SCIENCE

Rocket Report: BE-4 engine breathes fire; Delta IV Heavy puts on a show

"Getting back out there might be a challenge."

2022-09-30 07:09

Welcome to Edition 5.12 of the Rocket Report! As a bit of late breaking news, Firefly attempted to make its second orbital launch attempt with the Alpha rocket early Friday, at 3 am EST (07:00 UTC) from California. However in the final moments before liftoff the vehicle went into "auto abort" after engine ignition. Firefly is reviewing data from the scrub to determine its next attempt. As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (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 ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

Virgin Orbit faces "difficult" licensing in Britain. The next launch of Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne rocket, which fires its engines after being dropped from a carrier aircraft, is due to occur no earlier than October 29 from Spaceport Cornwall in southwestern England. A report in Cornwall Live says that the launch window that opens at the end of October is viable for several weeks and that the company still aims to launch during the fourth quarter of this year. During a Cornwall Council meeting earlier this month, Louis Gardner, cabinet member for the economy, provided details about licensing issues that are still being worked through. Quite the tricky one ... "The difficulty with this now is the number of agencies involved in the licensing," Gardner said. "You have got the UK Space Agency, the Civil Aviation Authority, and other players that are all having a part in that. What the team have been doing is fighting through what is going to be different between that first launch and the huge safety basket that is 1,250 feet from the aircraft, wherever it is, that goes as it moves down the runway, to subsequent launches and how best to prepare for that. It is the licensing that has been quite tricky on this one." (submitted by Ken the Bin) Astra will no longer launch TROPICS satellites. The most recent—and, as it turns out, final—launch attempt by Astra's Rocket 3.3 vehicle ended with an upper-stage failure that led to the loss of two small TROPICS satellites for NASA in June. Astra had been contracted to launch the four remaining TROPICS satellites before the failure of Rocket 3.3 and the company's subsequent pivot to a larger booster, Rocket 4.0. Now, that will not happen, Astra said Thursday. NASA satellites to be named later ... "Astra and NASA have agreed to modify the terms of our existing launch services agreement for NASA’s TROPICS mission to allow for the future launch of comparable scientific payloads on version 4.0 of Astra’s rocket. We are delighted to maintain our strong partnership and to have NASA as a launch customer on the next version of Astra’s rocket." It's unclear what commercial rocket NASA will now use to get its TROPICS cubesats into orbit. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

SpaceX again doubles the world in upmass. In its quarterly reports on orbital space launches, the BryceTech analysis firm tallies upmass by each launch provider. During the second quarter of 2022, the report found that SpaceX delivered 158.7 metric tons to low Earth orbit, ahead of China's space corporation CASC at 38.8 tons, Roscosmos at 17.2 tons, United Launch Alliance at 13.0 tons, and Arianespace at 9.8 tons. Small potatoes for now ... SpaceX alone doubled the rest of the world in the amount of payload delivered to orbit. It launched four times the mass of the entire nation of China. The bulk of this mass, of course, was composed of Starlink satellites as the company builds out its low Earth orbit megaconstellation. SpaceX founder Elon Musk indicated this was just the beginning, however. "Very tiny potatoes compared to what’s needed to make life multiplanetary," he noted on Twitter in response to the report. Ariane 6—already reusable? This subheading appeared in a news release this week from European rocket manufacturer ArianeGroup. As part of the release, the company talked about all the ways in which Ariane 6 was designed for upgrades, including a more powerful upper stage, better rideshare capabilities, and a more powerful solid rocket motor, P120C+. Under the "Already reusable" subheading, ArianeGroup mentions it has a contract to develop liquid side-mounted boosters and is seeking a contract for a reusable upper stage, "Susie." Perhaps not ... Asking whether Ariane 6 is "already reusable" is rather amusing. The long-delayed rocket is not even usable in the sense that it won't make a demonstration launch for at least another six to 12 months, and there is no guarantee it will fly at all in 2023. And while it's great to see Europe thinking about reusable launch technology, these upgrades are years away from flying—if they ever get off the drawing board. The bottom line is that, for this subheading, Betteridge's law definitely applies. (submitted by Ken the Bin) Ian delays Crew-5 launch. NASA and SpaceX are now targeting no earlier than noon ET (16:00 UTC) Wednesday, October 5, for the launch of the agency’s Crew-5 mission to the International Space Station, the space agency said. The mission's original launch date was October 3, but that was deemed not achievable due to Hurricane Ian. NASA has a backup date for the mission on October 7, and mission managers also are exploring potential range opportunities on October 6, pending review of the phasing timeline, as well as October 8 and October 9. Carrying an international crew ... The Crew-5 flight will carry NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, who will serve as mission commander and pilot, respectively, along with JAXA astronaut Koichi Wakata and Roscosmos cosmonaut Anna Kikina, who will serve as mission specialists. The center of Ian passed directly over Kennedy Space Center on Thursday, although by then, it had weakened to a tropical storm. Widespread, significant damage at the spaceport is unlikely, but cleanup efforts may take a few days, so it's possible the October 5 launch date could slip further. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

NASA delays Artemis I due to hurricane. After delaying a final decision for two days, NASA on Monday made the call to roll its massive Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Ars reports. The space agency took this precautionary step as the storm Ian intensified into a hurricane in the Caribbean Sea and remained on track to move into the southeastern Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday. It proved to be a good call, as a weakening Ian passed over the center Thursday. See you on Thanksgiving? ... The rollback means that NASA will not be able to attempt a launch on October 2 as hoped. Additionally, the agency almost certainly will not be able to make a launch period during the second half of October. "I don’t want to say it’s off the table, but I also recognize it’s September 27th," NASA's Jim Free said during a teleconference with reporters. "Getting back out there might be a challenge." Given that NASA needs to swap out the batteries on the flight termination system and perform numerous inspections and analyses, the agency will likely target no earlier than November 12, when the next period opens and runs through November 27. Delta IV Heavy puts on a dramatic show. On September 6, the final Delta IV Heavy rocket took off from Space Launch Complex-6 at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. This is the second-most powerful rocket in the world, and it is an amazing booster to watch take off. The mission carried a classified payload, NROL-91, for the National Reconnaissance Office. Above the clouds ... What made the launch especially spectacular was the presence of a marine layer of clouds. From a nearby hillside, photographers could capture images of the rocket climbing above this marine layer. And well, this is one of the coolest launch photos I've ever seen. (See the lead photo of this article). Just two launches of the mighty rocket remain, both from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, before it is retired in 2024. (submitted by EllPeaTea) China plans two-for-one launch on Long March 5. China is planning an ambitious two-for-one shot to the outer planets with a pair of spacecraft to launch for Jupiter and Uranus around 2030, Space.com reports. The mission will be named Tianwen 4 and will send a larger probe to Jupiter along with a smaller spacecraft to be sent to make a flyby of distant Uranus. The pair will launch on a Long March 5 rocket and use a Venus flyby and two Earth flybys to fling the spacecraft on a trajectory toward the outer Solar System before separating and setting course for their respective targets. Big deep space plans ... The main spacecraft will be dedicated to investigating the Jupiter system and will eventually enter orbit around the moon Callisto for a detailed investigation of the outermost of the Galilean moons. Some earlier concepts included a lander, but one is not presently planned. China launched its first independent interplanetary mission in 2020, sending the Tianwen 1 orbiter and Zhurong rover to Mars. Tianwen 2 will launch around 2025 and target the small near-Earth asteroid Kamo'oalewa for a sample-return mission and a later visit to a main belt comet. Tianwen 3 is a Mars sample return mission that could launch in 2028. (submitted by DanNeely) BE-4 flight engine is successfully fired up. On Wednesday, the chief executive of United Launch Alliance, Tory Bruno, shared on Twitter a video of a full-duration hot fire test by a BE-4 rocket engine. Spoiler alert: It looks pretty awesome. The Blue Origin-built engine appears to burn smoothly for more than four minutes on a test stand in West Texas. Bruno did not say so, but Ars has learned from sources that this is flight engine no. 2 that will be used to power United Launch Alliance's Vulcan rocket. Vulcan debut coming next year ... As of earlier this week, this flight engine had to pass one more test firing before being declared ready to ship to ULA's rocket factory in Decatur, Alabama. As for flight engine no. 1, it had to be returned to Blue Origin's facilities in Washington state after a problem was discovered. That engine has now been repaired and should soon ship back to Blue Origin's facilities in Texas. Following its acceptance testing, it too will be sent to Alabama for installation onto the Vulcan rocket. This likely puts Vulcan in line for a debut sometime during the first half of 2023. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Next three launches