Tag: spaceflight

South Korean rocket startup to launch suborbital test rocket

10:08 am

Innospace, a South Korean rocket startup, hopes tomorrow to complete the first suborbital launch of its Hanbit-TLV test rocket from Brazil.

The Sejong-based company aims to develop Korea’s first private commercial satellite launcher, the Hanbit-Nano, with data collected from the test launch. Hanbit-Nano will be a two-stage rocket equipped with a 15-ton-thrust hybrid engine, powered by solid fuel and liquid oxidizer.

Originally scheduled for 6 a.m., Monday, the test launch of the Hanbit-TLV rocket was delayed by a day due to unexpected rain and inclement weather. Innospace said that the launch window is open until Wednesday.

The launch will also be a significant event for Brazil’s Alcântara Launch Center, which is trying to attract commercial rocket companies to use it.

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L3Harris to buy Aerojet Rocketdyne for $4.7 billion.

10:02 am

The space and defense contractor L3Harris Technologies has announced a deal to buy Aerojet Rocketdyne for $4.7 billion.

L3Harris is buying Aerojet at $58 per share in an all-cash transaction. Aerojet shares traded at $54.89 on Dec. 16. The deal is expected to close in 2023, pending regulatory approvals.

Aerojet Rocketdyne, based in Sacramento, California, manufactures rocket engines and propulsion systems for space vehicles, ballistic missiles and military tactical weapons. The company generates approximately $2.3 billion in annual revenue. L3Harris, headquartered in Melbourne, Florida, is a global defense and aerospace firm with $17 billion in annual revenue.

This deal could in the end save Aerojet, which in recent years has had problems both making and selling its rocket engines, while facing increasing competition from many new rocket engine startups. As an old space company, its engines have tended to be too expensive, and often produced behind schedule. L3Harris now has the opportunity to clean house and streamline operations there, thus making the engines it produces more competitive in the emerging new space market.

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Former SpaceX manager quits UK startup Skyrora after only six months

9:54 am

Only six months after he took the job as chief operating officer at the British rocket startup Skyrora, former SpaceX manager of its mission and launch operations Lee Rosen has quit the company.

A Skyrora spokesman said Mr Rosen had left for “personal reasons” and planned to return to California.

It is the latest blow to the space venture that is hoping to use a rocket base on the Shetland islands to fire small satellites into space. The company’s first suborbital launch test of its Skylark L rocket from a pad in Iceland failed, with the rocket crashing into the Norwegian ocean about 500 metres from the coast. The company blamed the failure on a “software related anomaly”.

Rosen’s quick exit from the company could suggest something is not quite right there, or it could simply be the job was not right for him. We do not know. The article however also provides this tidbit about this British rocket startup:

Skyrora was founded by Ukranian entrepreneur Volodymyr Levykin, a former executive at now defunct dating empire Cupid PLC. Its investors include Ukrainian internet entrepreneur Max Polyakov, according to a report by Snopes. Mr Polyakov is a shareholder at Hong Kong-based Digitroom Holdings, which owns a stake in Skyrora.

Polyakov was the billionaire who bought Firefly when it was bankrupt, He resurrected it, and then was forced to sell out by the State Department.

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Temperature in leaking Soyuz capsule drops

9:45 am

According to Russia’s state-run press TASS, the temperature in its leaking Soyuz capsule on ISS has now dropped to between 50 to 54 degrees Fahrenheit.

The language of the report suggests this temperature drop was the result of actions by Russia’s mission control, but that is decidedly unclear. With the thermal control system now depressurized, the capsule’s temperature could fluctuate a lot, depending on whether it is in shadow or sunlight, a condition dependent on the overall orientation of ISS itself.

A second TASS report today said that two Russian working groups are reviewing the data, and will decide around December 27th what the next step will be, including the possibility of launching a Soyuz capsule unmanned to replace this capsule.

“I believe that at the end of December, somewhere on the 27th [of December], specialists – and now two working groups have been set up – will decide on how we will resolve this situation,” [Yuri Borisov] the Roscosmos head, said in an interview with the daily Izvestia.

There is plenty of time for making decisions and “there is no hurry,” Borisov stressed.

What Borisov was really saying is that there is no reason to panic, but action must be taken without unnecessary delay.

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North Korea releases two images taken during suborbital missile test

9:36 am

North Korea images of South Korea

North Korea today released two images of two South Korean cities that it claims were taken from space during a suborbital satellite test flight this past weekend.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency also released low-resolution, black-and-white photos showing a space view of the South Korean capital [Seoul] and Incheon, a city just west of Seoul, in an apparent attempt to show the North is pushing to acquire a surveillance tool to monitor its rival.

The rocket carrying the test satellite was launched Sunday to assess the satellite’s photography and data transmission systems, KCNA said.

Those pictures are at the right, at the resolution released. Though poor compared to most satellite reconnaissance, the photos suggest that the control systems of the rocket and camera worked, pointing it properly.

North Korea continues to push its missile and rocket program hard, this year launching a record number of missiles. According to the article, analysis of the image showing the launch suggests yesterday’s test was a liquid-fueled rocket, meaning North Korea is truly working towards an orbital rocket.

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South Korea’s Danuri orbiter enters lunar orbit

2:35 pm

South Korea’s first lunar orbiter, dubbed Danuri, has successfully entered lunar orbit after a four-month journey designed to save fuel and weight.

The Danuri spacecraft was expected to begin entering lunar orbit at on Friday (Dec. 17) at 2:45 p.m. EST (1945 GMT, 2:45 a.m. Dec. 17 in South Korea), according to a statement (opens in new tab) from the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI). The maneuver, the first of five planned engine burns through Dec. 28 to refine Danuri’s orbit around the moon, will clear the way for the probe to get started on its lunar science objectives.

Danuri, also known as the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO), began its long and circuitous journey to the moon on Aug. 4, launching on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The moon probe has traveled over 3.3 million miles (5.4 million kilometers) on its journey so far, KARI officials have said.

Its six instruments, including one American camera designed to look into the permanently shadowed craters on the Moon, will study the Moon from a polar orbit.

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SpaceX completes third launch in less than two days

3:20 pm

SpaceX successfully launched another 54 Starlink satellites today, completing the company’s third launch in less than two days.

The Falcon 9 first stage completed its 15th flight, a record, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

60 China
59 SpaceX
21 Russia
9 Rocket Lab
8 ULA

The U.S. now leads China 83 to 60 in the national rankings, but trails the entire world combined 92 to 83.

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Russians test thrusters on leaking Soyuz

9:28 am

In the continuing investigation into the leak of coolant from a Soyuz capsule docked to ISS, Russian engineers yesterday tested the capsule’s thrusters, finding they functioned as normal.

As part of the ongoing evaluation and investigation, Roscosmos flight controllers conducted a successful test of the Soyuz MS-22 thrusters at 3:08 a.m. EST Friday, Dec. 16. The systems that were tested were nominal, and Roscosmos assessments of additional Soyuz systems continue. Temperatures and humidity within the Soyuz spacecraft, which remains docked to the Rassvet module, are within acceptable limits.

The highlighted words have been the Russians’ way of downplaying a serious concern. According to their own data, the temperatures in the capsule have now risen to 86 degrees Fahrenheit, which though entirely safe is higher than normal for within habitable spacecraft. Should those temperatures continue to rise, it will start to become a problem.

One solution would be circulate cooler air from the rest of the station. I suspect this is possible with equipment on board, but do not know for sure.

Right now however it surely appears that it would likely not be wise to return its crew to Earth in this capsule, and that a replacement will be required.

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SpaceX launches two communications satellites

3:59 pm

SpaceX today successfully launched two communications satellites for the satellite company SES, beginning SpaceX’s contract to launch more satellites in its constellation of medium-Earth orbit satellites, replacing the Russians.

The first stage successfully flew its eighth flight, and landed successfully on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

This was also the company’s second launch today, with another launch scheduled for tomorrow.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

60 China
58 SpaceX
21 Russia
9 Rocket Lab
8 ULA

The U.S. now leads China 82 to 60 in the national rankings, but trails the entire world combined 92 to 82.

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The edge of the Martian south pole ice cap

2:42 pm

The edge of the Martian south pole ice cap
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 4, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The MRO science team labeled this simply “Diverse Terrain,” an apt description but woefully incomplete.

Though the grade here goes uphill to the south, there are ups and downs along the way. The flat areas near the top as well that band near the bottom appear to be the oldest terrain, with the rough hollows appearing to be places where that flat material has sublimated or eroded away.

This terrain is in the very high southern latitudes. South is to the bottom of this picture, with the south pole of Mars about 380 miles away. Thus, that eroding top layer is likely disappearing because it has either water ice or dry ice within it, and over time it sublimates away.

The picture itself was taken in winter, when the entire surface is likely covered with a thin mantle of dry ice that fell as snow with the coming of colder temperatures. A wider view of this region in the spring, taken by MRO’s context camera, shows that this mantle, now appearing like white frost, appears largely confined to the higher terrain. Apparently, the annual sublimation of this dry ice mantle is linked somehow to the erosion of this flat terrain.

The additional location information provided by overview map below helps explain why this terrain is so diverse.
» Read more

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A barred spiral galaxy with distorted galaxy

10:58 am

A barred spiral galaxy
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, reduced and cropped to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and shows a barred spiral galaxy about 214 million light years away.

Scientists used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to image NGC 6956 to study its Cepheid variable stars, which are stars that brighten and dim at regular periods. Since the period of Cepheid variable stars is a function of their brightness, scientists can measure how bright these stars appear from Earth and compare it to their actual brightness to calculate their distance. As a result, these stars are extremely useful in determining the distance of cosmic objects, which is one of the hardest pieces of information to measure for extragalactic objects.

The press release of course focuses on this magnificent barred spiral. I however want to draw your attention to the smaller galaxy in the white box.

background distorted galaxy

Since we do not know the distance to this distorted galaxy, we do not know if its distortion is caused by the barred spiral. It could be the bigger galaxy’s gravity is pulling material away.

More likely, based on the shape of this smaller galaxy, is that it is many light years farther away — which is why it looks so much smaller — and has been distorted because it is actually a collusion of two galaxies. The two bright nuclei with the red dust between strongly suggests such a collusion.

I highlight this background galaxy because it illustrates the importance when looking at any Hubble image to look at everything. To coin a phrase, there is gold in them thar hills, if you make the effort to look.

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NASA loses contact with one hurricane satellite in constellation of eight

10:36 am

NASA has lost contact with one of the eight CYGNSS satellites it uses to track and measure hurricanes worldwide.

The remaining seven satellites that comprise the CYGNSS constellation remain operational and have continued collecting scientific data since FM06 went incommunicado last month, according to NASA’s primary statement about the incident. The constellation’s science work can continue without FM06, but if the team can’t reconnect with the spacecraft, the loss will reduce the spatial coverage of CYGNSS, which until November provided nearly gap-free coverage of Earth.

At the moment engineers do not know why contact was lost, or if they can regain it.

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