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Welcome to the 3.12 edition of the Rocket Report! We have a lot of serious news this week about rockets, big and small. But our most productive story is fun, from the Atlai Mountains in Siberia, where SpaceX founder Elon Musk has a big fan in the clergy.
As always, we settle for reader submissions, and if you don’t need to miss any issues, subscribe to the box below (the shape won’t appear in the AMP versions of the site). Each report will come with a form of small, medium and heavy rockets, as well as a quick review of the next 3 schedule launches.
Mike Griffin sits on the Rocket Lab Board of Directors. Who had the former NASA boss enroll on the Rocket Lab board on his 2020 bingo card? We no But on Wednesday, the company announced that it had added Griffin to its board of directors, had signed up for corporate founder Peter Beck and 3 investors: Khosla Ventures’ Sven Strohband, David Cowan of Bessemer Venture Partners and DCVC’s Matt Ocko. The announcement came just over a month after Griffin resigned as undersecretary of defense for studies and engineering, SpaceNews reports.
Eye on DefenseArray.. “It brings great wisdom and delight in the civil, defense and advertising sectors that will be invaluable to our team as Rocket Lab continues to grow and satisfy the ever-changing desires of area and liberation systems. the national safety net and the advertising industry,” Beck said of Griffin. This movement sends a strong signal that Rocket Lab sees much of its long-term national security missions. (sent via platykurtic and JohnCarter17)
Will the new Smallsat rockets enter orbit in 2020? In case you haven’t noticed, we’re in mid-August. Returning to the positive and pre-stay beginning of 2020, we had high hopes for the launch of new Astra, Firefly and Virgin Orbit rockets, as well as overseas debuts in China, Europe and, in all likelihood, India. Now the question is whether a company will be put into orbit this year.
Watch and waitArray .. Ars earns the prestige of four corporations to make the cut this year, and we can’t rule out any more surprises from Chinese corporations and India’s small satellite launcher. Astra is the first, with a possible launch attempt later this month, while Virgin Orbit and Firefly point to the last quarter of the year. Good luck to all of you!
Rocket Lab is on its way to verify and recover a backup. After completing a series of tests, Rocket Lab said it will attempt to pull a first-stage thruster out of the ocean later this year. The company’s founder, Peter Beck, said Rocket Lab would take a first step in an upcoming release, known as Flight 17, SpaceNews reports.
A date has not been set for the releaseArray. The next launch of Electron, which will be a return-on-flight project after the failure of an Electron launch on July 4, is scheduled for the end of this month and will be Electron’s first project. . Beck recently said the company plans to resume a monthly listing fee. Finally, the company plans to take the first floors in flight with a helicopter. (sent via platykurtic, Ken the Bin and JohnCarter17)
Skyroot says she’s making progress. India-based launch company Skyroot Aerospace says it has effectively tested a higher-stage rocket engine. Business Standard reports that in doing so, Skyroot has the first personal Indian company to demonstrate its ability to build a local rocket engine.
Aggressive launch PropositArray .. Founded through Pawan Kumar Chandana and Naga Bharath Daka, both former scientists from the Indian Space Research Organization, the company plans to build a circle of rocket relatives. The first rocket, Vikram-I, is finished to climb up to 700 kg into low-Earth orbit and may be introduced by the end of 2021 (presented via trimeta and JohnCarter17).
The concept of Michigan’s spaceport faces headwinds. Opponents of a spaceport that could evolve near Lake Superior have filed an online petition that has been signed by more than 20,000 people. The petition cites a desire to “stop the destruction of our forests” and the prospect of launches to destroy the purity of Lake Superior, reports the Detroit Free Press.
Yoopers don’t screamArray. Spaceport advocates have pushed this as an opportunity to create well-paying jobs in a region that has not yet fully recovered from the Great Recession of 2008. Local politicians, such as state rep Sara Cambensy (D-Marquette) have an attitude of waiting and seeing what happens. “I think, like Yoopers and the other people who live on top of the peninsula, we are very protective of our environment, but I have to say that I was baffled through all the protests of opportunity” to take advantage of it, he said.
Falcon nine lofts despite all starlink’s latest mission. A SpaceX Falcon nine unveiled the company’s newest series of Starlink satellites last Friday, as well as two BlackSky imaging satellites, after weeks of delays. The first level of the rocket, making its fifth flight, landed on a drone in the Atlantic Ocean, SpaceNews reports. This release was originally scheduled for the end of June, but has been postponed several times due to technical issues and bad weather.
Don’t blame the rocket … The company never explained the technical problem. Landings, they said, required “additional time for pre-launch checks” or “to allow more time for controls.” During the launch webcast, John Insprucker, SpaceX’s senior integration engineer, said the delays were not caused by the rocket itself. “Thanks to all this, Falcon nine had no problem, as the delays were similar to weather situations and payload,” he said. It did not reveal whether payload disorders referred to the Starlink or BlackSky satellites. (sent via Ken the Bin)
COVID-19 delays the launch of ViaSat-3. The coronavirus pandemic has slowed the paints on the first ViaSat-3 broadband satellite, so it is unlikely to launch in mid-2021, SpaceNews reports. Viasat’s chief executive Mark Dankberg said the pandemic continued to weaken requests for in-flight connectivity services, but that it had not had as strong an effect as feared.
Divide wealth among Array start-ups. The company is building internal payloads for the 3 ViaSat-3 satellites and plans to send the first payload to Boeing later this year for integration into a 702 platform. Viasat has launch contracts for the 3 ViaSat-3 satellites, one for a SpaceX Falcon Heavy, one for an Arianespace Ariane 6 and one for a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5, but has indicated the order in which the missions will be carried out. (sent via JohnCarter17)
A Russian Orthodox priest writes a love letter to Elon. In a recent article on the Russian social media service VK, a Siberian priest named Alexander Mikushin wrote to the “servant of God Elon Musk”. The missive appears to have been stimulated through the return of the Crew Dragon spacecraft to Earth. “His perseverance has paid off. For the first time in nine years, astronauts have entered an area that is not Baikonur’s, but a launch site in the United States. Company!” wrote, in an article translated for Ars through Robinson Mitchell.
Come to Russia and teach our Array rocket specialists.. Later, the priest later remarked, “With God’s help, he will teach our technicians how to make rockets” that they are reusable like the Falcon 9. This is a pretty fun hit for Dmitry Rogozin and the Russian-area corporate Roscosmos. Mikushin closed his publication with this blessing to Musk: “May God the Most Merciful bless you and the workers of your company with a continuous good fortune in the area industry.” Perhaps we also pray for Mikushin’s safety.
The Air Force selects ULA and SpaceX. Last Friday afternoon, the U.S. Air Force answered one of the main questions facing the U.S. liberation industry. For more than a year: which two corporations will decide to compete for national security release contracts from 2022 to 2026? William Roper, Undersecretary of Acquisitions, Generation and Logistics of the Air Force, said United Launch Alliance will get about 60% of launch orders and SpaceX will get the remaining 40%, Ars reports.
There’s one plot left in Array. Two other bidders, Northrop Grumman with its Omega and Blue Origin rocket with their New Glenn vehicle, will not get a price. “The ability to respond to our technical points to carry out the project is the ultimate,” Roper said, in reaction to a consultation on the Air Force criteria. The resolution is accompanied by many intrigues, the least of which is that SpaceX still has an ongoing lawsuit opposed to the United States for past awards. Tim Fernholz has a smart overhaul of important issues.
SpaceX displays blueprints for the Texas SpacePort “hotel”. A curious new task to be offered at SpaceX is the creation of a “Resort Development Manager” in Brownsville, the city closest to the small dominance of Boca Chica where SpaceX built its Starship progression site. The task to be offered is for a manager to “monitor the progression of SpaceX’s first hotel from its inception to completion,” with the ultimate goal of transforming Boca Chica into a “21st century spaceport,” TechCrunch reports.
Delight from start to finish on? Array. This would come with overseeing the entire design and structure process, obtaining all mandatory paint authorizations and regulatory approvals, and completing the final structure of the facility. This new publication suggests that SpaceX will seek to create end-to-end delight from spaceflight, more in line with virgin Galactic’s structure on its Spaceport America site in New Mexico. (sent via JohnCarter17)
Delta IV Heavy on its way to its next release. The United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket flight scheduled for August 26 from Cape Canaveral continues the countdown to retire from the Delta rocket family, Spaceflight Now reports. With Delta 4-Heavy missions to launch, ULA’s chief executive Tory Bruno said there were no plans to build more as the company switches to the next-generation Vulcan Centaur rocket.
The exact time of launch has been announced. Array.. The ULA’s heavyweight will put into orbit a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office, which owns the U.S. government’s fleet of spy satellites. The project, codenamed NROL-44, will mark the twelfth flight of ULA’s maximum-strength rocket since its inception in 2004. ULA reports that the project launch era begins at 1:50 am EDT (05:50 UTC) and ends at 6am EDT (10:25 am UTC), however, the actual launch window is in this era. (sent via Ken the Bin and JohnCarter17)
The SLS rocket advances in the Green Run tests. The main level of the launch formula rocket for the Artemis I lunar project has effectively completed its first 4 Green Run tests, NASA said. “We methodically bring several complex formulas to life and determine them in the first seven tests,” said Julie Bassler, SLS Step Manager.
In the direction of the checkArray key. On August 5, engineers from NASA’s Stennis Space Center completed the fourth of 8 scheduled checks at the 212-foot-tall central level. For verification 4, engineers performed the initial functional verification of the main parts of the propulsion formula to determine the operation of y (valve response, blockage, etc.) and performed waterproofing checks on the fluid and umbilical fuel connections from the central level to the installation. The eighth and final control will take place later this year, when the rocket’s 4 main engines will fire for 8 minutes. (sent via Ken the Bin)
August 1 at five: Ariane five Galaxy 30, MEV-2 and BSAT-4B Kourou satellites, French Guiana 21:33 UTC
August 18: Falcon nine Starlink-10 Mission Cape Canaveral, Florida 14:31 UTC
August 26: Delta IV Heavy NROL-44 Cape Canaveral, Florida 05:50 UTC
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