’s big space launch schedule

10:19 am

This Space News article does a nice job outlining the known schedule situation for China’s Long March 5 rocket. To summarize, it appears the launch schedule is roughly as follows:

November 2018: Long March 5 launches new geosynchronous communications satellite
Early 2019: Long March 5 launches Chang’e-5 to the Moon on sample return mission
June 2019: Long March 5B launches first test flight of upgraded and reusable Shenzhou manned capsule
2020: Long March 5B launches Tianhe, first module of China’s space station
Summer 2020: Long March 5 launches China’s first rover to Mars
2020 to 2022: Long March 5B launches two more modules to complete China’s space station

This schedule all hinges on the success of that first launch.

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Russia gets multiple launch contracts for its Proton?

9:58 am

International Launch Services, Russia’s division for obtaining commercial launch contracts, announced yesterday that it obtained “multiple orders” for its Proton rocket.

ILS, a leading provider of commercial launch services, announced multiple launch assignments for Proton Medium launches that will include the use of both the 4.35 meter and the new 5.2 meter payload fairing. The missions will take place beginning in late 2019 from Pad 24 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The reason I put a question mark in the headline is that this announcement is incredibly vague. It doesn’t name the customers. It doesn’t specify the actual number of launches. It really doesn’t tell us anything, other than the Proton has obtained launch orders!

I suspect the Russians have gotten some launch contracts, but I also suspect that these contracts are with Russian companies only, and they want to hide this fact because it indicates once again that they have lost their international market business to SpaceX and others. Launch orders from within Russia are essentially ordered to go to Proton by the government. No one else however wants to buy their services, because no one has faith in their quality control processes. There have been too many launch failures in recent years.

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New Air Force launch contracts for SpaceX and ULA

9:49 am

Capitalism in space: The Air Force announced yesterday that it has awarded launch contracts to ULA and SpaceX worth nearly $650 million.

Colorado-based ULA was awarded a $355 million contract for its launch services to deliver two Air Force Space Command spacecraft, labeled AFSPC-8 and AFSPC-12, to orbit. The missions are expected to launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station by June 2020 and March 2020, respectively.

…SpaceX, meanwhile, secured a $290 million contract to launch three next-generation Global Positioning System satellites for the Air Force, known as GPS III. The first is expected to launch from the Space Coast by March 2020, either from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Launch Complex 40 or Kennedy Space Center’s pad 39A.

Note the price difference between the ULA and SpaceX.launches. ULA’s cost is $177.5 million per launch, while SpaceX’s is $96.7 million per launch. While it could be that the ULA launches need to cost more because of the nature of the payloads, I don’t buy it. The company simply charges too much, partly because its rockets are expensive. The Air Force however has a strategic need to have more than one launch company, so they bite their tongues and pay the larger amount.

I should add one positive aspect about ULA’s price. The price is considerably below what they used to charge, before SpaceX entered the game. Then, their lowest launch price was never less than $200 million, and usually much more. This lower price indicates they are working at getting competitive. Though SpaceX offers the Falcon Heavy at $90 million (with reused boosters) and $150 million (all new) to commercial customers, its price for the Air Force will likely be higher because of the Air Force’s stricter requirements. This means that ULA’s per launch price of $177.5 here is getting quite close to being competitive with the Falcon Heavy.

Note that the article mentions that SpaceX has also gotten two more commercial launch contracts with DigitalGlobe, so that company’s business continues to boom.

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Dawn finds recent changes on Ceres

4:28 pm

New data from Dawn has found at least one spot on Ceres where recent changes appear to have occurred on the surface.

Observations obtained by the visible and infrared mapping spectrometer (VIR) on the Dawn spacecraft previously found water ice in a dozen sites on Ceres. The new study revealed the abundance of ice on the northern wall of Juling Crater, a crater 12 miles (20 kilometers) in diameter. The new observations, conducted from April through October 2016, show an increase in the amount of ice on the crater wall. “This is the first direct detection of change on the surface of Ceres,” said Andrea Raponi of the Institute of Astrophysics and Planetary Science in Rome.

Raponi led the new study, which found changes in the amount of ice exposed on the dwarf planet. “The combination of Ceres moving closer to the sun in its orbit, along with seasonal change, triggers the release of water vapor from the subsurface, which then condenses on the cold crater wall. This causes an increase in the amount of exposed ice. The warming might also cause landslides on the crater walls that expose fresh ice patches.”

There is a certain irony here. For eons, the only alien body that humans were able to get a good look at, the Moon, was also an object where almost nothing changed. Even today, after humans have visited its surface and numerous orbiting spacecraft have photographed its surface in numbing detail, the Moon has generally been found to be stable and unchanging. Though impacts do occur, and the surface does evolve over time, the Moon is probably one of the most static bodies in the solar system.

The irony is that this lunar stability gave us an incorrect impression of the rest of the solar system. Based on the Moon, it was assumed that airless or almost airless bodies like Mercury, Mars, Pluto, the large moons of Jupiter and Saturn, and asteroids like Ceres would also be stable and unchanging. What we have instead found is that the Moon is the exception that proves the rule. Most of these other worlds are unlike the Moon. They show a lot of surface evolution, over relatively short time scales. They change.

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Kepler to run out of fuel in the coming months

1:08 pm

After nine years of success, the Kepler space telescope is running out of fuel, which will force an end to the mission sometime in the next several months.

The Kepler team is planning to collect as much science data as possible in its remaining time and beam it back to Earth before the loss of the fuel-powered thrusters means that we can’t aim the spacecraft for data transfer. We even have plans to take some final calibration data with the last bit of fuel, if the opportunity presents itself.

Without a gas gauge, we have been monitoring the spacecraft for warning signs of low fuel— such as a drop in the fuel tank’s pressure and changes in the performance of the thrusters. But in the end, we only have an estimate – not precise knowledge. Taking these measurements helps us decide how long we can comfortably keep collecting scientific data.

They are doing a dance here. If they run out of fuel while collecting data, that data will be lost. If they stop collecting data too soon, however, to transmit it to Earth, they will not maximize the data obtained.

Meanwhile, the next exoplanet hunter, TESS, is scheduled for launch on April 16 on a Falcon 9 rocket.

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Bezos releases video of BE-4 static fire test

9:21 am

Capitalism in space: Jeff Bezos today released a video of a 114 second engine test of Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine.

I have embedded the video below the fold. The test was at 65% power, but it strongly suggests that the company is getting close to certifying this engine for use, which will then allow ULA to make its final decision on whether to use it in its Vulcan rocket. It also will allow Blue Origin to begin construction of its own New Glenn rocket, which is set to begin flights in 2020.
» Read more

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Orbital ATK unveils new satellite servicing robots

9:14 am

Capitalism in space: At a satellite conference yesterday Orbital ATK unveiled a new robotic satellite servicing system utilizing two new robots, the Mission Robotic Vehicle (MRV) and Mission Extension Pods (MEP), simpler yet also more sophisticated versions of its Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV) which is already planned for launch later this year.

Under the new approach, a Mission Robotic Vehicle, based on the MEV design, will carry 10 to 12 Mission Extension Pods. The Mission Robotic Vehicle would approach a customer’s satellite and use a robotic arm to attach a pod to that satellite. The pod would then take over stationkeeping, proving up to five years of additional life. The Mission Robotic Vehicle and Mission Extension Pods are intended to provide new solutions to customers that don’t need the full-fledged capabilities of the MEV. The pods have a shorter lifetime than an MEV and do not provide attitude control capabilities.

The new system, designed to be ready for service in 2021, largely incorporates existing technology. The Mission Robotic Vehicle is a version of the MEV and the Mission Extension Pods is based on Orbital ATK’s ESPASat small satellite bus.

One new technology will be the robotic arm. Tom Wilson, president of SpaceLogistics, the Orbital ATK subsidiary offering the satellite life extension program, said the company was considering technology from NASA as well as Europe. “We’ve got a couple of different options,” he said, but hasn’t yet made a decision on the specific technology.

Orbital ATK’s new design will certainly cost its customers a lot less, since its design that will allow them, with one launch, to place a robot in orbit capable of servicing up to twelve different satellites. You want to extend the life of your communications satellite by five years? You call Orbital ATK, and they use their already orbiting Mission Robotic Vehicle to install an extension pod on your satellite. This way they can spread the cost of the launch across a dozen different customers.

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Chandra looks back at the Crab Nebula

8:22 am

Link here. It is almost twenty years since the Chandra X-Ray Observatory was launched, and in celebration the science team have released another X-ray image of the Crab Nebula, taken in 2017 in league with an optical image from the Hubble Space Telescope and an infrared image from the Spitzer Space Telescope. They have also provided links to all similar past images, going back to 1999.

Some of the images are actually videos, in 2002 and 2011, showing the Crab’s dynamic nature. You can actually see flares and waves of radiation rippling out from its center.

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New Horizons team picks Ultima Thule as nickname for 2014 MU69

5:27 pm

In their continuing effort to give interesting names to their targets, the New Horizons team has chosen the name Ultima Thule for 2014 MU69, the Kuiper Belt object it will fly past on January 1, 2019.

With substantial public input, the team has chosen “Ultima Thule” (pronounced ultima thoo-lee”) for the Kuiper Belt object the New Horizons spacecraft will explore on Jan. 1, 2019. Officially known as 2014 MU69, the object, which orbits a billion miles beyond Pluto, will be the most primitive world ever observed by spacecraft – in the farthest planetary encounter in history.

Thule was a mythical, far-northern island in medieval literature and cartography. Ultima Thule means “beyond Thule”– beyond the borders of the known world—symbolizing the exploration of the distant Kuiper Belt and Kuiper Belt objects that New Horizons is performing, something never before done.

“MU69 is humanity’s next Ultima Thule,” said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator from Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. “Our spacecraft is heading beyond the limits of the known worlds, to what will be this mission’s next achievement. Since this will be the farthest exploration of any object in space in history, I like to call our flyby target Ultima, for short, symbolizing this ultimate exploration by NASA and our team.”

Their spacecraft will be the first to see this object up close. It is their right to name it. And if the International Astronomical Union objects, they can go to hell. I guarantee that future generations of space-farers will know this tiny world by this name, and this name alone.

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Blue Origin gets its fourth launch contract for New Glenn

8:50 am

Capitalism in space: Blue Origin has signed its fourth launch contract for putting satellites in orbit with its New Glenn rocket, this time with the Japanese company Sky Perfect JSAT.

Blue Origin now has satellite launch agreements with four companies. Last year, the company reported deals with Eutelsat, OneWeb and mu Space. Today Blue Origin said its memorandum of understanding with Thailand-based mu Space has been converted into a firm contract for a geostationary satellite launch.

No launch price was revealed, though I suspect the price is very competitive with SpaceX prices.

I expect that by the mid-2020s, these two companies will be completely dominating the commercial large satellite market. The one threat to that dominance will be whether that large satellite market will be able to compete with the new tiny cubesat and nanosat market that is only now beginning to develop. It could be that by the mid-2020s, almost all unmanned communications satellites will be small, and that the market for these big rockets will have shifted to manned space.

More likely, we will have a very vibrant smallsat market, a vibrant largesat market, and a emerging manned market, all vying for launch contracts from many different rocket companies. Things should be quite exciting.

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NASA concludes design error caused June 2015 Falcon 9 launch failure

8:36 am

NASA’s independent investigation into the SpaceX’s June 2015 Falcon 9 launch failure has concluded, like SpaceX, that it was caused by the failure of a strut holding an internal tank, but unlike SpaceX the report cites a “design error” for that failure.

In simpler terms, the steel strut that SpaceX chose was not certified to be used in such conditions. Furthermore, SpaceX did not meet the 4:1 redundancy requirement that the manufacturer had instructed. Therefore, the IRT recommended that SpaceX applied greater care when certifying commercially sourced parts for flight.

Interestingly, the IRT also discovered another area of concern not directly related to the accident that arose during the investigation. The report found that the telemetry architecture on the upcoming “Full Thrust” version of the Falcon 9 included a new method of handling packets that increased latency, and thus vital data could have been lost in the event of a similar anomaly.

The IRT report finished by noting that all of the key findings in the report were addressed by SpaceX in time for the successful Jason-3 mission for NASA.

I suspect a political decision at NASA explains the timing of the release of this report, far later than normal. At this point the issues it raises are mostly moot, as SpaceX has upgraded the Falcon 9 and is no longer using the older version that failed on that June 2015 launch. Moreover, NASA has certified those upgraded rockets, which suggests they have reviewed the company’s methods and have decided it is now using parts that are properly certified.

However, the recent successful launch of Falcon Heavy has created a big threat to SLS. This report, released now, is certainly going to be used by SpaceX’s enemies to argue that it is dangerous to buy its heavy lift rocket. “Look, SpaceX is sloppy! It uses uncertified parts that cause its rockets to blow up!” I can see the op-eds, paid for covertly by the big space companies Boeing and Lockeheed Martin, being typed even as I write this.

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An even more spectacular movie of Jupiter’s storms

8:45 am

Cool image time! Yesterday I posted a short gif created by citizen scientist Gerald Eichstädt, using twelve Juno images, that showed some cloud changes over time. Today, I discovered that Eichstädt has created an even more spectacular movie, which I have embedded below the fold, based on images taken during Juno’s tenth close fly-by.

This movie shows the short-term dynamics Jupiter’s southern storms derived from raw JunoCam images of Juno’s Perijove-10 flyby on Dec 16, 2017.

You might also notice the effect of changing solar illumination on the appearance of the haze bands. JunoCam usually takes a time-lapse sequence of images during each perijove showing Jupiter’s polar regions. These images are taken from different perspectives along Juno’s trajectory. But it’s possible to reproject the JunoCam images to a common perspective. Displaying such a sequence rapidly reveals cloud motion in Jupiter’s storm systems.

This movie applies this technique. At the same time, it is changing the simulated perspective along Juno’s trajectory. The same short sequence of images is displayed in a loop, but due to the changing way of reprojecting the raw images, the shown surface area is changing more or less continuously.

Eichstädt warns that the blinking nature of the film might make it unsuitable for those with epilepsy. If this is not an issue for you, you should then definitely take a look.
» Read more

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Funding shortfall causes Planetary Resources to cut back

8:32 am

Because of their failure to close a round of investment fund-raising, Planetary Resources has been forced to cut back, including some layoffs and delaying several proposed later missions.

The delayed investment, though, forced Planetary Resources to lay off some of its employees. Lewicki declined to say how many were let go from a peak of 70 employees prior to the layoffs.

That setback also affects the schedule for future asteroid prospecting missions. In his conference talk, Lewicki showed a video of a planned mission where several small spacecraft, launched as secondary payloads, fly to near Earth asteroids to measure their water content. In past presentations featuring that video, company officials said the mission was scheduled for launch in 2020.

However, Lewicki didn’t state in this talk when that mission would launch, and acknowledged later the funding problems would delay it until some time after 2020. “The 2020 date was assuming we would get all the necessary financing on schedule last year,” he said.

To me, this article illustrates why Planetary Resources failed to obtain its investment funds. They pitch themselves as an asteroid mining company, but very little of what they are doing has anything to do with actual mining, or obtaining profits from that mining. At the moment, they remain an Earth observation company with capabilities not as good as a host of other similar companies expressly dedicated to this task.

I say this not because I am against asteroid mining, or think it cannot make a profit. I just think Planetary Resources has oversold itself, which can be deadly in the harsh competitive market.

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Rocket Lab unaffected by Swarm/FCC kerfuffle

8:25 am

Rocket Lab is proceeding with preparations for its next and first commercial Electron rocket launch, despite the removal of four Swarm nanosats because the FCC had cancelled its launch license.

Rocket Lab spokeswoman Morgan Bailey said the matter was between Swarm and the FCC, and had not caused any delay to preparations for Rocket Lab’s next launch, which is tipped to take place in April. “For us, it doesn’t really create any issues.”

Its Electron rockets are designed to carry a payload of up to 150 kilograms, meaning the tiny Swarm satellites would only be a small part of any cargo.

It appears the launch will occur in April, though an exact date and a description of its payload has not yet been released.

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A Juno movie of cloud motions

9:12 am

Cool image time! Citizen scientist Gerald Eichstädt, using twelve Juno images, has compiled a short gif movie that shows a tiny amount of cloud movement.

I think this is one of the first times Juno has show us even a tiny bit of cloud evolution, information that is essential for gaining a true understanding of Jupiter’s slightly less than 2000 mile deep atmosphere. To see it, go to the link. As Eichstadt notes, “Individual images are noisy, but we see cloud motion.”

When you watch, zoom in on the upper right quarter. This is the area that the cloud motion is seen best.

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Highlight video reel of Falcon Heavy launch

8:30 am

One of the creators of a television science fiction series has produced a highlight video, set to David Bowie’s “Life on Mars?”, of the first Falcon Heavy launch that shows some new footage of the core stage watery crash.

I have embedded the video below the fold. To me, the best part is the footage of the spectators, including the many children, wonder-struck by the launch. Some of that footage is very reminiscent of footage taken during the Apollo Saturn 5 launches in the late 1960s.

To the next generation: We are going to the Moon — and beyond. And this time we are going to stay.
» Read more

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FCC accuses satellite startup of launching satellites without a license

9:44 pm

Four tiny nanosats built by a California startup that were placed in orbit by India’s PSLV rocket in January now appear to have been launched without an FCC license.

Swarm believes its network could enable satellite communications for orders of magnitude less cost than existing options. It envisages the worldwide tracking of ships and cars, new agricultural technologies, and low cost connectivity for humanitarian efforts anywhere in the world. The four SpaceBees would be the first practical demonstration of Swarm’s prototype hardware and cutting-edge algorithms, swapping data with ground stations for up to eight years.

The only problem is, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had dismissed Swarm’s application for its experimental satellites a month earlier, on safety grounds. The FCC is responsible for regulating commercial satellites, including minimizing the chance of accidents in space. It feared that the four SpaceBees now orbiting the Earth would pose an unacceptable collision risk for other spacecraft.

If confirmed, this would be the first ever unauthorized launch of commercial satellites.

The FCC denied the license because the nanosats were so small there is a fear they could become a space junk hazard. The FCC has now vacated an approved license for launching four more Swarm satellites on a Rocket Lab Electron rocket in April because, “The FCC believes that Swarm launched and is operating its original small satellites, despite having been forbidden to do so.”

If this story is true, it illustrates some incredibly stupid decisions by the people running Swarm. The FCC concerns here appear quite reasonable, and the company’s decision to ignore them now means that they might have gambled their entire company away. Moreover, this does harm to Rocket Lab, which has lost a customer.

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Arianespace successfully places four communications satellites in orbit

9:28 pm

Using a Russian Soyuz rocket and launching from French Guiana Arianespace today successfully launched four communications satellites.

The leaders in the 2018 launch standings:

7 China
5 SpaceX
3 Japan
3 ULA
2 Russia
2 Arianespace

For the purpose of these rankings, I consider the Soyuz rocket, launched from French Guiana, an Arianespace vehicle, since it is marketed, assembled, and launched by that company.

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Martian craters go splat!

2:17 pm

Overview of the volcanic Tharsis Bulge on Mars

Cool image time! In continuing my exploration of this month’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) image release, I found two interesting images of small craters, one as part of that image release, the other found completely by accident.

The map on the right, taken from the MRO HiRISE archive page, shows the locations of these two images. Both are located in the lava plains that surround the giant volcano Pavonis Mons, the central volcano of the three volcanoes to the east of Olympus Mons. Previously, I have done posts focusing specifically on both Pavonis Mons and Arsia Mons. Not only is the geology of these gigantic volcanoes fascinating, there is evidence that ancient glacial ice lurks in lava tubes on their slopes, making them potentially prime real estate for future explorers.

The first image, labeled #1 on the image above, was taken in January 2018 to get a better look at a small crater on the surrounding lava plains, and was part of the MRO March image release. I have cropped it to post here, focusing on the crater itself.

My first reaction on seeing the image was, “Did this impact not go splat when it hit?”
» Read more

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More big space rumors from China

9:17 am

Two stories today tout two different future big space projects coming out of China.

The first story describes a proposed Chinese X-37B concept, that unlike the X-37B would be launched from a airplane-like mother ship, like Orbital ATK’s Pegasus rocket. This would make the entire vehicle reusable. I would not book passage, however. This is concept stuff, and possibly being touted by the designers to lobby for funding.

The second story is more real, outlining the design work being done right now for a second generation Chinese manned capsule to replace its Shenzhou spacecraft. It appears they want something with greater capacity and more reusability, and also with the robustness to return from lunar missions.

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Vector to launch two cubesats from Alaska later this year

9:06 am

Vector yesterday announced that it plans to complete its first orbital launch from Alaska later this year, placing two commercial cubesats in orbit.

Their original plans had been to do five suborbital test flights, each pushing closer to orbital, with the last possibly reaching orbit. They’ve so far completed two of these five launches. Now it appears they are bypassing the last three test launches and are going straight to orbit on their next launch, and are pitching it as an operational commercial flight. I hope they have their engineering together. I also wonder if it might be wiser to do what Rocket Lab did, which is to tout its first orbital attempts as tests, and only tests, to lower expectations. That made them look good when the second test reached orbit successfully.

The change of plans might also be because Vector is feeling the competition pressure from Rocket Lab and the numerous other smallsat rocket companies that appear to be coming out of the woodwork. They need to get operational to put themselves in the forefront of this new launch industry.

Once again, I hope they have their engineering together. It would be a shame to screw up merely because they pushed things too much, when they right now are ahead of most other smallsat rocket companies.

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Trump plugs private space at cabinet meeting

8:55 am

At the beginning of a cabinet meeting yesterday Trump spent some time talking about the recent successes in commercial space.

Three quotes of interest:

  • “Rich guys, they love rocket ships. And that’s good. Better than us paying for them.”
  • “I notice the prices of the last one they sent. It cost $80 million. If the government did it the same thing would have cost probably 40-50 times that amount of money. I mean literally. … I’m so used to hearing different numbers from NASA.”
  • We’re really at the forefront, nobody is doing what we’re doing. I don’t know if you saw, with Elon, the [Falcon Heavy] rocket boosters where they’re coming back down. To me that was more amazing than watching the rocket go up. ‘Cause I’ve never seen that before. Nobody has seen that before…. They landed so beautifully.

Not unusually, Trump gets some details wrong but understands the essentials, much to the terror of the big space contractors of SLS (Boeing) and Orion (Lockheed Martin). SpaceX will charge $90 million for the launch of a reused Falcon Heavy (using three reused first stages). Estimates for the cost of a single SLS launch are difficult to estimate. In Capitalism in Space I had estimated the project’s overall cost, based on Congressional appropriations, to be about $25 billion come its first manned flight, but that cost is likely going up because the first flight will be delayed. Trump’s numbers estimate a cost of about $4 billion for a single launch, which is a reasonable number considering SLS is not expected to launch more than once a year, and SLS’s annual appropriations, about $3 billion, which will not change once it is operational.

In other words, SLS is an overpriced rip-off, especially now that we have a cost-effective alternative.

Yesterday there were two op-eds warning everyone of the dangers of giving government money to SpaceX.

The first worries that Musk is a “master manipulator” and the king of “crony capitalism” and that we shouldn’t be blinded by this single Falcon Heavy success. Others, like ULA, are better companies to depend on. The second warns that the government mustn’t become so blinded by SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy launch that it decides to invest money in the company.

Both op-eds are laughable. Compared to the crony capitalism of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, which have sucked almost $50 billion from the taxpayers for SLS/Orion while producing no flights, Elon Musk is a piker. And no one has ever suggested investing in SpaceX, like a venture capitalist. The Trump administration has merely proposed buying its rockets to launch future deep space missions, in order to save the taxpayers a lot of money.

There is real fear and terror in the bowels of big space and in the swamp in Washington. Elon Musk and the Falcon Heavy have put it there. Increasingly, it is becoming plainly obvious that SLS is a big over-priced boondoggle that we cannot afford, and Trump’s comments yesterday indicate that this fact is finally beginning to be politically acceptable.

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Another smallsat rocket company enters the market

8:57 am

Capitalism in space: A new Australian smallsat rocket company, Gilmour Space Technologies, has successfully test fired a new hybrid rocket engine.

This orbital-class rocket engine, developed by Australia and Singapore-based Gilmour Space Technologies (www.gspacetech.com), has successfully achieved 70,000 newtons (70 kilonewtons or 15,700 pounds-force) of thrust in what could be the world’s largest successful test fire of a single-port hybrid rocket engine. “These results prove that we have the core technology needed to enable low-cost small satellite launches to space,” said its CEO & Founder, Adam Gilmour. The company’s mission: to carry payloads weighing up to 400 kg to low earth orbit (LEO) from 2020.

Unlike the vast majority of commercial rockets today, which use either solid- or liquid-fuelled engines, Gilmour Space is pioneering new hybrid-engine rockets that combine a liquid oxidiser with a proprietary multi-material 3D printed solid fuel. Indeed, the Queensland-based company first made headlines in 2016 when it successfully test launched a subscale rocket to an altitude of 5km using its 3D printed rocket fuel.

The static fire test, which can be seen in a video at the link, was very short, less than 10 seconds. Since one of the big problems of hybrid engines has been to get them to fire smoothly and precisely for long periods of time, I remain skeptical. They might have some good engineering here, but I don’t yet see the makings of a rocket.

Hat tip Doug Messier of Parabolic Arc.

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