Here is the latest episode in NASA’s Space to Ground weekly report on activities related to the International Space Station:
** Expedition 64 Change of Command – April 15, 2021 – NASA Video
Command of the International Space Station was passed from Russian cosmonaut Sergey Ryzhikov of Roscosmos to Houston native and NASA astronaut Shannon Walker during a ceremony on the orbital outpost on April 15. Ryzhikov is returning to Earth April 17 with Expedition 64 crewmates Sergey Kud-Sverchkov of Roscosmos and Kate Rubins of NASA in the Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft for a landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan to complete a journey of 185 days in space. Walker remains on the station as commander of Expedition 65 with cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Oleg Novitskiy of Roscosmos, NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hei, Mike Hopkins and Victor Glover and Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
Shane Kimbrough, Megan McArthur, Aki Hoshide, and Thomas Pesquet are about to fly NASA’s SpaceX Crew-2 mission to the International Space Station. Before their launch, we brought them in the studio to test what they know about each other – and what they think they know about each other — as they look forward to going to space together for six months.
** Crew-2 Flight Readiness Review Media Teleconference – NASA Video
** Christine Kretz, International Space Station U.S. National Laboratory – NASA Video
Sessions from NASA History Symposium – NASA and the Rise of Commercial Space From activities in low-Earth orbit to the Artemis program, the commercial space industry is beginning to take on an increased role as innovator in both space access, commerce, and exploration. This growth of commercial space over the past decades offers the potential for a new paradigm for space exploration—one in which industry transitioned from supplier to partner. Still, many questions remain spanning from the most seemingly consequential “How will humanity explore the Moon and Mars?” to the more basic, “What is Commercial Space?” This virtually hosted symposium explores this transformation and examines the historical context for answering these questions.
Can you imagine what the Earth looks like from 250 miles up? Well, now you don’t have to! International Space Station astronauts wearing small high-definition video cameras during recent spacewalks have delivered the evidence, and it’s gorgeous—have a look for yourself.
1. Monday, Apr. 12, 2021; 7 pm PDT (9 pm CDT, 10 pm EDT: No program today.
2. Tuesday, Apr. 13, 2021; 7 pm PDT (9 pm CDT, 10 pm EDT): We welcome Dr. Martin Elvis of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory back to the program.
3. Wednesday, Apr. 14, 2021: Hotel Mars TBA pre-recorded. See upcoming show menu on the home page for program details.
4. Thursday, Apr. 15, 2021; 7-8:30 pm PDT (9-10:30 pm CDT, 10-11:30 pm EDT): No program today.
Spacecraft Nation is envisioned as a $500 million/year, 5 year national investment program, operating in all 50 states, with the goal of upgrading America’s technical skills and technical toolkits to solve the many multidisciplinary problems inherent in space development and apply those skills to terrestrial and space challenges. Space is a fascinating and unforgiving environment with vast resources that will challenge, inspire, and train to excellence the next generation of scientists, engineers, technologists and entrepreneurs in high-tech tools, problem solving, teamwork and innovation.
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):
On April 8, 2021, NSS conducted a space forum with Scott Pace, hosted by Greg Autry.
As the Executive Secretary of the National Space Council, Scott Pace provided the day-to-day leadership and coordinated issues across the many departments and agencies that were involved in space to ensure the president’s agenda was enacted. With experience at NASA, the U.S. Department of Commerce and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Dr. Pace has been involved in the decisions that have shaped the US space program. Along with his professional experience, Dr. Pace’s early membership in the L5 Society and the OASIS chapter of NSS in Los Angeles, plus chairing the NSS policy committee after the L5/NSI merger helped shape and inform his time on the National Space Council.
Host Greg Autry, NSS Board of Directors, engaged in a dialog with Dr. Pace on a range of topics including his experiences on the Council, at NASA, space activism, the current state of the space program and his role as the Director of the Space Policy Institute. …
** Chinese Space from a US Perspective (feat. Ian Christensen & Rob Ronci) – – Dongfang Hour – YouTube
1) Information asymmetry…. 2) Competition is not the same in all sectors. … 3) There is willingness, and indeed encouragement, by US companies to compete with Chinese companies, but under well-defined terms. …
“How can the space community learn from important precedents such as the ISS, support continued collaboration and development of shared norms, and ensure that “diversity” results in a rich plurality of flourishing lunar activities. This salon will inform and be informed by our 2021 themes “Peaceful Moon” and “Access.”
** Andrew Aldrin – What Direction Does The Space Economy Need To Move In? – Cold Star Project S03E16 – Cold Star Technologies – YouTube
Dr. Andrew Aldrin is back on the Cold Star Project and this time we’re diving into the funding sources and direction for the space economy. What needs to happen and what should we be looking at? Does the Silicon Valley investment model fail in the space industry? Are there obvious next steps, or do we need to continue to guess what’s on the horizon? Andy shares his valuable experience and perspective in this open discussion with Cold Star Project host Jason Kanigan. We also touch on the ISU Center for Space Entrepreneurship’s Graduate Certificate Commercial Space Program. Info on the program: https://www.fit.edu/isucse/
Elina Morozova in conversation with Dr Olga Volynskaya, an independent Russian space law and policy expert with a very unique background, holder of industry awards and commendations, corresponding member of the Russian Tsiolkovsky Academy of Cosmonautics, an individual member of the International Institute of Space Law.
Olga Volynskaya has spent the last 15 years working in the field of international and Russian space law and the development of space policy and legislation. Having gained practical experience and industry knowledge in Roscosmos and its subordinate organizations, she subsequently moved to the Legal Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. Olga’s track record includes a few successfully prepared sessions of the COPUOS Legal Subcommittee, at which she participated as part of the Russian delegation and coordinated the most topical issues on the agenda. Since the end of 2020, Olga has been engaged in academic research and international projects on a freelance expert basis. …
Advances in space technologies were largely invisible to the public equity markets until July 2019, when Virgin Galactic announced its intent to go public through a merger with Social Capital Hedosophia, a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC). Since then, seven space-related technology companies have announced SPAC transactions to take them public in 2021 (with more on the way). Does this represent a tipping point for the new space economy, or is this trend a flash in the pan?
In “SPACs in Space: A New Frontier for Investment,” thought-leading analysts, investors, and space companies will provide a unique perspective. Rather than focusing on the SPAC vehicle itself, this event will explore the trends and developments in the space technology ecosystem that have “suddenly” made space an investable ecosystem — and the longer-term implications for a range of interested stakeholders.
Expert Insights: Chris Quilty, Partner, Quilty Analytics Guillermo Söhnlein, Advisor, New Vista Acquisition Corp.
Host and Moderator: Jeff Foust, Senior Staff Writer, SpaceNews Jason Rainbow, Senior Staff Writer, SpaceNews
Speakers: Abel Avellan, Chairman and CEO, AST & Science Chris Kemp, CEO, Astra Brian O’Toole, CEO, BlackSky Peter Beck, CEO, Rocket Lab Peter Platzer, CEO, Spire Tess Hatch, Partner, Bessemer Venture Partners
Breaking the silos that divide the global space community Today, there are numerous emerging challenges in space that raise a wide spectrum of threats, from undermining the long-term sustainability of human space activities to causing an escalation among nuclear powers. As such, world leaders, industry experts, academia and even celebrities are all adding their voices to the discussions on space safety and security. However, many of the different space communities do not often speak beyond their own niches. Indeed, even at the UN, safety and security issues are clearly demarcated, with unique competencies assigned to specific bodies. Yet as the world has seen over the last few years, space activities and the challenges they cut across many boundaries. Solving them will require cooperation and coordination among all the different space communities and beyond.
Join the Space Court Foundation for a detailed discussion on the impact of silos among the space community and how the disparate communities might come together to develop a responsive governance framework for space.
Moderator: Theresa Hitchens | Breaking Defense Experts: Andre Rypl | Brazilian Mission to the UN Organizations in Vienna Dr. Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan | Observer Research Foundation Dr. Peter Martinez | Secure World Foundation Mari Eldholm | Norsk Industriforum for Romvirksomhet (Norwegian Industrial Forum for Space Activities, NIFRO) Daniel Porras | Secure World Foundation – UNIDIR
This image shows an artist’s impression of winds in Jupiter’s stratosphere near the planet’s south pole, with the blue lines representing wind speeds. These lines are superimposed on a real image of Jupiter, taken by the JunoCam imager aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft. Jupiter’s famous bands of clouds are located in the lower atmosphere, where winds have previously been measured. But tracking winds right above this atmospheric layer, in the stratosphere, is much harder since no clouds exist there. By analysing the aftermath of a comet collision from the 1990s and using the ALMA telescope, in which ESO is a partner, researchers have been able to reveal incredibly powerful stratospheric winds, with speeds of up to 1450 kilometres an hour, near Jupiter’s poles.
The Soyuz spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov of the Russian space agency Roscosmos docked to the International Space Station at 7:05 a.m. EDT while both spacecraft were flying about 262 miles above northern China.
** NASA Television Video File – Expedition 65 Docking/Hatch Open and Welcome Ceremony – April 9, 2021 – NASA Video
Expedition 65 Soyuz Commander Oleg Novitskiy of Roscosmos and Flight Engineers Pyotr Dubrov of Roscosmos and Mark Vande Hei of NASA arrived at the International Space Station April 9, docking their spacecraft to the Rassvet module on the Russian segment of the complex. They completed the three-hour journey after launching earlier in the day in their Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. A few hours after docking, Novitskiy, Dubrov and Vande Hei opened hatches between the two spacecraft and were greeted by station Commander Sergey Ryzhikov and Flight Engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchkov of Roscosmos and Flight Engineers Kate Rubins, Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker of NASA and Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
** Astronaut Moments: Mark Vande Hei, Living and Working in Space – NASA Johnson
Mark Vande Hei launched to the International Space Station for the second time on April 9 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The launch occurs just three days before the 60th anniversary of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s launch to become the first human in space and the 40th anniversary of the first launch of NASA’s space shuttle. As members of the Expedition 64/65 crew, Vande Hei and his two Russian crewmates Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov are on deck to work on hundreds of experiments in biology, biotechnology, physical science, and Earth science. During his previous spaceflight, he accumulated 168 days in space and spent 26 hours and 42 minutes suited up outside of the space station over the course of four spacewalks.
** Expedition 64 Inflight with Rice Space Institute – April 8, 2021 – NASA Video
Aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 64 Flight Engineers Kate Rubins and Mike Hopkins of NASA discussed life and research on board the orbital laboratory during an in-flight educational event April 8 with students from the Rice University Space Institute in Houston. Rubins is in the final week of her six-month mission on the station before she returns to Earth on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, while Hopkins is preparing to return to Earth later this month on the SpaceX Crew Dragon vehicle Resilience.
** Expedition 64 Inflight Houston Sports Authority – April 7, 2021 – NASA Video
Aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 64 Flight Engineers Kate Rubins and Shannon Walker of NASA discussed life and research aboard the orbital laboratory during an in-flight event with the Houston Sports Authority April 7 to mark the World Transplant Games, a global endeavor to highlight transplant technology. Rubins is in the final week of her six-month mission on the station before she returns to Earth on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, while Walker is set to assume command of the complex next week for two weeks before she return to Earth later this month on the SpaceX Crew Dragon vehicle Resilience.
** NLRA 2021-6: In-Space Production Applications: Tissue Engineering and Biomanufacturing – ISS National Lab
On April 8, 2021, the ISS National Lab held a webinar to provide further background on NLRA 2021-6 and to answer any questions.
A sampling of recent articles, videos, and images dealing with space transport (find previous roundups here):
** Apr.8: The Starship prototype SN15 moved to launch site. The vehicle has many upgrades according to Elon Musk. A test flight could happen within a week or two. I certainly hope it achieves the first successful landing of a Starship (without a post touchdown explosion) after rising to high-altitude (~10km).
** Apr.7: Falcon 9 puts another batch of 60 Starlinks into orbit. This is the tenth SpaceX Falcon 9 mission in 2021. The total number of Starlink satellites in orbit is increased to 1,378. The first stage booster made its 7th successful landing. And it makes for the 79th booster landing to date. Both fairing halves were also previously flown.
Falcon 9’s first stage has landed on the Of Course I Still Love You droneship pic.twitter.com/9a7LUPYZue
** Mar.30: Starship SN11 lifted off in dense fog, flew to 10 km, descended back into fog bank, and then exploded just before landing. The fog prevented the usual eruption of replays of a Starship explosion across the Web but also kept anyone from seeing exactly what happened. The SpaceX website offered this info:
On Tuesday, March 30, SpaceX launched its fourth high-altitude flight test of Starship from Starbase in Texas. Similar to previous high-altitude flight tests, Starship Serial Number 11 (SN11) was powered through ascent by three Raptor engines, each shutting down in sequence prior to the vehicle reaching apogee – approximately 10 km in altitude. SN11 performed a propellant transition to the internal header tanks, which hold landing propellant, before reorienting itself for reentry and a controlled aerodynamic descent.
Shortly after the landing burn started, SN11 experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly. Teams will continue to review data and work toward our next flight test.
On Twitter, Elon initially provided some hints of what happened:
Looks like engine 2 had issues on ascent & didn’t reach operating chamber pressure during landing burn, but, in theory, it wasn’t needed.
Something significant happened shortly after landing burn start. Should know what it was once we can examine the bits later today.
For the Falcon 9, SpaceX has always emphasized that the nine engines on the first stage are shielded from one another such that even a catastrophic failure of one will not affect the others and prevent destruction of the rocket. There have in fact been a couple of in-flight engine failures and the boosters continue to fly nonetheless. (The most recent case occurred in February and did prevent the booster from successfully landing.) The Raptors do not appear to be shielded in the prototypes flow so far and perhaps this “hard start”, i.e. engine explosion, was so violent that no practical shielding could have prevented the obliteration of the vehicle anyway.
Elon is already looking ahead to the next upgrades:
Next major technology rev is at SN20. Those ships will be orbit-capable with heat shield & stage separation system. Ascent success probability is high.
However, SN20+ vehicles will probably need many flight attempts to survive Mach 25 entry heating & land intact.
** Reusable orbital launch systems are now in development by several companies around the world. As demonstrated by the successful reuse of the Falcon 9 first stages, reusability is key to lowering launch prices significantly and competing successfully with SpaceX.
Some of the companies are even aiming to recover and reuse not only the first stage of their two stage rockets but the second stage as well. There is essentially a kilogram loss in payload mass for every kilogram added to enable the return and recovery of a second stage. SpaceX decided to pursue development of full reusability with the Starship system rather than reduce the F9’s payload capability with a reusable upper stage. As a rocket scales up in size, the impact on the total payload from reusability diminishes. Attaining full reusability with a small or a mid-range launch system and still offering a commercially viable payload capability is quite a challenge. The companies aiming for full reusability are currently keeping their design plans secret.
Here is a list of several companies aiming for reusable launchers:
Electron – Parachute return and retrieval of the Electron’s first stage booster from the ocean was demonstrated last November. A description of the Electron’s reuse strategy: How to bring a rocket back from space | Rocket Lab. “The stage held up remarkably well – not bad after experiencing the trip to space and back in just 13 minutes. The carbon composite structure was completely intact.” This stage is not to be reused. After one more ocean recovery, the company plans this year to snag a booster before it touches the ocean by snagging its parachute with a helicopter. This booster would then be a candidate for reuse.
Neutron – “features a reusable first stage designed to land on an ocean platform, enabling a high launch cadence and decreased launch costs for customers.” See previous roundup for the Neutron announcement.
Relativity Space – Terran R medium lift rocket would be fully reusable. (The company’s first rocket, the small-lift Terran 1, will have no reusable stages.)
Prime – The two stage Prime smallsat launcher will have a reusable first stage booster. “The Prime rocket was designed to be re-usable, incorporating a novel recovery and reusability system.”
MIURA 1 – reusable suborbital rocket currently in development
MIURA 5 – orbital rocket (300-500 kg to LEO) with reusable first stage.
Stoke Space – Stock claims first and second stage reusability with “zero refurbishment with 24-hour turnaround“. No public info on the design of the second stage.
SpaceX learned to do vertical landing with test hops of the Grasshopper demonstrator at their McGregor, Texas facility and by setting stages down softly onto the ocean surface on Falcon 9 missions.
Blue Origin intends to land the first stage of its New Glenn rocket on a ship at sea. Blue recently announced that the first New Glenn flight would not happen before the end of 2022. I’m wondering, though, if in the meantime they will do some short hops of a first stage prototype like the Grasshopper. The ship will be sailing to provide what Blue claims will be more stable pad than the SpaceX stationary platforms. However, landing on a moving target still looks like a tough challenge, especially without any practice even with landing on solid ground.
SS Imagine will commence ground testing, with glide flights this summer
Breakthrough livery design allows Imagine to mirror the surrounding environment as it moves from Earth to Space
Manufacturing ramps up on next SpaceShip III in the fleet, VSS Inspire
Virgin Galactic today unveiled the Company’s first Spaceship III in its growing fleet, VSS Imagine. The spaceship showcases Virgin Galactic’s innovation in design and astronaut experience. Imagine also demonstrates progress toward efficient design and production, as Virgin Galactic works to scale the business for the long-term. VSS Imagine will commence ground testing, with glide flights planned for this summer from Spaceport America in New Mexico.
The breakthrough livery design, finished entirely with a mirror-like material, reflects the surrounding environment, constantly changing color and appearance as it travels from earth to sky to space. Along with providing thermal protection, this dynamic material is naturally appealing to the human eye, reflecting our inherent human fascination with space and the transformative experience of spaceflight.
Leveraging a modular design, the SpaceShip III class of vehicles are built to enable improved performance in terms of maintenance access and flight rate. This third generation of spaceship will lay the foundation for the design and manufacture of future vehicles.
As VSS Imagine begins ground testing, manufacturing will progress on VSS Inspire, the second SpaceShip III vehicle within the Virgin Galactic fleet. The introduction of the Spaceship III class of vehicles is an important milestone in Virgin Galactic’s multi-year effort that targets flying 400 flights per year, per spaceport.
Arianespace has launched 146 OneWeb satellites to date. Soyuz successfully orbited the initial six from French Guiana during February 2019. In February and March 2020, Arianespace and its Starsem affiliate successfully launched 68 OneWeb satellites from Baikonur Cosmodrome, as well as an additional batch of 36 satellites from the Vostochny Cosmodrome during December 2020.
Pursuant to an amended launch contract with OneWeb, Arianespace will perform 14 more Soyuz launches through 2021 and 2022. These launches will enable OneWeb to complete the deployment of its full global constellation of low Earth orbit satellites by the end of 2022.
Internet services above 50 degrees north latitude should be available by the end of this year.
