Black holes are one of the most powerful forces in the universe, but we had never seen one until the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) team released the first image back in 2019. Now, the EHT Collaboration has released the most detailed image yet of the same M87 black hole, created with the aid of an additional telescope and independent data from 2018, that better displays the insane physics behind these supermassive objects.
The first image was captured in 2017 (it takes a long time to process the data) using eight high-altitude telescopes from locations including Chile and Antarctica. The complex technique required the synchronization of atomic clocks, use of the Earth's rotation and processing of petabytes of RAW telescope data. The result was slightly fuzzy, but clearly showed the expected "donut" with the black hole at the center and accretion disk made of matter inhaled from nearby stars.
However, the EHT collaboration captured another image a year later using an additional telescope in Greenland. That "significantly" improved the image fidelity, particularly in the north-south direction, according to the EHT. One of the original platforms, The Large Millimeter Telescope, also gained sensitivity by using its full 50 meter surface for the first time. The teams also introduced new data analysis techniques that boosted accuracy.
The result is a sharper and brighter image that also clearly shows the Doppler/Einstein effects that cause a black hole to appear to be brighter on one side. That bright spot actually shifted to the right between the capture of the two images.
"The biggest change, that the brightness peak shifted around the ring, is actually something we predicted when we published the first results in 2019," said Dr. Britt Jeter from Taiwan's ASIAA. "While general relativity says the ring size should stay pretty fixed, the emission from the turbulent, messy accretion disk around the black hole will cause the brightest part of the ring to wobble around a common center. The amount of wobble we see over time is something we can use to test our theories for the magnetic field and plasma environment around the black hole."
The new image also shows that the science behind the image technique is sound and reproduceable. "Confirmation of the ring in a completely new data set is a huge milestone for our collaboration and a strong indication that we are looking at a black hole shadow and the material orbiting around it," said Dr. Keiichi Asada from ASIAA.
The EHT Collaboration will continue to advance the science with new observations set for the first half of 2024. At that time, scientists hope to capture multiple images to create the first "video" of a black hole to show its chaotic movements. As before, it could take several years (and the participation of many scientists) to get the final result.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/scientists-extract-the-sharpest-image-of-a-black-hole-yet-131003088.html?src=rss
It looks like the Peregrine lunar lander’s final resting place will be back at home where it started. The doomed spacecraft, which experienced an anomaly shortly after launch and has been leaking propellant ever since, is expected to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere, Astrobotic wrote in an update on X this weekend. The company plans to host a press conference with NASA on Thursday January 18 at 12PM ET to discuss the lander’s fate.
Peregrine has so far hung on much longer than anyone thought it would after the leak was first detected on January 8, and Astrobotic has been posting round-the-clock status updates. The company days ago ruled out a soft landing on the moon’s surface, but there’s been some uncertainty about where exactly it’ll end up. Peregrine did manage to make it to lunar distance — reaching 238,000 miles from Earth on Friday and then 242,000 as of Saturday — but because of where the moon currently is in its orbit, nothing was there to meet it.
If all had gone according to plan, Peregrine would have met up with the moon about 15 days after launch, at which point it could begin the transition from Earth orbit to lunar orbit. It’s only been six days, and Peregrine’s dwindling fuel supply isn’t likely to carry it for nine more. “Our analysis efforts have been challenging due to the propellant leak, which have been adding uncertainty to predictions of the vehicle’s trajectory,” Astrobotic wrote in its most recent update on Saturday. “Our latest assessment now shows the spacecraft is on a path towards Earth, where it will likely burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere.”
It was always a known risk that Peregrine Mission One might end this way; moon landings are notoriously hard. The commercial mission marked the first of those contracted under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, and in a briefing ahead of last week’s launch, NASA’s CLPS Program Manager Chris Culbert said, “We recognize that success cannot be ensured.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/peregrine-moon-lander-and-its-cargo-will-likely-burn-up-in-earths-atmosphere-204002942.html?src=rss
It looks like the Peregrine lunar lander’s final resting place will be back at home where it started. The doomed spacecraft, which experienced an anomaly shortly after launch and has been leaking propellant ever since, is expected to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere, Astrobotic wrote in an update on X this weekend. The company plans to host a press conference with NASA on Thursday January 18 at 12PM ET to discuss the lander’s fate.
Peregrine has so far hung on much longer than anyone thought it would after the leak was first detected on January 8, and Astrobotic has been posting round-the-clock status updates. The company days ago ruled out a soft landing on the moon’s surface, but there’s been some uncertainty about where exactly it’ll end up. Peregrine did manage to make it to lunar distance — reaching 238,000 miles from Earth on Friday and then 242,000 as of Saturday — but because of where the moon currently is in its orbit, nothing was there to meet it.
If all had gone according to plan, Peregrine would have met up with the moon about 15 days after launch, at which point it could begin the transition from Earth orbit to lunar orbit. It’s only been six days, and Peregrine’s dwindling fuel supply isn’t likely to carry it for nine more. “Our analysis efforts have been challenging due to the propellant leak, which have been adding uncertainty to predictions of the vehicle’s trajectory,” Astrobotic wrote in its most recent update on Saturday. “Our latest assessment now shows the spacecraft is on a path towards Earth, where it will likely burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere.”
It was always a known risk that Peregrine Mission One might end this way; moon landings are notoriously hard. The commercial mission marked the first of those contracted under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, and in a briefing ahead of last week’s launch, NASA’s CLPS Program Manager Chris Culbert said, “We recognize that success cannot be ensured.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/peregrine-moon-lander-and-its-cargo-will-likely-burn-up-in-earths-atmosphere-204002942.html?src=rss
The Peregrine spacecraft has experienced an ‘anomaly’ that could endanger its planned moon landing, as reported by the BBC.Astrobotic, the private company behind the project, says this anomaly prevents the spacecraft from pointing its solar panels at the sun. In other words, the vehicle can’t charge its battery. Without power, the planned lunar landing for February might have to be canceled.
Astrobotic engineers are working the problem and will provide updates as they become available. The launch itself went off without a hitch early this morning, as the issue popped up during post-launch checks after communications had been established. The team behind the launch suggest the most likely cause of the anomaly is a problem with propulsion. Unfortunately, the engineers have a limited window of time to troubleshoot and fix the issue, as the spacecraft’s battery is currently “reaching operationally low levels.” There was a short comms breakdown, but it looks like that issue has been resolved.
The company has also stated that the propulsion issue led to a "critical loss of propellant." Astrobotic has planned for a wide variety of fault scenarios and could get everything squared away before too long, but it's looking less likely by the minute. The company says it's still trying to stabilize the propellant loss, but is investigating "alternative mission profiles" and trying to save as much science and data as it can.
Peregrine is supposed to be the first American lunar lander to visit the moon in over 50 years. The United Launch Alliance’s new Vulcan Centaur rocket carried the craft out of the atmosphere. If it manages to touch down on the moon, Peregrine will become the first commercial craft to land on any planetary body outside of Earth.
Though not directly affiliated with NASA, the Peregrine launch is part of the space agency’s new Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. To that end, it’s supposed to deliver five payloads to the moon for NASA to help prepare for the upcoming Artemis missions. It’s also carrying a number of payloads for commercial clients at a cost of $1.2 million per kilogram. This cargo includes everything from mini rovers and science instruments to art collections and physical representations of cryptocurrency.
There’s also human remains on board, including the DNA of science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke. Peregrine is scheduled to land on the moon’s nearside, which faces Earth, on February 23, though that timeframe could change or disappear altogether. Ahead of the launch, CLPS Program Manager Chris Culbert acknowledged that a lunar landing was not guaranteed, stating that “landing on the moon is extremely difficult.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/peregrine-spacecraft-experiences-anomaly-that-could-threaten-moon-landing-191221991.html?src=rss
Hours before sunrise on Monday morning, United Launch Alliance’s brand spankin’ new Vulcan Centaur rocket is scheduled to make its maiden flight carrying a historic passenger: Peregrine, the first American lunar lander to be sent to the moon in over 50 years. And its mission could mark a turning point in humankind’s exploration of the cosmos. Peregrine is not a NASA spacecraft, but one developed by Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic, a private company. If it survives touchdown, Peregrine will be the first commercial craft to successfully land on the moon — or any planetary body outside of Earth, for that matter.
Astrobotic is among a small group of companies that have been selected to carry out lunar deliveries for the space agency over the next few years as part of NASA’s new Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. Peregrine Mission 1, expected to launch January 8 at 2:18AM ET, is the first of these operations under a $79.5 million contract with the space agency. But it’s a wholly commercial endeavor, and alongside the five payloads it’ll deliver for NASA to support the upcoming Artemis missions, Peregrine will have cargo for other clients on board too, at a cost of $1.2 million per kilogram (roughly 2.2 pounds). That includes mini rovers and science instruments, collections of art and archival material, a physical “bitcoin” and, controversially, human remains.
Peregrine is headed for the moon’s nearside, the hemisphere that is always facing Earth. The 6-foot-tall, 8-foot-wide lander will (hopefully) touch down softly in a region named Sinus Viscositatis — the “Bay of Stickiness” — for the mysterious domes there that are thought to have been formed long ago by thick silicic lava. These peculiar features, called Gruithuisen Domes, don’t match up with the surrounding basaltic terrain, nor is the moon home to the ingredients so far known to give rise to silicic volcanoes.
Astrobotic
“The formation of the domes is a scientific mystery we are still working to understand,” said CLPS project scientist Paul Niles in a briefing on Thursday ahead of the launch. Peregrine will land near the domes on a patch of lunar mare, or the dark features created by hardened basaltic lava flows that we can see from Earth. The NASA payloads on board consist of a Laser Retroreflector Array (LRA), Neutron Spectrometer System (NSS), Linear Energy Transfer Spectrometer (LETS), Near InfraRed Volatiles Spectrometer System (NIRVSS) and Peregrine Ion-Trap Mass Spectrometer (PITMS). These instruments will gather data to help characterize the local environment.
“Three of our instruments will collect data on lunar volatiles using different techniques,” Niles said. “Two instruments will provide perspectives on the radiation environment at the lunar surface, helping us better prepare to send crewed missions back to the moon. We'll also learn information about the composition of the surface by evaluating its mineralogy.” Later, NASA will send another suite of instruments to the summit of Gruithuisen Domes.
As far as science deliveries are concerned, Peregrine will also carry a payload for Agencia Espacial Mexicana (AEM), the Mexican Space Agency. Its fleet of five mini rovers, each measuring just shy of 5 inches wide, will be the first Latin American science instruments to make it to the surface of the moon, according to Astrobotic. Carnegie Mellon University’s 4-pound Iris rover is hitching a ride on Peregrine too, with plans to snap photos that it’ll send back home. And the German Aerospace Center (DLR) is sending its M-42 radiation detector, which is intended to measure how much radiation a human would be exposed to on a roundtrip mission to the moon.
Among the non-science payloads, ULA’s Vulcan Centaur and Peregrine will be ferrying small portions of human remains for the space memorial companies Celestis and Elysium Space. Celestis has two separate memorial destinations planned for the trip: one, “Tranquility,” will land on the moon with Peregrine, while another, “Enterprise,” will continue on to deep space with the Centaur upper stage after it separates from the lunar lander. Flights like these that go beyond Earth’s immediate vicinity start at just under $13,000, and potential clients are given the option to send up symbolic amounts of either human ashes or DNA.
Astrobotic/ULA
One of the luminaries whose DNA is headed to the lunar surface will be 2001: A Space Odyssey co-writer and science fiction author, Arthur C. Clarke. On the Enterprise flight are the remains of several key figures from the Star Trek franchise, including series creator Gene Roddenberry, his wife, Majel Barrett Roddenberry, and their son Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry, plus Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura of the original series) and her son, Kyle Johnson. Elysium has been less forthcoming about whose remains it’ll be sending.
There’s been some backlash about the idea of turning the moon into a memorial site. Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren spoke out against the upcoming mission after hearing about the plan, calling it “tantamount to desecration” for the many cultures who consider the moon to be sacred, Arizona Public Radio reported.
In response to questioning led by Reuters’ Joey Roulette during the NASA briefing on Thursday, members of the space agency repeatedly reiterated that the decision of which payloads to fly fell solely on Astrobotic. “They don't have to clear those payloads with us,” CLPS Program Manager Chris Culbert said. “These are truly commercial missions. It's up to them to sell what they can sell.”
The issue highlights one of the potential downsides to relying on contractors, and it’ll undoubtedly rear its head again as NASA leans more heavily on the commercial industry for future missions. While NASA may not be in the position to approve what payloads are included alongside its own on commercial missions, Culbert added that the teams “obviously have a lot of discussions about how the payloads fit together.”
The rest of the 20 total payloads are a mix of mementos and items representing Earth and the achievements of humanity. Astrobotic partnered with DHL to curate a “moonbox” of keepsakes that will fly with Peregrine, including items such as photographs, literature and even a chunk of Mount Everest. Hungary’s Puli Space Technologies and the UK’s SpaceBit are sending plaques to the lunar surface, while the Japanese space company Astroscale has filled a “Lunar Dream Capsule” with “185,872 messages from children from around the world.”
In addition to its rover, Carnegie Mellon created what it’s calling the “first museum on the moon.” The University’s MoonArk project, a small cylinder made up of four chambers that contain “hundreds of images, poems, music, nano-objects, mechanisms and samples from Earth,” will remain on the Peregrine lander where it can be appreciated by future visitors along with the other stationary objects on board. Similarly, Peregrine will carry the Arch Mission Foundation’s Lunar Library 2, which it calls “an ultra-durable archive of humanity.” Wikipedia is in there, as well as other major collections of Earthly information and human languages.
And, there are two bitcoin projects going to the moon with Peregrine because crypto is, apparently, inescapable: a physical bitcoin engraved with its private key, from the Seychelles cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX; and US-based BTC Inc.’s Bitcoin Magazine Genesis Plate, which includes a copy of the first block of bitcoin ever mined.
Once Peregrine reaches lunar orbit, it’ll remain there for a few weeks before making its attempt to land on the surface. That’s expected to happen on February 23. Considering the US hasn’t put a lander on the moon since the days of the Apollo mission, it’s a pretty big deal. But, it’s risky business. When it comes to moon landings, there have been far more unsuccessful attempts than successful ones. “Landing on the moon is extremely difficult,” Culbert said during NASA’s briefing. “We recognize that success cannot be ensured.”
Regardless, NASA and its commercial partners aim to keep trying, and in close succession at that. Peregrine Mission 1 will be followed by the second of NASA’s CLPS missions in February, led by Intuitive Machines. After that, there are plans for at least four more CLPS lunar launches before the end of 2024.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/peregrine-mission-1-heralds-the-beginning-of-the-moons-commercialization-140038460.html?src=rss
Russia and the United States have had a strained relationship, at best, in recent years. However, the pair are still working together in one regard: getting crews to the International Space Station (ISS). Roscosmos, Russia's federal space agency, has announced that the two countries will continue partnering on "cross-flights until 2025 inclusive."
Cross-flights involve putting crews from multiple countries onto the same spacecraft. Roscosmos intends always to have at least one of its own representatives in the Russia section of the ISS and at least one NASA representative in the US section. The agency added that the decision was made "to maintain the reliability of the ISS as a whole." The ISS, launched in 1998, is a symbol of US-Russia cooperation after the Cold War and the space race ended.
The news follows NASA's April 2023 announcement that Russia will remain aboard the ISS until 2028. The Director General of Roscosmos, Yuri Borisov, had previously said Russia would pull out of the ISS "after 2024" to focus on creating its own space station. NASA had been preparing for Russia's departure with plans ranging from pulling astronauts from the ISS to figuring out how to control the ISS if Russia took away its thrusters. The US agency has committed to maintaining the ISS until at least 2030.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/russia-will-assist-nasa-with-iss-space-flights-through-2025-115533326.html?src=rss
In a successful demonstration of new laser communications capabilities, NASA beamed an ultra-high definition video across 19 million miles of space from its Psyche spacecraft to Earth earlier this month. It’s the first time a UHD streaming video has been sent from deep space via laser. The history-making video? A 15-second clip of an orange cat named Taters chasing a laser dot.
The signal from the video, sent on December 11, made it to Earth in 101 seconds from Psyche’s location at the time, which was about 80 times as far as the distance between Earth and the moon. It was uploaded before the mission launched, and sent back home by a flight laser transceiver aboard Psyche at a rate of 267Mbps. The spacecraft, which set off on its journey in October, is on its way to study a metal-rich asteroid in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
“Despite transmitting from millions of miles away, it was able to send the video faster than most broadband internet connections,” said Ryan Rogalin, the receiver electronics lead for the project at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab. “In fact, after receiving the video at Palomar, it was sent to JPL over the internet, and that connection was slower than the signal coming from deep space.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nasa-beamed-a-video-of-a-cat-named-taters-from-deep-space-to-earth-175814869.html?src=rss
In a successful demonstration of new laser communications capabilities, NASA beamed an ultra-high definition video across 19 million miles of space from its Psyche spacecraft to Earth earlier this month. It’s the first time a UHD streaming video has been sent from deep space via laser. The history-making video? A 15-second clip of an orange cat named Taters chasing a laser dot.
The signal from the video, sent on December 11, made it to Earth in 101 seconds from Psyche’s location at the time, which was about 80 times as far as the distance between Earth and the moon. It was uploaded before the mission launched, and sent back home by a flight laser transceiver aboard Psyche at a rate of 267Mbps. The spacecraft, which set off on its journey in October, is on its way to study a metal-rich asteroid in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
“Despite transmitting from millions of miles away, it was able to send the video faster than most broadband internet connections,” said Ryan Rogalin, the receiver electronics lead for the project at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab. “In fact, after receiving the video at Palomar, it was sent to JPL over the internet, and that connection was slower than the signal coming from deep space.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nasa-beamed-a-video-of-a-cat-named-taters-from-deep-space-to-earth-175814869.html?src=rss
It’s been a busy year for spaceflight — the busiest ever, in fact. This fall, space companies once again broke the record for successful orbital launches in a single year with 2023’s 180th flight. That record was broken when SpaceX sent up Starlink satellites on November 22, according to Ars Technica. The number has since climbed to 200.
That pace has been driven in no small part by Elon Musk’s aerospace venture, which set a goal of hitting 100 launches in 2023 and is nearly there, with 92 as of December 7. Private companies have become key players in the new space race, not only vying to serve as launch providers for science and communications missions but also ushering in the era of space tourism (for anyone rich enough to nab a ticket). But spaceflight is hard, especially if you’re trying to change the game with design innovations, and for all the wins in 2023, there have been plenty of hiccups. Here’s a look at how some of the leading private space companies made out this year.
SpaceX
REUTERS / Reuters
SpaceX seemingly didn’t stop once to catch its breath in 2023. The company managed a record-setting run of orbital launches with its reusable Falcon 9 and partially reusable Falcon Heavy rockets, with the lion’s share dedicated to delivering its Starlink internet satellites to orbit. (There are now more than 5,000 of them circling Earth.) SpaceX also delivered payloads for other entities, including NASA, and carried out multiple crewed flights with its Dragon capsule. Four astronauts arrived at the International Space Station in March aboard a Crew Dragon, and Axiom Space contracted SpaceX for a private astronaut mission that flew to the ISS in May.
As for its experimental Starship flights, things were expectedly a bit more volatile. Starship is the biggest and most powerful launch vehicle built to date, and is designed to support future human spaceflight missions, including NASA’s return to the moon as soon as 2025. The spacecraft itself is 165 feet tall, and when stacked on top of the Super Heavy rocket, the two tower at a combined 397 feet. Both Starship and Super Heavy are planned to be fully reusable. It’s all still in development, and after a few years of suborbital flight tests without Super Heavy — Starship has six of its own Raptor engines that enable flight — the vehicle advanced to orbital tests in 2023.
SpaceX launched Starship for the first time in an integrated flight with its Super Heavy rocket on April 20, and there were problems from the moment liftoff began. Multiple engines failed, and when Starship started its flip maneuver that allows for stage separation about 3 minutes in, it just kept spinning. It was eventually given the command to self-destruct, ending the test with an explosion.
The launch left behind a lot of damage on the ground, too, tearing up the launchpad at SpaceX’s Boca Chica test site, creating a sizable crater and starting a 3.5 acre fire on the grounds of a protected wildlife refuge. But for SpaceX, it was still considered a success — its goal was just to clear the tower. Starship made it to an altitude of about 24 miles before it got caught in that uncontrolled spin. Nevertheless, the Federal Aviation Administration grounded Starship after the destructive test, and ordered the company to complete dozens of corrective actions before it could fly again.
Starship did fly again before the end of 2023, and again Starship exploded. This time, though, Starship officially made it to space, climbing to about 92 miles above Earth. It also performed SpaceX’s first attempt at hot staging — where the upper stage begins to fire its engines while still attached to its lower stage — and was able to complete separation from the Super Heavy booster. It fell well short of the planned 90-minute flight, lasting only around eight minutes, but it demonstrated hot staging was possible.
Blue Origin
Blue Origin
Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin had a strong run between late 2021 and 2022 with its reusable New Shepard suborbital booster and capsule, completing six crewed flights to the edge of space following years of tests and payload missions for industry clients including NASA. But in September 2022, one of its rockets suffered a main engine failure during an uncrewed research mission, and New Shepard spent a subsequent 15 months grounded.
After investigations into the cause of the event, the company’s then-CEO Bob Smith — who is stepping down in the new year — said in June 2023 that New Shepard would again “be ready to go fly within the next few weeks” pending FAA approval. The FAA closed its investigation at the end of September and gave Blue Origin 21 corrective actions to complete before New Shepard could take to the skies again. Around that time, Ars Technica reported that sources close to the matter said Blue Origin was targeting an October return to flight, but that window came and went with no liftoff or further updates. While it was starting to look like Blue Origin wouldn’t fly at all in 2023, the company finally announced New Shepard’s return in mid-December, and pulled off a successful suborbital payload flight on December 19.
It’s mostly been crickets for Blue Origin’s still-in-development New Glenn, as the company races to get it ready for its debut. New Glenn, a partially reusable heavy lift vehicle, is expected to make its inaugural flight sometime in 2024. It’s already been tapped by NASA to send a pair of small satellites to Mars later that year, but the timeline keeps slipping. It was originally supposed to launch in 2020, but was later rescheduled to 2021, then 2022 and now 2024. The company shared some photos of the rocket’s first and second stage being assembled at its Florida factory over the summer, and confirmed to the Orlando Sentinelthat it was still shooting for next year.
Blue Origin has also been busy building engines for another launch provider, United Launch Alliance, which will be used for ULA’s heavy-lift Vulcan Centaur rocket. Both New Glenn and Vulcan will rely on Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine, and have faced delays tied to its development. Most recently, in July, CNBC reported that one of these engines exploded during testing at Blue Origin’s West Texas facility.
United Launch Alliance
REUTERS / Reuters
ULA had a quiet year as well, carrying out only three launches in 2023 with its Atlas V and Delta IV Heavy rockets — down from eight the year before. Both rockets are in the process of winding down their operations ahead of their official retirement. Delta IV Heavy has just one flight left, which is expected to take place in 2024, and all of Atlas V’s remaining flights have been sold and scheduled out over the next several years. One of ULA’s few 2023 launches was the first flight in its partnership with Amazon, and an Atlas V rocket successfully delivered two of the company’s prototype Project Kuiper internet satellites to orbit.
Most of ULA’s attention right now is focused on putting the final touches on Vulcan ahead of its maiden flight. Vulcan has been in development for roughly a decade, and it, too, has faced years of delays. There was some hope it would finally launch in the first half of 2023, with the company targeting liftoff in May, but after the explosion of a Centaur upper stage during tests, it pushed this target to the end of the year. In October, ULA had said it was planning to launch Vulcan for the first time on Christmas Eve from Cape Canaveral, Florida. But, in an update posted this week, the company confirmed Vulcan wouldn't be flying in 2023 after all.
Following a successful WDR, the launch of ULA's first #VulcanRocket flight test and #Cert1 mission is planned for Jan. 8, 2024, pending range approval. The Vulcan VC2S rocket will launch from SLC-41 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. https://t.co/xFQoT0042Vpic.twitter.com/gkHOBFF6UT
The rocket completed some critical tests in December, and is now scheduled to fly on January 8, 2024. Vulcan’s first flight, dubbed Certification-1, will send Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander to the moon. Once Vulcan is in operation, ULA will start ramping up flights again. It’s already got a contract with Amazon for 38 Project Kuiper launches on Vulcan. It just needs to get off the ground first.
Rocket Lab
Rocket Lab
Over the last few years, Rocket Lab has risen as a company to watch in the launch sector. In the first few months of 2023, it seemed on track to beat its 2022 record of nine orbital launches in one year with its Electron rocket. The company told SpaceFlight Now it was targeting 15 launches this time around. It made it to seven by the end of August, but in September, a problem with the rocket’s upper stage resulted in its failure to reach orbit. Rocket Lab has at least three dozen successful Electron flights under its belt, and only a handful of failures, but the latest is the third such failure in as many years.
Whether or not it proves to be a major setback has yet to be seen. The FAA in October cleared Rocket Lab to resume flights following the finalization of its investigation into the issue, which wrapped up in November. According to Rocket Lab, the problem was caused by “the rare interaction” of “three rare conditions” in the low-pressure space environment that created “an unexpected electrical arc” within the power supply system for the engine’s motor controllers, “shorting the battery packs that provide power to the launch vehicle’s second stage.” The company was still able to return to flight before the end of the year. On December 15, an Electron rocket delivered a Japanese satellite to orbit in a mission dubbed “The Moon God Awakens.”
Rocket Lab has been experimenting with different ways to recover its Electron boosters after flight —including mid-air catch attempts via helicopter — as it works toward rocket reusability. It’s also developing a medium-lift, partially reusable launch vehicle, Neutron, that’s expected to be completed in 2024.
Virgin Galactic & Virgin Orbit
Virgin Orbit
Virgin Galactic, founded by Richard Branson, managed a steady cadence of flights this year with its VSS Unity suborbital spaceplane. The rocket-powered craft made six flights in six months in 2023, including its first ever space tourism trip in August. In addition to research missions, it’s now completed a total of four flights with paying tourists on board, all of them completed between this summer and fall.
The company took a bit of a hit on the stock market in December, though, after Branson said he wouldn’t be putting any more of his own money into it. Speaking to the Financial Times, Branson said, “We don’t have the deepest pockets after COVID, and Virgin Galactic has got $1 billion, or nearly. It should, I believe, have sufficient funds to do its job on its own.” Following his comments, shares took a nosedive. But, they’ve since climbed back up.
Virgin Orbit, on the other hand, didn’t fare so well in 2023. Branson’s Virgin Galactic spinoff announced in May that it was shutting down a month after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company was formed in 2017 with the intention of becoming a launch provider for small satellite missions. It had a unique approach to getting payloads to space; Virgin Orbit used a modified Boeing 747 plane to launch its rocket, LauncherOne, from the air.
But it struggled to keep up with the competition, and in January, it suffered a failure during what was the first ever orbital launch from the UK. As a result, the satellites it had been commissioned by the UK and US governments to deliver didn’t make it to orbit. It was the company’s second failure out of a total of just six missions, and it proved unable to rebound.
Newcomers hit hurdles
California-based Relativity Space has been working for years to build the first fully 3D-printed reusable rockets, with plans for an eventual medium-to-heavy-lift vehicle that could send missions to the moon and Mars. Its first rocket, Terran 1, had its inaugural launch in March this year, but it failed not long after liftoff. It hit some key milestones, though, making it through Max-Q (the point of maximum dynamic pressure on a spaceship during flight) and stage separation. Now, Relativity Space is turning its attention to its larger vehicle, Terran R, which it plans to have ready for launch in 2026 from Cape Canaveral.
ABL Space, also based in California, conducted its own first flight in 2023 with the launch of its RS1 rocket. Shortly after liftoff, all nine of RS1’s engines shut down, causing the vehicle to crash back down to Earth. In a Substack post at the end of October, CEO Harry O’Hanley detailed some of the work the company has been doing in the months since the first flight to prepare for its second launch, but no date for Flight 2 has been announced just yet.
More to come in 2024
David Ducros/ ESA/ Arianespace
In many ways, 2023 has felt like a primer for what’s to come in 2024, which is shaping up to be a big year for spaceflight based on the timelines of current projects, both private and government-sponsored. SpaceX has already said it’s planning to hit 12 launches a month in 2024, which would bring it to 144 by the end of the year.
This year marked the end of the road for Arianespace’s long-running Ariane 5 rocket, which has become the leading launch vehicle in Europe for heavy missions over its 27 years of service. Ariane 5 had its final flight in July, leaving the continent with few launch options for big missions until the release of its successor, Ariane 6. Like others, though, Ariane 6 has been hit by delay after delay over the years, pushing it way behind its originally targeted 2020 debut. The rocket, which Arianespace is developing for the European Space Agency, is expected to make its first flight in summer 2024.
NASA and Boeing are planning the first crewed flight of the Starliner reusable spacecraft capsule, which after being back for the umpteenth time this year, is now slated to be ready around March 2024. NASA also plans to launch the next phase of its moon mission, Artemis II, as early as November 2024. It will be the second flight for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, and will have four astronauts aboard the Orion capsule for a lunar flyby. But as always, it’d be reasonable to expect some delays.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/spacex-dominated-private-spaceflight-in-2023-but-its-competitors-mostly-arent-quitting-153050005.html?src=rss
It’s been a busy year for spaceflight — the busiest ever, in fact. This fall, space companies once again broke the record for successful orbital launches in a single year with 2023’s 180th flight. That record was broken when SpaceX sent up Starlink satellites on November 22, according to Ars Technica. The number has since climbed to 200.
That pace has been driven in no small part by Elon Musk’s aerospace venture, which set a goal of hitting 100 launches in 2023 and is nearly there, with 92 as of December 7. Private companies have become key players in the new space race, not only vying to serve as launch providers for science and communications missions but also ushering in the era of space tourism (for anyone rich enough to nab a ticket). But spaceflight is hard, especially if you’re trying to change the game with design innovations, and for all the wins in 2023, there have been plenty of hiccups. Here’s a look at how some of the leading private space companies made out this year.
SpaceX
REUTERS / Reuters
SpaceX seemingly didn’t stop once to catch its breath in 2023. The company managed a record-setting run of orbital launches with its reusable Falcon 9 and partially reusable Falcon Heavy rockets, with the lion’s share dedicated to delivering its Starlink internet satellites to orbit. (There are now more than 5,000 of them circling Earth.) SpaceX also delivered payloads for other entities, including NASA, and carried out multiple crewed flights with its Dragon capsule. Four astronauts arrived at the International Space Station in March aboard a Crew Dragon, and Axiom Space contracted SpaceX for a private astronaut mission that flew to the ISS in May.
As for its experimental Starship flights, things were expectedly a bit more volatile. Starship is the biggest and most powerful launch vehicle built to date, and is designed to support future human spaceflight missions, including NASA’s return to the moon as soon as 2025. The spacecraft itself is 165 feet tall, and when stacked on top of the Super Heavy rocket, the two tower at a combined 397 feet. Both Starship and Super Heavy are planned to be fully reusable. It’s all still in development, and after a few years of suborbital flight tests without Super Heavy — Starship has six of its own Raptor engines that enable flight — the vehicle advanced to orbital tests in 2023.
SpaceX launched Starship for the first time in an integrated flight with its Super Heavy rocket on April 20, and there were problems from the moment liftoff began. Multiple engines failed, and when Starship started its flip maneuver that allows for stage separation about 3 minutes in, it just kept spinning. It was eventually given the command to self-destruct, ending the test with an explosion.
The launch left behind a lot of damage on the ground, too, tearing up the launchpad at SpaceX’s Boca Chica test site, creating a sizable crater and starting a 3.5 acre fire on the grounds of a protected wildlife refuge. But for SpaceX, it was still considered a success — its goal was just to clear the tower. Starship made it to an altitude of about 24 miles before it got caught in that uncontrolled spin. Nevertheless, the Federal Aviation Administration grounded Starship after the destructive test, and ordered the company to complete dozens of corrective actions before it could fly again.
Starship did fly again before the end of 2023, and again Starship exploded. This time, though, Starship officially made it to space, climbing to about 92 miles above Earth. It also performed SpaceX’s first attempt at hot staging — where the upper stage begins to fire its engines while still attached to its lower stage — and was able to complete separation from the Super Heavy booster. It fell well short of the planned 90-minute flight, lasting only around eight minutes, but it demonstrated hot staging was possible.
Blue Origin
Blue Origin
Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin had a strong run between late 2021 and 2022 with its reusable New Shepard suborbital booster and capsule, completing six crewed flights to the edge of space following years of tests and payload missions for industry clients including NASA. But in September 2022, one of its rockets suffered a main engine failure during an uncrewed research mission, and New Shepard spent a subsequent 15 months grounded.
After investigations into the cause of the event, the company’s then-CEO Bob Smith — who is stepping down in the new year — said in June 2023 that New Shepard would again “be ready to go fly within the next few weeks” pending FAA approval. The FAA closed its investigation at the end of September and gave Blue Origin 21 corrective actions to complete before New Shepard could take to the skies again. Around that time, Ars Technica reported that sources close to the matter said Blue Origin was targeting an October return to flight, but that window came and went with no liftoff or further updates. While it was starting to look like Blue Origin wouldn’t fly at all in 2023, the company finally announced New Shepard’s return in mid-December, and pulled off a successful suborbital payload flight on December 19.
It’s mostly been crickets for Blue Origin’s still-in-development New Glenn, as the company races to get it ready for its debut. New Glenn, a partially reusable heavy lift vehicle, is expected to make its inaugural flight sometime in 2024. It’s already been tapped by NASA to send a pair of small satellites to Mars later that year, but the timeline keeps slipping. It was originally supposed to launch in 2020, but was later rescheduled to 2021, then 2022 and now 2024. The company shared some photos of the rocket’s first and second stage being assembled at its Florida factory over the summer, and confirmed to the Orlando Sentinelthat it was still shooting for next year.
Blue Origin has also been busy building engines for another launch provider, United Launch Alliance, which will be used for ULA’s heavy-lift Vulcan Centaur rocket. Both New Glenn and Vulcan will rely on Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine, and have faced delays tied to its development. Most recently, in July, CNBC reported that one of these engines exploded during testing at Blue Origin’s West Texas facility.
United Launch Alliance
REUTERS / Reuters
ULA had a quiet year as well, carrying out only three launches in 2023 with its Atlas V and Delta IV Heavy rockets — down from eight the year before. Both rockets are in the process of winding down their operations ahead of their official retirement. Delta IV Heavy has just one flight left, which is expected to take place in 2024, and all of Atlas V’s remaining flights have been sold and scheduled out over the next several years. One of ULA’s few 2023 launches was the first flight in its partnership with Amazon, and an Atlas V rocket successfully delivered two of the company’s prototype Project Kuiper internet satellites to orbit.
Most of ULA’s attention right now is focused on putting the final touches on Vulcan ahead of its maiden flight. Vulcan has been in development for roughly a decade, and it, too, has faced years of delays. There was some hope it would finally launch in the first half of 2023, with the company targeting liftoff in May, but after the explosion of a Centaur upper stage during tests, it pushed this target to the end of the year. In October, ULA had said it was planning to launch Vulcan for the first time on Christmas Eve from Cape Canaveral, Florida. But, in an update posted this week, the company confirmed Vulcan wouldn't be flying in 2023 after all.
Following a successful WDR, the launch of ULA's first #VulcanRocket flight test and #Cert1 mission is planned for Jan. 8, 2024, pending range approval. The Vulcan VC2S rocket will launch from SLC-41 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. https://t.co/xFQoT0042Vpic.twitter.com/gkHOBFF6UT
The rocket completed some critical tests in December, and is now scheduled to fly on January 8, 2024. Vulcan’s first flight, dubbed Certification-1, will send Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander to the moon. Once Vulcan is in operation, ULA will start ramping up flights again. It’s already got a contract with Amazon for 38 Project Kuiper launches on Vulcan. It just needs to get off the ground first.
Rocket Lab
Rocket Lab
Over the last few years, Rocket Lab has risen as a company to watch in the launch sector. In the first few months of 2023, it seemed on track to beat its 2022 record of nine orbital launches in one year with its Electron rocket. The company told SpaceFlight Now it was targeting 15 launches this time around. It made it to seven by the end of August, but in September, a problem with the rocket’s upper stage resulted in its failure to reach orbit. Rocket Lab has at least three dozen successful Electron flights under its belt, and only a handful of failures, but the latest is the third such failure in as many years.
Whether or not it proves to be a major setback has yet to be seen. The FAA in October cleared Rocket Lab to resume flights following the finalization of its investigation into the issue, which wrapped up in November. According to Rocket Lab, the problem was caused by “the rare interaction” of “three rare conditions” in the low-pressure space environment that created “an unexpected electrical arc” within the power supply system for the engine’s motor controllers, “shorting the battery packs that provide power to the launch vehicle’s second stage.” The company was still able to return to flight before the end of the year. On December 15, an Electron rocket delivered a Japanese satellite to orbit in a mission dubbed “The Moon God Awakens.”
Rocket Lab has been experimenting with different ways to recover its Electron boosters after flight —including mid-air catch attempts via helicopter — as it works toward rocket reusability. It’s also developing a medium-lift, partially reusable launch vehicle, Neutron, that’s expected to be completed in 2024.
Virgin Galactic & Virgin Orbit
Virgin Orbit
Virgin Galactic, founded by Richard Branson, managed a steady cadence of flights this year with its VSS Unity suborbital spaceplane. The rocket-powered craft made six flights in six months in 2023, including its first ever space tourism trip in August. In addition to research missions, it’s now completed a total of four flights with paying tourists on board, all of them completed between this summer and fall.
The company took a bit of a hit on the stock market in December, though, after Branson said he wouldn’t be putting any more of his own money into it. Speaking to the Financial Times, Branson said, “We don’t have the deepest pockets after COVID, and Virgin Galactic has got $1 billion, or nearly. It should, I believe, have sufficient funds to do its job on its own.” Following his comments, shares took a nosedive. But, they’ve since climbed back up.
Virgin Orbit, on the other hand, didn’t fare so well in 2023. Branson’s Virgin Galactic spinoff announced in May that it was shutting down a month after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company was formed in 2017 with the intention of becoming a launch provider for small satellite missions. It had a unique approach to getting payloads to space; Virgin Orbit used a modified Boeing 747 plane to launch its rocket, LauncherOne, from the air.
But it struggled to keep up with the competition, and in January, it suffered a failure during what was the first ever orbital launch from the UK. As a result, the satellites it had been commissioned by the UK and US governments to deliver didn’t make it to orbit. It was the company’s second failure out of a total of just six missions, and it proved unable to rebound.
Newcomers hit hurdles
California-based Relativity Space has been working for years to build the first fully 3D-printed reusable rockets, with plans for an eventual medium-to-heavy-lift vehicle that could send missions to the moon and Mars. Its first rocket, Terran 1, had its inaugural launch in March this year, but it failed not long after liftoff. It hit some key milestones, though, making it through Max-Q (the point of maximum dynamic pressure on a spaceship during flight) and stage separation. Now, Relativity Space is turning its attention to its larger vehicle, Terran R, which it plans to have ready for launch in 2026 from Cape Canaveral.
ABL Space, also based in California, conducted its own first flight in 2023 with the launch of its RS1 rocket. Shortly after liftoff, all nine of RS1’s engines shut down, causing the vehicle to crash back down to Earth. In a Substack post at the end of October, CEO Harry O’Hanley detailed some of the work the company has been doing in the months since the first flight to prepare for its second launch, but no date for Flight 2 has been announced just yet.
More to come in 2024
David Ducros/ ESA/ Arianespace
In many ways, 2023 has felt like a primer for what’s to come in 2024, which is shaping up to be a big year for spaceflight based on the timelines of current projects, both private and government-sponsored. SpaceX has already said it’s planning to hit 12 launches a month in 2024, which would bring it to 144 by the end of the year.
This year marked the end of the road for Arianespace’s long-running Ariane 5 rocket, which has become the leading launch vehicle in Europe for heavy missions over its 27 years of service. Ariane 5 had its final flight in July, leaving the continent with few launch options for big missions until the release of its successor, Ariane 6. Like others, though, Ariane 6 has been hit by delay after delay over the years, pushing it way behind its originally targeted 2020 debut. The rocket, which Arianespace is developing for the European Space Agency, is expected to make its first flight in summer 2024.
NASA and Boeing are planning the first crewed flight of the Starliner reusable spacecraft capsule, which after being back for the umpteenth time this year, is now slated to be ready around March 2024. NASA also plans to launch the next phase of its moon mission, Artemis II, as early as November 2024. It will be the second flight for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, and will have four astronauts aboard the Orion capsule for a lunar flyby. But as always, it’d be reasonable to expect some delays.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/spacex-dominated-private-spaceflight-in-2023-but-its-competitors-mostly-arent-quitting-153050005.html?src=rss