Space Stories: A Private Space Station, Chinese Space Plane Returns, and Russia Doubts Moon Landing

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Image (Credit): Vast Space Haven-1 Space Station. (Vast Space)

Here are some recent stories of interest.

—Digital Trends: “SpaceX and Vast Aim to be First to Deploy Private Space Station“

As the International Space Station nears the end of its life, SpaceX and Los Angeles-based startup Vast have unveiled a plan to launch the first commercial space station. SpaceX will use a Falcon 9 rocket to send the station’s main module, Haven-1, into low-Earth orbit as early as August 2025.

—Space.com: “China’s Mysterious Space Plane Returns to Earth after 9-month Orbital Mission”

The second orbital mission of China’s robotic space plane has come to a close. The mysterious reusable vehicle touched down Monday (May 8) at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China, wrapping up a 276-day mission to Earth orbit, according to China’s state-run Xinhua news agency.

—ARS Technica: “Former Head of Roscosmos Now Thinks NASA Did Not Land on the Moon”

Dmitry Rogozin was fired as director general of Russia’s main space corporation, Roscosmos, nearly a year ago. He has spent much of the time since near the front lines of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, sharing various hateful, threatening, and nationalistic sentiments on his Telegram account. Occasionally, however, the pugnacious politician still opines about space on his “Rogozin at the Front” social media account. He did so this weekend, calling into question whether the United States really did land astronauts on the Moon.

Podcast: Launch Fast and Break Things

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): The debris field near the SpaceX launch pad on April 22, 2023. (Patrick T. Fallon / AFP)

If you are still pondering the Starship mess in Texas, I recommend you listen to a discussion about the incident in The Planetary Society’s podcast Planetary Radio. In the episode, Space Policy Edition: SpaceX’s Starship vs. the Environment, With Eric Roesch, podcast host Casey Dreier, who is Chief of Space Policy for The Planetary Society, interviews Eric Roesch, who is an environmental expert and publisher of the ESG Hound blog.

To understand Mr. Roesch’s concerns, you may want to start with his April 16 article, “SpaceX’s Texas Rocket is Going To Cause A Lot More Damage Than Anyone Thinks.” He predicted:

The harm from the full launches will undoubtedly be greater than what was disclosed to the public. These damages may show up as shattered windows and the corpses of hundreds of dead shorebirds; immediate and obvious. Or they may not be entirely clear until years from now when SpaceX eventually closes shop on the Texas coast for greener pastures. The scars on the land, the people, and the wildlife won’t just disappear. They’ll linger, and hopefully, by then people will be willing to listen to the story.

He was right on the mark considering the mess left behind by the Starship after its test launch. While Elon Musk wanted to downplay the damage, the launch debris has led to a lawsuit against the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for allowing the launch to take place at all. The issue seems to be an FAA that probably trusted SpaceX too much on the Texas launch facility, which was initially procured for the smaller Falcon 9 rocket launches rather than the Starship monster that is tearing up the pad.

This is not good for SpaceX, nor is it good for the commercial space industry. Mr. Musk has already caused enough problems in other industries without tarnishing the commercial space industry with a “devil may care” attitude.

As the podcast story notes, he stands to divide the public on space programs. The choice does not need to be protecting the environment or traveling to space. We can do both, and we need some grown-ups at SpaceX to understand this.

Space Quote: A Human-Made Sandstorm

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Image (Credit): Crater at the Starship launchpad after the April 20th test. (LabPadre/YouTube)

“The debris is really just basically sand and rock, so it’s not toxic at all or anything…It’s just like a sandstorm, essentially. Basically a human-made sandstorm. But we don’t want to do that again.”

–Statement by SpaceX’s Elon Musk last Saturday regarding the April 20th launch of the Starship and the debris it scattered for miles around the launch site. Mr. Musk now says he should have waited until a “flame trench” water system had been installed to absorb the heat from the launch. Instead, the launch acted like a blowtorch on the concrete, destroying the pad and flinging debris as far as 6.5 miles from the launch site. Mr. Musk has many new ideas, such as reusable rockets, that make a lot of sense. But ignoring the knowledge gained from past missions, such as the need for a flame trench, was not very smart on his part.

Space Quote: Another Word for Explosion

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Image (Credit): The Starship before the “rapid unscheduled disassembly.” (SpaceX)

“As if the flight test was not exciting enough, Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly before stage separation.”

-Statement by SpaceX following the self-destruct of the Starship rocket after it started to spin out of control. What a way to put a spin on a malfunction. I am sensing the rapid unscheduled disassembly of the English language.

Pic of the Week: Starship Explodes Mid-Air

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Image (Credit): Starship explosion after launch on April 20, 2023. (Rueters)

This week’s image is from today’s launch of the SpaceX Starship. The rocket experienced engine troubles and exploded about four minutes following the launch after reaching a height of 25 miles. The goal of this mission was to reach at least 90 miles.

SpaceX had this to say about the launch:

At 8:33 a.m. CT, Starship successfully lifted off from the orbital launch pad for the first time. The vehicle cleared the pad and beach as Starship climbed to an apogee of ~39 km over the Gulf of Mexico – the highest of any Starship to-date. The vehicle experienced multiple engines out during the flight test, lost altitude, and began to tumble. The flight termination system was commanded on both the booster and ship. As is standard procedure, the pad and surrounding area was cleared well in advance of the test, and we expect the road and beach near the pad to remain closed until tomorrow.

With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and we learned a tremendous amount about the vehicle and ground systems today that will help us improve on future flights of Starship.