Rockets

Space transport roundup – June.11.2019

A sampling of recent articles, videos, and images dealing with space transport:

[ Update June.12.2019: The launch and deployment of the three RadarSat Constellation spacecraft were successful. Also, the booster landed safely back at Vandenberg AFB, which was fogged in during both the launch and landing.

https://youtu.be/SuWciGjQ4e8

]

** SpaceX Falcon 9 to launch with 3 RadarSat Constellation spacecraft on Wednesday during the window 7:17-7:30 am PDT (10:17-10:30 am EDT; 1417-1430 GMT) from Vandenberg AFB in California. The SpaceX webcast will start about 15 minutes before liftoff. Info on the mission is provide by the SpaceX RadarSat launch press kit.

More below in the SpaceX section.

** Relativity Space will 3D print and assemble rockets at Mississippi factory:

Via MDA:

Aerospace company Relativity is expanding its rocket component production and rocket engine testing operations at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Hancock County. The project is a $59-million corporate investment and will create 190 jobs, increasing employment at Relativity’s Stennis Space Center site to 200 workers.

…

With this expansion, Relativity is increasing infrastructure to more than 350,000 square feet of operations, production, testing and launch facilities. In the past year, the company has increased its employment from 14 to 90 workers. Relativity became the first venture-backed company to secure a launch site Right of Entry at Cape Canaveral Launch Complex-16 from the U.S. Air Force and has a 20-year exclusive-use Commercial Space Launch Act agreement at Stennis Space Center’s E4 test complex, as well as membership on the National Space Council advising the White House.

Relativity will activate its manufacturing equipment in July and plans to complete development of the world’s first 3D-printed rocket, Terran 1, in 2020. The company is on track to conduct its first orbital test launch at the end of 2020 and enter commercial service in 2021. 

** The SpaceShipCompany is building more SpaceShipTwo rocketplanes in Mojave, California for Virgin Galactic:

** An Embry-Riddle student team fires a liquid-fueled rocket engine, which they designed and built:

** The Stanford Student Space Initiative (SSI) also fires a liquid fueled engine that they designed and built:

** Equatorial Space Industries is a Singapore-based rocket start-up that’s developing the Volans Block 1 vehicle, powered by a hybrid motor (Paraffin/LOX), for smallsat launch services.

Volans Block 1 Rocket“Named after southern sky’s constellation representing a flying fish, Volans
is a two-stage, hybrid-propelled launch vehicle capable of delivering
20-70kg of payload to a wide range of orbits.”

The company had a successful fund-raising round earlier this year: Equatorial Space Industries Secures Angel Funding – SpaceWatch.Global. The unspecified amount of money will

… support development of ESI’s upcoming suborbital SHARP (Suborbital Hybrid Ascent and Recovery Program) vehicle slated to fly in early 2020. The vehicle’s engine will use liquid Nitrous Oxide as compared Liquid Oxygen used in the previous v.2.2 Engine ground prototype, and will be capable of in-flight restartability.

The location of the test flight, as well as cooperation and arrangements with local suppliers and authorities, will be revealed in the next few months. ESI’s Volans microlauncher is expected to conduct its first test flight in 2021 from a yet-to-be determined location in the APAC region.

** Misc:

** SpaceX:

*** Falcon 9 booster will attempt to land back at Vandenberg after liftoff with the 3 RadarSat Constellation spacecraft:

The booster, which will be on its second flight, was test fired on the VAFB pad last Saturday: SpaceX static fires Falcon 9 for West Coast pad’s second booster landing ever – Teslarati

*** SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch of USAF STP-2 mission now set for the evening of June 24th from Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center sometime between 11:30 pm-3:30 am EDT (0330-0730 GMT on 25th). This will be the 3rd launch of the FH and will carry 24 different satellites, most of which were funded by the USAF but also includes satellites from NASA, NOAA, and several universities.

The Planetary Society will also be flying the LightSail 2 solar light powered vehicle on the FH: LightSail 2 Has a New Launch Date! – The Planetary Society

*** SpaceX raises funding for new projects: SpaceX worth $33B after raising more than $1B for Starlink and Starship – Teslarati

Since April 2018, SpaceX has successfully raised more than $1.24 billion through the sale of equity, likely sold to investors by extrapolating the company’s current record of success to include the potential of its next two products, Starlink and Starship.

Thanks to SpaceX’s successful streak of fundraising, the company is now valued at $33.3 billion according to sources that spoke with CNBC reporter Michael Sheetz. The same source indicated that demand for SpaceX equity remains strong as the company seeks to continue extremely expensive development and production programs. Most notably, SpaceX is simultaneously building two full-scale orbital Starship prototypes at separate facilities in Texas and Florida, readying an earlier Starhopper testbed for serious test flights, and is in the midst of ramping up its Starlink satellite production to levels unprecedented in the history of spaceflight.

*** Starhopper still waiting for the Raptor engine that will power its low altitude test flights: SpaceX testing rescheduled – Brownsville Herald

According to the notice, State Highway 4 to Boca Chica Beach is scheduled to close from 2 to 8 p.m. on June 17 and/or in the alternative during the same time period on June 18 and/or June 19.

*** Views of Starhopper and Starship Orbital demo vehicle activities recently at the Boca Chica Beach, Texas facilities:

*** And some photos of the second Starship demonstrator under construction in Cocoa Beach, Florida:

 

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The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos

General

Carnival of Space #614 & #615 – NextBigFuture.com & Urban Astronomer

NextBigFuture.com hosts Carnival of Space #614 and the Urban Astronomer hosts Carnival of Space #615.

“A coronal mass ejection (CME) of our Sun as observed by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory on August 31, 2012.” Credits: Chandra X-ray Observatory blog via Urban Astronomer

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Shoot for the Moon:
The Space Race and the Extraordinary Voyage of Apollo 11

Activism, Space Policy, SpaceCasts

The Space Show this week – June.10.2019

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

1. Monday, June 10, 2019; 2-3:30 pm PDT (4-5:30 pm CDT, 5-6:30 pm EDT): No show for today. Monday is for special and timely programs only.

2. Tuesday, June 11, 2019; 7-8:30 pm PDT (9-10:30 pm CDT, 10-11:30 pm EDT): We welcome David Chudwin, author of I Was a Teenage Space Reporter: From Apollo 11 to Our Future in Space.

3. Wednesday, June 12, 2019: Hotel Mars. See Upcoming Show Menu and the website newsletter for details. Hotel Mars is pre-recorded by John Batchelor. It is archived on The Space Show site after John posts it on his website.

4. Friday, June 14, 2019; 9:30-11 am PDT (11:30 am -1 pm CDT, 12:30-2 pm EDT): We welcome back James A. M. Muncy to the show for space policy, news and much more.

5. Sunday, June 16, 2019; 12-1:30 pm PDT (3-4:30 pm EDT, 2-3:30 pm CDT): No show due to Father’s Day.

Some recent shows:

** Sun, 06/02/2019 – Science fiction author and professional space historian, Gideon Marcus talked about his Galactic Journeys. website, “a portal to 55 years ago in science fact and fiction, covering the Space Race, the books, the movies, and the culture of the early 1960s”.

** Fri, 05/31/2019 –  Dr. Greg Matloff and C. Bangs “discussed their book, Stellar Engineering, terrestrial & possible alien megastructures & concepts for advanced civilizations outside our solar system”.

** Tue, 05/28/2019 – James Donovan talked about his new book, Shoot for the Moon: The Space Race and the Extraordinary Voyage of Apollo 11, and about “space policy, returning to the Moon, lessons learned, space and humanity plus more”.

See also:
* The Space Show on Vimeo – webinar videos
* The Space Show’s Blog – summaries of interviews.
* The Space Show Classroom Blog – tutorial programs

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

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

 

Activism, Space Policy

Space policy roundup – June.10.2019

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:

Webcasts:

** NASA Opens International Space Station to Commercial Opportunities:

During a June 7 news conference at Nasdaq in New York City, NASA announced that the International Space Station is now open for commercial business. A new policy provides the opportunity for up to two short-duration private astronaut missions to the space station beginning as early as 2020, if the market supports it. The policy also, for the first time, includes prices for use of U.S. government resources to pursue commercial and marketing activities aboard the station. The agency’s goal is to foster a robust ecosystem in low-Earth orbit through which it can purchase services as one of many customers. This will allow NASA to focus resources on its Artemis missions to land the first woman and next man on the Moon by 2024.

** The 2019 Humans to Mars Summit – videos of panels, talks, and interviews are available now on the ExploreMars.Org YouTube channel. For example:

*** Is There a Commercial Market on or Around the Moon that will Lead to Mars?

  • Moderator: Scott Hubbard (Stanford University)
  • Justine Kasznica (Shareholder, Babst Calland)
  • Henk Rogers (International MoonBase Alliance, Founder)
  • Alexander MacDonald (NASA, Senior Economic Advisor, Office of the Administrator)
  • Ken Davidian (FAA, Director of Research, Office of Commercial Space Transportation)

*** Should We Commit to an Early Orbital Mission to Mars?

  • Moderator: Tim Cichan (Lockheed Martin Company, Systems Engineer)
  • Richard M. Davis (NASA, Science Mission Directorate)
  • Jennifer Stern (NASA GSFC, Planetary Geochemist)
  • Joe Cassady (Aerojet Rocketdyne, Executive Director, Space; & Explore Mars, Inc., Board of Directors Member)

** June 7, 2019 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast | Behind The Black

 

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The Case for Space:
How the Revolution in Spaceflight Opens Up
a Future of Limitless Possibility

Amateur/Student Satellite, Education, Space Systems

Student and amateur CubeSat news roundup – June.9.2019

A sampling of recent articles, press releases, etc. related to student and amateur CubeSat / SmallSat projects and programs:

** Crowd-funding chip-sats released into orbit on second try: Inexpensive chip-size satellites orbit Earth | Stanford News

A swarm of 105 tiny satellites the size of computer chips, costing under $100 each, recently launched into Earth’s orbit. Stanford scientist Zac Manchester, who dreamed up the ChipSats, said they pave the way for cheaper and easier space exploration.

…

Each ChipSat is a circuit board slightly larger than a postage stamp. Built for under $100 apiece, each ChipSat uses solar cells to power its essential systems: the radio, microcontroller and sensors that enable each device to locate and communicate with its peers. In the future, ChipSats could contain electronics tailored to specific missions, Manchester said. For instance, they could be used to study weather patterns, animal migrations or other terrestrial phenomena. Spacefaring applications might include mapping the surface features or internal composition of asteroids or moons orbiting other planets.

…

In 2009, while studying with Cornell professor Mason Peck, Manchester envisioned how to engineer the electronic essence of a satellite into a device even cheaper and easier to build than a CubeSat. In 2011, he crowdfunded his project by putting it on Kickstarter.com, quickly raising about $75,000 from 315 contributors, and what he initially called the KickSat project was born. “I want to make it easy and affordable enough for anyone to explore space” is how Manchester put it at the time.

Prof. Zac Manchester sent a swarm of postage-stamp sized satellites into orbit. (Image credit: L.A. Cicero)

The first attempt in 2014 failed when the CubeSat containing the ChipSats did not open before de-orbiting. The re-designed KickSat-2 was attached along with other smallsats to a Northrop-Grumman Cygnus cargo vehicle launched to the ISS last November.  After the Cygnus departed from the ISS, the small satellites were deployed into orbit. Then on March 18th, the 105 ChipSats were released from their CubeSat mothership.

That moment finally came, when the deployment commands were transmitted from the 60-foot dish behind the Stanford campus. Another anxious day passed before Manchester learned that the sensitive dish antenna had detected the faint signals from the ChipSats, which meant they were operational. Manchester worked with collaborators around the world to track the ChipSats as they transmitted data until reentering the atmosphere and burning up on March 21.

More about the project:

** HuskySat-1 is a student project at the University of Washington. The CubeSat is booked for launch aboard a Cygnus cargo vehicle (NG-12) on an Antares rocket that is currently set to lift off from Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia on October 19, 2019.

The Husky Satellite Lab  is a student-run aerospace research club working on establishing a space presence for the University of Washington. We are currently working on our first mission, HuskySat-1. The HS1 is currently undergoing flight model integration testing.

Our Mission is to foster interdisciplinary student participation in space systems research, to inspire and train future space scientists and engineers, and to advance spacecraft capabilities at the University of Washington.

Our Team is composed primarily of UW undergraduate and graduate students, as well as mentors from the local aerospace industry. Our lead principal investigator is Professor Robert Winglee.

HuskySat-1-blowup
“Almost all of HuskySat-1 is being developed at the UW. The satellite is broken up into different subsystems. Each component is designed to be modular so that they can be most easily developed independently from each other and reused for future missions.” – Husky Satellite Lab

** More about the Chinese amateur radio satellite mentioned here last week: CAS-7B (BP-1B) amateur radio satellite now ready for launch | Southgate Amateur Radio News

CAS-7B (BP-1B) satellite
Testing of the CAS-7B (BP-1B) satellite built by CAMSAT (Chinese Amateur Satellite Group).

** AMSAT news on student and amateur CubeSat/smallsat projects: ANS-160 AMSAT News Service Special Bulletin

  • AMSAT Field Day on the Satellites
  • Final Call for Nominations – AMSAT Board of Directors
  • AMSAT President Awarded Russian E.T. Krenkel Medal
  • 37th Annual AMSAT Space Symposium, October 18-20, 2019
  • Dollar-for-Dollar Match on your ARISS Donation Thru June 17, 2019
  • AO-85 Back in Operation
  • VUCC Awards-Endorsements for June 2019
  • 2019 Edition of Getting Started with Amateur Satellites Available
  • Upcoming Satellite Operations
  • Upcoming ARISS Contact Schedule
  • CAMSAT Announces Upcoming Launch of CAS-7B
  • Satellite Shorts From All Over

See AMSAT (@AMSAT) | Twitter for more AMSAT news.

General CubeSat/SmallSat info:

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The Case for Space:
How the Revolution in Spaceflight Opens Up
a Future of Limitless Possibility

Everyone can participate in space