Category: Space Sunday

Boeing’s Starliner capsule Calypso is back on Earth after what appears to have been an almost pitch-perfect automated return flight form the International Space Station (ISS).

The vehicle departed the ISS at 22:04 UTC on September 6th, after almost a day of preparations during which Starliner’s inner hatches were sealed as was the hatch on the ISS’s Harmony docking adaptor, prior to the “vestibule” at the forward end of Calypso, containing the vehicle’s half of the docking mechanism, being slowly depressurised. Some time prior to the undocking, and while awaiting the formal ATP – authority to proceed – the two control rooms at Johnson space Centre, Texas, one for the ISS the other for Starliner, did a final go / no-go poll, after which ISS Flight Director Chloe Mehring called the station.

Station Houston space-to-ground 2 for Starliner undock.

Go ahead, we’re with ya.

Hey, Suni both the Starliner and the ISS flight control teams have polled GO for undock at this time. Expected undock time is 22:04 [UTC].

Okay, copy. 22:04. Hey, y’know, just looking at the flight control roster, and like wow! It is the all-star team! You guys, it IS time to bring Calypso home. You have GOT this! We have your backs, and you’ve got this. Bring her back to Earth.

– Exchange between Flight Director  Chloe Mehring and astronaut Suni Williams on the ISS prior to Starliner’s departure.

ATP came at 22:02 UTC, and the 12 docking “hooks” on the ISS docking adaptor rotated to their “open” position, allowing springs on the Starliner’s docking mechanism to very gently push it away from the space station two minutes later. The use of such springs avoids the need for the vehicle to use its forward thrusters, potentially spraying ISS docking adaptor and hatch with toxic hydrazine exhaust gas.

Once the separation between station and vehicle had exceeded 5 metres, Starliner commenced a series of 12 short firings of the forward facing reaction control thrusters on the service module, pushing itself outside the 200-metre Keep Out Sphere (KOS), an imaginary zone around the ISS within which a spacecraft must be on what is called a “4-orbit safe free drift trajectory”, meaning that it can float freely in close proximity with the station for a period of 4 orbits (roughly 6 hours)  without any risk of collision should its manoeuvring system fail.

These burns were more or less a “reversing manoeuvre” in a straight line. Once outside the KOS, Starliner was within the larger Approach Ellipsoid (AE), another imaginary area of space around the station within which spacecraft must be able to float freely for up to 24 hours without risk of impacting the space station. Once in the AE, Starliner continued to move away from the station whilst starting to raise its orbit until some 19 minutes after undocking, it was clear of the AE as well and moving on to an orbit that would carry it around the Earth several times and bring it to the required position for its de-orbit burn.

Once clear of the AE, the ISS involvement in the flight concluded, leaving the NASA Starliner flight team to oversee the rest of the return, an operation of multiple parts.

In particular, the Calypso’s own Reaction Control System (RCS) thrusters were tested. Entirely separate from the problematic thruster systems on the service module, Calypso’s RCS allow the capsule to manoeuvre and maintain orientation once it has separated from the service module after the de-orbit burn, in order for it to successfully re-enter the denser atmosphere.  These 12 thrusters are divided to two “strings” of 6, with only one “string” being used in flight operations, the other being there for redundancy purposes. One of the thrusters did fail to fire during the tests, but posed no threat to the flight.

Similar redundancy exists within the service module RCS (hence why it has 28 thrusters in 4 banks of 7 apiece), and a test of 10 of the unused RCS thrusters on the service module during the same period saw them all operate without a hitch.

Then, immediately prior to the de-orbit burn was due to commence, a final weather check was carried out over the landing zone to confirm everything was above the required minimums for a Starliner landing. These checks include ensuring that winds be no greater than 12 knots, temperatures at ground level will be no lower the -9.4ºC, and the cloud base must not be lower that approx. 300 metres and allow for an all-round visibility of no less than 1.85 km (1 nautical mile). It must also be confirmed that there are no thunder or electrical storms within a 35.4 km radius centred on the landing zone which might interfere with data transmissions / reception. Should any of these criteria not be met, the de-orbit burn would be postponed until such time as all could be met.

As it was, everything was well within tolerances at the landing zone, and at approximate 03:15 UTC, four OMACS – orbital manoeuvring and Attitude Control System– motors on the service module fired in a 59-second burn, with several RCS thrusters also firing to maintain the vehicles overall orientation and attitude, slowing the vehicle sufficiently for natural drag to start pulling it into the denser atmosphere.

Immediately following the de-orbit burn, Calypso separated from the service module and oriented itself so the primary heat shield was at the correct entry for atmospheric interface, whilst the service module dropped into an uncontrolled re-entry so it would burn-up in the atmosphere and any surviving debris full into the southern Pacific Ocean. Calypso reached its re-entry interface – the period when it passed into the upper reaches of the denser atmosphere and experienced maximum re-entry temperatures – some 15 minutes after jettisoning  the service module, and as it approach California’s Baja Peninsula. After this, things happened rapidly.

At 22km altitude, the forward heat shield at the top of the capsule was jettisoned, clearing the way for parachute deployment. This commenced almost immediately with the deployment of the vehicle’s two drogue parachutes, designed to help reduce its speed. These opened slowly over a 28-second period in order to reduce the stress on their canopies and the degree of sudden deceleration on the vehicle.

The drogues were in turn released at 10km altitude, allowing the three main parachutes to deploy and open over a 16-second period, again to reduce the strain on them and the vehicle. They then carried Calypso down towards landing. With a couple of hundred metres left in the descent, the primary heat shield was released, exposing the six airbags sitting between it and the base of the capsule, allowing them to rapidly inflate to cushion the actual landing.

Touchdown came at 04:01 UTC on September 7th, and the recovery teams started their operations shortly after, moving in to the landing site from upwind of the vehicle to avoid risk of any harmful gases from the propulsion systems, etc. Safing of the vehicle and preparing it for transit away from the landing zone proceeded over the course of the next several hours.

With Calypso now on Earth, the focus will shift to trying to rectify the causes of the issues with the service module propulsion systems. As I’ve previously noted, this is made harder as engineers have no physical parts to eyeball; they will have to continue to work on data gathered through ground testing of identical units and data gathered during all the test-firings performed during the flight (including those carried out during the vehicle’s return to Earth).

Calypso, meanwhile, with two flights under her belt, will now return to Boeing for a thorough check-out, overhaul and refurbishment. Although when she or the unnamed Capsule S2 (which performed the seconded uncrewed flight test to the ISS in 2022) will fly again is unclear. Currently, S2 is scheduled to fly the first Starliner operational mission (Starliner-1) in August 2025; however, NASA is now hedging its bets: it has recently double-booked the SpaceX Crew Dragon Crew-11 mission (crew yet to be assigned) to fly in the same period if it becomes apparent Starliner-1 will not be ready to fly.

As previously noted, this means that astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams will be remaining aboard the ISS until February / March 2025, when they will return to Earth on the SpaceX Crew Dragon Freedom. This is due to lift-off from Kennedy Space Centre on or around September 24th, carrying astronaut Nicklaus “Nick” Hague, and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov to the ISS, where they will complete a 5-day hand-over with the Crew 8 team. The latter are set to depart the ISS around October 1st.

However, Crew 9 will not be the first the reach the station following Starliner’s departure. Soyuz TM-26 is to due to depart the Baikonur Cosmodrome on September 11th, carrying cosmonauts Aleksey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, and NASA astronaut Don Pettit.

They will dock with the ISS a few hours later, after a “fast” ascent and rendezvous, and raise the total crew on the ISS to 12. Then on September 24th (the day NASA is targeting for the launch of Crew 9 / Expedition 72), Soyuz TM-25 is set to depart the station and bring Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub, and NASA astronaut Tracy Caldwell-Dyson back to Earth .

Blue Origin Advances New Glenn Maiden Flight, But Without NASA’s EscaPADE

Blue Origin is progressing toward the maiden flight of its New Glenn semi-reusable medium-to-heavy lift launch vehicle – although there are doubts about whether the company will meet the mid-October launch window NASA originally set it.

On September 3rd, the company deployed the new rocket’s 23m tall second stage to its launch facilities at Cape Canaveral Space force Station, Florida, where it will undergo a static fire test of its two Blue Origin BE-3U motors. However, this is just one of a number of milestones the company must meet in very short order if it is to make the mid-October launch window they state they still intend to meet.

This date was set by NASA when Blue Origin offered the flight as the launch vehicle for NASA’s EscaPADE Mars orbiter mission. A part of NASA’s  Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration (SIMPLEx) programme, whereby missions costs are to be reduced by launching them as secondary payloads alongside primary missions, thus reducing their launch costs.

In this, EscaPADE – standing for Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers – a pair of identical satellites designed to study Mars’ atmosphere, were supposed to be launched with NASA’s Psyche mission, which originally was going to make a fly-by of Mars whilst heading for asteroid 16 Psyche, eliminating virtually all launch costs. However, Pysche’s launch was revised to a point where the Mars fly-by was no longer possible, and EscaPADE needed a new ride.

The New Glenn second stage raised to its vertical position on on the static fire test stand, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. Credit: Blue OriginWhile Blue Origin offered the maiden flight of New Glenn at the bargain basement price of $20 million, it was still more that the original budget for the mission. With the launch facing a host of deadlines, including the second stage static fire test, and things like the integration and testing of the vehicle’s seven first stage BE-4 engines; stacking and integration of the vehicle’s two stages together with the payload and payload fairing; pad roll-out and countdown demonstration tests, NASA has been understandably concerned about Blue Origin’s ability to make the launch window for the last couple of months.

These concerns gained momentum because in order for EscaPADE to be ready for the launch, both satellites must be loaded within toxic hypergolic propellants. This is a costly, time-consuming exercise, and if New Glenn cannot make the October launch window, then NASA will have to go through an equally costly and delicate “de-tanking” exercise and purging of the propellant tanks of the satellites – and then go through the process again when the mission is ready for launch. So the decision was taken to avoid the additional costs and pull EscaPADE from the New Glenn launch. Instead, the agency is looking to launch the mission in spring 2025 – but still using a New Glenn vehicle.

This  in itself has raised eyebrows; optimal launch windows to Mars occur around every 26 months, which spring 2025 does not meet. As such, it currently looks as if EscaPADE, a 990 kg all-up weight – will be the sole payload for the launcher, which will have to throw it into a heliocentric orbit around the Sun and out to Mars on an extended transfer flight.

In the meantime, and as noted, Blue Origin have stated they are still aiming to launch New Glenn on its maiden flight in October. With the removal of EscaPADE, they now intend to use the launch to place its Blue Ring “space tug” into orbit. This is a vehicle at the centre of a new operation for Blue Origin – providing on-orbit maintenance and movement of satellites. The company is also talking to the US government about using the flight to certify New Glenn as  National Security Space Launch system.

As a semi-reusable vehicle, the first stage of New Glenn is designed to be able to land after each use. To achieve this, it will use a sea-going landing barge akin to, but larger than, the SpaceX autonomous drone ship landing platforms. Officially called a landing platform vessel (LPV), the first of these barges arrived at Port Canaveral at the start of September 2024 in readiness for the maiden flight of New Glenn.

Built in Romania and outfitted and commissioned in France, LPV-1 Jacklyn, named for the mother of Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos (who has also personally financed the company), the 115-metre long platform has already caused raised eyebrows as it has four large structures fore and aft of the 45m wide landing area. It’s not clear if these are integral to the barge (although the do seem to be) and what they might be for.

Certainly, putting such large structures on the barge is an interesting choice. Trying to successfully land a tall, thin tube containing the remnants of liquids that like to go kaboom when mixed and given the excuse, is not exactly a sinecure (just ask SpaceX). As such, hemming-in the landing zone with tall structures that could cause an even greater conflagration were a booster stage to topple into them whilst going the way of said kaboom seems to be somewhat tempting fate; I guess time will tell on that.

August 27th is due to see the launch of a ground-breaking flight into space which is both daring and possibly questionable. Entitled Polaris Dawn, it is slated to be the first private-venture / commercial spaceflight to feature an EVA – “spacewalk” – and a flight that will carry humans the farthest from Earth since Apollo.

The mission is due to lift-off from Kennedy Space Centre at 07:38 UTC on the morning of August 27th, carrying four “citizen astronauts” into a highly elliptical orbit around the Earth. This will reach a maximum apogee of 1,400 km, putting the crew inside the Van Allen radiation belts, thus providing one of the medical goals for the mission.

Polaris Dawn is one of three such missions that are being led and paid for by billionaire Jared Isaacman. It will mark his second flight into orbit; the first being in 2021, when he paid for and led the Inspiration4 private mission also using SpaceX. This mission flew a crew of paying private citizens around the Earth as part of a multi-million dollar fund-raiser for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee (and for whom Polaris Dawn is continuing to raise money). However, Polaris Dawn is far more ambitious.

Following launch, the Crew Dragon vehicle, comprising the capsule Resilience – also the craft used for the Inspiration4 mission – and a power and propulsion service module (“trunk” in SpaceX parlance) will be placed into an orbit with an apogee of 1,200km, which all then be raised to 1,400 over a number of orbits. These initial orbits will repeatedly pass through South Atlantic Anomaly, exposing the crew to the same amount of radiation in just a few orbits as a crew on the ISS would experience in some 3 months in space. The purpose of this is for researchers to gain, “Valuable research into the health effects of space radiation and spaceflight on the human body.”

On the second day of the flight, the orbit will be lowered and circularised at 750 km as on-board experiments are carried out, including testing the viability of the SpaceX Starlink system for use in crewed missions “to the Moon, Mars and beyond”. Then, on flight day 3, the EVA will be carried out with two of the crew carrying out the spacewalk in a manner harking back to the early days of spaceflight.

In the modern era, EVA – extra vehicular activities – are carried out in self-contained suits complete with life support systems – backpacks, if you will – to supply them with breathable air and vital cooling. The suits the Polaris Dawn crew will be using aren’t self-contained per se; they have no backpacks but instead rely on an umbilical connected to the spacecraft to provide the wearer with air and cooling. This is where some has raised concerns about the flight, together with the manner in which it must be carried out. Resilience does not have an airlock through which EVAs can be made; instead, the entire vehicle will have to be depressurised and the forward hatch (normally fitted with the mating mechanism for docking with the International Space Station) opened., exposing the craft’s entire interior to the vacuum of space.

This means the vehicles electrical and power systems have had to be specially updated for the flight. As there is no airlock, it further means that all four crew must be in EVA suits for the spacewalk to take place. As space suits work at a lower atmospheric pressure than the human body is used to, any EVA generally requires the astronauts spend time within an airlock pre-breathing an oxygen mix to remove nitrogen from their blood and organs – which might otherwise cause decompression sickness (also called “the bends”) when returned to a normal atmospheric pressure.

However, as Resilience doesn’t have an airlock, the entire crew will commence pre-breathing roughly an hour into the mission and continue to do so over the first two days of the mission as the pressure within the craft is reduced from 100.0 to 59.6 kPa (14.5 psi to 8.65psi), and enriched with oxygen, meaning all four crew with have to go through decompression after the EVA and prior to their return to Earth – the overall mission elapsed time expected to be around 5 days.

The 15-20 minute spacewalk itself will be carried lout by Isaacman and a Sarah Gillis, the senior space operations engineer at SpaceX, with retired US Air Force pilot Scott Poteet (mission pilot) and SpaceX lead space operations and a mission director Anna Menon remaining in the main capsule ready to provide assistance. The purpose is ostensibly to test the new SpaceX EVA suit – an evolution of the suits used by crews flying to the ISS aboard Crew Dragon, but featuring improved insulation and thermal protection (adapted from elements of the spacecraft’s own thermal insulation), improved mobility and helmets equipped with heads-up displays.

Polaris Dawn is a fascinating venture, although it might be argued that several of its goals might be achieved just as well through other means. It’s also something of a high-risk venture for those directly involved as crew and for private-sector spaceflight as a whole. If successful (as I hope it will be), it could open the doors wide for more private-sector activity in space; however, if it fails, it has been claimed it could have major repercussions on commercial spaceflight, up to and including plans by Axiom and Blue Origin / Sierra Space and others to operate orbital facilities intended to replace the ISS.

Starliner Update: A Tale of Two Returns

On August 24th, NASA provided an update on the overall status of the Boeing Starliner CST-100 Crew Flight Test.

Originally stated to last a little over a week in early June 2024, the flight – with astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams – has experienced a series of issues relating to the propulsion / manoeuvring systems on the Starliner’s service module, forcing it to remain at the ISS.

Boeing had thought they’d found a way to address the core issues as a result of a series of comparative “hot fire” tests on Earth and aboard the vehicle at the space station, however, a detailed review of the data from the last set of tests carried out at the end of July revealed what appears to be wear-and-tear on valves within the system might might also impact the reliability of the vehicle’s thruster systems during critical manoeuvring prior to the service module being jettisoned during a return to Earth.

While Boeing has remained adamant the vehicle can make a crewed return to Earth, after seeking input from multiple internal teams, and with the shadows of the Challenger and Columbia disasters ever-present, NASA has made the decision not to use Starliner to return Wilmore and Williams to Earth. Instead, they will now return to Earth aboard the SpaceX Crew 9 / NASA Expedition 72 Crew Dragon, something I’d speculated might be the case when last reporting on this situation back on August 11th:

The most likely scenario for this would launching the Crew 9 mission with only two people on board – most likely Commander Zena Cardman and Pilot Nick Hague, leaving 2 seats free for Williams and Wilmore (although their space suits are different to those used by SpaceX, so this would have to be worked through). Wilmore and Williams would then remain aboard the ISS as a part of the Crew 9 rotation (Expedition 72), returning to Earth with Cardman and Hague in March 2025.

– This column, August 11th, 2024

(side note: One small adjustment to the above statement is that it appears as if cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov will fly the mission in order for NASA to maintain its seating agreement with Roscosmos.)

This means Starliner will now make an automated return to Earth some time ahead of the Crew 9 launch, currently slated for no earlier than September 24th. As I also noted in my August 11th piece, Starliner can in theory do so; unlike Crew Dragon, it is fully capable of fully automated flight, the system being tested during the unscrewed Orbital flight Test-2 in May 2022. The wrinkle here being that OFT-2 used the Starliner SP2 capsule, not Calypso, and so the latter doesn’t have the necessary flight software aboard; instead, Boeing will have to configure, test and upload it, a process which will take a number of weeks.

Whilst NASA management remain convinced Boeing and Rocketdyne will overcome the issues with the thruster systems on Starliner, the entire matter is embarrassing for the US agency, and particularly for Boeing, which has already seen direct losses in share value directly as a result of Starliner’s issues. Boeing have also faced penalties and the need to cover the additional costs involved in having to fly a second Orbital Flight Test mission – and may yet need to meet those of a second Crew Flight Test; NASA has left the need to fly such a mission open, and will decide on it once Boeing are in a position to demonstrate the underpinning problems with the Starliner propulsion systems have been resolved.

RFA Core Stage Explodes at SaxaVord

Britain’s first vertical space launch facility, the SaxaVord Spaceport, located at the northern end of the Isle of Unst in the Shetlands, became the focus of attention on August 19th, albeit for the wrong reasons.

A private venture, SaxaVord was licensed for up to 30 rocket launches a year at the end of 2023, and operations were due to commence this summer via Rocket Factory Augsburg AG (RFA). A German commercial space launch start-up founded in 2018 with the aim of providing a smallsat launch vehicle called RFA One, capable of lifting a maximum payload of 1.6 tonnes to LEO, 450 kg to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) and a maximum of 150 kg to geostationary Earth orbit (GEO), RFA have the stated goal of producing the RFA-One via a production line process “like a car”, enabling them to provide a rapid launch provisioning service out of SaxaVord and other commercial launch locations.

The core stage of the rocket – which overall will be a 3-stage vehicle some 30 metres tall with a 2 metre diameter and feature two sub-orbital stages and an upper stage called Redshift, which doubles as an orbital transfer vehicle (OTV) – has been undergoing a series of tests at SaxaVord over the past few months in readiness for the first launch.

However, on August 19th, during the latest hot fire test with the stage, something went wrong. Intended to be a hot-fire burn of all nine of the stage engines – only four having thus far being fired in any single test, some was seen to go wrong within seconds of motor ignition, While the majority of exhaust gas and flame was being directed down though the elevated launch stand, a powerful jet of ignited exhaust gases could be seen leaving the base of the rocket horizontally.

The motors all rapidly shut down, but the base of the rocket and its launch mount were by that time – around 6 seconds into the test – already on fire, and ignited gases continued to stream from the side of the stage, causing a fire on the launch stand itself. At some 38 seconds after ignition, the lower portion of the rocket was on fire and fames quickly engulfed it and the launch stand prior to the rocket collapsing and exploding.

Following preliminary analysis of data and footage of the event, RFA stated on August 24th that the most likely cause of the incident was the failure of an oxygen pump within one of the motors which started a fire beneath the stage that quickly spread to other propellant lines despite the automatic shut-down of the motors. Fire suppression systems on the stage and the launch mount were then overwhelmed, leading to the loss of the stage.

Also commenting on the incident, SaxaVord management indicated that despite the fire and explosion, the launch stand and its supporting infrastructure had not suffered “major” damage. However, all activities at the launch facility are now suspended pending an investigation with will involve the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), which has regulatory oversight of UK launch facilities.

The lost of the stage means that RFA’s plans to launch before the end of summer 2024 are at an end; whilst it is too early for a new date to be provided, the company indicated it is now looking towards the first half of 2025 as the period in which they may attempt their maiden flight.

No-one was injured during the incident, and two other launch developers, HyImpulse (also from Germany) and US-based ABL Space Systems, have indicated the incident does not affect their own plans to operate launches out of SaxaVord.

Juice-y Images of the Moon and Earth

In my previous Space Sunday update I wrote about the European Space Agency’s JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (Juice) and its (then) upcoming gravity-assist around Earth and, preceding it, a swing around the Moon in what would be the first Lunar-Earth Gravity Assist (LEGA) manoeuvre ever undertaken by a space probe from Earth.

The manoeuvre marked the first of a series of complex fly-bys for the probe – launched in April 2023 – all of which are designed to accelerate it to a speed of 2.7 km per second and throw it out towards Jupiter’s orbit, where it will intercept the planet in 2031. As noted in my previous report, the Moon fly-by on August 19th saw Juice pass around the far side of the Moon at just 700 km above the lunar surface, allowing the spacecraft’s course to be precisely adjusted for its passage around the Earth, which it reached on August 20th, passing around the planet at a distance of 6,807 km.

The manoeuvre acted as a slingshot, accelerating the spacecraft and hurling it back around the Sun ready for its next planetary encounter, this one with Venus in August of 2025. After this, JUICE will swing by Earth twice more, in 2026 and 2029 – the latter of which will boost it away from the inner solar system and an 18-month voyage to Jupiter.

The images here show both the Moon and Earth on August 19th and 20th respectively, with the spacecraft visible in both as a result of its orientation during the fly-bys.

Back in 2021 I wrote about Space Perspective, a (then) relatively new entry to the field of sub-orbital space tourism and – if I’m honest – the one I’d really like to try (see: Space Sunday: balloons to space, Mars movies and alien water clouds).

At a time when Blue Origin are lobbing place to the edge of space in ballistic capsules and Virgin Galactic has been (although currently on hiatus) chucking them not-quite-so-high on rocket planes, Space Perspective came up with an altogether more sedate – and longer duration approach to giving people a taste of space: send them up in a  balloon.

When I first wrote about the endeavour, Space Perspective planned to offer flights for up to 8 passengers and 2 crew starting on land, using a purpose-built balloon with a luxury capsule slung beneath it to carry them up to around 30-32 km altitude (not high enough to qualify for astronaut wings but more than enough to witness the curvature of the Earth and see it passing below as the 6-hour flight heads out to sea) before descending to a splashdown and a return to dry land aboard a luxury boat.

Since then things have changed somewhat. Whilst the overall goal remains the same – and the prototype capsule for the flights, called Neptune, has made a number of demonstration flights, once the system is approved and operational, the entire flight will commence and end at sea, launched and recovered via a purpose-equipped vessel.

The MS (Marine Spaceport) Voyager, as the vessel is known, is a former 3,100 tonne displacement oil platform support vessel (OSV) measuring  90 metres in length, 61 metres of which is a flat working deck which has been specifically outfitted for the launch and recovery of the company’s balloons and capsules. The term “Marine Spaceport” replaces the more usual usage of MS (“Motor Vessel”) to indicate the ship is intended to be a fully ocean-going launch and recovery vessel. Initially it will operate of the United States Space Coast, Florida, but Space Perspective is already eyeing the potential to offer flights out of the Caribbean and other wealthy tourist retreats, thus bringing the thrill of edge-of-space flight to the potential travellers, rather than making them travel to the launch pad.

The name Voyager was chosen in direct reference to NASA’s Voyager mission programme, and specifically Voyager 1. Billed as the “first” in its class and operated by specialist marine and aerospace recovery company Guice Offshore on behalf of Space Perspective, both companies have hinted further vessels (Voyager 2?) might be made available in the future.

The ship was officially unveiled in January 2024 following a 2-year refit and upgrade. This includes outfitting her for balloon and capsule transport, balloon inflation, capsule launch system, capsule recovery system (following splashdown, rather than trying to recover the capsule directly on the deck) and more. In addition, the vessel has been equipped with luxury staterooms for capsule passengers, a passenger lounge and a fully equipped hospital.  Since its official unveiling in its finished looks (the company did reveal snippets of it during the acquisition and conversion process), Voyager has been undergoing final re-certification and licensing trials prior to moving to ita new berth at Port Canaveral, its base of operations.

The capability to launch and retrieve the Neptune capsule at sea creates worldwide scalability along with an unprecedented closure of the routine operations safety case. We are proud to bring a new spaceflight capability to Port Canaveral and the Space Coast.

– Taber MacCallum, founder and co-CEO of Space Perspective

Whilst no dates have been given, Space Perspective has indicated the next phase of work is to test launch and recovery operations using the Neptune capsule. After these, the company expects to move towards obtaining a commercial license for passenger operations and then to offering flights.

Tickets for the latter have already been offered by the company at US $125,000 per head – far less than either Virgin Galactic or Blue Origin, although both of the latter do offer periods in microgravity, which Space Perspectives cannot provide. The company has not revealed how many tickets it has sold in advance of commencing operations.

The Great Lake of Mars

Mars is a small world when compared to Earth, but it likes to do things big. There’s Olympus Mons, the massive shield volcano , rising almost 22km above the Mars datum (compared to Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea rising some 9-10km above the sea floor on Earth), and covering an area as much as 300,000 sq km in size  (compared to the10,430 sq km of the Island of Hawaii). Or there’s the 4,000+ km length of the Vallis Marineris, in places 7 km deep and more than capable of regarding the 447 km long and 1.6 km deep Grand Canyon as a mere tributary.

Both of these feature are very well known to people even with just a passing interest in Mars. But there is another remarkable – if less obvious – feature on Mars which has been the subject of extended study by Europe’s 20-year Mars orbiting veteran, Mars Express.

Located in the planet’s southern hemisphere, and badly scarred and weathered by impact craters and the passage of time, are the remnants of a vast lake – or perhaps sea might be a better description – that at some point in the ancient Martian past may have been up to 1 km deep, a depth similar to the extent of the southern end of the Caspian Sea, Earth’s largest inland sea. However, where the latter covers an area of some 386,400 sq km, Eridania Lake on Mars once covered an area of some 1.1 million square km – big enough to hold three times the volume of water by volume than the Caspian Sea. And if you’re wondering about how this compares to the Great Lakes in North America, the largest bodies of freshwater on Earth, they “merely” cover an area of some 244,100 sq km with a maximum depth of around 406 metres.

However, like the Great Lakes, Lake Eridana consists of several interconnected basins, all of which likely held water as a common lake between 4.1 and 3 billion years ago. These basins are still visible on the surface of Mars today and, and are now officially called the Ariadnes Colles (“hills”), Coralis Chaos, Atlantis Chaos, Simois Colles, and Gorgonum Chaos.

What is particularly interesting about this region is not the fact it was once a vast lake, but that it is exceptionally mineral and clay rich (the clay deposits being up to 2 km thick), with many of the detected minerals showing clear signs of volcanic origins. This means that the lake bed could once have been home to hydrothermal vents; thus Eridana potentially offered everything life needed to bring itself into being back in the Martian pre-history: the right chemicals and minerals, a source of water, and a source of heat / energy.

The clearest evidence for the region being subject to the effects of volcanism is not so much in the presences of ancient volcanic peaks, but from the presence of significant fault lines collectively called the Sirenum Fossae. Over 2,700 km in length, these fault lines sit either side of a trough of land which dropped below the mean surface level to form a graben as the land either side of the faults was pulled apart. It’s believed this occurred when the crust of the planet was under enormous strain as the massive Tharsis bulge with its three huge volcanoes was forcing itself upwards half a world away, allowing liquid magma to channel its way up to the heat the lake bed, giving rise in turn to the hydrothermal venting.

The hills of Ariadnes and Simois Colles are thought to have been mounds of material deposited within the lake during the early-to-mid Noachain period, when Mars is thought to have been most abundant in liquid water. As the water began to recede in the latter part of the Noachian period (round 3.8 to 3.7 billion years ago), material was exposed to the Martian weather and subject to sculpting into mounds.

Then, in the Hesperian period (3.7 to around 3.0 billion years ago), the region of the lake were subject to perhaps multiple periods of flood and clearing  (along with other parts of the planet) as volcanism took more widespread hold on the planet and the likes of Olympus Mons formed, whilst the volcanoes of Tharsis and Elysium added their voices to the choir of eruptions and disruptions. This ebb and flow of water further shaped the vast fields of mounds before they were again exposed to the (much calmer by this time) Martian winds, which have been shaping them ever since.

Such is the wealth of potential science there that the region was proposed as a possible landing zone for NASA’s Mars 2020 rover Perseverance.

Despite the fact that Eridania floor has been mapped as a volcanic ridged plain, several sedimentary mineralogies have been recognised there corroborating i) a low-energy and long-lasting (Late Noachian to Early Hesperian) depositional environment characterised by the presence of ponding water, and ii) a warm Martian paleoclimate with a stable highland water table more than ∼3.5 billion years ago.

For all the above reasons, the Eridania surface provides great potential to search for prebiotic chemistry and past exobiological life: thus we are proposing this region as the Mars 2020 landing site.

– Pajola et al, 2016: Eridania Basin: An ancient paleolake floor as the next landing site for the Mars 2020 rover

Ultimately, and for a variety of reasons, the region was passed over in favour of other locations and, eventually, Jezero Crater was selected as the landing zone for Perseverance. However, the continuing study of Eridania is again awakening calls for a robotic mission there – if a suitable landing zone can be located. Not only does the region offer a fascinating mineralogical history of Mars and the potential for studies into both prebiotic chemistry and potential past biological activity, the richness of the minerals and compounds identified within the clays of the region could potentially preserve the characteristics of the ancient atmosphere and climate. Thus studying them even in the absence of any evidence for organic activities within the clays of the region could do much to further unlock the ancient history of Mars.

Starliner to Remain, Crew-9 Delayed and Embarrassment Rises

So the Starliner saga continues. As noted last time out, the decision on when (and how) to return Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner to Earth was awaiting further review of data on the end-of-July “hot fire” tests of the vehicle’s thrusters systems both on Earth and on the International Space Station (ISS).

At the time of that update, things looked good from both a Boeing and a NASA perspective, but NASA delayed detailed commentary on the results for a week to allow further reviews of the data. These have been carried out, and appear to show there are still issues which may or may not be related to the overheating problem. As the precise cause of the additional issues cannot be determined, NASA announced on August 7th that the Starliner vehicle, comprising the reusable capsule Calypso and its non-reusable service module, will remain at the ISS until mid-August at least.

This announcement came a day after NASA indicated that the Crew 9 mission due to launch to the ISS on August 18th would be delayed until no earlier than September 24th (something I indicated might be the case in my last update).  However, during the August 7thbriefing, NASA did make the admission they are now looking at alternate ways to potentially bring the Starliner’s crew of Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams home, if necessary.

The most likely scenario for this would launching the Crew 9 mission with only two people on board – most likely Commander Zena Cardman and Pilot Nick Hague, leaving 2 seats free for Williams and Wilmore (although their space suits are different to those used by SpaceX, so this would have to be worked through). Wilmore and Williams would then remain aboard the ISS as a part of the Crew 9 rotation (Expedition 72), returning to Earth with Cardman and Hague in March 2025. As veterans of previous ISS crews (Wilmore as a part of the Expedition 41 rotation in 2014 and Williams as part of both the 2006/7 Expedition 14 and Expedition 32 rotations in 2012), they are more than qualified for such an extended stay.

If the case, this would not be the first time a crew has faced an extended stay on the ISS – as many commentators seem to have forgotten.

In September 2022 cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitry Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio arrived aboard the ISS for a 6-month rotation. Three months into their stay, their space vehicle, Soyuz MS-22 suffered a major coolant leak, rendering it unfit for crewed flight. Instead, in February 2023, Russia launched Soyuz MS-23 to the space station without its crew of three. Rubio, Petelin and Prokopyev then remained on the ISS through the end of September 2023, carrying the work planned for the original MS-23 crew.

However, this would then require the Starliner to make an automated return to Earth. In theory, Starliner is fully capable of doing this (unlike SpaceX Dragon), having a fully automated flight control software suite. This was demonstrated in May 2022 with the unscrewed Orbital flight Test 2 in May 2022. The problem here being that Calypso was launched without some (or all) of the necessary software (notably, the software required for the vehicle to automated undock and move away from the ISS).

While this is partially understandable – this flight was, after all, intended to test the vehicle under human control –  it is nevertheless highly embarrassing that neither Boeing nor NASA sought to ensure the automated flight software was available on Calypso just in case it was needed. Instead, the software would have to be uploaded, configured and tested – a process that could take up to 4 weeks to complete.

This lead to something of a public tiff between company and agency, Boeing aggressively stating the craft is fully capable of a crewed return to Earth. NASA, however, isn’t (rightly) open to taking chances with its personnel – so for now the saga will continue.

On July 25th, NASA released a statement on a recent find made by the Mars 2020 rover Perseverance as it continues to explore an ancient river outflow delta within Jezero Crater on Mars.

The statement relates to a rather unusual arrowhead-like rock NASA has dubbed “Cheyava Falls” which attracted interest both due to its general shape and the fact its surface has white veins of calcium sulphate—minerals that precipitate out of water – running across it. More particularly, between the veins, Perseverance imaged tiny mineral “leopard spots”, whitish splotches ringed by black material.

On Earth, such spotting can form when organic molecules react with hematite, or rusted iron. These reactions, in turn, can fuel microbial life. “Cheyava Falls” is the first time they’ve been seen on Mars, and so it is understandably a cause for interest and some excitement, and marked the rock – measuring around a metre in length and half a metre across at its widest, – and a target for more detailed study.

This commenced with analyses of various parts of the rock using instruments mounted on the turret at the end of the rover’s robotic arm, notably SHERLOC, PIXL and WATSON.

SHERLOC – the Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals  – revealed the compounds both within the white veins and on the surface of the rock as a whole, are consistent with those known to be involved in the advent of life. Meanwhile, WATSON, the Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering imager associated with SHERLOC was able to provide detailed images of the “leopard spots” and the calcium sulphate veins, revealing multiple other minerals to be present, some of which contain elements which might assist in the formation of life; whilst the Planetary Instrument for X-Ray Lithochemistry (PIXL) instrument confirmed the “leopard spots” themselves contain both iron and phosphate, and so might possibly have once powered organic processes.

This is the first time that a combination of all three of these types of deposit have been found in a single location on Mars, thus raising even more interest in “Cheyava Falls” and potentially making  it the strongest contender yet for indicating basic microbial life may have at one time existed on the planet. However, as the science team has noted, the situation is far from clear.

On Earth, whilst they are noted for their association with microbial life, “leopard spots” are initially the result of an abiotic chemical reaction. So even if the same processes were at work on Mars and may have eventually gone on to feed Martian microbe which may have come about courtesy of the other processes at work in the rock, it is also possible other factors intervened which halted any microbes getting a kick-start with life. In this, matters are complicated by the presence of olivine mineral fragments in the rock.

Olivine is a product of magma – and magma is not friend to organics, as such, their presence in the rock suggest they and the phosphates may have been deposited at temperatures too great to allow organic material to survive, but the phosphates were deposited into veins and pits in the rock after it had been initially laid down as sedimentary mud and compressed into rock, thus giving rise to the veins and spots.

To understand how the rock may have formed, the rover was instructed to take a core sample of “Cheyava Falls” on July 21st, and only the 22nd rock sample to be taken by the rover since it arrived on Mars in February 2021 – the being due to drilling operations having been cut back as a result of a series of issues with the drill mechanism and a desire to avoid it failing prematurely as a result of wear and tear.

Some of this sample will be analysed by the rover itself using its on-board lab. Unfortunately, while this may reveal more of the rock’s history, its unlikely to definitive answer the question of whether microbes might have once nommed on the minerals in the rock; there are simply too many variables involved for the rover’s limited capabilities to reach such a definitive conclusion on its own.

As such, the material gathered in the sample would need to be returned to Earth. For this to happen NASA need to sort out how it is going to managed getting the sample – and others Perseverance has gathered (and in some cases already cached on the Martian surface). The problem here being that, as I’ve noted in previous Space Sunday updates, is that NASA has no clear idea as to how such a sample return mission might be completed; its original planes for far too complicated and way too costly – estimates by the agency’s own Office of Inspector General (OIG) pushing the mission upwards of US $9 billion – making it impractical and prompted NASA to re-think the whole thing.

Given this, the mystery of “Cheyava Falls” is liable to remain long after Perseverance has moved on in its exploration.

Boeing Starliner: “Hot Fire” Test Success, But No Return Date

In my previous Space Sunday update, I provided an update on the Boeing CST-100 Starliner Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission to the International Space Station (ISS), but things were hanging in the balance, as there were tests taking place at the time which could determine the vehicle’s readiness to make a return to Earth.

At the risk of repeating myself, Starliner vehicles use two propulsion systems: four larger orbital manoeuvring and attitude control (OMAC) system, used for making significant manoeuvres, and 28 smaller reaction control system (RCS) thrusters used to carry out precise manoeuvring and also to help stabilise and fine tune the vehicle’s pitch, yaw and roll during and after use of the OMACs. Four sets of thrusters, each comprising an OMAC unit and seven RCS units, are equidistantly places around the Starliner’s service module in external units called “doghouses”. During the flight up to the ISS, the RCS thrusters in particular suffered a series of issues and helium purge line leaks.

Since then, NASA and Boeing has been working through matters, delaying the return to Earth for both the vehicle and its crew of Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams. Most recently, comparative testing between “doghouse” units on Earth and those on the Starliner in orbit revealed large temperature spikes occurring within latter’s doghouses when pulse-firing the RCS thrusters immediately after the used of the OMACs – and these spikes are believed to be the cause of leaks detected in the RCS helium purge lines and cause the failure of one of the RCS thrusters.

To combat this, Boeing and NASA have been developing an alternate procedure for the use of the RCS systems in an attempt to eliminate the noted temperature spikes in the “doghouses”, and the tests carried out on July 27th aboard Calypso were designed to test these new procedures. Following an initial review of the test data, NASA issued a statement noting:

The test involved firing 27 of the spacecraft’s 28 jets for short bursts, moving through them one at a time to check thruster performance and helium leak rates. Preliminary results show all the tested thrusters are back to preflight levels based on thrust and chamber pressure.

As part of the test configuration, all helium manifolds, which control and direct the flow of helium, were opened allowing engineers to continue evaluation of Starliner’s helium supply and leak rates. The teams verified Starliner continues to show the margin needed to support a return trip from the station.

– NASA Hot Fire Test statement, July 30th, 2024

In other words, there is currently a high confidence within NASA and Boeing that Starliner is fit for purpose in being able to bring Wilmore and Williams back to Earth.

However, prior to a final decision being made in this regards, a formal return readiness review meeting must be held. This is a necessary step to certifying a vehicle which has experienced issues is believed to be fit for a return to Earth, and which usually sees a target date for its return is identified.

Prior to the hot-fire test, NASA indicated this meeting might take place during the week immediately after the test; but on August 2nd, NASA indicated it would not occur any earlier than the week commence August 5th, so as to allow further review and vetting of the test results. This resulted (again) in a lot of social media driven speculation NASA were about to “abandon” Starliner.

This speculation appears based on unlinking a number of suppositions: that: a) NASA’s delay with the readiness review meeting shows “something is wrong”; b) as NASA is still prepping the four-person Crew 9 for launch to the ISS on August 18th, but doesn’t have room for it to dock (there are only two docking ports on the ISS which can be used by Crew Dragon, one of which is occupied by the vehicle used by the 4-person Crew 8, and the other by Starliner); ergo, c) NASA “must” be considering sending Starliner back to Earth uncrewed, in order to make way for the Crew 9 flight.

While it is true that that data may yet surface that warrants NASA to consider returning Calypso to Earth uncrewed and looking to other means to bring Wilmore and Williams home, there is absolutely no evidence for this being the case at this point in time. Further, it’s actually not the only contingency NASA has at its disposal.

If the confidence in Starliner remains high, but the return cannot be completed until after August 18th (and assuming Crew 9’s launch is not itself delayed), the agency could opt to bring Crew 8 back to earth ahead of the launch of Crew 9. Doing things in this order would not be optimal – but it is possible. However, as it stands, and as Steve Stich, NASA’s Commercial Crew Programme Manager, has made it clear where NASA’s focus for Starliner lies.

I think we’re starting to close in on those final pieces of the flight rationale to make sure that we can come home safely, and that’s our primary focus right now. We have contingency options; NASA always has contingency options … But right now we’re really focused on bringing Butch and Suni home on Starliner.

– NASA Commercial Crew Programme Manager Steve Stich

Outside of this, and following the July 27th tests, Boeing issued its own statement noting that return preparations are underway, and has held an “integrated simulation”  – essentially a full dress rehearsal of Starliner and Calypso’s departure from the ISS and return to Earth, involving ground controllers and Wilmore and Williams in readiness for readying for “potential returns throughout August”.

In addition the ISS crew used the station’s CanadArm 2 robotic arm to complete a visual inspection of Starliner’s exterior – both the Calypso capsule and the service module. Such inspections are a normal part of preparing for a vehicle’s departure from the ISS. All of which seems to underline Boeing and NASA are fully expecting Williams and Wilmore to return to Earth aboard the vehicle.

In the meantime, and in news unlikely to sit well with Boeing shareholders, the continuing issues with the Crew Flight Test have resulted in Boeing taking a further US $125 million charge from NASA. This brings the total amount charged to Boeing as a result of the delays across the entire Starliner programme to US $1.6 billion against NASA payments to Boeing for Starliner development totalling US $5.1 billion.