[ Update: What’s Up: February 2021 Skywatching Tips from NASA – NASA JPL
What are some skywatching highlights in February 2021? Find Mars all month after sunset, especially on the night of NASA’s planned rover landing, Feb. 18. Then watch the Moon glide across the Winter Circle before it pays a visit to the bright stars of the constellation Gemini. Additional information about topics covered in this episode of What’s Up, along with still images from the video, and the video transcript, are available at https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/whats-up….
In February, the Winter Triangle is your guide to the night sky: The northern hemisphere is treated to views of the stars Procyon, Sirius, and Betelgeuse. Keep watching for the awe-inspiring space-based views of the Orion Nebula, which is sculpted by the stellar winds of central bright stars.
A sampling of recent articles, videos, and images dealing with space transport (find previous roundups here):
SpaceX intended to fly the Starship SN9 prototype last Thursday and again on Friday but the vehicle remained grounded due to a failure to obtain a FAA license. The exact reason for the refusal has not been revealed to the public but it apparently involves issues regarding non-compliance with the license for the flight of SN8.
Now hearing the FAA could approve the SpaceX modification to its license for SN9 as early as today, possibly “within the next couple of hours.” Could see Starship fly as soon as tomorrow.
For more details about the FAA and the test flight , see:
As early as Monday, February 1, the SpaceX team will attempt a high-altitude flight test of Starship serial number 9 (SN9) – the second high-altitude suborbital flight test of a Starship prototype from our site in Cameron County, Texas. Similar to the high-altitude flight test of Starship serial number 8 (SN8), SN9 will be powered through ascent by three Raptor engines, each shutting down in sequence prior to the vehicle reaching apogee – approximately 10 km in altitude. SN9 will perform a propellant transition to the internal header tanks, which hold landing propellant, before reorienting itself for reentry and a controlled aerodynamic descent.
The Starship prototype will descend under active aerodynamic control, accomplished by independent movement of two forward and two aft flaps on the vehicle. All four flaps are actuated by an onboard flight computer to control Starship’s attitude during flight and enable precise landing at the intended location. SN9’s Raptor engines will then reignite as the vehicle attempts a landing flip maneuver immediately before touching down on the landing pad adjacent to the launch mount.
A controlled aerodynamic descent with body flaps and vertical landing capability, combined with in-space refilling, are critical to landing Starship at destinations across the solar system where prepared surfaces or runways do not exist, and returning to Earth. This capability will enable a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo on long-duration, interplanetary flights and help humanity return to the Moon, and travel to Mars and beyond.
There will be a live feed of the flight test available here that will start a few minutes prior to liftoff. Given the dynamic schedule of development testing, stay tuned to our social media channels for updates as we move toward SpaceX’s second high-altitude flight test of Starship!
** Starship SN10 prototype moved to the launch area. The largest crane at Boca Chica had been moved earlier in the week to the launch site and with the SN9 flight/landing canceled, SpaceX decided to move SN10 on Friday from the assembly area to the launch pad and lift it onto the second launch mount. There were no Raptor engines installed and Elon Musk later said they would do cryo pressure tests before installing them.
The flight window will open on February 13 with opportunities to fly throughout February, pending good weather conditions and technical readiness. The test flight will be crewed by two pilots and will carry research payloads as part of the NASA Flight Opportunities program.
Pre-flight preparations are already underway at Spaceport America, New Mexico, including rigorous steps to prepare the vehicles, pilots, teams and facilities, with safety procedures as a top priority. In addition, the Virgin Galactic Pilot Corps has completed two flights with its mothership, VMS Eve, for routine pilot proficiency training. This training included using the mothership to simulate the glide and approach-to-land phase of flight for SpaceShipTwo, showing the versatility of VMS Eve as more than just a mothership.
A key objective of the upcoming flight will be to test the remedial work that has been completed since the December 12, 2020 flight when the onboard computer halted ignition of the rocket motor. The team has since conducted the root cause analysis, completed the corrective work required, and carried out extensive ground testing. The next stage will be to assess and verify this work during a rocket-powered flight.
The flight will incorporate all of the original test objectives from the previous test flight, including evaluating elements of the customer cabin, testing the live stream capability from the spaceship to the ground, and assessing the upgraded horizontal stabilizers and flight controls during the boost phase of the flight.
** Feb.1: The iSpace Hyperbola-1 fails on its second launch attempt. Amateur footage of the launch from the inland Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center shows the vehicle in trouble shortly after liftoff. The 4-stage solid-fueled rocket, most likely derived from a Chinese missile, was carrying the Fangzhou-2 (Ark-2) satellite.
** Jan.29: Chinese Long March 4C carries three Yaogan 31 remote sensing satellites into low earth orbit. These satellites are generally believed to be military reconnaissance satellites that provide optical and radio-electronic surveillance of the US Navy and other maritime activities.
** Jan.20: Rocket Lab’s first Electron launch of 2021 puts OHB satellite into orbit. There was no attempt to recover the first stage booster on this launch.
The payload for this mission has been shrouded in secrecy since Rocket Lab announced the planned launch Jan. 5. The name of the satellite itself was not disclosed by OHB until after liftoff, and a press kit for the mission did not include the satellite’s mass or orbital altitude, stating only that it was going into an orbit at an inclination of 90 degrees.
Rocket Lab said in its announcement of the upcoming launch that the payloads “will be a single communication microsatellite that will enable specific frequencies to support future services from orbit.” OHB, which built the satellite, procured the launch last August. At the time it cited “an unmatched delivery time” by Rocket Lab, who agreed to launch the payload within six months.
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The ultimate customer for the satellite may be GMS Zhaopin, a Chinese company planning a satellite constellation. It has been linked to a German company, KLEO Connect, that has announced plans for a constellation to provide internet of things services.
For today’s picture-perfect mission, Virgin Orbit’s carrier aircraft, a customized 747-400 dubbed Cosmic Girl, took off from Mojave Air and Space Port at approximately 10:50 A.M. and flew out to a launch site over the Pacific Ocean, about 50 miles south of the Channel Islands. After a smooth release from the aircraft, the two-stage rocket ignited and powered itself to orbit. At the conclusion of the flight, the LauncherOne rocket deployed 10 CubeSats into the team’s precise target orbit, marking a major step forward for Virgin Orbit in its quest to bust down the barriers preventing affordable and responsive access to space.
The payloads onboard LauncherOne today were selected by NASA LSP as part of the agency’s CubeSat Launch Initiative (CSLI). Nearly all of the CubeSat missions were designed, built and tested by universities across the U.S., including Brigham Young University (PICS), the University of Michigan (MiTEE), and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette (CAPE-3).
This flight also marks a historical first: no other orbital class, air-launched, liquid-fueled rocket had successfully reached space before today.
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With this successful demonstration in the books, Virgin Orbit will officially transition into commercial service for its next mission. Virgin Orbit has subsequent launches booked by customers ranging from the U.S. Space Force and the U.K.’s Royal Air Force to commercial customers like Swarm Technologies, Italy’s SITAEL, and Denmark’s GomSpace.
The company’s next few rockets are already well into integration at its Long Beach manufacturing facility.
A “Mission Recap” video:
LauncherOne has successfully reached orbit! Virgin Orbit’s unique air-launched system successfully delivered small satellites for 9 different missions precisely into their target 500km circular, 60.7 degrees inclination orbit on January 17, 2021. The flight was conducted from the Mojave Air and Space Port in Kern County, California — the first orbital launch ever to occur from there. This “Launch Demo 2” flight was conducted for NASA’s Venture Class Launch Services program. Unlike traditional ground-launched rocket, Virgin Orbit’s system uses a 747 jet as its flying launch pad and mobile mission control, allowing flexible and responsive launch from almost anywhere on the planet!
The crew capsule descends for a landing after reaching over 100 kilometers in altitude. Credits: Blue Origin
Mission NS-14 featured a crew capsule outfitted with astronaut experience upgrades for upcoming flights with passengers onboard. Capsule upgrades included:
Speakers in the cabin with a microphone and a push-to-talk button at each seat so astronauts can continuously talk to Mission Control.
First flight of the crew alert system with a panel at each seat relaying important safety messages to passengers.
Cushioned wall linings and sound suppression devices to reduce ambient noise inside the capsule.
Environmental systems, including a cooling system and humidity controls to regulate temperature and prevent capsule windows from fogging during flight, as well as carbon dioxide scrubbing.
Six seats.
Also today during ascent, the booster rotated at 2-3 degrees per second. This is done to give future passengers a 360-degree view of space during the flight.
This flight continued to prove the robustness and stability of the New Shepard system and the BE-3PM liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen engine.
Also onboard today were more than 50,000 postcards from Blue Origin’s nonprofit Club for the Future. The Club has now flown over 100,000 postcards to space and back from students around the world. More information here.
Beyond the upgrades, CNBC has learned that NS-14 also marked one of the last remaining steps before Blue Origin flies its first crew to space.
The flight was the first of two “stable configuration” test flights, people familiar with Blue Origin’s plans told CNBC. Stable configuration means that the company plans to avoid making major changes between this flight and the next.
Additionally, those people said that Blue Origin aims to launch the second test flight within six weeks, or by late February, and the first crewed flight six weeks after that, or by early April.
Blue Origin’s next flight, NS-15, will also include a test of loading and unloading the crew, the people said.
The company did not verify this info but it clearly sounds quite plausible.
** Video tour of Blue Origin’s engine production facility in Huntsville, Alabama. During the webcast of the above New Shepard test, a video tour of the company’s engine facility in Huntsville was shown.
As featured on today’s #NewShepard webcast, Jacki takes us on a tour of our full-rate engine production facility in Huntsville, AL powering the next generation of American space flight with our #BE4 and #BE3U engines. pic.twitter.com/jKWl79po30
** Blue releases video of long duration, full-thrust firing of BE-4 engine: Jeff Bezos released the video on Instagram:
“Perfect night! Sitting in the back of my pickup truck under the Moon and stars watching another long duration, full thrust hotfire test of @BlueOrigin’s BE-4 engine. #GradatimFerociter”
Scott Manley reviews all of the engines developed so far by Blue:
Blue Origin has been around longer than SpaceX, but they’re a lot more secretive about their technology and the things they’ve built. I wanted to make an overview of the 6 different rocket engines they’re designed and tested and the vehicles that have been propelled by them.
** Jan.19: Chinese Long March 3B rocket takes communications satellite into orbit from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the Sichuan province. The third of the Tiantong-1 series of S-Band mobile communications services satellite will move into a geostationary orbital slot.
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):
Space Settlement 2021 – National Space Society live event on February 4th, 9am PST (12:00 pm EST). This is
“a free virtual event showcasing the technologies, people and organizations that will lead us to the settlement of the final frontier! Space Settlement 2021 presents the finest minds in this revolutionary movement, with experts the latest visions of humanity’s migration into space: where we will go, why we will go there, and how we will do so. Highlights include: a STEM space settlement competition, today’s incremental steps to space settlement, the classic ideas of Dr. Gerard K. O’Neill, new initiatives by visionaries such as Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and other NewSpace visionaries, and much more. Space Settlement 2021 is available thanks to the International Space Settlement Design Competitions and Anita Gale.“
In this week’s Space Cafè WebTalk, Doug Loverro, President at Loverro Consulting, Virgina, USA talked about his feature: “Rethinking the Inevitable: Why We Need to Stop Hoping, and Prepare for Space Warfare”, published on SpaceWatch.Global.
For decades the international community has tried, and failed, to achieve agreement on treaties aimed at preventing war in space. From the 1980s “Treaty to Prevent an Arms Race in Space” (PAROS), to the more recent “Treaty on Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space” (PPWT), we have failed to reach agreement on any constraints to war in space and the devastating consequences if it were to occur. Meanwhile several nations continue to develop and test weapon systems to mount space attack. Doug Loverro suggests attacks in space are inevitable and that perhaps we need to rethink our approach.
In this week’s Space Cafè WebTalk, Mahmoud Abu Wasel, Vice-President of The Hague Institute for Global Justice talked about the new space initiative of the institute.
With the rapid increase in the private sectors race to space and governments attempting to keep up, we are witnessing the new age of the space race – one which will make momentous changes in a shorter time span than ever seen before. But with this new space race, comes the realization that law and justice are crucial to the maintenance and sustainability of our future. The Hague Institute for Global Justice has been operating for a decade on issues at the critical intersection of peace, law, and justice; but with the evolution of the space sector, new issues have arisen that will need to be solved. The Hague Institute for Global Justice has recently launched its space project that will deal with the implementation of law and justice in space, and will act as a platform for peace in all space activities. Mahmoud Abu Wasel spoke on the necessity for the rule of law and justice in space, and shedded details on the issues that lead to the initiation of the new project.
Listen to Brian O’Toole, CEO of BlackSky, a company using the economics of small satellites to monitor the Earth and bring data down in real-time. Mr. O’Toole discusses cloud computing, high-performance computing, advancements in AI and machine learning algorithms as key enablers to using this data. The CEO describes a recent launch where BlackSky went from lift-off to delivering imagery in 58 hours, an impressive feat. He extols the virtue of AI and machine learning to monitor activities and automatically transport relevant data to customers through a real-time feed. This kind of data will cause an explosion of commercial applications not yet considered or developed, like what happened with GPS when it became available on a phone. Mr. O’Toole conjectures about a next level of convergence around data that is collected and combined from a multitude of source, which in turn leads to better predictive analytics. In addition, he discusses finding the ability to detect emerging events and what their impact can be to our planet, with COVID being a prime example.
David Walker is a past Comptroller General of the United States, professor at the US Naval Academy, former Defense Business Board appointee, and author. He’s on the Cold Star Project to discuss the role of culture in government operations, including with his own experience in the Government Accountability Office and on the Defense Business Board. Host Jason Kanigan asks:
// Defense Business Board //
-what is the purpose of the Board, both the official wording and from your point of view? Do you believe it is meeting that purpose?
-What are some of the projects that you worked on? -what changes or initiatives can the Board make?
-What are some of the biggest business challenges facing the DoD?
-what did your experience as US Comptroller General allow you to bring into the appointment to the Defense Business Board? What perspective do you believe you brought; what were you most “on alert” for?
-what most surprised you in your service on the Board? Was it people- or process-based?
// US Comptroller General 98-08 – 15-year, non renewable term appointment, Government Accountability Office (audit institution, part of the legislative branch) //
-roles like this often don’t have a “rules manual” and you must create the role “your way” as you go. Did you find this to be the case? How did you adapt to the situation if so?
-you have a supposedly non partisan bureaucracy working for you as the GAO. How did you find that and how did information flow to you? What kind of decisions did you make? What were your main accomplishments at GSP?
// America In 2040: Still A Superpower? book //
-tell us about the book and your main premise or argument–reviews talk about “fiscal sanity” and government spending
-We think “America’s fine; we still have all the tools”, but what do you think about the constant underestimation of costs and overestimation of capabilities? eg. USS Gerald Ford setbacks…latest is unable to launch planes, $13B price tag for non-functional platform
-Will America still have the financial power to fund itself as a superpower?
-Do you believe space is an important theater for America to remain a superpower? What are other major security theaters?
** NASA Rio Agreement – Lawrence Friedl – NASA Video
NASA and the city of Rio de Janeiro have extended an agreement to support innovative and collaborative efforts to better understand, anticipate, monitor and respond to natural hazards and other impacts affecting the city. The collaboration leverages the unique attributes of NASA’s satellite data and modeling frameworks and Rio de Janeiro’s management and monitoring capabilities to improve awareness of how the city may be impacted by hazards and affected by climate change. Lawrence Friedl is the director of the Applied Sciences Program in the Earth Science Division at NASA Headquarters. More about the agreement: https://appliedsciences.nasa.gov/our-…
This brief animation moves between two New Horizons spacecraft views of Arrokoth, the spacecraft’s New Year’s 2019 flyby target in the Kuiper Belt. The 3D effects come from pairing or combining images taken at different viewing angles, creating a “binocular” stereo effect, just as the separation of our eyes allows us to see three-dimensionally. The 3D information from these images provides scientists with critical insight on the object’s shape and structure and, subsequently, origin. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/Roman Tkachenko
1. Monday, Feb. 1, 2021; 7 pm PDT (9 pm CDT, 10 pm EDT: No program today.
2. Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2021; 7 pm PDT (9 pm CDT, 10 pm EDT): We welcome Dr. Greg Autry on commercial space and space policy moving ahead in 2021 and beyond, returning to the Moon and more.
3. Wednesday, Feb. 3 2021: Hotel Mars TBA pre-recorded. See upcoming show menu on the home page for program details.
4. Thursday, Feb. 4, 2021; 7-8:30 pm PDT (9-10:30 pm CDT, 10-11:30 pm EDT): No program today.
