Space Stuff and Launch Info

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Soyuz updates

They localized the damage, likely caused by a micrometeoroid or a small piece of space debris. Temperatures stabilized, not an emergency. The crew is expected to either return with this spacecraft in March or with Soyuz-MS23 which could be sent up empty, with a decision expected later this month.

 

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Vega-C failed on its second flight (after a successful flight earlier this year). The second stage stopped working properly.

SpaceX plans to launch some initial next-generation Starlink satellites ("v2") on December 28. They are significantly heavier (~4 times) and more capable (~4-8 times?) than the current v1.5 satellites. Originally SpaceX wanted to launch them on Starship only, but delays in that program made them develop a special design that fits into the smaller Falcon 9 fairing. Despite the larger size, SpaceX expects the satellites to be dimmer than the old ones. We'll see how well that works.

 

[pinball1970]

Soyuz updates

They localized the damage, likely caused by a micrometeoroid or a small piece of space debris. Temperatures stabilized, not an emergency. The crew is expected to either return with this spacecraft in March or with Soyuz-MS23 which could be sent up empty, with a decision expected later this month.

This in the Guardian yesterday

https://www.theguardian.com/science...to-plan-possible-rescue-of-space-station-crew

 

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Still no decision on which Soyuz to use.

JWST has reached its first birthday in space.

 

[Borg]

Happy birthday to JWST!

 

[davenn]

Destin has an amazing YT channel, he does so many in depth looks into various technologies but with a fun and educational point of view.
This video is a guided tour of the Saturn 5 Apollo rocket system by Luke Tally who worked on the electronics for the first 3 stages.

 

[berkeman]

This video is a guided tour of the Saturn 5 Apollo rocket system by Luke Tally who worked on the electronics for the first 3 stages.

Um, but, didn't the Saturn 5 rocket have only 3 stages? Who worked on the other stages?

 

[davenn]

Um, but, didn't the Saturn 5 rocket have only 3 stages?

stage 4 is the command/service module

 

[davenn]

Who worked on the other stages?

watch the video

Spoiler: who did the stuff above stage 3 and the instrument ring

Johnson Space Centre

 

[dlgoff]

Um, but, didn't the Saturn 5 rocket have only 3 stages? Who worked on the other stages?

That's what I thought. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satur...ed of three stages,used liquid hydrogen (LH2).

It consisted of three stages—the S-IC first stage, S-II second stage, and S-IVB third stage—and the instrument unit. All three stages used liquid oxygen (LOX) as the oxidizer. The first stage used RP-1 for fuel, while the second and third stages used liquid hydrogen (LH2).

 

[hutchphd]

The Saturn V had three stages (which were controlled by the saturn computer which famously survived the two lightning hits in Apollo 12 without a hiccup). The spacecraft also had four propulsion engines: the escape tower, the Service propulsion system main engine, the Lunar Module descent engine, and the LunarModule ascent engine. At least some of these could properly be considered "stages" but were not part of Saturn proper.

 

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Station Crew Wraps Up a Busy Year as Soyuz Review Continues
Still no decision about Soyuz (now delayed to some time in January). Soyuz-MS23 could potentially launch as early as mid/late February instead of its originally planned mid March launch.

NASA has asked SpaceX if the Dragon capsule that is currently attached to the ISS can return more than its nominal crew of 4. They don't have extra seats, and they don't have the right suits: This would only be used if there is an emergency with the ISS and the crew has to decide between the damaged Soyuz and Dragon.

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For the first year, SpaceX has exceeded its planned launch cadence: 61 launches in 2022, while 52 ("once per week") were expected in January and 60 in March. Up from 31 in 2021.
SpaceX launched twice as much mass to orbit as the rest of the world combined.

 

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No official confirmation yet but it looks like Soyuz MS-22 will be declared too unsafe to return crew.

There is a new more complicated alternative plan being discussed (graph here):
Launch Soyuz MS-23 with only one crew member (Kononenko, the only one with prior flights) instead of three, launch Dragon Crew-6 with three instead of four crew members (kicking out the Russian Fedyaev). Both should fly in February. This means the two Russian MS-22 crew members can return with MS-23 and one (Rubio from the US) can return with Crew-6, both in Fall 2023. All three crew members of MS-22 would stay on the ISS for about a year with this plan - not unheard of, five astronauts did that on the ISS before and the Mir had similar stays.

 

[pinball1970]

Seems trivial with what is going on with Soyuz but it is a first so I will post here

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64218883

 

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ABL Space Systems maiden flight fails after liftoff

Ceres-1 made its fifth flight on Monday. All its flights were successful, which is very rare for new rockets and unique for a start-up.

The other three launches this year were routine - a Falcon 9 rideshare flying over 100 satellites, another Falcon 9 launching OneWeb satellites, and Long March 7A launching a Chinese technology demonstration satellite.

Worst start of a year for a while - 6 orbital launch attempts, two failures - although both failures came from very new systems (first flight of RS1, sixth flight of LauncherOne).

A Falcon Heavy launch is planned for Friday 13 January 22:51 UTC. Both side boosters will return to Florida for a night landing. Should be highly visible.

 

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No official confirmation yet but it looks like Soyuz MS-22 will be declared too unsafe to return crew.

Now confirmed, and it's using the original rescue plan: Launch Soyuz MS-23 without crew on February 20. The MS-22 crew currently on the ISS will return in MS-23, extending their mission to about 1 year.

No change to the Dragon flights. The original crew of MS-23 will fly with MS-24 later this year.

 

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NASA has given us some more details about Artemis III, the planned crewed Moon landing.

1 week of surface mission for two astronauts. Starship will land within 100 meters of its target spot.
Several moonwalks are planned:

During their time on the Moon, the astronauts will do scientific work inside Starship and conduct a series of moonwalks, exiting Starship to explore the surface. The astronauts will don advanced spacesuits, exit through an airlock, and descend on Starship’s elevator. NASA has selected Axiom Space to provide the Artemis III surface suits and spacewalk systems. These suits will give the astronauts increased range of motion and flexibility to explore more of the landscape than on previous lunar missions.

During their moonwalks, the astronauts will take pictures and video, survey geology, retrieve samples, and collect other data to meet specific scientific objectives. The view from the lunar South Pole region will look very different from the photos taken on Apollo missions in the Moon’s equatorial region. The Sun will hover just above the horizon, casting long, dark shadows across the terrain, which the crew will explore using headlamps and navigational tools. The information and materials collected by Artemis III astronauts will increase our understanding of the mysterious South Pole region, the Moon, and our solar system.

On the ISS, they will move the seat of Rubio (American astronaut of Soyuz MS-22) to Crew Dragon. If the crew needs to evacuate the ISS in an emergency then Rubio will return with Dragon while the Russian astronauts will take the damaged Soyuz capsule. I wonder if we get pictures of this arrangement.
Source

 

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20 minutes until the Falcon Heavy launch. Just a bit after sunset, it should look great from large parts of Florida (and online).

SpaceX coverage
NASASpaceflight coverage (more commentary)

Edit: No views of the second stage because it was a classified mission but the booster flight looked amazing.

One booster fighting against the atmosphere as it slows down to return to the launch site (the booster is flying "downwards" in the image, so the engines are the front):

 

[Lnewqban]

… Just a bit after sunset, it should look great from large parts of Florida (and online).

Indeed!
It was a perfect view from my location in South Florida, against a completely cloudless sunset sky.

Thank you for the links!

 

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Here is a long exposure
A video from a different angle, you can see how the boosters (below) push away the exhaust of the upper stage (above) before entering the exhaust stream, reaching zero horizontal velocity and then flying upwards and back towards the launch site.

Electron's first flight from the US (from Virginia) is now scheduled for January 23. An evening launch farther north than Florida, so it's going to be in darkness. Should still be visible up to New York at least if the weather is good, and potentially as far as Pittsburgh.

Terran 1 should make its first flight somewhat soon-ish (from Florida), but no launch date yet.

 

[Filip Larsen]

Eric Berger at arstechnica has collected some nice shots in his write-up of the launch:
https://arstechnica.com/science/202...n-heavy-launch-delivered-spectacular-imagery/

 

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The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster happened 20 years ago (February 1, 2003), killing its crew of 7.

The damage happened during launch and the foam strike was noticed but the magnitude of the damage was not discovered (or even investigated) while the orbiter was in space. It's not clear if there would have been a reasonable rescue option however, even if they had known about it. This detailed article describes a potential rescue mission with another Shuttle that was studied as a hypothetical mission after the accident.
Shuttle missions after Columbia always had such a rescue mission as option available - with an extended ISS stay or with a launch soon afterwards where that was not possible. Russia follows a similar approach with Soyuz right now - MS-23 will launch to return the crew of the damaged MS-22 while the crew stays on the ISS.

 

[Redbelly98]

This is from late December, but Eric Berger of Ars Technica had a nice write-up on the "Top US launch companies of 2022—The Ars Technica power ranking"

The top 3 were 1. Space X (of course), 2. ULA, and 3. Rocket Lab. I guess ULA beat out Rocket Lab based on the much higher capacity of Atlas V over Electron -- the two companies had a similar number of total launches:

Eric Berger wrote:
Please note this is a subjective list, although hard metrics such as total launches, tonnage to orbit, success rate, and more were all important factors in the decision. Also, the focus is on what each company accomplished in 2022, not what they might do in the future.

 

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The link doesn't look right. Here is the article.

Falcon 9 has made its 200th flight.

Virgin Orbit was #5 in that list but had a launch failure since then, making their financial situation even more problematic. Richard Branson injected some more money.

ABL's first launch attempt of its RS-1 rocket failed in January.

Out of the "also considered": From Stoke Space we now have a one hour factory and test stand tour with Tim Dodd (Everyday Astronaut) discussing tons of different aspects of the rocket they develop.

 

[Redbelly98]

The link doesn't look right. Here is the article.
.
.
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Out of the "also considered": From Stoke Space we now have a one hour factory and test stand tour with Tim Dodd (Everyday Astronaut) discussing tons of different aspects of the rocket they develop.

Well, I botched that link. Fixed now, thank you.

I'll watch the Tim Dodd video when I have an hour to kill. Reading the article version, they don't give a payload mass -- maybe that gets mentioned in the video? At 30 m height x 4 m diameter, the closest comparable-sized existing rocket I found is Antares (42 m x 3.9 m), which has 8 tonnes to LEO capacity. So probably slightly less capacity ... or maybe more-than-slightly less, given that it'll be reusable. But it should be significantly more than the 1.3 tonnes of Relativity's Terran 1 (35 m x 2.3 m).

Edit: So, maybe 3-6 tonnes to LEO is my best guess.

 

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I don't remember hearing a specific number in the video but it should be in the few tonnes range. It's possible the company doesn't even have a reliable estimate internally as they are still working on the first stage engine design. Payload fractions of fully reusable rockets are small, so even small design differences can have a large impact.

Speaking of fully reusable rockets: Super Heavy static fire planned for tomorrow. The last major test before a launch attempt.

The first Japanese H3 is being prepared for a launch next week, Soyuz-MS 23 will launch February 20 (without crew) and Dragon Crew-6 will launch February 26 (with crew).

 

[Redbelly98]

Super Heavy successfully ran 31 of 33 engines in today's test. Elon says that's enough to get to orbit, according to an update to this article from Eric Berger:

At around 3:15 pm local time in South Texas, SpaceX ignited its Super Heavy rocket for a "full duration" test of its Raptor engines. According to SpaceX founder Elon Musk, the launch team turned off one engine just prior to ignition, and another stopped itself. Still, he said 31 of 33 engines would have provided enough thrust to reach orbit.

About that Japanese rocket, always cool when a new rocket has a debut launch. Hoping Relativity Space can launch RS1 sometime this spring.

 

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The Russian Progress MS-21 has developed a leak.
Not to be confused with the Soyuz MS-22, also docked to the ISS at the moment, with a leak.
Not to be confused with the Soyuz MS-09 in 2018, which also had a leak.

The Progress was already loaded with waste in preparation for its scheduled departure in a week, so the ISS crew closed the hatch and there is no danger to the crew. Russia and NASA are trying to understand where the leak comes from.
What's going on with Russia and leaking spacecraft?

Edit: A coolant leak, just like for MS-22.

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The Starship static fire only had the engines running at just 50%. For takeoff they will run at 90% (and we can expect 33 engines instead of 31), almost doubling the thrust.

Looks like there was some minor damage to concrete farther outside but the new concrete right under the launch pad seems to be in a good shape. We should get pictures soon. The launch will have more thrust but the rocket will move up quickly so the effective duration is shorter.

 

[Redbelly98]

About the payload mass of that Stoke Space rocket being developed . . .

Redbelly98:
So, maybe 3-6 tonnes to LEO is my best guess.

I don't remember hearing a specific number in the video but it should be in the few tonnes range. It's possible the company doesn't even have a reliable estimate internally as they are still working on the first stage engine design. Payload fractions of fully reusable rockets are small, so even small design differences can have a large impact.

Okay, I found a number (1.65 tonnes) in an Eric Berger article from last October, which I just read this morning. Smaller than what I/we had guessed, but comparable or slightly more than the current / soon-to-launch rockets from Firefly, Relativity, and ABL.

 

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H3 had a first launch attempt that was aborted just before liftoff.
H3 is replacing the similar H-II family but it should only cost half as much.

For a discussion elsewhere I summed payload mass to orbit (from here) in 2022 in tonnes:
SpaceX: 629
China*: 178
Russia*: 70
United Launch Alliance: 44
Arianespace: 34
US*: 24 (SLS launch)
Northrop Grumman: 16
India*: 9
Others: 10

*the respective government organizations

Sum: 1014
Likely the first year in history we exceeded 1000 tonnes.

The abridged version:
SpaceX: 629
Rest of the world: 385