You might notice that this week’s Abbreviated Science Round-up has gone in a new direction. Don’t worry, the review of recent scientific articles, letters, and research papers will return next week — assuming that Robert Mueller doesn’t drop another 13 indictments on Friday afternoon while I’m trying to concentrate on “Endoplasmic reticulum acyltransferase with prokaryotic substrate preference contributes to triacylglycerol assembly in Chlamydomonas.” Because … seriously.
So, rather than try to read the 19 papers I’d singled out for this week in just a few hours, and making an even bigger mess of it than usual, I thought I’d try this morning giving a sampler of something I’m hoping to add as another regular feature in the next couple of weeks — the Abbreviated Space Round-up.
The Space round up is designed to put you in touch with what’s happening overhead in the next few weeks. What’s launching, what’s being tested, missions in the works, space in the news, news from orbit, Mars, and beyond. Coming off the excitement of the Falcon Heavy launch earlier in the month, it seemed like a good time to remind everyone that we’re in a very exiting time where fantastic space-related news is popping all the time.
Since this is a New Thing — and it’s being thrown together in those same few hours that I didn’t think were enough to do the regular Abbreviated Science Round-up — some of the formatting is going to be odd and the information incomplete. So give me some feedback. Let me know what works, what else you want, and where you need more detail.
And let me know if you’d like an Abbreviated Space Round-up to be a regular weekly feature alongside the Abbreviated Science Round-up … though we’ll have to come up with another name. Because ASR and ASR, is just not going to work.
Now, come on in ...
NASA News
In one of those examples of just how casual we’ve become about activities in space, this week saw an extended spacewalk outside the ISS as Mark Vande Hei and Norishige Kanai worked to remove a pair of hands from the robotic arm. That’s a NASA astronaut and a JAXA astronaut working on a system from the Canadian Space Agency. They don’t call it the International Space Station for nothing — which makes Donald Trump’s plans to end US contributions to the ISS more than a little problematic. One of the removed robot hands went into the spare parts bin. The other is coming back to Earth with the astronauts for a rebuild and upgrade.
Why did a 5 hour space walk not get any news — because it was the 208th space walk at the ISS. It’s easy to sit back and think that the ISS, orbiting just 400 km overhead, represents a step back from the heady days of Apollo. But when we do go out again to the Moon, or Mars, or elsewhere, it’s going to be the experience gathered and experiments conducted at the ISS that make that second exodus from Earth orbit a success.
Other Space Agency News
Jaxa successfully launched an SS-520 sounding rocket on Feb 6, putting a micro-satellite into orbit. This launch demonstrated Jaxa’s new small satellite launch capability.
ESA is advertising a new test bed for use on external experiments at the ISS. The Bartolomeo package is being touted as an ‘all in one’ service that includes an external connection to Europe’s Columbus module of the ISS. It’s designed for experiments that need to be outside the station’s atmosphere, or need an ‘unobstructed view of Earth.’
Roscosmos has a new page up to showcase the successful launch of the Progress 68 supply ship to the ISS, as well as a successful twin satellite launch on Feb 1.
ISRO is preparing India’s second moon mission for an April launch. The mission is a showcase of different technologies, including a moon imaging orbiter, a lander, and a rover. This is a follow on mission to the Chandrayaan-1, but is much more ambitious.
News from the Manufacturers
Last announced flight took place in December and included a test of the revised Crew Capsule for their suborbital flights. The flight also carried a series of small experiments to take advantage of the brief period of microgravity experienced during the 11-minute flight to just above 100 km and back again. The flight represented the first flight test Blue Origin had done in a year. However, it did reuse a previously flown New Shepard rocket which again successfully landed at Blue Origin’s West Texas test facility.
The test crew capsule (Crew capsule 2.0) on this flight featured large windows and appears to be much closer to the capsule Blue Origin intends to use when flying passengers on suborbital flights. Blue Origin has targeted 2019 for the beginning of those passenger flights. However, they still need to do a set of tests with test pilots on board before passenger flights begin.
The last critical test at Blue Origin was a firing of the BE-4 engine in October. That’s the engine they intend to use in their much larger New Glenn spacecraft, as well as the targeted engine for the upcoming Vulcan from United Launch Alliance.
While still reveling in the successful launch of the Falcon Heavy — a launch that not only went off amazingly smoothly for a first test, but included two Falcon 9 boosters that had previously flown. After 18 successful Falcon 9 flights in 2017, Space X is charging into 2018 with 4 flights scheduled for February or March.
If you’re waiting for another Falcon Heavy test launch … don’t. The next flight of the Falcon Heavy is scheduled for some time in the next three months, and it’s intended to carry the large Arabsat 6A communications satellite to geosynchronous orbit. That Space X is moving straight from test flight #1 to commercial operation is … typically Space X.
If you’ve never heard of these guys, that’s easy to understand. Unlike Space X and Blue Origin, they’re not headed up by a colorful billionaire with a penchant for making the news. Instead they’re headed up by Eren Ozman, a Turkish-American engineer who has grown the company from 20 employees to 3000. And if they’re not launching rockets up and down, they are doing something pretty cool — the Dream Chaser.
Dream Chaser is designed to be a craft for bringing both crew and cargo to the ISS or on other orbital missions. It’s not a launch system. Instead, it’s designed to catch a ride on an Atlas V or Falcon Heavy. Dream Chaser conducted glide tests in November, and while it may look remarkably like the lifting body craft that turned Steve Austin into the $6 million man, Dream Chaser landed successfully. So if you’ve missed seeing the Shuttle around, be on the look out for DC news.
The first two models of the Dream Chaser have been giving names: Eagle and Ascension. That’s the Eagle in the picture.
It’s easy to think of ULA as the “un-sexy one.” After all, smushing together Lockheed Martin and Boeing’s space divisions is just intrinsically less interesting than the activities of the nimble new guys on the block. But rather than think of ULA as dinosaurs, think of them as guys with over 300 successful launches under their belts … who are hopefully starting to wake up to the idea that they no longer have a monopoly on getting things to go up.
ULA has now taken over operations of Lockheed’s Atlas V, which remains both a reliable and extremely flexible launch system — they can strap on up to five solid fuel boosters — and that flexibility, along with a launch record beloved of insurance companies, is still landing contracts for ULA. Though take a look at the schedule below. In just about every spot that now says Falcon 9, that would have been an Atlas V launch a few years ago. ULA can’t like that.
The truth is that an Atlas V launch costs over $100 million. A Delta IV launch is above $150. And when you can buy a ride on a Falcon 9 for $62 million — and falling — it’s becoming harder and harder to justify the extra dollars for a ULA flight.
The response of ULA to Space X already eating their lunch and others hungrily eyeing what happens when the long term, mostly government, contracts that now sustain ULA run out is supposed to be a rocket called Vulcan. Vulcan uses an improved version of the ULA’s extremely long-in-the-tooth Centaur as an upper stage. The Centaur design goes back to the 1950s. That’s not exactly an inspirational note on ULA’s ability to conceptualize new designs. The bottom of the stack — the Vulcan — is an new design based around Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine (or possibly engines from Aerojet Rocketdyne, things are still not finalized) and the fuel tanks from a Delta IV. But … when it’s done, ULA will still have a rocket that costs more to operate and follows the same one-time-use model of their existing fleet. And that rocket will loft less than a Falcon Heavy.
ULA is counting on contracts for launching humans to the ISS using the Boeing Starliner capsule on top of an Atlas V as a revenue stream, but the first uncrewed flight isn’t scheduled until this August, and with Trump threatening to cut off ISS funds, that may not be a long-term source of funds.
Upcoming Launches
Feb 25 — Hispasat 30W-6, Falcon 9, Space Launch Complex 40
Delayed from Feb. 22. Communications satellite will provide broadband and television to Europe, North Africa and parts of the Americas.
March 1 — GEOS-S Mission, Atlas V, Space Launch Complex 41
Geostationary weather satellite that will improve monitoring of wildfires, cyclones, and other hazards that threaten the western United States, Hawaii, Alaska, Mexico, Central America and part of South America.
Mar 20 — TESS Mission, Falcon 9 Full Thrust, Launch Complex 39A
Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite designed to look for exoplanets that pass in front of 200,000 nearby stars.
Feb 18 — Paz earth observation satellite, Falcon 9, Space Launch Complex 4E
Delayed from Feb 17. High resolution radar satellite, primarily for “civilian surveillance needs.” Meshes with the TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X HR radar satellites. (Spain)
MAR 18 — Iridium Next 41-50, Falcon 9, Space Launch Complex 4E
Commercial communications satellites. Multiple satellite deployment.
Mar 22 — USIP 2, Terrier-Improved Malemute
Suborbital sounding rocking lofting scientific payload.
Mar 6 — O3b mPower 4, Arianespace Soyuz
Delayed from March 1. Arianespace Soyuz using a Fregat ‘space tug’ upper stage. Fourth set of mPower communications satellites.
Feb 13 — Progress 69, Soyuz 2.1a [Launched]
Cargo mission to ISS, originally designed to test new high speed delivery path that would bring Progress to ISS in under 4 hours. Delayed from initial launch date on Feb 11. Launched on 2-day ascent to station profile.
Mar 21 — ISS Crew Mission 55, Soyuz MS
Delivering three person crew, Oleg Artemyev (RU, commanding), Drew Feustel (US), and Ricky Arnold US) to International Space Station.
Mar 15 — Apstar 6C, Long March 3B
Communications satellite to geosynchronous orbit over Asia-Pacific. Mobile broadband, cellular, and broadcast bands.
Satish Dhawan Space Centre
Mar 15 — GSLV-F08, GSLV Mk II
A geosynchronous satellite launch on the updated version of India’s purpose-built Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle. Communications satellite.
Feb 24 — IGS 6, H-IIA
Optical reconnaissance satellite for Japanese government.