Space News reports Virgin Galactic completed its fourth commercial suborbital space flight on October 6, “carrying three customers that included the first person from Pakistan to go to space. Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo vehicle, VSS Unity, took off from Spaceport America attached to its VMS Eve mothership at 11:28 a.m. Eastern. VSS Unity released from the plane at 12:10 p.m. Eastern, flying to an apogee of 87.5 kilometers before gliding back to a runway landing at the spaceport.”
Full Story (Space News)
Tag: Astronautical
Crew Readies for Virgin Galactic’s Fourth Commercial Spaceflight
SPACE reports that Virgin Galactic “is preparing for its fourth commercial spaceflight mission.” Galactic 04 will “carry a three-person crew accompanied by the company’s head astronaut instructor, as well as the two pilots at the helm of Virgin’s SpaceShipTwo vehicle, VSS Unity.” Their flight “to the edge space is scheduled to take place on Friday, (Oct. 6).” The mission “will take off from Spaceport America in New Mexico.” VSS Unity and its crew “will be brought to altitude by the spaceplane’s double-cockpit carrier aircraft, VMS Eve, which will release VSS Unity at around 50,000 feet (15,000 meters).” After release, a “firing of VSS Unity’s rocket motor will put it on a suborbital trajectory, bringing the space plane and crew to the edge of space for a few minutes of weightlessness and a great view of their home planet.”
Full Story (SPACE)
NASA Seeks Comment from US Companies on Commercial Space Station
Aviation Week reports that NASA is “seeking comment from US companies on requirements for the end-to-end development of commercial low Earth orbit destinations available to NASA for research and technology development once the International Space Station (ISS) is retired.” Congress has “authorized ISS operations through 2030.”
Full Story (Aviation Week)
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Flies Through Coronal Mass Ejection
Forbes reports that NASA’s Parker Solar Probe “has become the first spacecraft ever to fly through a coronal mass ejection from the sun—a powerful eruption of billions of tons of plasma.” The closest spacecraft to the sun, “launched in Aug. 2018, spent two days within a CME while just 5.7 million miles (9.2 million kilometers) from the solar surface.” For context, Mercury “is 23 million miles (37 million kilometers) from the sun and Earth is a whopping 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) distant.” As revealed in a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal, Parker “passed right through the CME on Sept. 22, 2022, crossing the wake of its leading edge—its shock wave.” The moments were “captured by the probe’s Wide-field Imager for Solar Probe (WISPR) instrument and are published on YouTube.” Parker Solar Probe Project Scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory Nour Raouafu said, “This is the closest to the sun we’ve ever observed a CME. We’ve never seen an event of this magnitude at this distance.”
Full Story (Forbes)
Firefly Ready to Test Launch USSF On-Demand Service
Aviation Week reports that sometime in the next six months, Boeing’s Millennium Space Systems and startup Firefly Aerospace “will receive a call from the U.S. Space Force to integrate and launch a satellite in 24 hr.” Until then, the companies “will stand at the ready for the military’s Victus Nox mission.”
Full Story (Aviation Week)
India’s Moon Landing Sparks New Space Race
The Washington Post reports that India’s successful moon landing reflecting Russia’s failed moon landing has seemed to be the signal flare that has started a race to divide up the moon and the possibilities that that implies. China and the US are also players in going to the moon – with the US set to launch astronauts on a trip circling the moon in next year’s Artemis II mission, and land people on the moon with its future Artemis III trip in 2025. The budget differentials are staggering, with India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission costing $74 million and NASA’s Artemis program projecting to hit $93 billion. For governments, space exploration “was always in large part about the ability to project power and influence on Earth.” India’s mission “marks a soft-power win for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as New Delhi prepares to host the Group of 20 Summit next week.”
Full Story (The Washington Post)
Chandrayaan-3 Takes Lunar South Pole Temperature
SPACE reports India’s Chandrayaan-3 has been hard at work since its landmark landing on the lunar South Pole last week. On Sunday, ISRO posted an update on social media “regarding one of Chandrayaan-3’s payloads called the ChaSTE experiment, or Chandra’s Surface Thermophysical Experiment.” The purpose of this experiment “is to use a temperature probe as well as 10 individual temperature sensors to measure temperature profiles of lunar south pole soil.” ISRO says the goal “is for ChaSTE to help scientists understand what the thermal behavior of the moon’s surface is like.”
Full Story (SPACE)
AIAA Statement on the Indian Space Research Organisation Chandrayaan-3 Mission
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 24, 2023 – Reston, Va. – The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Executive Director Dan Dumbacher made the following statement:
“Congratulations to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on its successful landing at the south pole of the moon! We were thrilled watching the Chandrayaan-3 mission unfold in real time. We will be eagerly following the progress of the rover, Pragyan, and the ongoing mission in the coming days.
As the professional technical society for aerospace engineers, our members appreciate and understand the difficulty of this mission’s engineering challenges. Safely landing on the moon is a challenge and to reach the lunar south pole is an even greater accomplishment.
The ISRO team’s resilience is admirable. The Chandrayaan team has persevered over time to continue advancing its lunar exploration program. They have reached an historic milestone making India the fourth spacefaring nation to land on the moon. AIAA is honored to support the four AIAA student branches at universities in India and about 400 AIAA members across India.
We applaud India’s commitment to a safe, peaceful, and prosperous future in space, especially as it joined the Artemis Accords earlier this year. We believe the Artemis Accords establish important principles to guide cooperation among nations exploring space, including those participating in NASA’s Artemis program. As we expand the human neighborhood in low Earth orbit and beyond to the surface of the moon and cislunar space, we see the vital need for this type of cooperation among countries and industries.
On behalf of the 30,000 professional and student members of AIAA, we recognize the professionals in the aerospace industry involved in making this mission a success. We salute and applaud the ISRO team for making important contributions to shaping the future of aerospace.”
AIAA Media Contact: Rebecca Gray, [email protected], 804-397-5270 cell
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, and follow AIAA on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
After Russian Failure, India Will Attempt Landing at Lunar South Pole
The Wall Street Journal reports that attempts this week by Russia and India to place landers on the moon are just the most high-profile cases of an array of national and industry efforts to explore the lunar south pole, where scientists have detected water. India’s space agency is expected to attempt a landing on Wednesday as part of its Chandrayaan-3 mission.
Full Story (The Wall Street Journal – subscription publication)
NASA Spacecraft Continues its 17-Year Journey
The Washington Post reports that for nearly 17 years, NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory-A spacecraft “drifted through space on a lonely mission.” It traveled “around the sun far ahead of Earth, conducting groundbreaking research on the solar system’s star.” Like many NASA spacecraft, STEREO-A “outlived its mission life span of two years.” Instead, it “traveled further and further away from Earth on a journey that became fraught with uncertainty as it passed behind the sun in 2015, temporarily severing contact with NASA.” The same year, the agency “lost contact with STEREO-A’s sibling vessel, STEREO-B, which was traveling a similar path.” But STEREO-A kept going. And its orbital trajectory “around the sun meant that it had a chance to do what very few other NASA spacecraft could: eventually make its way back toward home.”
Full Story (Washington Post)