Tag: Astronautical engineering

Rocket Lab Successfully Conducts Two Launches Within 24 Hours

TechCrunch reports, “Rocket Lab set a new speed record for launch turnaround time, successfully executing two Electron missions in 24 hours. The company added in a statement that this is also the first time any launch operator has completed a mission from each hemisphere within that time frame.  Rocket Lab, which was founded in New Zealand, maintains a launch pad there and at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Virginia.”
Full Story (TechCrunch)

Sierra Space Bolsters Spaceplane Fleet Via In-House Mission Control

Space News reports, “The long-awaited inaugural cargo flight of Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser spaceplane has been delayed to no earlier than May 2025, pushing back a launch previously expected this year. In the meantime, Sierra Space is moving forward with its second cargo spaceplane, Reverence, alongside work on an array of inflatable habitats and other structures to meet growing demand for in-space infrastructure.”
Full Story (Space News)

NASA Makes Progress Reducing ISS Air Leak

Space News reports, “NASA is playing down concerns raised in a recent report about a long-running air leak in the Russian segment of the International Space Station, saying they have recently reduced the rate of the leak. A report by NASA’s Office of Inspector General released Sept. 26 noted that, in June, the ISS program had elevated a leak in a section of the Russian Zvezda module “to the highest level of risk in its risk management system.” NASA uses a system where both the likelihood and severity of a risk is rated on a scale of one to five; the leak rated a five on both.”
Full Story (Space News)

Space Force Selects Four Companies to Develop Concepts for ‘Resilient GPS’ Satellites

Space News reports, “The U.S. Space Force selected four companies to develop concepts for smaller, more cost-effective GPS satellites based on commercial designs, aiming to augment the existing Global Positioning System network, the Department of the Air Force announced Sept. 23. Astranis, Axient, L3Harris Technologies and Sierra Space have been chosen to submit proposals for the Resilient GPS (R-GPS) program, which seeks to explore the use of proliferated small satellites transmitting core GPS signals.”
Full Story (Space News)

NASA’s Plan for Deorbiting ISS Contingent Upon Russia’s Plans

Ars Technica reports, “Assuming the ISS international partners will retire the laboratory as planned in 2030, the final deorbit maneuver could happen in early 2031. NASA would like to have the deorbit vehicle ready for launch in 2029, up to a year and a half before the space station’s final plunge. If these dates hold, the final crew for the ISS would likely launch in late 2029 and remain aboard the complex for a year, then come home before the final deorbit burns to guide the massive lab back into the atmosphere.”
Full Story (Ars Technica)

AI Improves NOAA’s GOES-R Weather and Environmental Satellites

Space News reports, “On June 25, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) launched the fourth and final satellite of the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES)-R program.”  The GOES-R team has successfully leveraged “the power of AI and an application called the Advanced Intelligent Monitoring System (AIMS),” to improve both “operational efficiency and mission resilience.”
Full Story (Space News)

Opinion: “Transferring the International Space Station into the Future”

In an op-ed in Space News, Jean-Jacques Dordain and Michael Griffin suggest that when it’s time to retire the ISS, it should be moved to higher orbit, so that it may one day be made useful again, rather than incinerated. They write, “As lifelong space professionals who have worked together from different positions in ESA and NASA on the redesign, assembly and operation of the ISS, we fully share the objective to cease ISS operations at the end of the decade, but we believe that destroying it would be a pointless loss for the future.”
Full Story (Space News)

Voyager 1 Reactivated in Interstellar Space

The Washington Post reports, “NASA engineers have succeeded in breathing new life into Voyager 1 after the spacecraft, launched in 1977, went silent seven months ago. Now comes another challenge: Keeping Voyager 1 scientifically useful for as long as possible as it probes a realm where no spacecraft has gone before.”
Full Story (The Washington Post)

Sierra Space Prepares Dream Chaser for Pre-launch Trek to KSC

Spaceflight Now reports, “Sierra Space is getting one step closer to finally seeing its Dream Chaser spaceplane reach the launch pad. The spacecraft completed its environmental testing at NASA’s Armstrong Test Facility last week … Sierra Space is now preparing to load up Dream Chaser and Shooting Star for shipment down to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Once it arrives, teams will finish adding the thermal protection tiles and perform additional checkouts, like acoustic testing.”
Full Story (Spaceflight Now)