Today, EXOS Aerospace successfully launched the SARGE reusable sounding rocket on a suborbital flight from Spaceport America near Las Cruces, New Mexico. Haven’t seen any word on the altitude reached. The rocket returned via a paraglider return for a soft landing and will be used again for future flights.
EXOS Aerospace SARGE rocket lifts off from Spaceport America.
Here is the full webcast video. (Liftoff takes place at 1:21:50):
The rocket returned for a landing within a couple of hundred meters of the launch pad.
SARGE comes back to earth with a paraglider.
An inspection of the rocket following the landing:
The maneuver was made at a distance of 69,400 km from Earth for 30 seconds and will increase the spacecrafts closest point of approach to Earth to a distance of 600 km.
Beresheet continues its course according to plan and the next maneuver is scheduled for Monday night.
As seen on this video, the craft will need to carry out several engine firings to extend its orbit outward to the Moon and then go into orbit around it:
The glare of the sun has affected the craft’s star-tracker but otherwise the vehicle seems in good shape.
Scott Manley posted a video before the launch in which he discussed the SpaceIL mission:
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Japan’s ispace is another organization that began as an entrant in the Google Lunar XPRIZE and then continued after the GLXP ended. ispace, however, is a commercial company rather than a non-profit like SpaceIL. The company has raised nearly $100M in investments and has contracts with several companies and government institutions.
The latest contract is with the NGK Spark Plug company and involves testing a solid-state a battery under the harsh conditions on the Moon, particularly the extremely cold temperatures during the 2 week long nights.
Mission 1 will entail an orbit around the Moon, while Mission 2 will perform a soft lunar landing and deployment of rovers to collect data from the lunar surface.
ispace has contracted with SpaceX to carry its Lunar Lander (Moon landing spacecraft) and Lunar Rovers (Moon surface exploration robots) for the HAKUTO-R Program as secondary payloads on it’s Falcon-9 rocket. The launches for the first and second missions for HAKUTO-R will occur in mid-2020 and mid-2021, respectively.
Here is a video showing the phases of the mission to land on the Moon and deploy a small rover to explore:
This video introduces some of the people working at ispace:
And this video presents the company’s long term vision:
More imagery from Friday’s flight of the SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity (see previous postings here and here):
**Beth Moses enjoys the view from space:
“The face you make when you look back on Earth from space. Our Chief Astronaut Instructor, Beth Moses, is the 571st person to fly to space and the first woman to fly on board a commercial spaceship.” – Virgin Galactic
** Flight highlights:
** Post-flight interviews with Moses, Chief Pilot Dave Mackay, Co-Pilot Michael “Sooch” Masucci, and Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides:
**Feather reentry mode as seen from a camera on one of the booms:
12:14 pm EST: Max altitude is reportedly 294,000 feet, or 89.6 km, or 55.7 miles. [Update: 295,007 feet, or 89.9 km, or 55.87 miles.]
12:08 pm EST: The SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity is back safely on the ground after a second successful powered flight to the edge of space. Official apogee not yet announced. Unity definitely achieved 50+ miles, which crosses the USAF/NASA definition for the boundary altitude to space.
11:56 am EST: The motor has finished firing and the vehicle reached Mach 3.
11:55 am EST: Unity has been released and its motor is firing.
11:28 am EST: The WK2/SS2 combo should reach the launch altitude in about half an hour and release the SS2 for its powered test flight. There are three crew persons on the SS2 today:
We have a 3rd crew member in the cabin of SpaceShipTwo today, Chief Astronaut Instructor, Beth Moses. She will provide human validation for the data we collect. Including aspects of the customer cabin and spaceflight environment from the perspective of people in the back. pic.twitter.com/WiUxhuf2zv
WhiteKnightTwo VMS Eve and SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity take off from Mojave space port.
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Virgin Galactic plans to fly SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity to the edge of space today. This will be the fifth rocket powered flight and the second to to go to 80+ kilometers in altitude. Currently, the schedule has the WhiteKnightTwo with the SS2 hung beneath it taking off from Mojave Air & Space Port at 8:00 am PST local time (11:00 noon EST).
Blue Origin today successfully flew a New Shepard reusable suborbital rocket vehicle to over 100 km altitude. There were eight research experiments aboard the capsule, which separated from the booster after its engine ended its burn. The booster made a powered landing while the capsule returned via parachutes. The flight took place at Blue’s facility in West Texas.
This was the tenth flight of this second NS vehicle. During the webcast, a video was shown of a third New Shepard being transported from the factory in Washington state to the West Texas facility. The webcast host said this new vehicle will be dedicated to carrying people while the vehicle that flew today will focus on uncrewed missions with scientific and technology R&D payloads.
