Space Sunday – Page 6 – Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld

Space Sunday: NG-1 and IFT-7

Posted on January 19, 2025March 8, 2025 by Inara Pey

*New Glenn NG-1 rises from SLC-36, Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, on the morning of January 16th, marking the start of the vehicle’s maiden flight. Credit: Blue Origin*

This past week marked several space launch events and announcements, including India’s first successful on-orbit rendezvous and docking between two of its satellites, However, for this edition of Space Sunday, I’m focusing on the two “biggies” of the week.

New Glenn NG-1: Primary Goal Met, even with Booster Lost

On Thursday, January 16th, 2025, Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket finally lifted off on its maiden flight after multiple delays over a 4-year period.

Originally targeting 2020/21 for a first launch, New Glenn was delayed numerous times both as a result of changes to the vehicle’s overall design (some coming as late at 2018), technical issues in development, external forces such as the COVID-2 pandemic, and as one Blue Origin executive put it in 2018, “we study a little too much and do too little.”

Such was the delay that the company lost the chance to debut New Glenn with a high-profile launch – that of NASA’s EscaPADE mission to Mars. In late summer of 2024, the US space agency became concerned enough over Blue Origin’s ability to meet the required November 2024 launch window for the mission, the decision was made to push back EscaPADE to a spring 2025 launch date. Instead, the first New Glenn flight – NG-1 – took place with a prototype / demonstrator payload of another of the company’s vehicles, Blue Ring. This is a spacecraft platform designed to support spacecraft operation, under development by Blue Origin. The platform is to be capable of refuelling, transporting, and hosting satellites.

*An artist’s impression of a Blue Ring vehicle in Earth orbit with its pair of 22-metre solar arrays deployed to provide electrical power and propulsion. Credit: Blue Origin*

With a payload capacity of up to three tonnes and fully able to be refuelled itself, Blue Ring is capable of performing the role of a space tug, moving payload between orbits and itself capable operating in geostationary orbit, lunar orbit, cislunar space and within the Earth-Moon Lagrange points. This makes it a highly flexible vehicle, something added to by its mix of electric and chemical propulsion systems and its ability to be carried by a range of launch vehicles as well as New Glenn.

This first flight on Blue Ring did not see the vehicle detach from the rocket’s upper stage; instead, the launch was to test of whether New Glenn could accurately deliver it to an assigned orbit with a high level of accuracy and whether the vehicle’s own flight and data-gathering systems operated correctly. Both of these are key to both New Glenn and Blue Ring gaining certification to carry out US National Security Space Launch (NSSL) operations.

New Glenn on the launch stand at SLC-36, as seen from the just off the Florida coast. Note the large black object alongside the rocket is the Launch Table, a platform used to hold the rocket in both its horizontal orientation when being rolled-out from the integration building to the pad, and provide launch-tower like support when the vehicle is upright. Credit: Blue Origin

Lift-off for NG-1 came at 07:03 UTC on January 16th, the 98 metre tall two-stage vehicle rising from Space Launch Complex 36 at Canaveral Space Force Station. All seven BE-4 liquid oxygen / liquid methane engines on the first stage worked flawlessly, successfully pushing the vehicle up to a stage separation some 21 km above the Earth. The upper stage then lifted the Blue Ring pathfinder into an elliptical medium Earth orbit (MEO) with an apogee of 19,300 km and a perigee of 2,400 km at a 30-degree inclination (and not a “low Earth orbit” as some outlets reported) some 13 minutes after launch.

While the payload did not separate from the New Glenn upper stage, its on-board systems did power-up, allowing it to provide detailed telemetry as to its position and orbit – confirming it had deviated less than 1% from its optimal orbital track. Over a 6-hour period the pathfinder vehicle completed all assigned tasks, and the New Glenn was “safed” (all remaining propellants and any potentially hazardous elements such as batteries, vented / jettisoned).

All of this marked a highly successful maiden flight for New Glenn – which already has a fairly full launch manifest. However, there was one hiccup: Like SpaceX’s Falcon family, New Glenn’s first stage is designed to be recovered and re-used; and while ambitious, Blue Origin hoped to achieve what it admitted was “secondary goal” on the flight, and one unlikely to happen, a successful recovery of the NG-1 first stage aboard the Landing Platform Vessel Jacklyn, station-keeping some 1,000 km off the Florida coast.

However, following second stage separation, the first stage of the booster entered into a re-entry burn using three of its main engines, and at T+ 7:55, telemetry froze at the planned end of that burn, indicating the stage had been lost at an attitude of approximately 26.5 km while travelling at some 6,900 km/h.

Exactly what happened is unclear – the stage loss is now subject to a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Mishap Investigation which, following standard FAA practice, will be led by Blue Origin as the launch vehicle operator, and subject to FAA oversight. It is not clear at present in this investigation will impact on upcoming New Glenn launches; that will depend on what is identified as the cause of the loss.

Starship IFT-7: Booster Caught, but Exposed the Risks

Almost on January 16th, 2025, SpaceX attempted the seventh integrated flight teat (IFT) of their Starship / Super Heavy (S/SH) launch system. The launch featured Booster 14 (a Block 1 – i.e. “original version”- vehicle) and a Ship 33, a Block 2 craft said to feature multiple updates and improvements to increase “reliability, capability and safety”.

Chief among the changes to the Block 2 series of Starship vehicles and their predecessors are:

An increase in hull length by 3.1 metres.
Redesigned forward aeroflaps, which are smaller and thinner than Block 1, thinner, and positioned both further forward and more leeward (further “up” the hull relative to the heat shield in an attempt to reduce their exposure to plasma flow heating during re-entry).
A 25% increase in overall propellant load.
Redesigned flight avionics, improvements to the interstage venting.

Additionally, Block 2 vehicles are specifically designed to fly with the upcoming Raptor 3 engine, which is an even lighter variant of the motor (1.525 tonnes), wither greater maximum thrust (280-300 tonne-force (t_f) at sea level compared to Raptor 2’s 230 t_f). However, Ship 33 flew with Raptor 2 motors. The Block 2 vehicle is also the first variant of Starship reportedly designed to lift 100 tonnes of payload to LEO.

IFT-7 was to be a further proving flight for S/SH, with a number of core milestones:

Vehicle launch with booster recovery.
Starship sub-orbital insertion & on-orbit re-light of engines.
Starship deployment of a dummy Starlink payload via a “pez dispenser” hatch.
Starship re-entry test and possible splashdown.

It’s important to note that whether or not Ship 33 survived re-entry was to be questionable. Ship 33 had a reduction in the area of its hull covered by thermal protection system tiles in an attempt to reduce vehicle mass and complexity, and intentionally had a number of tiles removed from various points to test the ability of the steel used in the vehicle to withstand heating (the areas devoid of tiles will eventually mount the “catch pins” required during launch tower recovery operations.). Therefore, the loss of this vehicle during re-entry was considered likely, even if everything else went smoothly.

*Ship 33 and Booster 14 lift-off from Boca Chica, Texas at the start of IFT-7, January 16th, 2025*

IFT-7 launched from the SpaceX facilities at Boca Chica, Texas, at 22:37 UTC, and the initial ascent proceeded smoothly. At 2:32 into the flight and at around 60 km altitude, the booster shut down all but its central three directional motors ready for “hot staging” – the ignition of Ship 33’s six motors and its separation from the booster. This took place at T+ 2:46, the booster immediately re-lighting all but one of its inner ring of 10 fixed motors at the start of the boost-back manoeuvre designed to stop its ascent and push it back towards the launch point.

Boost-back lasted some 42 seconds before the inner ring of motors on the booster shut down again, immediately followed by the jettisoning of the hot stage (the ring mounted between the booster and the starship and used to deflect the latter’s exhaust flames away from the former during the hot staging sequence. At this point the booster was in an aerodynamic fall / glide back towards Boca Chica, the fall becoming increasingly vertical as it closed on the launch point.

Just over 3 minutes after shutting-down from boost-back, all 10 motors on the booster’s inner ring re-lit at approximately 1.2 km altitude, slowing its decent, before shutting down a final time 8 seconds later, allowing the three directional motors to both continue to slow the boosters descent to a hover and guide it between the “chopstick” arms of the launch tower’s “Mechazilla” mechanism for a successful “catch”, marking a successful conclusion to the initial two milestones for the flight.

Meanwhile, Ship 33 continued its ascent towards a sub-orbital trajectory. Then, at 7:39 into the flight and at an altitude of 141 km, telemetry indicated one of Ship 33’s inner three inner sea-level Raptor motors prematurely shut down. Fourteen seconds later, livestream camera footage appeared to show flames from an internal fire passing over the exposed hinge mechanism of an aft flap. This is followed by telemetry indicating the loss of a second sea-level Raptor, together with one of the outer three vacuum-optimised Raptors, likely resulting in an off-centre thrust from the three remaining motors (only one of which – the central sea-level motor – could be gimballed to provide directional thrust to counter the thrust bias from the two fixed outer motors.

At 8:19 into the flight, and at altitude of 145 km, telemetry indicates the last of the remaining central motors and one of the two outer motors were no longer functioning. Seven seconds later, telemetry freezes, suggesting at this point the vehicle was breaking up. As has been seen from numerous videos released over social media, it appears the vehicle exploded (euphemistically called “a rapid unscheduled disassembly” by SpaceX, a term making light of the potential harm such an event can cause).

*A close-up of a still from the IFT-1 livestream showing one of the hinge mechanisms on a aft flap of Ship 33 – flames are just visible passing through the aperture. Credit: SpaceX*

SpaceX founder Elon Musk made light of the event, stating SpaceX had already likely identified the cause – a propellant leak resulting in a fire within the aft section of Ship 33 – and the next flight, planned for February will not be affected.

Whether this is the case or not remains to be seen; like it or not, the FAA have called for a mishap investigation; there’s also the fact the break-up of Ship 33 highlights the potential risk of flights out of Boca Chica. These carry ascending vehicles directly over over the Caribbean and close to many of the islands and archipelagos forming the Greater Antilles (including the Bahamas, Cuba, the Turks and Caicos, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico and the Virgin islands) – thus presenting a high risk of debris falling on populated areas.

As it is, debris from this flight has been reported as striking the Turks and Caicos Islands (fortunately without injury), and the spread of debris required the delay and diversion of numerous flights from and into the region (whilst passengers in some already in the area witness the aftermath of the vehicle’s destruction). These points alone warrant a review of the risks involved in launches out of Boca Chica.

Space Sunday: samples from Mars

Posted on January 12, 2025September 14, 2025 by Inara Pey

*Artist’s concept of the Rocket Lab Mars Ascent Vehicle lifting-off from its lander vehicle, carrying samples collected by the NASA Perseverance rover. Credit: Rocket Lab*

Returning samples from Mars is proving difficult for NASA to get sorted – which, considering plans of various forms have been under consideration since before Apollo 11 landing on the Moon, might sound confusing. However, early proposals for such a mission were hampered by the fact that the density of Mars’ atmosphere was unknown, making the analysis of preferable vehicle masses and trajectory options to achieve a successful atmospheric entry somewhat difficult.

Things became easier in this regard following the successful Viking mission landings in the mid-1970s, but there were still significant technical issues to overcome – such as the number and type of vehicles required to reach Mars, land safely, obtain samples get them safely back to orbit and from there back to Earth.

Such were the complications involved that even as relatively recently as 2002, some at NASA felt that skimming a vehicle through the upper reaches of the Martian atmosphere and which used an aerogel to collect samples that would include high-altitude dust would be a easier proposition than trying to gather samples from the planet’s surface.

Also since the early 2000s, efforts have focused on the potential for international / joint efforts to recover samples from Mars, perhaps the most notable being the proposal NASA-ESA sample recovery mission, intended to recover sample tubes deposited on Mars by NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance mission.

However, even this has suffered from spiralling costs – in part due to an increasing reliance on complex technologies. By 2022, the mission required no fewer than five vehicles (not including Perseverance): a sample retriever lander + ascent vehicle (NASA); a sample return vehicle (ESA); and a sample collection lander and rover combination (ESA) – later replaced by two Ingenuity-class helicopters to – gather sample tubes deposited by Perseverance. This complexity and cleverness resulted in the cost estimates for the mission surpassing US $11 billion by April 2024, with the return of any samples collected by the Mars 2020 mission unlikely to occur before 2040.

A concept rendering of the original NASA/ESA Mars Sample Return mission showing the ESA Mars return vehicle (top right), the ESA sample recovery rover (centre) and the NASA sample lander / MAV combination (right). The Perseverance rover is show on the left as the collector of the samples. Note that Earth is shown for reference only, and is not to scale. Credit: NASA

As a result, NASA sought alternate architectures to complete such a sample return mission possible, turning to external expertise as well as looking to its own capabilities. The idea here would be to reduce costs and return samples gathered by Perseverance in a more reasonable time frame than 2040.

On January 7th, 2025, NASA announced it intended to spend a further 18 months studying two alternate architectures by which to recover sample caches created on Mars by Perseverance. One leverages technologies developed by NASA, whilst the other involved commercially-developed technologies, with both utilising the existing proposal for the European-built Earth Return Orbiter (ERO) from the mission architecture outlined above to return the gathered samples to Earth.

The principle difference between the two options is that the NASA option proposes using the “skcrane” system sued to which both the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers to deliver the same recovery lander / ascent vehicle onto the surface of Mars, whilst the second would utilise a commercial “heavy lander”. Exactly what form this would take is unclear from the NASA statement – however, both Blue Origin and SpaceX have tried to muscle-in on the mission, suggesting the use of variants of their Blue Moon and Starship lunar landers. In both mission outlines, Perseverance would be used to deliver sample tubes to the sample return craft.

*A comparison of the size of the existing design for the MSR lander (right) with a smaller concept proposed by JPL that can use the proven “sky crane” landing system. Credit: NASA/JPL*

Exactly how much of an improvement / cost reduction these two methodologies will bring over current plans is very debatable; NASA’s own estimates put the two options at a cost of between US $7 and $8 billion – which is about the same as original estimates for the NASA-ESA proposal at the time when it was already causing concerns, having risen to US $7 billion from an intended cost of US $4 billion. Further, NASA suggests that while either approach might achieve a sample return by 2035 – a more likely timeframe is 2035-2039; hardly any improvement at all over the current 2040 timeframe.

Hence why, perhaps, Peter Beck’s Rocket Lab has placed a formal request with the incoming Trump administration to re-examine sample return mission options rather than green-lighting the updated NASA approach. This is because Rocket Lab – at NASA’s request – has developed a completely alternate sample-return architecture designed to fit NASA’s requested mission cap of US $4 billion, whilst potentially returning the sample to Earth by 2031/32.

*The Rocket Lab Mars Sample Return mission concept. Credit: Rocket Lab*

Whilst on the surface as complex as NASA’s joint approach with ESA, the Rocket Lab mission is actually far more direct and lightweight, comprising a total of three launches from Earth, and six vehicle elements. These comprise:

The Mars Telecommunications Orbiter (MRO): this would offer an orbital communications relay for the rest of the mission – and other Mars surface missions.
The Mars Entry and Descent System (EDS): an aeroshell vehicle carrying within it the Mars Lander and the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV).
The Earth Return Orbiter (ERO), which includes the Earth Entry System (EES).

Rocket Lab’s mission would proceed as follows: a Rocket Lab Neutron launcher is used to send the MRO to Mars. This is followed by to further Neutron launches, one for the EDS and one for the ERO. On arrival at Mars, the MRO arrives first, entering an orbit where it can act as communications relay. The EDS then makes a direct atmosphere entry, protecting the lander / MAV through the heat of atmospheric entry prior to the lander making a parachute descent and propulsive landing.

*A photo montage of ten sample tubes set on the surface of Mars by the Mars 2020 rover Perseverance as a cache for possible return to Earth by a sample return mission. Credit: NASA*

The latter will be made close to one of the sample caches created by Perseverance, allowing it to collect up to 20 sample tubes (depending on the size of the cache) – although how this will be done is not fully defined in the rocket Lab proposal. The sample tubes are delivered to the MAV on the top of the lander, the MAV using the lander as its launch pad to return to orbit.

Once in orbit, the MAV rendezvous with the ERO, transferring the sample container to the ERO, which sterilises it using onboard systems as it returns the container to Earth and uses the EES to deliver the sample container back to Earth’s surface.

While Rocket Lab might seem an unlikely candidate for a Mars Sample Return mission when compared to the likes of SpaceX, the company arguably has a lot more experience with the technologies required for such a mission. The company has supplied elements used within several Mars missions from the Mars Science Laboratory onwards – including developing solar arrays for power, support systems to maintain vehicles while en-route to Mars, and build the EscaPADE Mars orbiters and their support bus, and re-entry technologies being utilised by other companies.

*The six vehicle elements of the Rocket Lab MSR proposal, forming three distinct launch vehicle payloads. Credit: Rocket Lab*

It’s not clear how the incoming NASA Administrator (whether it be Jared Isaacman or someone else) will respond to Rocket Lab’s request; a lot, in this regard, might be dependent upon how much influence Elon Musk – whose SpaceX, like it or not, still very much depends upon NASA and government contracts for its survival – welds over NASA’s decision-making in the coming months.

Big Birds Set to Fly

Two significant launches are due to take place in the coming week, one of which could mark the entry of a significant new player in the space launch market.

Blue Origin’s massive New Glenn vehicle, of carrying up to 45 tonnes of payload to orbit – although for the most part it will likely carry far less than that – is due to lift off from Space Launch Complex 36 at Canaveral Space Force Station at 06:00 on Monday, January 13th. It’s a mission I’ve written about extensively already, but there is a lot riding on the broad success of the mission in delivering its upper stage and payload to orbit.

*New Glenn on the SLC-36 launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, in December 2024. The flight is now targeting a January 13th launch. Credit: Blue Origin*

New Glenn has, from the outset, been designed to fulfil a wide variety of roles, from delivering individual and multiple satellite payloads to orbit and to places like the Moon, through to playing a crucial role in helping Blue Origin and its partners establish their planned Orbital Reef space station, to even carrying out human-rated launches. As a payload launcher, it will – subject to a second qualifying flight after this one – be used for US government launches as well carrying out commercial launch operations.

This first flight will carry a prototype of Blue Origin’s Blue Ring orbital vehicle as the payload – although it will not separate from the vehicle’s upper stage – and will attempt a recovery of the core booster on the landing recovery ship Jacklyn, some 1,000 km off the Florida coast.

Some will likely point to Wednesday, January 15th as being more important, as it is on that day at 22:00 SpaceX is due to carry out the seventh integrated flight test of their Starship / Super Heavy behemoth, featuring the first flight of their Block 2 version of the Starship vehicle. This features revised forward aerodynamic flaps (used to control the vehicle during its fall through the atmosphere), a 25% increase in propellant load, a 3.1 metres increase in length and an updated thermal protection system.

*SpaceX Starship 33 stacked on top of Booster 14, ahead of the seventh orbital flight test, currently targeting a January 15th launch. Credit: SpaceX*

Overall, the flight should follow a similar format to Flight 6 – attempting a recovery of the booster at the launch site and the Starship vehicle splashing down in the Indian Ocean. However, a test of the thermal protection system and the deliberate exposure of parts of the vehicle to the heat of re-entry might result in its complete loss. This flight will also see the first attempt to deploy Starlink communication satellite “simulators” from the payload bay.

Starship, with its stated payload capability of up to 100 tonnes far outclasses New Glenn in lifting capabilities – but contrary to SpaceX fans, this actually does not guarantee the vehicle is destined for commercial success once it reaches any form of operational status beyond being a Starlink delivery mechanism. A lot in this regard depends on the price-point for launches with the system, and the continuing downwards trend in the size and mass of many classes of satellite which make smaller, low-cost launchers potentially far more attractive for such launches (I’m deliberately ignoring the claims that Starship is about opening Mars to colonisation, as that had a world of issues in its own right).

I’ve have a report on the flights – assuming they go ahead – in the next Space Sunday.

Space Sunday: selected spaceflight previews for 2025

Posted on December 29, 2024 by Inara Pey

*Blue Origin’s New Glenn performs a full 7-engine statis fire test at Space launch Complex 36, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, December 27th, 2024. Credit: Blue Origin*

As we’re at the end of 2024, rather than looking back over the year, I thought I’d look ahead to some of the spaceflight events hopefully coming our way in 2025. Note this list intentionally does not include schedule missions to the ISS, SpaceX Starlink launches or test programmes, or similar.

New Glenn Maiden Flight

While Blue Origin didn’t meet their target to fly their new heavy lift launcher, New Glenn, before the end of 2024, the flight now looks set to go ahead in early January 2025. Specifically:

On December 27th, 2024, and after some delay, the company finally received a license from the FAA to conduct New Glenn launches out of Canaveral Space Force Station for five years.
That same day, the rocket, which has been on the pad for final testing, completely a full static fire test of its core stages engines. The test saw all seven core stage engines run for a total of 24 seconds, over half of which saw them throttle up to 100%.
While a launch date has not been disclosed by Blue Origin, an airspace advisory has been released referencing NG-1, the name of the flight, and warning of airspace restrictions around and over Florida’s Space Coast for the period 06:00 through 09:45 UTC on January 6th, 2025, with the option for a second airspace restriction being enforced at the same time on January 7th, 2025.

As I’ve previously noted, the flight will be carrying a prototype Blue Ring satellite platform capable of delivering up to 3 tonnes of payload to different orbits, as well as being able to carry out on-orbit satellite refuelling (as well as being refuelled in orbit itself) and transporting payloads between orbits. However, Blue Ring will not physically detach from the launch vehicle’s upper stage for the flight. Additionally, the flight is seen as the first of two flights required to certify New Glenn to fly United States Space Force national security and related payloads, and will hopefully see the first stage make a safe return to Earth and landing on the company’s Landing Platform Vessel 1, Jacklyn.

Japan Goes Lunar Roving

January is also the target month for Japan’s second attempt at a private lunar landing, in the form of the Hakuto-R Mission 2, developed by ispace. It is a follow-up to the Hakuto-R Mission 1, a technology demonstrator mission also launched by ispace, which took the “long way” to the Moon, covering a total of 1.4 million kilometres in a 5-month journey.

However, the lander and its payloads were lost during it landing attempt on April 23rd, 2023, after a disagreement between the main flight computer and the vehicle’s altimeter resulted in it entering a sustained hover some 5 km above the lunar surface, expending its propellants so it fell uncontrolled to the Moon’s surface.

*The Hakuto-R lander* Resilience *with micro-rover* Tenacious *visible, undergoing final preparations at a JAXA facility in Tsukuba, Japan prior to being shipped to Kennedy Space Centre. Credit: ispace/JAXA*

Like its predecessor, Hakuto-R Mission 2 comprises a lander vehicle some 2.5 metres tall and 2.3 metres wide intended to demonstrate a reliable small-scale lander capability with data transmission and relay capabilities for use as a part of the US-led Project Artemis. The lander will launch atop a SpaceX Falcon 9, but unlike it predecessor will head directly to the Moon, where it will land in Mare Frigoris, the Sea of Cold.

Once there, the lander – called Resilience – will deploy a micro-rover called Tenacious. Weighing just 5 kg, this has been built as a multi-role vehicle by a team in Luxembourg. Once deployed, it will demonstrate autonomous driving capabilities as it explores the area around the lander, and will also partner with the lander in an ISRU (in-situ resource utilisation) demonstration, attempting to extract water from the lunar surface, heating it and splitting the resultant steam into oxygen and hydrogen.

*One of the team responsible for* Tenacious *checks the little rover before the cover is closed on the payload bay containing it. Credit: ispace*

The mission will carry a number of additional payloads, perhaps the most unusual of which is Moonhouse, by Swedish artist Mikeal Genberg.

For 25 years, Genberg has had a dream about a little red house (“all house in Sweden are red!” he states) on the Moon; throughout that time he’s visualised it through art installations here on Earth, and has even seen one of his models flown aboard the space shuttle, courtesy of Swedish astronaut Christer Fuglesang. Now, Tenacious will carry one of Genberg’s little houses to the surface of the Moon. It is secured to a platform on the front of the rover, and represents the culmination of Genberg’s 25-year-long dream.

*Mikael Genberg’s Moonhouse mounted on the front of the micro-rover* Tenacious. Credit: ispace / JAXA

As to its meaning – Genberg notes that it could be many things, depending on who you are. A symbol of life; for the potential for future life; a beacon of hope that anything is possible if we put our minds to it; a commentary on humanity and our treatment of the one home we have; as art, it has the ability to speak to each of us, and to do so differently with each of us.

Fram2 Private Polar Mission

Due to launch in around March 2025, Fram2 is another “all-private” space mission in the mould of Jared Isaacman’s Inspiration4 (2021) and Polaris Dawn (2024) flights. Also utilising SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience, Fram2 will fly a crew of 4 on a mission of up to 5 days duration in a 90º inclination orbit between 425 and 450 km altitude. It aims to observe and study aurora-like phenomena such as STEVE and green fragments and conduct experiments on the human body, including the first X-ray of a human in space.

The Fram2 mission will utilise SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience, which will once again be fitted with the panoramic cupola in the vehicle’s nose section, replacing the ISS docking mechanism. Credit: SpaceX

The crew for the mission comprise:

Chung Wang, the mission commander and co-bankroller, a Chinese-born Maltese crypto currency entrepreneur who founded f2pool , one of the largest Bitcoin mining pools in the world, and Stakefish, one of the largest Ethereum staking providers.
Jannicke Mikkelsen, the vehicle commander, and co-bankroller for the mission, a Scottish-born Norwegian cinematographer and a pioneer of VR cinematography, 3D animation and augmented reality. A skilled speed skater, she will become the first Norwegian astronaut and the first European to command a space vehicle.
Eric Philips, a 62-year-old noted Australian polar explorer, who will serve as the vehicle pilot as will be the first Australian national to fly in space (while both Paul Scully-Power and Andy Thomas were born in Australia and flew on space shuttle missions (Thomas flying multiple times), they only did so after becoming US citizens).
Rabea Rogge, a German electrical engineer and robotic expert, who will fill the role of Mission Specialist and will become the first German woman to fly in space, beating-out those selected as a part of the privately-funded programme Die Astronautin, specifically set-up to fly a German woman in space by 2023.

*The Fram2 crew (l to r): Chun Wang, Jannicke Mikkelsen, Eric Philips and Rabea Rogge*

Fram2 is named for the Norwegian polar exploration vessel Fram, a veteran of multiple expeditions to both poles between 1883 and 1912, including Roald Amundsen’s historic 1910-1912 southern polar expedition, is planned to launch in March 2025.

Tianwen-2: Asteroid Sample Return Mission

China will continue its deep-space exploration ambitions with the planned May 2025 launch of Tianwen-2 (“’Heavenly Questions-2”) robotic vehicle. Whilst bearing the same name as the highly-successfully mission to place an orbiter around Mars and a lander and rover on the surface of that planet in 2021 (and covered within past Space Sunday articles), Tianwen-2 is a very different mission: that of rendezvousing with, and landing on, a near-Earth object (NEO) asteroid and gathering up to 100 grams of material for a return to Earth.

*A screen cap of the Tianwen-2 vehicle arriving at 469219 Kamoʻoalewa. Credit: CCTV*

The target for the mission is a quasi-moon 469219 Kamoʻoalewa, thought to be around 40-100 metres along its longest axis. It orbits the Sun at distance of between 0.9 and 1.0 (the average distance of the Earth from the Sun) and with an orbital period of 365-366 days. This makes it appear as if it moving around the Earth, although it is in fact oscillating around the L1 and L2 and L4 and L5 positions, and not actually gravitationally bound to Earth, never coming closer than some 14 million kilometres.

What is particularly interesting about 469219 Kamoʻoalewa, first identified in 2016, is that spectral analysis suggests it is likely silicate in origin; combined with its orbit, this points to it possibly being a lump of rock ejected from our Moon as a result of an asteroid impact. However, it could equally be an S-type asteroid (which account for around 17% of all known asteroids) or possibly an L-type, which are exceptionally uncommon.

Thus, given the mix of potential heritage, 469219 Kamoʻoalewa has been seen as an intriguing subject for up-close study ever since its identification, and a number of proposals have been put forward up-close study, as well as being the target for observation by numerous Earth-based telescopes. Following launch, Tianwen-2 is expected to intercept the asteroid in 2026, and conduct remote sensing activities which will include identifying locations for sample acquisition. It will also deploy both a nano-orbiter and a nano-lander for independent study of the asteroid.

To collect samples, Tianwen-2 will send down a sample gathering unit which will conduct both touch-and-go operations similar to those used by Japan’s Hayabusa2 probe sent to obtain samples from the near-Earth asteroid 162173 Ryugu (2014-2020), and NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (2016-2023) mission to gather samples from asteroid Bennu, and also anchor-and-attach – the first time such a technique will be attempted.

The two approaches to gathering samples: in touch and go, the sample gathering vehicle will briefly touch the surface of the asteroid to gather a sample, the spring-loaded arm of the sample gatherer absorbing the vehicle’s downward momentum before pushing it back away from the asteroid. With Anchor-and-attach, the sample vehicle will attempt to use four legs with penetrators to grip the asteroid’s surface, prior to the sample arm being deployed to collect material. Credit: CCTV

After gathering samples, Tianwen-2 will depart 469219 Kamoʻoalewa and make a fly-by of Earth in 2027, which it will use to both drop-off its sample capsule and also complete a gravity assist manoeuvre in order to travel on to rendezvous with active asteroid 311P/PanSTARRS, which orbits the Sun every 3.24 years and exhibits the characteristics of both an asteroid and a comet, including having up to six comet-like tails.

Estimated to be around 240 metres across and always orbiting the Sun beyond the orbit of Mars, 311P/PanSTARRs was first identified in 2013, and observations in 2018 suggested it might have a companion orbiting it. Tianwen-2 is expected to reach it in 2034.

*Two images of 311P/PanSTARRS captured by the Hubble Space Telescope and showing its tail formations. Credit: NASA, ESA, D. Jewitt*

Dream Chaser Rises

May is the month that will hopefully see the launch of the newest addition to the fleet of vehicles that help keep the International Space Station (ISS) well-stocked with supplies and operational, when a ULA Vulcan Centaur VC4L lifts-off from Space Launch complex 41 at Canaveral Space Force Station, carrying Tenacity, the first Dream Chaser Cargo vehicle from Sierra Space.

Referred to SSC Demo-1, the mission will see Tenacity and its Shooting Star power and cargo module carry out a check-out mission of up to 45 days duration which will see the combined vehicle rendezvous and dock with the ISS, undergoing check-out by ISS crew and eventually undocking, after which the Shooting Star module will be jettisoned and Tenacity will return to Earth for an aircraft-style landing at the former Space Shuttle Landing Facility, Kennedy Space Centre.

*Dream Chaser* Tenacity *and its cargo module undergoing testing at NASA’s Neil Armstrong Test Facility, Kennedy Space Centre, Florida. Credit: NASA*

When operational, Dream Chaser with Shooting Star will have the largest all-up payload capacity of any ISS resupply vehicle: 5.5 tonnes; 5 tonnes of which can be pressurised. However, missions will likely be flown with lesser payload amounts. In addition, Dream Chaser can return to Earth with payloads of up to 1.75 tonnes, comprising equipment, experiments and general waste.

Six Dream Chaser resupply missions to the ISS have been contracted, using at least two Dream Chaser vehicles, Tenacity and Reverence (although construction on the latter is currently suspended). The date of the first operational flight (CRS SSC-1) has yet to be given, but is unlikely to be before 2026.

Space RIDER Flies

The European Space Agency (ESA) is expected to debut its entry into the reusable spaceplane market in the latter half of 2025 with the maiden flight of Space RIDER (Space Reusable Integrated Demonstrator for Europe Return), a two-stage vehicle designed to provide routine and relatively low-cost capabilities to delivery payloads of up to 620 kg to low-Earth orbit.

I’ve covered Space RIDER in the past, but briefly, it is a small-scale reusable lifting body supported by an expendable service module which supplies it with main propulsion and electrical power when in orbit, prior to being jettisoned before the main vehicle re-enters the atmosphere. Payloads are intended to be experiments and science instruments, which the vehicle returns to Earth at the end of a mission, although it will have the ability to deploy smallsats in space as well.

*An artist’s impression of ESA’s Space RIDER in orbit. The black module with solar panels to the rear is the vehicle’s expendable service module. Credit: ESA*

Massing 4.9 tonnes at launch (including the service module), the lifting body – referred to as the Re-entry module (RM) – masses 2.8 tonnes on landing. The combined craft has a length of just over 8 metres, of which 4.6 metres is that of RM, which includes a payload volume of 1.2 m³.

Designed to be launched atop ESA’s Vega-C rocket, Space RIDER can remain in orbit for up to 2 months at a time conducting experiments. Following re-entry, the RM will use its lifting body shape to drop its speed from Mach 25 to Mach 0.8 (roughly the speed of an commercial airliner) as it descends, prior to deploying a drogue parachute at between 12-15 km altitude, which will slow it to around Mach 0.22. After this, a parafoil is deployed, which allows the vehicle to glide under control to a horizontal landing. It is designed to make up to six flights into space, and has a turnaround time of “less then 6 months”.

The Year of Fly-bys

2025 is going to be a year of fly-bys for several deep space missions, including:

January: The ESA / JAXA BepiColumbo mission to Mercury will complete its sixth and final fly-by of the planet as it uses Mercury’s relatively weak gravity to both decelerate and swing it on to a trajectory from which it can establish itself in orbit around the planet. The manoeuvre will mark the end of 9 fly-bys of three planets – Earth (1); Venus (2) and Mercury (6); the next time the probe reaches Mercury (after another passage around the Sun) in November 2026, it will fire its motor and enter orbit ready to commence its primary science mission, over 8 years after its launch.
March: ESA’s Hera mission, launched in October 2024, will perform a fly-by of Mars en route to its final destination, the Didymos binary asteroid system, where it will carry out a detailed study of the aftermath of the NASA Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) which impacted the asteroid Dimorphos in an attempt to deflect it in its orbit around the larger Didymos.

March: NASA’s Europa Clipper mission will also fly-by Mars as it makes its way towards Jupiter in order to study the icy world of Europa. The second of two such mission to be launched – the other being ESA’s Juice mission (see below), The NASA mission will make better progress to Jupiter by virtue of being launched atop a more powerful rocket – the SpaceX Falcon Heavy.
April: NASA’s Lucy mission will complete its fourth fly-by of a celestial body, and the second of a main belt asteroid – 52246 Donaldjohanson, named for the paleoanthropologist who discovered the famous “Lucy” fossil. This vehicle is on a complex mission to examine eight separate asteroids (2 within the main belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter; four more in the L4 Trojan cloud occupying the same orbit a Jupiter, but 60º, which it will reach in 2027; and a pair within the Trojan cloud trailing Jupiter in its orbit by 60º, which it will reach in 2034 after a further fly-by of Earth at the end of 2030.
August: ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) will make a fly-by of Venus as it gathers the momentum it needs to reach Jupiter and start its studies of Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. The fly-by of Venus will be the second of four such manoeuvres, the other three (August 2024, September 2026, January 2029) being around Earth.

Space Sunday: Mars milestones and crash investigations

Posted on December 16, 2024December 16, 2024 by Inara Pey

*A natural light image captured by the NASA Mars 2020 rover* Perseverance as it is parked on “Lookout Hill” on the rim of Jezero Crater, December 10th, 2024 (mission Sol 1,354). In the middle distance horizon, just right of centre is approx. 10 km from the crater rim while the two hazy peaks on the horizon centre are approx. 60km from the crater rim. Credit: NASA/JPL/MSSS

NASA’s Mars 2020 rover Perseverance reached a milestone in its exploration of the region that includes Jezero Crater, when it was confirmed on December 12th, 2024 that the rover had reached the top of the Crater’s rim, and is now in a position to commence exploration along the edge of the crater as it starts a new science campaign.

For the majority of its time on Mars, Perseverance has been exploring within the crater, looking for evidence of the planet’s potential to have once harboured life and investigating the geological history of the crater itself, which was once home to liquid water. These investigations have comprised four science campaigns thus far:

Crater Floor: the first campaign following the rover’s arrival on Mars in February 2021, through to the end of March 2022, as it exploring the floor of the crater and investigated sites of geological interest, making its way towards the outflow delta of a river which once tumbled into the crater.
Fan Front: running from April 2022 through March(ish) 2023, this involved explorations of the lower end of the delta’s outflow plain, traversing a transitional region rich in evidence of water having once been free-flowing and comprising rock and material deposited in the crater rather than forming it.
Upper Fan: This saw the rover reach the upper limits of the delta fan, where time was spent in further studies which included potential routes up the crater wall, possibly using one of the former river channels, and then starting its initial ascent.
Margin Unit: starting in September 2023, this saw the rover enter a “marginal zone”, or lithological boundary between the lower slopes of the crater and its upper walls, and a region of intense geological study.

Perseverance *looks back over its shoulder as it traverses “slippery” terrain whilst engaged on the final leg of its climb to the rim of Jezero Crater. Credit: NASA/JP*L

Following some 8.5 months of study whilst traversing upwards as part of the Margin Unit campaign, in August the focus switched to the rover just getting up the rest of the “Mandu Wall” and up and over the crater’s rim, using a combination of Earth-based route planning and “driving”, and allowing the rover to steer its own course through hazards and difficult areas using its autonomous driving capabilities.

The rover finally reached the crater rim on December 5th, 2024, where it paused on a rise at the rim the mission team dubbed “lookout hill”, allowing the rover to catch its breath and take a look at its surroundings – and the mission team to identify possible points of exploration as they confirm plans for the next science campaign, which has been dubbed “Northern Rim”.

This is a slightly confusing name given Perseverance has ascended the south-western side Jezero’s rim, but can be explained by the fact it has arrived at the northern end of that part of the rim. It’s a location the mission has long hoped to reach, because it forms a region of significant scientific interest.

The Northern Rim campaign brings us completely new scientific riches as Perseverance roves into fundamentally new geology. It marks our transition from rocks that partially filled Jezero Crater when it was formed by a massive impact about 3.9 billion years ago to rocks from deep down inside Mars that were thrown upward to form the crater rim after impact. These rocks represent pieces of early Martian crust and are among the oldest rocks found anywhere in the solar system. Investigating them could help us understand what Mars — and our own planet — may have looked like in the beginning.

– Ken Farley, Mars 2020 mission project scientist, JPL

The first point of interest due for in-depth study as a part of the Northern Rim campaign is a mound outside of the crater dubbed “Witch Hazel Hill”. Standing on the outside of the crater’s rim, the mound is around 100m tall, and comprises layered materials that likely date from a time when Mars had a very different climate than today; thus as it will be able to gather “snapshots” of the ancient geological history of Mars going back potentially billions of years.

In this image the route of the rover’s passage up through the outflow plain delta and the wall of the crater (white line) is overlaid onto a orbital image of the portion of Jezero Crater Perseverance has been exploring. This image covers (right to left) the Fan Front, Upper Fan and Margin Unit science campaigns. False colour is used to try to help highlight the rover’s track, with the position of the rover (December 4th, 2024), to the left of the highlighted area. Click the image for a larger view, if required. Credit: NASA/JPL

From here, the rover is expected to make its way to “Lac de Charmes”, a region roughly 3.2 km from the crater rim, and believed to have not been greatly affected by the crater’s impact formation and thus likely to reveal more about the composition of the ancient crust of Mars.

Once the studies of “Lac de Charmes” have been completely, Perseverance is expected to make its way back towards the crater rim to a location dubbed “Singing Canyon”. Here it will examine megabreccia, or huge blocks of bedrock thought to have been hurled clear of the impact zone which gave rise to the 1,900 km wide depression of Isidis Planitia, on the edge of which Jezero Crater sits. The basin of Isidis forms the third largest impact structure on Mars, and was created some 3.9 billion years ago when an object estimated to be some 200 km across slammed into Mars.

This impact occurred during the Noachian Period on Mars, the epoch which saw free-flowing water on the planet and the time when the great volcanoes of the Tharsis Bulge are thought to have formed. Thus, the study of the megabreccia could unlock insights into how the Isidis impact many have both reshaped the surface of Mars, affecting things like the outflow of water and the general atmospheric environment, and so potentially impacted conditions suitable for the evolution of life on the planet.

The journeys to (and down) “Witch Hazel Hill” and then back to the crater rim via “Lac de Charmes” is likely to take Perseverance around a year to complete, during which time it will cover some 6.4 km in total, with four points of geologic interests thus far identified for scientific study as it does so. As the new science campaign opens, the mission tam also hope it will see the rover encounter much improved driving conditions when compared to the climb out and out of the crater.

Ingenuity Crash Investigation

One aspect of the Mars 2020 which will continue to be missed is that of Perseverance’s airborne companion, the little helicopter drone – and first powered vehicle from Earth to fly in the atmosphere of another world – Ingenuity.

As I reported at the start of the year (Space Sunday: a helicopter that could; a lander on its head) the helicopter, which had been designed with just 5 flights in mind but went on to make a total of 72, becoming an invaluable aid in scouting potential routes of exploration for the Mar 2020 rover, was “grounded” and “retired” at the start of 2024, following a mishap at the end of its 72nd flight on January 18th, 2024.

Images taken of the grounded drone and its surroundings later revealed not only had one or more of its rotor tips been broken (as revealed by Ingenuity taking pictures of its own shadow a few days after the incident), it had completely shed an blade.

*NASA’s* Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, right, stands near the apex of a sand ripple in an image taken by the Perseverance rover on February 24th, 2024, some 5 weeks after the rotorcraft’s final flight. Part of one of Ingenuity’s rotor blades lies on the surface approx. 5 metres west (far left of the image), after its mounting failed. NASA/JPL / LANL / CNES / CNRS

Since the accident, NASA personnel at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have been carrying a long-distance investigation into what may have caused the accident that resulted in Ingenuity’s effect loss. At the time of the mishap, Ingenuity was involved in efforts to help Perseverance navigate the upper slopes of Jezero Crater’s rim, which was proving difficult In particular the little helicopter was overflying a field of sand dunes in the hope of finding a route by which Perseverance could traverse them safely. However the lack of clearly definable surface features within the dune field was affecting Ingenuity’s ability to navigate / maintain its correct velocity.

To explain: in order to maintain both its horizontal and vertical velocity within safe parameters when descending, Ingenuity uses a downward-pointing camera to track surface features.: boulders, rocks, shadows, etc. However, the dune field it was overflying was almost uniformly bland and without significant features. This had already proven to be an issue on the helicopter’s 71st flight, when what appears to have been a light brush with the sand of a dune on landing caused a very slight deformation in one root.

Ironically, it as because of this incident that the mission team slotted-in the 72nd flight: they wanted to test Ingenuity’s capabilities to see if their were any abnormalities in flying as a result of the deformation. As such, it was intended to be a straight-up, hover, traverse a short distance a and flight, they kind performed multiple times in the past. So what went wrong?

Following extensive study of high-resolution images gathered by Perseverance of the damaged helicopter in February 2024, together with a careful review of data from the flight and images recorded by Ingenuity whilst flying, the JPL investigators and engineers from AeroVironment, who built the drone for NASA/JPL, now conclude Ingenuity suffered a similar issue as the 71st flight: it simply could not discern surface details via the navigation camera that could help it properly verify its vertical and horizontal motion.

As a result, investigators believe that Ingenuity approached the ground at the end of the planned20-second flight with a high horizontal velocity, resulting in a hard impact with the back slope of a sand ripple. The force of the impact, coupled with the slope, was enough to pitch the helicopter sideways and roll it forward. However, rather than bringing the blades in contact with the ground as had been thought, the combination of pitch and roll overstressed all four blades at a point of structural weakness roughly one-third of the way back from their tips, snapping them. This instantly caused both severe rotor vibration and imbalance, causing the mounting for one blade to fail completely, with the remnant of the blade hurled some 15 metres from the landing point.

This graphic depicts the most likely scenario for the hard landing of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter during its 72nd and final flight on Jan. 18, 2024. High horizontal velocities at touchdown resulted in a hard impact on a sand ripple, which caused Ingenuity to pitch and roll, damaging its rotor blades. NASA/JPL

This act additionally caused a power surge, which in turn caused the loss of communications at the end of the flight as the helicopter temporarily placed itself in a safe mode to protect its electronics.

Whilst it has remained unable to fly, Ingenuity has been far from silent in the months since its January 2024 accident: elements of its electronics – some of which are off-the-shelf components used in cell phones and table devices – are still operational, enabling it to continue to monitor the atmosphere and environment at its crash site and send that data on a roughly weekly basis to Perseverance for onward transmission to Earth.

In addition, all of the data gathered from Ingenuity is being used to directly inform the design and capabilities of the next generation helicopter JPL hopes to build with AeroVironment. This is a more complex vehicle which perhaps more closely resembles rotary drones as used here than was the case with Ingenuity. Comprising a central body with (as currently envisaged) six electrical motors each powering a four-bladed rotor, the craft has been dubbed the Mars Science Helicopter (MSH) or simply “Mars Chopper”.

A key aim of the MSH project is to develop a craft capable of deploying and recovering science packages between 0.5 and 2.0 kg mass as it autonomously explores Mars.

Space Sunday: of Artemis and Administrators

Posted on December 8, 2024 by Inara Pey

NASA has announced the push-back of Project Artemis missions in the continuing efforts to return to the Moon with human missions, and with the announcement has come renewed calls for the cancellation of the Space Launch System rocket.

During a December 5th, 2024 briefing, NASA management confirmed that Artemis 2 – the mission to fly a crew of four around the Moon and return them to Earth – will now not occur until April 2026, slipping from the target launch month of September 2025. As a result, the first attempt at a crewed landing under the project – Artemis 3 – has been rescheduled for a mid-2027 launch.

The most significant reason for delaying the missions relates to issues with the primary heat shield on the Orion MPCV (multi-purpose crew vehicle). As I’ve reported in these pages, this heat shield suffered greater than expected wear and tear during the unscrewed test of Orion on a flight around the Moon in December 2022 – something first release to the public in detail in May 2024.

More recently, NASA has indicated that it has identified the root cause of the issues, with comments at that time appearing to suggest part of the solution might involve charges in the construction of the heat shield itself, particularly as the October 2024 update on the issues, Lori Glaze, acting deputy associate administrator, NASA Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate indicated that while NASA were confident about the cause, as the heat shield for this mission “is already built”, the agency was at that time unsure as to how best to protect the crew during the critical re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere at the end of the mission.

For assorted reasons, the Orion capsule operates differently to the Apollo Command Module capsule. As it returns to Earth at a high velocity than Apollo, the Orion vehicle does not perform a single re-entry into the atmosphere as Apollo did; instead, it performs what is called “skip guidance”. This involved dipping briefly into the upper atmosphere and using it to reduce speed, prior to making a final re-entry.

The overall goal of this approach is to allow the Orion vehicle to experience somewhat lower temperatures (although still in the order of around 2,700^oC) during its “proper” re-entry, than would otherwise be the case were it to simply slam into the atmosphere a-la Apollo and use the friction of that re-entry to slow itself.

However, following the investigations into the excessive pitting (called “char loss”) seen with the heat shield used with Orion on Artemis 1, was an unforeseen result of the skip guidance approach.

While the capsule was dipping in and out of the atmosphere as part of that planned skip entry, heat accumulated inside the heat shield outer layer, leading to gases forming and becoming trapped inside the heat shield. This caused internal pressure to build up and led to cracking and uneven shedding of that outer layer.

– NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy, December 5th, 2024

During the briefing, it was confirmed that no significant redesign of the heat shield is required to overcome this problem; rather the re-entry trajectory for all Artemis crewed missions must be altered in order to minimise the char loss seen with Artemis 1 (remembering that while severe, the damage done to the heat shield in that mission did not reach a point of threatening the overall integrity of the Orion capsule).

For Artemis 2, engineers will limit how long Orion spends in the temperature range in which the Artemis 1 heat shield phenomenon occurred by modifying how far Orion can fly between when it enters Earth atmosphere and lands.

– NASA Artemis FAQ, December 5th, 2024

While an adjustment to the mission parameters is not as drastic as having to build an updated version of the heat shield, it does still require significant computer modelling, updates to flight software on Orion and a re-training of the Artemis 2 crew so they are familiar with the new flight envelope, control protocol and dealing with any alarms / emergencies during the revised re-entry phases of the mission. Hence pushing back Artemis 2 until early-to-mid 2026.

While this does have a knock-on effect for Artemis 3, other factors have come into play which have also contributed to the delay in that mission; some of which many observing Artemis and the choices made (myself included) have long anticipated.

Whilst announced on December 5th, 2024, slippage of the Artemis 3 mission to land a crew of two on the surface of the Moon was seen as inevitable by many thanks to the slow development of the SpaceX HLS vehicle the sheer complexities of the launch system on which it depends. Credit: SpaceX

Chief among these is the fact that the SpaceX Human Landing System (HLS) vehicle – a modified SpaceX Starship just wasn’t going to be ready for use in 2026; in fact, there is much to suggest the vehicle will not be ready for any planned 2027 launch of Artemis 3, and that a more reasonable expectation for any Artemis 3 launch would be late 2028, earliest.

However, there are some other factors involved in the Artemis 3 delay; given the changing dynamics and plans for Artemis lunar missions, there is a requirement to make improvements to Orion’s on-board environmental systems. These will not take as long as getting the SpaceX Starship system to the point where it can properly carry out the roughly 12-16 launches required just to get the HLS vehicle to the Moon (leave alone actually construction and testing of the lunar landing vehicle ahead of and use by the crew), but they are a issue which need to be factored into the mission delays.

“Scrap SLS”

The December 5th Artemis announcement saw a further renewed expectation of, and calls for, the cancellation of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS).

The largest calls for this have come from the SpaceX fan community who frequently (and unfairly) compare the cost of SLS to that of the SpaceX Starship, although there have also been repeated concerns raised from within the US government, such as buy the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and NASA’s own Office of Inspector General (OIG) that the overall cost of SLS is entirely unsustainable.

The core stage of the first SLS rocket to fly being moved between facilities at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans in January 2020, as part of preparation for it to be loaded onto a shipping barge for transport to Kennedy Space Centre, Florida. Credit: NASA

In particular, the latter offices note that SLS launches will cost around US $2.5 billion each. This includes all elements of a vehicle and the facilities required to launch it – the rocket, its boosters, the re-usable Orion crew vehicle + its service module, the cost of all launch support facilities, etc., together with the cost of future enhancement to the system, such as the Exploration Upper Stage (EUS) which will allow SLS to carry even heavier payloads to orbit. The cost per launch also takes into account the on-going expenditure in developing the system (US $26.4 billion, 2011-2023). As such, and while by no means cheap, its high cost is perhaps better understood.

However, cost isn’t actually the issue here. Rather it is capability. Simply put, there is no other launch system available that is either capable of launching a crewed Orion vehicle to the Moon or rated to do so.

To get to the Moon, the 26.52-tonne Orion and its European Service Module require an additional booster to send them on their way to the Moon. Currently, this booster is the 32.74 tonne Interim Cryogenic Propulsion System (ICPS) for the Space Launch System. It is the only human-rated upper stage capable of boosting the Orion+ESM mass to the Moon and it is only designed to be used by SLS.

And therein lies the rub; whilst people have been bandying ideas of “alternatives” to SLS around like sending human-rated payloads to the Moon is akin to playing with Lego – just stick the bits together you need and away you go, this just isn’t the case.

For example, Falcon Heavy might well be able to lob Orion+ESM+ICPS to LEO off its own back when used in fully expendable mode, a) it must be rated for human flight first; b) it will require significant, potentially costly, and certainly time-consuming, modifications to its core stage and (likely) to the ICPS. These latter points remain true even if the launch is split (e.g. one vehicle to launch Orion+ESM and a second to launch ICPS), which would allow the core and booster stages of Falcon Heavy to be recovered.

And while a split launch might also allow the use of Blue Origin’s New Glenn as an alternative to Flacon Heavy, (a) and (b) remain constraining factors. This is also true of another idea: launching Orion + ESM on New Glenn and then use the Centaur stage of ULA’s Vulcan-Centaur as the kick stage to send them on to the Moon after a rendezvous and docking. But again, again, Centaur is not human rated, and Orion+ESM are not designed to be used with Centaur off-the-shelf. Also, Neither system (nor the ICPS for that matter) are designed for the necessary kind of on-orbit rendezvous and docking, thus, these proposals all add complexity to each and every mission.

*An artist’s impression of an Orion vehicle and its European Service Module attached to the ICPS of a Space Launch System, as they orbit Earth. Credit: NASA*

This is not to say such alternatives cannot be made possible; it isn’t even necessarily (in the face of SLS launch costs) how much they will cost to bring about; it is the time they would require in order to become feasible, particularly in adapting the disparate system (Orion+ESM (and possibly the ICPS) and Falcon Heavy and/ or New Glenn, and / or the Centaur upper stage) to all play nicely together and reach a point where human missions using them can start. I would venture to suggest reaching such a point in the 2-2.5 years between now and the launch of any Artemis 3 mission (the SLS for Artemis 2 having already been fabricated + currently undergoing assembly / stacking at Kennedy Space Centre) probably isn’t that realistic.

And time is the critical issue here; no programme or project is really “too big to fail”; the more the time frame for Artemis and getting humans back onto the surface of the Moon get repeatedly drawn out (+ the more it is seen to be sucking up available budgets), then the greater the risk an administration and / or Congress could pull the plug to cut losses.

Which is not to say NASA and its incoming new Administrator shouldn’t take a good look at alternate strategies over SLS (and potentially even Orion); rather, they should have a very good game-plan and very realistic numbers on how to proceed and make good on their lunar aspirations before they simply yank out the plug on SLS.

Isaacman Nominated as New NASA Administrator

On December 4th, 2024, the incoming Trump administration announced its choice for the post of NASA Administrator: Billionaire Jared Isaacman, the founder of Shift4, a Payment financial technology company he founded whilst just 16 and which he turned into a multi-billion dollar success.

*Jared Isaacman in the cockpit of one of his just fighters*

Passionate about flying and (at least) the human exploration of space, Isaacman is a qualified jet fighter pilot (although has not served in the US military), operating one of the largest fleeting of privately-held jet fighters through another of his ventures, Draken International, a company contracted to provide pilot training to the United States armed forces. He also flies as a part of the Black Diamond Jet Team air display team, and as a solo air show pilot flying a MiG-29UB. And if that weren’t enough, he set a world record in 2009 for circumnavigating the world in a light jet (a Cessna Citation), taking just less than 62 hours to complete the flight, operating the aircraft with two others.

In terms of space activities, his is best known for leading the Inspiration4 private mission to space in 2021, and more recently, the first in a series of planned Polaris missions to orbit, Polaris Dawn, which saw him become the first private citizen to complete what is called a SEVA – or stand-up EVA -, partially-exiting the Crew Dragon space vehicle, a feat also completed by SpaceX employee Sarah Gillis in the same mission.

All of this has resulted in many responding to his nomination as positive movet – and again, some circles see it as a sign that SLS will likely be cancelled: Isaacman has been a strong critic of the system, and clearly leans towards more partnerships such as the one directly benefiting SpaceX. Indeed, his closeness to SpaceX and the fact he has consistently refused to reveal his own financial ties to he company has already caused some concern on Capitol Hill.

Isaacman has also used his position as an “independent space entrepreneur” to call into question NASA pursuing similar deals it has made with SpaceX with other commercial entities, such as Blue Origin. In particular, he is highly critical of NASA working with Blue Origin to develop the latter’s alternative – and potentially more practical / cost-effective and certainly more sustainable – Blue Moon family of lunar landing vehicles, openly stated he “doesn’t like” the fact NASA awarded a second contract for reusable human and cargo lunar landing systems.

Given this, some senators are concerned over questions of Isaacman’s overall neutrality when it comes to NASA contracts, and have indicated this is liable to factor into any confirmation hearings involving him.

Space Sunday: A Dragonfly for a moon

Posted on December 2, 2024 by Inara Pey

*An artist’s impression of the Dragonfly vehicle operating over Saturn’s Moon Titan. Credit: JHU/APL*

For the last few years, and as news arises, I’ve been covering the ambitious plans developed by a team at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) of Johns Hopkins University (JHU) to send a flying rover vehicle to Saturn’s largest moon, Titan.

The mission, using a octocopter called Dragonfly has been in development for several years, being formally greenlit for full-scale development by NASA earlier in 2024 (see: Space Sunday: flying on Titan; bringing home samples from Mars), after initially selecting it for evaluation and conceptual development as a part of the space agency’s Frontiers programme in 2019.

The idea of sending a flying – or at least floating, as proposals have also included the potential use of balloons to explore Titan from within it dense atmosphere – has been around for some time. In fact, Ralph Lorenz, of JHU/APL, one of the proposers of the mission, first considered using rotary craft on Titan back in 2000. His idea then was to use a battery-powered rotor craft equipped with a radioisotope power source.

Montgolfiere *balloon and ESA lake lander – a European Space Agency (ESA) concept mission for Titan*

That vehicle would spend the daylight hours on Titan (equivalent to 8 terrestrial days) in flight or carrying out surface science. during the hours of darkness (again, lasting the equivalent of 8 terrestrial days), the vehicle would sit on the ground and use the radioisotope to both keep itself warm and recharge the batteries.

It is to this idea that Lorenz returned whilst having dinner with Jason W. Barnes of University of Idaho in 2017, with the two of them agreeing to work on a baseline proposal for a large rotorcraft capable of flying on Titan. Together, they formed a nucleus of a team of scientists largely from APL’s staff of space scientists, including Elizabeth “Zibi” Turtle, who would be the mission’s principal investigator, as well as expertise from both NASA and other universities and space science institutes such as Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS), another long-time NASA partner.

Their initial proposal was published in 2018, and pretty much laid out the entire concept. Put before NASA for consideration, the proposal went through a series of changes prior to acceptance as a Frontiers mission. Initially targeting a 2027 launch, the mission was hit (like most things) by the COVID 19 pandemic, with all parties agreeing to push back the launch until July 2028.

These delays actually pushed the Dragonfly mission outside of the parameters of the Frontiers guidelines – missions under its auspices are supposed to be developed and flown for no more that US $1 billion (including all launch operator costs); currently, Dragonfly is expected to hit a total cost of around $3.35 billion throughout its lifetime. In all, the primary mission is expected to last some 10 years, 3.3 years of which will by at Titan.

But why go so far and at such cost in the first place? Well, as I noted back in April:

Titan is a unique target for extended study for a number of reasons. Most notably, and as confirmed by ESA’s Huygens lander and NASA’s C assini mission, it has an abundant, complex, and diverse carbon-rich chemistry, while its surface includes liquid hydrocarbon lakes and “seas”, together with (admittedly transient) liquid water and water ice, and likely has an interior liquid water ocean. All of this means it is an ideal focus for astrobiology and origin of life studies – the lakes of water / hydrocarbons potentially forming a prebiotic primordial soup similar to that which may have helped kick-start life here on Earth.

As both the Huygens lander and Cassini probe showed, Titan is similar to the very early Earth and can provide clues to how life may have arisen on Earth; it is also an aerodynamically benign world. Its dense atmosphere (around 1.45 times that of Earth’s) is ideally suited to the use of rotary vehicles – considered superior to balloons, dirigibles and aircraft because their ability to hover in place whilst carrying out ground observations and their VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) capabilities mean that can easily set down for surface science activities / at the onset of night. Further, Titan has low gravity (around 13.8% that of Earth) and little wind, making automated flight a lot easier.

Most crucially of all, flight allows the vehicle to move with relative ease between locations of interest for study, even if they are geographically widespread, separated by distances (and potential obstacles) a surface rover might find insurmountable.

Of course, we’re all now familiar with the idea of helicopter drones flying on other worlds, courtesy of NASA’s plucky little Ingenuity on Mars. However, The Dragonfly vehicle is something else all together. For a start, it is the size of a small car, and is expected to have an all-up mass of around 450kg. A good portion of that will be taken up by its Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG), its large lithium-ion battery system and its four electric motors, each driving two pairs of 1.4 metre diameter contra-rotating rotor blades. When flying, the vehicle will be able to reach speeds of up to 36 km/h, with a maximum airborne time of 30 minutes at that speed.

Initial descent. After release from the entry system and parachute, the vehicle can traverse many kilometres at low altitude using sensors to identify the safest landing site. This schematic from the original proposal uses an aerial image of the Namib sand sea, a geomorphological analogue of the Titan landing site, with ~100-m-high dunes spaced by several kilometres. Credit: Lorenz, Barnes, et al

Obviously, given the distances between Earth and Saturn / Titan render two-way real-time communications impossible without considerable lag, the vehicle will be equipped with a fully autonomous flight and navigation system capable of flying it along a selected flight path, making its own adjustments to account for local conditions whilst in flight, and with sensors capable of recording potential points of scientific interest along or to either side of its flight path, so the information can be relayed to Earth and factored into planning for future excursions. Flights over new terrain will likely be of an “out and back” scouting nature, the craft returning to its point of origin, allowing controllers on Earth to plan follow-up flights to locations where they might wish to set down and carry out ground-based science studies.

In terms of the latter, the vehicle will carry a number of science instruments, including two coring drills and hoses mounted within is landing skids, allowing it to gather tailings from the moon’s regolith and surface for on-board analysis by the vehicle’s on-board laboratory.

Most recently, as well a working on the full-scale development of the vehicle, APL has also been carrying out further tests with a half-scale flight-capable model, which has been used for the last year to help test and refine flight systems and avionics. This has seen the vehicle put through its paces at near-to-ground flight tests and at reasonable altitudes (but not as high as the four kilometres maximum ceiling the full-size version is expected to operate at during deployment!

In particular, this works builds on work carried out inside a special wind tunnel at NASA’s Langley Research Centre during 2023, which was used to simulate the aerodynamic loads that would likely be placed on the vehicle’s rotors and motors during a wide range of flight operations – ascending, descending, hovering – allowing engineers to determine things like the amount of rotor pitch required during different types of flight operations, providing data which can be fed into the final design requirements for the actual vehicle.

Much of this testing has been around flight hardware redundancy – APL plan to have the vehicle capable of sustained flight even if one set of rotors fails or even a motor supplying power to two sets of rotors dies. These tested have also allowed for direct assessment of the vehicle’s handling and determining where the centre of mass / centre of gravity should be placed (remembering that the drum-like thing at the back of the vehicle is a nuclear generator and all its associated shielding) to ensure good flight handling across a range of dynamic flight situations.

Also, on November 25th, 2024, NASA confirmed that SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch vehicle will be used to send Dragonfly on its way to Saturn. This caused some mis-reporting (notably among SpaceX fans) that the mission is somewhat a NASA / SpaceX venture, or has only been made possible by SpaceX, with some SpaceX-biased commentators going to so far as to call the decision “unexpected”. However, Falcon Heavy is the only launch vehicle currently certified for launching NASA high-value missions – particularly those carrying an MMRTG; United Launch Alliance (ULA) having retired both of its certified launch vehicles – Atlas and Delta – and have yet to achieve the required NASA certification with their Vulcan-Centaur (as is the case with Blue Origin’s New Glenn). As such, and with the prohibitive cost of using NASA’s own SLS rocket, Falcon Heavy has been the only real contender for the job.

At a cost of US $256.6 million, the contract to launch Dragonfly is significantly more than the $178 million NASA paid for the launch of the equally complex Europa Clipper, and the $117 million for the launch of the Psyche mission (although admittedly, that was agreed in 2020), both of which utilised Falcon Heavy. What was new with the announcement was the selected launch window and flight trajectory. The mission is slated to launch some time between July 5th and July 25th, 2028 (inclusive), in a window that will require the vehicle to make a fly-by of Earth in order to acquire the velocity required to reach Saturn in 2034. In this, the flight does differ from the originally planned 2027, which would likely have included a flyby of Jupiter, rather than Earth; however, for the 2028 launch, Jupiter will not be in a position to provide a gravity assist, hence the use of Earth, marking the mission as the first dedicated mission to the outer solar system to not use Jupiter in this way.

Progress MS-29 Update

In my previous Space Sunday update, I covered the detection of a “toxic smells” within the Russian section of the International Space Station (ISS), requiring the atmosphere throughout the station to be scrubbed. The first outlet to cover the news – as it was breaking – was the highly-reliable Russian Space Web, operated by respected space journalist and author, Anatoly Zak, and it was through that source I first read of the situation.

During the past week other outlets have taken up the story, but it is Anatoly who continues to lead with updates. While there was no immediate danger to any of the ISS crew, the hatches to the Progress vehicle were sealed and the atmosphere throughout the station scrubbed – on the international side of the station, the use of the Trace Contaminant Control Sub-assembly (TCCS) system was imitated after NASA astronaut Don Petit reported a “spray paint-like” smell in the Node 3 module of he station.

*Progress MS-29 approaching the ISS, November 23rd, 2024. Credit: Roscosmos*

In Anatoly’s most recent update in the story, he confirmed that after recycling the atmosphere in the Progress vehicle, the hatches had been reopened between it and the Poisk module against which its docked and off-loading of supplies had commenced. Anatoly also noted the the current working hypothesis from Roscosmos is that the smell did not originate from within the Progress MS-29 vehicle.

Instead, the Russian space agency believe the smell came from within the docking mechanism on the Poisk module. The Russian docking mechanisms include fuel lines for both off-loading hypergolic propellant supplies from a newly-arrived resupply vehicle carrying them, and to transfer propellants to Soyuz vehicles to “top off” the tanks of their thrusters prior to making a return to Earth.

Because of this, and while docking operations involving Progress and Soyuz are automated, after any departure from the Russian section of the ISS, ground control should perform a purging of the inner chamber of a docking mechanism to ensure any leak of hypergolic propellant that have been in the feed lines at the time which might otherwise be contained within the chamber is removed. This appears not to have been done following the departure of the last vehicle to use this particular docking port, Progress MS-27, potentially leaving traces of highly toxic propellant caught between the newly-arrived MS-29 and the interior of the Poisk module, releasing them into the latter when the inner hatch was opened.

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