One of the first things new Roscosmos chief Yuri Borisov did was declare that Russia would begin procedures to opt out of the International Space Station after 2024, confirming something Dmitry Rogozin had been threatening for years. The details for this will undoubtedly come together over time. But Roscosmos has assured that this decision will not affect their confirmation with NASA on the coming ride swaps. NASA has been testing limited reboosts using the Northrop Grumman Cygnus recently with good results. They have said that they can technically meet their intended end date of 2030 without Russia, but the main concern is propulsion. If they can limp along until the Axiom Power Tower arrives in 2027—or, theoretically, were to be accelerated to arrive earlier—then some of those concerns could be allayed. Or, they could always pay Russia to continue Progress flights to keep their side fueled and continue to boost the ISS as needed. The Russian Orbital Service Station is still planned to launch its first segment in 2026. But given Roscosmos' recent track record on large constructs (remember, Nauka suffered 14 years of delays, and is already technically obsolete), that will almost certainly slip. And there hasn't been much news on Sino-Russian cooperation, particularly Russian participation in their Tiangong space station. But that would make them subservient to the Communist Party of China. And also defeat one of the technical arguments for leaving the ISS: its limited range covering Russian territory. The inclination of the International Space Station is 51.66°. While that can be reached from Baikonur Cosmodrome, it leaves most of Russian territory out of view from the ISS. POCC is planned for a polar SSO, around 98° inclination, which would give them global observation range. Tiangong's inclination is only 41.58°. As for the the ISS' Russian Orbital Segment, it could be acquired by NASA as part of an agreement for continued propulsion flights. If they decide to "cut the cord", it would be a gigantic waste—especially as far as Nauka is concerned. They wouldn't be able to move it to POCC, which was an early plan particularly so they could reuse the Prichal docking module before they decided to set up shop in polar orbit. So the most likely step going forward would be to keep everything together.
The next launch up for SpaceX is Danuri, the Korean Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter. It is currently set for next Thursday at 7:08pm EDT. August is expected to be packed for SpaceX, as they have as many as six Starlink launches planned. Then they have several commercial and government launches planned for September. SpaceX Crew-5 has slipped to September 29 at 2pm EDT. It is planned to be the first flight of Falcon 9 first-stage booster B1077.1. But recent inspections at Cape Canaveral discovered damage to its interstage sleeve, which they are fixing. That will give Anna Kikina four extra weeks to train for Crew Dragon systems after months of uncertainty over whether she'd actually fly the mission. United Launch Alliance will see its next launch with SBIRS GEO-6 atop an Atlas V 421 rocket from Pad 41, Cape Canaveral, currently also penciled in for next Thursday. And ISRO is planning to debut their Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) this month, though a solid launch date is not yet set.
And now, it is officially official. This Thursday, August 4, @NASA will host a @SpaceX #Crew5 mission overview news conference at 12:30pm ET, followed by a crew news conference at 2pm ET. More info.. https://t.co/yEl6FPq6Iv— International Space Station (@Space_Station) August 2, 2022 SpaceX Crew-5 will go ahead with the first Russian to board a Crew Dragon, Anna Kikina. It is currently set for launch to the International Space Station on September 29 at 2pm EDT. In addition, Nicole Aunapu Mann is being rewarded for being pulled every which way regarding the issues with Starliner by being named commander for the mission, set to become the first woman to command a Crew Dragon. Josh Cassada will be the pilot, and the other mission specialist will be Koichi Wakata of JAXA. Wakata will be the only veteran astronaut on the mission. ******** SpaceX Crew-6 has also been finalized. Joining commander Stephen Bowen and pilot Warren Hoberg will be Russian cosmonaut Andrei Fedayev and Emirati astronaut Sultan al-Neyadi. As I've mentioned before, Al-Neyadi was previously the backup of Hazza al-Mansouri during his ISS visit in 2019. Both have been training with NASA in connection with Astronaut Group 23 since last year for future ISS assignments. Al-Neyadi will be the first Arabic astronaut to be part of a full ISS expedition. Crew-6 is penciled in for Spring 2023, but could be pushed back if NASA decides to cut Boeing in should the Starliner Crewed Flight Test go well. Starliner CFT has been delayed to December 8, likely due to the delays in SpaceX Crew-5 and resulting schedule congestion at the ISS. There are rumors that a Russian could fly on Starliner-1 as well. As of current, Jeanette Epps remains the only confirmed crewmember for that mission.
At 12 hours, 39 minutes, today's turnaround time between launches at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station was the shortest for orbital-class missions since September 1967.Here are some stats showing past launches in close proximity. https://t.co/0DBcVHvIBN pic.twitter.com/INicgQDYnj— Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) August 4, 2022 With the launches of SBIRS GEO-6 this morning and Danuri about an hour ago, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and Space Launch Delta 45 pulled their quickest turnaround between launches since 1981, and their first sub-24-hour turnaround in 55 years. Four turnarounds of roughly 100 minutes were connected with the Agena Target Vehicle phase of Project Gemini in 1966. In 1967, Biosatellite 2 was launched atop a Thor-Delta G in the early evening of September 7, followed by an early-morning launch of the Surveyor 5 lunar lander atop an Atlas-Centaur around 10 hours later. The closest turnaround since then was in 1981, when GOES-5 launched atop a Delta 3914 in the evening of May 22, and Intelsat 501 was lofted atop an Atlas-Centaur one day and 13 minutes later. Of course, we still await a day when SpaceX conducts two Falcon 9 launches from Cape Canaveral in the same day.
54 years ago today, Apollo project manager George Low was working on details regarding the planned C-prime mission. Joseph Kotanchik opined that, instead of flying a full lunar module, they should build a boilerplate to sit in its place on the S-IVB stage as ballast. That would reduce the risk of damaging hardware should the pogo oscillation issues from Apollo 6 re-manifest on this mission. Everyone was on the same page regarding pushing forward a cislunar flight in December. Except for North American Aviation. William Bergen, an executive at NAA who was involved in design for the CSM and the S-II stage, expressed misgivings about the accelerated schedule.
NASA has reaffirmed that Artemis 1 is still scheduled to launch on Monday, August 29, with a two-hour window opening at 8:33am EDT. Its Space Launch System rocket is currently being prepared for final rollout to Pad 39B, Kennedy Space Center. In addition to the actual Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft, it is carrying many payloads, including a total of ten cubesats. Six will be sent into heliocentric orbit, three will be left in orbit around the Moon, and one will be left at the Earth-Moon L2 Lagrangian point. As part of the ballast, three of the seats on Artemis 1 will be occupied. One will carry an anthropomorphic dynamic test article christened Moonikin Campos; the last name is from Arturo Campos, a Mexican-American NASA flight engineer who assisted in the Apollo 13 rescue. NASA also provided a figure of Snoopy, who was and still is a mascot heavily connected to crewed spaceflight, especially as the namesake of the Apollo 10 lunar module. And ESA is providing a figure of Aardman Animation's Shaun the Sheep. ESA did a joke article about Shaun going through survival training, which shows several pictures of the figure out in the wild. But to my disappointment, considering ESA's track record of cute mission animations, there isn't actually video of Shaun doing this. Someone needs to get Nick Park on the horn.
Artemis 1 is still on track for its launch next Monday morning. Wikipedia hasn't updated the intended mission profile, as the Artemis 1 page still has the generic timeline based on a minimum mission. After launch and on-orbit systems checks, the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS) will burn for 20 minutes for trans-Lunar injection (TLI), Once the Orion spacecraft separates, it will burn its engines again to head to heliocentric orbit, releasing its cubesats as needed. The main feature for the mission's trajectory is the powered fly-by. After its initial flight to the Moon, it will be pulled back toward the Moon, and fly 100 km above its surface while firing its engines to enter what is being called a "distant retrograde orbit" of around 40,000 miles above the Moon. At this point, it will be more than 270,000 miles away from Earth. When the mission ends, Artemis 1 will be de-orbited from the DRLO, and lower its perilune back to 100 km. At perilune, it will do another powered fly-by to return to Earth. From there, it will look just like an Apollo lunar mission. ******** Before that, SpaceX has two Starlink launches planned on Saturday: an early morning launch from Vandenberg SFB at 1:30am EDT, and a late evening launch from Pad 39A, Kennedy Space Center, at 10:22pm EDT. They also have a Starlink rideshare planned for September 4. It will carry a Sherpa-LT space tug with a technology demonstrator from Boeing. It's currently not known how many Starlink satellites will launched with it. This Sherpa, the Sherpa-LTC, has hypergolic fuel. There is also an ion engine-based Sherpa-LTE which supposedly will be able to launch cubesats and smallsats on interplanetary missions. ******** The first launch attempt for the ABL Space Systems RS1 rocket is currently set for September 5 at 9pm EDT (5pm AKDT) from Pad 3C, Kodiak Island. Its payload is still TBA. And LauncherOne and Cosmic Girl are jet-setting. They are currently planned to fly next from Cornwall on September 8 with several British cubesats, as well a cubesat which will be the first orbital satellite from Oman. Virgin Orbit has not publicized a mission name yet. They have also announced an agreement with J-Space to conduct air launches based out of South Korea.
There is one concern about Artemis 1: the cubesats. They have been stowed within the interstage between the ICPS upper stage and the Orion spacecraft for over a year awaiting launch. This is a problem because of their on-board batteries. Five of the cubesats were designed so they could be recharged during rocket maintenance, and have been at various points during the long wait for the mission. The other five do not have that capability, and could have batteries with reduced charge. All are solar powered, so if they at least survive long enough to get to open space and exposure to the Sun, they will likely be okay. But there is definitely a non-zero chance that at least one of the cubesats will be dead on arrival.
Happy 62nd birthday to NASA astronaut Lee Archambault. Born in suburban Chicago, he earned a bachelor's in aeronautical engineering in 1980, and a master's in astronautics in 1982, both from UIUC. He then went to Air Force Officer Training School at Lackland AFB in Texas, and became a pilot. He flew the General Dynamics F-111 Aardvard, then the Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk. He flew the latter in 22 combat missions during Operation Desert Storm. After training as a test pilot, Lee did weapons tests with the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon at Eglin AFB in Florida. He was selected to NASA in the pilot track of Group 18 in 1997. His specialty in the Astronaut Office was orbiter flight instrument upgrades. He flew as a pilot aboard Atlantis on STS-117 in June 2007, delivering the S3/S4 Truss to the International Space Station. He returned commanding Discovery on STS-117 in March 2009, installing the last of the ISS solar panels. Lee left NASA in 2012, and joined Sierra Nevada Corporation the next year, becoming a test pilot for their Dream Chaser space plane. He is also rated for the Bombardier Dash 8 turboprop, which he has been flying part-time since 2019. He is married, and has three children. His rank in the Air Force is colonel, though it's ambiguous on if he's retired or not.
On Monday, the Space Telescope Science Institute dropped a ton of new infrared shots of Jupiter from the James Webb Space Telescope. Several of the images were able to clearly spot several of Jupiter's closer moons, including diminutive inner satellites Adrastea and Amalthea; as well as its super-dim ring, and aurorae at both poles. ******** The Saturday morning Starlink launch at Vandenberg has been pushed to Wednesday. The Saturday night launch from Pad 39A currently has a 60% chance of launch favorability from the 45th Weather Squadron. Artemis 1 has a 70% chance of weather favorability for Monday morning. The main concern for both is lightning, though Artemis 1 has "flight through precipitation" as an added concern. For the latter, that's hilarious considering how many Apollo lunar missions were launched in bad weather. Particularly Apollo 12. ******** Firefly Alpha's second launch attempt has been penned in for September 11 at 6pm from Pad 2W, Vandenberg SFB. It doesn't seem like it's been a year since their first launch attempt. In that one, it aborted, recycled for an hour, then launched (despite a controller trying to call for another hold), and an engine failed early on, with the rocket destroyed by range safety at T+2 and a half minutes. This launch will carry several cubesats, and a dispenser that is planned to deploy even smaller satellites. Termed PocketQubes, they are in the picosat size category. The baseline PocketQube form factor is a 5cm cube that weighs 250 grams; they can be further categorized as multiples of that baseline.
Launch in 30 minutes! Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 4-23,August 28 03:41 UTCAugust 27 20:41 PDTAugust 27 23:41 EDT#SpaceX #Falcon9 #FalconHeavy #ElonMusk #Starship— Next SpaceX Launch (@SpaceXCountdown) August 28, 2022
57 years ago today, a blueprint was set in front of one of the lead electrical engineers at OKB-1, Boris Chertok. It was a plan set forward by Sergei Korolev himself to begin development of 13 test articles for the Soyuz 7K-OK spacecraft. The accelerated schedule would push further development of Voskhod to the backburner. What particularly incensed Chertok was the lack of an "iron bird", a master test article that would be used to test electrical and avionics systems. Instead, they would go straight to developing two flight-ready spacecraft. The goal was to have them ready to fly in early 1966. Following Voskhod 2 and Alexei Leonov's first extravehicular activity, NASA snatched the lead in the Space Race by claiming the duration record with Gemini 5, flown by Gordo Cooper and Pete Conrad. This put enormous stress on Korolev, causing serious health issues. The haste would prove foolhardy. The Soviet Union wouldn't see space for another 19 months. They wouldn't have another successful spaceflight for three years. Sergei Korolev wouldn't live to see any of it. Chertok, however, would have to deal with it for a very long time. He would rise to eventually be the deputy chief designer at TsKBEM, NPO Energia, and RKK Energia before finally retiring in 1992. He finally died in Moscow on December 14, 2011, aged 99.
Artemis 1 scrubbed for the day. They had issues with engine chill prep in one of the RS-25 engines. This is one of the issues they weren't able to get to during the last wet dress rehearsal. They are staying at the pad and at the firing rooms working through the issue now. If they are able to resolve it, the next launch opportunity will be Friday, with the launch window opening at 12:48pm EDT.
As the Voyager probes begin their 46th year in space, NASA is reflecting on the enormity of the mission. And a recent small problem with one of the probes. Earlier this year, the attitude control system for Voyager 1 began sending garbled telemetry information. It was still working normally—if it weren't, even a minor misaim would've broken contact at such massive distances—as were all the other instruments that were still being kept on. Ground controllers eventually found that, for unknown reasons, the AACS instrument had been redirected through Voyager 1's primary transmission amplifier. The component had failed in October 1987, and they switched the probe to the backup unit. Voyager 2 suffered the same component problem toward the end of 1988, and had to undergo the Neptune encounter in August 1989 using the backup. The backup units on both spacecraft have been operating nominally ever since. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory is trying to figure out how and why it spontaneously reverted, to make sure it doesn't happen again. The probes are estimated to have used up just about 30% of the plutonium-238 in their RTG's. They will be half-way through their RTG's by 2050. It is believed neither probe will be able to power any of their scientific instruments past 2025, and their carrier signals will be too weak to be received by the Deep Space Network by 2036.
After scrubbing yesterday's Artemis 1 countdown, NASA officials are targeting no earlier than Saturday for the next try to launch the Space Launch System moon rocket from the Kennedy Space Center.Saturday's launch window opens at 2:17pm EDT (1817 GMT).https://t.co/3x7wi3KbIh pic.twitter.com/OH5xpqbJfe— Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) August 30, 2022 NASA has officially rescheduled the launch of Artemis 1 for Saturday afternoon, with a two-hour launch window opening at 2:17pm EDT. The 45th Weather Squadron, however, is not optimistic about conditions. They are only giving a 40% chance of launch favorability with chances of rain and lightning. That will definitely be a risk with these afternoon launch windows during the summer. The Starlink/Sherpa rideshare has been pushed to Sunday night at 8:32pm EDT, and will now take place from Pad 40. Another potential Starlink rideshare has been penciled in for a possible Wednesday launch from Pad 39A.
Sierra Space already has a cargo customer for the Dream Chaser. They have signed an agreement with German biotech firm Yurigravity to send biomedical experiments to the International Space Station beginning in 2024. Their work is called the ScienceTaxi. It is sort of a payload dispenser for experiments that is temperature controlled for biomedical samples. Of course, when they begin launching depends on the first test flight of Dream Chaser, which is currently penciled in for February. And that depends on the first test launch of the Vulcan rocket, currently penciled in for December. Still not too much in the way of evidence that those are still on track. Lockheed Martin and BlueOrigin are really keeping up the suspense on that.
60 years ago today, a Molniya rocket was launched from Site 1/5, Baikonur Cosmodrome. The payload was the fourth launch attempt of the Venera program. The probe was intended to be launched to Venus, with an atmospheric probe left at the planet. It achieved LEO, but the fuel valve on the Blok L upper stage failed to open, and it didn't go any further. It would re-enter five days later. Western authorities referred to it initially as Sputnik 24, then later as Sputnik 20. Sputnik 24 would be re-applied to a Mars launch attempt later that year.
NASA awards SpaceX $1.4 billion for 5 more astronaut missions https://t.co/GrcEHdMrEv pic.twitter.com/07kHSUmla6— SPACE.com (@SPACEdotcom) August 31, 2022 Yesterday, NASA and SpaceX extended their crew mission contract for five more missions to the International Space Station. The extension, which is about $70 million per seat, will push it through Crew-14. It will push the total value of SpaceX's CCtCap contract to $4.9 billion. Depending on how long it takes for Starliner to finally begin operational flights, this could be enough to get to 2030. So NASA doesn't seem to think there will be any problems keeping the ISS in-orbit through 2030 as currently planned. As long as the Axiom Orbital Segment comes along as scheduled, it shouldn't be that big of a problem. Speaking of Starliner, the Crewed Flight Test has been pushed back to February 2023. NASA is considering re-adding a third astronaut to the mission.
Conditions are improving for the Artemis 1 launch attempt tomorrow. In this morning's update, the 45th Weather Squadron gave a 60% chance of launch favorability at the beginning of the window, increasing to 80%. If they manage to launch tomorrow, Artemis 1 will be on a 39-day mission. The next window will be Monday, which will start at a 70% chance of launch favorability.
NASA had an issue with the liquid hydrogen quick connect valve connecting to the Space Launch System. Again. So they are rolling back to the Vehicle Assembly Building. Again. Not sure why there was an issue today that wasn't an issue on Monday. The issues from Monday were completely different, and had to do with the engines. Ostensibly, they are yielding the next launch window range to make way for the launch of SpaceX Crew-5. They are aiming for the October 17-31 window range. But this will definitely buy them some time to iron out remaining bugs.
NASA isn't giving up on launching Artemis 1 during the late-September launch window. Pending official Artemis I plan. Option discussed: If FTS battery work (requires rollback to VAB) is waived, TSM(U) repairs may be conducted at the pad, followed by a modified WDR with LH2 Fast Fill = path to September 21 NET launch.📸Nathan Barker (@NASA_Nerd) for NSF. pic.twitter.com/1yjtGxSI0U— Chris Bergin - NSF (@NASASpaceflight) September 6, 2022 The presumption of needing to roll back Artemis 1 isn't just because of the QC valve issue, but because of a presumption that they need to recharge the battery for the Flight Termination System (FTS). If they can determine that the FTS battery is still okay, then they can work on the valve at Pad 39B, and aim for a launch as soon as September 21. A prerequisite for that launch attempt would be a modified Wet Dress Rehearsal involving a successful LH2 fast fill. The next set of launch windows runs September 20-October 4, with only September 29 excluded. SpaceX Crew-5 is currently set for October 3.
SpaceX is aiming for consecutive launches this weekend. A Starlink rideshare which will also carry a technology demonstration from AST SpaceMobile is scheduled for Saturday night at 7:51pm EDT from Pad 39A, Kennedy Space Center. A straight Starlink launch is then scheduled for Sunday night at 8:05pm EDT from Pad 40, Cape Canaveral. It is planned to be lifted by B1051.14. It has gone from potentially being expended at the beginning of the year to an additional three launches at least. ******** There are a few new cores currently being tested. The next Falcon 9 first stage to make its debut will be B1077.1, which will launch SpaceX Crew-5. All the planned Falcon Heavy launches keep getting pushed back. But it's beginning to look like they might finally launch USSF-44 next month.
Thomas Keith Glennan was born on September 8, 1905, in Enderlin, North Dakota. After graduating high school, he began his college education at Wisconsin-Eau Claire, but was eventually migrated to Yale, where he earned a bachelor's in electrical engineering in 1927. He got a job at Western Electric which put him at the cutting edge of "talkies". He would eventually become a stage manager at Paramount Pictures and at Samuel Goldwyn Studios. He shifted to aircraft with Vega before joining a research tank at Columbia during World War II, during which he was involved in research involving SONAR. Glennan would become the president of the Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland in the late 1940s, guiding it to become one of the top engineering schools in the country, and also spending time on the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission; he resigned from the USAEA the day before the test of the first thermonuclear bomb, Ivy Mike. On August 19, 1958, he was tapped to be the first Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. He oversaw the foundation of the new agency, adding the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Army Ballistic Missile Agency, and several Air Force space projects into what had been the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. By the time he left at the beginning of 1961, he had established NASA as the primary driver for the U.S. civilian space program. That being said, he was never enthusiastic about competing with the Soviets. After leaving NASA, Glennan returned to Case, guiding its merger with Western Reserve University, forming Case Western Reserve University. He retired in 1966, and moved to DC, living in the Virginia suburbs initially, then moving to the Maryland suburbs in the 1980s. He suffered a stroke and died on April 11, 1995, aged 89. He left a wife and four children.