All posts by TopSpacer

General

Carnival of Space #630 – NextBigFuture.com

NextBigFuture.com hosts the latest Carnival of Space.

Dunes in Mars north polar area
Dunes in the north polar region of Mars as seen by the CaSSIS camera on the ESA/Roscosmos ExoMars orbiter. “The dark areas are sand deposited on the surface when the buried CO2 ice sublimated.” Image Credit: ESA/Roscosmos/CaSSIS, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO. Via Carnival of Space and Universe Today.

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LEGO Ideas NASA Apollo Saturn V 21309
Outer Space Model Rocket for Kids and Adults, Science Building Kit
(1900 pieces)

Rockets

Space transport roundup – Sept.25.2019

A sampling of recent articles, videos, and images dealing with space transport (find previous roundups here):

[ Update: Great views of the Starship Mk.1 coming to together at Boca Chica Beach:

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** Today a Russian Soyuz launched 3 new ISS crew members including the first astronaut from the UAE. This was the final flight for the Soyuz-FG version of the rocket. The modernized Soyuz-2 will now become the standard crew launch version of the Soyuz family of rockets. The Expedition 61 crew includes Russian cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka, NASA astronaut Jessica Meir, United Arab Emirates guest cosmonaut Hazzaa Ali Almansoori. The launch was timed for a fast rendezvous with the station and the spacecraft is set to dock today at 3:45 p.m. EDT (1945 GMT).

** A Japanese H-IIB rocket launched a HTV cargo module to the ISS on Tuesday. Following a scrub on Sept. 10 due to a launch pad fire, the H-IIB successfully lifted off yesterday from the Tanegashima Space Center with the eighth HTV (H-II Cargo Vehicle) to go to the ISS. The spacecraft will take 4 days to reach the station with its load of over 4 tons of supplies and equipment, including several new lithium-ion batteries  to replace aging nickel-hydrogen batteries for part of the station’s power system.

** Three rocket launches took place in China in the past week including a Long March 2D today carrying a Yunhai remote sensing satellite:  China launches environmental monitoring satellite – Spaceflight Now

*** Long March 3B rocket on with two Beidou navigation satellites launched on Sept. 22th:

*** A Long March 11 launched on Sept.19th with five satellites for the private company Zhuhai Orbita Aerospace Science and Technology Co., Ltd. The group of satellites included four with hyperspectral imaging systems and one with video imaging.

** Virgin Orbit shipped out the first operational LauncherOne rocket for tests in prep for launch by end of the year: LauncherOne: Shaping Up and Shipping Out | Virgin Orbit

This week, after a very hard drive by our teammates in our Long Beach factory, we waved good-bye to our latest test rocket. Our previous LauncherOne served valiantly through a battery of tests highlighted by several captive carry flights and especially by our flawless drop test. Our latest rocket — which has already been fully integrated, tested, checked, re-checked, analyzed, and triple-checked — is destined for a rigorous crucible of engineering demonstrations and tests of its own. The final demonstration for this rocket will also be the biggest test we’ve attempted as a team: during that test, we’ll fire up LauncherOne’s engine in flight and head for space for the first time.

Virgin Orbit LauncherOne
This will be the first Virgin Orbit LauncherOne rocket to attempt to put a payload into orbit.

** Firefly Aerospace is posting updates on preps for the first launch of an Alpha rocket next year.

** The small company LAUNCHER pushes 3D printing technology to make its  rocket engines more efficient:

** Blue Origin targets November for next New Shepard flight:

** An update on research on bleeding-edge propulsion concepts: Marc Millis: Testing Possible Spacedrives – Centauri Dreams

Marc Millis, former head of NASA’s Breakthrough Propulsion Physics project, recently returned from another trip to Germany, where he worked with Martin Tajmar’s SpaceDrive project at Germany’s Technische Universität Dresden. Recent coverage of the ongoing experimental work into spacedrives in both the popular and scientific press has raised public interest, leading Millis to explain in today’s essay why and how the techniques for studying these matters are improving, and how far we have to go before we have something definitive. Millis is in the midst of developing an interstellar propulsion study from a NASA grant even as he continues to examine advanced propulsion concepts and the methodologies with which to approach them.

See also Just How Feasible is a Warp Drive? – Universe Today.

** SpaceX

*** Assembly of the Starship Mk.1 orbital demonstrator accelerated at even a faster pace in the past week at Boca Chica Beach. It appears that some staff from the Mk.2 project in Cocoa Beach, Florida came to help out in Texas so that a complete Starship can provide a dramatic backdrop to Elon Musk’s update presentation on the project this Saturday, Sept. 28th.

*** Elon gives some pre-presentation hints on the latest Starship design and operation concepts:

*** Tim Dodd, the Everyday Astronaut, gives an overview of the new design for the fins:

*** Scott Manley also gives his thoughts on the design changes: Scott Manley: New Details Revealed About SpaceX’s Stainless Steel Starship as Prototype Nears Completion : spacex/reddit.com

*** Some synergy at last between SpaceX and Tesla: SpaceX’s Starship Mk1 rocket shares a surprising connection with Tesla EVs – Teslarati

These battery packs were spotted by an eagle-eyed forum user who was first to recognize the hardware for what it likely was. Per the above photo, SpaceX appears to have joined two self-contained Tesla battery packs into single units that were then installed on a header tank. Knowing that the highest capacity Tesla offers is ~100 kWh, the 2×2 packs could store up to 400 kWh and offer instantaneous power output (ignoring thermal limitations) well into the megawatt (MW) range.

The Tesla batteries are needed to run the motors that move the fins:

*** Yusaku Maezawa raises a few billion dollars from selling stock in his clothing company. This will provide him additional money to fund his Starship flight around the Moon with artist friends. He may also take a preliminary flight to space on a Crew Dragon.

Forbes:

While acknowledging his mistakes at a two-hour press conference, he said there were two personal reasons for his resignation: Preparing for the 2023 lunar mission, including going into space once before that, and wanting to feel the “rush” of building a company from the ground up again.

“Training to go into space will to take up much of my time,” he said, flanked by his successor at Zozo, Kotaro Sawada, and the president of Yahoo Japan.

*** Falcon 9 launch rate to accelerate in coming year as SpaceX ramps up deployment of the Starlink broadband Internet constellation: Starlink to fill lion’s share of SpaceX near-term launch manifest – Spaceflight Now

SpaceX plans as many as 24 launches next year to build out the company’s Starlink network to provide broadband Internet service from space, following up to four more Starlink missions before the end of this year, according to SpaceX’s chief operating officer.

The rapid-fire launch cadence for SpaceX’s Starlink fleet will take up the majority of the company’s launch manifest next year with a series of missions taking off from Florida’s Space Coast, adding new nodes to a network that could eventually contain nearly 12,000 small satellites.

** After a two month break, the next Falcon 9 launch looks to happen in mid-October but not clear yet if it will be a Starlink payload or a customer satellite  SpaceX’s next Falcon 9 launches get a bit closer as hardware arrives in Florida – Teslarati

SpaceX completed its last orbital launch on August 7th, placing the AMOS-17 communications satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) on an exceedingly rare expendable Falcon 9. As of then, SpaceX’s next launch – an internal Starlink mission – was already expected no earlier than October and has since settled towards the end of the month. First reported by NASASpaceflight.com, the first Starlink v1.0 mission (AKA Starlink-1) is tentatively scheduled to launch no earlier than (NET) October 17th, followed by Starlink-2 NET November 4th and Starlink-3 NET late-November.

Of note, there have been whispers in the last few days that SpaceX’s next launch is not, in fact, a Starlink mission. Reading between the lines, only two possible spacecraft – JCSAT-18/Kacific-1 or South Korea’s ANASIS – are next on SpaceX’s manifest, the former of which is scheduled to launch no earlier than November 11th and the latter of which does not yet have a firm date.

*** Crew Dragon program continues to move along with progress on parachutes, finalizing the April explosion investigation, and targeting late this year for the in-flight abort test:

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Delta-v

Activism, Space Policy

Space policy roundup – Sept.23.2019

A sampling of links to recent space policy, politics, and government (US and international) related space news and resource items that I found of interest (find previous space policy roundups here):

Webcasts:

** The Space Show – Sun, 09/22/2019 – Space attorney Wayne White  discussed property rights and other commercial space legal issues.

** The Space Show – Fri, 09/20/2019 – Dr. David Warmflash  talked ab out his new book, Moon: An Illustrated History: From Ancient Myths to the Colonies of Tomorrow , and about “Apollo’s Biomedical Lessons, human lunar spaceflight and more”.

** September 20, 2019 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast | Behind The Black

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Moon Rush: The New Space Race

Activism, Space industry, Space Policy

The Space Show this week – Sept.23.2019

The guests and topics of discussion on The Space Show this week:

1. Monday, Sept. 23, 2019; 2:00 pm PDT (4:00 pm CDT, 5:00 pm EDT): No show today as Monday is reserved for special programming.

2. Tuesday, Sept. 24 , 2019; 7-8:30 pm PDT (9-10:30 pm CDT, 10-11:30 pm EDT):  Dr. Anahita Modiriasari will talk about lunar and Martian lava tubes.

3. Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2019: Pre-recorded Hotel Mars Program with John Batchelor. See Upcoming Show on The Space Show website for details.

4. Friday, Sept. 27, 2019; 9:30-11:00 am PDT (11:30 am-1:00 pm CDT, 12:30-2:00 pm EDT): We welcome back Dallas Bienhoff will discuss cislunar development and his recent SSI discussion comments.

5. Sunday, Sept. 29, 2019; 12-1:30 pm PDT (3-4:30 pm EDT, 2-3:30 pm CDT): OPEN LINES. We want to hear from you. STEM, STEAM, SPACE, SCIENCE calls welcome. First time callers welcome. Talk about what is on your mind with space.

Some recent shows:

** The Space Show – Sun, 09/22/2019 – Space attorney Wayne White  discussed property rights and other commercial space legal issues.

** Fri, 09/20/2019 – Dr. David Warmflash  talked about his new book, Moon: An Illustrated History: From Ancient Myths to the Colonies of Tomorrow , and about “Apollo’s Biomedical Lessons, human lunar spaceflight and more”.

** Tue, 09/17/2019 – Kim Holder and John Jossy “provided us with their analysis of the SIS Space Settlement Conference. This was an in-depth discussion of the extraordinary two day event”.

** Mon, 09/16/2019 – Dr. Patricia Hynes “discussed the upcoming ISPCS Conference to be held in Las Cruces, NM from Oct. 9-10, 2019 with implications for commercial and exploratory space”.

** The Space Hotel – Wed, 09/11/2019 – John Batchelor and Dr. David Livingston talk with Anatoly Zak (RussianSpaceWeb.com) about the latest Russian space news and developments.

See also:
* The Space Show Archives
* The Space Show Newsletter
* The Space Show Shop

The Space Show is a project of the One Giant Leap Foundation.

The Space Show - David Livingston
The Space Show – David Livingston

 

Amateur/Student Satellite, Education, Space Systems

Student and amateur CubeSat news roundup – Sept.22.2019

A sampling of recent articles, press releases, etc. related to student and amateur CubeSat / SmallSat projects and programs (find previous smallsat roundups here):

** Cargo on Cygnus vehicle on next Antares  launch will include CubeSats from university groups sponsored by NASA’s Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) initiative: Amateur Radio CubeSats among 15 Set to Launch on October 21 from Wallops Island – ARRL.org

15 CubeSats into orbit on October 21 as part of NASA Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) Mission 25. Some will carry Amateur Radio payloads.

    • TJ REVERB, developed by students at Thomas Jefferson High School in Alexandria, Virginia, will carry a 145.825 MHz APRS digipeater.
    • HuskySat, a University of Washington – Seattle project, will be boosted into a 500-kilometer (approximately 310-mile) orbit via the Cygnus external deployment device. HuskySat will carry a V/U linear transponder provided in cooperation with AMSAT.

** China launch included CubeSat Taurus-1  (Jinniuzuo-1) with amateur radio transponder for involving students in satellite communications: Taurus-1 CubeSat with FM-to-Codec-2 Transponder Launched – ARRL.org

The Taurus-1 (Jinniuzuo-1) CubeSat carrying an Amateur Radio FM-to-Codec-2 transponder was launched on September 12 from China’s Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center. The CubeSat was developed by Aerospace System Engineering Research Institute of Shanghai for youth education and Amateur Radio.

** Students participate in CubeSat projects at the Australian Centre for Space Engineering Research (ACSER) at University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia: Satellites to reveal sea state and much more than the eye can see | UNSW Newsroom

Professor Andrew Dempster of UNSW’s School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications has been developing and trialling a new type of receiver that looks for satellite navigation signals bounced from the Earth’s surface in a process called reflectometry.

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As he explains, reflectometry looks at the GPS signals that come directly from satellites as well as where, and at what angle, the signals bounce off the earth’s surface. He and his colleagues have built four generations of receivers that are designed to look for these bounced GPS signals from satellites overhead.

“This most recent generation of our GPS receivers we have put into space aboard CubeSats,” Professor Dempster says, who is also director of the Australian Centre of Space Engineering Research.

The centre’s first project was the UNSW-EC0 QB50-AU02 CubeSat

… Over the past 5 years the team has seen over 100 members work on the project, including students, staff and volunteers. The project has produced at least 18 student theses, dozens of conference papers, launched new research areas for UNSW winning two new ARC grants, and the UNSW team alone has attracted many hours of media interest both locally and internationally. 

** AMSAT news on student and amateur CubeSat/smallsat projects: ANS-265 AMSAT News Service Special Bulletin

  • 2019 AMSAT Board of Directors Election Results
  • 2019 AMSAT Symposium Registration Savings Through October 11
  • IEEE GRSS Student Grand Challenge
  • IARU Coordination for Two Satellites
  • QO-100 Satellite, GNU Radio and SDR Talks Released
  • Upcoming Satellite Operations
  • ARISS News
  • Satellite Shorts from All Over

General CubeSat/SmallSat info:

Mars Cube One (MarCO) lead engineer, Andy Klesh, joins us to chat how two tiny CubeSats gave us real-time data from the latest landing on Mars. We talk about what led to naming the spacecraft after the Disney characters Wall-e and Eve, and how both Wall-e and Eve lost contact with Earth just few hours before it was their time to shine.

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Introduction to CubeSat Technology and Subsystem:
Orbit Design, Debris Impact, and Orbital Decay Prediction