NASA and the Private Sector - Page 158

In fact, today’s flight marks the fourth SpaceX mission in a row that won’t attempt a recovery of the vehicle. The company is in the middle of transitioning to the last version of its Falcon 9 rocket, called Block 5, which will make it easier to reuse the vehicles in the future. Block 5 will include a number of upgrades to the rocket, such as higher performing engines, titanium grid fins, and retractable landing legs. Such changes will facilitate rapid reuse, according to the company. The first Block 5 rocket is slated to launch in late April, sending up a communications satellite for Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, today’s mission is focused on simply getting cargo to space. On board the Dragon capsule are a number of new technologies for the ISS, including an instrument that will sit on the outside of the station to analyze thunderstorms on Earth and a research platform that will expose objects like tissues and plants to artificial gravity. Oh, and a new zero-G printer from HP is going up, as well. Once the Falcon 9 launches, the Dragon capsule will stay in orbit and creep closer to the ISS, before meeting up with the station Early Wednesday morning. After all of its supplies are unloaded, the capsule will remain attached for about 30 days.

SpaceX has long talked a good game about increasing its launch cadence, but the company now appears to be delivering in a big way. After two launches in four days, the California-based company has now flown seven rockets in 2018—six Falcon 9 missions and one Falcon Heavy. That breaks down to one launch every 13 days this year.

This is a significant number because it brings the company within its longstanding goal of launching a rocket every two weeks. Indeed, at this pace, SpaceX will launch a total of 27 rockets in 2018, which is consistent with expectations set by the company's president and chief operating officer, Gwynne Shotwell.

At the end of 2017, when the company was in the midst of shattering all of its previous launch records by flying 18 missions, Shotwell said SpaceX would aim for more in the coming year. “We will increase our cadence next year about 50 percent,” Shotwell told Space News. “We’ll fly more next year than this year, knock on wood, and I think we will probably level out at about that rate, 30 to 40 per year.”

After two launches in four days, SpaceX likely will launch two more rockets this month. On April 16, SpaceX is scheduled to launch NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite from its Space Launch Complex 40 pad in Florida, followed about a week later by the launch of a communications satellite for Bangladesh, at nearby Launch Complex 39A. Two more launches are tentatively set for May.

Even as it has upped its launch flight rate, SpaceX has also begun to make low-cost, reusable rocketry seem more real. In the last 12 months, it has flown 11 "used" Falcon 9 first stage rockets. All of these missions have been successful. In the coming months, it will transition to a newer version of this booster, Block 5, optimized for more rapid reuse.

Northrop Grumman built and operated the components that failed during the controversial January launch of the U.S. spy satellite known as Zuma, according to a Wall Street Journal report Sunday.

Two independent investigations, made up of federal and industry officials, pointed to Northrop's payload adapter as the cause of the satellite's loss, the report said, citing people familiar with the probes. The payload adapter is a key part of deploying a satellite in orbit, connecting the satellite to the upper stage of a rocket.

Zuma is believed to have cost around $3.5 billion to develop, according to the report. The satellite was funded through a process that received a lesser degree of oversight from Congress compared with similar national security-related satellites, industry officials said.

Northrop Grumman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

While it is still unknown which agency Zuma was built to serve, both the Pentagon and Northrop have repeatedly declined to provide details about the mission. SpaceX, which launched the mission aboard a Falcon 9 rocket, repeatedly defended its equipment in the aftermath, rebuking claims that Elon Musk's space company was to blame.

"For clarity: after review of all data to date, Falcon 9 did everything correctly," Gwynne Shotwell, president and COO of SpaceX, said in a statement to CNBC. "Information published that is contrary to this statement is categorically false. Due to the classified nature of the payload, no further comment is possible."

The U.S. Air Force appeared to back SpaceX in the weeks following Zuma, saying it did not expect to change the company's approval to launch military satellites.

"Based on the data available, our team did not identify any information that would change SpaceX's Falcon 9 certification status," Lt. Gen. John Thompson, commander of the Space and Missile Systems Center, said in a statement.

The investigations tentatively concluded that onboard sensors did not immediately communicate to ground systems that the satellite did not separate from the rocket, according to the Journal. Unbeknownst to officials at the time, the planned return of the rocket's upper stage — a method of disposal to avoid adding space debris around the Earth — brought the satellite back down with it. By the time the satellite separated from the rocket it was too late, putting Zuma too low in orbit to save, according to the report.

The unique design of Zuma, according to officials, means it was built in such a way that made it particularly fragile. Northrop reportedly modified its payload adapter to help absorb vibrations that might damage the satellite. While those modifications remain unspecified, payload adapters traditionally use small, controlled explosives to release satellites from a rocket's upper stage.

Officials believe Zuma fell into the Indian Ocean, the report said. Zuma was the first launch for SpaceX this year, and the company has since launched six additional successful missions.

The space industry started the first quarter of this year the way it ended the last – with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of private funding flowing into commercial space companies.

There were 20 deals worth nearly $1 billion in the space industry in the first quarter, according to investment firm Space Angels — though $500 million of that was a single deal: A big investment from Fidelity Investments in Elon Musk's SpaceX to develop its constellation of 4,425 broadband satellites.

Small rockets – typically priced between $2 million to $5 million per launch – have been a dominant theme this year, especially thanks to Rocket Lab's first orbital launch of its Electron vehicle in January. With Vector and Virgin Orbit also pushing to reach orbital launch this year, these rocket builders are hoping to seize a part of the premium market to launch small satellites.

"We see the entry of small launch vehicles as a specialization within the sector and an indication that commercial launch is maturing," Space Angels CEO Chad Anderson wrote in the report.

Companies focused on building and operating launch vehicles dominated first quarter investments, accounting for more than 72 percent with about $700 million, due to SpaceX's heavy fundraising. With its recent $35 million round, Relativity Space also stands out as it works to manufacture orbital rockets with massive, custom-built 3-D printers. Likewise, World View Enterprises closed a $26.5 million round of funding to further develop its technology to send equipment to the edge of space using high-altitude balloons.

While much of the launch fundraising was in later stage investments, there have been 11 early stage deals (also known as seed and Series A funding rounds) so far this year, including the $15 million round of Australian satellite company Myriota.

On April 13 2018 03:00 Simberto wrote:
And even though planes are already bad for the climate, rockets are way worse. It would be really bad if people started to regularly use rockets to get to other cities slightly faster.

On April 13 2018 03:21 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:
Costs would be subsidized by governments who want the tourism attraction of rockets landing in their country/city. And I think "fit" would be good enough for the health check. Not obese or having a bad heart.

Also, there are probably some underused airports that could be retrofitted to allow for rockets to launch from. If they used a ramp instead of a vertical liftoff, it may help, but I'm not an engineer, just an architect.