Due to weather conditions, the ULA USSF-12 launch has been scrubbed. They will try again tomorrow.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

"I got to my hotel

Are you on vacation?

Yep. We’re visiting family and playing tourist in New York.

ULA will attempt the USSF-12 launch again tonight at 22:00 UTC (6 PM EDT). The new livestream link is here.

Edit: Weather continues to look questionable, with only a 40 percent chance of favorable conditions.

Edited by Fighteer on Jul 1st 2022 at 3:00:13 PM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Parking this here since I am going to sleep: Hypothetical moons around planets in the habitable zone of M dwarfs are subject to strong tidal heating, to the point that they could become volcano worlds.

But if they have surface oceans, the tides would be dissipated in the oceans, potentially reaching heat fluxes resembling these of hurricanes for TRAPPIST-1 sized stars. Can we call them storm worlds?

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Is this before or after taking into account tidal locking? Edit: You said moons. I missed that. How massive would such moons need to be to retain oceans?

Edited by Fighteer on Jul 1st 2022 at 6:22:45 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

ULA managed to thread the weather needle and launch its Atlas V rocket with the USSF-12 payload at 23:15 UTC (7:15 PM EDT). The Centaur upper stage achieved its parking orbit and then initiated its GTO insertion burn at 23:39 UTC. The launch broadcast has concluded and we will be notified about the final GEO transfer burn and payload deployment on social media.

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Up next, Virgin Orbit has posted a new launch date for LauncherOne's STP-S28A mission: July 2 at 05:20 UTC (1:20 AM EDT). On deck is the maiden flight of Europe's Vega C rocket, on July 7.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

After tidal locking, star—>moon tides don't care that much about the moon's spin. As for the other question, Mars-sized moons could hypothetically develop in the Triton (=capture) or Moon (=giant impact) fashion in the habitable zone of a TRAPPIST-1 like star.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

I forgot to post the link to Virgin Orbit's launch but it was successful! You can rewatch here.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I've got a bit of catching up to do on the day. Virgin Orbit launched this morning and ULA launched last night, both successfully. Also today, NASA's "Mega Moon Rocket", aka SLS, for Artemis I rolled back to the VAB to begin six to eight weeks of launch preparations.

I really don't know who decided that it should be called the Mega Moon Rocket, but they need to be given the National Cringe Award. Could it be an attempt to rebrand in order to get away from the stigma of cost overruns and delays that has been associated with SLS?

Rocket Lab tweeted that the final burn of its Photon transfer stage will occur at 06:56 UTC on July 4, sending the CAPSTONE payload on its way to a lunar transfer orbit.

Not to be outdone, SpaceX tweeted some upskirt photos... of rockets, get your minds out of the gutter. 33 Raptor engines on Booster 7 and 6 Raptor engines on Ship 24, nearly ready to begin their static fire test program in preparation for a launch as early as July.

The next scheduled launch(es) take place on July 7, so I'll update my spreadsheet and do my usual megapost tomorrow after I get back from my trip.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Fighteer's Weekly Space Activity Update (previous | next)

I am tired today, just back from a trip, but I will do my launch update because it's a promise I made to myself. Last week was a very busy one for space as well, with six orbital launches: China launched another Gaofen-12 satellite, Rocket Lab launched CAPSTONE, SpaceX launched SES-22, India launched DS-EO, ULA launched USSF-12, and Virgin Orbit launched STP-S28A.

We've learned that James Webb is nearing full operational status and has already begun collecting scientific observations that will be shared on July 12. The excitement is building for the culmination of this massively complex and expensive project. The CAPSTONE mission also has a few milestones left, with the final Photon burn due tonight to send it on its low-energy lunar transfer orbit.

Coming up this week, we should see at least two launches: the debut flight of Europe's Vega C and a SpaceX Starlink mission. The latter will set up another three-launch series that ends in CRS-25 on July 15.

As always, visit Next Spaceflight or Everyday Astronaut for details, and you can see the Google Doc I created here.

Recent and upcoming launches

Nation	Provider	Rocket	Payload/Mission	Reuse	Liftoff	Status
China	CASC	Long March 4C	Gaofen-12 03		Jun 27, 2022 15:46 UTC	Successful
United States	Rocket Lab	Electron/Curie	CAPSTONE		Jun 28, 2022 09:55 UTC	Successful
United States	SpaceX	Falcon 9 Block 5	SES-22	B1073.2 (ASOG)	Jun 29, 2022 21:04 UTC	Successful
India	ISRO	PSLV-CA	DS-EO and others		Jun 30, 2022 12:32 UTC	Successful
United States	ULA	Atlas V 541	USSF-12 (WFOV)		Jul 01, 2022 23:15 UTC	Successful
United States	Virgin Orbit	LauncherOne	STP-S28A		Jul 02, 2022 02:53 UTC	Successful
European Union	Arianespace	Vega C	LARES 2, CELESTA & Others		Jul 07, 2022 11:13 UTC
United States	SpaceX	Falcon 9 Block 5	Starlink Group 4-21	B1058.13 (JRTI)	Jul 07, 2022 13:00 UTC
United States	SpaceX	Falcon 9 Block 5	Starlink Group 3-1	? (OCISLY)	Jul 11, 2022 01:00 UTC
United States	SpaceX	Falcon 9 Block 5	CRS SpX-25	B1067.5 (?) / C208	Jul 15, 2022 00:30 UTC

Events

• NASA will release James Webb Space Telescope's first scientific observations on July 12.
• Russian EVA 54 has been scheduled for July 21. Oleg Artemyev and Samantah Cristoforetti will deploy a set of nanosatellites.

Fighteer's Weekly SpaceX Report

• The Starship launch tower at LC-39A at KSC had its third segment transported and installed this week.
• SpaceX is making preparations to static fire Super Heavy Booster 7 and I will post a livestream if I see one.

Ars Technica Rocket Report

The weekly Ars Technica Rocket Report is available. As usual, I'll skip items that we've covered in detail already.

• CTV reports that the company Space Ryde recently had a media event to show off its plan to use a high-altitude balloon to launch an orbital rocket. The prices that the husband-wife founders aspire to achieve seem insane: $250K per launch. Are they visionaries or insane?
• Italian rocket builder Avio received 340 million euros in pandemic recovery funding to develop a demonstration rocket by 2026 that will use liquid methane as fuel. This company will also be building the upper stage of the upcoming Vega E rocket.
• French startup Venture Orbital Systems has closed a 10M euro funding round as it seeks to develop the Navier engine that will power its Zephyr launch vehicle.
• Relativity Space announced that it has secured a contract to launch OneWeb satellites on its Terran R rocket, which is still in development. The contract is worth at least $1.2 billion. OneWeb abandoned its contract with Arianespace to launch on Soyuz rockets after the Ukraine invasion and is also working with SpaceX to launch its satellites.
• ULA's Vulcan rocket is currently expected to launch in December, according to a Space Force executive. It is still not clear whether this will be with the planned Peregrine lunar lander or a test payload. Even if the payload is not ready, ULA needs to get Vulcan flying to meet its government contracting requirements.
• Lobbying is heating up over the National Security Space Launch Phase 3 contract from the US Space Force. Bidding will open in 2024 for launches starting in 2027-2028. ULA is working hard with its allies in Congress to have requirements in the procurement that would effectively lock it in as one of the providers and lock out most startups.

Edited by Fighteer on Jul 10th 2022 at 2:29:15 PM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I think it is about time for me to say that your updates are very well made. The space launch counts is seems uselfull, becuase i have not found better info in this regard.

Edited by Risa123 on Jul 4th 2022 at 1:24:19 PM

I appreciate the feedback! It's good to know that people find this stuff useful.

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Speaking of useful, Rocket Lab reported that its Photon kickstage completed the final burn to place CAPSTONE on a trans-lunar injection orbit. This milestone was livestreamed if you want to watch along. CAPSTONE has separated from the kickstage and is on its way to the Moon!

The six-day mission for Rocket Lab was by far the most complex one it has ever attempted and its completion makes it official that Electron is the smallest rocket to ever send a payload to the Moon. Now it's in the CAPSTONE team's hands to navigate the four-month, gravity-assisted trip towards the targeted near-rectilinear halo orbit.

Technology lovers note: One of the things that makes the Photon kickstage so unique is its 3D-printed HyperCurie engine. This is a (relatively) high-thrust, high-efficiency engine that makes Photon, as far as I know, the only such stage to use electric pump-fed engines rather than pressure-fed engines. To achieve this while saving mass on batteries, it uses its solar panels to recharge the batteries in between burns, which is why it has to perform several smaller burns rather than one large one.

HyperCurie also uses a "green" bipropellant whose precise chemical composition has not been publicly revealed.

Edited by Fighteer on Jul 4th 2022 at 8:21:31 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

One question concerning the number of lauches does the number/number mean planned/made so far ?

Edited by Risa123 on Jul 4th 2022 at 2:19:38 PM

The numbers mean successful/total, so the differences represent failures. (I deliberately chose not to show the data in this way for crewed missions.)

Edited by Fighteer on Jul 4th 2022 at 8:24:18 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Thanks, maybe you could add this information to notes for sake of completness and preventing possible misunderstandings.

Good feedback. I've added a note.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

This is your daily reminder that space is political: according to this tweet showing a translated Telegram post by Roscosmos, the cosmonauts held flags today celebrating Russia's "victory" over the contested Ukrainian provinces.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I have to agree with the tweet that was not a good move on their part. While it would require something really really big to end ISS project doing things like this is not doing favors to the situation on board.

You're assuming they would necessarily have a choice in the matter at this point.

Remember that astronauts are generally drawn from military personnel, so they’re pretty likely to be all in on their nation’s activity abroad.

And conversely, not doing as told from above means getting fired will be the least of their worries.

I would not put it past the Russian leadership to send their cosmonauts to Siberia for the crime of trying to remain politically neutral the instant they touch down.

Edited by amitakartok on Jul 4th 2022 at 12:56:07 PM

In fact, there is anecdotal testimony from some US astronauts who have shared the ISS with Russian cosmonauts that they are fairly well indoctrinated into their government's propaganda.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Actually you are making assumtions here . I was saying it was not good choice on the part of the goverment i shuld have made that explicit.

Edited by Risa123 on Jul 5th 2022 at 10:15:32 AM

A few quasi-news items from this morning:

• Ars Technica covers the ISS Russian propaganda story that we were discussing yesterday.

• Starship 24 rolled out to the launch site at Starbase, Texas this morning after completing final build steps. It is now being hooked up to the load spreader for lifting onto one of the suborbital launch mounts. There, it should begin its proof testing, leading up to static fires. As always, NASA Spaceflight is livestreaming 24/7 from the site.

• Astronomers such as Jonathan McDowell are expressing concerns about the health of the CAPSTONE spacecraft, which appears to have stopped communicating with ground stations. With no announcement from NASA or from Advanced Space (who built it), we can only guess at the problem, if there is one. We know it was communicating at one point, so speculation is that it may have failed to deploy its solar arrays, which would have led to it running out of power.

Edited by Fighteer on Jul 5th 2022 at 9:30:36 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

When was CAPSTONE supposed to deploy its solar panels? I thought they'd check for it before sending it on the transfer orbit.

"Enshittification truly is how platforms die"-Cory Doctorow