Welcome to the 3.37th edition of the Rocket Report! This week saw NASA set a major milestone by igniting the four main engines of its space launch system rocket and firing them for a period of more than eight minutes. Whatever you think about the program, it’s worth taking some time to celebrate this achievement with dear engineers.
As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the following using x (the form will not 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 launches on the lander.
Virgin Orbit may also be revealed. The Wall Street Journal reports that Richard Brans has hired Credit Suisse Group AG and LionTree LLC to explore a public acquisition of Virgin Orbit by a special-purpose acquisition company with a valuation of up to billion 3 billion. The company successfully reached orbit for the first time earlier this year.
Second space spec … “Targeted Valuation From the previously planned private fund raising, the rocket startup has shown a significant jump from the billion billion dollars it has targeted for the past year. The company has not yet refused to raise private funding, but is now focusing on it. SPAC, “the newspaper reports. This will be an impressive assessment. (Submitted by Ken Bin)
The German rocket company will use Ukrainian engines. Rocket factory Gusberg announced last year that its first booster, the RFA One, will have the capacity to launch 1.2 tons into polar orbit. This impressive increase in rocket performance from 200 tons in the previous iteration caught the eye of German space reporter Frank Wonderlich-Pfeiffer. It was suspicious as the launching price remained around 3 million euros.
Playing catch-up … Finally, Wonderlich-Pfeiffer got the answer. The RFA decided not to develop its own engine but to source it from a Ukrainian state-owned spacecraft manufacturer, UsumSh. He is Golem.d. The publication reported the discovery, and the RFA confirmed it in a subsequent statement. The company cited commercial rivals in the United States as “more” ahead of them in developing their small satellite launch vehicles, citing a reason for its decision. (Submitted by TM)
The FAA renews the Pe Gasus rocket-launching license. After completing an extensive review, the FAAA said this week that it has approved the renewal of two launch operator licenses for Northrop Grumman’s subsidiary, Orbital Sciences. The license is valid for five years and authorizes the company to operate flights from its Vaps Lops flight facility in Virginia and its PAS Gasus launch vehicle from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
How many more missions? … Northrop must still receive FAA authorization for a specific launch. The gas gas was the first successful, privately developed orbital rocket. Its future is uncertain. The booster has outperformed small vehicles that have a fraction of its cost. It’s also not clear what other mission is on the rocket’s manifesto other than launching the TacRL-2 later this year. (Submitted by Ken Bin)
SpaceX clearly bid for the starship for the cubeset mission. NASA’s bid to launch a cluster of six Cubasets from SpaceX was bid on by SpaceX, which appeared to be offering a vehicle other than its current Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy, Space News reported. NASA released a source selection statement from the competition to launch the Tropics mission on March 11, which was won by Astra.
No projection license yet … One of the five bids came from SpaceX, and NASA noted weaknesses in SpaceX’s proposal in the bidders’ assessment because the company “did not show clear progress toward an environmental assessment resolution that risked receiving results.” The FAA launches the license, increasing the likelihood of delays that will affect the effectiveness of the agreement. “This would appear to apply to Starship instead of Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy. Separately, NASA also excluded Virgin Orbit from the competition because its original bid did not fall into the” competitive category “established by the agency. (Submitted by Platycartic and Ken Bean)
The relativity scope first contracts the Department of Defense. This week, the company announced that it has won the first Orbital Launch Agreement from the U.S. Department of Defense. The agreement was awarded as the Space and Missile Systems Center Launch Enterprise as part of an effort to identify business solutions for responding to space, at a low cost, “as a service.” Relativity wants to launch its first rocket later this year.
Too many contracts for unflowed rockets … For this military mission, the company is targeting the 2023 launch date on its Terron 1 rocket. According to the company, the agreement represents the ninth announced launch customer for relativity and the third announced government customer, following the recently announced Venture Class Launch Services Performance 2 agreement with NASA. (Submitted by Ken Bin and Platicartic)
India has targeted seven more launches this year. The Indian Space Agency, ISRO, is targeting at least seven more launches in 2021, including a skyscraper demonstration mission to test technologies for a final human spaceflight. The mission will be launched on three different Indian rockets, according to a report by the Times of India.
Double the effort … the head of ISRO, k. Shiva said they believe this to be the development of seven different satellites and 14 different missions to launch on seven rockets. “We are confident of achieving this goal and (our) priority is Gaganyan,” he said. (Submitted by Ken Bin)
Japan’s H3 rocket completes pressure test. This week, the Japanese aerospace exploration agency completed a wet dress rehearsal for its new H3 rocket, developed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Agency, JXA, Said the test Success at the Tanegashima Space Center. The launch attempt is at least several months away.
Next stop, moon? … Japan’s response to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, H3, is not reusable. But with a value of around 50 50 million, it can be commercially competitive for some missions, and it will definitely be more competitive than the existing H2A rocket. There is also a way to upgrade the H3 booster for lunar cargo missions.
X SpaceX on the landmark of historical reuse. SpaceX launched a batch of Starlink satellites early Sunday morning and thus, came close to a significant rocket-reuse target. The first phase of the Falcon 9 rocket that propelled this payload into orbit, booster no. 1051, was making its ninth flight. It landed successfully Cf course I still love droneship.
Baseline target of Falcon 9 upgrade … Since this is the first Falcon 9 rocket to launch nine missions, it is likely to be the first phase to make the 10th flight in the near future, possibly in a month or two. Ars reported that reaching a 10-year flight from the Falcon 9 rocket by SpaceX will achieve one of the main goals, after being optimized for re-use of the vehicle about three years ago.
China will build a commercial spaceport. According to Space News reports, China will establish a commercial spaceport in the coming years to support the rapid development of private space activities in the country. The commercial space launch center was included in the list of national projects in the recently formulated five-year plan covering 2021-2525. China currently has four national launch centers that primarily support the launch of the state’s main space contractor, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp.’s Long March rocket.
No dates yet … Xiaoyu – Vice President of the National People’s Congress, China’s top legislature, and vice chairperson of China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp. – called for a Chinese merchant spacecraft project to meet the expected growth in demand. Space Launch Services. No other details, including possible location, were released. (Submitted by Ken Bin and Platicartic)
Amateur radio hackers decode SpaceX telemetry. Amateur radio enthusiasts in Europe managed to decode some of the telemetry data they transmitted when the Falcon 9 rocket was in orbit in the second phase. YouTuber Scott Melay Nale has an excellent video with all the details.
Where the cameras haven’t gone before … It is somewhat surprising that this data was not encrypted more rigorously, but its public release offers some nice insights. Most notably, the engineering camera inside the upper stage liquid oxygen tank was wild to see the scene. (Submitted by Vanderlost)
NASA has successfully tested its SLS rocket. The route is long, difficult and expensive for NASA and its space launch system rocket. But on Thursday afternoon, the space agency tasted success with what seemed to be a minor ground test-firing of the vehicle’s main stage. The main engines burned out for 499.6 seconds, exhausting the vehicles’ liquid oxygen supply, Ars reports.
Burn, burn, burn … After the test was completed, the engineers in the control room started clapping and cheering. However, the days of data review are ahead, the fact that the vehicle was built without stopping it and in full good condition through a full eight-minute test, represents a big win for NASA, the space launch system program and the primary contractor for the main phase. Boeing. In the coming weeks, NASA is also expected to set a target launch date for this Artemis 1 mission to fly the Orion opened around the Moon and behind it.
NASA is studying ways to reduce the cost of SLS rockets. Following Ars Technica’s report, NASA confirmed that it was studying ways to “find efficiency and opportunities to reduce costs” in the space system program. The analysis is being led by Paul McConaughey, a former deputy center director at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntville, as well as its chief engineer.
Concerns about costs … with a maximum cadence of one launch per year, the SLS rocket is expected to cost more than 2 2 billion per flight, and is on top of the 20 20 billion that NASA has already spent on the development of the vehicle and its ground systems. Some Biden administration officials do not believe the Artemis Moon program is sustainable with such launch costs.
Er Rogett says revenue from the shuttle main engine is increasing. Speaking at the JPMorgan Industries conference on March 15, Dan Fisher Dan Boehl, chief financial officer of Speaking Roget RocketDan, said the space system is an additional source of revenue for the engine company used on the rocket. RS-3A is an additional part of Aerojet’s revenue, which has grown from 14 per cent to 18 per cent in the last few years, Space News reports.
Making a systematic profit … Bohel said the program should stay at that level for the next few years, growing at the same pace as overall company revenue. “RS-25 is a great program for us,” he said. It seems remarkable that the 0-year-old space shuttle main engine Aerojet is a growing profit center for RocketDin, especially when its reuse capacity should not be spent on elimination. (Submitted by Ken Bin)
Next three launches
March 20: Soyuz 2.1A | Ride-share missions including Astroscale ELSA-d missions | Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan | 06:07
March 22: Falcon 9 | Starlink-22 | Cape Canaveral, Florida | 22:19 UTC
March 25: Soyuz | OneWeb-5 | Vostochny Cosmodrome, Russia | 02: 47UTC
