Space Stuff and Launch Info

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Concerning Starlink: SpaceX expects a private beta in 3 months (that's how long the satellites need to get to their target orbits) and a public beta in about 6 months.
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[anorlunda]

Concerning Starlink: SpaceX expects a private beta in 3 months (that's how long the satellites need to get to their target orbits) and a public beta in about 6 months.
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Are there any published reports about what the retail fee for Starlink service will be?

 

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No announcement, apart from the statement that they will beat the current "crappy internet for $80/month" other satellite internet providers offer. It is speculated that they want to offer better internet access for a similar price. Add a low three-digit value for the customer terminal. This article thinks $80/month plus $100-300 one-time cost are realistic.

 

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If you are interested in seeing Starlink satellite trains, watch for them soon, because they become dimmer over time. SpaceX reports about three more methods to reduce their brightness.

- an experimental sun shade
- reducing the reflection of the antennas for operational satellites (they are already quite dim there, will likely become completely invisible to the naked eye)
- changing the orientation to reduce visibility during orbit raising

The goal of @SpaceX is to make Starlink satellites "invisible to the naked eye within a week of launch"

 

[jackwhirl]

If you are interested in seeing Starlink satellite trains, watch for them soon, because they become dimmer over time.

I did manage to see them a few days after the launch. It was a cloudy day, but the sky cleared early in the evening. It was almost 10pm, iirc, and they didn't pass far over my house before disappearing from view. I think I got lucky, because I'm pretty sure they were passing into Earth's shadow, where they are not visible. Very cool sight.

 

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As an update to my previous post: https://www.spacex.com/news/2020/04/28/starlink-update - including many details what makes the satellites appear bright when and so on.

As new item:
NASA Selects Blue Origin, Dynetics, SpaceX for Artemis Human Landers (NASA)
NASA awards lunar lander contracts to Blue Origin, Dynetics—and Starship (Ars Technica)
It is initial funding for R&D for about a year.
$579 million to a proposal lead by Blue Origin
$253 million to a Dynetics-led team
$135 million to SpaceX for Starship
Boeing submitted a bid but was not selected.
In a year NASA will evaluate the progress and then decide how many proposals to fund in the future.

We see that pattern again. Boeing isn't selected and SpaceX is by far the cheapest despite aiming at the largest spacecraft (size comparison). But keep in mind that this is R&D money, not mission cost: Blue Origin and Dynetics wouldn't develop their proposals without NASA funding, while SpaceX develops Starship anyway - they just get a bit extra funding now.

Note that this Starship gets some modifications as it will only transport crew between the Gateway and the Moon and will never enter Earth's atmosphere: The fins are gone. It has separate engines for landing higher up, which mitigate concerns what the Raptor exhaust does with Lunar regolith. The big window is gone. Heat shielding isn't an issue. All these lower the risk for NASA. This is the first time NASA considers Starship for anything.

 

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After 9 years the US gets crewed spaceflight again. Dragon 2 will fly Douglas Hurley and Bob Behnken to the ISS May 27, 20:33 UTC. It will be the first time a private company launches humans to orbit.

The next Starlink launch is planned for Sunday, May 17, 7:53 UTC. This is just a bit before sunrise at the launch site, it could mean excellent viewing conditions from large parts of the US in the hours after the launch (where the satellites are all close together). A direct view of the launch from parts of the east coast, and the satellites ~90/180/270/360 minutes later for people farther west. The outlook for Europe is worse, too far north, but there might be viewing options 1-2 weeks later.

 

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Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon are vertical on the launch pad
5 more days until crewed spaceflight is no longer exclusive to government agencies.

* Static fire (test of the rocket) on Friday, 22
* Dress rehearsal with the astronauts on Saturday, 23. After that the rocket returns to the hangar for payloads that need to be loaded shortly before launch (like fresh food)
* Launch on Wednesday, 27 at 20:33 UTC (4:33 PM EDT) with Saturday, 30 as backup date
* Docking with the ISS about a day later

 

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Failure of Launcher One's maiden flight: Spaceflight Now, BBC. The carrier aircraft is fine, but the rocket exploded a few seconds after ignition.Dragon 2 passed the static fire, the launch readiness review, and a dress rehearsal. Weather forecast is not looking good, but if it gets better: 45.5 hours to launch. Otherwise add three days.

 

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Another Starlink launch is coming up: 01:25 GMT, in a bit over 5 hours. Looks like the northern hemisphere will get great viewing conditions in the evening (local weather permitting) and possibly in the morning as well. In Europe it might be visible just after launch. This website has predictions.
Live coverage (60% chance that the weather is good for the launch)

Edit: Success.

SpaceX has permission to reuse boosters and Dragon capsules for crewed flights

 

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Another Starlink launch June 12, just 8 days after the previous. From the same pad, a record turnaround time (planned).
And then another one June 24 (different pad).
Viewing conditions are unclear until we have better launch time estimates.
There might be yet another Falcon 9 launch June 30, a GPS satellite. If they all happen then SpaceX will have launched 4 rockets and over 180 spacecraft in June, and 5 rockets in 5 weeks (with the crewed flight and the previous Starlink launch).

Here is an animation of Starlink satellite orbits. The reference frame has operational satellites stay in place where horizontal lines are satellites following each other in the orbit. Satellites are launched to lower orbits where they orbit faster -> move to the right. They also precess at a different rate, which makes them move up slowly in the diagram. As they raise their orbit they become stationary in both axes, and clever timing of the process makes them arrive at just the right spot. Each launch ends up with three groups of 20 satellites after ~4 months. The goal is a uniform grid for early operation, later launches will then add more and more horizontal lines in between to increase bandwidth. From August on we can expect non-stop service in some latitude ranges, around that time a private beta test should begin.

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After its July 2019 launch failure, Vega will return back to flight June 19, launching 50 smaller spacecraft .

In July we'll see three missions flying to Mars:
The US plans to launch its rover Perseverance with its small helicopter, now called Ingenuity
China plans to launch Tianwen-1, a rover and an orbiter.
The UAE plans to launch Hope, a Mars orbiter.

 

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Rocketlab's launch attempt for "Don't stop me now" was cancelled due to bad weather. Next attempt tomorrow, with the same name.

 

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An Electron launch failed during the second stage burn. The reason is not clear (or public) yet.
Video - at 5:40 into the flight, shortly before they discard empty batteries, the velocity suddenly stops increasing (22:10 video timestamp)
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It's interesting to see how different companies handle this in their livestreams. It was immediately obvious that something went wrong with the propulsion, but the guy in the livestream just talked about problems with the video stream. Not as bad as the reporting during the Vega failure, at least, where they kept reading milestones that were obviously wrong based on telemetry.

 

[trurle]

An Electron launch failed during the second stage burn. The reason is not clear (or public) yet.
Video - at 5:40 into the flight, shortly before they discard empty batteries, the velocity suddenly stops increasing (22:10 video timestamp)
News

It's interesting to see how different companies handle this in their livestreams. It was immediately obvious that something went wrong with the propulsion, but the guy in the livestream just talked about problems with the video stream. Not as bad as the reporting during the Vega failure, at least, where they kept reading milestones that were obviously wrong based on telemetry.

On the video shortly before 1st stage separation, the outer skin of interstage or 1st stage is buckling. The buckling was not visible on launch 13 june 2020. Seems the 1st stage was damaged yet burned properly. 2nd stage may had damage too. Handling issues or in-flight overstressed?

 

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RocketLab says the first stage flight was without problem, maybe it was just some logo or other uncritical part that peeled off.
Statement by CEO Peter Beck

Edit: Here is an acceleration plot. The final stop is the most notable but thrust went down before.

 

[trurle]

RocketLab says the first stage flight was without problem, maybe it was just some logo or other uncritical part that peeled off.
Statement by CEO Peter Beck

Edit: Here is an acceleration plot. The final stop is the most notable but thrust went down before.

Could you post image or table of acceleration directly? Twitter is blocked on my side.

 

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Youtube video, also by Scott Manley
~5:20 has the acceleration

Image alone:

Spoiler

 

[trurle]

Youtube video, also by Scott Manley
~5:20 has the acceleration

Image alone:

Spoiler

View attachment 265946

Thank you.
After re-checking the video, seems it was indeed logo peeling off.
Regarding acceleration and camera feed, it is consistent with fuel slosh resulting in either engine damage or automatic engine cutoff. Seems the mild roll and yaw oscillations were coincident with thrust reduction, and rocket yawed sharply seconds before video termination.

 

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Starlink started its private beta in the northern US and southern Canada. There is some confusion what is covered by the NDA and what is not. Here is an antenna photo that was found on the SpaceX website, this is certainly fine to distribute, here is a bit more from the website, more can be found via search engines.

Beta testers are required to install the antenna on their own - SpaceX seems to be pretty confident that it is easy as claimed.

Based on the satellite orbits they probably can't deliver 24/7 service right now, but outages should be short (maybe just a minute several times a day or something like that) and go away within a month as more satellites move to their final orbits. SpaceX said that it should be fine for e.g. video streaming but unsuitable for gaming.------------------------

Edit: Almost forgot. UAE's "Hope" mission, its first mission to Mars, is expected to launch in 6 hours. It is the first of three Mars missions this launch window.

 

[Leo Liu]

Pictures of Tianwen 1's LM5 launch vehicle on the launch pad. Credit to CASC.

 

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That's the second of the Mars missions, liftoff is planned for July 23 but I don't have a time.
The US Mars mission is planned for July 30.
They will all arrive in February 2021.On July 28 an Ariane 5 will launch another Mission Extension Vehicle (together with other satellites), which will fly to a communication satellite to keep it operational for longer.

The next Falcon 9 launch or the one after that (looks like early August now, but who knows) will use a trajectory last used 60 years ago: Launching south from Cape Canaveral to go to a polar orbit.

Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken are now planned to leave the ISS August 1 and land the next day. After a few weeks for the final NASA certification the first routine crew mission of Crew Dragon could launch mid September.

 

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NASA's next Mars rover arrived at the launch pad, for its launch Thursday 11:50 GMT - in ~39 hours. The last of three Mars missions this year.

NASA announced the astronauts for Crew-2, the second operational flight of Dragon 2 (third flight with crew) in spring 2021.
A coincidence: This flight is expected to reuse the capsule of Demo-2, the mission that is currently at the ISS. One of the Crew-2 members is Megan McArthur, the wife of Bob Behnken, one of the Demo-2 astronauts. She'll fly to space in the same capsule as her husband before.

 

[dlgoff]

How cool is this mission?

 

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Crew Dragon departed from the ISS. They are slowly leaving the ISS now. In a few hours they'll get some sleep while Dragon keeps orbiting Earth. The deorbit burn is scheduled to start 17:51 UTC, in 16.5 hours, about half an hour later they enter the denser parts of the atmosphere, with a splashdown 50 minutes after the deorbit burn started.

Edit: They have a problem with a tablet and just discussed if it is in airplane mode.

 

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The capsule is on board the recovery ship and the astronauts have left it just a minute ago. Demo-2 ended successfully.

 

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speedtest.net keeps their results shareable - which means you can find every result if you search enough. And people do exactly this to find Starlink results.

Here is a recent Starlink result. 21 ms ping, 46 Mbit/s down, 10 Mbit/s up. For a service that is available literally everywhere with electricity and a view of the sky? That's better than the access some people in cities get. We don't know if this is typical, but at least it demonstrates that low-latency connection via satellites is possible. At least 7 ms comes from physical propagation time of signals (twice up, twice down, at least 550 km each time).

Edit: Here are more test results

 

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Fairing catch from the recent Starlink launch. This time they had a drone capturing a video. That's $3 million worth of hardware falling from the sky.
The booster (which landed safely, too) set a record by flying for the 6th time.

 

[Tom.G]

Likely in the next four to six months, we on the West coast of the USA will get to watch a Falcon 9 launch. No firm dates set yet. More info and photos at:
https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-next-california-launch-booster-spotted/

Cheers,
Tom

 

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6 launches in the next 6 days, three of them from Florida.
* Delta IV Heavy (which looks like it's exploding every time it takes off - but that is the design)
* Falcon 9 - flying south over Cuba, a maneuver last done 50 years ago.
* Electron returns to flight after its recent failure (from New Zealand)
* Another Falcon 9 within two days of the first one. Starlink, so we get new satellite trains for a while
* Maiden flight of "Rocket 3" from Alaska
* Vega returns to flight after its failure, launching tens of smaller satellites (from French Guiana)

 

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Delays, delays...

After some delays Delta IV Heavy tried to launch, but 3 seconds before lift-off a problem occurred. Here is a video and https://www.ulalaunch.com/missions/next-launch/delta-iv-heavy-nrol-44.
As its payload is some expensive classified satellite that's sitting on the launch pad they originally didn't allow Falcon 9 to take off before Delta IV Heavy (delaying Falcon 9, too) - but now it looks like they can launch earlier. ULA will need a few days to check what went wrong.
Edit: Further reading suggest they can't launch earlier, so the southward launch will be delayed even more. Starlink flies in a different direction, that is not affected.
Edit2: It has been confirmed that the southward launch date is unchanged. The rocket doesn't fly directly over the Delta IV Heavy, apparently someone decided the risk is low enough to not let it wait for another week.

The delays lead to an interesting coincidence: Both Falcon 9 launches are now planned for the same day, with just 9 hours in between. Independent rockets on independent launch pads, but it's nice to see that they can prepare two rockets at the same time. The weather forecast is not promising, however.
A Starship hop is planned for the same day. It's unlikely that all three happen, but there is a chance to have 3 SpaceX launches in a single day.

 

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Very interesting week in spaceflight, although none of these events happened without delay:

Vega returned to flight successfully.

Electron returned to flight successfully. They also launched their first Photon satellite bus. It is designed to make satellite design easier for customers. Don't worry about keeping your spacecraft orientation or orbit, don't worry about designing communication systems, power, or all the other things, just design the science payload and attach it to Photon.

Falcon 9 flew south from Florida, overflying Cuba, for the first time in ~50 years. It means SpaceX can focus their operations on one launch site because Vandenberg in California will rarely be needed.

Starship prototype SN6 made a hop, the second hop of a realistic prototype.

SpaceX announced that they tested laser links between Starlink satellites in the webcast of the most recent launch. They are not strictly needed for service but they will allow service over oceans and elsewhere far away from ground stations, improve overall bandwidth and reduce latency.

 

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China has some launch sites far away from the coast, that means the first stage always lands somewhere in China. It's a sparsely populated region but not without people living there. In the past they just discarded it randomly, recently they added grid fins (similar to Falcon 9) to steer it away from populated places. Not without issues, apparently, from yesterday's launch:
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News article

 

[jackwhirl]

Bad enough they have landed near people, but hypergolics too?

 

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Maiden flight of Rocket 3 (Astra)
They previously lost a rocket during a test on the ground, this was the other one they had prepared. Going to space is still difficult and most companies don't make it with their first attempt. Electron needed a second launch, SpaceX needed 4 launches. LauncherOne's maiden flight failed, and so on.

 

[berkeman]

Any word on why the engine(s) quit?

 

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They have a description on the company website:

Early in the flight, our guidance system appears to have introduced some slight oscillation into the flight, causing the vehicle to drift from its planned trajectory leading to a commanded shutdown of the engines by the flight safety system.

They have built their next rocket already, so we might see another attempt in the near future after the root cause of the problem has been found.

 

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Astra thinks they can fix the problem with a software update and they hope to fly again later this year.

Dynetics update on their proposed Moon lander in 6 hours.
As the preview image suggests they have a full-scale mock-up of their capsule. Blue Origin built one before. I'm not aware of one from SpaceX (for the crewed part), they seem to focus on the rocket part first.

 

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For rocket launches people are extremely careful, so it's not uncommon that they are aborted, sometimes just seconds before the planned take-off. But the last few days were still really odd. There are three rockets standing on their launch pads at Cape Canaveral/Kennedy Space Center:

• Delta IV Heavy with a classified payload. A launch was planned and then scrubbed Aug 27, Aug 29, Sep 28, Sep 29, Sep 30. Two of them were within the last 10 seconds before the launch when there is already some hydrogen burning around the rocket. Sep 30 scrub
• Falcon 9 with a GPS satellite. Originally planned for Sep 29 it was delayed to Sep 30 and then Oct 3 to avoid conflict with the Delta IV Heavy (which has a higher priority). That launch attempt was aborted - three seconds before takeoff.
• Falcon 9 with 60 Starlink satellites, the lowest priority. Delayed from Sep 27, aborted Sep 28 due to weather, then waiting for other launches, aborted Oct 1 just 18 seconds before the planned take-off.

All three have been on the launch pads for a while now. The Falcon 9 will probably have more launch attempts soon, while the Delta IV Heavy issue might take at least a few days to resolve.

Bonus scrub: Antares, launching much farther north from Virginia. The launch attempt Oct 1 was scrubbed, the launch attempt Oct 3 was successful.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/10/...satellite-continuing-streak-of-launch-scrubs/

 

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SpaceX started assembling the first prototype of what will become the most powerful rocket stage ever built - SuperHeavy. Half of the rings for serial number 1 are assembled and stacking them could begin in a few weeks.
Early flight tests will only use 2 Raptor engines instead of all 28. It needs ~20 engines to surpass the thrust of N1.

 

[gleem]

Not heard from in some time Blue Origin launched its New Shepard rocket (SN-13) from its facility in Texas to test new systems. https://everydayastronaut.com/ns-13-new-shepard/

 

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A defunct satellite and an old rocket stage passed each other within tens of meters 1.5 hours ago. The latest prediction before the potential collision was a closest approach of 25 +- 18 meters and a few percent collision chance. One of the satellites has been tracked again after the event and there is no indication of a collision.

Tweet before the event
Tweet after the event

At 1000 km altitude this could have created thousands of debris particles for decades to centuries.

 

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Morgan Stanley expects SpaceX will be a $100 billion company thanks to Starlink and Starship.
This is almost twice their previous estimate from just 3 months ago. It is dominated by Starlink (~$80 billion). In the last three months SpaceX has expanded the size of the Starlink constellation rapidly, and it has started the private beta which demonstrated both high bandwidth and low latency.

As comparison, Boeing's market cap is 95 billion.

 

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and it has started the private beta

Well that got outdated quickly. They started the public beta.

SpaceX prices Starlink satellite internet service at $99 per month, according to e-mail

“Expect to see data speeds vary from 50Mb/s to 150Mb/s and latency from 20ms to 40ms over the next several months as we enhance the Starlink system. There will also be brief periods of no connectivity at all.”

[...] initial Starlink service is priced at $99 a month – plus a $499 upfront cost to order the Starlink Kit.

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November 3 ULA will make its first Atlas 5 flight with a new version of solid rocket boosters ("GEM 63"). The same boosters are expected to launch crew on Starliner in the future. Launch news

 

[Tom.G]

new Falcon 9 rockets were grounded for a month

On October 2 a launch was aborted because 2 engines started early and were vibrating.

The 2 engines were removed and sent back to the SpaceX lab for evaluation.

The problem was traced to a couple small engines used to supply auxiliary power. They contained a pressure relief valve made of anodized Aluminium. The mask that was applied for the anodizing operation was not completely removed, blocking a vent hole less than 2mm diameter.

Oops!

Launch rescheduled for November 14 to carry a crew of 4 to the Space Station.

https://arstechnica.com/science/202...-for-crew-launch-explain-merlin-engine-issue/

 

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SpaceX could launch three Starlink batches while investigating the accident - because these launches reused older boosters that were known to not have that issue. It's supporting what people have suspected for a while: Reused boosters are safer.
Crew-1 will likely be the last time SpaceX uses a new booster to launch people.

 

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Successful maiden flight of Ceres-1. More and more of these small rockets make it to orbit, but the market is not big enough to support many companies. We'll see which companies survive the next few years.

NASA and SpaceX Complete Certification of First Human-Rated Commercial Space System
The result of years of paperwork, experimental demonstrations and more. The launch of Crew-1 is currently planned for the evening of November 14 (Nov 15, 0:49 UTC) but it's quite likely weather will delay it.

China prepares Chang'e 5 for a late November launch, the first lunar sample return mission since the 1970s.

 

[Stavros Kiri]

TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE: One month from today, on Dec. 14th, the new Moon will pass in front of the sun, producing a total solar eclipse over Argentina and Chile. This year, eclipse chasers have more than eye safety to worry about; the eclipse is happening during a worldwide pandemic. [So the necessary rules and precautions apply ...]

 

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Dragon Crew-1 launch in half an hour.
Second private orbital spaceflight with crew, first routine flight. The crew and the spacecraft will stay at the ISS for half a year.

Propellant loading is beginning.

 

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Launch failure of Vega - the second in three flights. Two Earth observation satellites were lost after the fourth stage didn't work properly.
Vega's first 14 flights were successful - a remarkable success given the high rate of launch failures with new rockets. But now... 15/17.

Dragon arrived at the ISS, here is the crew entering the ISS.

In two days RocketLab will launch its next rocket and attempt to recover the first stage after a parachute-assisted splashdown. For reuse the stages will need to be caught with a helicopter, but recovering the stage will still help the company to learn more about the rocket. If that is successful they plan to catch a stage in mid-air soon, the long-term plan is reuse of the boosters.

 

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Human error blamed for Vega launch failure

cables to two thrust vector control actuators were inverted

That's not just human error, that's a quality control failure, too.
On the positive side: It's not a design problem and Vega should be able to return to flight quickly. Two more flights in early 2021 are planned before Vega-C takes over mid 2021.