THE NEW SPACE RACE: NASA selects Intuitive Machines for south pole lunar lander mission.
Search Results
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Galactic Energy launches six satellites with third sea launch. “China’s Galactic Energy conducted its third Ceres-1 solid rocket sea launch Thursday, successfully sending six satellites into orbit. . . . Three of the satellites were Yunyao-1 spacecraft, equipped with GNSS occultation (GNSS-RO) and infrared imaging payloads, intended to provide meteorological data for commercial firm Yunyao Yuhang. Also aboard was Jitian-A03, the first satellite for Suzhou Jitian Xingzhou Space Technology Co. Ltd. The satellite is equipped with a hyperspectral remote sensing payload for high-resolution optical remote sensing technology verification. Hyperspectral sensors capture data across hundreds of narrow, contiguous spectral bands, allowing these sensors to distinguish between materials, making these useful for applications including mineral exploration, agriculture, and environmental monitoring.”
WOEING: NASA cuts 2 from next SpaceX flight to make room for astronauts stuck at space station. “NASA’s Nick Hague and Russian Aleksandr Gorbunov will launch in September aboard a SpaceX rocket for the orbiting laboratory. The duo will return with Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore in February. NASA decided it’s too risky for Williams and Wilmore to fly home in their Boeing Starliner capsule, marred by thruster troubles and helium leaks. Bumped from the SpaceX flight: NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson. NASA said they could fly on future missions.”
GREAT! NOW GO TO ORBIT: Blue Origin successfully completes 8th manned New Shepard space tourism flight.
BOEING TAKE NOTE: New algorithms could enhance autonomous spacecraft safety.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: SpaceX delays Polaris Dawn astronaut launch until at least Aug. 30 due to bad weather. “Polaris Dawn was originally scheduled to launch early Monday morning (Aug. 26) from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, but SpaceX pushed things back a day to perform more preflight checkouts. The company then called the planned Tuesday (Aug. 27) attempt off after detecting a helium leak, targeting Wednesday (Aug. 28) instead. But now Mother Nature has foiled that plan.”
POLARIS DAWN: One of the most adventurous human spaceflights since Apollo may launch tonight.
During the initial hours of the spaceflight, the crew will seek to fly in a highly elliptical orbit, reaching an altitude as high as 1,400 km (870 miles) above the planet’s surface. This will be the highest Earth-orbit mission ever flown by humans and the farthest any person has flown from Earth since the Apollo Moon landings more than half a century ago. This will expose the crew to a not insignificant amount of radiation, and they will collect biological data to assess harms.
The Resilience spacecraft will then descend toward a more circular orbit about 700 km above the Earth’s surface. Assuming a launch on Tuesday, the crew will don four spacesuits on Friday and open the hatch to the vacuum of space. Then Isaacman, followed by mission specialist Sarah Gillis, will each briefly climb out of the spacecraft into space.
Isaacman’s interest in performing the first private spacewalk accelerated, by years, SpaceX’s development of these spacesuits. This really is just the first generation of the suit, and SpaceX is likely to continue iterating toward a spacesuit that has its own portable life support system (PLSS). This is the “backpack” on a traditional spacesuit that allows NASA astronauts to perform spacewalks untethered to the International Space Station.
The general idea is that, as the Starship vehicle makes the surface of the Moon and eventually Mars more accessible to more people, future generations of these lower-cost spacesuits will enable exploration and settlement. That journey, in some sense, begins with this mission’s brief spacewalks, with Isaacman and Gillis tethered to the Dragon vehicle for life support.
Godspeed…
THERE SEEMS TO BE A LOT OF THAT GOING AROUND: SpaceX delays Polaris Dawn astronaut launch to Aug. 28 due to helium leak.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Amazon expands Kennedy Space Center facility to accelerate satellite deployments.
Plus: SpaceX Private Spacewalk Mission Launches Tonight. Or maybe it counts as early tomorrow morning. “The Polaris Dawn mission, a commercial spaceflight backed by American billionaire Jared Isaacman that will attempt the first private spacewalk, is currently scheduled to launch on Tuesday, Aug. 27, on a Falcon 9 rocket and the Crew Dragon capsule Resilience. Liftoff is scheduled for 3:38 a.m. EDT (0738 GMT) from Florida’s Cape Canaveral.”
MY STRATEGY WOULD JUST BE TO HIRE SPACEX TO GET RID OF IT: Defying Disaster: NASA’s Innovative Strategies in Planetary Defense.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: SpaceX shows off Dragon capsules for Polaris Dawn flight.
WOEING: Boeing Starliner returning empty as NASA turns to SpaceX to bring astronauts back from ISS. “Starliner crew flight test was supposed to be a final box checked for Boeing and a key asset gained for NASA. The agency was hoping to fulfill its dream of having two competing companies — Boeing and Elon Musk’s SpaceX — flying alternating missions to the ISS. Instead, the flight test is further setting back Boeing’s progress in NASA’s Commercial Crew program and, with over $1.5 billion in losses absorbed already, threatens the company’s future involvement with it.”
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Norwegian spaceport receives government license.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: SLS contract extension hints at additional Artemis delays.
NASA, in an Aug. 14 procurement filing, announced its intent to extend that contract to at least September 2026. That would allow Teledyne Brown to complete work on the third and final LVSA “as well as to ultimately conclude LVSA activities” under the contract.
The proposed extension also includes several options for additional extensions. The first is a nine-month extension that would allow the contract to run through June 2027. That would be exercised “in the event an extension is necessary to conclude Artemis III launch and post-flight analysis in support of NASA Administrator Bill Nelson’s public announcement on January 9, 2024, in relation to the current SLS launch manifest,” the filing stated.
That is a reference to the announcement by the agency of delays in both the Artemis 2 and 3 missions. At a Jan. 9 briefing, NASA said that Artemis 2 would launch no earlier than September 2025, with Artemis 3 to follow no earlier than September 2026.
The agency has not updated those launch dates since then. However, NASA has yet to publicly resolve one of the issues that prompted the Artemis 2 launch delay, erosion to the heat shield of the Orion spacecraft on the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission in 2022. It is also unclear if development of key elements for Artemis 3, notably the Starship lunar lander by SpaceX, are on a schedule that could support a mission in late 2026.
Meanwhile: China on track for crewed moon landing by 2030, space official says.
It’s a real race.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: SLS contract extension hints at additional Artemis delays.
KEEP AN EYE ON THAT DR. SMITH CHARACTER, HE LOOKS SHADY: Starliner Stranded in Space? NASA Answers FAQs on Astronauts’ Return Status.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: NASA wants clarity on Orion heat shield issue before stacking Artemis II rocket.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Polaris Dawn private astronaut mission ready for launch.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Against all odds, an asteroid mining company appears to be making headway.
When I first spoke with space entrepreneurs Jose Acain and Matt Gialich a little more than two years ago, I wondered whether I would ever talk to them again.
That is not meant to be offensive; rather, it is a reflection of the fact that the business they entered into—mining asteroids for platinum and other precious metals—is a perilous one. To date, NASA and other space agencies have spent billions of dollars returning a few grams of rocky material from asteroids. Humanity has never visited a metal-rich asteroid, although that will finally change with NASA’s $1.4 billion Psyche mission in 2029. And so commercial asteroid mining seems like a stretch, and indeed, other similarly minded startups have come and gone.
But it turns out that I did hear from Acain and Gialich again about their asteroid mining venture, AstroForge. On Tuesday the co-founders announced that they have successfully raised $40 million in Series A funding and shared plans for their next two missions. AstroForge has now raised a total of $55 million to date.
Plus: “There is no shortage of potential targets. Scientists estimate that there are about 10 million near-Earth asteroids, which come within one astronomical unit (the distance between the Sun and Earth) of our planet. Perhaps 3 to 5 percent of these are rich in metals, so there are potentially hundreds of thousands of candidates for mining.”
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Against all odds, an asteroid mining company appears to be making headway.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: SpaceX sends 22 Starlink satellites into orbit using new first stage booster.
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY (MOSCOW EDITION): Russians Baffled After Putin’s ‘Space Troops’ Deployed as Infantry in Kursk.
The deployment of temporary motorized rifle of Russia’s Aerospace Forces to the Kursk region was first reported by independent investigative Russian outlet Important Stories.
The unit, created between May and June, consists of personnel from security and logistics companies, engineers, mechanics, some officers, and servicemen from a Russian spaceport. There are also personnel from special warehouses of the Aerospace Forces and radar stations in Russia’s Voronezh region, who were previously in charge of manning Russia’s nuclear deterrent, the publication reported, citing a source familiar with the matter.
The Fighterbomber Telegram channel, which has links to the Russian Aerospace Forces, appeared confused by the decision to deploy the unit to Kursk.
Possibly not the ideal use of warehouse specialists, engineers, mechanics, etc.