Hello and thanks for reading the 19th State of Space! Cheer up friends, Scrubtober is over and the curse of No-launch November has been lifted, at least from China.
Oh, and big news: please welcome Paris and Pedro to the team! They’ll be SpaceX Columnist and Creative Director, respectively. Happy reading!
Quick look:
Successful launches: 3
Failures: 0
Major events: V-band allocations, New Glenn rollout, Blue Origin lawsuit denied
The V-band land grab
The FCC has concluded its latest processing round of proposals to use V-band radio this week, approving 38,000 new satellites across 9 constellations. Inmarsat, Hughes Network, Astra, Telesat, Boeing, Amazon, OneWeb, and SpinLaunch all had approved new or expanded constellation approvals that would use the V-band microwave spectrum between 40 and 75 GHz, and that’s just the ones that have been announced. The number of satellites proposed by each company:
Inmarsat: 198
Hughes: 1,440
Astra: 13,620
Telesat: 1,373
Boeing: 5,789
Amazon: 7,774
OneWeb: 6,372
SpinLaunch: 1,190
I think this is just the beginning of a “land grab” for space both in orbit and in the waves, with everyone trying to stake their claim on an increasingly crowded beachfront. And that’s just one part of all this; don’t forget the launch vehicles that have to get all these satellites into orbit. Rocket Lab has emphasized that its Neutron rocket is being designed with these kinds of constellations in mind. Astra wants to scale production of its Rocket 3 (and potentially Rocket 4) family to a launch every day. SpaceX’s starship is also designed for quick turnaround between launches and has a massive payload volume. ULA is developing Vulcan to replace the Atlas V with more payload volume and capacity for less money. SpinLaunch is building a centrifuge to send things into space for lower prices than ever. It should be interesting to see how many of these companies can get these projects up and running and how many will be able to clean up after themselves.
D-orbit/Skyroot joint demonstrator mission
Italian company D-orbit announced that they’ve signed a preliminary technical agreement with India‘s Skyroot launch vehicle company to launch a joint pilot mission. Skyroot is currently developing the Vikram family of rockets based on two common solid-fueled stages with various solid boosters and liquid upper stages while D-orbit operates their ION satellite carrier/in-space transporter. Vikram has yet to fly while ION has already carried out three commercial missions with satellites placed in multiple orbits per launch. This agreement would be for checking that ION can operate at peak performance on a Vikram and may set the stage for a closer alliance between the companies where customers buy a slot through D-orbit who then sets up a launch with Skyroot, simplifying the procurement process for getting to space. It may also allow Skyroot to sell Vikram launches for discounted bulk prices to D-orbit.
“5 flights, tops.” (I heard 20, what about you?)
When JPL builds something, they build it to last. NASA originally said that the Ingenuity helicopter, Perseverance’s flying companion, would fly a maximum of 5 flights before being retired. It was a technology demonstrator, proving that vehicles could fly on Mars under rotary power. Now, as we approach the Flight 15 campaign, JPL has already planned out to Flight 20. Ingenuity will be accompanying Perseverance on the rover’s trip north, flying ahead and scouting out potential hazards that could trap or damage the slower, larger vehicle. The Spirit rover, also on Mars, inadvertently drove into a sandpit and became trapped in 2009; we’d kind of like that to not happen again. This will be Ingenuity’s second flight during the Martian summer when Mars’ air is at its lowest density, requiring the helicopter’s rotors to spin at 2,700 RPM to compensate. For reference, an average helicopter on Earth spins its rotor at about 400-500 RPM. JPL made a nifty chart with a column I find quite hilarious: “% Above Tech Demo”. Ingenuity has lasted 554% longer than it was intended to, if you were wondering.
Everybody got a rocket core
Blue Origin and SpaceX both took a rocket booster for a spin this week, with the first completed New Glenn pathfinder and expendable Falcon Heavy core making their public debut. Relativity Space also showcased its first completed Terran 1 first stage on Twitter.
The New Glenn booster is an engineering pathfinder with no engines, no avionics, and no pressure tanks. It serves only as a testbed to make sure the tooling of the factory is correct and there are no major structural oversights in the design. The booster could in theory be used for fit checks of the engines, except, you know… no BE-4 engines.
The Falcon Heavy booster (B1068), on the other hand, is a flight article that will be used on the USSF-52 mission. You’ll notice that the booster doesn’t feature landing legs or grid fins, as this booster will not be recovered and will be intentionally expended to get the maximum performance possible. This will be the second time SpaceX will intentionally expend a Falcon Heavy core (USSF-44 will likely do it first).
The Terran 1 stage, like all of Relativity’s rockets, was fully 3D printed. It was painted black and white with an electrostatic dissipative coating to help ground the vehicle during flight which, I’ve got to say, looks pretty snazzy. If you look closely, you can see the lines running around the circumference of the rocket where the material was applied in layers. It even says “Printed in the USA.”
Blue Origin’s lawsuit denied
The Court of Federal Claims has upheld NASA’s decision to sole-source the Human Landing System contract to SpaceX after Blue Origin filed a series of protests and a lawsuit seeking to overturn the decision. The August 16 suit claims that SpaceX’s bid was incomplete, lacking a Flight Readiness Review for each of the twelve refueling flights a Lunar Starship would need to land on the moon. However, Federal Judge Richard Hertling sided with the defense, bringing the months-long legal battle to an end. NASA said in a statement, “NASA will resume work with SpaceX under the Option A contract as soon as possible.”
“Lingyun” engine test
Chinese company Jiuzhou Yunjian tested its “Lingyun” methalox engine this week, running the 98 kN (10 tons-force) engine through a series of gimbal and deep throttling maneuvers. Designed to be reusable on Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) vehicles, it has a gimbal range of ~8 degrees and a deep throttling range. (I don’t have an exact number, sorry.) Jiuzhou Yunjian, to my knowledge, is not building its own vehicles but is instead developing methalox engines for other companies.
Tianwen-2
After the success of the Tianwen-1 lander and orbiter, China is planning its next ambitious Mars mission. Originally scheduled to launch sometime in the early 2040s on a Chang Zheng-9, a recent presentation from chief mission designer Zhang Rongqiao says that the mission could return a Martian sample by 2030 by using the established Chang Zheng-3B and -5 vehicles. The CZ-3B would launch a lander and ascent vehicle at the beginning of the 2028 launch window and the CZ-5 an orbiter and return capsule later in the same window. The lander would collect the sample and launch it into Mars orbit to rendezvous with the orbiter, which would move the sample into a capsule and get it back to Earth.
Tianwen-2, as it might be named, already has competition. Perseverance has started drilling samples and sealing them in dropped tubes for a later mission, planned for the 2030s to collect later. That mission is a joint venture between NASA and ESA and would be even more complex, featuring a rover that would gather multiple samples left behind by Perseverance and return them to an ascent vehicle.
Redwire acquires microgravity biotech company
Redwire Space completed its first acquisition since going public on the NYSE in September, bringing Techshot, Inc. into the brand. Techshot currently has three biotech experiments on the ISS investigating how to print cartilage in space, whether certain heart cells multiply better without gravity, and a technical demonstrator of a plant-growth accelerator. If you were wondering, this is that same Redwire that oversaw the development of the iROSA arrays for the ISS.
CADRE testing at SLOPE
NASA’s Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration (CADRE) project is developing a small fleet of robots designed to work together to map, survey, and explore sections of the Lunar Surface in 3D. CADRE researchers took a few of their shoebox-sized rovers to the Simulated Lunar OPErations lab (SLOPE [NASA, your acronyms suck sometimes]) at Glenn Research Center to test if they could handle the uneven terrain, steep slopes, and fine particles that make up much of the lunar surface. They also gathered data on how the rovers handle wheel slips to see how far the rover thought it had traveled versus how far it actually traveled, an important element of the mission since there is no GPS or similar to give a reference point.
Virgin Orbit could launch from Japan as soon as 2022
Virgin Orbit announced a Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) with ANA Holdings this week, Japan’s largest airline. The MOU outlines the plan for 20 flights of LauncherOne and its Cosmic Girl carrier from an airport in Oita Prefecture, Japan. (Probably Fukuoka Airport, since it is the largest.) ANA and its partners would fund the manufacturing of a new set of the mobile ground support equipment used by LauncherOne at a pre-existing runway to make a LauncherOne-ready spaceport in Oita by the end of 2022, pending regulatory approval. This would bring all the benefits of air launch - any time, into any orbit, locally and safely - to East Asia and bring Virgin Orbit one step closer to its goal of global launches.
Crew-2 and -3 updates
The astronauts of Crew-2 and their Crew Dragon “Resilience” are now scheduled to undock Sunday, Nov. 7 at ~1 PM. They will land in either the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic Ocean, depending on weather conditions in individual landing locations, around 7:15 AM the following day for a total of 199 days in space. Thomas Pesquet, who has been serving as Expedition 65 Commander since October 4, passed command of the station to Anton Shkaplerov today ahead of his return to earth.
Crew-3 has an updated launch date of NET Wednesday, Nov. 10 at 9:03 PM after several scrubs and delays due to weather and a minor medical issue. Crew-3 and their Crew Dragon “Endurance” will dock to the ISS about 22 hours later. For both crews (-2 and -3), the toilet installed near the hatch will be off-limits while teams at SpaceX investigate an issue observed during the private Inspiration4. Instead, the astronauts will be wearing special absorbent undergarments.
Firefly reforms sales department after new hire
Firefly Aerospace has hired former US Air Force officer Jason Mello as the president of Firefly Space Transportation Services (STS), a subsidiary responsible for selling flights on its Alpha rocket, Blue Ghost lunar lander, and future projects such as the Beta rocket. Mr. Mello formerly served as Chief Research and Technology Officer for Science and Engineering at the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, where he often worked closely with NewSpace companies like Firefly as part of the Space Test Program before that was relegated to the Space Force.
Firefly STS is a rebranding of Firefly Black, the subsidiary originally responsible for selling flights to government customers, and will roll commercial and government customer services into one. One area STS will not touch is sales of engines and other components, a division Firefly announced earlier this year in a growing trend among small launch companies.
Chinese launches this week
As usual, China launched several missions this week with little to no information about the payloads. Here they are:
Yaugan-32 02: an unknown satellite launched on a Chang Zheng-2C rocket on Wednesday, Nov. 3 at 3:45 AM EDT.
SDGSAT-1: an Earth observation spacecraft launched on a Chang Zheng-6 rocket on Wednesday, Nov. 4 at 10:19 PM EDT.
Yaugan-35: an unknown satellite launched on a Chang Zheng-2C rocket on Wednesday, Nov. 5 at 11:00 PM EDT.
Don’t forget!
RAISE-2 on Monday, Nov. 8
Astra LV0007 orbital attempt on Tuesday, Nov. 9
Crew-3 on Wednesday, Nov. 10 at 9:03 PM EST
“Love at First Insight” on Wednesday, Nov. 10 at 11:25 PM EST