Tag: spaceflight

NASA awards 11 small development contracts to a variety of companies

9:01 am

Capitalism in space: NASA today announced that it has awarded small contracts to eleven different companies, ranging from big established companies like ULA and Lockheed Martin to small startups like Varda and Zeno, for developing a range of new technologies, from power production on the Moon to making building materials from lunar soil.

Five of the technologies will help humanity explore the Moon. For astronauts to spend extended periods of time on the lunar surface, they will need habitats, power, transportation, and other infrastructure. Two of the selected projects will use the Moon’s own surface material to create such infrastructure – a practice called in-situ resource utilization, or ISRU. Redwire will develop technologies that would allow use of lunar regolith to build infrastructure like roads, foundations for habitats, and landing pads.

Blue Origin’s technology could also make use of local resources by extracting elements from lunar regolith to produce solar cells and wire that could then be used to power work on the Moon.

Astrobotic’s selected proposal will advance technology to distribute power on the Moon’s surface, planned to be tested on a future lunar mission. The company’s CubeRover would unreel more than half a mile (one kilometer) of high-voltage power line that could be used to transfer power from a production system to a habitat or work area on the Moon.

The contracts range in price from $1.6 to $34.7 million, with Blue Origin getting that largest award.

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Rocket Lab delays its private mission to Venus two years to ’25

8:51 am

In order to focus at this time on its commercial customers, Rocket Lab has decided to reschedule its private mission to Venus, delaying its two years to the next launch window in 2025.

The mission appeared to still be on in May, before Rocket Lab quietly put it on the back-burner last month. Spokesperson Morgan Bailey said it had decided to delay the mission so it could concentrate on its commercial launches. “The decision was a business one and we look forward to delivering the Venus mission in 2025,” she said.

It also appears that the mission could be pushed back further if customer demand requires it.

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No, that is not a sunspot on Mars!

11:33 am

No, that is not a sunspot on Mars!
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on April 20, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). While at first glance this Martian terrain vaguely resembles the granular surface of the Sun, with the largest depression having its own faint resemblance to a sunspot, the resemblance exists only in our feverish imagination.

The depression might have been formed by an impact, though it is also possible it is a caldera, not of lava but of ice processes. The granular surface is likely resulting from the sublimation of ice, creating random holes and ridges as underground material changes from ice to gas and escapes at weak points on the surface.

My guess that we are looking at ice processes is based on the location, not far from where the first manned spacecraft will likely land.
» Read more

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Spirals within spirals

8:58 am

Spirals within spirals
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and annotated to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope as part of two different research projects that are studying galaxies where supernovae previously occurred. This particular galaxy is estimated to be about 192 million light years away, and is a classic example of a barred spiral.

Despite appearing as an island of tranquillity in this image, UGC 12295 played host to a catastrophically violent explosion — a supernova — that was first detected in 2015. This supernova prompted two different teams of astronomers to propose Hubble observations of UGC 12295 that would sift through the wreckage of this vast stellar explosion.

Supernovae are the explosive deaths of massive stars, and are responsible for forging many of the elements found here on Earth. The first team of astronomers used Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) to examine the detritus left behind by the supernova in order to better understand the evolution of matter in our Universe.

The second team of astronomers also used WFC3 to explore the aftermath of UGC 12295’s supernova, but their investigation focused on returning to the sites of some of the best-studied nearby supernovae. Hubble’s keen vision can reveal lingering traces of these energetic events, shedding light on the nature of the systems that host supernovae.

What struck me about this picture however were the many smaller spiral galaxies scattered nearby and behind UGC 12295, with one face-on spiral highlighted near the top. I can count at least three or four other background spiral galaxies, all reddish in color likely because their light has been shifted to the red due to their distance.

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SpaceX launches another 22 Starlink satellites

6:01 pm

SpaceX today successfully launched another 22 second generation Starlink satellites, using its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage completed its sixth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The two fairings completed their seventh and eighth flights respectively.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

49 SpaceX
29 China
9 Russia
6 Rocket Lab
5 India

American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 56 to 29, and the entire world combined 56 to 48, with SpaceX by itself leading with the entire world combined (excluding other American companies) 49 to 48.

SpaceX’s 49 successful launches so far this year carries some additional historical significance. This number exceeds the launch count of the entire United States per year from 1968 to 2021, and SpaceX has done it in only a little more than half the year. Its reported goal of completing 100 launches this year remains very much within reach.

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China’s Long March 2D rocket places four satellites into orbit

9:52 am

China’s Long March 2D rocket today put four satellites into orbit, three to provide “remote sensing observation data and provide commercial remote sensing services,” and one “satellite communications technology verification.”

That’s everything China’s state run press tells us. The launch was also from China’s Taiyuan interior spaceport, which means the rocket’s lower stages crashed somewhere in China. No word on whether they attempted to control the landing, or if it crashed near habitable areas.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

48 SpaceX (with a launch planned later today. Live stream here.)
29 China
9 Russia
6 Rocket Lab
5 India

American private enterprise still leads China in successful launches 55 to 29, and the entire world combined 55 to 48, with SpaceX by itself tied with the entire world combined (excluding other American companies) 48 to 48.

The SpaceX launch later today was originally scheduled for yesterday, but got scrubbed due to weather.

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Indian company Skyroot conducts rocket engine test

11:24 am

Capitalism in space: The Indian rocket startup Skyroot successfully conducted a ten-second static fire test of a new engine, using a test facility of India’s space agency ISRO.

The Modi government has established a policy that ISRO must provide its facilities for private companies to develop their rockets, and this test was another demonstration that this policy is taking hold. It also indicates that Skyroot is getting closer to launching its first orbital rocket, Vikram-1.

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China launches two smallsats

11:17 am

A Chinese pseudo-company dubbed Galactic Energy today placed two smallsats into orbit, using its solid-fueled Ceres-1 rocket that lifted off from China’s Jiuquan interior spaceport.

This pseudo-company might have gotten investment capital and operate like a private company, but its technology — solid rockets — is utterly derived from missiles, and thus it has done nothing without full control by China’s government. Like all of China’s pseudo-companies, it owns nothing that it sells.

Meanwhile, the rocket’s lower stages crashed somewhere in the interior of China. No word if they landed near habitable areas.

The leaders in the 2023 launch race:

48 SpaceX (with a launch planned later today. Live stream here.)
28 China
9 Russia
6 Rocket Lab
5 India

American private enterprise still leads China in successful launches 55 to 28, and the entire world combined 55 to 47, with SpaceX by itself leading the entire world combined (excluding other American companies) 48 to 47.

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Strings of Martian cones

10:10 am

Strings of Martian cones

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on May 25, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The scientists describe these cones as “longitudinally aligned cones,” but this is puzzling since the alignment runs from the northwest to the south east, not north-south along the longitude.

No matter. The alignment is in itself the mystery, especially because the full image shows many more strings of cones in this area, all running from the northwest to the southeast. The strings also are all curved in the same way, sagging to the southwest as if expressing a wave flowing in that direction.

What could create these strings of cones? The overview map below gives us a hint.
» Read more

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Chandrayaan-3 completes fourth engine burn in Earth orbit

9:04 am

Chandrayaan-3's mission profile

According to India’s space agency ISRO, engineers have successfully completed the fourth of about six engine burns designed to raise Chandrayaan-3’s Earth orbit in preparation for sending it on its path to the Moon.

As shown in the graphic to the right, these adjustments are relatively small, but each increases the speed of the spacecraft at its orbit’s closest point to the Earth. That extra velocity thus reduces the amount of fuel needed for that trans-lunar-injection burn.

If all the maneuvers continue to go as planned, the landing attempt will occur around August 23, 2023.

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South Korean researchers turn simulated lunar soil into building blocks

8:51 am

Using simulated lunar soil, South Korean researchers have developed the engineering that turns that soil into building blocks shaped as needed.

The researchers first produce simulated moon soil by grinding black volcanic rock from Cheorwon County bordering the North. They then use a microwave to turn the sand-like simulant into solidified blocks. Lee said the team has developed a technique to make blocks by heating the soil in a mold to more than 1,000 degrees Celsius in two to three hours and cooling them. In space, the process could be powered by nuclear energy.

The article at the link also provides a nice summary of the status of South Korea’s entire space effort.

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Viking cemetery found at new Saxavord spaceport in Scotland

8:43 am

Archeologists have discovered a Viking “ritual cremation cemetery” about 4,000 years old near the launch site at the new Saxavord spaceport in Scotland.

The burnt bones were found inside an arc of large granite boulders set into pits in the ground. A small platform of white quartz pebbles was also discovered which may have once been linked to a burial. Quartz is often associated with burial tombs in the prehistoric, and covered the entire outside wall of Newgrange in Ireland.

Test launches at Saxavord are expected to begin in the fall, with the first orbital launch next year. This schedule of course assumes launch licenses can be obtained from the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority.

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