Space Stuff and Launch Info

[TeethWhitener]

Event Horizon Telescope update just started.

They have a picture of Sgr A*, the central black hole of our galaxy. Well, a picture of its accretion disk of course, can't see the black hole itself.

View attachment 301381

This made my morning. Got on PF to see if you’d posted about it yet—was not disappointed :)

 

[Oldman too]

An interesting video clip that gives some perspective:

 

[mfb]

Boeing's second orbital flight test (uncrewed) is scheduled to take off 22:54:47 UTC today, that's 8 hours after this post. If successful it will dock with the ISS about 24 hours after launch and undock and land a week later. It's a repetition of the orbital flight test of December 2019 which didn't manage to reach the ISS. A crewed flight is planned for later this year.
NASA coverage will be here

Edit: Successful launch, successful first burn in orbit.

Rocket Lab and NASA are preparing the CAPSTONE mission (May 31), which will test the environment in a new Moon orbit ("near-rectilinear halo orbit") - the Gateway will use the same orbit for the Artemis program. It will be Rocket Lab's first mission beyond low Earth orbit.

 

[CAugustine]

CNBC - The space industry is on its way to reach $1 trillion in revenue by 2040, Citi says​

The space industry should reach $1 trillion in annual revenue by 2040, with launch costs dropping 95%, Citigroup analysts said in an extensive report published this month. A further decline in the cost of accessing space would create more opportunities for technological expansion and innovation, unlocking more services from orbit such as satellite broadband and manufacturing, the bank added.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/21/spa...ay-to-1-trillion-in-revenue-by-2040-citi.html

Found the full Citi report if anyone is interested - https://www.citivelocity.com/citigps/space/

 

[mfb]

We’re one week from the FAA’s latest deadline to complete the environmental review process for SpaceX’s launch site in South Texas. This time my expectation is that there will not be another extension. Likely decision: a mitigated FONSI. This means …
SpaceX is likely to get approval to move ahead with experimental launches of Starship, however they will have to make some accommodations for environmental impacts. This is what I am hearing, but you should not consider it official information.

Eric Berger on Twitter
That report was originally planned for December last year and then it was delayed by one month every month.

Gwynne Shotwell (SpaceX COO) predicted a Starship launch for June or July. Her timelines are typically more realistic than Musk's.

SpaceX has experimented with a Starlink deployment system. The first flight won't go to an orbit where operational satellites could be deployed but we might see a first test deploying some dummy payload (which will re-enter after less than one orbit).

 

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FAA approval of Starship was ... delayed again. But this time the announced delay is only two weeks, a major milestone over the previous one-month delays.

FAA has made all 17784 received comments public (after redacting personal details and some profanity)

- A very large majority is positive
- Volume 16 is filled with NASA documentation how they handle the environmental impact of launches in Florida and similar documents.
- Volumes 21-25, 9-10, most of 20 and probably some more are just the same email arriving from over 1000 different email addresses. Surprising how many people have exactly the same opinion!
- Some comments are weird. SpaceX is compared to Nero (with a picture of Nero burning Rome!) in volume 1, page 1238.
- An email sent October 31, 2021 8:43 PM asks to "approve the launch this month" (volume 7, page 20)
- One person explicitly asked to not publish his name, but wrote his full name just one sentence earlier for no reason. No page number here.

 

[Oldman too]

- Volumes 21-25, 9-10, most of 20 and probably some more are just the same email arriving from over 1000 different email addresses. Surprising how many people have exactly the same opinion!

I hope the form letter spam found its way into the correct folder.

 

[anorlunda]

I hope the form letter spam found its way into the correct folder.

The APA (Administrative Procedure Act) requires agencies to allow public comments in certain circumstances. I've never heard if the ACA specifies how the comments will be treated.

Is it legal to treat all of them as spam? Probably not. Is it required to treat all comments with equal weight? Probably not. So what is allowable and required? I don't know.

 

[mfb]

Once you take one of them into account you took all of them into account. The 1000 emails all claiming to be concerned about the Piping Plover, the Red Knot and the Northern Aplomado Falcon in particular are obvious copies of a template made by someone.

 

[mfb]

Launch failure of Astra's Rocket 3, the second stage shut down a minute too early and the rocket was spinning out of control, it's not yet clear what caused what.

Not counting initial test flights and one rocket lost on the ground, they now have 2 successful launches out of 7, not exactly a stellar track record.

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FAA wanted to finish the environmental assessment for Starship by June 13, so we should soon get either a final report or another delay.

 

[mfb]

It's finally there! FAA has issued a mitigated Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) for Starship launches.
SpaceX will have to take "over 75" (FAA statement) different actions to mitigate the environmental impact. Here is the full document. Surprisingly, the executive summary has three pages more than the full document.

Many actions are "SpaceX will continue doing what they already do", "SpaceX will keep following existing laws", or "SpaceX will pay $5000 per year to this environmental protection program" or "in case of an accident, SpaceX will ...". The piping plover got a quarterly beach cleanup to be performed by SpaceX, although SpaceX doesn't do anything on the beach. Some of the actions are absurdly specific:

SpaceX will continue to offer enhanced satellite monitoring via solar powered Starlink to the Peregrine Fund for continuous video coverage of northern aplomado falcon habitat to aid in biological monitoring.
[...]
SpaceX will notify TxDOT that maintenance may be warranted when vegetation along [highway] SH 4 exceeds approximately 9 inches

Can't launch Starship if you only notify them at 10 inches!

We'll see how long it takes to implement the items that need action.

Article at The Verge

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A Cargo Dragon flight originally scheduled for June 10 was delayed because of a valve issue. It will be exchanged, the new launch date is now (no earlier than) July 11. Statement by SpaceX

 

[etudiant]

Actually a nice PR opportunity there with the Piping Plovers.
They are absurdly cute, especially the chicks, but also quite endangered.
They nest on the beach and get crushed by people who drive there, because they hunker down and rely on their excellent camouflage rather than running away. So if SpaceX helps them survive by protecting their beach habitat, it's a big win with birders, most of whom tend to be older and politically active. Plus it is not costly to hire a naturalist and to patrol a beach.

 

[anorlunda]

https://interestingengineering.com/nasa-worried-about-its-iconic-launch-pad-39a

At first, I thought this was yet another case of government trying to torture SpaceX. But upon reflection, I see their point.

SpaceX's methods include many trial and error failures. NASA's methods are to try to prevent any failures. We've seen that demonstrated in the case of rockets. But the same applies to lauch pads.

If SpaceX damaged or destroyed a launch pad, they would just build a new one. But NASA's 39A at Cape Canaveral is not designed to be expendable.

Is there no place on Earth where SpaceX could do their stuff without interference by governments?

 

[mfb]

SpaceX bought two former oil platforms with the idea to convert them to Starship launch pads. Launching far away from the coast avoids most environmental concerns and almost all proximity issues. These platforms are currently low priority - they focus on initial launches from Boca Chica, with launches from Florida once the ship design is more stable and NASA is happy with its safety. It's possible SpaceX will upgrade their other Florida launch pad to handle Falcon Heavy and Crew launches if something happens at 39A.

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There were three Falcon 9 launches in the last 48 hours, one from each pad. The first one set a couple of nice records (100th reflight of a booster, 50th consecutive landing success, first booster to fly 13 times) while launching another batch of Starlink satellites, the second one launched a German surveillance satellite. The third one is a big mystery. We know it launched a communication satellite for Globalstar, but it's likely that it also launched a military payload:

• Commercial launches are usually announced months or even years in advance but this one only showed up one month in advance, as late as possible.
• The commercial satellite has a mass of only 700 kg, which is essentially nothing for Falcon 9. Despite that the booster landed on a drone ship, which is typically just needed for payloads above ~10,000 kg.
• We usually see a view of the satellite(s) at fairing deployment and/or later into the second stage flight, but didn't get video this time, not even a view of the engine. They finally showed a video of the satellite almost two hours after the launch, after two orbital maneuvers, and there was some additional hardware that looks like a deployment mechanism for other satellites.
• The orbit of this satellite is very close to the target orbit of Zuma, the mysterious 2018 launch that might or might not have failed.

Here is some more discussion
If some larger satellite has been deployed there is a chance that amateurs will spot it and upload orbital parameters to databases in the next days.

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A second wet dress rehearsal (WDR) for Artemis 1 is currently in progress, fueling is expected to happen on Monday morning local time. If nothing goes wrong the rocket can move back to the assembly building to be fully configured for flight, roll back to the launch pad and launch in late August, but we won't get a launch date until NASA has checked the WDR results.

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CAPSTONE is now planned for June 25, Rocket Lab's first launch to the Moon.

 

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Artemis WDR made it to t-29 seconds, stopping 20 seconds earlier as planned because of a hydrogen leak. They'll remove the fuel and decide how to proceed. Apparently oxygen loading on the upper stage had a problem, too, and a small fire started from hydrogen burning nearby.
We got more info about future plans, too. The nominal plan is still a crewed flight 2024, a first landing 2025, and then one flight per year from 2027 on, landing on the Moon each year except 2027 and 2029 (these flights would assemble the Gateway space station only) - but delays are likely.

The Globalstar launch also had four secret payloads. As pointed out in replies, a previous rideshare mission seemed to have something similar, but for that one we had a video feed. Note the similarly-looking structure at the front.
Could be Starlink-derived military satellites.

 

[mfb]

CAPSTONE launched successfully and started its phasing burns to reach the Moon. It's powered by a very small engine so it needs several Earth orbits to get there.
Edit: One burn left

27 Falcon 9 launches in the first half of the year, still keeping the 1/week average.
53 successful landings in a row now - that's better than the launch track record of most rockets, and landing is harder.

China is preparing the first laboratory module for a launch to its space station (July 23).

Many new rockets:

• After a failure in October 2021, the second launch of Nuri was a success (June 21) - the first fully South Korean rocket to reach orbit.
• The maiden flight of Vega-C is planned for July 7. It's an upgraded Vega rocket.
• After a failed flight in September 2021, the second flight of Alpha is planned for July 17.
• ABL Space Systems wants to launch its first rocket August 27.
• The maiden flight of SLS is planned for late August as the wet dress rehearsal achieved most of its objectives

 

[mfb]

CAPSTONE has a communication issue
Deployment was successful and initially NASA got data from the spacecraft , but then communication stopped. It's not clear why. There are several days until the next course correction is needed.

Vega-C was delayed to July 13.

 

[etudiant]

CAPSTONE has a communication issue
Deployment was successful and initially NASA got data from the spacecraft , but then communication stopped. It's not clear why. There are several days until the next course correction is needed.

Vega-C was delayed to July 13.

Solar panels did not deploy, so died when the batteries ran out.

 

[berkeman]

Solar panels did not deploy, so died when the batteries ran out.

Source? This is the latest update I see from yesterday:

Following CAPSTONE’s initial deployment on July 4, the spacecraft successfully deployed solar arrays, was stabilized, and began charging its onboard battery. CAPSTONE’s propulsion system was also readied for the spacecraft ’s first maneuver. CAPSTONE made initial contact with the DSN ground station in Madrid, Spain, followed by a partial contact with the Goldstone ground station in California. From these contacts, mission operators have been able to determine CAPSTONE’s approximate position and velocity in space.

As a result of the communications issues, CAPSTONE’s first trajectory correction maneuver – originally scheduled for the morning of July 5 – has been delayed. This maneuver is the first in a series that are designed to make small corrections to increase the accuracy of the transfer orbit to the Moon, and the spacecraft remains on the overall intended ballistic lunar transfer while awaiting this trajectory correction.

https://blogs.nasa.gov/artemis/2022...on-communications-issues-with-nasas-capstone/

 

[etudiant]

Source? This is the latest update I see from yesterday:https://blogs.nasa.gov/artemis/2022...on-communications-issues-with-nasas-capstone/

Happy to say I was wrong, source was a twitter comment, obviously false.

 

[Oldman too]

The latest.
https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/06/n...happy-and-healthy-after-communications-issue/

Happy to say I was wrong, source was a twitter comment, obviously false.

This must have something to do with twitter rumors.
"It seems the anomaly occurred during the second ground station pass with DSN, when CAPSTONE made partial contact with an antenna in California. As SpaceNews noted, amateur satellite observers first noticed the lack of downlink from CAPSTONE, causing a minor flurry of panic on Twitter. Due to the lack of communications, the first trajectory correction maneuver — the first in a series of maneuvers to ensure the spacecraft stays on an accurate trajectory to the moon — was delayed."

 

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Mission Team Determines Cause of Communications Issues for NASA’s CAPSTONE
User error and a software bug that prevented the spacecraft from recovering automatically.

 

[mfb]

Successful maiden flight of Vega-C.
The maiden flight of SSLV (Small Satellite Launch Vehicle) failed due to a communication issue - it left the satellites in an orbit that's too low to be useful.

Astra announced to retire Rocket 3, which had only 2 successful launches in 7 attempts, and focus on the larger Rocket 4. We'll see if they get enough funding to make that work.

Artemis 1 is still planned for August 29.Cygnus (ISS resupply) will fly on Falcon 9, with three launches booked.
It's normally launching on Antares, but that uses Russian engines so it only has two flights left. They are looking for alternative engine options (also reported in that tweet), but that will need more time.

NASA tries to avoid relying on a single rocket/ spacecraft (Dragon also uses Falcon 9 of course), but in this case there is no good alternative. All Atlas V launches are already booked and there are no free Vulcan launches in the near future. Falcon 9 launches once per week anyway, SpaceX can simply replace a Starlink launch with an external customer, even on short notice.

 

[mfb]

The rocket for Artemis 1 has been moved to the launch pad again, this time in preparation for launch (still planned for August 29).

https://www.space.com/artemis-1-nasa-science-rocket-rollout-webcasts

 

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The Flight Readiness Review for Artemis 1 was successful. I started a thread.

 

[mfb]

Satellite-based cellphone coverage is becoming reality. The bandwidth will be tiny, but good enough to send text messages. That's all you need e.g. in an emergency. Maybe phone calls will work, too. Satellites don't have dead spots and text messages don't need non-stop connection, so even a few of them can provide emergency services everywhere (with regulatory approval in that country). No extra hardware required, current phones already have everything that's needed.

• Lynk Global launched a few test satellites and wants to launch thousands of satellites in the future.
• BlueWalker 3 by AST SpaceMobile will launch September 7. It's massive when unfolded. After this prototype the company wants to launch about 240 (even larger) operational satellites. It's not yet clear how customers will get access to these two services - it's likely they will cooperate with local phone carriers, country by country.
• T-Mobile (US) and SpaceX announced a cooperation to use a small part of T-Mobile's spectrum on Starlink satellites. They want to start a beta test in late 2023 with the first next-generation ("v2") Starlink satellites. Here is the announcement. The same satellites can be used in other countries as well, pending approval and cooperation with some local carrier.

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A bit over three days until the launch of Artemis-1.

 

[sophiecentaur]

Satellite-based cellphone coverage is becoming reality.

That is very surprising to me. Terrestrial coverage is relatively easy, for a given available spectrum space because the service area of each base station is well defined, small and more or less permanent. Satellites would need much more directive antennae (with very good sidelobe performance) to provide that level of 'subscriber selectivity' and channel reuse.
I guess it all depends on what user bandwidth is adequate and commercially viable but there are fundamentals which will always limit the usefulness and money-making capability of such a system. I read in one link of "planned 5G coverage". That would be very surprising unless cells could be kept to their present size - multiple transmitters on each satellite?

But my intuitive 'numbers' may be way out for an accurate appreciation of the possibilities.

I loved the Steve Jobs black T shirts on the launch video. It went on far too long to hold my interest.

 

[Rive]

Satellite-based cellphone coverage is becoming reality.

That's one big stretch out there, I think. The best can be said about this would be something like 'satellite based emergency contact ability'

 

[sophiecentaur]

That's one big stretch out there, I think. The best can be said about this would be something like 'satellite based emergency contact ability'

Not exactly big bucks, though(?).

 

[Rive]

Sure makes the equipment cost of a rescue request lower, and may make many instrumental applications cheaper (remote sensors, for example: on sea or anywhere far away), but I can't see the big bucks in this either.