Monthly Archives: July 2019

Rockets

Space transport roundup – July.9.2019

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

** Russian Soyuz launches 33 satellites last wee including the primary Meteor-M No.2-2 weather satellite and 32 smallsats from a host of countries and organizations:

A busy month planned for Russian rockets: Russia plans seven space launches in July – TASS

** PLD Space releases video of a high altitude drop in April of a demo booster for the MIURA 5 orbital rocket, which will have a reusable first stage booster: Successful drop test of the demonstrator of the first stage of MIURA 5 – PLD Space

Drop Test of the demonstrator of the first stage of MIURA 5 orbital microlauncher. This project was part of ESA’s FLPP-LPSR programme. PLD Space successfully completed in April the first drop test with a full-scale demonstrator of the first stage of the MIURA 5 orbital rocket. As a result, we have documented assessment of all the recovery and reusable technologies that will help PLD Space to develop its recovery and reusability technology roadmap. One step closer to reusability in Europe!

With this, we have validated many operational procedures, including all recovery and reusability steps, as well as the telemetry down-links, among others. This project is part of the FLPP-LPSR program, promoted by the European Space Agency (ESA), supported by CDTI, INTA, Ejército de Tierra #FAMET #BHELTRAV and with the participation of Tecnalia.

** Amateur spacecraft observers capture images of the X-37B spaceplane: Mysterious X-37B Military Space Plane Caught on Camera (Photo) – Space.com

** Rocket Crafters thruster demos suffer various glitches: Cocoa-based Rocket Crafters working through issues ahead of 2021 debut – Florida Today

** System for long duration in-space storage for cryogenic propellants has been developed by a Chinese team: Scientists make breakthrough that enables rockets to orbit longer – Xinhua

Scientists from the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology have developed two insulating materials that can reduce propellant evaporation loss and keep rockets in flight for longer than before.

According to Zhang Shaohua, a member of the research team, a cryogenic rocket will face a severe thermal environment when it flies in orbit, which will cause lots of propellant evaporation, accelerate propellant loss and reduce the time in orbit.

Long term cryogenic propellant storage is important for space tugs and fuel depots.

** Canadian SpaceRyde developing a high-altitude balloon rocket launch system for orbiting smallsats:

** The latest on space elevators: ISEC Space Elevator Newsletter July 2019

According to Pete Swan, president of the ISEC (Int. Space Elevator Consortium), the development of space elevators is “Closer than you Think”:

There are two factors that lead to this conclusion:

The first is that the material for space elevator tethers has been discovered and is in the laboratory now. Single Crystal Graphene has been developed towards a continuous growth production concept (grow a single molecule very long – hundreds of meters) (currently at 0.5 x 0.1 meter single molecule one atom thick in laboratories). Adrian Nixon projected that future of very long molecules during his talk at our recent ISEC Webinar. The material is going to be available in the required strength and length for space elevators.

The second is that we (ISEC with the other organizations such as IAA, Obayashi Corporation, and JSEA) have conducted engineering studies and testing showing great progress across the engineering design segments of a space elevator. The following year long (IAAs and Obayashi were multi-year) studies have lead to the conclusion that the space elevator is ready to start testing the technologies needed inside each of its major segments and regions.

The 2018 ISEC Space Elevator Conference will be held at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington over August 16-18.

** SpaceX:

*** Launch contracts:

*** Practicing for Crew Dragon docking to the ISS: NASA, SpaceX Simulate Astronauts Docking to Station on Crew Dragon Spacecraft – Commercial Crew Program

NASA and SpaceX practiced Crew Dragon rendezvous and docking to the International Space Station during a virtual dress rehearsal on June 26 for the company’s first crew flight test, known as Demo-2, to the microgravity laboratory

The activity is part of a series of integrated simulations bringing together NASA and SpaceX flight control teams to complete multiple practice runs for each dynamic phase of a mission from launch to splashdown. These simulations provide the teams plenty of practice to ensure they safely and successfully perform the planned operations of the actual spaceflight, with opportunities to fine-tune their procedures and gain experience on how to solve problems should they arise.

*** Views of a recovered Falcon fairing: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy fairing tries to enter hyperspace, lands in net in new videos – Teslarati. Here Scott Manley discusses the fairing return videos:

*** Raptor engine debugging nearly done: SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says major Starship engine bug is fixed as Raptor testing continues – Teslarati

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has revealed the latest official photo of the company’s Raptor engine in action and indicated that a major technical issue with vibration appears to have been solved, hopefully paving the way for Starhopper’s first untethered flights.

Partly due to Musk’s own involvement in the program, SpaceX’s propulsion development team have struggled to get any single Raptor engine to survive more than 50-100 seconds of cumulative test fires. According to information from sources familiar with the program, Musk has enforced an exceptionally hardware-rich development program for the first full-scale Raptor engines to such an extent that several have been destroyed so completely that they could barely be used to inform design optimization work. Although likely more strenuous and inefficient than it needed to be, the exceptionally hardware-rich test program appears to have begun to show fruit, with the sixth engine built (SN06) passing its first tests without exhibiting signs of a problem that has plagued most of the five Raptors that came before it.

A Tweet from Elon on the rocket engine development process:

*** Starship launch facility development underway: SpaceX’s Starship/Super Heavy rocket needs a launch pad and work is already starting – Teslarati

*** An update presentation from Elon on Starship program tentatively set for late July:

*** Assembly of the Starhopper and two orbital Starship demonstrators appear to be moving along:

*** A fire at the Cocoa Beach facility wasn’t too serious apparently:

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Space 2.0: How Private Spaceflight, a Resurgent NASA,
and International Partners are Creating a New Space Age

Activism, Space Policy

Space policy roundup – July.8.2019

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:

** BGen. Whale – Canada Should Consider a National Space Council and Support Launch Capability – SpaceQ

** July 2, 2019 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast | Behind The Black

** Wed, 07/03/2019 – Hotel Mars with John Batchelor & Dr. David Livingston – Space historian Dr. Roger Launius talked about the  Apollo era and his new book, Apollo’s Legacy: Perspectives on the Moon Landings.

 

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Safe Is Not an Option

Amateur/Student Satellite, Education, Space Systems

Student and amateur CubeSat news roundup – July.9.2019

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

** Binar CubeSat built by Curtin University team of students and staff to be deployed from the ISS: Curtin to test ‘mini’ satellite in orbit with European Space Agency –  Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia

Professor Bland, from Curtin’s School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, said a Curtin team of 12 staff and student engineers developed the miniaturised satellite.

“The Curtin team has managed to put all the systems required to operate the satellite, including the power, computer, steering and communications, on a single eight-layer printed circuit board, which at 10cm by 10cm by 2.5cm is about the size of a rather small sandwich,” Professor Bland said.

“Having everything on a single circuit board means there is more room for what the satellite is carrying, which in this case will be a camera that will capture beautiful images of Australia taken from orbit.”

Binar Cubesat Program
A diagram of the CubeSat in development in the Binar Cubesat Program at Curing University.

** Three Virginia CubeSat Constellation CubeSats built by undergrads were deployed from the ISS on July 3rd:

Three Virginia university satellites were deployed into nearly simultaneous orbit from the International Space Station via the NanoRacks CubeSat Deployer at 10:50 a.m. EDT this morning. The Virginia CubeSat Constellation mission is a collaborative project of the Virginia Space Grant Consortium and four of its member universities: Old Dominion University (ODU), Virginia Tech (VT), University of Virginia (UVA), and Hampton University (HU). The three nano-satellites, each about 4 inches cubed and weighing approximately 3 pounds, have been developed and instrumented (one each at ODU, VT and UVA) to obtain measurements of atmospheric properties and quantify atmospheric density with respect to orbital decay.

Deployment of three Virginia CubeSat Constellation satellites from the ISS. Photo credits: Virginia Space Grant Consortium

Data collected will ultimately contribute to the scientific knowledge base around orbital decay and will be widely shared. Ground stations at UVA, ODU and Virginia Tech will now begin making contact with their satellites. Data analysis will take place using an analytical tool being developed by students from Hampton University’s Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences Department.

“To know that all three satellites are now in orbit is extremely gratifying. Kudos to the students who have worked hard and gained immeasurable knowledge and experience from participating in this student-led mission and to the faculty who have advised them,” said Mary Sandy, Virginia Space Grant director and mission principal investigator. “Achieving Earth orbit is a huge mission milestone. These are the first student-developed satellites in orbit for all three of the universities.”
…
More than 150 undergraduate students across many disciplines at the participating universities have worked on the mission for the past three years under the guidance of faculty advisors

** KRAKsat Polish student CubeSat also deployed from ISS: ISS On-Orbit Status Report – July.3.2019

KRAKsat is a project focused on sending scientific satellite into space, made by students of University of Science and Technology and Jagiellonian University. Not only it is one of the first Cubesat type satellites in Poland but also the first satellite in the world which uses magnetic liquid, called ferrofluid, for orientation control.

A CubeSat from the Polish company SatRevolution was also deployed from the ISS along with KRAKsat. Find updates on the two projects at

** AMSAT news on student and amateur CubeSat/smallsat projects: ANS-188 AMSAT News Service Special Bulletin

  • 2019 AMSAT Board of Directors Election Update
  • Candidates for the AMSAT Board of Directors Announced
  • Frank Karnauskas, N1UW Appointed as AMSAT VP for Development
  • First Ever Contact via Moon Orbiting Transponder on LO-94
  • First Call for Papers for the 50th Anniversary AMSAT Symposium
  • Take W3ZM on the Road!
  • ARISS-International Delegates Meet in Montreal
  • JAISAT-1 telemetry beacon downlink on 435.325 MHz FM 4k8 GMSK
  • Additional Amateur Radio Payloads to Launch with JAISAT-1
  • VUCC Awards-Endorsements for July
  • Upcoming Satellite Operations
  • Satellite Shorts From All Over

General CubeSat/SmallSat info:

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

Activism, Space Policy

The Space Show this week – July.7.2019

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

1. Monday, July 8, 2019; 7-8:30 pm PDT (9-10:30 pm CDT, 10-11:30 pm EDT): No show on Monday which is now reserved for special programming.

2. Tuesday, July 9, 2019; 7-8:30 pm PDT (9-10:30 pm CDT, 10-11:30 pm EDT): We welcome back Dr. Namrata Goswami to discuss the Indian space program, China space and Moon programs, national security space, our return to the Moon and much more. Please call and talk with Dr. Goswami.

3. Wednesday, Jul 10, 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, July 12 , 2019; 9:30-11 am PDT (11:30 am -1 pm CDT, 12:30-2 pm EDT): We welcome Dr. John Brandenburg, a theoretical plasma physicist, back to the show. Call in and talk with Dr. B. He wants to hear from you.

5. Sunday, July 14, 2019; 12-1:30 pm PDT (3-4:30 pm EDT, 2-3:30 pm CDT): Open Lines Discussions Calls preferred over emails. All calls and caller welcome but keep them space, science, and engineering related.

Some recent programs:

** Wed, 07/03/2019 – Hotel Mars with John Batchelor & Dr. David Livingston – Space historian Dr. Roger Launius talked about the  Apollo era and his new book, Apollo’s Legacy: Perspectives on the Moon Landings.

** Tue, 07/02/2019 – Dr. John Jurist talked about “space policy, the Moon, rockets, Mars, the Gateway, NASA, budgets, China and much more”.

** Mon, 07/01/2019 – Aggie Kobrin and Rod Pyle summarize ISDC 2019 and discussed “ISDC 2020 plans, NSS, space policy, Ad Astra article submission, international student participation, exceptional keynote speakers, and 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

 

In Space Infrastructure, Living in Space

Videos: “Space to Ground” ISS report – July.6.2019

The latest episode of NASA’s weekly Space to Ground report on activities related to the International Space Station:

** A high-res demo of water in microgravity: Moving Water in Space – 8K Ultra HD

Water in space behaves… differently. Surface tension and capillary flow can be harnessed to move fluids in more efficient ways. What looks like fun could actually help us improve systems for moving fluids in microgravity, in things like fuel tanks for space travel. Find out more about fluid physics in space in our researcher’s guide: https://go.nasa.gov/2KShhuT Learn more about the research being conducted on Station: https://www.nasa.gov/iss-science

** Happy 4th of July from the Space Station Crew

Aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 60 Flight Engineers Nick Hague and Christina Koch of NASA honored America’s 243rd birthday by wishing Americans at home and around the world a happy 4th of July.

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Outpost in Orbit:
A Pictorial & Verbal History of the Space Station