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NASA Invites Media to Tours, Opening of Earth Information Center
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson is inviting media to a ribbon cutting ceremony on Wednesday, June 21, for the opening of NASA’s Earth Information Center at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. The exhibit is a hybrid – part physical, part online – effort that blends science and visualizations to allow visitors to see how our planet is changing.
Systems Engineering Supervisor Amy Lendian
"So here I am, a transgender woman, an engineer, working at Kennedy Space Center, and I get to work around these really smart, wonderful people, supporting the Artemis mission, sitting in the control room during the launch." — Amy Lendian, Systems Engineering Supervisor, Amentum Spaceport, NASA's Kennedy Space Center
SpaceX Transporter-8 launches 72 payloads marking 200th booster landing - NASASpaceFlight.com
SpaceX launched the Transporter-8 rideshare mission on Monday, June 12, 2023, from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB) in California. Falcon 9 is lofting 72 payloads of varying sizes and purposes into a Sun-synchronous orbit. The launch occurred at 2:35 PDT (21:35 UTC). The booster landed at LZ-4, marking the 200th recovery of a Falcon booster, the 126th consecutive successful landing since SpaceX last lost a booster. The booster for Transporter-8, B1071-9, is making its ninth flight after previously launching NROL-87, NROL-85, SARah-1, SWOT, and four Starlink missions. After separating from the second stage, the booster will return to land at Landing Zone 4, situated next to the launch site at VSFB. The second stage will conduct two burns to reach the payload deployment orbit, followed by a third burn to deorbit the stage when the mission is complete. The satellite deployments will begin one hour into the mission and last for 25 minutes. Support ship GO Beyond will recover the payload fairing halves downrange in the Pacific Ocean. This was the 40th Falcon mission of the year for SpaceX following a launch of Starlink satellites earlier in the day from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) in Florida. The next SpaceX launch is expected to carry the Satria communications satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit from CCSFS around June 19. A successful landing resulted in the 200th recovery milestone, and another booster hitting a -10 flight designation, which occurs the moment a booster nails the landing. Mission Overview This is the eighth dedicated rideshare mission organized by SpaceX. It is carrying 72 payloads into orbit, some of which will be deployed later from the two space tugs on the mission. The payloads range in size from picosatellites of less than a kilogram and measuring only a few centimeters on a side to satellites massing several hundred kilograms. The majority of the payloads will be deployed into a Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) of approximately 525-kilometer altitude and 97.5-degree inclination. The Transporter missions are intended to provide a consistent cadence of rideshare opportunities to popular orbits such as SSO. There is currently one more Transporter mission scheduled for 2023, launching no earlier than October. While some Transporter customers deal directly with SpaceX to get a ride for their spacecraft, most of the payloads are handled by launch integrators who buy space on the payload stack and then assemble multiple customers into that space. From there, the payloads will deploy either directly from the launch adapter or onboard a separable deployer or space tug that will release payloads at a later time, possibly after adjusting the orbit. The Transporter-8 payload stack. (Credit: SpaceX, with labels added by NSF) The payload stack for this launch includes the debut of SpaceX’s new plate architecture. Previously, the entire stack was composed of circular rings with four or six ports, with a single mounting hole on each port. To launch multiple microsatellites from the same port, the customer or launch integrator had to use their own adapter plate that would provide a structure to hold the separation systems for the satellites. With the new system, each tier of the payload stack has four or six flat plates that can each have mounting points for multiple satellites built in. Transporter-8 Payloads The launch integrators on this flight include Exolaunch, handling 32 satellites, and Maverick Space Systems, handling at least 6 satellites. Alba Orbital will also be handling six PocketQube satellites. Launcher (now part of Vast) is flying its second space tug, Orbiter SN3, carrying four satellites and several hosted payloads. Launcher’s first spacecraft, Orbiter SN1 on the Transporter 6 mission, lost power shortly after separating from the launch vehicle. The hosted payloads on SN3 include Nightingale 1 for Cesium Astro — a Ka-band communications system, Remora for Millenium Space Systems — a guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) system, and a CubeSat deployer demonstration for TRL11. One of the satellites on SN3 is the 38 kg Otter Pup from Starfish Space, which will demonstrate rendezvous, proximity operations, and docking (RPOD) technologies during its mission, including docking back with Orbiter SN3 after its initial release. D-Orbit has the ION-SCV011 “Savvy Simon” orbital transfer vehicle, which is carrying multiple small satellites on board for later deployment. Alba Orbital’s satellites are on board the D-Orbit vehicle. ????️New Photon spacecraft complete! ????️ We’re celebrating the completion and shipping of a custom Photon for to enable in-space pharmaceutical manufacturing. ????More: https://t.co/RYOAAfTSRK pic.twitter.com/3HMKFtFyDc — Rocket Lab () May 9, 2023 Varda Space Industries, a new company focused on in-space manufacturing, is launching W-Series 1. This spacecraft has a Rocket Lab Photon satellite bus hosting a small manufacturing module and reentry capsule. This first mission will focus on small molecule formation in microgravity. The reentry capsule will land in Utah at the end of the mission with the produced material onboard. Varda also has a contract with the Air Force to evaluate using their capsules as a hypersonic testbed during reentry. As is often the case with Transporter missions, there are a wide variety of Earth observation satellites onboard. Orbital Sidekick is back with the GHOSt-3 satellite for their hyperspectral imaging constellation, after launching GHOSt-1 and -2 on the previous Transporter flight. In response to a query from NSF, CEO Dan Katz said “The commissioning process for our first two GHOSt satellites is going nominally, and we’ll be announcing when they’re operational shortly.” Orbital Sidekick currently plans to launch the next three GHOSt satellites on Transporter-9, although one may get moved to Transporter-10. Sat Vu has the HOTSAT-1 thermal imaging microsatellite, which features a 3.5 m resolution mid-wave infrared imager with video capability. Satellogic continues to expand its constellation with four more NewSat Mark V spacecraft. NewSat 40-43 have 1 m resolution multispectral and 25 m resolution hyperspectral imaging payloads. Runner-1 optical imaging satellite. (Credit: Terran Orbital) Runner-1 is a 90 kg optical sub-meter resolution earth observation satellite made by Terran Orbital and ImageSat International for use by the Chilean government, which calls it FASat-Delta. Runner-1 can collect multi-spectral imaging and color video. Spire has three 6U spacecraft on board, with one hosting the FOREST-2 thermal imaging payload for OroraTech. The other two Spire LEMUR satellites have AIS/ ADS-B/ GNSS-RO/ RF sensors. The volume of CubeSats is usually given in units — “U” — of 10 by 10 by 10 centimeters. For example, a 6U CubeSat would measure 10 by 20 by 30 centimeters. The volume of PocketQubes is usually given in P units of 5 by 5 by 5 centimeters, so a 2P PocketQube measures 5 by 5 by 10 centimeters. Turion Space has the 32 kg DROID.001 spacecraft with a space situational awareness imaging payload, based on a 42U satellite bus from NanoAvionics. Spain’s Satlantis has the 16U GEI-SAT Precursor with visible to near-infrared (VNIR) and short-wave infrared (SWIR) imaging, intended to identify methane emissions. Wyvern has another 6U spacecraft built by AAC Clyde Space for multispectral imaging. India’s Azista BST Aerospace (ABA) is flying the 80 kg ABA First Runner satellite with panchromatic and multispectral optical imaging. Muon Space has the 59 kg MuSat-1, primarily intended to demonstrate their avionics suite. Gregoire is a demonstration mission from Belgium’s Aerospacelab. Alba Orbital has UNICORN-2I, a 3P satellite to monitor artificial light at night. QPS-SAR-6 radar imaging satellite. (Credit: iQPS) iQPS has the QPS-SAR-6 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging satellite, also called AMATERU-III. This will be the third satellite in their constellation. The QPS-SAR-3 and -4 satellites were lost when a Japanese Epsilon launch vehicle failed to reach orbit in October 2022. iQPS was also listed as one of the more significant creditors in the bankruptcy filing of the now-defunct Virgin Orbit, as they had already paid $5 million towards the launch of QPS-SAR-5 that was planned for this year. ICEYE has four more of their X-band SAR microsatellites on board. ICEYE satellites mounted on the new SpaceX payload adapter plates. Credit: ICEYE Skykraft returns with their Block-3 launch of five satellites, after launching Block-2 on Transporter-6. These satellites are joined into a single unit for launch and then will separate from each other after they are released from the launch vehicle. Skykraft’s spacecraft are used to track aircraft and to extend air traffic control communications over a wider area by using satellites to augment the terrestrial communications network. They are conducting tests with aviation authorities in Australia and New Zealand. There are multiple spacecraft focusing on Internet of Things (IoT) communications. OQ Technologies is adding Tiger-4, a 6U spacecraft, to their constellation. SpaceX subsidiary Swarm is adding a dozen new .25U SpaceBEEs to their constellation. FOSSA is launching several of their new FEROX spacecraft. Turkey’s Hello Space has the 1P Istanbul with an IoT payload. Argentina’s Innova Space has the MDQSAT-1C & -1D picosatellites on board. There are several demonstration craft for the Department of Defense on the flight. Viasat’s XVI is a 12U satellite for the Air Force Research Lab that will demonstrate satellite communications using the military Link-16 tactical communications network. The US Special Operations Command has two Modular Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (MISR) experimental CubeSats. DARPA has its first four Blackjack Aces satellites on the flight. These satellites will demonstrate the use of optical satellite links and on-orbit data processing for autonomous operations. Lockheed integrated the payloads onto the satellites and is handling launch preparations. The satellite buses are from Blue Canyon (Raytheon), the four optical terminals on each spacecraft are provided by SA Photonics (CACI), and the “Pit Boss” data processing units are from SEAKR (Raytheon). Tomorrow.io is back with Tomorrow-R2 after launching Tomorrow-R1 on the last Transporter mission. These 85 kg microsatellites host weather radar payloads primarily monitoring precipitation. EIVE E-band demonstration satellite. (Credit: Markus Koller/IRS) The University of Stuttgart is launching EIVE (Exploratory In-Orbit Verification of an E/W-Band Satellite Communication Link), a 6U spacecraft to demonstrate high-frequency communications in the 71-76 gigahertz range. Outpost Technologies Corporation has their Mission 0, a 3U spacecraft to demonstrate their new satellite bus. URESAT-1 is a 1.5P spacecraft with an amateur radio payload from Spain’s URE and AMSAT-EA. MRC-100 from the Technical University of Budapest in Hungary, part of its “SMOG” series, is a 3P satellite for monitoring “electromagnetic pollution” generated by human activity on Earth. International Computing High School of Bucharest in Romania has the 1P satellite ROM-2 with an amateur radio payload and a two-megapixel camera. Ariel University has the 2P Satlla-2I educational spacecraft for testing concepts of free space optical communications. Pleiades-Squared is a 1U demonstration CubeSat from Cal Poly Pomona’s Bronco Space. Colombia’s Platzi has the PlatziSat1 PocketQube, manufactured by FOSSA. The 3U SpeiSat from the Italian Space Agency has a tiny “nanobook” of a prayer reading by Pope Francis and amateur radio transmissions of messages of hope. Other satellites may be on board ION SCV011. Other spacecraft being deployed by Exolaunch include Ayris-1 & -2 and AII-DELTA. This article will be updated after the launch as more payload information becomes available. Several of the companies involved do not release information before launch. Transporter-6 and Transporter-7 Updates One more payload has been deployed from the Transporter-6 mission, with ZEUS-1 being released from the Vigoride-5 spacecraft in May. The Astrocast satellites aboard an ION tug have not yet appeared in tracking data. Of the 51 payloads that SpaceX said would be on Transporter-7, 47 have been cataloged on Space-Track, and another, the Celestis mission, was hosted on the second stage of the Falcon 9. Space-Track has 40 of the objects in orbit identified, and Celestrak has two more. Those satellites not yet named on Space-Track or Celestrak include Brokkr-1/ORBASTRO-AF-1, TAIFA-1, Sateliot-0/Platform-3, Pleiades-Squared, NORSAT-TD, and EPICHyper-1/Wyvern-1. The satellite catalog shows one payload as ELO-3, a 6U satellite for Eutelsat, which could be the undisclosed payload that was carried by D-Orbit. (Lead Image: Falcon 9 at SLC-4E ahead of the SWOT launch. Credit: Jack Beyer for NSF)
Starlink 5-11 launches from Florida as astronomy impacts in focus - NASASpaceFlight.com
SpaceX conducted its third orbital launch this month, as well as the 37th Falcon 9 and the company’s 39th overall orbital launch for 2023, with Falcon 9 B1073-9 launching on Monday, June 12 at 3:10 AM EDT (07:10 UTC) from Space Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The flight took a southeast trajectory through the pre-dawn darkness, with Just Read the Instructions 636 kilometers out in the Atlantic for landing support. Starlink and other constellations’ impact on astronomy was discussed at last week’s American Astronomical Society (AAS) 242 conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The flight had been scheduled for last week but had to be pushed back several times. Just Read the Instructions was returning with B1078-3 after it flew the Starlink 6-4 mission, and it docked at Port Canaveral on Tuesday, June 6. The drone ship sailed back out into the Atlantic for Starlink 5-11 support the following evening of Wednesday, June 7. The drone ship needed to be turned around for this flight, which had been scheduled for Saturday, June 10 before being pushed back to Sunday and then to Monday. Drone ship turnaround is becoming a limiting factor in launch cadence, and flights – CRS-28 being the latest example – are being scrubbed now if the recovery conditions do not allow for a safe booster landing. B1073 started its flying career in May 2022 with the Starlink 4-15 mission. Since then, the veteran booster has flown SES-22, Starlink missions 4-26, 4-35, and 6-2, along with the ill-fated Hakuto-R Mission 1 lunar lander, Amazonas Nexus, and Cargo Dragon C209 on CRS-27. The payload of 53 Starlink satellites was launched into a 299 by 339-kilometer parking orbit at an inclination of 43 degrees. The satellites will be maneuvered, using Hall-effect krypton thrusters, to their operational circular orbit at 530 kilometers altitude during the coming months. Starlink V1 satellites inside a Falcon 9 fairing. (Credit: SpaceX) Group 5 uses the v1.5 satellites as part of the second-generation Starlink constellation, and each satellite now masses around 300 kg after the addition of inter-spacecraft laser links. There are now over 4,000 Starlink satellites in orbit, including several hundred satellites in Group 5. While the Starlink constellation continues to be built up, concerns continue to be raised about mega-constellations’ impact on ground – and even space – based astronomy. The issue was discussed last week at AAS 242 in New Mexico, the second of the biannual yearly conferences held by the AAS. One thing that was revealed during the conference was that satellite streaks in the Hubble Space Telescope’s field of view – and percentage of affected exposures – have doubled in 20 years, but that the brightness of these streaks has not increased. The vast majority of science observations with Hubble were not affected by these streaks. A satellite streak through a Hubble Space Telescope image of NGC 4676. (Credit: NASA/ESA/STScI) The Starlink satellites orbit between 530 – 570 kilometers depending on which group they are in, and the Hubble Telescope orbits at roughly 535 kilometers altitude as of October 2022, as per NASA. Therefore, a number of Starlink satellites can appear in Hubble’s field of view. Another megaconstellation’s currently orbiting satellites – OneWeb’s – orbit at even higher altitudes than Starlink so they can also appear in the veteran observatory’s field of view. Amazon’s Kuiper and China’s national broadband megaconstellation are in the works for the future as well. SpaceX and OneWeb have both now signed a coordination agreement with the National Science Foundation to limit their megaconstellations’ impact on astronomy. SpaceX has taken various steps to limit their satellites’ brightness and has worked with the astronomical community on this issue. While the Starlink constellation is being built up, the service continues to add capability. Starlink can now be used in moving environments, as demonstrated by children now able to listen to lessons and to do homework while on long school bus rides in Coconino County, Arizona. The first Starship/Super Heavy launch on April 20. Starlink was used for data connectivity aboard Starship during the flight. (Credit: Max Evans for NSF/L2) In addition, Starlink was used to transmit data from the Starship test flight in April. Starlink set altitude and speed records for in-flight usage, enabling connectivity from as high as 123,600 feet and at a speed of Mach 1.7. Although not traveling quite as fast as Starship, airliners and private jets are also getting Starlink coverage to enable high-speed connectivity for passengers. After this flight, B1073’s next flight after Starlink 5-11 will be as a Falcon Heavy side booster for the EchoStar-24 flight this coming August. SpaceX is working toward a goal of 100 orbital flights this year, with boosters now cleared for up to 20 flights each, if used on Starlink missions, as of last month. (Lead image: Falcon 9 launches with Starlink satellites atop SLC-40.)
Gravimeter for ESA's Hera mission is ready to launch to Dimorphos asteroid - NASASpaceFlight.com
A tiny instrument that can measure the gravity levels of an asteroid has completed its ground tests, pushing the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Hera mission closer to launch. Hera will complete the first post-impact survey of the asteroid that NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) collided with in September 2022, and the gravimeter for small solar system objects (GRASS) is the small device that will be carried by Hera to measure the minuscule gravity levels of Dimorphos, the orbiting moonlet of the 65803 Didymos binary system. GRASS is one of the core parts of Hera that will work with the other instruments to provide a clearer picture of the impact made by DART, and is scheduled to launch in October 2024, for a December 2026 rendezvous with Dimorphos. This follow-up mission forms part of the asteroid impact and deflection assessment, an international collaboration focused on experimenting with kinetic impact as a means of planetary defense against near-Earth objects (NEO) through DART and providing accurate data from the impact through Hera. GRASS is designed to measure such miniscule gravity levels as the asteroid will deliver it to is the smallest planetary object ever to be visited by spacecraft. At 160 m in diameter it is about the same size as ’s https://t.co/BxCOMmEZuk pic.twitter.com/JoPXy1SUjo — ESA Technology () May 22, 2023 What is GRASS? The tiny GRASS payload, which has a mass of just under 400 grams, is designed to measure the expected gravity levels and the precise mass of the Dimorphos asteroid. The payload is carried in one of Hera’s two cubesats, Juventas, which itself is the size of a shoebox. ESA describes the gravimeter as the size of two smartphones stuck together, shaped like the letter L. The payload was developed by the Royal Observatory of Belgium (ROB) and Spain-based EMXYS, which was responsible for manufacturing its electronics and mechanical integration. “It may be small, but GRASS is packed with complex mechanical parts and electronics,” Jose Carrasco, the chief executive officer at EMXYS said. After Hera completes the subsurface radar imaging campaign of Dimorphos, Juventas will be released and gradually fall onto the surface of the asteroid. During this descent, GRASS will record the impact on the asteroid, subsequent bounces, and any shifts in surface gravity over time from the influence of Didymos, ESA explains. “It will be in the final falling phase that GRASS will start working to measure the gravitational attraction of the asteroid and thus picturing its mass distribution while it falls, lands [after some rebounds], and sits still on the surface of the asteroid,” Carrasco told NSF. The GRASS instrument is the size of two smartphones stuck together. (Credit: ESA) The gravimeter can detect the slightest motion, with the sensitivity equivalent of a single micrometer, or a thousandth of a millimeter. “GRASS has two small masses attached to two beams placed orthogonally to each other that rotate at around one revolution per minute. By measuring the small displacements of these beams and the mass, it is possible to reconstruct the gravity in three dimensions,” continued Carrasco. “As the measurements are made during the free fall of Juventas over Dimorphos, that will follow a bent trajectory before the impact, it will measure the gravity field from several different positions and therefore may reconstruct the mass distribution of the asteroid.” The Hera mission is particularly interesting as it will mark the first probe to rendezvous with a binary asteroid and will be the smallest planetary object a spacecraft has ever visited. While the asteroid may be small compared to other planetary objects measuring at 160 meters in diameter, it is the same size as Egypt’s Great Pyramid of Giza. One of the most significant impacts of DART’s collision with the asteroid was that it reduced Dimorphos’ orbital period around Didymos by 32 minutes. The Hera probe will be able to characterize even more changes like this and turn “the kinetic impact experiment into a well-understood and in principle repeatable method of planetary defense,” according to Hera system engineer Hannah Goldberg. The GRASS gravimeter of the has recently undergone a successful environmental test campaign. The developed GRASS with .
???? https://t.co/DFfzlcezuR pic.twitter.com/Dqc03hCfCK — Observatory.be () May 23, 2023 Hera hosts several instruments such as the asteroid framing camera, A thermal infrared imager, the planetary altimeter, the hyperscout hyperspectral imager, and the two cubesats, Milani and Juventas. Testing the Device for Space Before launching, GRASS was put under fire to ensure it can withstand the harsh environment of space at ESA’s mechanical systems laboratory in the Netherlands, where the agency tests its smaller-scale equipment. “When it’s released, we expect the instrument to work as it’s been intended because ESA has made an intensive test campaign, including vibration, radiation, and thermal excursions from minus 35 degrees up to 55 degrees [celsius] to ensure that the instrument is able to withstand the environment that exists around the asteroid,” Carrasco said. GRASS was subjected to spacelike vacuum and temperature extreme tests within a thermal vacuum chamber and underwent sustained shaking to “mimic the violence of a rocket launch,” ESA explained. “Obviously the real-world performance of the gravimeter cannot be demonstrated directly here on Earth, but our lab testing coupled with numerical simulations showed we have achieved sufficiently high sensitivity to detect such low gravity,” Özgür Karatekin from ROB explained. GRASS undergoes testing in a vacuum chamber. (Credit: ESA) While Carrasco claimed there were only minor tweaks the company had to make since 2016 when EMXYS was chosen for the project, there were still some challenges to face ahead. “The main difficulty was to fit everything in such a small volume,” Carrasco said. “The very small displacement is measuring very, very small electrical currents. So, the most challenging thing was to do it very small mechanically and to [make it] measure extremely small electrical currents.” During Hera’s journey to the asteroid, GRASS will be sleeping the entire time. Carrasco said every few months ground teams will move the device, specifically its motors which can get stuck if untouched for long periods of time, to make sure the system is still working properly. Karatekin from ROB also explained that because Juventas could land at any part of Dimorphos, its solar arrays could be blocked from generating more power, therefore GRASS will run on the cubesat’s internal battery for up to 20 hours. “In addition, because the instrument’s two gravimeters are positioned at right angles from each other, and go on rotating, the instrument can construct the 3D gravity vector and monitor its variations from any landing position,” Karatekin added. The Juventas cubesat that GRASS will be integrated into. (Credit: ESA) Deflecting Asteroids for Planetary Defense While NASA says no asteroid larger than 140 meters in size will pose any threat to the Earth within the next 100 years, only 40 percent of asteroids nearby have been cataloged. In February 2013, a meteor about 17 to 20 meters in diameter collided near Chelyabinsk in the Ural Federal District in Russia. The shockwave caused around 1,500 injuries but did not result in any deaths. This event catalyzed a wake-up call to establish stronger planetary defense strategies, and only three years later in 2016, the planetary defense coordination office was created to catalog NEOs and coordinate efforts to respond to threats, such as DART. This led to the first-ever full-scaled asteroid deflection launch of DART in November 2021. The collision produced an impact that was equivalent to that of about three tonnes of TNT, which inevitably destroyed the spacecraft. However, the United States and Europe are not the only nations developing strategies against potential planetary threats. In April this year, China selected NEO 2019 VL5 for a combined deflection and observation test, launching in 2025. The mission is now scheduled to launch a year earlier than previous plans, to a much smaller asteroid compared to Dimorphos. Illustration of Hera and the two cubesats, Milani and Juventas. (Credit: ESA) Following Hera’s critical design review at the end of 2022, next up for GRASS is its integration with Juventas by the end of this year. “This mission represents a huge step for EMXYS because we have been able to develop an extremely sensitive instrument that will travel into deep space to study a small body of the solar system,” Carrasco said. “This instrument may well be used in future missions to study Solar Systems bodies and make a model of its mass and composition”. (Lead image: Juventas CubeSat prepares for landing onto Dimorphos. Credit: ESA)
A Cloudy Approach
The last rays of an orbital sunset illuminate the cloud tops above the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Japan, providing a dramatic background for the SpaceX CRS-28 Dragon cargo craft as it approached the International Space Station for docking on June 6, 2023.
This Week In Spaceflight: Vulcan fires up, Canadian fires from space, and JWST deep field data - NASASpaceFlight.com
A variety of methalox rockets are approaching launch, with the United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Vulcan rocket completing its flight readiness firing. What’s more, the wildfires currently raging in Canada have been studied from space using a plethora of weather observation satellites, and the James Webb Space Telescope’s (JWST) advanced extragalactic survey data was officially released. SpaceX also added two more Falcon 9 missions to their yearly tally this week and a Chinese semi-private launch company launched some very secretive payloads into orbit. Methalox Rockets March Toward Launch Three methalox rockets are marching toward their upcoming launches: ULA’s Vulcan, Landspace’s ZhuQue-2, and SpaceX’s Starship. Vulcan finally performed its Flight Readiness Firing this week after several delays due to issues with the engine igniters. With a fix in place, ULA rolled the rocket out to the pad on June 6 and proceeded to test the igniters before loading propellant onto the vehicle – thus ensuring the new igniters worked ahead of the start of the countdown. Another milestone Vulcan achieved ahead of its static fire was a recycle test. During a recycle test, the clock counts down to a simulated T0 and is then held seconds before engine ignition. A simulated abort is called and then the count moves back to the “T-7 minutes and holding” mark on Vulcan’s countdown. After a three-hour delay due to weather, ULA finally resumed the count and went ahead with the firing of Vulcan’s two BE-4 engines on June 8 at 9:05 PM EDT (01:05 UTC on June 9). ULA later confirmed on Twitter that the test ran for the expected duration and that the company would now begin preparations for Vulcan’s first flight. Preparing Vulcan for flight will see the completion of the investigation into a Centaur V test stand anomaly that occurred earlier this year. ULA will likely release more information closer to the test flight as Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander is shipped to Florida for integration with Vulcan and other pre-launch activities take place. On the other side of the world in China, LandSpace’s ZhuQue-2 (ZQ-2) rocket has been rolled out to the pad for a launch that is expected to occur in just a few days. It appears that Landspace has rolled ZhuQue-2 out to the launch pad ahead of the vehicle’s second orbital launch attempt from Jiuquan later this month. pic.twitter.com/iLBmomghs7 — Harry Stranger () June 8, 2023 This would be ZQ-2’s second attempt to reach space with its first flight ending in failure last December. On its first flight, a failure on the second stage vernier engines caused the rocket to not reach the velocity needed to attain orbit. LandSpace claims it has solved this issue, and if so, ZQ-2 will win the “race” to be the first methalox rocket to orbit if this second flight succeeds. At Starbase, new road closures have been scheduled for next week as seen on Cameron County’s website. These are believed to be for static fire testing of Ship 25 ahead of the next launch of SpaceX’s Starship rocket. Closures scheduled for next week at Starbase (Credit: Cameron County) For this launch, Booster 9 will be used and have to be tested in the following weeks and months. However, this testing will only be able to occur once all repair and upgrade work on the orbital launch mount has been completed. Rocket Factory Augsburg Completes Full Duration Firing of Helix Engine German aerospace company Rocket Factory Augsburg has completed a full-duration firing of their Helix engine. The test was conducted at the company’s test site at the Esrange Space Center in Sweden and ran for 280 seconds. The Helix engine is the first privately-developed staged combustion cycle engine in Europe and will power the company’s RFA One rocket. This rocket will sport nine Helix engines on the first stage and one single vacuum-optimized Helix engine on the upper stage. For this test, the Helix engine was also attached to a prototype RFA One second stage tank and systems, which also validated the rocket’s upper-stage performance in what the company calls an “integrated system test”. This puts RFA just one step closer to launching Europe’s first privately-developed rocket into space and into orbit — but only if it can beat the rest. RFA is not alone in this race, there are at least two more major European private companies working on orbital rockets: PLD Space from Spain and Isar Aerospace from Germany. Canada Fires and Their Impacts as Seen from Space Canada’s raging wildfires are burning thousands of hectares of land and their effects are being studied not only from the ground but also from space. Picture from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on NASA’s Aqua satellite from the fires in Quebec as seen on June 3 (Credit: NASA) While ground pictures from cities like New York City have been in the news throughout the world this past week, the scope and damage of these fires can be seen even more broadly from space. Multiple satellites from different agencies and companies have been retasked in the last few weeks to study these fires to better help combat them and learn from them. While these fires are expected to occur around this time of year, they have already expanded to over 160,000 hectares of land. During an average year, only about 247 hectares are burned. New York City under the cloud of smoke from Canada’s fires as seen from the USS Intrepid (Credit: Elysia Segal) These images from space all show how, over the span of just a few days, the smoke from these fires has accumulated and drifted south into the northeastern regions of the United States. The smoke has already covered hundreds of kilometers of land and has raised the levels of fine particulate matter in the air to record-breaking numbers. Planet released two images this week comparing the presence of smoke in New York City before and after the fires as seen from space. These images, as well as other images and data captured from space, are helping scientists understand how particulates in the atmosphere travel over long distances. Different layers of air move in different directions and thus, depending on their size, some particles may be in one layer or another up in the atmosphere. This means that different parts of the atmosphere can have different amounts of smoke depending on the location – which is important for authorities responsible for predicting hazardous health conditions in certain areas. New York City, covered in haze, due to the ongoing wildfires in Canada. ???? (1): PlanetScope • New York City, USA • June 1, 2023
???? (2): PlanetScope • New York City, USA • June 7, 2023 pic.twitter.com/FMl3xQBGvw — Planet () June 8, 2023 These observations are another example of the importance of studying Earth from space. Gathering scientific data on the expanse and effects of natural events around the globe allows scientists to predict their effects and thus protect people against disasters like the Canadian wildfires. Firefly Aerospace Acquires Spaceflight Inc. Firefly Aerospace has acquired Spaceflight Inc., a move that rearranges the company’s vision of its future. Spaceflight Inc.’s operations until now have consisted of arranging flights for small satellite operators, integrating their payloads on different rockets, and deploying them from those rockets once in orbit. The company also developed the SHERPA satellite dispenser which later evolved into an orbital tug that could power and place customer payloads into a more precise final orbit. Big news today! Firefly is acquiring Spaceflight Inc. to further grow our on-orbit capabilities and service the entire lifecycle of our customers’ payloads. Learn more about the acquisition here: https://t.co/PMR8hlTLa2. — Firefly Aerospace () June 8, 2023 Firefly claims that this acquisition will allow the company to combine Spaceflight Inc.’s capabilities with its launch services for a full end-to-end service for customers. These capabilities will also be added on top of the development of Firefly’s Medium Launch Vehicle, Space Utility Vehicle, and Blue Ghost lunar lander. Under new ownership, Spaceflight Inc. says it will carry out all of its remaining contracts on rockets from other companies, but new customers will exclusively use Firefly’s Alpha and future medium launch vehicles. JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey Data Results This week saw the release of the results from the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES). The results were presented as a part of the latest meeting of the American Astronomical Society. Not only did the results reveal 45,000+ galaxies in a single image, but they also highlighted how JWST has become a powerful tool for scientists to understand the secrets of the early universe. As mentioned, the JADES data revealed over 45,000 galaxies, with several thousand galaxies in the image existing when the universe was between 500 and 850 million years old. These galaxies are located so far away that their light has been stretched over time due to the expansion of the universe – an effect that is called redshift. This means that the light emitted by them has shifted wavelengths from the ultraviolet and visible parts of the electromagnetic spectrum to infrared – a wavelength of light Webb was precisely designed to observe. A deep field taken by Webb as part of the JADES results. An area of the asky known as GOODS-South is seen in this image. (Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/Brant Robertson/Ben Johnson/Sandro Tacchella/Marcia Rieke/Daniel Eisenstein/Alyssa Pagan) The further away a galaxy is, the more red-shifted its light will be. Using Webb’s different filters and instruments to capture the galaxies’ spectrums, scientists were able to measure the redshift of thousands of galaxies at once, with hundreds of these galaxies now found at record-breaking redshifts and distances. This new data has also allowed scientists to understand the rate of star formation in the early universe, as well as study the complex structures that formed within galaxies during that era. The data suggests that these early galaxies had a really high rate of star formation and already hosted complex structures within them very similar to those we see today. This indicates that galaxy evolution may have occurred much faster than previously thought. Although Webb has been in operation for less than a year, the observatory is already rewriting the books on astrophysics and cosmology. Shenzhou-15 Returns To Earth The Shenzhou-15 ended this week as the crew successfully returned to Earth from the Tiangong Space Station. Shenzhou-15 launched on Nov. 29, 2022, carrying taikonauts Fei Junlong, Deng Qingming, and Zhang Lu. The crew spent around six months onboard Tiangong conducting scientific experiments, carrying out four spacewalks to upgrade the station, and deploying satellites. With the launch of Shenzhou-16 last week, the Shenzhou-15 crew handed over command of the station to the new crew and departed the orbital laboratory. Undocking from the station’s forward docking port occurred on June 3 at 13:29 UTC. Shenzhou-15 and its crew of three have landed. pic.twitter.com/KWzFCduoFM — Chris Bergin – NSF () June 3, 2023 Several orbits later, Shenzhou-15 jettisoned its orbital module and started its deorbit burn for re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. Landing of the spacecraft’s descent module successfully occurred in the Gobi Desert at 22:33 UTC later that day. This Week in Launches Starlink Group 6-4: June 4, 12:20 UTC A Falcon 9 lifted off on June 4 at 8:20 PM EDT (12:20 UTC on June 5) from Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida carrying more Starlink v2 Mini satellites for Starlink’s second-generation constellation. The first stage, B1078, was flying for a third time and successfully landed on SpaceX’s droneship Just Read The Instructions. This launch added 22 Starlink satellites into orbit bringing up the total number of these satellites launched to 4,543. Of these, 4,218 satellites remain in orbit and 3,551 are in operational orbit. SpaceX CRS-28: June 5, 15:47 UTC Another Falcon 9 lifted off on June 5 at 10:47 AM EDT (15:47 UTC) from Launch Complex 39A in Florida carrying the CRS-28 Cargo Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS). The first stage, B1077, was flying for a fifth time and landed successfully on the droneship A Shortfall Of Gravitas. This was the third SpaceX launch featuring the shortened MVac nozzle extension on the upper stage. Dragon completed an 18-hour rendezvous and docked to the zenith docking port on the ISS Harmony module the next day, June 6, at 09:54 UTC. The spacecraft carried 3,304 kilograms of payloads onboard, including a new pair of ISS Roll-Out Solar Arrays that will be installed on the Station in the coming weeks. Lijian-1 Shiyan-24A/B: June 7, 04:10 UTC A Lijian-1 rocket lifted off on June 7, at 04:10 UTC from Site 130 at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China. The rocket carried 26 payloads onboard, including two Shiyan experimental satellites for the Chinese government. Most of the rocket’s other payloads are unknown at the time of publication. China confirmed the rocket inserted all payloads successfully into their target Sun-synchronous orbit, completing the successful second flight of the rocket after debuting in July of last year. Longjiang 3: June 9, 02:35 UTC A Kuaizhou 1A rocket lifted off on June 9, at 02:35 UTC from Site 95A at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China carrying the Longjiang 3 satellite into low-Earth orbit (LEO). The spacecraft is a prototype communication satellite by the Harbin Institute of Technology aimed at testing a new flat-packed satellite platform similar in shape to SpaceX’s Starlink satellites. This kind of platform could be used for future LEO communication satellite constellations from China. (Lead image: Image taken by GOES-16 of the smoke from Canada’s fires blanketing extensive regions of northeast United States. Credit: NOAA)
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