Welcome to the Rocket Report. This is edition 5.24 of the newsletter. I have a blurb about this below, but for me the news of the week is that SpaceX not only launched a Falcon Heavy rocket, but two other Falcon 9 missions on separate coasts as well in just five days. The operational challenges of this are immense and, I think, underappreciated outside of people directly involved in this kind of work. As always I appreciate your interest, and encourage your submissions for story ideas. If this email was forwarded to you, you can subscribe to this newsletter here. |
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Jan. 23: Electron | "Virginia is for Launch Lovers" | Wallops Flight Facility, Va. | 23:00 UTC Jan. 24: Falcon 9 | Starlink 5-2 | Cape Canaveral, Fla. | 09:42 UTC Jan. 25: H2-A | IGS Radar 7 satellite | Tanegashima Space Center, Japan | 01:00 UTC |
| On January 24, 1993, the Soyuz TM-16 mission launched to the Mir space station carrying two cosmonauts, Gennadi Manakov and Alexander Poleshchuk. This was, as the mission name suggests, the sixteenth mission to the Mir station. As part of its flight, the Soyuz tested a docking mechanism on Mir in preparation for future space shuttle missions there. |
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ABL updates on RS1 failure. On Wednesday ABL Space Systems provided an update on the January 10 failure of its RS1 launch vehicle. Long story short, the first stage of the vehicle suffered a "complete loss of power" at 10.87 seconds into flight, leading to a simultaneous shutdown of all nine of the vehicle's main engines. The rocket impacted the ground about 20 meters from the launch site. "Approximately 95 percent of the vehicle total propellant mass was still on-board, creating an energetic explosion and over-pressure wave that caused damage to nearby equipment and facilities," the company said. A fire on board the rocket ... The company has begun an anomaly investigation. "There is some visual evidence of fire or smoke near the vehicle QD and the engine bay after liftoff," ABL wrote. "Shortly before the power loss, a handful of sensors began dropping out sequentially. This evidence suggests that an unwanted fire spread to our avionics system, causing a system-wide failure." The second RS1 rocket is fully assembled and ready for stage testing, but the results of the anomaly investigation will be needed to inform a timeline for that launch. Kudos to ABL for a transparent and detailed update. (submitted by Ken the Bin) European reusable rocket CEO criticizes reuse. In an interview with a French television station, the chief executive of Maia Space described the challenges of reusing small rockets. Yohann Leroy explained that while the company was looking at a two-thirds drop in performance when the launcher was recovered, the model would not reduce the cost of the launcher by a similar amount, European Spaceflight reports. "Paradoxically, implementing reuse on a small launcher has rather the consequence of increasing the costs per kilogram launched," Leroy said. Zut alors! ... The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of ArianeGroup, which manufactures the Ariane fleet of rockets. Leroy made his comments as Maia Space is opening itself up to third-party investors. The company has about 30 employees now and seeks to develop a small reusable rocket before moving on to larger reusable launch vehicles. Leroy may not be wrong about the economics of small launch reuse, but I'm not sure that's the best pitch—essentially, "Our business is completely unsustainable!"—one might make to potential investors. (submitted by EllPeaTea) Stratolaunch completes second captive-carry flight. This week Stratolaunch announced that its super-sized Roc aircraft had completed a second test flight carrying a Talon-A test vehicle. During the six-hour flight, the aircraft reached a maximum altitude of 22,500 feet, and the team collected information about aerodynamic loads prior to the release point of the Talon-A reusable hypersonic vehicle. Big plane, little vehicle ... This was a test version of the small shuttle-like vehicle. A flight data review will determine the next steps on the test timeline. Stratolaunch said that it continues to progress toward a separation test and its first hypersonic flight of Talon-A 1 within the first half of 2023. That will be something to see. (submitted by Ken the Bin) Chinese firms to build African spaceport. Groups based in Hong Kong and Shanghai have reached a memorandum of understanding with the government of Djibouti to build a $1 billion commercial spaceport on the Horn of Africa, Parabolic Arc reports. The Djiboutian Spaceport, which will be constructed in the northern Obock region near the entrance to the Red Sea, would be the first orbital spaceport in Africa. It is thought to comprise an area of 10 square kilometers. Not without geopolitical implications ... According to the report, construction of the spaceport is expected to begin after the parties sign a formal agreement in March. The project is expected to take five years. This will be a development worth following, as it is easy to understand the interest of Chinese companies in launching from a latitude about 10 degrees north of the equator. China's rivals, however, also have interests in Djibouti. The US Navy operates Camp Lemonnier nearby, which is the only permanent US military base in Africa. France has a large military base in the country as well. |
China plans more than 70 launches this year. China's state-owned and commercial space sector actors are planning a total of more than 70 launches across 2023, Space News reports. This high cadence will again be led by the country's main space contractor and maker of the Long March rocket series, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation. This state-led enterprise will aim for more than 50 launches this year. Among its most high-profile missions will be two Shenzhou crewed missions to the Tiangong space station. Commercial companies kicking in ... The Asian nation launched 64 rockets in 2022, second only to the United States. This year a number of state-owned spinoffs and commercial companies will probably push that number higher. The report cites about 10 companies that plan additional commercial launches or debuts this year, including Space Pioneer with its Tianlong-2 rocket. This company is part of a Chinese commercial trend away from solid-fueled rockets to liquid-fueled launch vehicles. (submitted by Ken the Bin) Rocket Lab mulls Neutron's national security future. Rocket Lab sees the US military as a potential customer of the company's future medium-lift rocket, Neutron. However, unless the Defense Department changes its requirements for launch providers, new entrants like Rocket Lab will be unable to compete for contracts, the company's CEO, Peter Beck, said this week, Space News reports. Beck made his comments during a webcast hosted by the investment banking firm Canaccord Genuity. Neutron, which may make its debut in 2024 (let's be real, 2025 seems more likely), is capable of lifting up to 15 metric tons in fully expendable mode. Flexibility is the way, Beck says ... The Department of Defense rules for national security launch require eligible competitors to be able to reach nine different "reference" orbits, some of which are only accessible by heavy-lift rockets, such as SpaceX's Falcon Heavy and United Launch Alliance's forthcoming Vulcan rocket. As it looks toward launch contracts for 2027 and beyond, known as Phase 3, the military is considering relaxing those rules. "I'd love to see a Phase 3 environment where Neutron is on board," Beck said. "I think that would offer the nation the most amount of flexibility, the most robust launch access, and quite frankly, the lowest price." (submitted by Ken the Bin) SpaceX approaches ludicrous cadence. In the movie Space Balls, "ludicrous speed" is the velocity attained by a spaceship traveling much faster than the speed of light. That is the velocity of cadence SpaceX is now approaching with its Falcon family of rockets. On Thursday morning, the company launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 51 Starlink satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. This was the company's fifth launch of 2023. If you're keeping track at home ... The date is January 19, so as of today SpaceX has launched a rocket every 3.8 days during this calendar year. Extrapolated out to a full year, this puts SpaceX on pace for a total of 96 Falcon launches in 2023. While that probably won't happen, it does indicate that SpaceX founder Elon Musk's prediction of 100 orbital launches this year was not all that, ahem, ludicrous. |
Vulcan rocket ships to launch site. United Launch Alliance said this week that the first flight version of the Vulcan rocket shipped from the company's factory in Decatur, Alabama, on Friday, January 13. After a 2,000 mile voyage along rivers and oceans, the rocket is expected to arrive at Cape Canaveral, Florida, this weekend. The new rocket can be built in less than half the time as its predecessors and launched at a much higher tempo, according to the company. Wen launch? ... The debut mission for Vulcan, known as Certification-1, will deliver two Kuiper prototype broadband satellites into low-Earth orbit, send the Astrobotic Peregrine commercial lunar lander to reach the Moon, and carry a Celestis Memorial Spaceflight Payload into deep space. In its news release, United Launch Alliance did not provide a targeted launch date. However, sources indicate that a launch during the first half of 2023 remains possible should testing and integration work in Florida go well. Falcon Heavy launch at twilight dazzles. The Falcon Heavy rocket made its fifth launch in five years on Sunday evening from Florida. However, this was the first launch of the triple-core booster in twilight, and this rare evening light provided some spectacular new insights into the liftoff and return of the rocket. Putting it all together ... In a report complete with multiple photos by Trevor Mahlmann, Ars captures the beauty and power of the rocket during its launch, ascent, staging, and landing events. This, alone, is worth checking out for the photo of the nitrogen-powered thrusters working on the side boosters in the upper atmosphere. Rocket cargo program inches ahead. The US Air Force has continued to take tentative steps forward with its "rocket cargo program," which seeks to use commercial rockets such as SpaceX's Starship for the suborbital point-to-point transport of materials. To that end, on Tuesday, Raytheon Intelligence & Space won a four-year, $8.7 million contract to develop mission planning software for the program, Space News reports. A logistics challenge ... "The tool we create must enable the Air Force to plan, coordinate, and conduct a rocket cargo mission within hours," said Beth DePass, Raytheon's principal investigator for the project. "At its core, this is a logistics challenge of epic proportions. Although the cargo would initially be pre-packaged and stored at the launch site for rapid loading, there are still tremendous challenges with how the DoD will safely load, launch, and deliver under very tight timing constraints." Indeed. (submitted by Ken the Bin) |
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