Welcome to Edition 3.09 of the Rocket Report! This week, two missions, built by the UAE and China, were successfully launched towards Mars. Last but not least, for this year’s Martian launch window comes NASA with Mars Perseverance, still on track for launch on July 30 on an Atlas V rocket. Good luck to NASA and United Launch. Alliance!
As always, we appreciate reader submissions, and if you don’t want to miss a problem, subscribe using the box below (the form won’t appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small, medium, and heavy lift rockets, as well as a quick look at the next three calendar launches.
Virgin Orbit aims for “year end” for next flight. The first flight of Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket failed to reach orbit in May when a propeller line broke seconds after the rocket’s first-stage engine ignited, the company’s chief executive said on Wednesday. Chief executive Dan Hart said the LauncherOne rocket demonstration mission worked well up to several seconds after the NewtonThree engine that powers the rocket’s first stage powers up, SpaceNews reports.
Fix and fly again … “We had a component breakdown in our engine system. It was a high pressure feed line,” he said. Liquid oxygen “stopped entering the engine and our flight ended.” The company has identified what needs to be repaired in the engine to strengthen the failed components, and a second LauncherOne rocket is in final integration right now. “We will be targeting our next flight before the end of the year,” Hart said. (presented by JohnCarter17, Unrulycow and Ken the Bin)
Virgin establishes Japanese presence. The company is working with Japanese officials to establish a spaceport for its horizontal launch system at Oita airport in southern Japan on the island of Kyushu. The company is working on a 2022 launch from the location. The move can help Virgin launch contracts from Asian countries.
Building an industry … “We are eager to host the first horizontal take-off and landing space port in Japan,” Oita Governor Katsusada Hirose said, according to News on Japan. “We are also honored to be able to collaborate with brave technology companies that solve globally through their small satellites. We look forward to fostering a group of space industries in our prefecture, starting with our collaboration with Virgin Orbit.” (presented by tsunam)
Astra sets release date for early August. Small launch vehicle developer Astra said this week that it is now planning to make its next orbital launch attempt in early August, five months after an earlier attempt was scrubbed a minute before takeoff. The company announced that the window of its Rocket 3.1 vehicle will open on August 2 from the Pacific Spaceport Complex-Alaska on Kodiak Island, SpaceNews reports.
Two out of three … The company also posted video of a second static fire test of the rocket at a site in California before the booster was shipped to Alaska. This is the second of three rockets that the company plans to use to demonstrate its rocket’s ability to deliver small payloads into orbit. (presented by JohnCarter17, platykurtic and Ken the Bin)
German startup company among top investments. A new report from the European Institute for Space Policy said European startups in space raised $ 215.2 million in 2019, slightly below the total raised last year. Among the top five startups was a startup company, Isar Aerospace, SpaceNews reports.
A ton to go … The German startup company, which has kept a low profile, is estimated to have raised over $ 17 million. Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Munich, the company is developing the two-stage Spectrum rocket with a capacity of 1 metric ton at low Earth orbit. The company’s advisers include Bulent Altan, one of the first SpaceX employees who became vice president of avionics and CNG at the California company. (presented by JohnCarter17)
Looking for a centennial Venus rocket. The Washington Post magazine has published an article about a documentary about Robert Condit and his efforts to build a rocket that would launch it to Venus. In 1928. As a chemist, Condit built a small 24-foot rocket powered by 50 gallons of gasoline in Baltimore. Spoiler: did not reach Venus.
He was quite optimistic. … “Over the course of the next few years, we will probably do business with Venus as casually as we now transact across the ocean,” wrote Robert Condit at a 1928 conference. History tells more of enthusiastic early aspirations. of space than anything else, and offers a reminder of just how widespread the human drive to explore is within us. (presented by ColdWetDog)
SpaceX sets a record for change, catches fairings. A Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched on Monday, taking a Korean communications satellite into space. This was the same first stage that the Demo-2 commercial crew mission launched, meaning the company reduced the first stage response time to 51 days, reports Ars.
The rocket is working fine … This not only broke SpaceX’s previous record in a couple of weeks, it also broke the record for any orbital rocket. In 1985, before the space shuttle Challenger accident caused NASA to reduce its efforts to restore the shuttle between flights, Atlantis It returned to space just 54 days after landing. Like cherry on top, the SpaceX fleet caught both fairing halves for the first time.
UAE mission to Mars launches safely. On Sunday, a Japanese-made H-2A rocket launched a 1.35-ton probe sponsored by the United Arab Emirates in low Earth orbit, reports Ars. The spacecraft is now on its way to Mars, where it is destined to orbit the Red Planet in February 2021.
A new hope … The “Mars Hope” mission represents a partnership between the Arab country, which seeks to inspire a future generation of scientists and engineers, and various academic institutions in the United States, including the University of Colorado Boulder. The UAE views the $ 200 million it invested in the mission as a foretaste of the country’s technological future.
NASA aims in late September for Crew-1 launch. In its invitation to the media to attend the first operational launch of Crew Dragon, NASA said it aims “not before the end of September” for the mission. This date depends on the success of the Demo-2 mission in early August, as well as a good data review.
Four to fly … Crew Dragon Commander Michael Hopkins, Pilot Victor Glover, and Mission Specialist Shannon Walker, all from NASA, along with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency Mission Specialist Soichi Noguchi will launch to the space station for a multi-month mission. SpaceX has proposed using the Crew-1 Falcon 9 rocket to launch the Crew-2 mission, presumably in early 2021. (presented by Ken the Bin)
SpaceX can be valued at $ 44 billion. Elon Musk’s SpaceX is in talks to raise new capital at a valuation of $ 44 billion, according to people with knowledge of the matter, reports Bloomberg. The company is in talks with investors about raising about $ 1 billion at a price of $ 270 a share, the people said, who asked not to be identified.
A big increase … The round is unlikely to be completed in the next two months, and the terms could change, one of the people said. The most recent funding effort was $ 500 million at a valuation of $ 36 billion, or $ 220 per share, according to a CNBC report in March. The funds are likely to be used by SpaceX for its Starship project and for the further development of its Starlink internet service.
COVID-19 concerns in Baikonur. According to a new report published in The Moscow Times, locals at the Russian launch site in Kazakhstan have witnessed first-hand the impact of the virus in their city for more than a month. However, the outside world only had its first sense of the gravity of the situation last week, when the deputy director of the Russian Federal Biomedical Agency, Vladimir Romanov, announced that 30 people in Baikonur had died from the virus in June.
A grim situation … After this admission, the head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, described the situation in the city as “very difficult”. Those are strong words from an official in a country that has been accused of minimizing the threat of the coronavirus. In interviews with the publication’s doctors, Roscosmos staff and other Baikonur residents painted a grim image of a city in the grip of the coronavirus. Despite these concerns, a Russian Progress supply ship was launched from Baikonur on Thursday. (presented by JohnCarter17)
