Space Stuff and Launch Info

[hutchphd]

From the same article, it appears that there are differing opinions on the matter:

But Jeff Hanley, who manages NASA's Constellation program that includes the Ares I, questioned the validity of the Air Force study because it relied on only one example. He said NASA had done its own study, using supercomputers to replicate the behavior of Ares I, that predicted a safe outcome.​

Jeff Hanley got fired (*oops I mean promoted) for being too gung-ho on Ares after being told told to stand down. Maybe not the best source! Have you seen pictures of Titan 4 blowing up...seems unlikely to me...but point well taken.

 

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The abort test was successful.

NASA made extra sure they will get the test results: In addition to the capsule transmitting back the data they also stored it on 12 independent recorders that were ejected in 6 groups of 2 each. Each recorder is designed to survive the water impact, floats, transmits its position, and has printed instructions to return it to NASA if found by someone else. Each of them has the full test data, finding a single one of them is sufficient even if the data transmission fails. NASA did a test run earlier and recovered all of them.

Video and more information:
https://spaceflightnow.com/2019/07/...rion-launch-abort-system-before-moon-flights/
Video of the discarded booster hitting the ocean:

 

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Payload fairing half from Falcon Heavy detaches and falls through the atmosphere:

 

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Vega had its first launch failure in its 15th flight. It looks like the second stage simply didn't ignite. Video below.

We have a couple of interesting launches coming up:

• Chandrayaan-2 on July 14, India's attempt to land softly on the Moon (planned landing in September).
• Maiden flight of Hyperbola-1 on July 22, the second startup trying to reach orbit this year. 300 kg to low Earth orbit.
• Delta IV on July 25, the last flight of the regular Delta IV. From that point only Delta IV Heavy (with three boosters instead of one) will keep flying.
• Falcon 9 launching Amos 17 on July 27. The flight is free for the customer - as compensation for the loss of Amos 6 in 2016.
• Maybe in July: Maiden flight of Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) from India. Yet another small and cheap rocket, 500 kg to low Earth orbit.

Video of Vega launch failure (note how the reporter just reads from some script and describes events that have nothing to do with reality):

 

[Borg]

APOD has been showing videos celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.
Today's moon landing video is a nail biter...
Apollo 11: Descent to the Moon
Apollo 11 Launches Humans to the Moon

 

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Look, an early Christmas present falling from the sky!



Worth $3 million each, SpaceX has a big interest in catching these fairing parts (one lands in the net, the other one lands in the water and is picked up later). This is the second successful catch.

 

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An Atlas V launched shortly before sunset on the East Coast. Perfect conditions for a beautiful view.

 

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Chandrayaan-2, India's first attempt to land on the Moon, has entered a Moon orbit. It will now lower its orbit over the next days; the landing is still scheduled for September 7.

Other news:
Hyperbola-1 and Jielong 1 had successful maiden flights, both built by (separate) Chinese start-ups.
SpaceX got a second boat to capture both fairing parts.
The first flight of Soyuz-2.1a will launch 22 August 03:38 UTC. It will replace the Soyuz capsules used for crewed flights.
The last flight of Delta IV is planned for 22 August, 13:00 UTC. Only Delta Heavy will keep flying (once in a while, given it heavy price tag).

 

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The first flight of Soyuz-2.1a will launch 22 August 03:38 UTC. It will replace the Soyuz capsules used for crewed flights.

Successful launch but the docking lead to problems. According to Roscosmos the problems are on the ISS side. Now they plan to go into a Soyuz capsule that is already docked, undock, fly to another port, dock there, and then have the waiting Soyuz dock at the now free place on August 27. Sounds complicated? It is.

https://spacenews.com/uncrewed-soyuz-aborts-iss-docking/
Edit: Second docking attempt was successful.

 

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Chandrayaan-2 prepares for landing. Friday, Sept. 6, between 20:00 and 21:00 UTC (4 pm to 5 pm EDT), in 18 hours from now +- 30 minutes. If successful India will be the fourth country to (softly) land something on the Moon, after the Soviet Union, the US and China.

Not sure if there will be some live coverage. Here is a news article.

Update: Lander crashed, apparently in one piece but not operational.

 

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The first prototype of Starship has been put together yesterday. In about half an hour Elon Musk will give his yearly update on the status of Starship. Livestream

Edit: Rescheduled to have 15 minutes delay. Now xx:15.

 

[gleem]

Musk remains as optimistic as usual. If all goes according to plan I may actually witness the occupation of Mars. He is definitely aiming high in his goal of putting a payload into orbit the size of 1.25 Nimitz class aircraft carriers each month. He says he likes things as simple as possible to reduce problems, but how simple can you make a rocket that goes to Mars? His schedule mantra is " long is wrong, tight is right". Tight but not too tight and simple but not too simple I hope.

 

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1.25 Nimitz class carriers is 125,000 tonnes, or nearly 1000 flights. To get that done in a month you need 10 spacecraft flying at maximal rate.
It's a theoretical capacity, but that's what you get with a rapidly reusable system.

We have a dedicated thread here.

 

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Astronauts on the ISS get an oven to bake cookies

A second Starlink mission is planned for November 11. Visibility: To be seen. scnr[/size]

 

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The SpaceX Starship Mk1 prototype has been damaged beyond repair 20 November 2019 during a cryogenic pressure test. Entire top been torn off.
https://www.space.com/spacex-starship-prototype-anomaly-pressure-test.html

Split to become its own thread

 

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Commercial Crew in the US should get two important milestones this month: Boeing plans to launch its uncrewed orbital flight of Starliner on December 17. It will stay at the ISS for about a month. SpaceX wants to do the in-flight abort test of Dragon 2 in late December.
Apart from (probably) more parachute tests these are the last major tests before the companies can fly astronauts to the ISS at some point in 2020.

SpaceX will be quite busy with other activities, too. After launching a Dragon (1) to the ISS on December 4 they have just a bit over 11 days to prepare the launch pad again for JCSAT-18 / Kacific 1 - a record turnaround time if the launch dates hold. They might even use the same pad a third time in December if the next Starlink mission gets ready quickly enough.Edit: I missed Cheops! ESA's first dedicated exoplanet mission. Launch: December 17. It will focus on precision measurements of exoplanets nearby.

 

[anorlunda]

I just watched the SpaceX Dragon launch. Beautiful day. Beautiful launch.

 

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CHEOPS, ESA's first exoplanet mission, will launch in 20 hours from now. Livecast
Edit: Delayed.

SpaceX will launch an unremarkable geostationary satellite in 11 hours and 10 minutes, but (assuming no delays) it will break its record pad turnaround time: 11 days 7 hours between subsequent launches from the same pad. There is no time to rest afterwards either: The same pad will be used again for another Starlink launch on December 31 (Dec 30 local time). We will get Starlink trains again in the evening or morning sky on Dec 31 and early next year.

Boeing's uncrewed Starliner flight was delayed, it is now planned for Dec 20. The in-flight abort test of Dragon 2 shifted to January 4.

Edit: Cheops delayed, Falcon 9 launch was a success (including booster landing).

 

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I moved the discussion about the Starliner launch to a new thread.

 

[sas3]

Red's Rhetoric has some very good videos of a lot of launches https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrHsrhLqowsAIYbaNE7GcBg/videos

 

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2 hours until the next Starlink launch. We'll get a dense train of 60 satellites again.
Live coverage

With this launch - just the third one - Starlink will become the largest satellite constellation, and SpaceX will become the largest private satellite operator (by number of satellites). One or even two more launches might follow later this month. SpaceX says they produce 7 satellites per day now, enough to cover two launches per month plus some spares.

SpaceX shared approximate orbit data in advance, this website makes predictions for a few days - but you can't choose your location, it only uses your browser settings. As this is just an estimate before launch and as the satellites will raise their orbit these predictions won't be 100% accurate, but the deviations over 5 days shouldn't be too large. As a rough guideline: From the southern US, North Africa and the southern part of Asia you can see the satellites early in the morning (~0.5-2 hours before sunrise), from Australia, NZ and similar latitude regions in Africa/South America you can see them in the evening (~0.5-2 hours after sunset). Southern Europe and Northern US/Canada are problematic, Central/Northern Europe is probably out of luck.

 

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Video of Boeing's Starliner test flight from inside the capsule

The in-flight abort of Dragon 2 is planned for Saturday (18th) 13:00 UTC, this is one day and 12 hours after my post. It is a 4 hour launch window, as this is a test it is quite possible that the launch is pushed back within the window.

Just two days and 4 hours later (Jan 20, 17:20 UTC) SpaceX will launch yet another batch of Starlink satellites - only 13 days after the last one. The satellites might be visible in Europe very quickly after launch as extremely compact and bright train after one orbit.

Edit: Discussion of the in-flight abort test is now in a separate thread.

 

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Another Starlink launch in ~2.5 hours, the third routine launch and fourth in total. Didn’t see a visibility forecast yet. These trains of satellites look really weird.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/01/27/falcon-9-starlink-3-mission-status-center-2/

Edit: Shifted by 24 hours due to the weather (Tuesday 14:28 UTC)

Edit2: https://celestrak.com/cesium/pass-viz-beta.php?source=CelesTrak&tle=/NORAD/elements/supplemental/starlink-4.txt&satcat=/pub/satcat.txt#visualization/pass. Looking okay for sightings in the evening from the southern half of the US, but not from Europe.

Edit3: Shifted by another 24 hours (Wednesday 14:06 UTC)

The 22 minutes difference each day accounts for precession of the satellites in orbit. A smaller contribution (~4 minutes) comes from the difference between solar time (same place of the Sun) and sidereal time (same place of the stars). If they are not launched they don't precess, but the launch time must adjust as if they would, because all the other satellites in orbit do so already and their relative orientation must stay the same.

 

[Baluncore]

I hear the 4'th Starlink launch, another 60, is now up there.

 

[anorlunda]

Just missed it. Darn. It took off in front of the rising sun from my angle. That blinded me and I couldn't see it.

 

[gleem]

For what ever reason I couldn't see it either and I am south of the Cape in Port St. Lucie. It is a beautiful day too.

 

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I found this great website that monitors the Starlink satellites and has many different graphs plotting the deployment progress:
https://leo-internet.com/constellation/STARLINK
Click on the launch numbers or satellites for more information.

They also monitor OneWeb, currently just 6 satellites are in space but the first large batch is scheduled for February 7 (in 1 week!): https://leo-internet.com/constellation/ONEWEB

 

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A couple of interesting launches coming up. This months up to four rockets could make their first orbital flight (for comparison: In all of 2010 we had just three to five depending on the way to count).A Soyuz will launch 34 OneWeb satellites February 6, 21:42, the first large batch after 6 test satellites early last year. They are deployed in a conventional way, so they will probably spread out faster than Starlink satellites, but they might still form an interesting group of satellites for a while.
SpaceX counters with yet another Starlink launch February 15, the third launch this year. They promised a launch every two weeks, so far they have one every three weeks, quite close.

Simorgh, Iran's attempt to scale up their rocket systems, is being prepared for a launch in the first half of February. After a successful suborbital test the rocket had two launch failures, the next flight could be the first one that reaches orbit. Payload capacity is still relatively low with 350 kg.Commercial spaceflight start-ups everywhere:

Virgin Orbit plans the maiden flight of LauncherOne on February 15. A relatively small air-launched rocket (500 kg to orbit).

Astra Space plans the maiden flight of its rocket Astra on February 21. At $2.5 million per launch (up to 100 kg) they have the cheapest option for a dedicated launch - but rideshare launches are much cheaper.

ExPace plans the maiden flight of Kuaizhou 11 on February 25. They have experience with smaller rockets already, however.

 

[anorlunda]

Astra Space plans the maiden flight of its rocket Astra on February 21. At $2.5 million per launch (up to 100 kg) they have the cheapest option for a dedicated launch - but rideshare launches are much cheaper.

Wow, that's much cheaper than even Pegasus, the one that launches from the wing of a B52 or other aircraft. Wikipedia puts a Pegasus launch at $40 million.

 

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Pegasus is terribly overpriced in today's market, they don't get many contracts these days (all launches in the last 15 years were from the US government). You can launch half that mass with Electron for ~$6 million, or over 20 times the mass with Falcon 9 for 50-60 million.

 

[jackwhirl]

Starlink 5's launch and deployment looked good, but they missed the landing. [at about 23:30]
I remember hearing they come down aimed away from the drone ship, and correct very late in the landing, if the computer determines it is safe. I wonder where things went wrong for this one.

 

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It landed softly next to the drone ship. That happens if the booster determines that a landing on the ship is not safe enough. They might be able to reuse some parts of it like the grid fins, although salt water is really bad for many components.
Starlink launches are the heaviest payloads SpaceX has launched so far, so their landings are always with a very narrow margin. This particular booster has flown 4 times now.

 

[jackwhirl]

I'm loving the look of SN1, compared to Mk1. There's a side-by-side about halfway down this article. I continue to be amazed by SpaceX's ability to rapidly iterate.

 

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They are really quick with assembly. Here is a diagram. Basically every day a new component is prepared, two components were put together, or similar updates. The 6 missing rings are expected to be ready as well, just not stacked and clearly associated with SN1 yet.

 

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Starlink tracking

- nearly all v0.9 development version satellites lowered their orbit and then stopped. It is speculated that this is done to move to a different orbital plane (precession rates depend on altitude), but it's unclear which plane would be targeted why. The first satellite re-entered the atmosphere (orange).
- V1.0 L1 (first launch of 1.0, from November) largely follows the planned pattern: Raise them in 3 groups of 20 to reach 3 orbital planes, using precession to change planes without fuel. A few outliers are treated separately.
- V1.0 L2 is very clean. 20 satellites just arrived at 550 km. 39 satellites are waiting at 350 km, the next 19-20 of them should start raising their orbit in a bit over a week. One satellite was a bit late and might need a special treatment while one satellite is on the way to be deorbited.
- V1.0 L3 is more chaotic, although the steep lines are tracking errors not actual satellite motion. Keeping satellites lower means they reach their target orbital plane faster, this could be an approach to speed up the deployment sequence (which otherwise needs 4 months after launch, see L1).
- V1.0 L4 is not shown here, they should all be on the way to 350 km.

With 20 degrees between orbital planes SpaceX needs 18 batches of 20 satellites each for the first phase of the network (18*20=360). That means at least two more launches if the 0.9 satellites don't contribute. Add four month until all the satellites are at their target orbit. It is possible that they reach their goal faster if the first or second batch of additional launches fill in the gaps quicker. This summer or early autumn they should have the satellites for non-stop internet connections in some latitude range.

The next launch is planned for March 4, just 16 days after the last one.

Simorgh, Iran's attempt to scale up their rocket systems, is being prepared for a launch in the first half of February. After a successful suborbital test the rocket had two launch failures, the next flight could be the first one that reaches orbit. Payload capacity is still relatively low with 350 kg.

Launch failure.
Maiden flights for Astra and Kuaizhou 11 are planned for February 25. LauncherOne was delayed and doesn't have a specific date now.

 

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Maiden flights for Astra and Kuaizhou 11 are planned for February 25. LauncherOne was delayed and doesn't have a specific date now.

Delays and more delays. Instead of four we are still at zero. Simorgh failed again (0/3 for orbital flights). Astra might still make it this month. Kuaizhou 11 and LauncherOne are completely unclear.
In March yet another Chinese spaceflight startup plans its maiden flight: Ceres-1 from Galactic Energy.

Anyway:
A spacecraft from Northrop Grumman docked with a satellite in geostationary orbit. A satellite that doesn't have any docking mechanism - they just grabbed its engine (animation). The new satellite now takes over orbital maneuvers and extends the life of the old satellite that ran out of fuel.

 

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The last Dragon 1 will launch in 15 minutes. On board: Guatemala's first satellite.
After that only Dragon 2 will fly, in separate Crew and Cargo versions.

Next Starlink launch is planned in one week, viewing conditions are still unclear.

Edit: Launched. If the booster lands successfully it will be the 50th time SpaceX lands a booster.
Edit: Successful landing! And Dragon is in orbit.

 

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Next Starlink launch is planned in one week, viewing conditions are still unclear.

It will launch 18:30 EDT, 22:30 GMT, in 2.5 hours. Around sunset in Florida, so viewing conditions for the US and maybe Europe look promising. These dense satellite trains are a really interesting view.

It is the first time SpaceX uses a booster for a fifth flight (after three commercial flights and an earlier Starlink launch).
The payload fairing is reused as well, it's only the second time SpaceX does this.

What is new about this rocket:
- the second stage (<1/4 of the cost of a new rocket)
- the satellites (cheaper than the flight according to SpaceX)
- the fuel (negligible cost)

Live coverage and stream
Visibility predictions

 

[anorlunda]

It will launch 18:30 EDT, 22:30 GMT, in 2.5 hours

No, launch is set for 9:22 EDT, 13:22 UTC about 30 minutes from now.

 

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Huh... got some time zones wrong. Anyway, scrubbed because of some issues with the engines (countdown stopped at 0 seconds). Next try tomorrow (probably), approximately the same time.

 

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Success, but not without trouble.

One of the engines stopped late in the first stage burn. The second stage had enough margin to deliver the satellites to their target orbit, but it made the first stage fail to land.
This was the second engine failure in flight of any Falcon rocket, the first one was in 2012 in one of the earliest flights. It's likely that the failure was linked to the age of the engine (fifth flight), SpaceX will have to see what exactly went wrong and improve that for future flights. All fourth/fifth flights of boosters were SpaceX internal missions because SpaceX wants to gain experience with these first.
On the positive side, it was another demonstration that a failing engine doesn't ruin the mission.

You can see if the satellites are visible from your place here: https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/

 

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https://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/starship_users_guide_v1.pdf
SpaceX is confident that their design won't change much any more, so they published estimates for the environment payloads will have in Starship.

 

[trurle]

Delays and more delays. Instead of four we are still at zero. Simorgh failed again (0/3 for orbital flights). Astra might still make it this month. Kuaizhou 11 and LauncherOne are completely unclear.
In March yet another Chinese spaceflight startup plans its maiden flight: Ceres-1 from Galactic Energy.

See
https://arstechnica.com/science/202...sa-suspends-sls-work-astra-suffers-a-setback/

LauncherOne have completed taxi test in March 2020, but captive ferry test is not scheduled. No schedule for orbital flight too.

 

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NASA got four offers for commercial resupply missions of its planned Lunar Gateway.

• Boeing
• Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems (NGIS)
• Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC)
• SpaceX

They selected SpaceX (flying "Dragon XL", a modified Dragon capsule, on Falcon Heavy) as only winner for now, other companies can bid again for future contracts. We now have a (slightly redacted) document discussing this decision.

Key points:

• Boeing's proposal was both the most expensive and the least favorable from a technical side. In addition its pricing proposal was in conflict with NASA requirements. It was kicked out of the competition early (page 15).
• The proposals of NGIS and SNC were reviewed favorably. Both come with weaknesses but NASA is quite confident they could satisfy the requirements. NGIS has an advantage from flying cargo to the ISS with Cygnus, but SNC is a bit cheaper (and is working on cargo delivery to the ISS, too).
• The proposal by SpaceX is not just by far the cheapest (no surprise here), it also offers by far the largest payload and volume and got the best review from the technical side. To me the description looks like they basically proposed a space station module that also happens to deliver cargo. The document discusses using Dragon XL for "other crew activities like exercise, or science experimentation" on page 19.

There is an interesting oversight in the redaction on page 17: The "fairing impingement issue" mentioned in the second paragraph is the heavily redacted significant weakness discussed in the paragraph before. Cygnus could hit the interior of the fairing during launch, damaging the spacecraft or the fairing.

 

[jackwhirl]

You can see if the satellites are visible from your place here: https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/

Thank you for this link. I was able to see the ISS recently. Very cool.

 

[Baluncore]

Thank you for this link. I was able to see the ISS recently. Very cool.

I use this site that gives forward predictions for ISS, many satellites, Starlink launches and astronomical events.
https://www.heavens-above.com/

 

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The next Starlink launch is planned for April 23, 2020, 19:16 UTC. This is the last launch necessary for an initial constellation that can provide continuous internet access in some latitude ranges. The satellites will need ~3-4 months of orbit raising, however. Additional launches could shorten this time.

The crewed demo flight of Dragon 2 is still planned for the second half of May. The first orbital[/size] launch of astronauts from the US since 2011.

Overall launch activity has gone down notably.
On April 24 China will launch a new crewed spacecraft (without crew) that doesn't have a name yet.
ISS resupply missions still fly.

 

[jackwhirl]

The next Starlink launch is planned for April 23, 2020, 19:16 UTC.

Bumped up to today, weather permitting. Edit: Launch, booster landing, and Satellite deployment were all successful.

 

[jackwhirl]

Here's a report that the Falcon 9's March 18th engine out was due to cleaning solvent (isopropyl alcohol) that got into a sensor.
https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/22/s...sed-by-cleaning-fluid-according-to-elon-musk/
The tweet:

 

[Jonathan Scott]

Just saw the latest Starlink launch go over here in the UK a couple of minutes after deployment. Naked eye it looked like one bright point, but in binoculars there were a few pinpricks and a bright line of very close dots.