NASA Space Flight reports that the Orion spacecraft for the Artemis II mission “is nearing final assembly and testing at prime contractor Lockheed Martin’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) production facility.” After a final standalone test “on the Orion crew module (CM), it is expected to be mated to the service module (SM) in mid-September.” If there are no problems “in the remaining months of testing, Lockheed Martin believes they can complete their work by the end of April next year.” NASA is “planning Artemis II as a week-and-a-half long, lunar-flyby mission; it will be the first crewed test flight for Orion and the Space Launch System (SLS) and the four-person astronaut crew recently visited KSC together for the first time to see their spacecraft.” NASA is still “retaining its late November 2024 launch forecast as a ‘work to’ date, although the pace of work is currently ‘a number of weeks’ behind that forecast.”
Full Story (NASA Space Flight)
Tag: Astronautical
Virgin Galactic Flies First Tourists to the Edge of Space
Reuters reports that on Thursday, Virgin Galactic “blasted three tourists to the edge of space aboard its air-launched VSS Unity spaceplane, a live stream showed, the Richard Branson-founded company’s second commercial mission as it starts routine flights.” The rocket-powered VSS Unity craft “dropped from the carrier plane over New Mexico around 9:20 a.m. local time and blasted its four passengers, a company instructor and three tourists, to an altitude of roughly 55 miles (88.51 km).” Aerospace America reports that the tourists onboard “were Anastatia Mayers, 18; her mother, Keisha Schahaff, 46; and Jon Goodwin, 80, of the United Kingdom.” Mayers and Schahaff won their tickets “to board the Virgin Galactic flight in a drawing run by Colorado nonprofit Space for Humanity, which has a goal to send 10,000 people to space in the next 10 years.” Goodwin paid $250,000 “for his ticket in 2005 when Virgin Galactic first began selling them.” The crew members “were mission commander Frederick ‘CJ’ Sturckow, pilot Kelly Latimer and Beth Moses, the company’s chief astronaut instructor.” Previous Virgin Galactic flights “had carried test pilots, company founder Richard Branson, company employees and, most recently, two Italian Air Force officers and an aerospace engineer from the National Research Council of Italy.”
Full Story (Reuters); Full Story (Aerospace America)
Vertical Aerospace’s Air Taxi Prototype Appears to Have Crashed
Aerospace America reports that a remotely piloted air taxi prototype “appears to have crashed during testing at the company’s Flight Test Centre at Cotswold Airport, based on photos posted online by local journalists.” Vertical Aerospace confirmed that its VX4 all-electric “experimental prototype” was involved in an “incident” at the test center, and said “there were no injuries.” The statement “was made in a note filed today to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).” Vertical is “required to reveal ‘results of operations’ and other significant developments to SEC because its shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange.” The company told the SEC, “Our flight test programme is designed to establish the limits of the aircraft’s performance, and the incident occurred during an uncrewed test of the aircraft’s maneuverability during a motor failure test scenario, which is a key requirement to progress to crewed operations.”
Full Story (Aerospace America)
Slingshot 1 Provides Aerospace Corp with Demonstration of Satellite Integration
Space News reports that through the Slingshot 1 mission, the Aerospace Corp. “has demonstrated how open standards and nonproprietary interfaces can help streamline satellite integration and operation.” Aerospace Slingshot Payload Operator David Hinkley said that after more than a year of on-orbit operations, Slingshot “has been a huge success.” The 19 Slingshot payloads “were developed independently and integrated in a couple of weeks prior to launch in July 2022 of the 12-unit cubesat on a Virgin Orbit LauncherOne rocket.” Speedy integration “was possible thanks to Handle, a modular plug-and-play interface that allows payloads to draw power from the satellite bus and to communicate with the satellite and other payloads.”
Full Story (Space News)
NRO Contracts Firefly, Xtenti for Responsive Space Mission
Aviation Week reports Firefly Aerospace is “parlaying technology” developed for its “Alpha launch vehicle and Blue Ghost lunar lander with expertise acquired through its purchase of Spaceflight into a new business line focused on in-space services, with the National Reconnaissance Office.” Space News reports that on Tuesday, NRO “announced a contract with Firefly Aerospace and Xtenti for a responsive space mission.” The NRO mission is “scheduled to launch on a Firefly Alpha launch vehicle in 2024,” and will “demonstrate multiple on-orbit deployments with Firefly’s Elytra orbital vehicle and Xtenti’s Fantm-Ride small satellite dispenser.” Elytra will “deploy commercial rideshare payloads with Fantm-Ride, before performing an on-orbit maneuver.” After the maneuver, Elytra “will remain in orbit on standby, prepared to deploy U.S. government payloads on-demand.”
Full Story (Aviation Week); More Info (Space News)
Northrop Grumman to Upgrade its Cygnus Cargo Vehicle
Space News reports, “Northrop Grumman is planning upgrades to its Cygnus cargo vehicle, such as increased payload capacity, to support both the International Space Station and future commercial space stations.” According to Rick Mastracchio, director of strategy and business development at Northrop Grumman Space Systems, “We’re trying to prepare and think way ahead on how do we start updating the vehicle, making sure we have a spacecraft that will be flying 10 years from now, 20 years from now.” Currently, the Cygnus “can carry about 3,750 kilograms of pressurized cargo to the station,” whereas the upgrade will see the vehicle carrying 5,000 kilograms.
Full Story (Space News)
Final Antares 230+ Rocket Lifts Off to Resupply ISS
Spaceflight Insider reports that in near-perfect weather, the final Antares 230+ rocket “took to the skies to send the Cygnus cargo spacecraft on its way to the International Space Station.” Carrying the autonomous NG-19 Cygnus resupply freighter, dubbed the S.S. Laurel Clark, the Antares rocket successfully “launched at 8:31 p.m. EDT Aug. 1 (00:31 UTC Aug. 2), 2023, from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.” It flawlessly lifted off “from its launchpad, drawing a bright arc of light against the fading evening sunset, marking the start of another critical cargo run to the ISS.” Some 8,200 pounds (3,700 kilograms) of supplies, hardware and experiments “are aboard NG-19. It is expected to arrive at the ISS on the morning of Aug. 4 where it will be captured by the outpost’s robotic arm and attached to the Earth-facing port of the Unity module.” Over the coming weeks, members of the station’s Expedition 69 crew “will work to unload the cargo before beginning to reload it with trash.” After about two months, Cygnus “is expected to depart the ISS for an eventual destructive reentry over the Pacific Ocean.”
Full Story (Spaceflight Insider)
Video
Last Antares Rocket Using Russian Rocket Engines
Spaceflight Now; YouTube)
Northrop Grumman Prepares for Final Antares Flight
Space News reports that a Cygnus cargo spacecraft “is set to launch to the International Space Station on the final flight of a version of an Antares rocket with Russian and Ukrainian components.” NASA and Northrop Grumman “completed a launch readiness review July 30 for the NG-19 mission, approving plans to launch the spacecraft on Aug. 1 at 8:31 p.m. Eastern from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island, Virginia.” The Cygnus is “carrying nearly 3,750 kilograms of cargo to the station, including experiments, hardware and crew supplies.” An on-time launch “would allow the spacecraft to arrive at the station early Aug. 4 and remain there at least three months.”
Full Story (Space News)
India Launches Seven Satellites
Space News reports that India successfully “launched seven Singaporean satellites into low Earth orbit July 29 on its workhorse PSLV rocket.” The launch “was the nation’s sixth orbital launch of the year, which were all successful, and occurred two weeks after the launch of the Indian robotic lunar lander Chandrayaan-3, which is flying toward the lunar south pole for a soft-landing attempt between Aug. 23 and 24.” The four-stage PSLV rocket “lifted off from Satish Dhawan Space Centre at 10:01 p.m. Eastern as scheduled.” The launch was “conducted by ISRO under a contract with New Space India Limited (NSIL), a commercial arm of the space agency.” The primary payload “was a 360-kilogram remote-sending satellite, named DS-SAR,” which “carries a synthetic aperture radar developed by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI).”
Full Story (Space News)
Commercial Space Industry Projected to Experience 41% Growth Over Next Five Years
Fortune reports that the global space economy “grew 8% to $546 billion in 2022 and is projected to climb another 41% over the next five years, according to a leading space nonprofit.” The sector is expected “to show resiliency in the coming years, despite uncertainty about the global economy and a recent slowdown in space investment.” Companies are seeing “continued revenue growth from commercial space assets and governments around the world boosting expenditures, according to a report from the Space Foundation, a Colorado Springs, Colorado-based space flight advocacy group.” The analysis “considered spending from 51 governments, as well as commercial revenue from companies in 11 space industry sub-sectors.” Space Foundation Director of Research and Digital Programming Lesley Conn said, “Commercial space is the vital growing sector of the overall space economy. Within five years, certainly you’re going to see a real acceleration and an expansion of space and space assets.”
Full Story (Fortune)