Tag: spaceflight

SpaceX launches satellite with reused first stage, recovers stage

12:45 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX has done it again. They have placed a Bulgarian television satellite into orbit, using a previously flown first stage.

The landing of the first stage had a moment of fear. Just before the stage was to land, as it was firing its engines during the landing burn, the video showed something hit the water next to the barge, then the image froze and was lost. For about fifteen seconds it appeared that possibly something had gone wrong during the burn. Then the image returned, showing the stage sitting neatly and upright and apparently unharmed, on the barge. Whether this stage will fly a third time will have to wait until they inspect it, but if it does, they will certainly prove without question that the decades of big space engineers telling us that such things were impossible was childish and narrow-minded hogwash.

Remember that the next time someone tells you something is too hard to try to do.

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Mars rover update: June 23, 2017

11:11 am

Summary: Curiosity continues up hill. Opportunity has wheel problems.

Curiosity

For the overall context of Curiosity’s travels, see Pinpointing Curiosity’s location in Gale Crater.

The march up Mt Sharp continues. Since my last update on May 15, Curiosity has continued working its way up towards what the science team has named Vera Rubin Ridge, the beginning of a lighter, yellowish layer of rock, dubbed the Hematite Unit, that sits higher up the mountain’s slope. They have been traveling on the Murray Formation now for more than a year, since March, 2016, so entering this new layer of geology is eagerly anticipated by the science team. (This October 3, 2016 press release. gives an overall picture of the geology Curiosity is traversing.)

Reader Phil Veerkamp sent me a beautiful panorama he stitched together from recent Curiosity images of Vera Rubin Ridge, directly to the south of the rover and higher up hill. Below is a reduced resolution version. Be sure you click on it to explore the full resolution image. This is a new type of terrain, significantly different than anything Curiosity has seen up to now. It also appears that the rover will see far less dust, and might be traveling mostly over solid boulders. Below I have cropped out a very small section of the ridge line near the center of the full image, just to illustrate this.
» Read more

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OneWeb wins FCC approval for 720 satellite internet constellation

9:31 am

Capitalism in space: The FCC has given unanimous approval to OneWeb to launch its 720 satellite constellation, designed to provide internet access worldwide.

They hope to launch the first 10 satellites in 2018 and begin service in 2019. The satellites will be put in orbit by a variety of launch companies, including Roscosmos, Arianespace, and Virgin Orbit.

This is only the beginning. SpaceX has its own internet competition planned, expected to begin launching in 2019.

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Bulgaria credits SpaceX’s low costs for making its satellite possible

9:17 am

Capitalism in space: The CEO of the Bulgarian company that built the television satellite that SpaceX plans to launch later today said that it was SpaceX’s low costs that made the satellite possible.

Maxim Zayakov, CEO of BulgariaSat and its affiliate television provider Bulsatcom, told Spacefight Now that SpaceX’s push to reduce the cost of space transportation has yielded tangible results for his country. “People don’t realize that, for small countries and small companies like us, without SpaceX, there was no way we would ever be able to even think about space,” Zayakov said. “With them, it was possible. We got a project. I think, in the future, it’s going to be even more affordable because of reusability.”

This is what I have been saying for more than a decade. You lower the costs, you make it possible for more customers to enter the market. This increase in customer base makes it possible for more launch companies to enter the market in response, and that forces the costs to drop further, which starts the whole cycle again. In the end we not only get a robust launch industry, the human race gets to settle the solar system.

The article also confirms that, at this time, SpaceX is only offering a 10% discount for the use of a reused first stage. They say this is because they wish to recoup their $1 billion investment to develop reusability. While this might be true, the real truth is that SpaceX doesn’t need to provide a larger discount. The discounted price of $55.8 million saves satellite companies another $6.2 million, which isn’t chicken feed, and offers them the cheapest launch price anywhere by far. SpaceX in turn makes more money per launch.

Should another company begin to challenge this launch price I would then expect SpaceX to lower the price further. They have the profit margin to do this.

Note that you can watch today’s Falcon 9 launch of the Bulgarian satellite at 2:10 pm Eastern at SpaceX’s website.

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India’s PSLV rocket successfully launches 31 satellites

8:59 am

India today completed its fourth launch of 2017, using its PSLV rocket to successfully place 31 satellites in orbit, including 30 smallsats.

They also did in-orbit engine tests of the rocket’s fourth stage after releasing the satellites.

For 2017 India has at this moment completed as many launches as ULA, and only one less than Russia. They have four more launches tentatively scheduled, though it is likely that not all will fly this year. If they get them off, however, they will definitely move into the upper tier of launch nations.

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ESA discovers the wonders of capitalism!

11:27 pm

Three stories today illustrate how competition is revolutionizing and energizing the European aerospace industry:

The first two stories are clearly examples of the new competition within the launch industry. The first describes the effort by ESA and Airbus-Safran, a partnership now dubbed ArianeGroup, to get the Ariane 6 rocket built fast and cheaply, under pressure as they are by SpaceX’s lower prices.

The manufacturing consortium is looking for a 40% cost reduction, at least, in the Ariane 6, compared with the Ariane 5. In part that is coming from exploiting new materials and new manufacturing techniques (3D printing, friction stir welding, augmented reality design, etc) and in part by maximising the common use of elements in both the 62 and 64 variants. Avio’s solid-fuelled booster is also the same as the first stage on the company’s Vega rocket, which launches much smaller satellites.

But a big cost saving will come from simply employing fewer people. “There is a transition from Ariane 5 to Ariane 6 (from 2020 to 2023), but from 2024, 2025 onwards – our workforce will be 30% less than today,” explained Hans Steininger, the boss of MT Aerospace, which is making the rocket’s huge metallic propellant tanks.

The second article describes how ESA is suddenly changing its reusable mini-shuttle program from a typical, staid, dead-end research project (where they do a series of test flights with no thought towards using what they learned) to a private mini-shuttle available for lease by researchers of all stripes.

By 2025, ESA officials said, Space Rider could be operating commercially, flying science payloads and bringing them back to Earth for roughly $9,200 per kilogram. Arianespace, the Evry, France-based launch services provider, would likely serve as Space Rider’s operator, offering industry and government customers the opportunity to fill the spaceplane 800-kilogram payload capacity with microgravity science, materials testing, telecommunications and robotics demonstrations.

Previously, the plan had been to test fly this spaceplane without selling its cargo capacity. Now they want to make money on it, right from the beginning.

The third article meanwhile illustrates that the old way of doing things is still a factor in Europe’s space effort. Europe’s Galileo GPS satellite network has been delayed badly by faulty atomic clocks. They are replacing them, and are preparing to resume launches. However, in ordering 8 new satellites they have also decided to keep OHB, the same contractor who provided the faulty atomic clocks, rather than give the contract to a competitor or at least split it between two contractors.

The contract, expected in late 2016, was delayed as the commission and the 22-nation European Space Agency (ESA) debated whether to maintain OHB as Galileo’s sole supplier or to award all or part of the contract to competitor Thales Alenia Space Italia.

In the event, the commission and ESA agreed that the savings realized from ordering recurrent-model spacecraft from OHB, and the schedule assurance this provided, outweighed arguments on behalf of dual sourcing. “Dual sourcing is always important but it needs to be weighed against other program requirements” including cost, said Paul Verhoef, ESA’s director of navigation. Verhoef said ESA and the commission may pursue dual sourcing for the next round of Galileo orders, when a new design will be used for the system’s second generation.

I suspect that as competition continues to prove its worth ESA will move to accept the idea of competition in the building of future GPS satellites. For right now, however, this change was more than this large government bureaucracy could handle.

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House lawmakers push Air Force to use reusable rockets

11:00 pm

Capitalism in space: House lawmakers today added an amendment to the Air Force budget that would require the military to “move rapidly to evaluate the potential use of reusable space launch vehicles such as those being flown by SpaceX.”

The amendment was approved by a voice vote in committee.

As noted by Eric Berger at the link, this marks an amazing shift by Congress in a very short time. A few years ago, SpaceX had to sue the government for the right to bid on Air Force launch contracts. At that time Congress was exceedingly skeptical of allowing military satellites to launch on new Falcon 9 rockets, no less ones using used first stages. Moreover, Congress was then eager to protect its big buddy ULA, which then had a monopoly on military launches and was making gobs of money per launch. Now, Congress is all for re-usability and saving money and competition.

This change demonstrates the importance of success. SpaceX has been successful, and with that success the nay-sayers have suddenly vanished. Now, everyone loves them, when only a few years ago they were considered risky and unreliable.

When SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy succeeds and flies several times prior to the first launch of SLS, watch for this same process to occur there as well. SLS will no longer be sacrosanct, and Congress will suddenly discover how much a waste of money it is.

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NASA shuts down asteroid capture mission

10:49 pm

Faced with years of congressional disinterest, NASA this week finally decided to close out its asteroid redirect mission.

The project was first pushed by President Obama as a mission to send astronauts to an asteroid. Then they downgraded it to using an unmanned spacecraft to bring a large asteroid back to lunar space, where astronauts would then visit it. Then they downgraded this to bringing back a small asteroid, which was later downgraded to bringing back a small boulder. In the process the manned mission got pushed farther and farther into the future, until it dwindled out of sight.

The mission never had any congressional support, so it was never going to happen. With the end of the Obama administration NASA can now finally stop making believe that it might happen and shut it down.

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A congressman acts to limit competition in solid rocket motor production

9:08 am

We’re here to help you! Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-California) in March introduced a new bill that requires U.S. companies building solid rocket motors to purchase the oxidizer from within the U.S.

That oxidizer, ammonium perchlorate, is only available from one Utah company, a company that also happens to belong to a member of the Washington establishment.

Some in industry are arguing the legislation is an earmark to help a now struggling business — American Pacific, owned by the Huntsmans of Utah — with political ties to the Trump administration. Jon Huntsman, former two-time Republican presidential candidate, is tapped to be the next ambassador to Russia.

And if the legislation passes as part of the fiscal year National Defense Authorization Act, the business would be propped up, but potentially at the expense of a larger solid rocket motor industry and the U.S. government, sources interviewed by Defense News argued.

Essentially, this bill would give Jon Huntsman’s company a monopoly and would likely increase the cost of making solid rocket motors.

The article is very detailed. While on the surface it sure looks like a case of crony capitalism, it is a bit more complicated. Demand for ammonium perchlorate has dropped since the shuttle was retired, causing Huntsman’s company to struggle. While it could be argued that this bill is an effort to save this company as well as encourage new American companies to form, there are many factors described in the article that suggest this isn’t going to happen, including this tidbit:

The other factor is the price for [ammonium perchlorate] will improve naturally when the government has more demand in roughly six years when NASA’s Space Launch System kicks off in full and the nuclear missile fleet is refreshed, so a solution that is more temporary could be in order, several sources suggest.

Since it is doubtful SLS will ever “kick off in full,” it is unlikely that demand for solid rocket motor oxidizer will ever rise as predicted. A better solution would be for Congress to mind its own business and let the market function normally. There are other companies in Europe providing this oxidizer, and the competition would force Huntsman’s company (as well as other new American companies) to innovate to stay competitive.

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SLS first mission delayed again

9:23 pm

Government in action! It appears that SLS’s first flight, an unmanned test flight around the Moon, is being delayed again, from early in 2019 to as late as the fourth quarter of that year.

Section 103 of the 2005 NASA Authorization Act (Public Law 109-155) requires written notification from within the agency to the NASA administrator and then separately after that from the administrator to Congress for significant cost or schedule overruns of major programs. In the case of a delay, the law specifies notification is required if “a milestone of the program is likely to be delayed by 6 months or more from the date provided for it in the Baseline Report of the program.”

By this measure, the readiness period would seemingly be pushed out to at earliest the second quarter of 2019, but L2 notes have indicated EM-1 launch date estimates in the third or fourth quarter. [emphasis mine]

In other words, when in April they first announced the delay from November 2018 to 2019, they were really announcing what will likely be a full year delay. This will mean that it is going to take NASA 15 years to fly this single unmanned mission, spending about $38 billion, based on the appropriate numbers that I worked up in my Capitalism in Space policy paper.

Let me repeat that: One unmanned test flight. Fifteen years. $38 billion. Compare that with NASA’s the entire cargo and crew program, involving multiple spaceships and flights, which will cost about $12 billion total, and will include all the cargo and manned flights NASA intends to buy through the end of ISS’s present lifespan in 2024, estimated by contract to be about 42.

I should also add that I expect SpaceX to almost certainly fly its Falcon Heavy at least twice by the end of 2019. Falcon Heavy will have the capability of putting up about 50 tons, only slightly less than the 75 tons expected by this first SLS flight. With a purchase price per launch of $90 million, NASA could have purchased 422 Falcon Heavy launches for the $38 billion it wasted on this one SLS unmanned test mission.

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Iridium launches might use reused Falcon 9 first stages

9:31 am

Capitalism in space: Iridium is considering using Falcon 9 previously flown first stages for its later already contracted launches with SpaceX.

Iridium is launching 75 of its 81 second-generation Iridium Next satellites using eight Falcon 9 launches, the first of which took place Jan. 14. In a conference call with reporters June 19, Desch said Iridium’s original contract with SpaceX calls for new Falcon 9s for each mission, but if SpaceX can improve its launch schedule with pre-flown stages, Iridium would consider them for missions in 2018. “While we are currently flying first flown launches, I’m open to previously flown launches, particularly for the second half of our launch schedule,” said Desch.

Desch said there are three criterion by which Iridium would decide whether to use a pre-flown rocket: schedule, cost and reliability — of which schedule is the most important. “Would [pre-flown rockets] improve the current launch plan that I have with brand-new rockets that I’ve basically contracted for a number of years ago and have budgeted for and have paid for?” Desch asked. “That’s the first thing: will they improve my schedule, because schedule to me is very very important.”

I think this tells us that Iridium is waiting to see if this week’s launch of a Bulgarian satellite on a reused first stage is successful. The article also also notes that they are still negotiating over price for using “flight proven” first stages.

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Russia offers Soyuz capsule for tourist flights, even after it is replaced

9:23 am

Capitalism in space: The Russian company that makes the Soyuz capsule has announced that it intends to continue flying the capsule, even after the new Federation replacement capsule is operational.

“I think that the Soyuz has the right to continue its life. As long as there exists a space tourism market and this spacecraft enjoys confidence, this all should be used as essential components,” the CEO said. Energiya is also considering the possibility to upgrade the Soyuz for circumlunar missions. “If we manage to do it faster, we will have a chance to perfect important systems on it, that will be further used on the Federation,” Solntsev noted.

Energiya is now part of the Russian space agency Roscosmos and is controlled by the government. Thus, for it to do this will still require government approval. Will the Russian government allow the old capsule to exist when the new one begins flying? That would be a form of competition, something Russia hasn’t really encouraged since the fall of the Soviet Union. We shall see.

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Russia moves to capture the smallsat launch market

6:41 pm

Glavkosmos, a division in Roscosmos, Russia’s nationalized aerospace industry, is working to capture a large part of the new smallsat launch industry.

Glavkosmos, a subsidiary of Russian state space corporation Roscosmos, said June 14 that it will launch 72 small satellites as secondary payloads on the Soyuz-2.1a launch of the Kanopus-V-IK remote sensing satellite, scheduled for July 14 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Vsevolod Kryukovskiy, launch program director at Glavkosmos, said in a June 19 interview that the smallsat customers for that launch come from the United States, Germany, Japan, Canada, Norway and Russia. He declined to identify specific customers, although he said they include both companies and universities. The spacecraft range in size from single-unit cubesats up to a 120-kilogram microsatellite. “We’ll do the most technically challenging cluster mission ever,” he said. The satellites will be deployed into three separate orbits, after which the rocket’s upper stage will perform a deorbit maneuver.

Kryukovskiy said Glavkosmos is also arranging the launch of secondary payloads on two Soyuz launches planned for December from the new Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East region. “We’ll have about 40 microsats that we’ll launch from Vostochny, and that will be the first international launch from this new Russian cosmodrome,” he said.

These numbers are in the same range as when India launched 103 smallsats on a single rocket, and suggest that Russia is trying to grab the market share that the new small rocket companies are aiming at.

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Arianespace gets another launch contract

6:36 pm

Capitalism in space: Arianespace has won new contracts for two launches of its Vega rocket.

More important however was this tidbit:

And, with another two flights to geostationary orbit booked for its Ariane 5 heavy lifter, the Arianespace orderbook now stands at €4.8 billion ($5.3 billion), with 53 launches for 28 customers: 18 using Ariane 5, 25 for the mid-weight Soyuz and 10 for Vega/Vega C.

Compare that manifest with Russia’s, which now only has 15 commercial launch contracts through 2023. Compare it also to SpaceX’s which lists about 30 commercial launches, excluding its NASA cargo and crew missions to ISS.

It would appear that Russia has so far been the big loser in the new competitive launch industry. This can of course change, especially if Russia fixes its production problems, becomes a reliable launch company, and offers competitive prices.

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Update of Kepler exoplanet catalog

9:44 am

Worlds without end: The Kepler science team has released an update of the space telescope’s exoplanet candidate list, adding 219 new exoplanet candidates.

NASA’s Kepler space telescope team has released a mission catalog of planet candidates that introduces 219 new planet candidates, 10 of which are near-Earth size and orbiting in their star’s habitable zone, which is the range of distance from a star where liquid water could pool on the surface of a rocky planet. This is the most comprehensive and detailed catalog release of candidate exoplanets, which are planets outside our solar system, from Kepler’s first four years of data. It’s also the final catalog from the spacecraft’s view of the patch of sky in the Cygnus constellation.

With the release of this catalog, derived from data publicly available on the NASA Exoplanet Archive, there are now 4,034 planet candidates identified by Kepler. Of which, 2,335 have been verified as exoplanets. Of roughly 50 near-Earth size habitable zone candidates detected by Kepler, more than 30 have been verified.

Additionally, results using Kepler data suggest two distinct size groupings of small planets. Both results have significant implications for the search for life. The final Kepler catalog will serve as the foundation for more study to determine the prevalence and demographics of planets in the galaxy, while the discovery of the two distinct planetary populations shows that about half the planets we know of in the galaxy either have no surface, or lie beneath a deep, crushing atmosphere – an environment unlikely to host life.

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Did China experience a launch failure today?

10:54 pm

The status of a Chinese launch attempt of a communications satellite today remains unknown, hours after launch.

China launched its seventh mission of 2017 on Sunday, lofting the Zhongxing-9A (ChinaSat-9A) communications satellite, but -unusually – there has been no official status update in over three hours since liftoff. The Long March 3B/G2 lifted off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in the hills of Sichuan Province at 00:12 local time on monday (16:12 UTC, 12:12 EDT on Sunday), following on from Thursday’s launch of the country’s first space observatory.

Apparent video footage and locals on social media surprised by the rumbling of the launch vehicle confirmed liftoff. However, official confirmation of launch success, often within an hour, has not followed, bringing speculation of some degree of failure.

Nothing has as yet been confirmed, so this launch might not be a failure.

Update: A problem with the third stage placed the satellite in the wrong orbit.

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New smallsat rocket company plans first flight of aerospike engine

9:09 am

ARCA Aerospace has announced that it will perform the first test flight reaching space of an aerospike rocket engine this coming August.

ARCA Space Corporation has announced the first test-launch of its Demonstrator 3 space vehicle at Spaceport America in August. This will mark the first space flight of an aerospike rocket engine. Aerospike rocket engines are described as significantly more fuel efficient than the current engines and could make launches attempting to bring satellite payloads to space more affordable. Demonstrator 3 will perform a suborbital space flight up to an altitude of 100 kilometers above the New Mexico desert.

Their goal is to build a rocket they have dubbed Haas 2CA for the smallsat industry.

There is an interesting video at the link from the company showing their engineers hand-building this first suborbital test rocket, which the company also says is the first of a weekly series leading up to the test launch. More information about the company can be found at their website. According to their schedule, they hope to make the first orbital flight in 2018, and begin commercial operations by the end of that year.

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The state of the global aerospace industry

9:33 am

A new European analysis of the global aerospace industry suggests it is both growing and changing significantly.

Several takeaways that indicate future trends.

  • The government space spending has been stable the past 5 years, there was a 2% drop in 2016
  • The number of nations spending money on space has grown significantly in the past decade, from 47 to 70
  • Spending is shifting from military to civilian efforts
  • Russia experienced a 25% cut in aerospace spending in 2016
  • China passed Russia in spending in 2016
  • U.S. government spending stabilized in 2016 after a 25% decline since 2010

A drop in government spending in space is not proof that the industry is shrinking. In fact, it might be a sign of robust growth, in that it is no longer necessary to depend on coerced tax dollars to finance space projects. Instead, it suggests that because there are increasing profits to be made in space, the government is being replaced by a vibrant private sector. It also suggests that the private sector is finding ways to do things cheaper, which is saving the government money and allowing it to lower its budgets.

The second bullet point above reinforces these conclusions. Even though overall government spending has been stable, more countries have entered the market. More is being done with the same amount of money, and these lower costs are allowing new players to participate. The last bullet point also supports these conclusions. Even though the report notes a significant drop in U.S. government spending on space since 2010, it is very clear to me that the industry has actually prospered in these same years, fueled by a growing private sector.

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Air Force budget reveals cost differences between ULA and SpaceX

10:34 pm

Eric Berger at Ars Technica has found that the most recent Air Force budget provides a good estimate of the price ULA charges the military for its launches.

According to the Air Force estimate, the “unit cost” of a single rocket launch in fiscal year 2020 is $422 million, and $424 million for a year later.

This is a complex number to unpack. But based upon discussions with various space policy experts, this is the maximum amount the Air Force believes it will need to pay, per launch, if United Launch Alliance is selected for all of its launch needs in 2020. ULA launches about a half-dozen payloads for the Air Force in a given year, on variants of its rockets. Therefore, the 2020 unit cost likely includes a mix of mostly Atlas V rockets (sold on the commercial market for about $100 million) and perhaps one Delta rocket launch (up to $350 million on the commercial market for a Heavy variant).

In other words, the $422 million estimate per launch is the most they will pay. Atlas 5 launches will certainly be less, about $100 to $150 million, while the Falcon 9 will likely be under $100 million. What they are doing is budgeting high so they guarantee they have the money they need to pay for the most expensive launches, usually on the Delta Heavy.

From my perspective, they are budgeting far too high, and if I was in Congress I would insist that this number be reduced significantly, especially considering this Air Force statement on page 109 of the budget document [pdf]:

The Air Force, National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) agreed to a coordinated strategy for certification of New Entrants to launch payloads in support of NSS and other USG requirements which has so far resulted in the certification of one New Entrant. The Air Force continues to actively work with potential New Entrants to reliably launch NSS requirements. The Government may award early integration contracts to ensure each potential offeror’s launch system is compatible with the intended payload. Beginning in Fiscal Year 2018, the Air Force will compete all launch service procurements for each mission where more than one certified provider can service the required reference orbit. [emphasis mine]

The “New Entrant” is of course SpaceX. They are also saying that they are going to encourage competitive bidding now on all future launch contracts.

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China’s Tianzhou-1 freighter completes second refueling test

10:13 pm

Tianzhou-1, China’s first unmanned freighter, has successfully completed its second refueling test while docked with that country’s Tiangong-2 space module.

The test was successfully completed at 18:28 Beijing time on June 15th (10:28 UTC), according to an announcement (Chinese) from the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).

Tianzhou-1 and the Tiangong-2 space station test bed module have been coupled for 54 days in orbit at around 390 kilometres above the Earth since April 22, following launch of Tianzhou-1 on April 20.

A first 29-step, five-day refuelling process was successfully concluded on April 27, marking a major step in China’s space station plans. The second test is understood to have taken two days.

The freighter will next undock, fly free for several months, and then attempt a third docking, this time doing so in only six hours versus the two day maneuvers it has so far completed.

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Titan’s clearing northern skies

11:10 am

Titan's clearing northern skies

The image of Titan on the right, reduced in resolution to show here, was taken by Cassini less than a week ago, on June 9, as it continues its last orbits of Saturn prior to crashing into the gas giant’s atmosphere in September.

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft sees bright methane clouds drifting in the summer skies of Saturn’s moon Titan, along with dark hydrocarbon lakes and seas clustered around the north pole. Compared to earlier in Cassini’s mission, most of the surface in the moon’s northern high latitudes is now illuminated by the sun. …Summer solstice in the Saturn system occurred on May 24, 2017.

When Cassini arrived more than a decade ago, it was winter on Titan’s northern hemisphere, and the atmosphere was thick with haze. Now the sky is clearing as the stormy weather shifts to the winter in the southern hemisphere.

As with yesterday’s global map of Mimas, this image is in many ways a farewell look at Titan. While Cassini will likely get a few more global images of the Saturn moon before the mission ends in September, this image essentially marks the end of our ability to observe this strange planet closely, for decades to come. When Cassini crashes into Saturn, our vision at Saturn will go blind. And no one knows when our sight there will return, as no mission is presently in the works, or is even being considered, to return to Saturn.

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Truck driver killed in fire related to crash of Soyuz stage in Kazakhstan

9:45 am

A truck driver has died in an effort to extinguish a fire related to the crash in Kazakhstan of the stages from the Soyuz rocket that earlier this week launched a Progress freighter to ISS.

This story does not indicate any failure on Russia’s part during the launch. What it does highlight is the problematic location of their Baikonur spaceport, which requires expendable first stages to crash on land. In fact, this incident also suggests it wise for the Russians, and the Kazakhstans, to consider developing recoverable first stages that can land in a controlled manner, as SpaceX has, in order to make this spaceport more useful and safer.

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China launches X-ray space telescope

9:35 am

China today launched the Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT), also dubbed Insight by Chinese news sources.

The HXMT carries three x-ray telescopes observing at energies ranging from 20 to 200 kilo-electron volts as well as an instrument to monitor the space environment, according to its designers. While orbiting 550 kilometers above the planet, the HXMT will perform an all-sky survey that is expected to discover a thousand new x-ray sources. Over an expected operating lifetime of 4 years, it will also conduct focused observations of black holes, neutron stars, and gamma ray bursts.

More here. This is China’s first home-grown X-ray space telescope, and its launch once again illustrates that, for at least the next few decades, China intends to be a major player in the exploration of the solar system.

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Senate to hold third hearing on commercial space

9:17 am

The Senate next week will hold the third in a series of hearings, organized by Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), to examine the state of the present partnership between the government and the private sector.

Like the previous hearings, the witnesses cover a wide range, though most this time represent companies in the private sector (including Gwynne Shotwell of SpaceX). It appears that what Cruz is doing is using these hearings to get as much feedback from as many private companies as possible, so that their preferences will dominate any decisions Congress eventually makes.

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A new map of Mimas

9:36 am

Global map of Mimas

The Cassini science team has released what will be the best map of Saturn’s moon Mimas for many decades to come. A reduced resolution version is above, and was updated after the most recent fly-bys in November 2016 and February 2017.

The moon’s large, distinguishing crater, Herschel, is seen on the map at left. The map is an equidistant (simple cylindrical) projection and has a scale of 710 feet (216 meters) per pixel at the equator. The mean radius of Mimas used for projection of this map is 123.2 miles (198.2 kilometers). The resolution of the map is 16 pixels per degree.

Since Cassini is in its final orbits and will crash into Saturn in September, and no other Saturn mission is even being planned, do not expect a better map for a very long time.

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China to attempt to grow potatoes on Moon

9:22 am

China’s Chang’e-4 lunar rover/lander, set to launch in 2018, will include a small experiment that will attempt to grow potatoes from seeds.

Note that I have just realized that I have been confusing Chang’e-5 with Chang’e-4. Chang’e-5 is a sample return mission that they hope to launch this year. It does not include a rover. Chang’e-4 is a lander/rover mission that is planned for 2018.

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Boeing cuts management, streamlines its operations

9:14 am

Capitalism in space: In an effort to better compete, Boeing is eliminating a layer of management and cutting 50 jobs in its defense and aerospace division.

The changes split management into smaller units so they can make faster decisions in their specific fields. This includes separating their space and missile division from other activities. This quote however says it all about the accelerating competition in the space business.

The changes are designed to speed decision-making, [defense division head Leanne Caret] said in an interview. “Everything is moving faster,” she said of the competitive environment for defense contractors.

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