Blue Origin is Now Part of the Artemis Mission

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Artist’s rending of the Blue Origin lander on the Moon’s surface. (Blue Origin).

While SpaceX is building the lunar lander for the Artemis III mission, Blue Origin is back in the game building the next lunar lander for a follow-up human landing at the Moon’s southern polar region as part of Artemis V. The NASA contract with Blue Origin for this second mission is $3.4 billion.

Blue Origin’s partners in this venture include Lockheed Martin, Draper, Boeing, Astrobotic, and Honeybee Robotics.  All of this is good news for the space program in that its expands the knowledge and risk related to a lunar landing among even more companies. Such redundancy will increase resilience.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson welcomed Blue Origin to the team with this statement:

Today we are excited to announce Blue Origin will build a human landing system as NASA’s second provider to deliver Artemis astronauts to the lunar surface…We are in a golden age of human spaceflight, which is made possible by NASA’s commercial and international partnerships. Together, we are making an investment in the infrastructure that will pave the way to land the first astronauts on Mars.

Note: I am glad to hear that Mr. Bezos is still plugging away with his space company Blue Origin and not spending all of his money on play things, such as his $500 million yacht. The commercial space industry is party one run by billionaire playboys, which may not be the most stable foundation. Yet all the same, if part of their money is going to public projects, that is a good thing. Just as Andrew Carnegie invested in public libraries and Bill Gates fighting disease and poverty in Africa, we can all benefit from the money going into the space arena. Mind you, it is not charity, but it is starter funds for critical projects to keep the US in the space race.

Starship: Date of Second Launch Still Unclear

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): April 20, 2023 launch of the Starship. (SpaceX)

We know that the April 20th Starship launch did a fair amount of damage to the Boca Chica, Texas launch site, so no one expected a second attempt in 30 days.

Now SpaceX is proposing a second launch as early as June 15, but asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for a 6-month window just to be safe. Why the FCC? The Observer reports that the rocket is being billed as a satellite launcher for now.

We are still awaiting the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) “mishap” investigation report on Starship’s earlier failure mid flight. All Starship launches have been halted until the investigation is complete.

SpaceX will also need some time to repair the launch facility. Hopefully, it plans to water-cool the engine blast this time. Once is folly, but twice is mismanagement.

You can find the FCC application here.

Pic of the Week: Mysterious Spiral Over Alaska

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): The northern lights and a spiral in the early morning sky over Fairbanks, Alaska. (Christopher Hayden, via Associated Press)

This week’s image was captured in the morning sky over Alaska on April 15. It was later determined to be related to a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch the prior day in California. As The New York Times reported, the spiral was attributed to “…the reflection of the excess fuel it released into the atmosphere.”

Below is another image taken by a local resident. The Internet is full of them.

While the northern lights are impressive enough, the addition of the spiral is extra special.

Image (Credit): Another image of the northern lights and a spiral over Fairbanks, Alaska. (Nick Marchuk/KTVF)

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

Posted on by onespaceman2000
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.