The Space Thread

>I've long suspected that SLS, far from a next-generation rocket with state-of-the-art technology, is in reality a cobbled-together pile of spare parts that's only barely good enough to perform its mission.

Re-use of existing tech and components was part of the initial pitch, so yea. it has Shuttle engines and upgraded Shuttle side-boosters. And the core is designed to make everything work together.

I was being slightly tongue-in-cheek. I know that the point of SLS is to reuse existing tech as much as possible so that the Shuttle-era contractors don't have to build all new factories and stuff, but even given that it feels ramshackle.

I think it just adds to the sunk cost fallacy of the whole project. Seeing the cost of the project, I doubt they could have been more expensive even if they developed a completely new system. And they would have had more room to make a more efficient design.

I mean the point was to rebuild the shuttle without the shuttle, right? Take the old booster, add a cargo bay on top of it, and you're done. We could have had heavy lift years ago.

That's not how Congress thinks, though. To the Senators who pressured the Obama administration to cave on the SLS program, it's a source of pork jobs for their states first and a technology program second. Spending money is the alpha and the omega. The more Boeing, Northrop, Lockheed, Aerojet, etc. get in cost-plus payments, the happier everyone is... except the people who actually want a practical rocket to get humans to the Moon.

This is why the selection of Bill Nelson for NASA is so concerning. He's a pork barrel guy through and through.

Edited by Fighteer on Feb 23rd 2021 at 12:00:01 PM

It was indeed sold as "shuttle without the shuttle" but that was just the sales pitch. It was purposefully engineered such that it made use of existing production to prop up jobs.

It's why congress is hellbent on SLS despite alternatives being cheaper. Even if they found something like Spacex less reliable, for the money of SLS you can have a LOT of space program.

Edited by devak on Feb 23rd 2021 at 5:43:25 PM

Well, let's hope that competition keeps people honest.

Starship SN10 is conducting another static fire test this afternoon in Texas. NASA Spaceflight covers.

And that's a go! The static fire happened at about 5:03 PM local time, or 23:03 UTC.

Edited by Fighteer on Feb 23rd 2021 at 6:04:12 AM

SpaceX: Starlink L17 is now targeting Feb 29 01:37 UTC (Feb 28 8:37 PM EST) for liftoff after a successful static fire test. We may hear about the reason for the landing failure of the last booster on the livestream.

Elon tweeted about the converted oil rigs, named Phobos and Deimos, that will be test beds for Starship sea-launch operations. First, "I hope we don't go bankrupt building them!" [1] (ha ha, bankruptcy jokes are awesome!) Second, they will initially receive shipments of methane and produce oxygen in-situ. Long term, all commodities will be produced on-site. [2]

"One of them may be in limited operation by end of year" [3]
As we thought, newly built Starships will fly to the platforms rather than being transported. [4] Boosters also?

Musk tweeted that one engine on Starship SN10 is "suspect" and will be swapped out. Another static fire window is scheduled for today, so if they can turn around the engine that fast (this is a general objective for Starship, by the way, not just a testing cadence issue) we may see that attempt soon.

Other Boca Chica updates include that Starship SN12 appears to be getting scrapped, leaving SN11 as the final test article in the current generation. It will be completed soon. The next series starts with SN15, intended to be the first prototype of the orbit-capable Starships. SN5 has also been scrapped, joining its sister SN6 in the annals of history. The first Superheavy booster is about to be fully stacked.

With Starship SN10's high-altitude flight uncertain, the next official launch on the schedule is ISRO's PSLV-DL for Feb 28 04:54 UTC. This will be lifting Brazil's first wholly self-built satellite, Amazônia 1, along with 20 rideshare payloads.

Followers of Chinese media tweeted about an interview with Wu Yanhua, deputy director of CNSA, who confirmed plans to develop the Long March 9 super heavy launcher, which will be roughly equivalent to SLS in its capabilities and will be intended to land the first Chinese astronauts on the Moon. It will also attempt reuse at a later point. The maiden flight is scheduled for 2030. Long way off...

Edited by Fighteer on Feb 24th 2021 at 8:15:12 AM

China building a cheaper version of SLS would be a great burn to NASA.

We've known about the Long March 9 on paper for several years, but there was considerable debate over whether China would actually attempt to make it. This seems to be confirmation of that.

Ars Technica: A politician who said politicians shouldn’t run NASA wants to run NASA

This is about the rumored nomination of former US Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) to be the next NASA administrator. There is deep worry in the space community that Nelson, a vehement advocate for SLS and opponent of commercial launch services, is being pushed for the top NASA job by lobbyists for Boeing and related companies.

There is a small amount of hope that Nelson, like Bridenstine before him, would drop his political stance and be a practical administrator, but considering that he was instrumental in diverting funding from the Commercial Crew Program to SLS during the Obama administration, that seems like a longshot.

Nelson is known for using the space program for his own self-aggrandizement, such as when he literally bullied his way onto a Space Shuttle mission. He has also loudly proclaimed that "politicians shouldn't run NASA", which makes this current bid intensely hypocritical.

If NASA's sponsorship of commercial launch vehicles is sabotaged by this guy, it could set our efforts back by years. It would certainly delay the Lunar Gateway, which is planned to go up on such vehicles despite the insistence of some members of Congress that all Artemis equipment be launched by SLS.

The European Space Agency (ESA) is planning a mission to explore lunar caves. Based on a request for concepts, this mission will use robotic probes to enter into caves created by ancient lava tubes to look at the Moon's interior in a way never before achieved.

No specific timeline is given.

That sounds neat. Didn't even know the moon had lava tubes.

New announcement out of Reaction Engines. They’ve completed testing on two sub-systems for SABRE, namely the “HX 3 heat exchanger and the advanced hydrogen preburner.”

The two parts are meant to be what enables flight from sea level, before the engine switches to rocket mode for the journey out of atmosphere. Full size tests rigs were built and they’re saying that all objectives were achieved.

The article on their website goes into more details and includes some pictures.[1]

If the Moon was volcanically-active for a first few million years after formation, then yes, it will have lava tubes, and ones that would have lasted for billions of years at that since the Moon doesn't change geologically except from periodic impacts.

Edited by DivineFlame100 on Feb 24th 2021 at 1:37:56 AM

I wouldn't say the moon was ever volcanically active.

If the current theories for lunar formation are acurate it's probably more acurate to compare the caves to bubbles trapped in glass than lava tubes.

Basically you have a molten ball made of various materials that is slowly cooling from the outside in. Anything light like gases is going to move toward the surface but that would've formed a rocky shell before gases that started near the core worked their way up. This would result in trapped pockets of gas close enough to the surface that an impacting body could penetrate them if it hits the right spot.

Interesting. And yeah, just to clarify, I only said the first few million years after formation, since I'm well-aware it is volcanically dead at present day (small bodies do cool faster than larger ones after all). I was just saying that in those first few million years when volcanic activity was still prominent (especially considering that the Moon was a lot closer to Earth back then so it likely experienced greater tidal heating), lava tubes forming would've been a possibility.

What you are saying is practically the same as saying that the Moon was volcanically active in the past.

Blue Origin: New Glenn's Progress Towards Maiden Flight

Takeaways:

• New Glenn will fly no earlier than Q4 2022.
• The delay is because of Blue Origin losing their bid for the National Security Space Launch Phase 2 contract.
• BO has spent $2.5 billion on infrastructure, including $1B on the rebuild of LC-36 at Cape Canaveral. That's some green, man.
• BO talks in "oldspace" language. It's very much a product of the public contracting mindset.

Edited by Fighteer on Feb 25th 2021 at 11:37:12 AM

NASA is really pushing this "Perseverance" thing that they've got going on. Prima donnas...

(The above remark is brought to you by sarcasm. Sarcasm: for when you want to make your point passive-aggressively.)

Tune in at 21:00 UTC (4:00 PM EST) for a tour of the rover's new home.

Two years ago, a neutrino observatory traced one particular neutrino to a specific cosmic event in a different galaxy. I am mildly surprised that one can trace an individual neutrino to anything.

Oh, lord, the jargon in that article is dense. One thing I can say is that our detectors, by their design, should be able to determine the velocity and energy of neutrinos with high accuracy, letting us trace them back to their origin points. That we can pin a specific detection on a specific event, though, is amazing.

NASA Spaceflight is covering another static fire test of Starship SN10, post engine replacement.

Edit: Test complete, looked pretty good on the video.

Edited by Fighteer on Feb 25th 2021 at 6:02:29 AM

This week's Ars Technica Rocket Report covers some things I've already discussed but adds a few that I didn't know about.

For example, did you know that both South Korea and Turkey are building space programs? I did not. Turkey plans to build a spaceport in Somalia with an orbital launch targeted for 2023, and Korea is building its KSLV rocket with an eye towards a 2022 launch.

Virgin Galactic, meanwhile, won't be flying its next test of SpaceShipTwo until May. The company's stock price has taken a hit lately as it failed to make its previous February flight date and there is continuing doubt about its ability to deliver a reliable product given all the delays. That said, it is trying to get a spot at Spaceport Cornwall for its orbital tourism business, which the local council is soundly rejecting because of the whole "only super rich people get to go to space" thing.

Lastly, we have some insight into the reason for the landing failure of Falcon 9 booster B1059 on the most recent SpaceX Starlink mission. Senior adviser Hans Koenigsmann attributed it to "heat damage", but offered no specifics. The investigation may be nearly closed, just in time for Sunday's planned launch of more Starlink satellites.

TIL that Turkey was joining the space race. South Korea has its space program, but its rockets have been in Development Hell. One of the reasons that its space program is less developed than those of its neighbors is that South Korea got caught attempting to get nukes in the 70s, and the sanctions they got hit with included restrictions on the rocket technology they could develop.

Because the KSLV rocket was in Development Hell for so long, Korea's planned lunar probe will have to go to space on board a Falcon 9 instead of the KSLV.