Tag: spaceflight

Nova Scotia spaceport signs deal with British rocket startup

9:46 am

Capitalism in space: Maritime Launch Services, the company that is building a spaceport in Nova Scotia, has signed an agreement with the British rocket startup Skyrora, naming its Skyrora-XL rocket as one of the launch providers for that spaceport.

As part of the agreement, Maritime Launch will purchase the vehicles and vehicle support staff from Skyrora for their satellite clients. Spaceport Nova Scotia will provide Skyrora a launch pad, ground and operations support, public safety services, regulatory approvals and mission integration facilities and staff. Skyrora will supply the launch vehicle, mobile launch complex, and launch operations support team to Maritime Launch.

Unlike other new spaceports, Maritime is running Spaceport Nova Scotia a bit differently. Most new spaceports simply provide a launch site for rocket companies. Maritime instead wants to offer satellite companies a full service spaceport, including the rocket. Initially the plan was to use a Ukrainian-built rocket, Cyclone-4M, as part of the service, but the Russian invasion of the Ukraine has made its availability uncertain.

This deal gives Maritime a new option to offer satellite companies. However, the Cyclone-4M was already somewhat tested, as it was an upgrade of the Ukrainian Tsiklon-4 rocket, which has already launched. Skyrora is only a startup, and has not yet flown.

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SLS fueling test completed

9:38 pm

NASA engineers today successfully completed the tanking test of the agency’s SLS rocket, completing all objectives after successfully dealing with a hydrogen fuel leak at the beginning of fueling.

The four main objectives for the demonstration included assessing the repair to address the hydrogen leak identified on the previous launch attempt, loading propellants into the rocket’s tanks using new procedures, conducting the kick-start bleed, and performing a pre-pressurization test. The new cryogenic loading procedures and ground automation were designed to transition temperature and pressures slowly during tanking to reduce the likelihood of leaks that could be caused by rapid changes in temperature or pressure. After encountering the leak early in the operation, teams further reduced loading pressures to troubleshoot the issue and proceed with the demonstration test. The pre-pressurization test enabled engineers to calibrate the settings used for conditioning the engines during the terminal count and validate timelines before launch day to reduce schedule risk during the countdown on launch day.

Teams will evaluate the data from the test, along with weather and other factors, before confirming readiness to proceed into the next launch opportunity. The rocket remains in a safe configuration as teams assess next steps. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted words are key. NASA has proposed a September 27, 2022 launch date. For that launch to occur, the rocket must remain on the launchpad, where it is impossible to check the batteries for operating the flight termination system used by the military range office to destroy the rocket should it go wildly out of control during launch. To check the batteries they need to roll it back to the assembly building, and one week is simply not enough time.

The vagueness of the highlighted language suggests that NASA has not yet gotten a waiver from the range for that date. Nor should it. Those batteries normally have a 20-day limit. On September 27th they will been unchecked for about 42 days, well past their use-by date.

This will be the first test launch of this rocket. Such first launches very frequently go wrong, and if SLS goes wrong, it would go wrong in a very big way, considering the size of the rocket. To do such a risky launch with a questionable flight termination system would not simply be improper it would be downright criminal.

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Martian layers everywhere!

1:38 pm

Layers in Argyre Basin
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the left, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on June 1, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows the rim edge to a fifteen-mile-wide canyon, with many apparent layers exposed on the high plateau.

The layers are intriguing in that they suggest several things. First, they give us a glimpse into the top and youngest layers that make up the interior canyon wall. Second, they tell us that erosion has removed much of those top and youngest layers, resulting in the mesas on that plateau.

Finally, the gullies flowing down into the canyon indicate further erosion processes, eating away at the canyon wall over time.

The location of this canyon is also intriguing.
» Read more

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Another model attempts to show how liquid water could have once existed on Mars

11:07 am

The uncertainty of science: Scientists today published a new model that attempts to show how it was possible in the distant past for liquid water to have existed on the surface of Mars.

New research published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters suggests that Mars was born wet, with a dense atmosphere allowing warm-to-hot oceans for millions of years. To reach this conclusion, researchers developed the first model of the evolution of the Martian atmosphere that links the high temperatures associated with Mars’s formation in a molten state through to the formation of the first oceans and atmosphere. This model shows that — as on the modern Earth — water vapor in the Martian atmosphere was concentrated in the lower atmosphere and that the upper atmosphere of Mars was “dry” because the water vapor would condense out as clouds at lower levels in the atmosphere. Molecular hydrogen (H2), by contrast, did not condense and was transported to the upper atmosphere of Mars, where it was lost to space. This conclusion – that water vapor condensed and was retained on early Mars whereas molecular hydrogen did not condense and escaped – allows the model to be linked directly to measurements made by spacecraft, specifically, the Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity.

As a model, this theory proves nothing, though it is very intriguing. The scientists propose that the heat from the planet’s interior replaces the known lack of energy that came from the Sun in Mars’ far past. While this could work, what makes it very uncertain is that its surface data is based on a single measurement from Curiosity, hardly a deep and convincing baseline.

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Ingenuity completes 32nd flight

10:21 am

According to a tweet from JPL, Ingenuity successfully completed its 32nd flight on Mars on September 18, 2022.

The 55.3-second flight covered 93.74m at a max speed of 4.75 meters per second.

That is about 308 feet distance, comparable to the helicopter’s previous flight. Though it probably continued to the west, as with that last flight, JPL’s tweet did not provide any directional information.

This second short hop in a row however suggests that the team’s focus has definitely shifted from scouting for Perseverance to practicing precision landings, thus gathering data to help build the future Martian helicopter that will be used to pick up Perseverance’s core samples some time in the future.

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Hilton chosen to design hotel suites on Nanoracks’ Starlab private space station

10:14 am

Nanoracks' Starlab space station
Nanoracks’ Starlab space station

Capitalism in space: Hilton has been chosen to design the hotel suites inside the Starlab private space station that Nanoracks is building and hopes to launch sometime this decade.

Voyager and Hilton will partner in the areas of architecture and design, leveraging Hilton’s word-class creative design and innovation experts, to develop Space Hospitality crew headquarters aboard Starlab, including communal areas, hospitality suites, and sleeping arrangements for the astronauts.

The announcement was made by Voyager Space, the Nanoracks’ division that is building Starlab, and already has a $160 million development contract from NASA.

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Want to do a virtual hike in Jezero Crater on Mars? You can!

10:01 am

Using data from Mars orbiters, Perseverance, and Ingenuity, scientists have now created a virtual hiking map of Jezero Crater, allowing anyone to explore in detail the same places that the rover and helicopter have visited.

You can view the map here. From the press release:

The map allows virtual hikers to zoom in and out, and pan rapidly across scenes, so that they can explore the landscape from large scales down to centimetre-detail. Some of the 360° panoramas integrated with the waypoints have been synthetically rendered from orbital image data. Others are real panoramas stitched together from a multitude of single images taken by the Mastcam-Z camera instrument onboard the Mars 2020 Rover Perseverance, which have been provided by the University of Arizona. The sounds have been recorded by the SuperCam instrument on that same rover mission.

I’ve played with the map only a little, but find it quite amazing and useful, especially because it seems to work well on my relatively ordinary desktop Linux computer.

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Launch startup Spinlaunch raises $71 million more in private investment capital

9:55 am

Spinlaunch prototype suborbital launcher
Spinlaunch’s prototype launcher

Capitalism in space: The radical launch startup company Spinlaunch announced yesterday that it has raised an additional $71 million in private investment capital, bringing the total it has raised to $150 million.

Unlike the many rocket startups, Spinlaunch proposes launching payloads using a centrifuge. The image to the right is of its prototype smaller scale launcher, which has already completed several test launches.

The company claims its full scale launcher will begin operations by 2026, but it has not yet revealed where it will be built, which means construction has not yet begun.

Such a launch system cannot be used by any satellite with delicate equipment. The g-forces during launch are too high. However, for getting bulk cargo, like water and fuel into orbit, such a system could become very profitable, if it can be made operational.

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Saudi Arabia buys two seats on Dragon for Axiom commercial flight to ISS

9:43 am

Capitalism in space: According to an as-yet unconfirmed story today by Reuters, Saudi Arabia has purchased two seats on a SpaceX Dragon capsule as part of an Axiom commercial flight to ISS.

The sources for the story are all anonymous, and no one from Axiom or SpaceX or Saudi Arabia has confirmed it. Nonetheless, it seems entirely plausible, since Saudi Arabia has made it clear it is considering such a mission and Axiom and SpaceX are eager to sell tickets.

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Webb’s first infrared image of Neptune

9:30 am

Webb's infrared view of Neptune
Click for full image.

The science team for the James Webb Space Telescope today released that telescope’s first infrared image of Neptune.

That image is to the right, cropped and reduced slightly to post here. It is, as the press release touts, the best view in decades of Neptune’s rings. From the caption:

The most prominent features of Neptune’s atmosphere in this image are a series of bright patches in the planet’s southern hemisphere that represent high-altitude methane-ice clouds. More subtly, a thin line of brightness circling the planet’s equator could be a visual signature of global atmospheric circulation that powers Neptune’s winds and storms. Additionally, for the first time, Webb has teased out a continuous band of high-latitude clouds surrounding a previously-known vortex at Neptune’s southern pole.

The dots around the gas giant are the heat signatures of seven of its fourteen moons.

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OneWeb announces delivery of 36 satellites to India for launch

9:17 am

Capitalism in space: OneWeb yesterday announced the delivery of 36 satellites to India for launch on that nation’s biggest rocket, the GSLV-Mark3.

Though no date for launch was mentioned, the press release did say this:

One additional launch will take place this year and three more are targeted for early next year to complete the constellation.

This suggests two launches before the end of the year, one by India with the second already contracted to SpaceX. As for the three launches next year, it is unclear yet who will launch them. OneWeb has contracts with SpaceX, Relativity, and NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), the commercial arm of India’s government space program which is doing this year’s GSLV launch. While Relativity has not yet launched, either SpaceX or NSIL could handle those launches for sure next year.

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Hydrogen leak detected during today’s SLS tank test

9:08 am

Though engineers have apparently overcome the issue so that today’s tank test of NASA’s SLS rocket can continue, a hydrogen leak was nonetheless detected during fueling.

The fueling tank test is not yet complete.

At this moment I cannot imagine the military’s range office will allow NASA to launch on September 27th, as the agency has requested. To do so will require the range to ignore the possibility that the flight termination is inoperable, as its batteries are past their use-by date by almost a month. Combined with these ongoing leak issues, it would be irresponsible to do otherwise.

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