Image (Credit): The Russian Soyuz rocket launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstanon September 11 to bring the Expedition 72 crew to the ISS. (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
While all eyes were on the Polaris Dawn mission this week, the Russian Roscosmos Soyuz MS-26 was busy bringing a crew of three cosmonauts and one US astronaut to the International Space Station (ISS). Crewed and uncrewed launches to the ISS have been pretty routine for years, which is a good thing.
NASA reports that its astronaut Don Pettit, accompanied by Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, are now safely aboard the space station. Expedition 72 will officially start on Monday, September 23. Members of the Expedition 71 crew – NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson and cosmonauts Nikolai Chub and Oleg Kononenko – will be departing the station shortly.
Let’s remember that while the Polaris Dawn crew will be playing in space for about 5 days, these crews are in space for 6-12 months.
Image (Credit): Launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on August 31, 2024. (SpaceX)
First the good news. SpaceX is able to launch its Falcon 9 rockets following a booster issue last week. That led to the immediate launch yesterday of two back-to-back launches of Starlink satellites.
Now the bad news. Russian scientists have reported that SpaceX’s second launch of its Starship rocket last November created a hole in the ionosphere. Specifically, an exploding engine generated the shock wave that created this hole. The scientists claim this is the first time a “human-caused explosion” has had this impact on the ionosphere.
This is the “plain language summary” from the Russian study:
On 18 November 2023, SpaceX launched the Starship, the tallest and the most powerful rocket ever built. About 2 min and 40 s after the liftoff, the Super Heavy engine separated from the Starship spacecraft and exploded at an altitude of 90 km. The main core Starship continued to rise to 149 km and exploded as well. The rocket launch and explosion produced an unexpected response in the ionosphere—the ionized part of the Earth’s atmosphere. The Starship flew at a velocity, exceeding the local sound speed, and generated cone-like atmospheric shock-acoustic waves. Most unexpectedly, the observed disturbances represented long and intensive multi-oscillation wave structures that propagated northward, which is unusual for disturbances driven by a rocket launch. The Starship explosion also generated a large-amplitude total electron content depletion that could have been reinforced by the impact of the spacecraft’s fuel exhaust in the lower atmosphere. This study appears to be the first-time detection of a non-chemical ionospheric hole produced by a man-made explosion.
I like the fact that Russian’s can share results in plain language. However, it is a little disturbing that we needed the Russians to fill us in on the destructive impact of the Starship rockets. Nature noted that “Ionospheric disturbances can affect not only satellite navigation but also communications and radio astronomy.”
We have seen the mess that the rockets can leave on the ground, but this is something else. We need to understand the impact of such launches and related issues if this is to become the new way of doing things. The FAA and NASA should be looking into this matter.
Image (Credit): The Progress MS-28 cargo spacecraft approaches the ISS on Saturday, August 17, 2024. (NASA)
The Progress MS-28 (or Progress 89 per NASA) spacecraft successfully attached itself to the International Space Station (ISS) yesterday so that three tons of supplies could be unloaded.
As with previous resupply spacecraft, it will remain attached to the station for the next six months before being ejected back towards Earth where it will burn up in the atmosphere.
Image (Credit): The launch earlier today of the Progress MS-28 cargo spacecraft to the ISS. (TASS Russian News Agency)
This week’s image is from earlier today when the Russian’s successfully launched its Progress MS-28 cargo spacecraft via a Soyuz rocket to the International Space Station (ISS). The resupply mission was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome located in Kazakhstan. The spacecraft will rendezvous with the ISS on Saturday.
Image (Credit): A Russian Soyuz spacecraft outside the ISS. (NASA)
Well, the U.S. now has one space company with its manned spacecraft stranded at the International Space Station (ISS) while a second space company responsible for manned flights to the ISS has been grounded following a rocket mishap.
So where does this leave the ISS? Dependent on the Russians for manned flights to the ISS until the SpaceX problem can be investigated. Of course, SpaceX was also one solution for returning the Boeing crew to Earth if the Starliner problem could not be timely resolved. So much for that at the moment.
Both the Boeing and SpaceX issues could be resolved in the next few weeks, but this shows how quickly the situation can change on the ground and in space. While the Russians have certainly had their own issues with the Soyuz spacecraft as well, at least the men and women on the station have one option available to them.
Let’s hope Boeing gets its act together and the SpaceX mishap can be resolved quickly.
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