This week’s episode of NASA’s Space to Ground reports on activities related to the International Space Station:
** NASA Astronauts Spacewalk Outside the International Space Station on Oct. 6, 2019
** Living and Working: Valuable Spaceflight Data Collaboration Tool
The International Space Station is the largest human-made structure in low Earth orbit (LEO) and serves as a space environment research laboratory where astronauts perform experiments in several unique fields including physics, astronomy, and biology. NASA’s Genelab collects valuable spaceflight experiment data for researchers and scientists to learn from this unique environment. GeneLab is an interactive, open-access resource where scientists can upload, download, store, search, share, transfer, and analyze omics data from spaceflight and corresponding analogue experiments. The biological studies conducted on the International Space Station generate critical data that scientists use to determine how terrestrial biology changes as a result of spaceflight.
** Meet Former NASA Astronaut Kathy Sullivan: the First American Woman to Walk in Space
35 years ago, on October 11, 1984, NASA astronaut Kathy Sullivan became the first American woman to walk in space. We video chatted with Kathy to ask her about this historic feat as well as her thoughts on the upcoming all-female spacewalk scheduled to take place October 21, 2019, with NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir.
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):
Boeing will invest $20 million in Virgin Galactic, a vertically integrated human spaceflight company. The companies will work together to broaden commercial space access and transform global travel technologies.
“Boeing’s strategic investment facilitates our effort to drive the commercialization of space and broaden consumer access to safe, efficient, and environmentally responsible new forms of transportation,” said Brian Schettler, senior managing director of Boeing HorizonX Ventures. “Our work with Virgin Galactic and others will help unlock the future of space travel and high-speed mobility.”
To date, Virgin Galactic has invested more than $1 billion of capital to build reusable, human spaceflight systems designed to enable significantly more people to experience and utilize space. In July, the company announced its intent to become a publicly-listed entity via a business combination with Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp. The Boeing investment will be in return for new shares in Virgin Galactic and is therefore contingent on the closing of that transaction, which is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2019, and any such investment will be in the post-business combination company.
Virgin Galactic has announced a new contract with the Italian Air Force for a research flight on the company’s SpaceShipTwo system during which Italian researchers will actively conduct experiments while they are in space.
The contract marks the first time a government department has funded a human-tended research flight on a commercial space vehicle. The mission, set to take place as early as 2020, will fly three Italian payload specialists and a rack of research payloads. The Italian Air Force payload specialists and Virgin Galactic’s payload team are working with the Italian National Research Centre (CNR) on the design of the experimental payloads. … Human-tended research onboard SpaceShipTwo allows a dynamic approach to space-based science with researchers able to engage actively with their experiments, responding to developments in real time, optimizing the effectiveness of the research. Experimentation with humans-in-the-loop may also improve reliability by removing the unneeded complexity of building automation in. Virgin Galactic will be able to provide these benefits to the research community at levels of repeatability, affordability and quality of microgravity which have been historically unavailable in human spaceflight.
This week, the Australian Financial Review quoted Virgin Galactic’s commercial director, Stephen Attenborough, as saying that customer flights would begin in 2020, and that the price tag would rise once the company starts flying the more than 600 people currently on its reservation list.
Attenborough said he hoped the price would eventually come down, as the frequency of flights goes from once or twice a month to a few times a week.
Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith wouldn’t give the exact ticket price but just gave a range:
“Any new technology is never cheap, whether you’re talking about the first IBM computers or what we actually see today,” Smith said. “But it’ll be actually in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for people to go, initially.”
Smith added that over time, “we’re going to get this down to the point where middle-class people” can afford a ticket to space.
** China maintains a high mission rate with the launch of a Long March 4C with a remote sensing satellite:
The mission is named ‘As The Crow Flies’ in a nod to Astro Digital’s Corvus Platform, which provides flexible and cost-effective solutions across a wide range of applications and mission profiles on bus variants ranging from 6U and 16U CubeSats to ESPA Class. Corvus is also a widely-distributed genus of birds which includes crows.
** Relativity Space raises big money for building small rockets with big 3D printers:
Relativity Space, the company building the world’s first autonomous rocket factory and launch services for satellites, today announced that it has closed a $140 million Series C funding round led by Bond and Tribe Capital.
With this $140 million funding round, Relativity is fully funded to become the first company in the world to launch an entirely 3D printed rocket to orbit and enter commercial service in early 2021. The Series C round includes participation by new investors Lee Fixel, Michael Ovitz, Spencer Rascoff, Republic Labs, and Jared Leto, with participation from current investors Playground Global, Y Combinator, Social Capital, and Mark Cuban.
“Relativity was founded with the long term vision of 3D printing the first rocket made on Mars and expanding the possibilities for human experience in our lifetime. With the close of our Series C funding, we are now one step closer to that vision by being fully funded to launch Terran 1 to orbit as the world’s first entirely 3D printed rocket,” said Tim Ellis, Cofounder and CEO of Relativity Space. “Bond and Tribe are unrivaled partners in leading this funding round, and we are excited to build this important future together with our entire team.”
**LAUNCHER is progressing on 3D printing of their engine designs:
More 💎💎💎🚀. To further reduce the cost of 3D printing our highest performance copper alloy engines – we more than doubled the powder layer thickness and as a result sped up the 3D printing time by more than 2X. Made possible by AMCM and @3t_am_ltd on an @EOSGmbH 3D printer. pic.twitter.com/rTOdKmQj2B
**Firefly test fires four Reaver engines altogether in the configuration used on the Alpha rocket first stage:
The Firefly team achieved a huge milestone this week: Successful start and stop of Quad Reavers on Test Stand 1! Now we step into longer duration testing and progress towards Integrated Stage 1 testing. #Firefly#Reavers#MakingSpaceForEveryonepic.twitter.com/C2wQk80WUa
** Human Spaceflight panel at the 2019 National Academy of Engineering Annual Meeting. Panelists included former NASA astronaut Robert Crippen, former NASA Administrator and astronaut Charles Bolden, former NASA astronauts Lt. Gen. Tom Stafford (USAF, Ret.) , SpaceX VP Hans Koenigsmann, and Boeing (and former NASA) astronaut Chris Ferguson.
The tether will likely be constructed of either carbon nanotubes (CNT) or sheets of single-crystal graphene (SCG). Production of these materials has advanced in recent years, with both CNTs and SCGs reaching lengths of 50 cm in the laboratory. The specific strength (tensile strength divided by density) of either material is already sufficient for space elevator needs. Concepts are now being developed for mass production of both of these materials. The mass of the tether will vary depending on its taper (cross sectional area as a function of length), the tether material and construction. Current estimates are around 1000 MT for the tether and 400 MT for the Apex Anchor.
The construction of the new Starship launch and landing facility at Pad 39A is in full swing as heavy equipment lays the foundations at the iconic Kennedy Space Center pad complex. Built alongside the 39A ramp, a new launch mount will be installed for what will be the maiden launch of SpaceX’s Starship Mk2 prototype rocket. The facility also includes a landing pad that will be eventually used for returning vehicles.
*** Hardware detail work makes Starship & Super Heavy seem real rather than just research projects:
For the first several years of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy booster recovery operations, SpaceX built grid fins – used for maneuvering the rockets at high speeds – out of aluminum. With Falcon 9 Block 5, aluminum grid fins were phased out entirely in favor of larger titanium fins, necessitated by exceptionally high-speed reentries that nearly melted through the aluminum fins on several occasions. Now, SpaceX wants to move from titanium to steel fins for its next-generation Starship launch vehicle.
Noted multiple times over the years (and in recent days) by both SpaceX and CEO Elon Musk, an extremely robust and reliable method of orbital refueling is essential to the success of Starship’s current designed – perhaps more so than any other single aspect of the next-generation launch vehicle. Although Starship-Super Heavy will likely offer respectable performance in single-launch mode, the implicit need to recover and reuse both booster and spacecraft takes a big chunk out of the rocket’s potential capabilities.
*** Time Dodd, the Everyday Astronaut, talked with Elon Musk after his Starship presentation in Boca Chica Beach on Sept. 28th:
Despite all of the technical work ahead, Musk said he expected both the rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft for the first crewed mission to arrive in Florida at the company’s launch facilities within about 10 weeks. Within that time frame, he said testing on hardware should also be completed.
If this is the case, the ball would move to NASA’s court to review all of the company’s paperwork and procedures and sign off on a crewed mission. One source said it was possible this could be done in time to support a flight early in the spring of 2020—but no one is offering launch guarantees at this point.
A decision to extend the duration of the Crew Dragon test flight with Behnken and Hurley, designated Demo-2, is one of several options under consideration to ensure the space station remains staffed with U.S. astronauts after NASA’s agreement to procure seats on Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft expires next year.
In an interview with CNN last week, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said the agency is also looking at purchasing more Soyuz seats from Roscosmos, the Russian space agency.
The final round-trip Soyuz seat procured by NASA will launch in March 2020 on the Soyuz MS-16 spacecraft, a mission also designated Soyuz 62S in the space station’s sequence of visiting vehicles. The crew member flying in that seat has not been announced, but a U.S. astronaut and a Japanese astronaut have been training to potentially fly on a Soyuz mission in early 2020.
As part of continued preparations ahead of SpaceX’s Demonstration-2 mission (DM-2) that will debut Crew Dragon’s ability to support astronaut flight, SpaceX and NASA have successfully tested crew emergency egress (escape) systems at SpaceX’s primary crew launch facilities located at Launch Complex 39-A (LC-39A) at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The successful verification tests have proven that SpaceX is ready to support crewed launches and preserve human life with effective escape methods, including a zipline mounted basket system that will whisk astronauts away from Crew Dragon and Falcon 9 in the event of a launch pad anomaly.
*** Intuitive Machines to launch Nova-C lunar lander on Falcon 9:
Houston-based Intuitive Machines selected SpaceX to launch its lunar lander, Nova-C, to the Moon in 2021 on a Falcon 9 rocket.
“Intuitive Machines is thrilled to sign with SpaceX to take Nova-C on its first mission to the moon,” said Intuitive Machines President and CEO, Steve Altemus. “SpaceX’s ability to make low-cost quality lunar transport is paramount to completing NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) contract and Intuitive Machines becoming the first commercial company to land on the Moon.”
A sampling of recent articles, press releases, etc. related to student and amateur CubeSat / SmallSat projects and programs (find previous smallsat roundups here):
** University of Tokyo’s AQT-D: AQUA Thruster-Demonstrator was delivered to the ISS in the HTV-8 cargo module launched by a H-IIB rocket on Sept.24th. The student built CubeSat will be deployed from the station later this year. The goal is to demonstrate the AQUARIUS (AQUA ResIstojet propUlsion System) water micro-propulsion system, which is suitable for smallsats.