Tag: Astronautical

Virgin Galactic’s Four-Member Test Flight Will Take Place This Month

Reuters reports that Virgin Galactic Holdings announced May 8 that its “four-member test flight will take place in May and that it aims to launch its first commercial flight in late June.” Last May, Virgin Galactic “delayed its commercial service to the first quarter of 2023 due to supply-chain crisis and labor shortage. After completing a lengthy upgrade for its centerpiece tourist spacecraft in February, Virgin Galactic re-opened ticket sales for spacecraft flights, setting the price at $450,000 per person with an initial deposit of $150,000.” Mike Moses, president of spaceline missions and safety, said, “Returning to space is what we have all worked towards.” According to Reuters, the “mission crew will consist of Jamila Gilbert, Christopher Hue, Luke Mays and Beth Moses.”
Full Story (Reuters)

ULA Expects Vulcan Launch in the Summer, at Earliest

Gizmodo reports United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno tweeted that company’s Vulcan rocket’s earliest estimated launch date would be “June/July.” ULA previously planned a May 4 inaugural flight, but in late March a spark triggered a fireball during testing of a Vulcan upper stage at the test stand at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. The Vulcan’s first launch “is set to deliver Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander, which, on behalf of NASA, will attempt to deliver 11 payloads to the surface of the Moon.”
Full Story (Gizmodo)

NASA Refining Designs of Mars Helicopters

SPACE reports that NASA is drawing on experience from the Ingenuity Mars helicopter’s nearly 50 flights in designing the two Mars Sample Recovery Helicopters for the Mars Sample Return campaign. At the American Astronautical Society Guidance, Navigation and Control Conference, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Chief Engineer of Autonomy and Aerial Flight Håvard Fjær Grip “outlined plans for how Ingenuity’s guidance, navigation, and control system would be adapted and extended.” In an interview afterwards, he said, “What’s fairly clear is that the fundamental rotorcraft configuration and how we control it has been worked out and is heritage that can be relied upon.”
Full Story (SPACE)

Rocket Lab Shifts NASA Cubesat Launches from Virginia to New Zealand

Space News reports that Rocket Lab has relocated a pair of Electron launches of NASA storm-monitoring cubesats from LC-2 in Wallops Island, Virginia, to LC-1 New Zealand. Rocket Lab’s launches will each carry two TROPICS cubsats. The first launch – dubbed “Rocket Like a Hurricane” by the company – is scheduled for no earlier than April 30. The second – dubbed “Coming to a Storm Near You” – is scheduled for May 15. Each launch will carry two TROPICS cubesats. The article adds that the company “did not disclose why the launches could not take place from LC-2 as originally planned other than that the shift to New Zealand would ensure they would launch in the second quarter. However, the change does avoid a potential conflict with a Northrop Grumman Antares launch of a Cygnus cargo mission to the International Space Station.”
Full Story (Space News)

Startups Seek to Mine Asteroids

NBC News reports that asteroid mining is “a tantalizing but elusive prospect for innovators and investors alike.” Asteroids are a potential source of platinum and “other precious and rare earth metals that are essential for producing many consumer electronics.” However, there are technological hurdles to extracting them, so “some companies have focused on mining water from icy deposits on the moon or space rocks first before jumping to precious metals.” NBC focuses on startup AstroForge, which has its first test mission to demonstrate key technologies scheduled to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Tuesday.
Full Story (NBC News)

Mars Ingenuity Helicopter Breaks Speed, Altitude Records

CBS News reports on Sunday, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter based on Mars flew 14.5 miles per hours at an altitude of 52.5 feet, both of which are records that broke the previous highs of 13.4 miles per hour and 46 feet of altitude, respectively. Ingenuity was brought “to Mars by NASA’s Perseverance rover,” and in the past two years, the helicopter “has performed a series of tests and is currently conducting an operations demonstration phase that NASA says ‘looks to explore how future rovers and aerial explorers can work together.’”
Full Story (CBS News)

Artemis II Astronauts on Being Selected for Moon Mission

CBS News reports that the crew of four astronauts who will fly by the moon in NASA’s first crewed moon mission in over 50 years was announced on Monday. The three Americans and one Canadian now begin their 18-month training program in preparation for the historic trip around the moon. Astronaut Victor Glover, who will be the first black astronaut to experience prolonged spaceflight, said of his selection that he won the “astronaut Powerball.” The crew’s mission “will mark them as part of an exclusive group of merely two dozen Americans who have had the rare opportunity to observe the moon up close.” While the chosen crew expressed humility and that the mission was bigger than the individuals involved, excitement was still the primary emotion of the day. Christina Koch, who will be the first female astronaut to orbit the moon, expressed the need for focus, and said of her inclusion, “We are taught as astronauts to turn that fear, as you may call it, and turn it into focus and our focus is 100% on being successful in this vehicle.”
Full Story (CBS News)
More Info (AIAA Statement, 3 April 2023)

AIAA Statement on the Artemis II Crew

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 3, 2023 – Reston, Va. – The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) issued the following statement from AIAA Executive Director Dan Dumbacher:

“Congratulations to Victor Glover, Jeremy Hansen, Christina Hammock Koch, and Reid Wiseman on being named the four explorers who comprise the crew of the Artemis II mission. You are inspiring the Artemis generation through this first crewed mission to the vicinity of the moon in more than 50 years. Congratulations to NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) on this historic announcement.

We were thrilled to witness the engineering marvel of the successful Artemis I mission last year. The Artemis program – including the Space Launch System rocket, Orion spacecraft, and the ground systems needed to launch them – provides a fundamental new capability enabling us to retain and grow global cooperation and peace in space by establishing a sustainable presence on the moon in preparation for human exploration beyond Earth’s orbit. We look forward to the continued progress of the Artemis program by the NASA/industry team and the international partners to land the first woman and the first person of color on the lunar surface in the future.

We can’t wait to join Victor, Jeremy, Christina, and Reid as we go together for all humanity to the moon and back in 2024. They are shaping the future of aerospace!”

Media contact: Rebecca B. Gray, [email protected], 804-397-5270

About AIAA
The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is the world’s largest aerospace technical society. With nearly 30,000 individual members from 91 countries, and 100 corporate members, AIAA brings together industry, academia, and government to advance engineering and science in aviation, space, and defense. For more information, visit aiaa.org or follow AIAA on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, andInstagram.

Mars Ingenuity Helicopter Makes 48th Error-Free Flight

SPACE reports that the Ingenuity helicopter “buzzed over the Martian landscape at a maximum altitude of around 39 feet (12 meters), observing potential science targets that could be studied by its robotic partner, NASA’s life-hunting Perseverance rover.” The rotorcraft “traveled at a top speed of 10.4 mph (16.7 kph) during Tuesday’s flight, which covered a horizontal distance of around 1,300 feet (400 meters) and lasted nearly 150 seconds, according to the mission’s flight log.” The helicopter became the first machine to fly in the skies of another planet in 2021, and this marked the 48th flight since then.
Full Story (SPACE)