Space Stuff and Launch Info

[Baluncore]

Did she say you can see the entire "parameter" of earth?

Here we go! Hopefully all goes well on reentry.

And let us hope they land on target and avoid the panorama.

 

[mfb]

Did she say you can see the entire "parameter" of earth?

Perimeter?

Safe splashdown. It was the fourth launch and the third landing of crew in Dragon (the Crew-2 mission is still in space).
They reached the $200 million fundraiser goal, although $100 million came from Isaacman (who paid for the mission) and $50 million from Elon Musk. About $60 million came from the general public.

There is a large demand for additional missions. FAA started the public comment period for Starship. It runs until October 18.

The FAA’s Proposed Action is to issue one or more experimental permits and/or a vehicle operator
license to SpaceX that would allow SpaceX to launch, which can include landing, Starship/Super Heavy

Launches will be audible in nearby towns, but at an acceptable level.

In summary, noise from individual launch, landing, and static fire engine test events is expected to be heard by people in the surrounding communities, including Brownsville, Laguna Vista, Port Isabel, and South Padre Island. These individual noise events are not expected to cause general annoyance or pose health concerns [...] Therefore, the Proposed Action is not expected to result in significant noise impacts.

Other sections have similar conclusions.

The proposal is only for up to 5 orbital launches per year, but the assessment is explicitly aimed at initial operations - once the procedures are better established FAA and SpaceX expect additional refinement of some points in smaller follow-up assessments.

 

[mfb]

Blue Origin's lawsuit against NASA concerning the Moon lander selection has been made public in a redacted version. News article, direct link to lawsuit text.

It's the same horse manure as before. They focus on a minor detail agreed by NASA and SpaceX (no flight readiness review for every subsequent tanker launch) and present that as if it would be a big deal, even claiming they would have proposed a completely different architecture if they would have known that was possible. They claim this point should have made SpaceX's proposal ineligible, while ignoring that their own proposal also had a detail (advance payments) that would have made it ineligible exactly as proposed. It's common to fix these minor issues in later negotiations, as it happened here.

They rip quotes out of context and put them into a different context. They misrepresent the GAO findings, and so on. They keep highlighting that SpaceX is still developing the hardware, as if that would be something special. Unlike Blue Origin, which still hasn't launched anything to orbit and hasn't produced any real hardware for its Moon mission, SpaceX has experience with orbital rockets and has produced the hardware for the first orbital spaceflight of the proposed Starship system.

 

[Borg]

In other Blue Origin news, it looks like Captain Kirk will be riding with them soon.
https://nypost.com/2021/09/24/william-shatner-to-go-to-space-in-jeff-bezos-rocket-ship/

 

[Ivan Seeking]

In other Blue Origin news, it looks like Captain Kirk will be riding with them soon.
https://nypost.com/2021/09/24/william-shatner-to-go-to-space-in-jeff-bezos-rocket-ship/

To boldly go where no man that old has gone before...

 

[mfb]

Suborbital flights are much easier in terms of health concerns, we might see a bunch of old and rich people fly to space for a minute.

 

[Borg]

Suborbital flights are much easier in terms of health concerns, we might see a bunch of old and rich people fly to space for a minute.

I was a bit disappointed that he wasn't going on a SpaceX mission.

 

[mfb]

All of this once-in-a-generation momentum, can easily be undone by one party—in this case, Blue Origin—who seeks to prioritize its own fortunes over that of NASA, the United States, and every person alive today who dreams to see humans exploring worlds beyond our own.

Quoted here

Blue Origin (leading the National Team) also admitted asking for a higher price than they needed, and argues that NASA should have negotiated a lower price with them. While at the same time complaining that SpaceX was allowed to change the payment structure (but not the total price).
Blue Origin doesn't specify how it would have achieved a lower cost, apart from vague claims that delaying their mission would be cheaper. At the same time Blue Origin accuses SpaceX of schedule overruns. Not sure what BO's strategy here is. Can't miss a deadline if you don't even set yourself one?

 

[Filip Larsen]

The BepiColombo Mercury mission has just performed its first Mercury flyby:

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-58754882
https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/BepiColombo/Mercury_ahead!

 

[mfb]

Some more information about the toilet issue Inspiration4 had in flight in this tweet series:

A tube that sends urine into a container broke off during the mission and leaked into a fan which sprayed the urine in an area beneath the capsule floor.
Gerst says the crew didn’t notice anything during flight; it only affected the internal section under the floor.

They checked the Crew Dragon that is currently docked at the ISS, found the same issue, and then simulated the situation on Earth by subjecting aluminium to an oxone-pee mixture similar to what they have in space. Seems to be fine but SpaceX redesigned that system to avoid this failure mode.
I guess "pee on aluminium parts" wasn't part of the job description for whoever contributed to that experiment.

In unrelated (!) news, Russia says they can now fly cosmonauts on Crew Dragon. Not for Crew 3 (launching Oct 31) but potentially as soon as Crew 4 (April 2022).

Boeing now aims at "first half of 2022" for the second uncrewed flight test. SpaceX should have flown at least 7 crews (Demo-2, Inspiration4, Axiom1, Crew 1-4) before Boeing finally launches anyone.

 

[mfb]

Crew-3, the next SpaceX mission to the ISS, is delayed due to medical issues of an undisclosed crew member and bad weather.

Blue Origin lost their lawsuit against the lunar lander award to SpaceX.
The company that delayed the program for months and threatened its overall success said "Blue Origin remains deeply committed to the success of the Artemis program".

 

[mfb]

Crew-2 returned home after 199 days in space, setting a record for US spacecraft . Crew-3 will launch in 21.5 hours (02:03 GMT).

The James Webb Space Telescope is on track for a December 18 launch.

NASA moves the Moon landing to no earlier than 2025. It's not surprising, the 2024 date was always very optimistic.

But [NASA administrator] Nelson did acknowledge the delay, citing the Blue Origin litigation, lower-than-requested appropriations from Congress for lander development, and the infeasibility of the 2024 date at the time it was proposed as reasons for a push until at least 2025.

 

[mfb]

Falcon 9 has flown its 100th successful mission in a row, tying the record set by the retired Delta II with its last flight.
The next flight is planned for November 24th (Double Asteroid Redirection Test).

Rocket Lab will try to catch the booster of its Electron rocket for the first time with the next launch, currently scheduled for November 16. It's unclear if we will see reuse of that particular booster, but it will certainly test the recovery procedure.

 

[mfb]

There is a report "NASA's management of the Artemis missions" from the Office of Inspector General.

It's quite critical of NASA's approach and timelines in the Artemis program.

Given the time needed to develop and fully test the HLS and new spacesuits, we project NASA will exceed its current timetable for landing humans on the Moon in late 2024 by several years. In addition, NASA lacks a comprehensive and accurate cost estimate that accounts for all Artemis program costs.

It also has a cost per launch number for SLS, which NASA refuses to quote publicly:

When aggregating all relevant costs across mission directorates, NASA is projected to spend $93 billion on the Artemis effort up to FY 2025. We also project the current production and operations cost of a single SLS/Orion system at $4.1 billion per launch for Artemis I through IV, although the Agency’s ongoing initiatives aimed at increasing affordability seek to reduce that cost

The report recommends (among other things) to

(3) develop an Artemis-wide cost estimate and update it on an annual basis; (4) maintain an accounting of per-mission
costs and establish a benchmark against which NASA can assess the outcome of initiatives to increase the affordability of
ESD systems;

and states NASA didn't concur with these two recommendations.

The report expects Artemis 1 for Summer 2022 now.

It confirms that the first lunar landing (with Artemis 3) will not use the depot. Orion will dock directly to Starship.

 

[Motore]

A rational approach to our present problem would involve re-thinking all our priorities. That would include aspects of Science, just as much as non essential creature comforts.

And according to % emissions from space travel and the scientific progress we make with it (also to help the climate) it is one of the last things in a really long list we should be concerned about.
Btw I think this debate is offtopic here.

 

[Mark44]

Mentor note: I have deleted a number of off-topic posts and responses to them. Please keep posts aligned with the title of this thread.

 

[mfb]

Rocket Lab will try to catch the booster of its Electron rocket for the first time with the next launch, currently scheduled for November 16. It's unclear if we will see reuse of that particular booster, but it will certainly test the recovery procedure.

I misunderstood the plan or they changed it, but the booster landed in the water, something that had been tested before. Successful launch.

Upcoming science missions:
Double Asteroid Redirection Test November 24
Prichal, an ISS module with additional docking ports, November 24
IXPE (X-ray telescope) December 9
James Webb Space Telescope December 18.

 

[Borg]

James Webb Space Telescope December 18.

I'll breathe a sigh of relief when it launches safely...
and reaches it's L2 point...
and unfurls.

 

[Jonathan Scott]

Good to see that Astra's LV0007 departed its launch site in the conventional direction this time (as opposed to their previous attempt, which departed via the gate into the adjacent field but impressively remained pointy end up until it had consumed enough fuel to go up).

LV0007 finally reached orbit as a result. https://www.space.com/astra-reaches-orbit-first-time-lv0007

 

[mfb]

Huh, forgot to submit this post.

Astra joined the relatively small group of rocket startups that made it to orbit with a new rocket.

Orbital: Pegasus, 1990 (1st attempt)
SpaceX: Falcon 1, 2008 (4th attempt)
Rocket Lab: Electron, 2018 (2nd attempt)
i-Space: Hyperbola-1, 2019 (1st attempt, but the following two failed)
Galactic Energy: Ceres-1, 2020 (1st attempt)
Virgin Orbit: LauncherOne, 2021 (2nd attempt)
Astra: Rocket 3, 2021 (4th orbital attempt)

Among the small satellite launchers Rocket Lab is far ahead with 22 flights, compared to just 1-4 each by their competitors, but we'll see how they ramp up production and how many other companies will join in the next years.

Blue Origin lost their lawsuit against the lunar lander award to SpaceX.

We now have the (somewhat redacted) opinion. Full PDF here, comments in a tweet chain by Michael Sheetz.
Some quotes:

The Court finds that Blue Origin does not have standing because it did not have a substantial chance of award [...]
Even if Blue Origin had standing and its objections were not waived, the Court finds that it would lose on the merits

A big part of Blue Origin's argument was based on the question whether repeated refueling launches need separate launch readiness reviews or not, and Blue Origin claiming they would have submitted a completely different proposal in the latter case.

Blue Origin argues that it would have submitted an alternative proposal, but the Court finds its hypothetical proposal to be speculative and unsupported by the record.

"The dog ate my homework."
It goes into more details on page 19:

Blue Origin alleges that it “would have proposed a fundamentally different technical approach.” [...] “Blue Origin would have proposed a large number of launches and Low Earth Orbit
rendezvous events, allowing for the incorporation of elements such as a propellant depot in Low
Earth Orbit to be refueled by multiple launches.”

Remember Blue Origin making infographics how that approach would be immensely complex & high risk?

The implicit statement here is absurd. Blue Origin claims that they would have proposed a completely different architecture, saving at least three billion dollars (price difference between them and SpaceX) while at the same time delivering a better product, if only they wouldn't have had to do a launch readiness review for every launch. There is no way a couple of essentially identical reviews would cost three billion dollars, and of course there is no evidence that Blue Origin ever worked on anything like that:

Blue Origin’s alternative proposal is purely speculative, including hypothetical pricing and hypothetical technical ratings

Blue Origin is in the position of every disappointed bidder: Oh. That’s what the agency wanted and liked best? If we had known, we would have instead submitted a proposal that resembled the successful offer, but we could have offered a better price and snazzier features and options

There is also an interesting comment on Blue Origin acting surprised about NASA funding levels:

Although the administrative record is silent on the question, it is inconceivable that Blue Origin would lobby Congress itself and pay others to lobby on its behalf and not be kept informed of the outcome of these efforts.

 

[hutchphd]

Happy Thanksgiving. For the TRUE space nerd

 

[Stavros Kiri]

Happy Thanksgiving. For the TRUE space nerd

Another successful launch ... with "true" Rocket Science ...
Happy Thanksgiving.

 

[dlgoff]

Happy Thanksgiving. For the TRUE space nerd

Dang. Nerds think the same. I just posted this:
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/happy-thanksgiving.1009423/

 

[mfb]

JWST had a mishap in the integration with Ariane 5. Four days delay to check that vibrations didn't exceed specifications, now the launch is planned for December 22.

 

[mfb]

I moved the DART discussion to a separate thread.

 

[jackwhirl]

JWST had a mishap in the integration with Ariane 5. Four days delay to check that vibrations didn't exceed specifications, now the launch is planned for December 22.

Looks like the checkup results came back good.

 

[DennisN]

I realized it is less than a month to launch, which feels quite weird since I've been waiting for many years now for the JWST.

I'm extremely excited that it hopefully will be operational soon.

But I'm also unusually nervous about the launch.
I would become very disappointed if something bad happens!

Like I said to my friends: if an unmanned Mars mission failed, I would be sad, but rather quickly get over it. :). But if the JWST mission fails, I would be devastated.

I'll be biting my nails when the launch happens. :)

 

[etudiant]

I realized it is less than a month to launch, which feels quite weird since I've been waiting for many years now for the JWST.

I'm extremely excited that it hopefully will be operational soon.

But I'm also unusually nervous about the launch.
I would become very disappointed if something bad happens!

Like I said to my friends: if an unmanned Mars mission failed, I would be sad, but rather quickly get over it. :). But if the JWST mission fails, I would be devastated.

I'll be biting my nails when the launch happens. :)

I fear your nails will have a half year of suffering.
The launch is the least risky part of the JWST deployment, the real challenge is the eventual deployment of the sunshade, the secondary mirror and the primary mirror segments. NASA has a poor record in this work, thinking back to the Galileo high gain antenna, even recently was not able to get two LUCY solar panels to deploy fully. The JWST needs to unfold multiple mirror segments, position a super precise secondary mirror and deploy a big sun shade. It is a 3D assemblage and I don't think there is much experience in that process.

 

[sophiecentaur]

I don't think there is much experience in that process.

I reckon that could be down to the accountants. A test run with dummy equipment in a low orbit would still cost around $2k per kg (is that the best estimate these days?). If that worked perfectly then it would probably be described as a waste of money.

 

[mfb]

Astronomer advent calendar

23 hours until the launch of IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer), Dec 9 at 6:00 UTC. SpaceX will have a live webcast. At 325 kg to low Earth orbit it's an extremely light payload to launch on a Falcon 9 (~16-22 tonnes to low Earth orbit), but that way it can be launched into an equatorial orbit directly. After launch the second stage will coast until it reaches the equator, and then do a ~3 km/s inclination change.

Half an hour until the launch of Soyuz MS-20, two tourists and one professional astronaut flying to the ISS for 12 days. It will be the first dedicated tourism flight to the ISS, previous tourists were individual seats when there was an opportunity. On board: Yusaku Maezawa, who also booked the dearMoon mission around the Moon with SpaceX for 2023, and Yozo Hirano, documenting the flight.
Axiom 1 will follow the same approach in February, three tourists and one professional astronaut visiting the ISS.

 

[mfb]

JWST not before December 24

Starliner now aims at May 2022 for its second uncrewed test flight. It was already on the launch pad in August, hours away from a planned launch. This is a repetition of the failed flight in December 2019. Two and a half years (or more with future delays) to fix the issues and try again. In the time between these test flights Dragon has flown 5 crews and 2 more are planned.

 

[sophiecentaur]

JWST not before December 24

Starliner now aims at May 2022 for its second uncrewed test flight. It was already on the launch pad in August, hours away from a planned launch. This is a repetition of the failed flight in December 2019. Two and a half years (or more with future delays) to fix the issues and try again. In the time between these test flights Dragon has flown 5 crews and 2 more are planned.

Could it be down to poorer Engineering or to more stingy accountants?

 

[mfb]

From what I see it's largely a management issue. Once you replace the engineers-became-managers with career managers they'll hire even more career managers who have no understanding of the thing they manage. They do understand costs, and cutting expenses is a great way to spend even more money later, fixing the problems it introduced. You also can't keep the best engineers that way, of course - they go to SpaceX, Rocket Lab and so on.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/feat...-from-737-max-woes-to-challenge-amazon-spacex

https://www.mondaq.com/aviation/959...but-and-the-role-of-governance-in-spaceflight

According to the Board Expertise analysis, using CGLytics Governance Data and Analytics tools in the software platform, the Company almost completely lacks Technology expertise on its Board. Only recently elected director, Steven M. MollenKopf (elected April 27, 2020), has the professional and industry experience to qualify as a technology expert.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/boeings-other-big-problem-fixing-its-space-program-11610773201

 

[etudiant]

From what I see it's largely a management issue. Once you replace the engineers-became-managers with career managers they'll hire even more career managers who have no understanding of the thing they manage. They do understand costs, and cutting expenses is a great way to spend even more money later, fixing the problems it introduced. You also can't keep the best engineers that way, of course - they go to SpaceX, Rocket Lab and so on.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/feat...-from-737-max-woes-to-challenge-amazon-spacex

https://www.mondaq.com/aviation/959...but-and-the-role-of-governance-in-spaceflighthttps://www.wsj.com/articles/boeings-other-big-problem-fixing-its-space-program-11610773201

The faint hope is that this debacle may cost Boeing so much money that they recognize that a course change is essential.
Sadly the more likely outcome is that the huge loss (they have received over 80% of the contract money, but still have to perform, now on their own dime) will push the board to slash investment in this space.

 

[Borg]

While watching the pre-launch program on NASA this morning, there was an interview with a spokesperson from the Tide company talking about the cleaning products that they're designing for NASA in order to efficiently clean clothing during a long trip to Mars with minimal water usage. I never thought about that before.

 

[mfb]

JWST launch countdown
2 days, 15.5 hours until the launch of the most ambitious space telescope ever built.

It passed the launch readiness review. The next major event will be the transport to the launch site tomorrow.

 

[mfb]

Due to bad weather they shifted the launch by a day - now 12:20 GMT (or up to 32 minutes later) on December 25, in 3 days and 7.5 hours.

 

[mfb]

Ariane 5 with JWST has rolled to the launch pad.

The weather forecast looks good. 22 hours 40 minutes left.

----

In spaceflight, 2021 will be remembered as the year where commercial space tourism started. Sure, the Russians flew a few people to the ISS before when there was an open seat, but this year we got dedicated commercial missions.

• Virgin Galactic/SpaceShipTwo made a suborbital tourism flight May 22
• Blue Origin/New Shepard made a suborbital tourism flight July 20
• SpaceX/Dragon made an orbital tourism flight September 15-18
• Russia/Soyuz launched an actress and a movie director to the ISS October 5-17
• Russia/Soyuz made a dedicated tourism flight to the ISS December 8-20

From nothing to five, using four different spacecraft , within one year.

----

SpaceX has set a new company record with three launches within three days - one per launch pad. Out of 31 flights this year only two had a new booster, everything else was reusing existing boosters. The most recent flight also achieved the 100th successful booster recovery.

 

[pinball1970]

If you have $100/month disposable income, you probably pay less tax than the average taxpayer. Your contribution would be even smaller.

All these projects are cheap per person and day. There are many of them, of course.
Divide the highest ITER cost estimates by 2 billion (population of participating countries) and you get $10 per person, or ~0.1 cent per day over 25 years. For the option to have a very clean energy source in the future? Build two of them!

The US and many European countries spend about 3% of the federal/country budget on research. We could double science funding if everyone would be fine with paying 3% higher taxes. In the US that would be about $1.2 per person and day on average, in Germany it would be something similar but estimating the number is complicated.
I'd happily pay that. Okay, I am biased, because my income is from this budget item...

This post has aged very well. With ref to Webb and Luvoir. I don't want to dilute the Webb thread but I thought this was a great comment.

 

[berkeman]

An off-topic discussion has been placed in Moderation. Please keep the discussion on-topic for this thread. Thanks.

 

[berkeman]

Update -- the off-topic (for this thread) discussion about funding for space exploration has been deleted and the members notified. If you want to discuss that topic, please start a new thread in GD. Thanks.

 

[mfb]

1967 had 139 orbital launches, out of these 120 were successful. Both numbers were records for over 50 years.
2021 had 146 orbital launches, out of these 135 were successful.

Today's rockets tend to be larger on average (even though 1967 had the maiden flight of the Saturn V), and most of the flights are done by more reliable rockets. The failures are largely coming from start-ups trying to reach orbit the first time (8 of the 10 failures last year).

 

[mfb]

Video of Blue Origin NS-19 from the passenger perspective - the suborbital tourism flight in December.

8:50 capsule is closed
17:50 takeoff
20:20 they unbuckle and float around in the cabin
22:50 back to the seats
~26:10 parachute deployment
27:40 touchdown
35:30 unbuckling

Here is the outside view

----

After the first successful launch in November last year Astra is now trying to rapidly increase the launch rate: One rocket is being prepared in Florida for a launch in the next few days and another one in Alaska for a February 20 launch. After that they have at least one launch planned for March, April and May each.

Rocket Lab and SpaceX had almost a full year between their first successful flights and the next launch.

 

[sophiecentaur]

the suborbital tourism flight in December.

Much less of a fuss to re-enter from sub-orbital compared with re-entry from orbit. Less potential energy to get rid of and no kinetic energy.

 

[hutchphd]

Much less of a fuss to re-enter from sub-orbital compared with re-entry from orbit. Less potential energy to get rid of and no kinetic energy.

Although for a higher suborbital flight the g forces associated with a ballistic re-entry can be very high. The flight profile of manned launches is adjusted to mitigate these possible high g reintries if abort is necessary part way to orbit. The unsuccessful Soyuz 7K-T No.39 launch to the Salyut space station produce more than 20g for the cosmonauts during their return.

/

 

[sophiecentaur]

Was the high g due to the path of the craft or the aerodynamics / shape presented by the craft on its trajectory? Was it facing the ‘right way’?
We may be comparing apples with apples here.

 

[hutchphd]

My understanding of the issue is the trade- off between vertical and horizontal speed and the increasing air density closer to the surface. One does not want to hit the dense atmosphere too soon coming down.
Shephard had 11 gees max on reentry after a peak speed of 8200 mph. Glenn had 6 gees reentry (8 gees on the way up) after orbital re-entry
I know that the crew dragon follows a more shallow climb to orbit than is maximal for this reason, but I don't find a quantitative treatment and I haven't worked it out myself.

 

[sophiecentaur]

My understanding of the issue is the trade- off between vertical and horizontal speed and the increasing air density closer to the surface. One does not want to hit the dense atmosphere too soon coming down.
Shephard had 11 gees max on reentry after a peak speed of 8200 mph. Glenn had 6 gees reentry (8 gees on the way up) after orbital re-entry
I know that the crew dragon follows a more shallow climb to orbit than is maximal for this reason, but I don't find a quantitative treatment and I haven't worked it out myself.

That's pretty reasonable but g is not the only factor because what you have written doesn't consider how dissipation of the total orbital kinetic energy can be dealt with. It seems that either the craft has to get hot or rocket braking has to be used for orbital re-entry. All that is in addition to your idea that the entry trajectory has also to be tailored to mitigate against g forces.

I remember suggesting that a shuttle could just glide gently down to the surface, at a suitable angle, without any fireworks and glowing heat shields. (PF a few years ago). I was put right on the grounds that a slow re-entry would still need to heat up the craft and that doing it slowly would give a lower skin temperature at the expense of cooking the crew because the heat would have time to get into them. As the cost of lifting a payload decreases, there is more chance of carrying enough fuel to avoid the heating problem.

 

[berkeman]

8:50 capsule is closed
17:50 takeoff
20:20 they unbuckle and float around in the cabin
22:50 back to the seats
~26:10 parachute deployment
27:40 touchdown
35:30 unbuckling

Sigh, I'm dense sometimes, and I can't keep the different competing space tourism companies straight. I read those times as military time (Army brat and Medic here), and thought, "Wow, what a boring 9 hour wait just sitting there before takeoff. At least they had a couple hours of weightlessness...".

Then I saw the last three not-so-military times at the end of the timeline, and realized my mistake...

 

[hutchphd]

but g is not the only factor because what you have written doesn't consider how dissipation of the total orbital kinetic energy can be dealt with. It seems that either the craft has to get hot or rocket braking has to be used for orbital re-entry.

Absolutely the energy either gets radiated, ablated or shock-convected for passive re-entry. The other factor is the aerodynamic lift available to all spacecraft since Mercury (and Vostok) because the center of mass is off the center line. I think the Apollo did a dipsy-doodle coming home make the re-entry aiming requirements less stringent and the period of high radiative loss more effective. Sounds a lot like rocket science to me.
I fear it will stand as the pinnacle of human achievement for some centuries to come...hope not