Tag: spaceflight

Roscosmos will launch unmanned Soyuz to ISS on February 21

5:15 pm

Roscosmos today announced that it will launch the unmanned Soyuz to ISS on February 21st, only a two-day delay after doing a quick inspection of its outer surface for possible damage following the coolant leak of a Progress freighter on February 11th.

BtB’s stringer Jay provided me this translation of the announcement at the link:

The Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft has been checked and is beginning to be prepared for launch. The preparations suspended the day before at Baikonur will resume tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.
The launch is scheduled for the 20th of February.

The ship was inspected. No maliciously drilled holes were found. We decided not to wait any longer. In any case, a refueled ship must either be launched or sent to a museum.

Update: removal of the launch vehicle to the launch pad on February 18, launch on February 21″ [emphasis mine]

The highlighted words are truly intriguing. It appears Roscosmos is desperately trying to convince the world that the repeated recent leaks to Soyuz and Progress spacecraft are not related to sabotage on the ground. At the same, Roscosmos has never told us the results of its investigation into the 2018 hole in a Soyuz capsule that someone drilled and then patched before launch. It seems incredibly unlikely that the two recent leaks in the exterior coolant systems of two different spacecrafts were both caused by impact from a micrometeorite or tiny piece of space junk. Two such impacts could of course occur this frequently, but for both to happen to such similar locations on only Russian spacecraft seems beyond improbable.

Either way, the decision makes some sense. The available lifeboats on ISS right now are really insufficient. Better to get this launched. More important, they had already begun fueling it, and once that is done the clock was running. They have to launch by a certain time.

Meanwhile it would be wise for NASA to begin arranging new emergency lifeboat arrangements with SpaceX as well as Boeing (once it finally gets Starliner operational). Depending on the Russians for even part of this responsibility seems ill advised. If preplanned properly, SpaceX could certainly launch one of its Dragon manned capsules quickly in an emergency.

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“What the heck?!” swirls on Mars

1:33 pm


Click for original image.

Time for another “What the heck?!” image on Mars. The picture to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on January 6, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It is what the science team calls a “terrain sample,” which means it wasn’t taken as part of any specific scientific investigation and requested by a scientist. Instead, it was taken to fill a gap in MRO’s schedule. In order to maintain the camera’s proper temperature it is necessary for it to take regular pictures, and sometimes if there is a gap between requested images the science team picks something almost at random to fill the gap.

Sometimes the picture results in something relatively uninteresting. More often they try to pick something intriguing but not yet of interest to any particular researcher. With today’s cool image they certainly found something intriguing, so much so that I haven’t the faintest idea what is going on here.

Clearly, the tan swirls lie on the higher topology, and could be dust covered. The darker hollows in between could be darker because they are so, or because they are in shadow.
» Read more

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India’s government plans to sell tourist tickets on its future manned flights

10:40 am

The new colonial movement: It appears that once it completes its first manned mission in space, dubbed Gaganyaan, India’s government space agency ISRO intends to sell tourist tickets on future manned flights.

[Union Minister Jitendra] Singh, who also holds the portfolios of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, informed the House that the objective of India’s maiden human spaceflight programme, ‘Gaganyaan’, is demonstration of human spaceflight capability to low earth orbit (LEO), which is a precursor to the future space tourism programme. “The ISRO has carried out a few feasibility studies for a sub-orbital space tourism mission,” the Union Minister revealed while announcing that after the accomplishment of the ‘Gaganyaan’ mission, activities towards space tourism would be firmed up.

Selling commercial tickets on its spacecraft would be completely in line with ISRO’s decades-long policy of trying to make money from its space capabilities. Whether this action however will help or hinder India’s independent space industry remains unclear. Like NASA a decade ago, there is a turf war in ISRO over whether to cede power to private enterprise, or hold it entirely in ISRO’s grip. If ISRO sells manned spaceflight tickets it will make it harder for private tourism companies to gain investment capital.

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Perseverance’s depot of core samples, ready for pickup

10:30 am

Mosaic of Perseverance's core sample depot
Click for original image.


Overview map
Click for interactive map.

The Perseverance science team yesterday released the annotated mosaic above, cropped to post here, showing the scattered depot of core samples the rover deposited on the floor of Jezero Crater for later pickup some time next decade for return to Earth.

The overview map to the right shows the context. The blue dot marks Perseverance’s position when it took the picture, on January 31, 2023. The green dot marks Ingenuity’s location at that time. The yellow lines indicate the approximate area covered by the mosaic. The green outline indicates the area of the depot.

Eight of those tubes are filled with rock and regolith (broken rock and dust), while one is an atmospheric sample and one is a “witness” tube. The rover photographed the depot using the Mastcam-Z camera on the top of its mast, or “head,” on Jan. 31, 2023. The color has been adjusted to show the Martian surface approximately as it would look to the human eye.

The location of each tube was carefully mapped because it is possible wind will cover them with dust in the decade-plus before pickup. This mosaic will also act as a guide for the future Mars helicopters that will arrive to grab the core samples and bring them to an ascent spacecraft that will bring them back to Earth.

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Imaging satellite builder Maxar signs contract with Umbra to use its radar satellites

10:02 am

Maxar, which operates a constellation of high resolution optical imaging satellites for commercial and military use, has now signed a contract with Umbra, which operates a constellation of high resolution radar satellites for commercial and military use.

The partnership will allow Maxar to directly task Umbra’s satellites and integrate synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data into its portfolio of Earth intelligence products and services, Tony Frazier, head of Maxar’s public sector Earth intelligence, told SpaceNews.

SAR is a specialized form of remote sensing that has been in growing demand since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. SAR satellites can capture images at night, through cloud cover, smoke and rain — conditions that impair traditional optical satellites like those operated by Maxar.

The contract will give Maxar “assured access” to the soon-to-be launched six and seven satellites in Umbra’s constellation.

Essentially, this deal enhances Maxar’s value. Its main customer is the U.S. military, and it can now offer that military a more enhanced observation capability. Umbra meanwhile gets a major customer quickly, rather than having to pitch its product to multiple potential buyers. Its radar product is also enhanced, because it will now come automatically partnered with optical imagery.

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Dislodged fuel filter identified as cause of Virgin Orbit launch failure

9:42 am

Virgin Orbit yesterday revealed that a dislodged fuel filter in LauncherOne’s upper stage caused the failure of the rocket to reach orbit during its January 9, 2023 launch from Cornwall, UK.

The data is indicating that from the beginning of the second stage first burn, a fuel filter within the fuel feedline had been dislodged from its normal position. Additional data shows that the fuel pump that is downstream of the filter operated at a degraded efficiency level, resulting in the Newton 4 engine being starved for fuel. Performing in this anomalous manner resulted in the engine operating at a significantly higher than rated engine temperature.

Components downstream and in the vicinity of the abnormally hot engine eventually malfunctioned, causing the second stage thrust to terminate prematurely.

The rocket thus did not have enough velocity to reach orbit, and fell in the ocean.

No word yet on when the company will next launch, though it has said that launch will be from Mojave, California.

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SpaceX abandons plan to convert floating oil platforms into Starship/Superheavy landing spots

4:18 pm

SpaceX has decided not to convert the two floating oil rigs it had purchased in 2020 into Starship/Superheavy landing platforms, and has sold both.

According to SpaceX CEO Gwynne Shotwell,

Shotwell said the company needed to first start launching Starship and better understand that vehicle before building offshore launch platforms. “We really need to fly this vehicle to understand it, to get to know this machine, and then we’ll figure out how we’re going to launch it.”

She said she expected offshore platforms to eventually play a role to support an extraordinarily high launch cadence. “We have designed Starship to be as much like aircraft operations as we possibly can get it,” she said in the conference presentation. “We want to talk about dozens of launches a day, if not hundreds of launches a day.”

This is a perfect example of this company’s intelligent ability to focus on the most important problems now, instead of getting distracted by future issues and challenges it knows exists but are not the priority at this time.

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A glacial river on Mars

2:01 pm

A glacial river on Mars
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on November 1, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a wonderful example of a glacier-filled canyon on Mars, the ice apparently flowing both along and around mesas as it carves its way downhill.

I think the downhill grade here is to the north, but this could be wrong for the two side canyons on the main canyon’s north side.

Not only is the material in the canyon likely ice, covered with a protective layer of trapped dust and ash that makes the glacier surface look so smooth, the mesa tops are likely impregnated with ice as well. The mesas however have little dust, so the plateaus have a mottled stippled look likely caused by sublimation of that underground ice.

The location of these canyons explains the presence of ice.
» Read more

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Winter finally ends for Ingenuity

9:47 am

According to a detailed update today by Travis Brown, Chief Engineer of the Mars helicopter Ingenuity, the helicopter has now finally exited its difficult winter conditions that began in May 2022 and only ended at the end of January 2023.

One month to the day after the Dec. 24 flight attempt, Ingenuity did something it hadn’t done during the previous 260 sols – it slept “warmly” through the entire night. Data leading up to this event had suggested that such a survival was possible, but 8 long months of winter had tempered the team’s optimism. When Ingenuity’s team reviewed the downlinked data, they found that not only had it started living through the night, but had actually begun to bank power in its batteries. We’ve now seen end-of-sol states of charge in our batteries of more than 90% — an unbelievable number just days earlier. All the above means our sleepy friend has finally awoken from its long winter malaise, just in time to race up the Jezero Crater Delta and provide valuable advanced imaging for Perseverance.

Brown describes in detail their struggle for the past eight months to keep Ingenuity alive. That information is going to be crucial in designing future Mars helicopters, including the ones that will return to Jezero Crater sometime in the next decade to grab the core samples Perseverance has deposited for pick up and return to Earth.

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Canadian rocket startup dies because of opposition to noise produced by its engine tests

9:39 am

Though there were likely other issues, according the CEO of the now defunct rocket startup SpaceRyde the company died when the local government blocked engine tests on a piece of rural land it had purchased because of local protests.

The Trent Hills municipality of Ontario asked SpaceRyde to stop engine tests from a lot in the region Oct. 7 after their noise brought attention to how an industrial application was operating on rurally zoned land. When SpaceRyde bought the land, “the understanding at the time was it would be a temporary operation that focused on supporting the business of testing balloon technology to deliver satellites into orbit,” Trent Hills mayor Bob Crate said during a Sept. 13 council meeting.

A petition started last year to stop SpaceRyde rocket engine tests it says can be “heard for many miles” has received more than 800 signatures.

We are clearly entering a dark age when the general public cannot tolerate the noise produced during short static fire engine tests lasting generally no more than one or two minutes.

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China aiming to complete 80 launches in 2023

9:30 am

According to this Space.com article, China’s many pseudo-company rocket startups are hoping to complete a total of approximately 19 to 21 launches in 2023, which when combined with the 60-plus launches the government hopes to complete, will give China a total of approximately 80 launches in 2023, a new record.

The article provides a good review of all of the pseudo-companies hoping to launch in the next few years. This list includes the following:

  • Galactic Energy: 8 to 10 launches in ’23 with its Ceres-1 solid fueled rocket
  • Space Pioneer: The first launch of its liquid-fueled Tainlong-2 rocket
  • Exspace: 7 launches with its Kuaizhou-1A and larger Kuaizhou-11, both solid-fueled
  • Landspace: A second launch attempt of its liquid-fueled Zhuque-2 rocket after a launch failure in ’22
  • Orienspace: The first launch of its Gravity-1 solid fueled rocket
  • Rocket Pi: The first launch of its Darwin-1 liquid fueled rocket
  • Ispace: Unknown after three consecutive launch failures of its Hyperbola-1 solid-fueled rocket

The article also adds launches from two government “private” spinoffs, CAS Space, planning 3 launches of its PR-1solid fueled rocket, and China Rocket, planning at least one launch of its Jielong-3 solid fueled rocket. Though both are touted as private, they are both really separate divisions created by China’s space agency CASC, with their launch counts likely included in the government’s hope-for 60 launches.

The pseudo private companies are somewhat more independent as they were founded by private individuals. All appear to have obtained private Chinese capital — in addition to government funding — to fund their development. All however are also entirely supervised in all actions by the government. None could build anything without government approval, and all are depending on government rocket technology that can be withdrawn at any time. These pseudo companies don’t really own their rockets. Furthermore, while they are able to sell their products to other private entities, their market appears almost entirely confined to China.

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Intuitive Machines completes merger with SPAC as it goes public

9:02 am

Intuitive Machines, one of a handful of American companies building lunar landers for NASA and others, has completed its merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), thus becoming a publicly traded stock but raising less money than expected in the process.

Intuitive Machines said Feb. 13 it had closed its merger with Inflection Point Acquisition Corp., a SPAC that trades on the Nasdaq. The merged company, retaining the Intuitive Machines name, will trade on the Nasdaq starting Feb. 14 under the ticker symbol LUNR.

The companies announced the merger in September 2022, long after the mania surrounding SPACs has cooled both in the space industry and the overall market. Inflection Point had $301 million of cash in trust, and the companies said they had arranged an additional $55 million in investment from the SPAC’s sponsors and a founder of Intuitive Machines, along with $50 million CF Principal Investments LLC, an affiliate of Cantor Fitzgerald & Company. In an investor presentation linked to the merger announcement, the companies anticipated having more than $330 million in cash after transaction expenses.

However, in the Feb. 13 announcement that the merger had closed, the companies announced only $55 million of “committed capital from an affiliate of its sponsor and company founders.”

It appears that many investors in Inflection Point itself (30% of whom had voted against this merger) had pulled their money from the fund, depleting the $301 million that was originally promised. In addition, yesterday’s announcement made no mention of the $50 million that CF had also committed.

Essentially, the company’s future hinges on the success of its first lunar mission, presently scheduled for June. Should it succeed, the company should be able to replace from other investors the funds that it failed to raise in this merger. Should it fail, it is very possible it will go belly up, as it is likely it will find it difficult if not impossible to find further investment capital.

There is of course the possibility that NASA will keep the company afloat with additional funding, but if so it might be a case of throwing good money after bad, something our government is very good at doing.

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