Space Stuff and Launch Info

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NASA has selected a company to land astronauts on the Moon with Artemis V. They'll announce the winner on Friday.
Blue Origin and Dynetics both got significant funding for earlier studies. They lost against SpaceX in the original award (Starship will land as part of Artemis III and IV), but that makes them leading candidates for the second round. SpaceX was excluded from this so NASA gets a second provider.Edit: ULA is preparing for a static fire of Vulcan Centaur. No launch date yet:

Engineers have isolated a small region on that dome where they believe the leak came from, as well as the likely ignition source. “I’m pretty confident that we’re going to find the leak, and once we find the leak we’ll know if we have to take corrective action or not on the flight vehicle,” he said.

If ULA doesn’t need to modify the Centaur, that would allow the Cert-1 launch to take place in early summer, he said. “If we do, it could take longer, but I don’t expect it to get out of the year.”

 

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Blue Origin (+partners) has gotten the contract for the second Moon lander. Dynetics was second and did not get selected. Nothing too surprising. With $3.4 billion from NASA it is just slightly more expensive than the SpaceX contract for Artemis III.
More details.
Here is a render:



Edit: Some more discussion here:

 

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Successful launch of Axiom-2, currently approaching the ISS and docking should occur in around 15 minutes. This is the 10th crewed mission of Dragon 2 and the 9th to the ISS.

For the first time, the booster returned to the launch site after a crewed flight. This is likely a result of SpaceX optimizing the rocket performance further. We have first seen this from an extra Starlink satellite they managed to add to each batch.

 

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Virgin Orbit, the company operating the air-launched LauncherOne, is dead. After their latest failed launch they didn't find enough investors to keep going. Some hardware has been sold, looks like no one was interested in the rocket itself.

Virgin Galactic, the company offering suborbital tourism flights, is back. Their 2021 flight, the first one with several passengers, raised questions about the flight profile and safety and started an FAA investigation. The company took that time to upgrade their vehicle, too. After a low altitude flight last month they are now preparing for a high altitude flight in the early morning of Thursday (US time). No live coverage, unfortunately. The flight will only carry employees of the company.

Other news:
* Remains of Hakuto-R found on the Moon
* In the first quarter of 2023 a total of 290 tonnes were launched to orbit (report). 233 tonnes by SpaceX (80%!), 24 by China, 23 by Russia, 5 by India, 4 by Japan, 1 tonne by the rest of the world.

 

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Virgin Galactic's flight was a success.

Accident investigation for Hakuto-R:
During descent it flew over a cliff on the Moon, which caused the radar altimeter to suddenly produce a much larger distance estimate (correctly, of course). The software interpreted that as a broken altimeter and tried to land without it - it significantly underestimated its altitude and flew a touchdown maneuver 5 kilometers above the real surface until it ran out of fuel. This was not caught in simulations because they were only made for the initial landing site that didn't have large cliffs. They changed the landing site later without fully testing it again in simulations.
Video about it

Assuming no delay we might get a new record of 17 people in orbit next week, up from 14 first achieved in 2021:
7 long-term ISS crew
4 ISS visitors (Axiom-2) <- landing May 31 to June 2
3 incoming Tiangong crew <- May 30 launch
3 outgoing Tiangong crew <- they'll wait for the new crew to arrive before leaving

Edit: Launched on time. New record.

 

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Starliner, which was supposed to fly crew next month, has been delayed again - Boeing "doesn't want to rule out" a 2023 launch which likely means it'll be no earlier than 2024.
News article
News article

* A component of the parachute system is weaker than expected and broke in a test. Nominally Starliner lands with three parachutes, but if one doesn't deploy then it is able to land with two. That leads to larger forces between these parachutes and the capsule, however, and some connection between them could break in that case.
* Tape wrapped around wiring was found to be flammable.
* When trying to load propellant they found a sticky valve. Remember August 2021?

Valves are notoriously difficult to work with but the other two points were part of the design for many years. Why did they only discover this now, as they were preparing to launch humans, and how many similar issues are there left to be found?

Luckily this is a fixed-cost contract. Boeing only gets more money if they actually fly. With a cost+ contract NASA would keep paying everyone and then add a bonus that gets larger with every extra delay caused by Boeing.

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Falcon 9 has now flown 200 successful missions in a row.

The final Ariane 5 launch is scheduled for June 16, launching two communication satellites.

 

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Successful static fire of Vulcan Centaur:

 

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Animation of SpaceX launches as function of time, the end is wild:



Trivia:
* SpaceX has flown 50 missions in the seven months since ULA's last launch in November 2022. ULA has flown 50 missions in the seven years since March 2016.
* Dragon capsules (all versions combined) have flown to the ISS 38 times, now surpassing the 37 Space Shuttle missions.
* In a bit over four years (first flight March 2019) the Dragon 2 fleet has spent more time in space than the Shuttle orbiter fleet in 30 years. Dragon Endeavour reached one year in space in late May.

 

[Astronuc]

For reference - NASA Office of Safety and Mission Assurance (OSMA).
https://sma.nasa.gov/

 

[pinball1970]

ESA Euclid launch 1.7.2023

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclid_(spacecraft)

 

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The Spanish company PLD Space made a first launch attempt of their suborbital Miura-1 rocket, but it was aborted shortly after ignition (video with timestamp). It is a reusable single-stage rocket, with the idea to scale it up build the partially reusable orbital Miura-5 rocket.

The final launch of Ariane 5 was delayed because they found some issues with the rocket. No new launch date yet.

 

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A test version of the upper stage of Vulcan failed in a ground test.

They need to destack the Vulcan that was being prepared for launch and reinforce the upper stage tank before its maiden flight. No new target launch date yet, but we can expect a delay measured in months.

Bad news for Astrobotic with their Moon lander and Amazon which wants to launch two prototypes of its Kuiper satellites on that rocket. It will delay operational launches and/or shorten the time between getting test results and mass-producing satellites.

 

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Longer article about the Vulcan delay
No earlier than the fourth quarter, which likely means early 2024. It is very likely some military satellite launches will move from Vulcan to Falcon 9.

Two days until the launch of Euclid.

44 SpaceX launches in the first half of the year: 41 Falcon 9, 2 Falcon Heavy, 1 Starship. The goal of 100 will be difficult (weather tends to be worse in the second half of the year), but they'll easily beat the record of 61 set in the previous year.

 

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One hour until the launch of Euclid.
ESA livestream
SpaceX livestream

With a cost of around 800 million Euros ($1 billion) it's likely the most expensive non-classified payload of Falcon 9 so far, but otherwise it's a routine launch for the rocket and a high profile telescope for cosmologists.

Psyche in October is a bit under $1 billion. Europa Clipper (October 2024) will be somewhere around $2 billion.

 

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Successful launch, ESA has confirmed acquisition of signal with Euclid after separating from the rocket.

Euclid was designed and built to launch on Soyuz, Falcon vibrates a bit more, but ESA checked and confirmed it can fly on Falcon 9. The alternative would have been to store the spacecraft until 2025 or so. Ariane 6 and Vulcan would be able to launch it but you don't want to put a billion dollar spacecraft on the first launches of a new rocket. Despite SpaceX being the only option, the cost was just $70 million. 5 million over the base price because space telescopes need much better cleanroom conditions.

 

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The last Ariane 5 is on the launch pad, getting ready to launch two communication satellites on July 4, 21:30-23:05 UTC (this post was made 3:40 UTC). Ariane 5 has been the workhorse of European spaceflight for over 20 years. After two losses early on it has flown 102 missions in a row without losing a payload, although one flight went to an incorrect inclination (the payloads were able to correct for it).

Arianespace keeps the smaller Vega rocket, which had a dubious track record recently, and keeps working on the Ariane 6 as successor to Ariane 5. It won't fly before 2024, however.

Edit: One day delay due to weather, but now it launched successfully.

Static fire test of Themis, Europe's path towards a partially reusable rocket.

 

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SpaceX has used a booster for the 16th time. Previously boosters were limited to 15 flights and SpaceX took a few months to qualify them beyond that milestone.
This individual booster has launched 801 satellites and two astronauts since May 2020. Here is a table.

Another booster has launched 755 satellites in 15 flights and is planned to launch 22 more in about two weeks. SpaceX uses these fleet leaders for Starlink launches, i.e. their own payloads, due to the potential risk. So far no reused booster has failed, however.Second flight for Zhuque-2 in 10 hours. If successful, it will be the first methane-fueled rocket to reach Earth orbit. Several other rockets are in development and/or have made unsuccessful attempts. I don't expect any live coverage unfortunately.
Edit: Success!

 

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Chandrayaan-3 will launch in half an hour (xx:05). It is India's second attempt to softly land on the Moon after Chandrayaan-2 crashed due to a software issue (Chandrayaan-1 did not include a lander).
Live coverage, mostly in English.
Landing is planned for August 23 close to the lunar south pole.

Edit: Successful launch. The difficult part will come in August, of course.On the ground it's blow-your-engine-up time:

An Epsilon rocket failed in October because the second stage didn't ignite. A recent test of that engine on the ground ended explosively (Video).

One of the engines assigned to the second Vulcan flight exploded two weeks ago during an acceptance test firing, but this only became known recently. ULA says it won't affect the launch of the first Vulcan and says it's not a big deal, but external observers are more skeptical.

 

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SpaceX is preparing for a true double launch from Florida.

* A Falcon 9 launching Starlink satellites at 02:20 UTC (in ~8 hours)
* Falcon Heavy launching Jupiter-3 to a geosynchronous transfer orbit at 03:04 UTC. Jupiter-3 will become the heaviest geostationary satellite ever launched. Both side boosters will fly back to the launch site to land.

Starlink satellites are typically released something like 40-60 minutes after launch, so both rocket launches could actually overlap in time.

Starlink livestream
Falcon Heavy livestream

Edit: Falcon Heavy got delayed by another day. A first launch attempt was aborted a minute before takeoff because something with the rocket wasn't as expected, now we had two delays by one day.
This could also have an impact on the launch of Crew-7 from the same pad, currently planned for August 17. SpaceX needs around 2-3 weeks to reconfigure the pad for Falcon 9.

 

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Starliner's crewed test flight (CFT) is now planned for March 2024
A critical parachute test is planned for November.

Assuming no new delays on either side, Crew Dragon will have flown 52 people (two of them twice) in 14 missions before Starliner's first crewed flight:

• Demo-2, the equivalent to the CFT.
• Crew-1, Crew-2, Crew-3, Crew-4, Crew-5, Crew-6 from the original NASA contract
• Crew-7 and Crew-8 from the next contract
• Inspiration4, a tourism and fundraiser flight
• Axiom-1, Axiom-2 and Axiom-3, commercial flights to the ISS
• Polaris Dawn, part of a private spaceflight development program

The four flights in italics are planned to fly before March 2024, Crew-6 will return later this month, all others are completed.

Delays are possible in both programs, but much more likely on the Starliner side. Going by 2019 plans CFT was supposed to happen in early/mid 2020, it's now at least four years late.

 

[.Scott]

Starliner was also being held back for an electrical wiring issue.

Meanwhile in Baikonur, the Progress MS-24 expects to be launched later this month - delivering cargo to the ISS.
I'm a bit confused on this - there was a show-stopper for Russian use of Baikonur half a year ago that seems to have been quietly resolved.

 

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As far as I know this only affected the plans of a future Soyuz-5 rocket, which is not expected to fly this year anyway:
Kazakhstan’s seizure of Russian space assets threatens the Soyuz-5 rocket

Luna 25 is planned to launch in a bit over a day. This will be Russia's first mission to the Moon or (including the Soviet Union) its first since Luna 24 in 1976.
Due to its unusual trajectory, Russia evacuates a town where the booster could fall down.

Edit: Successful launch.

 

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Chandrayaan-3 has reached a low lunar orbit (~150 km). It is planned to land on August 23.

Luna 25 is planned to land on August 21.

 

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In the first half of 2023, a total of 560 tonnes of payload have been launched to Earth orbit or beyond. Out of that 447 tonnes or 80% were launched by SpaceX, 55 tonnes (10%) by China, 31 tonnes (5.5%) by Russia and the other 5% by the rest of the world.
SpaceX launched 4 times as much as everyone else combined. Data from BryceTech

SpaceX launch mass in a graph. A 60% yearly growth is an almost perfect match.

Current snapshot (yes, that's a log scale):

Edit: The VP of launch at SpaceX explaining how they maintain exponential growth

 

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Russia’s lander [Luna 25] experiences ‘emergency situation’ while approaching lunar surface
Looks like they still communicate with the spacecraft and work on a solution, but it couldn't do a planned maneuver.

 

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Luna 25 crashed into the Moon.

Chandrayaan-3 will attempt a landing on Wednesday or so.
Edit: Wednesday landing confirmed. Night to Wednesday for the US.

 

[.Scott]

From page 4 of the Coast Guards "Local Notice To Mariners" (District 8):

FL - GULF OF MEXICO - PENSACOLA - PANAMA CITY - TALLAHASSEE - Hazardous Operations
FL/AL/MS/LA/TX - GULF OF MEXICO - Hazardous Operations
On August 31, 2023, mariners operating offshore in waters east of Brownsville, Texas, are advised of rocket launching activities and associated hazardous areas which may impact navigation interests. Navigational hazards from rocket launching activity may include, free falling debris and/or descending vehicles or vehicle components, under various means of control. Mariners should avoid all waters within rocket flight
trajectories originating from launch sites in the vicinity of Boca Chica Beach and Brownsville, Texas. Rocket launching operations areas will be bound by the following approximate positions ...

So.... maybe.
Edit: Nope. I posted the update below.

 

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3:20 until the begin of the landing burn, 3:40 until the landing of Chandrayaan-3.
Countdown
India Today coverage

Live coverage by ISRO will be here starting in 3 hours:

Edit: Success
India has become the fourth country to achieve a soft landing on the Moon.

 

[.Scott]

Or perhaps Friday, September 8 ...
The most recent Local Mariners report for SpaceX Star City is this one:
https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/lnms/LNM0834g2023.pdf
The August 31st notice has been "updated". So there is no longer a mariner notice for August.

On approximately September 8, 2023, mariners operating offshore in waters east of Brownsville, Texas, are advised of rocket launching activities and associated hazardous areas which may impact navigation interests. Navigational hazards from rocket launching activity may include, freefalling debris and/or descending vehicles or vehicle components, under various means of control. Mariners should avoid all waters within rocket flight trajectories originating from launch sites in the vicinity of Boca Chica Beach and Brownsville, Texas. Rocket launching operations areas will be bound by the following approximate positions:
...
Rocket launching potential debris areas will be bound by the following approximate positions:
...
Detailed information on launches and associated hazards will be available on the day of launch on VHF-FM Channel 22A. Additional specific scheduled information can be found at the following website: https://www.cameroncountytx.gov/spacex/.

 

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These notices don't mean much and they might keep issuing them just in case.

Japan's H-II launch of an x-ray telescope (XRISM, to low Earth orbit) and a Moon lander (SLIM) was delayed due to bad weather (livestream). We can expect another attempt soon.

 

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SpaceX has already broken its 2022 record of 61 launches in a year, and this year has four months left.

Starship has been stacked.

Crew-6 has landed back on Earth. SpaceX has completed the original contract, started the first extension with Crew-7 and also completed three private missions before Boeing has made its crewed flight test.

Galactic Energy has launched another Ceres-1 rocket, the first launch from a sea platform. 9 flights, 9 successes, and this was the fourth flight since mid July - they are ramping up the launch rate while keeping a flawless track record.

 

[pinball1970]

JAXA today

https://www.newscientist.com/articl...der-and-x-ray-space-telescope-on-same-rocket/

 

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Firefly has launched its Alpha rocket for the third time. The first flight failed, the second one reached a lower than planned orbit, the third flight was a full success. This demonstrated Firefly's ability to launch on short notice for the US Space Force - 27 hours for the final payload integration and launch preparation. The launch was visible in large parts of California.

The Block 5 variant of Falcon 9 (the only one still active) has launched 199 times so far, 199 full mission successes. The next flight is planned to launch in a few hours.
Edit: Success. 200 flights with a flawless track record.

Russia launched Soyuz MS-24 with Oleg Kononenko on board. He is expected to break the record for the longest total time in space (currently 878 days) in early February and might stay in space for a whole year, becoming the first person to spend over 1000 days in space.

 

[Redbelly98]

Firefly has launched its Alpha rocket for the third time. The first flight failed, the second one reached a lower than planned orbit, the third flight was a full success. This demonstrated Firefly's ability to launch on short notice for the US Space Force - 27 hours for the final payload integration and launch preparation. The launch was visible in large parts of California.

I read elsewhere that they actually had the rocket ready within the 24-hour requirement set by the Space Force. At that point, it was a matter of waiting for the desired orbit's next available launch window, which was several hours later.

 

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Rocket Lab's Electron had a launch failure. The video feed cut off shortly after stage separation and based on the telemetry the velocity kept decreasing, so it looks like something got destroyed when the second stage ignited.

This was the 40th orbital launch of the rocket. The first one failed due to a problem with a ground station, the 13th, 20th and now 40th failed due to problems with the upper stage.

https://spacenews.com/electron-fails-during-capella-space-launch/

https://spaceflightnow.com/2023/09/...t-lab-electron-rocket-suffers-launch-failure/

The launch was called "We Will Never Desert You" ...

 

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OSIRIS-REx is expected to return its asteroid samples on Sunday. It's the third asteroid sample return mission after Hayabusa and Hayabusa 2 and has by far the largest samples collected from beyond the Moon (hundreds of grams).
Might be visible somewhere in Utah or surrounding states, I don't know its reentry trajectory. 8:42 MDT.

The source asteroid, Bennu, has a small chance to hit Earth between 2178 and 2290 - if that chance doesn't drop to zero in the future it could become an interesting target for a deflection mission.

 

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NASA livestream for OSIRIS-REx, starting in a bit under 9 hours.

SpaceX has broken its booster reflight record, flying a booster for the 17th time on Wednesday - and then flying another booster for the 17th time just an hour ago.

 

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~4 minutes until it hits the atmosphere. It will enter the atmosphere somewhere over San Francisco and fly to a landing site near Salt Lake City. Could be visible from a very large area along that path.

 

[berkeman]

Nice, thanks @mfb -- touchdown.

 

[berkeman]

They just reported that the main parachute deployed at 20,000 feet instead of the 5,000 feet initially reported. That explains why it took so long to descend from 5,000 feet by parachute. I was wondering what was going on. Deploying a bit early is not a problem, IMO.

 

[Tom.G]

The earlier than expected chute deployment was blamed on correct operation!

A deceleration sensor was used to trigger drogue chute deployment. It sensed the programmed deceleration earlier than expected -- so it opened the chute.

Shortly after landing, an annoucer explained the above and at least implied everything operated correctly -- just unexpectedly.

Doubtful that we will get anything further.

 

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9 days and one hour until the launch of Psyche, a mission to the very unusual asteroid of the same name.
The spacecraft will also be the first test of laser communication over interplanetary distances, and it will be the first interplanetary mission with a real payload for Falcon Heavy. The next one is scheduled for October 2024 (Europa Clipper).

It's a day launch but both side boosters return to the launch site, so it should be interesting to watch from close to the launch site.

Countdown

Edit: Delayed by a few days to work on some issue with the spacecraft, looks resolved.

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Blue Origin gets a new CEO. Bob Smith left, apparently "encouraged" to leave. They hired Dave Limp coming from Amazon, and the internet is already full of jokes.

 

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They had a first look at the OSIRIS-REX samples. In addition to the main sample container they also got a lot of stuff scattered around it, which seems to be interesting on its own.

6 days 15 hours until the launch of Psyche.

Russia has determined why Luna-25 crashed. A command to turn on the inertial guidance unit didn't have enough priority to be sent ahead of an engine firing, so the software thought the engine burn wouldn't change the motion of the spacecraft. As a result it fired 50% longer than planned, enough to make it crash. Scott Manley made a more detailed video

12 hours until the launch of two test satellites for the Kuiper constellation on an Atlas V (18:00 UTC, this post is 5:45 UTC). Probably its lightest payload to low Earth orbit ever, it could easily launch 20 of them. Amazon wanted to launch these as secondary payload on Vulcan but then that rocket kept getting delayed. They need to start launching regularly soon and of course you want to test the satellites before, so now a big rocket ends up flying two small test satellites.

Vega will return to flight in a bit under 24 hours. It had a failed launch in December last year.

Musk talked about Starship at the International Astronautical Congress but it was mostly stuff that was known already. Starlink satellites are expected to be the first real payloads and he thinks they can start launching them within a year. While they keep working on Starship they are still increasing the Falcon 9 launch rate.
They have two Falcon launch pads in Florida. At the moment only LC-39A can fly crewed missions and Falcon Heavy, but SLC-40 has been optimized to launch in rapid succession. 5 flights in July, 5 in August, 6 in September. Maybe they want to get the other pad to the same rate. That would allow ~150 launches in a year (~60*2 in Florida and ~25 in California).

 

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Looks like a Russian ISS module has a leak. Again.

Nauka had an air leak in July 2021.
Soyuz MS-22 had a coolant leak in December 2022.
Progress MS-21 had a coolant leak in February 2023.
Now apparently Nauka has another leak, probably coolant.

Under 3 days until the launch of Psyche. The weather forecast is very windy.
Edit: Delayed by 1 day due to bad weather.

 

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Psyche launch in 1 hour 15 minutes. Forecast says 85% chance of good weather.
NASA blog
NASA live coverage (starts in 25 min)

Other live coverage:
NASA Spaceflight (live)
Everyday Astronaut (starts in 25 min)

 

[Borg]

I'll never tire of seeing the SpaceX boosters returning and landing cleanly.

 

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Successful launch and they have acquired a signal from the spacecraft. Shot from the payload separation, spacecraft in the center and second stage of Falcon Heavy to the right:

Successful booster landings, too. Over 150 successful landings in a row now.

 

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Boeing openly admits it can't be competitive in spaceflight programs.
They want to do only cost+ contracts, i.e. contracts where the company is incentivized to waste as much money as they can because that will increase the guaranteed profit.

India has successfully tested the in-flight abort system of its crew capsule Gaganyaan. An orbital flight is planned in 2024 and a crewed orbital flight could follow in 2025, making India the fourth country to send people to orbit (and space) with its own hardware.

After a year of accident investigation, Blue Origin plans the next flight of New Shepard on October 31. Spooky unofficial livestream.

Rocket Lab expects Electron to return to flight within this year, recovering from the failure in September, but does not have a launch date yet. Likely November.

 

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Looks like Shenzhou 16 had a pretty rough landing. The crew seems to be fine, but you don't want to tumble like that.

 

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Jared Isaacman and Tim Dodd discussing astronaut training, Starship and more

Some news items: Polaris Dawn with the first commercial/private spacewalk is still planned for the first quarter of 2024. They'll also launch and land in the spacewalk suit because carrying two sets would take up too much space.

The second Polaris mission will certainly have a spacewalk, too. A repair and reboost of Hubble seems to be the default plan, if NASA doesn't want it they'll do something else.

Edit: Rocket Lab finished its accident investigation, a bad insulation combined with unusual conditions led to an electric arc.