1. Monday, Oct. 19, 2020; 7 pm PDT (9 pm CDT, 10 pm EDT: No program today.
2. Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2020; 7 pm PDT (9 pm CDT, 10 pm EDT): We welcome Amanda Dreeschler and Michael Livingston to discuss their Covid lockdown special film, We Can’t Go On. For details see the upcoming show menu and the blog.
3. Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2020: Hotel Mars TBA pre-recorded. See upcoming show menu on the home page for program details.
4. Thursday, Oct. 22, 2020; 7-8:30 pm PDT (9-10:30 pm CDT, 10-11:30 pm EDT): No program today.
5. Friday, Oct.23, 2020; 9:30-11 am PDT (11:30 am-1 pm CDT, 12:30-2 pm EDT): We welcome back Tory Bruno, CEO of United Launch Alliance (ULA).
6. Sunday, Oct.25, 2020; 12-1:30 pm PDT (3-4:30 pm EDT, 2-3:30 pm CDT): Dr. Erik Seedhouse returns to share his latest books and news with us.
In this episode of Down to Earth, NASA Astronaut Andrew Morgan speaks about his spacewalk experiences, and discusses the importance of caring for our home planet. #SpaceStation20th
Kate Rubins is both a scientist and a NASA astronaut. There is no better place to be than the International Space Station for someone with those two occupations. In this video, Kate explains how the space station is the perfect place to conduct research. Free from Earth’s gravity, the orbiting laboratory offers endless opportunities for discovery!
** Expedition 63 Inflight with the Department of Health and Human Services – October 16, 2020 – NASA
Aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 63 Commander Chris Cassidy and Flight Engineer Kate Rubins of NASA discussed research on the orbital outpost during an in-flight event Oct. 16 with representatives from the Department of Health and Human Services and the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition. Cassidy is in the final week of his six-and-a-half month mission on the station while Rubins arrived on the station Oct. 14 for her second six-month mission.
** Expedition 64 Crew Docks to Station to Begin Six-Month Mission – NASA
The Expedition 64 crew has arrived at the station’s Rassvet module docking at 4:48 a.m. EDT inside the Soyuz MS-17 crew ship. More… https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/2…
** Hatches Open, Station Crew Expands to Six – NASA
The space station crew expanded to six people today when the Soyuz crew ship hatch opened at 7:07 a.m. EDT just a few hours after the Expedition 64 crew launched from Kazakhstan. More… https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/2…
To celebrate 20 years of people living on the International Space Station, we feature only ISS astronauts in this special edition of Space Boffins. NASA Astronaut Nicole Stott joins Richard Hollingham and Sue Nelson and we revisit interviews with Chris Hadfield, Cady Coleman, Scott Kelly, Sergei Krikalev, Luca Parmitano and Michael Foale. Conversations range from space walking to space toilets, science to watercolour painting in space and the future of the ISS. What other podcast on the planet gives you seven astronauts in an hour?
A sampling of recent articles, videos, and images dealing with space transport (find previous roundups here):
** A Soyuz launched a new ISS crew early this morning US time and the spacecraft reached the ISS just three hours later. A few hours later the crew, including NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, and cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov (Soyuz commander) and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov (flight engineer), entered the station. They expand the ISS contingent to a total of six.
There were 12 payloads onboard including the Deorbit, Descent, and Landing Sensor Demonstration under the NASA Tipping Point partnership. The lunar landing sensor demo was the first payload to be mounted on the exterior of a New Shepard booster and tested technology designed to achieve high accuracy landing. This will enable long-term lunar exploration, as well as future Mars missions.
“Today’s flight was inspiring. Using New Shepard to simulate landing on the Moon is an exciting precursor to what the Artemis program will bring to America,” said Bob Smith, CEO, Blue Origin. “Thanks to NASA for partnering with us, and congrats to the Blue Origin team on taking another step toward returning to the Moon to stay.”
As indicated by the press release, the company focused on the dozen scientific and technology payloads tested during the flight, particularly the NASA lunar landing systems placed on the outside of the booster. NASA and the other payload owners paid for their rides in a commercial fee-for-service framework. This was not a NASA funded mission. For more info about the payloads, see New Shepard Mission NS-13 Launch Updates – Blue Origin.
This was the first flight of 2020. The 12th New Shepard launch took place last December. There was little info during the webcast regarding an increase in the flight rate or when flights with people on board will happen.
Liftoff is at around 37:16 into this replay of the mission webcast:
This video highlights the NASA funded technology tested during the flight:
On Tuesday, October 13, 2020, Blue Origin launched mission NS-13 to space and back. On this flight, New Shepard flew 12 commercial payloads, including the Deorbit, Descent, and Landing Sensor Demonstration with NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate under a Tipping Point partnership. This was the first payload to fly mounted on the exterior of a New Shepard booster, opening the door to a wide range of future high-altitude sensing, sampling, and exposure payloads.
“A Northrop Grumman Antares rocket, with the company’s Cygnus spacecraft aboard, launches at 9:16 p.m. EDT, Friday, Oct. 2, 2020, from the Mid Atlantic Regional Spaceport’s Pad-0A, at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Northrop Grumman’s 14th contracted cargo resupply mission for NASA to the International Space Station is carrying nearly 8,000 pounds of science and research, crew supplies, and vehicle hardware to the orbital laboratory and its crew. On Monday, Oct. 5, Cygnus was successfully berthed to the space station.” Image Credit: NASA/Terry Zaperach
The Cygnus arrived at the station October 5th and successfully berthed soon after:
Northrop Grumman Corporation’s (NYSE: NOC) Cygnus spacecraft was successfully captured by Commander Chris Cassidy of NASA using the International Space Station’s robotic Canadarm2 at 5:32 a.m. EDT [Oct.5th] after its launch on the company’s Antares rocket on Oct. 2 from Wallops Island.
The S.S. Kalpana Chawla executed a series of thruster burns during its three day journey to the station. Once Cygnus was in close range, crew members grappled the spacecraft with the station’s robotic arm. Cygnus was then guided to its berthing port on the Earth facing side of the station’s Unity module and officially installed to the space station at 8:01 a.m. EDT.
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Cygnus will remain berthed to the International Space Station for approximately three months while more than 8,000 pounds of cargo is unloaded and astronauts reload the vehicle with disposal cargo. Cygnus will then undock and complete its secondary mission of hosting both the Northrop Grumman-built SharkSat payload and the Saffire-V experiment. The SharkSat prototype payload is mounted to Cygnus and will collect performance data of new technologies in low Earth orbit. To learn more about these payloads, visit Northrop Grumman’s website.
“Oct. 5, 2020: International Space Station Configuration. Four spaceships are docked to the space station including Russia’s Progress 75 and 76 resupply ships and Soyuz MS-16 crew ship and Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus-14 resupply ship.” Credits: NASA
** Virgin Orbit update: Here is a video about Virgin Orbit‘s progress towards a second test flight of the LauncherOne:
With ExoTerra’s Solar Electric Propulsion Upper Stage, LauncherOne customers could reach destinations including geostationary orbit, trans-lunar injection orbit, Earth-Moon Lagrange points and low lunar orbit, according to the ExoTerra news release.
“This win allows ExoTerra to begin development of an upper stage that will deliver up to 150 kilograms of payload to the moon,” according to the news release. The upper stage also could transport 180-kilogram payloads to geostationary orbit, the release added.
Rocket Lab belongs to the top private launcher companies globally. With 14 launches and 55 deployed satellites, the company is one of the most vibrant actors in the space launcher market. SpaceWatch.Global Editor-in-Chief Markus Payer got the chance to talk to Peter Beck, Founder and CEO of Rocket Lab, to discuss Rocket Lab’s ambitions to go to Venus, its strategy, vertical integration and fundamental questions of humanity.
** Firefly takes a big step towards first Alpha launch as booster passes final certification test firings:
The Firefly Alpha Flight 1 Stage 1 passed its Final Acceptance Test yesterday! After a final inspection, it will be transported to Vandenberg Air Force Base in preparation for launch. Great work by the over 300+ Firefly team to achieve this important milestone! pic.twitter.com/qTszFOnSnG
Relativity is currently building the first iteration of its Terran 1 rocket. But unlike other rockets, Relativity is using multiple 3D-printers, all developed in-house, to build Terran 1. The rocket is designed to have about 95% of its parts be 3D-printed, which allows Relativity’s rocket to be less complex, and faster to build or modify, than traditional rockets. Additionally, Relativity says its simpler process will eventually be capable of turning raw material into a rocket on the launchpad in under 60 days.
While Relativity had made progress testing its 3D-printing technology, the company’s 120,000 square foot headquarters will serve as the foundation for its manufacturing and launch business. Relativity is now on its third generation of 3D-printers, capable of manufacturing a single piece of metal up to 32 feet tall – as high as the new ceiling allows.
The first launch is targeted for late 2021. They are aiming for a price of $12M per flight.
** China launches another Gaofen observation satellite on a Long March-3B rocket. Liftoff was from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China:
** A review of commercial launch in China: The English language podcast Dongfang Hour focuses on Chinese aerospace and technology. Here is a two-part program about the development and status of commercial launch industry in China:
**** China’s Long March to Commercial Launch
This week, we discussed the history of China’s commercial launch industry, and commercial space industry more generally. This included:
00:00 – Introduction 04:47 – The 1980s and the Origins of Chinese Commercial Launch 13:19 – From Encouraging Growth experience to a shift after multiple failures by Chinese launch vehicles: the 1990s 21:17 – Post-2000 China in the ITAR Export Control Environment 36:14 – Residual Deals between China and Western Countries: ITAR-Free Products and Services 39:38 – Digging Into China’s Family of Long March Rockets 43:06 – The future of Chinese commercial launch, including discussion on the plethora of commercial companies entering the market
**** What’s the Situation with Chinese Private Launch Startups ?
Last time we left off at the dawn of China’s private launch era. Having discussed the major state-owned companies and their respective rockets, we will now shift our attention to the plethora of privately-owned launch companies entering the Chinese market today. On today’s episode, we will discuss: Who are China’s private launcher companies, and what type of rockets are they building? What is the relationship between state-owned and privately-owned launcher companies in China? Who do the private launcher companies hope to sell their services to? What are some of the similarities and differences between Chinese private launcher companies and their western counterparts? The episode timestamps can be found below:
00:53 – Introduction 03:01 – Historical perspective 04:31 – Why has China allowed private companies to enter the launch industry? 09:51 – Two generations of private launch companies 17:03 – The founding teams 22:34 – Strong ties with provincial governments 25:00 – Propulsion technology and reusability 34:56 – Comparing Private and state-owned launch vehicles 37:55 – Is there enough market demand to sustain so many launch companies? 45:29 – Implication of Chinese tech companies in space
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):
LAN Tianyi is the CEO of Ultimate Blue Nebula and SpaceKey, two Beijing-based firms focusing on satellite/space industry consulting & research. Having spent several years working inside China’s state-owned space apparatus (largely at CAST and its subsidiaries), Tianyi branched off on his own in 2014, and has since been consulting with many of China’s most successful and dynamic commercial space companies. Today, in addition to his two companies, Tianyi is actively involved in the China Satellite Conference, an annual event in Beijing, as well as Satellite World, a Chinese satellite news publication. On today’s episode, we discuss communications constellations. This year has seen a significant acceleration in the rollout of western low Earth orbit (LEO) communications constellations, with the most obvious example being Starlink. Less publicly, Chinese constellation projects have made steady progress throughout the year, and while we are unlikely to see any Chinese constellation with hundreds of satellites in orbit by year-end, there is much to discuss about these projects.
We could realistically see people starting to live and work on the Moon in the next decade — and how we do it matters, says space policy researcher Jessy Kate Schingler. In this fascinating talk, she discusses the critical issues that arise when we consider civilization in outer space — such as governance, property rights and resource management — and shows how the Moon can be a template for solving our biggest challenges here on Earth.
Dr. Moriba Jah, professor at the University of Texas at Austin, past navigator for many missions to Mars, and space situational awareness expert returns to the Cold Star Project. With host Jason Kanigan, Dr. Jah digs deeper into the challenges of space object identification, tracking and orbital prediction, including: – Why is it a problem that satellite orbit pathing predictions assume a spheroid shape? What issues does this create? – What can we do to improve the predictive ability of satellite pathing calculations? Why do we need to improve this accuracy–what’s the rush, what’s driving this need? …
** 85- The Need to Defend Space, Operating from a Position of Strength and the Tyranny of Volume – Constellations Podcast – YouTube
Constellations is grateful that Major General John E. Shaw took the time recently to speak about Space Domain Awareness (SDA) and the Battlespace on the podcast. Listen to Major General Shaw discuss the purpose of the U.S. Space Force and why it was stood up last year (hint… you can’t do modern warfare today without space capabilities). Major General Shaw talks about the need to be able to defend capabilities in space and to prepare for a war that extends into space. Space never sleeps and with the Major General overseeing operations around the world, he has been staying busy ensuring space capabilities are where they are needed at all times. Learn about the value of working hand in hand with allies and commercial partners and how Major General Shaw envisions leveraging commercial capabilities for global space operations.
** The Space Show – Sunday – Oct.11.2020 – An open lines discussion among David and callers touched on a wide array of news topics, space policy issues, etc.
6. Sunday, Oct.18, 2020; 12-1:30 pm PDT (3-4:30 pm EDT, 2-3:30 pm CDT): We welcome Dr. Jay Pasachoff who is the chair of the Astronomy Department at Williams College.
Some recent shows:
** Sunday – Oct.11.2020 – An open lines discussion among David and callers touched on a wide array of news topics, space policy issues, etc.
** Friday – Oct.9, 2020 – Dr. Geoffrey Landis and David had a “Mars, lunar and commercial exploration discussion covering a wide range of topics including both government and private missions”.
