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Welcome to Edition 1.46 of the Rocket Report! As always, we've got news about this world. Start-ups in Japan and China have made news this week, and Russia may soon be decommissioning the most historical launchpad in the world. There's plenty of news from the world of heavy lift.
As always, we do not want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on the 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.
Interstellar Technologies to make a third launch attempt. In an email, the Japanese new space company said it would attempt to launch the MOMO-3 rocket on April 30 from its launchpad in Taiki, Hokkaido. The launch is set for 2:15 am UTC, and the company said a live stream would be available.
Problem solved? … This is the company's third attempt to launch the MOMO sounding rocket, which weighs 1.15 tons and is 10 meters tall. Last June, the MOMO-2 rocket crashed to the ground a few seconds after it lost thrust. The cause of the failure is a malfunction of the hot-gas thruster for roll control. Since then, the company said it has fixed the structure and conducted multiple captive firing tests.
Chinese smallsat launcher raises $ 15 million. Andrew Jones carryforwards that a Chinese company founded in 2018, Galactic Energy, has raised substantial funding. This series A + financing will be used to complete the production of Ceres-1 rocket, which is powered by solid rockets for the first stage and a liquid-fueled upper stage.
One of many … The Ceres-1 rocket will be capable of lifting 350kg to low Earth orbit, according to the company, and is scheduled to launch for the first time on one year from now. As with the dozen or so other small states of launching efforts in China underway at this time, it is hard to know which companies have real hardware and which do not. Eventually, we'll just have to reach you.
Relativity secures another launch contract. The Los Angeles-based rocket company announced on Tuesday, May 1, 2011 at 1:00 pm Mu Space did not disclose details about the satellite, including its mass and capabilities. The launch is slated to occur in 2022.
Busy time … The latest contract comes to a new lease of life with Telesat. It's an important period for Relativity, which is growing rapidly, looking for a second launch site for polar orbits, and doing all of the work for a 3D-printed rocket ready for launch by the end of 2020. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
Virgin outfitting VSS Unity for customer flights. Virgin Galactic's chief pilot, Dave Mackay, told SpaceNews that he believes the company will be able to do so through the remainder of its SpaceShipTwo test program. "The next time it flies, we expect to have it installed," he said. A few other changes to the vehicle are also in progress, such as changes to cockpit displays.
Delighted by the flight … Without being specific, Mackay said the following may well have been in the forefront of the future. its two flights above 80km. "Mackay told the publication," The way it flew. "I was delighted with the way the vehicle flew." (submitted by Ken the Bin)
Momentus seeks to raise $ 25 million. The start-up company, which provides in-space propulsion solutions, Exolaunch and Deimos Space, TechCrunch reports. "It's the first low-cost way to deliver a small payload of low Earth orbit to geostationary orbit and the moon," Momentus CEO Mikhail Kokorich said of the company's technology.
H20 the way to go … The company wants to take payloads dropped in low Earth orbit and propel them deeper into space and other more desirable orbits. This is a solution to the conundrum of rideshare missions, in which a batch of satellites gets dropped in sub-optimal orbits, from which operators might want to reach their desired orbit for a reasonable cost. The technology uses water as a propellant.
Gagarin's launchpad to be decommissioned. Sputnik, Gagarin, and Tereshkova all launched from Site 1 at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. But as crew launches transition from the Soyuz FG to the Soyuz 2 rocket, the old launchpad will be decommissioned because there are no funds to upgrade it for the launches of the Soyuz 2 rocket, Ars reports.
Final flights this year … Presently, the Soyuz 2 rocket launches from another location at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Site 31, Europe and Guiana Space Center in French Guiana. Future crew of Soyuz rocket and spacecraft will take place from Site 31 in Baikonur. Therefore, the crew of the Soyuz MS-13 and Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft, in July and September, will be the final flights of the Soyuz FG vehicle.
Crew Dragon Launched Dead by Abort Test Accident. SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft this past Saturday, the vehicle experienced the company characterized by an anomaly. Based on an unauthorized leaked video of the accident, the company was counting down towards a firing of the Dragon's SuperDraco thrusters when the vehicle exploded.
We do not know much, yet … The Crew Dragon capsule in question is the same one that successfully flew to the International Space Station in March. The spacecraft was prepared for a launch abort test this summer. Now, at a minimum, the California company will have a replacement for the test. And that assumes it can find and fix whatever problem. A crewed flight had been possible as early as October, but now that seems unlikely before 2020.
Fun with Facebook auto-captions. An Antares rocket built by Northrop Grumman launched flawlessly last week, boosting Cygnus spacecraft with 3.4 tons of cargo to the International Space Station. However, when NASA 's International Space Station program posted on Wednesday, there was a problem. Apparently, the agency's caption service has not yet been released, but the viewers have not yet been able to launch the game, but the glory of Facebook's automatically generated crazywords.
A rockin 'launch … As Ars reports, some of the captions were just hilariously bad. For example, when the announcer triumphantly declared, "And we have a liftoff of the Antares NG-11 mission to the ISS," the automatically generated caption service helpfully said, "And we have a liftoff of the guitarist G 11 mission to the ice sets. "
Why NASA went back to SLS for EM-1. NASA's Exploration Mission-1, to fly an uncrewed orion space spacecraft around the Moon. In the end, the agency decides to stick with its original plan to fly the mission on the Space Launch System rocket.
Orion just too heavy … "The thing that kept me up at night was the prospect of needing to be 25 metric tons three kilometers per second out of low Earth orbit into trans-lunar injection," an agency official said. At the outset, one of the things the study group looked at was how to reduce orion.
SpaceX offers greater detail Falcon Heavy mission. SpaceX has created a separate webpage to highlight the third edition of its Falcon Heavy rocket, a mission for the Air Force that has 23 manifested spacecraft. Known as the US Air Force's Space Test Program 2 mission, this flight is important as SpaceX attempts to showcase the large rocket for the Air Force, Teslarati reports.
According to the company … "The STP-2 mission will be one of the most challenging launches in SpaceX history, with four separate upper-stage engine burns, three separate deployment orbits, a final propulsive passivation maneuver, and a total mission duration of over six hours. [It] will be present for the future of the National Security Space Launch missions. "The flight is presently scheduled for June 22 (submitted by Ken the Bin)
Reaching Mars by 2033 is not possible. An independent report by the Science and Technology Policy Institute found that NASA has no chance of sending humans to Mars by 2033, with the earliest such a mission could be flown being the late 2030s. NASA authorization act, SpaceNews reports.
NASA has not prioritized Mars technologies … This should come as no surprise to anyone. NASA has spent the lion's share of its exploration for the last decade on the Orion spacecraft (which is not going to Mars) and the SLS rocket, which may eventually be part of a Mars program. The agency has spent almost nothing on the need for long-duration, deep-space flights to Mars, surface habitats, power, and more. (submitted by Unrulycow and Ken the Bin)
Next three launches
April 30: MOMO-3 | Sounding rocket test launch | Taiki launch site, Japan | 02:15 UTC
April 30: Falcon 9 | Dragon CRS-17 ISS supply mission | Cape Canaveral, Fla. | 08:22 UTC
May 4: Electron | STP-27RD mission | Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand | TBD
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