Space Stuff and Launch Info

[Brutix80]

No, no, no. They successfully tested the new "Horizontal Takeoff" feature of the rocket.

It is very strange to see how the national space center reinvents the wheel again - the Astra is not a new type of rocket, not a new type of propulsion or fuel. Cheaper? May be. More reliable? Unlikely. Take an example from the Russians - they start with a trampoline. Cheap and cheerful :)

 

[mfb]

~4.5 hours until the launch of Inspiration4, the first commercial crewed mission to orbit ever. The launch window lasts for 5 hours in case of delays.

Detailed article about the mission
Spaceflight Now coverage
NASAspaceflight coverage
Timeline before and after launch

Spaceflight now coverage:

 

[mfb]

Successful launch, Dragon separation, and nosecone opening. We should get images of the panorama cupola soon.

This year will be remembered in spaceflight history as the beginning of commercial crewed spaceflight. In just one and a half years we went from "only governments do crewed spaceflight" to "companies launch government astronauts to orbit" (Demo-2 flight, May 2020) and now "companies launch anyone who pays to orbit".

 

[gleem]

I live in Port St Lucie about 80 miles from Canaveral. The sky was clear, perfect for watching a launch. At this distance in the first few minutes, the atmosphere absorbing the higher frequency light showed the exhaust as crimson. The crimson changed to the expect white as the rocket rose high in the skin with less atmosphere to absorb the blue freqencies. In addition what was probably the condensation from the exhaust expanded forming a cone illuminated by the light of the exhaust reminesent of a comet tail. The separation of the first stage was visible. The ignition of the second stage with it vacuum rocket engine produced a very broad heart shaped plume of condensation. Something that is not visible during the daylight hours. The whole launch was visble for about eight minutes before the rocket was indistingusihable from the stars in the background. In one word it was spectabular.

 

[hutchphd]

That Elon fella sure knows how to put on a show. Your description was great. Wish I could have seen it. He's apparently a pretty good engineer too.

 

[gleem]

A photo of Inspiration's first stage showing the comet-like tail of the exhaust.

https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/...980&height=932&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp

 

[mfb]

Some pictures/videos:





They lowered their orbit to 365 km to line up with the planned landing site in the Atlantic Ocean near Florida (Saturday 23:03 UTC).

 

[berkeman]

The kid questions from the St. Jude patients were pretty cool. Nice touch.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

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

Here we go! Hopefully all goes well on reentry.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

They said the nosecone is secure for reentry and then showed a closeup of guy with a mask on. LOL!

 

[Baluncore]

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

Here we go! Hopefully all goes well on reentry.

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

 

[mfb]

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

Perimeter?

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

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

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

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

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

Other sections have similar conclusions.

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

 

[mfb]

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

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

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

 

[Borg]

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

 

[Ivan Seeking]

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

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

 

[mfb]

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

 

[Borg]

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

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

 

[mfb]

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

Quoted here

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

 

[Filip Larsen]

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

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

 

[mfb]

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

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

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

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

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

 

[mfb]

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

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

 

[mfb]

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

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

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

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

 

[mfb]

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

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

 

[mfb]

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

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

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

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

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

The report recommends (among other things) to

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

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

The report expects Artemis 1 for Summer 2022 now.

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

 

[Motore]

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

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

 

[Mark44]

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

 

[mfb]

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

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

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

 

[Borg]

James Webb Space Telescope December 18.

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

 

[Jonathan Scott]

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

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

 

[mfb]

Huh, forgot to submit this post.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[hutchphd]

Happy Thanksgiving. For the TRUE space nerd

 

[Stavros Kiri]

Happy Thanksgiving. For the TRUE space nerd

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

 

[dlgoff]

Happy Thanksgiving. For the TRUE space nerd

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

 

[mfb]

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

 

[mfb]

I moved the DART discussion to a separate thread.