17 years ago today, the European Space Agency learned the hard way why you don't put important commercial payloads on maiden rocket launches. It was the first launch of the Ariane 5 ECA variant. It used the new Vulcain 2 LH2 engine on its core stage, which increased its thrust by 80,000 pounds. (The heavy lifting for launch was/is done by SRBs for Ariane 5.) There were issues with the engine's cooling system. It grossly underperformed, and tumbled on fairing separation. The payload, the Hot Bird 7 comsat for Eutelsat, was lost. Arianespace had to scramble and replace all the Vulcain 2 engines on successive rockets, resulting in the stopgap G+ and GS variants, which used a new run of Vulcain 1 engines. This also delayed their entire launch manifest; most importantly, the Rosetta comet mission, moving it from a launch to Comet Wirtanen in 2003 to a launch to Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2004. The ECA would not launch again until 2005.
I know, sometimes I can get behind on current events. Hayabusa2 departed the asteroid Ryugu as scheduled on November 12, and is now on its way back to Earth. If all goes well, its return capsule will land at Woomera Test Range, Australia, in December 2020. Back in October, shortly before it was set to be deployed, the second half of the MINERVA-II lander suite, Rover-2, failed. They deployed it anyway on October 2, and tracked it visually to take gravometric measurements of Ryugu. It landed uncontrolled six days later. (Wikipedia describes it as a "crash", but considering the miniscule gravity involved, I don't think that's an entirely accurate description.) The ESA lander, MASCOT, was deployed on October 3, and successfully landed, taking photos and using radiometers and spectrometers on 17 hours of battery power. Even before all that, they went ahead with a second landing and sample collection window with Hayabusa2 itself on Ryugu on July 11. As noted previously, they were considering not doing so because the first landing was so fruitful. It was a sub-surface sample collection. First, the probe fired an impactor to excavate a small portion of the surface. It then deployed a target to help guide the probe on its approach for landing on Ryugu where it could collect the material loosened by the impactor.
54 years ago today, Pioneer 6 was launched atop a Thor-Delta E rocket from Pad 17A, Cape Kennedy. If there was ever a little spacecraft that could, it was the Pioneer solar orbit probe series. Five were created, with the last one, ultimately kept with its pre-launch designation of Pioneer E, lost in a launch failure. The probes were all under 150 kg each, spin-stabilized at 60 rpm, and placed in heliocentric orbits inside the orbit of Earth with perihelions as low as 0.75 AU. They had a cadre of instruments intended to measure the solar wind and solar magnetic field. Pioneer 9 is credited with discovering a massive solar storm in 1972; though it was not aimed at Earth, it did bring attention to their potential dangers. Each probe was intended to last six months. Pioneer 6 was most recently contacted in December 2000. Only Pioneer 9 is known to have failed, in 1983. Their missions are over, but it is believed that Pioneer 6, 7, and 8 could potentially still be contacted.
Things are heating up for the Parker Solar Probe. The findings of the first two perihelions were released two weeks ago. They are making headway on one of the main issues they are trying to solve: a riddle called the "coronal heating problem". This is related to why the solar wind itself measures millions of degrees (at this point, it doesn't matter which scale), while the surface of the Sun's photosphere is "only" 6,000K Initial data suggests the magnetic field may have something to do with it, with thousands of rogue magnetic waves observed to accelerate the solar wind. Remote sensing from perihelion suggests that temperatures are so intense approaching the surface of the Sun, that the region within ~6 million km of the surface is entirely dust-free; the only matter in the region being the propelled hydrogen and helium of the solar wind, along with trace heavier elements. Parker Solar Probe is making its second fly-by of Venus the day after Christmas. It will shave 5.4 million km off the probe's perihelion, resulting in its speed at perihelion exceeding 100 km/sec (360,000 km/h) for the first time. In that time, it could cross the continental United States in under half a minute. ****** On the same day, Juno will complete its 24th perijove at Jupiter. Currently, the probe is set up to enter Jupiter's atmosphere in July 2021, ending its mission there. That gives the probe another 11 orbits after this coming perijove. The probe cannot be extended much beyond its original extension last year, as repeated dips into the planet's radiation belt put the probe at risk of lasting damage. As the orbit processes further around Jupiter, more and more of said orbit goes through the radiation belts.
26 years ago today, a pair of comsats were launched atop an Ariane 44L rocket from Pad 2, Guiana Space Centre. The first was DBS-1, built by Hughes. It would provide digital TV service for US Satellite Broadcasting, as well as Hughes' own DBS service, DirecTV. Hughes would buy USSB in 1998, and PrimeStar in 1999. The second was Thaicom 1, the first comsat for Thailand.
43 years ago today, the DoD launched OPS 5705, the first KH-11 Kennen reconnaissance satellite, atop a Titan IIID rocket from from Pad 4, Vandenberg AFB. (Full disclosure: I do not know if the image above is for this particular launch. But it's the correct rocket, and was listed as being from a Kennen launch.) Unlike previous reconnaissance satellites, Kennen did not use film. Instead, it had an 800-pixel-square CCD connected to a 2.4m optical telescope. The exact capabilities of the satellite series are one of the tightest-controlled classified secrets of the DoD, and images taken with them are made public on an exceedingly rare basis. As I noted previously, Kennen was also used as the basis for the Hubble Space Telescope. Because of its super-strong optical capabilities, it can be placed in a higher orbit than previous film-based reconnaissance satellites. They have been kept in orbit for longer and longer periods, some as many as 15 years. There are currently four in orbit. They were originally launched by Titan IIID, Titan 34D, and Titan IV rockets; one was the payload of the final Titan launch in 2005. They currently utilize the Delta IV Heavy rocket.
11 years ago today, the European Space Agency launched two comsats atop an Ariane 5 ECA rocket from Pad 3, Guiana Space Centre. One, Hot Bird 9 (now Hot Bird 13C due to Eutelsat reorganization), was launched specifically to replace Hot Bird 3. The other, Eutelsat W2M, was built by Insat. Eutelsat acquired it to provide service to Eastern Europe, Northern Africa, and the Middle East. A power anomaly on the comsat led to Eutelsat initially scrapping Eutelsat W2M. When Eutelsat W2 failed outright in 2010, W2M was partially brought online for backup. Afghanistan leased it from Eutelsat in 2014, rechristening it Afghansat 1. It was moved from its original operational slot of 28.5°E to 48°E.Afghanistan is currently planning its own satellite for when its lease with Eutelsat lapses in 2021.
F***. The Starliner Orbital Flight Test was aborted. The Atlas V N22 rocket operated perfectly. (N in it means no payload shroud; it was actually the first Atlas V launch with a two-engine Centaur upper stage.) But somehow, Starliner's Mission-Elapsed Timer was misprogrammed. As a result, it missed its final burn to achieve orbit, and skipped to attitude control burns. Mission Control had to scramble to get it back to the correct attitude for a contingency orbital burn. They wasted a quarter of their fuel. NASA has already ruled out proceeding to the International Space Station. They have stabilized Starliner's orbit so it can re-enter and land at White Sands, where it would've landed at the end of a nominal mission, on Sunday. They bent over backwards to assure that if the capsule were manned, the crew would be safe. In fact, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine stated that an on-board crew likely would've been able to override the anomalous clock and initiate a more-proper orbital insertion burn themselves. Astronaut Nicole Mann, who was at the presser, confirmed that. No telling how this affects future launches, by Boeing or by SpaceX. NASA did say that an unmanned docking is not explicitly required before a manned mission; it was proposed as part of the development program by both Boeing and SpaceX.
Well, the Starliner mission wasn't a total loss. Boeing and NASA were still able to thoroughly test its systems, including potential abort modes. The kind of things SpaceX was able to do with its demo mission back in March. And this morning, it successfully re-entered and landed at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, making it the first American spacecraft to touchdown on land. The landing looked, and was reported, to be perfectly nominal. Measurements from the on-board anthropometric robot (aka: crash test dummy) will confirm later. ******** The landing sequence for Starliner is fairly complex; perhaps even moreso than for Soyuz. Once re-entry is through, two pilot parachutes drastically slow the capsule down. Then the heat shield jettisons, exposing the landing bags. After that, the main parachutes deploy. They are held from a "basket handle", which is said to help steady the capsule so it lands fully on the landing bags. Fortunately, none of the three main chutes broke off this time. The landing bags are inflated with nitrogen to cushion landing on the ground. Landing is supposed to occur at a velocity of 19 mph.
40 years ago today, the first Ariane 1 rocket was launched from Pad 1, Guiana Space Centre. It carried a technology demonstrator, CAT 1, which was mostly 1,600 kg of ballast, but also carried a battery-powered transponder. There's a ton of inconsistencies in details on this launch. It was placed in a highly-elliptical orbit (perhaps as high as GTO, but surely with a low perigee), and definitely re-entered by 1990.
15 years ago today, Cassini deployed the Huygens lander. It would land on Titan three weeks later. The lander underwent successful checkouts in September and November before deployment.
45 years ago today, Salyut 4 was launched atop a Proton-K rocket from Site 81/24, Baikonur Cosmodrome. At the time of its launch, the Soviet Union had only managed one successful manned mission over four space station attempts. Salyut 4 would begin their dominance of long-term spaceflight with two successful long-term crews. (And one between them that suffered a launch failure.)
91 years ago today, Robert Goddard conducted his third liquid rocket test. The big innovation in this rocket was that he introduced "curtain cooling", running oxidizer through the wall of the combustion chamber to cool it. This stabilized combustion. Where previous liquid rockets had lifted gently, this one shot up like a bat out of Hell. It reached a top speed of 60 mph, and flew over the observation tower. At this point, it was clear he was onto something. 1929 was going to be a very good year for him. Not for many others, but definitely for him.
Sometimes I come across an interesting biography and profile, look them up in the thread, and wonder why their name seems to have never come up. Happy 61st birthday to former NASA astronaut Dr. Nancy Currie-Gregg, nee Decker and Sherlock. Born in Wilmington, Delaware, and raised in suburban Dayton, she graduated from the Army ROTC at Ohio State in 1980. She became one of the rare Army aviators, piloting helicopters and small fixed-wing aircraft in an engineering capacity. She eventually earned Master Aviator standing. In 1987, she was assigned to NASA's Johnson Space Center in a non-astronaut role to work on the Shuttle Training Aircraft, a specially-fitted Grumman Gulfstream II small jet that helped pilots and commanders practice shuttle landings. Naturally, this gave her a taste for space exploration, and she became an astronaut herself in 1990 in the mission specialist track. Dr. Currie has participated in four missions: STS-57 on Endeavour in 1993 (first SPACEHAB flight/retrieval of EURECA), STS-70 on Discovery in 1995 (last first-gen TDRS deployment), STS-88 on Endeavour (first ISS construction mission, Unity install), and STS-109 on Columbia in 2002 (Hubble servicing mission 3B). Her specialty on missions has been operating the Canadarm remote manipulator. She retrieved EURECA on STS-57, attached Unity to the Shuttle's docking bay in STS-88, and retrieved Hubble for repair on STS-109. After the Columbia disaster, Dr. Currie was was assigned to the Safety and Mission Assurance Office. She left the Astronaut Office in 2005, and retired from the Army as a Colonel. She continued as an advisor to Johnson Space Center, and is currently a professor at Texas A&M University. Thrice married, she has one child from her first marriage. Her second husband died in 2011 from renal cancer. Interestingly enough, there is an observatory with her name at her third husband's alma mater high school in Enid, Oklahoma.
Charles Bassett was born on December 30, 1931, in Dayton, Ohio. In high school, he was part of a club that built gas-powered model planes. This translated into an interest in real airplanes; he got his civilian pilot's license at 17, and earned money doing odd jobs at a local airport. He went to Ohio State, but didn't join its Air Force ROTC until his junior year. He then dropped out to enlist as an aviation cadet in 1952 (one of the last to become an American military pilot before earning a college degree). He would finish an electrical engineering degree at Texas Tech in 1960, and also do some grad work at Southern California. While Korea was likely what motivated Basset to join the Air Force, the war was over when he earned his commission in December 1953. He went there as part of post-war peacekeeping in 1955. He eventually went through Experimental Test Pilot School, and spent time testing fighter aircraft at Edwards AFB. He was selected to NASA in Astronaut Group 3 in 1963. Deke Slayton was impressed by his performance in training, and selected him to be the junior pilot for Gemini 9 with command pilot Elliot See. He was also preliminarily selected to be the command module pilot in Frank Borman's Apollo crew. It wasn't to be. But you already knew that. On February 28, 1966, he and See were piloting a T-38 Talon trainer jet in St. Louis when they lost control and crashed into a McDonnell building at Lambert Field (what is now St. Louis International Airport). Both men died only 500 feet away from the Gemini 9 capsule. Bassett's death was particularly gruesome: he was decapitated, and his head was found in the rafters. He was 34. Bassett left a wife and two children. He and See's names are on the Space Mirror Memorial. The two were buried near each other at Arlington National Cemetery. Bassett's final rank with the Air Force was Major.
Everything remaining has been shunted to the 2020s. 2019 in review: China had 34 launches: 2 Long March 2 12 Long March 3 7 Long March 4 One each Long March 5 and 6 6 Long March 11 5 Kuaizhou 3 miscellaneous "private" rockets The United States had 27 launches: 12 Falcon 9 One Falcon Heavy 3 Delta IV 2 Atlas V 2 Antares One each of Minotaur and Pegasus 6 Electron (which while launched in New Zealand, are counted for the US) Russia had 25 launches: 18 Soyuz (3 for ESA from Kourou) 5 Proton 2 Rokot ESA had 6 launches: 4 Ariane 5 2 Vega India had 6 launches: 1 GSLV 5 PSLV Japan had 2 launches: one each H-IIB and Epsilon There were a total of five launch failures: A OneSpace M1 rocket failed to orbit a small satellite from Jiuquan on March 27. A Long March 4C rocket failed to orbit a Yaogan reconnaissance satellite on on May 22. A Vega rocket failed to orbit a reconnaissance satellite for the United Arab Emirates on July 11. It is believed that the second stage failed to ignite. Iran claimed two orbital rocket failures January 15 and February 5, each different rockets. A third rocket exploded on the launch pad. In all three cases, whether or not they were actually orbital launch attempts is questionable. Naturally, we also had the landing failures of the Beresheet and Vikram lunar landers. While the nature of the failure of Beresheet was known immediately, it is now believed Vikram broke apart during descent. And of course, there was the orbital burn anomaly on the first flight of Starliner. While it achieved orbit, and was ultimately recovered after two days, it did not make it to the International Space Station. ******** The latest NASA mission to Mars, the Mars 2020 rover, is scheduled to launch atop an Atlas V rocket on July 17. Russia and ESA are aiming for a landing, but are having issues with their lander, Kazachok. China also has its first attempt at a Mars landing. ESA will launch their Solar Orbiter, kind of a lesser version of the Parker Solar Probe, on an American Atlas V rocket on February 6. It will not go much closer than 60 solar radii, but will be highly inclined to the ecliptic, up to 34 degrees. Hayabusa2 will return to Earth in December, while OSIRIS-REx will arrive at the asteroid Bennu in July. SpaceX is hoping to launch a test orbital flight of its BFR, Starship. They have a January 4 date for its in-flight abort test for Crew Dragon. If it goes well, their first manned mission is currently scheduled NET February. As for Starliner... It's officially changed to "Q1 2020". Until they fully feel out the issues with the test flight, Boeing's astronauts aren't going anywhere.
50 years ago today, Apollo 20 was officially canceled. NASA was told that they would receive no further appropriations to build more Saturn V rockets. Faced with a decision on the Apollo Applications Program Orbital Workshop, they cut what was to be the final lunar flight at that time, which was being aimed for Tycho crater. This opened up SA-515 to be used to launch the Orbital Workship. The irony of this is that Skylab was being built out of an S-IVB stage that was designed for the Saturn IB rocket. This led to some personnel shifts. Some astronauts got shifted from the lunar program to the AAP, including XS-11 recruit Don Lind. Lind wouldn't get to fly until the Space Shuttle program. It is likely that Paul Weitz and Jack Lousma were also moved to AAP at this time. Both were connected to Apollo 20 as possible junior crewmembers, with Lousma being considered as either CMP or LMP. Stuart Roosa and Edgar Mitchell, at the time, were both being considered to command Apollo 20. Both backed up Apollo 16 and 17. Roosa would then be re-assigned to the Shuttle program, but left NASA in 1976. Mitchell left NASA in 1972. ******** BTW: The Crew Dragon in-flight abort test is now scheduled NET January 11. It was actually double-booked with a Starlink comsat launch for today (though Starlink is at Pad 40, and the Crew Dragon test will take place from Pad 39A). The Starlink launch was moved to Monday night due to bad weather today. It's scheduled to launch at 9:19pm EST.
Happy 50th birthday to Canadian astronaut Dr. David Saint-Jacques. Born in Quebec (the city), this guy is definitely a polyglot. After earning his degree from Polytechnique Montreal in 1993, he got a PhD in astrophysics from Cambridge in 1998. He would spend the turn of the century at Japan's National Astronomical Observatory. From there, he decided to shift to medicine. During his postgraduate studies, he worked as a biomedical engineer, and studied angiography. He eventually earned his MD from Laval University in 2005, and completed his residency at McGill University Hospital in 2007, specializing in remote medical practice for the distant reaches of Canada. With his wide range of experience, Saint-Jacques was selected as an astronaut by the Canadian Space Agency in 2009. His training was frequently interrupted by his other work in the 2010s, being the chief of medicine at a hospital serving the First American villages of extreme northern Quebec and Newfoundland. He finally got to fly to the ISS in December 2018 as part of Expedition 57. arriving on Soyuz MS-11. He spent seven months in space, spanning three expeditions. During Expedition 58, his crew received the unmanned Crew Dragon demonstration mission. During Expedition 59, Saint-Jacques participated in a spacewalk on April 8, 2019, making him the first Canadian to walk in space in 12 years. He returned to Earth on June 25, 2019. Dr. Saint-Jacques is married to another doctor, and has three children.
I've done the other two recently, so why not? Happy 79th birthday to former NASA astronaut Frederick Gregory. Born in DC, he is the descendant of many innovators; his mother was a prominent educator and early urban public library advocate, and his uncle was Dr. Charles Drew, who improved blood storage technology just in time to be applied in World War II. He graduated from Air Force in 1964, and flew helicopters in Vietnam. He flew a total of 550 rescue missions during his deployment. After returning from the war, he switched to fighters, and eventually went to Navy Test Pilot School. He would begin working for NASA in a non-astronaut role as a test pilot in the mid-1970s, while also getting a master's in information systems from George Washington University in 1977. Gregory was one of the three African Americans selected in Astronaut Group 8 in 1978, and was the only one of them in the pilot track. He served as the Astronaut Office liaison at KSC during launch operations for STS-1 and STS-2. At various points during his time at the Astronaut Office, he would serve as the Chief CAPCOM, Chief of Operational Safety, and Chief of Astronaut Training. His first mission as pilot was STS-51-B on Challenger in April and May 1985, the second Spacelab mission. He would then command STS-33 on Discovery in 1989, and STS-44 on Atlantis in 1991. Both his commands were DoD missions. In 1992, Gregory left the Astronaut Office and moved to NASA Headquarters, where he became Associate Administrator of the Office of Safety and Mission Assurance. In 2001, he took the same position at the Office of Space Flight. On August 12, 2002, Gregory became the Deputy Administrator, essentially second in command at NASA. In 2005, he spent two months as Acting Administrator between the departure of Sean O'Keefe and the appointment of Michael Griffin. He then left NASA in November 2005. He has two children with his first wife, who died in 2008. He subsequently remarried, and has three step-children from his second wife. His final rank in the Air Force was Colonel.
When Juno was sent to Jupiter, its mission was almost entirely targeted to Jupiter itself. Its experiments and imaging system were designed to get spectacular images of just the planet. Almost no attention has been paid to its satellites, outside of a couple extremely low-res images of Io. Until now. Ganymede! This sequence of four new images reveals the first views of the north polar region of Jupiter’s moon Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system. Learn more: https://t.co/KFfZwBeG8n Image processing by Gerald Eichstädt. pic.twitter.com/jJHo4ZezIw— NASA's Juno Mission (@NASAJuno) January 10, 2020 Mission scientists today released a set of images of the north polar region of Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede. The images were acquired on Christmas Day, right before the Perijove 24 pass.
60 years ago today, the Soviet Union decreed for the creation of a cosmonaut training center to support their forming space program. The main training center was located in Zvyozdny, a suburb of Moscow. The compound was referred to as "Star City", and was initially a closely-guarded secret. Originally a military closed city, Zvyozdny was transferred from the Ministry of Defence to Roscosmos in 2009.
17 years ago today ICESat was launched atop a Delta II 7320 rocket from Pad 2W, Vandenberg AFB. The sole instrument on the satellite was the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS), a LIDAR-based system to measure the depths of the ocean. Although it was intended to last five years, one of the lasers failed only 2 months after launch. It was determined that a manufacturing defect led to corrosive degradation of the pump diodes in the lasers. As a result, mission scientists decided to limit operating time for the remaining lasers. The last laser failed in October 2009. NASA used its remaining propellant to lower its orbit as much as possible. They were able to get it down from a 360-mile circular orbit, to a perigee of 125 miles. The probe de-orbited on August 30, 2010, two weeks after it was shut down. It re-entered over the Barents Sea.
25 years ago today, Japan launched the Express 1 technology satellite on the final Mu-3S-II rocket from Kagoshima Space Center. Little is known about the purpose of Express 1, except the following: 1) It was a test of an indigenous re-entry vehicle of some kind. 2) It was twice as heavy as any payload ever carried by the Mu-3S-II. It re-entered after completing one orbit. Its reentry module operated as intended, and ended up landing in Ghana. They officially blamed reaction control on the second stage for placing it in an incorrect orbit, but some analysts think the rocket was simply unable to lift it to its intended orbit. An ignonymous end to the rocket that launched Sakigake and Suisei into heliocentric orbit.
74 years ago today, Project Hermes received authorization to proceed with American use of the V-2 rocket for suborbital research launches, effectively turning it into a sounding rocket. Various agencies and college research schools would use the rocket to make preliminary measurements of the upper atmosphere. This would later lead to the use of the "Bumper" rocket, which added a WAC Corporal solid-fuel missile on top as a second stage. In the end, the United States would launch more than 60 V-2 rockets under Project Hermes. The last one was exhausted in September 1952. By then, the Americans had developed other sounding rockets to replace it, most prolifically the Aerobee rocket series.
Old old old old old old news. The Nauka module has been delayed again. And again. And again. It was originally supposed to be launched in 2007. I have reported on recent delays in the past. They finally put it on the launch manifest again for November 2020. Then about six weeks ago, Roscosmos informed NASA and ESA that it has been delayed another three months, into 2021. By this point, all the original systems will be out of warranty. Nauka was supposed to be Russia's primary research module on the International Space Station. Today, the only module where they can do research is Rassvet. Nauka is supposed to deliver the European Robotic Arm. A spare elbow joint for the manipulator was launched with Rassvet. The delays have repeatedly been chalked up to manufacturing defects. At one point, they actually replaced the propulsion system because the original one was out of warranty. They may have to do it again. At this rate, by the time it is finally ready, there may be no ISS for it to be launched to. The ISS's mission is currently scheduled to end in 2024.