Tag: spaceflight

Sightseeing in the region near the Starship Mars landing zone

4:21 pm

Sightseeing in the region near Starship's landing zone
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on November 30, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a bulbous hill in the icy northern lowland plains of Mars. That it is icy here is indicated by the glacier features that appear to fill the small crater near the bottom of the picture.

You can get a better sense of stark alien nature of this terrain by looking at an MRO context camera image of the same area, taken on April 1, 2008. The subject hill is the first hill on the image’s west side, going from the top. This is a flat plain interspersed with crater splats, mounds of a variety of sizes, and a puzzling meandering dark line that suggests a crack from which material is oozing.

The geology to be studied here might be endless but for tourists the views will be astounding in their alienness.
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SpaceX launches another 51 Starlink satellites into orbit

11:48 am

SpaceX today successfully placed another 51 Starlink satellites into orbit, using its Falcon 9 rocket and launching from Vandenberg Space Force Base.

The first stage completed its 12th flight, landing safely on a drone ship in the Pacific. The fairing halves completed their fifth and second flights, respectively.

The 2023 launch race:

15 SpaceX
7 China
3 Russia
1 Rocket Lab
1 Japan
1 India

American private enterprise now leads China 16 to 7, and the entire world combined 16 to 12. SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including other American companies, 15 to 13.

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Sunspot update: After going through the roof last month, sunspots drop into the attic this month

11:05 am

With the start of another month NOAA this week updated its graph that tracks the number of sunspots on the Sun’s Earth-facing hemisphere. As I do every month, I have posted that updated graph below, adding some additional details to provide some context.

Last month the number of sunspots rocketed upward to the highest seen since 2014, and only the second time since November 2002 that the Sun was that active. In February those high numbers dropped, though the sunspot activity during the month remained well above the 2020 prediction by NOAA’s panel of solar scientists.

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ESA attributes Vega-C launch failure to faulty nozzle from the Ukraine

8:49 am

The European Space Agency (ESA) has concluded that the launch failure of the second stage of Arianespace’s Vega-C rocket on December 20, 2022 was caused by a faulty nozzle produced by a company in the Ukraine.

[T]he Commission confirmed that the cause was an unexpected thermo-mechanical over-erosion of the carbon-carbon (C-C) throat insert of the nozzle, procured by Avio in Ukraine. Additional investigations led to the conclusion that this was likely due to a flaw in the homogeneity of the material.

The anomaly also revealed that the criteria used to accept the C-C throat insert were not sufficient to demonstrate its flightworthiness. The Commission has therefore concluded that this specific C-C material can no longer be used for flight. No weakness in the design of Zefiro 40 has been revealed. Avio is implementing an immediate alternative solution for the Zefiro 40’s nozzle with another C-C material, manufactured by ArianeGroup, already in use for Vega’s Zefiro 23 and Zefiro 9 nozzles.

The press release goes to great length to reassure everyone that these Ukrainian nozzles are still flightworthy, that the fix is merely changing the material used in the nozzle’s throat insert.

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JAXA reschedules first H3 rocket launch following investigation

8:39 am

Japan’s space agency JAXA has rescheduled its second attempt to launch its new H3 rocket for March 6, 2023, following the completion of its investigation into the launch abort at T-0 on February 16, 2023.

As a result of the investigation, it is estimated that the first-stage flight controller malfunctioned due to transient fluctuations in the communication and power lines that occurred during electrical separation between the rocket and the ground facilities.

As a result, the solid rocket strap-on boosters did not ignite as planned, and the rocket’s computer, sensing this anomaly, shut down its main engines. The press release says they are installing “countermeasures” but provides no other information.

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Endeavour docks with ISS

11:58 pm

Endeavour tonight has successfully docked with ISS.

When the spacecraft got within about 70 feet of the station, there was a delay of a little more than an hour while ground controllers installed a software overide to a sensor for monitoring the position of one of the 12 hooks on Endeavour, used to lock it to ISS’s docking port. Though visual and other data showed the hook was working, the sensor could not, and without that software override Endeavour would automatically abort the docking.

This same sensor had caused a delay in the opening of the capsule’s nosecone yesterday shortly after launch.

As of posting the hatch had not yet been opened, something that should occur in about an hour or so. Though Endeavour is docked, more checks needed to be done beforehand.

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A Martian glacier waterfall?

12:48 pm

A Martian glacier waterfall?
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on October 25, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a small meandering canyon that appears to drain into a larger side canyon, all part of a region of chaos terrain dubbed Galaxias Chaos in the Martian northern mid-latitudes.

Though the latitude is 35 degrees north, where we should see lots of evidence of glacial features, especially because this is chaos terrain — terrain unique to Mars — that generally appears formed by such processes, I find few outright obvious glacial features in this cropped portion or in the full image.
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Scientists publish their results from the impact of Dimorphos by DART

10:53 am

Seconds after impact
Seconds after impact. Click for movie, taken by amateur
astronomer Bruno Payet from the Réunion Island.

Scientists today published five papers outlining their results from the impact of Dimorphos by DART, summed up as follows:

  • Dimorphos’s density is about half that of Earth’s, illustrating its rubble pile nature.
  • The orbital period around the larger asteroid Didymos was changed by 33 minutes.
  • The ejection of material from Dimorphos during the impact had a greater effect on the asteroid’s momentum than the impact itself
  • The mass ejected was only 0.3 to 0.5% of Dimorphos’s mass, showing that the asteroid was not destroyed by the impact.
  • The impact turned Dimorphos into an active asteroid, with a tail like a comet.

The data not only tells us a great deal about this asteroid binary itself, it suggests that this impact method might be of use in defending the Earth from an asteroid impact. There are caveats however. First, the orbital change was not to the system’s solar orbit, the path that would matter should an asteroid threaten the Earth, but to Dimorphos’s orbit around its companion asteroid. We don’t yet know the effect on the solar orbit. Second, the impact did not destroy this small rubble pile asteroid, which means such an asteroid might still be a threat to the Earth even after impact. Third, in order for an impact to be the right choice for planetary defense, detailed information about the target asteroid has to be obtained. Without it such an impact mission might be a complete waste of time.

The irony to all this is that we knew all this before the mission. DART in the context of planetary defense taught us nothing, so NASA’s claim that this mission was to learn more about planetary defense was always utter bunkum. The mission’s real purpose was the study of asteroids, but selling it that way was hard. The sizzle of planetary defense however was a better lobbying technique, and it worked, even if it was dishonest.

That the press was also fooled by it, and continues to be fooled by it, is a subject for a different essay.

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Rocket Lab might forgo use of a helicopter in recovering its Electron 1st stages

10:20 am

According to Rocket Lab’s CEO, Peter Beck, the company might abandon the use of a helicopter and the in air capture of the first stages of its Electron rocket 1st stages and instead simply fish them out of the water, refurbish them, and then reuse them.

In the second attempt last November, Rocket Lab called off the helicopter catch because of a momentary loss of telemetry from the booster. The company instead allow the stage to splash down in the ocean, where a boat recovered it and returned it to Rocket Lab’s facilities. “This turned out to be quite a happy turn of events,” he said on the call. “Electron survived an ocean recovery in remarkably good condition, and in a lot of cases its components actually pass requalification for flight.”

He said the company is planning an ocean recovery on an upcoming flight after incorporating additional waterproofing into the vehicle “Pending this outcome of testing and analysis of the stage, the mission may move us towards sticking with marine recovery altogether and introduce significant savings to the whole operation.”

As Elon Musk has said, “The best part is no part.” It appears that by having the stage come down softly and controlled by parachutes it is possible to get it out of the water fast, without much damage. If the first stage can then be reflown then it makes sense not to bother with the helicopter recovery.

Beck also indicated during his phone presentation that the company is still targeting fifteen launches in 2023, and that the demand for launches has allowed the company to maintain its launch prices, with the prospect of raising them soon.

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UK’s bureaucracy blasted for delaying Virgin Orbit launch

10:10 am

At parliamentary hearings yesterday, the United Kingdom’s Cival Aviation Authority (CAA) was heavily criticized by commercial satellite companies for delaying the launch Cornwall launch by Virgin Orbit by six months.

The harshest words came from a manager at Space Forge, that lost a satellite on that launch when Virgin Orbit’s rocket failed to reach orbit.

Patrick McCall, non-executive director at Space Forge, told MPs on the Science and Technology Select Committee, that if the company sought to launch again in the UK it would be given “short shrift” by investors. “I think unless there is a seismic change in that approach the UK is not going to be competitive from a launch perspective,” he said. “There is no chance that Josh Western [the Space Forge CEO] would win the argument to do the next launch in the UK. Even if the UK came and said you can do it for free, I would say don’t do that.

“I don’t think it’s deliberate, I think people at the CAA want to make it happen, but it’s not working, and either we change that with a seismic shift or we save the money and spend it on other things which are achievable.”

The delay also caused Virgin Orbit serious financial problems, as it prevented it from doing any other launches in 2022, resulting in a significant loss of income.

The committee chair, MP Greg Clark, underlined the testimony afterward:

“It’s a disaster isn’t it?” he said: “We attempted to show what we are capable of, and the result is it’s now toxic for a privately funded launch. We had the first attempted launch but the result is that you as an investor in space are saying there is no chance of investors supporting another launch from the UK with the current regulator conditions.”

During the hearings CAA officials justified their actions, and appeared unwilling to consider any changes.

There are two spaceports now being built in Scotland. If the CAA is not forced to change, it is very likely that commercial satellite companies will find other places in Europe to launch, such as the new Esrange spaceport being developed in Sweden.

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SpaceX successfully launches its Endeavour capsule carrying four astronauts

11:59 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX tonight used its Falcon 9 rocket to successfully launch its Endeavour capsule from Cape Canaveral, carrying four astronauts to ISS.

This was Endeavour’s fourth flight. It will dock with ISS in about 24 hours. The four-person crew included two Americans, one Russian (the second to fly on a Dragon capsule), and the first citizen of the United Arab Emirates to fly on an American spacecraft. He will stay on the station for six months.

The Falcon 9 first stage was making its first flight, and successfully landed on a drone ship in the Atlantic. This was only the fourth new first stage used by SpaceX since January 2022 (out of 75 launches), and the second launched this year.

The 2023 launch race:

14 SpaceX
7 China
3 Russia
1 Rocket Lab
1 Japan
1 India

American private enterprise now leads China 15 to 7 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 15 to 12. SpaceX alone leads the entire world combined, including all other American companies, 14 to 13.

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The barren and icy northern lowland plains of Mars

5:41 pm

The barren and icy northern lowland plains of Mars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped and sharpened to post here, was taken on January 2, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Taken to fill a gap in the camera’s planned image schedule in order to maintain its temperature, the location was in this sense picked not for any particular scientific research project, but because the camera team decided they might find something interesting at this spot.

What they found is a vast flat plain of polygons, a feature found frequently on the surface of Mars and thought to be formed from processes similar to the drying that creates similar polygon cracks in dried mud here on Earth. In this case, the cracks are almost certainly in ice. As Colin Dundas of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Astrogeology Science Center in Arizona explained to me previously,
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