Space

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To guard against cyberattacks in space, researchers ask “what if?”

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Complex space systems like the International Space Station could be vulnerable to hackers.

Enlarge / Complex space systems like the International Space Station could be vulnerable to hackers.

If space systems such as GPS were hacked and knocked offline, much of the world would instantly be returned to the communications and navigation technologies of the 1950s. Yet space cybersecurity is largely invisible to the public at a time of heightened geopolitical tensions.

Cyberattacks on satellites have occurred since the 1980s, but the global wake-up alarm went off only a couple of years ago. An hour before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, its government operatives hacked Viasat’s satellite-Internet services to cut off communications and create confusion in Ukraine.

I study ethics and emerging technologies and serve as an adviser to the US National Space Council. My colleagues and I at California Polytechnic State University’s Ethics + Emerging Sciences Group released a US National Science Foundation-funded report on June 17, 2024, to explain the problem of cyberattacks in space and help anticipate novel and surprising scenarios.

Space and you

Most people are unaware of the crucial role that space systems play in their daily lives, never mind military conflicts. For instance, GPS uses signals from satellites. GPS-enabled precision timing is essential in financial services where every detail—such as time of payment or withdrawal—needs to be faithfully captured and coordinated. Even making a mobile phone call relies on precise coordination of time in the network.

Besides navigation for airplanes, boats, cars, and people, GPS is also important for coordinating fleets of trucks that transport goods to stock local stores every day.

Earth-observation satellites are “eyes in the skies” with a unique vantage point to help forecast the weather, monitor environmental changes, track and respond to natural disasters, boost agricultural crop yields, manage land and water use, monitor troop movements, and much more. The loss of these and other space services could be fatal to people vulnerable to natural disasters and crop failure. They could also put global economics and security at serious risk.

Many satellites are crucial for tracking natural and human activity on Earth.

Enlarge / Many satellites are crucial for tracking natural and human activity on Earth.

Factors in play

In our report, we identified several factors that contribute to the increasing threat of space cyberattacks. For instance, it’s important to recognize that the world is at the start of a new space race.

By all accounts, space is becoming more congested and more contested. Both nation-states and private companies, which are underregulated and now own most of the satellites in orbit, are gearing up to compete for resources and research sites.

Because space is so remote and hard to access, if someone wanted to attack a space system, they would likely need to do it through a cyberattack. Space systems are particularly attractive targets because their hardware cannot be easily upgraded once launched, and this insecurity worsens over time. As complex systems, they can have long supply chains, and more links in the chain increase the chance of vulnerabilities. Major space projects are also challenged to keep up with best practices over the decade or more needed to build them.

And the stakes are unusually high in space. Orbital trash zips around at speeds of 6 to 9 miles per second and can easily destroy a spacecraft on impact. It can also end space programs worldwide given the hypothesized Kessler syndrome in which the Earth is eventually imprisoned in a cocoon of debris. These consequences weigh in favor of space cyberattacks over physical attacks because the debris problem is also likely to affect the attacker.

Moreover, given critical space infrastructure and services, such as GPS, conflicts in space can spark or add more fuel to a conflict on Earth, even those in cyberspace. For instance, Russia warned in 2022 that hacking one of its satellites would be taken as a declaration of war, which was a dramatic escalation from previous norms around warfare.

To guard against cyberattacks in space, researchers ask “what if?” Read More »

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SpaceX video teases potential Starship booster “catch” on next flight

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A strong grip —

A booster landing would be a calculated risk to SpaceX’s launch tower infrastructure.

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In early June, the rocket for SpaceX's fourth full-scale Starship test flight awaits liftoff from Starbase, the company's private launch base in South Texas.

Enlarge / In early June, the rocket for SpaceX’s fourth full-scale Starship test flight awaits liftoff from Starbase, the company’s private launch base in South Texas.

SpaceX

In a short video released Thursday, possibly to celebrate the US Fourth of July holiday with the biggest rocket’s red glare of them all, SpaceX provided new footage of the most recent test of its Starship launch vehicle.

This test, the fourth of the experimental rocket that NASA is counting on to land its astronauts on the Moon, and which one day may launch humans to Mars, took place on June 6. During the flight, the first stage of the rocket performed well during ascent and, after separating from the upper stage, made a controlled reentry into the Gulf of Mexico. The Starship upper stage appeared to make a nominal flight through space before making a controlled—if fiery—landing in the Indian Ocean.

The new video focuses mostly on the “Super Heavy” booster stage and its entry into the Gulf. There is new footage from a camera on top of the 71-meter-tall first stage as well as a nearby buoy at water level. The video from the buoy, in particular, shows the first stage making an upright landing into the ocean.

Starship fourth flight test.

Perhaps most intriguingly, at the end of the video, SpaceX teases an image of Starship’s large launch tower in South Texas at the Starbase facility. Prominently featured are the two “chopsticks,” large arms intended to catch the first stage booster as it slowly descends back toward its launch pad.

Then, in simulated footage, the video shows Starship’s first stage descending back toward the launch tower with the title “Flight 5.” And then it fades out.

To land, or not to land?

This supports the idea that SpaceX is working toward attempting a Starship booster catch on its next flight test, which likely will occur later this summer. Doubtless, the company still has both technical and regulatory work before this can happen.

In the days immediately following the fourth flight test, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said it was the company’s goal to make such a landing attempt on the next launch. However, during a talk last week with local residents in south Texas, Starbase General Manager Kathy Lueders said this attempt might not occur on Flight 5.

However, the new video released Thursday indicates that a catch attempt is still on the table as a possibility, and perhaps even a likelihood. Such a landing would be both stunning visually, as well as a calculated risk to SpaceX’s launch tower infrastructure, as the booster likely would be landing with a few spare tons of methane and liquid oxygen propellant in its tanks.

If SpaceX decides to press ahead with the attempt, it must still obtain a launch and reentry license from the Federal Aviation Administration, which is tasked with ensuring the safety of people and property on the ground. It seems probable that the next test flight will not occur before August.

Flight 5 tease.

Enlarge / Flight 5 tease.

SpaceX

Meanwhile, activities at the South Texas launch site may well be curtailed for a couple of days as Hurricane Beryl enters the Gulf of Mexico later on Friday and then tracks toward the Texas coast early next week. The center of Beryl is expected to pass near or north of the launch site late on Sunday night or Monday, bringing winds and surges.

However, because Beryl is not expected to be a major hurricane in terms of wind speed, these impacts should not prove catastrophic to SpaceX facilities. Heavy rainfall and inland flooding in the low-lying Starbase area is also a possibility on Monday and Tuesday before the storm pulls away.

SpaceX video teases potential Starship booster “catch” on next flight Read More »

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Two of the German military’s new spy satellites appear to have failed in orbit

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The peril of pointing —

Did OHB really not test the satellite antennas on the ground?

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The SARah-1 mission is seen on the launch pad in June 2022.

Enlarge / The SARah-1 mission is seen on the launch pad in June 2022.

SpaceX

On the day before Christmas last year, a Falcon 9 rocket launched from California and put two spy satellites into low-Earth orbit for the armed forces of Germany, which are collectively called the Bundeswehr.

Initially, the mission appeared successful. The German satellite manufacturer, OHB, declared that the two satellites were “safely in orbit.” The addition of the two SARah satellites completed a next-generation constellation of three reconnaissance satellites, the company said.

However, six months later, the two satellites have yet to become operational. According to the German publication Der Spiegel, the antennas on the satellites cannot be unfolded. Engineers with OHB have tried to resolve the issue by resetting the flight software, performing maneuvers to vibrate or shake the antennas loose, and more to no avail.

As a result, last week, German lawmakers were informed that the two new satellites will probably not go into operation as planned.

Saving SARah

The three-satellite constellation known as SARah—the SAR is a reference to the synthetic aperture radar capability of the satellites—was ordered in 2013 at a cost of $800 million. The first of the three satellites, SARah 1, launched in June 2022 on a Falcon 9 rocket. This satellite was built by Airbus in southern Germany, and it has since gone into operation without any problems.

The two smaller satellites built by OHB, flying with passive synthetic aperture radar reflectors, were intended to complement the SARah 1 satellite, which carries an active phased-array radar antenna.

“The new SARah satellites ensure that the Bundeswehr has the capability for worldwide imaging reconnaissance independent of the time of day or the weather,” the German military said at the time of the SARah 1 satellite launch. “At the same time, they provide support in the early detection and management of crises.”

This new constellation was intended to replace an aging fleet of similar, though less capable, satellites known as  SAR-Lupe. This five-satellite constellation launched nearly two decades ago.

OHB said to be at fault

According to the Der Spiegel report, the Bundeswehr says the two SARah satellites built by OHB remain the property of the German company and would only be turned over to the military once they were operational. As a result, the military says OHB will be responsible for building two replacement satellites.

Shockingly, the German publication says that its sources indicated OHB did not fully test the functionality and deployment of the satellite antennas on the ground. This could not be confirmed.

This setback comes as OHB is attempting to complete a deal to go private—the investment firm KKR is planning to acquire the German space company. OHB officials said they initiated the effort to go private late last year because public markets had “structurally undervalued” the company.

OHB has its hands in many different space businesses in Europe. The small launch firm Rocket Factory Augsburg was spun out of OHB in 2018 and is working toward its debut launch later this year or in 2025. The company is also a supplier for the larger Ariane 6 rocket and one of several private companies that is part of a coalition bidding to build a Starlink-like satellite constellation for the European Union known as IRIS2.

Two of the German military’s new spy satellites appear to have failed in orbit Read More »

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NASA selects SpaceX to launch a gamma-ray telescope into an unusual orbit

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Plane change —

The Falcon 9 rocket is pretty much the only rocket available to launch this mission.

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Artist's illustration of the COSI spacecraft.

Enlarge / Artist’s illustration of the COSI spacecraft.

A small research satellite designed to study the violent processes behind the creation and destruction of chemical elements will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in 2027, NASA announced Tuesday.

The Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI) mission features a gamma-ray telescope that will scan the sky to study gamma-rays emitted by the explosions of massive stars and the end of their lives. These supernova explosions generate reactions that fuse new atomic nuclei, a process called nucleosynthesis, of heavier elements.

Using data from COSI, scientists will map where these elements are forming in the Milky Way galaxy. COSI’s observations will also yield new insights into the annihilation of positrons, the antimatter equivalent of electrons, which appear to be originating from the center of the galaxy. Another goal for COSI will be to rapidly report the location of short gamma-ray bursts, unimaginably violent explosions that flash and then fade in just a couple of seconds. These bursts are likely caused by merging neutron stars.

The COSI mission will be sensitive to so-called soft gamma rays, a relatively unexplored segment of the electromagnetic spectrum. The telescope is based on a design scientists have flown on research balloon flights.

NASA selected COSI in a competition for funding to become the next mission in the agency’s Explorers program in 2021. Earlier this year, NASA formally approved the mission to proceed into development for launch in August 2027, with an overall budget in the range of $267 million to $294 million, according to NASA budget documents.

From Florida to the equator

COSI is a relatively small spacecraft, built by Northrop Grumman and weighing less than a ton, but it will ride alone into orbit on top of a Falcon 9 rocket. That’s because COSI will operate in an unusual orbit about 340 miles (550 kilometers) over the equator, an orbit chosen to avoid interference from radiation over the South Atlantic Anomaly, the region where the inner Van Allen radiation belt comes closest to Earth’s surface.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 will deliver COSI directly into its operational orbit after taking off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, then will fire its upper stage in a sideways maneuver to make a turn at the equator. This type of maneuver, called a plane change, takes a lot of energy, or delta-V, on par with the delta-V required to put a heavier satellite into a much higher orbit.

File photo of a Falcon 9 launch on May 6 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.

Enlarge / File photo of a Falcon 9 launch on May 6 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.

SpaceX

NASA awarded SpaceX a firm-fixed-price contract valued at $69 million to launch the COSI mission. This is about a 37 percent increase in the price NASA paid SpaceX in a 2019 contract for launch of the similarly sized IXPE X-ray telescope into a similar orbit as COSI. The higher price is at least partially explained by inflation.

The space agency didn’t have much of a decision to make in the COSI launch contract. The Falcon 9 is the only rocket certified by NASA that can launch a satellite with the mass of COSI into its equatorial orbit.

In the next couple of years, NASA hopes United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket and Blue Origin’s New Glenn launcher will be in the mix to compete for launch contracts for missions like COSI. All of ULA’s remaining Atlas V rockets are already booked by other customers.

NASA selects SpaceX to launch a gamma-ray telescope into an unusual orbit Read More »

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Chinese space firm unintentionally launches its new rocket

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What goes up must come down —

Space Pioneer had been prepping the vehicle for its debut launch later this summer.

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The Tianlong-3 rocket as seen on its test stand before the anomaly.

Enlarge / The Tianlong-3 rocket as seen on its test stand before the anomaly.

Space Pioneer

One of the most promising Chinese space startups, Space Pioneer, experienced a serious anomaly this weekend while testing the first stage of its Tianlong-3 rocket near the city of Gongyi.

The rocket was undergoing a static fire test of the stage, in which a vehicle is clamped to a test stand while its engines are ignited, when the booster broke free. According to a statement from the company, the rocket was not sufficiently clamped down and blasted off from the test stand “due to a structural failure.”

Video of the accidental ascent showed the rocket rising several hundred meters into the sky before it crashed explosively into a mountain 1.5 km away from the test site. (See various angles of the accident here, on the social media site X, or on Weibo.) The statement from Space Pioneer sought to downplay the incident, saying it had implemented safety measures before the test, and there were no casualties as a result of the accident. “The test site is far away from the urban area of ​​Gongyi,” the company said.

This is not entirely true, however. Located in the Henan province in eastern China, alongside the Yellow River, Gongyi has a population of about 800,000 people. The test stand is only about 5 km away from the city’s downtown and less than a kilometer from a smaller village.

Such accidents are rare in the launch industry but not unprecedented. Typically, during a static fire test, the mass of propellant on board a vehicle combined with strong clamps hold a rocket down. However, in 1952, a US Viking rocket broke loose of its moorings at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. It crashed 6 km downrange of the launch site without casualties.

How big of a setback?

It is unclear how big of a setback this will be for Space Pioneer, a quasi-private company founded in 2019. A little more than a year ago, Space Pioneer became the first Chinese company to reach orbit with a liquid-fueled rocket. It did so, impressively, on the first attempt of its small Tianlong-2 rocket. This was a notable achievement, but the rocket’s engines were provided by a Chinese state-operated firm, the Academy of Aerospace Liquid Propulsion Technology, rather than the private company.

For the larger Tianlong-3 rocket, Space Pioneer says it is manufacturing its own kerosene-fueled engines, known as TH-12. (They appear to have performed as expected this weekend.) Nine of these engines will power the Tianlong-3 rocket, which is intended to have a thrust of 17 tons to low-Earth orbit. The rocket’s design and the planned reuse of its first stage mimic the Falcon 9 rocket developed by SpaceX.

Space Pioneer had been prepping the vehicle for its debut launch later this summer or fall—and first-stage static-fire tests are indicative of a rocket’s final testing phase before liftoff. The company’s statement did not set a new timeline for a launch attempt but said it would complete the fault analysis “as soon as possible.”

China has the most vibrant commercial space industry in the world after the United States. Nearly a decade ago, the country’s leadership committed to sharing state-owned technology with companies that raised private funding, seeking to emulate the commercial success of SpaceX and other US companies.

Today, there are dozens of Chinese firms developing rockets, satellites, and other spaceflight products. Space Pioneer has been among the most promising, having raised more than $400 million since its inception five years ago.

Chinese space firm unintentionally launches its new rocket Read More »

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NASA and SpaceX misjudged the risks from reentering space junk

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A European ATV cargo freighter reenters the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean in 2013.

Enlarge / A European ATV cargo freighter reenters the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean in 2013.

Since the beginning of the year, landowners have discovered several pieces of space junk traced to missions supporting the International Space Station. On all of these occasions, engineers expected none of the disposable hardware would survive the scorching heat of reentry and make it to Earth’s surface.

These incidents highlight an urgency for more research into what happens when a spacecraft makes an uncontrolled reentry into the atmosphere, according to engineers from the Aerospace Corporation, a federally funded research center based in El Segundo, California. More stuff is getting launched into space than ever before, and the trend will continue as companies deploy more satellite constellations and field heavier rockets.

“The biggest immediate need now is just to do some more work to really understand this whole process and to be in a position to be ready to accommodate new materials, new operational approaches as they happen more quickly,” said Marlon Sorge, executive director of Aerospace’s Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies. “Clearly, that’s the direction that spaceflight is going.”

Ideally, a satellite or rocket body at the end of its life could be guided to a controlled reentry into the atmosphere over a remote part of the ocean. But this is often cost-prohibitive because it would require carrying extra fuel for the de-orbit maneuvers, and in many cases, a spacecraft doesn’t have any rocket thrusters at all.

In March, a fragment from a battery pack jettisoned from the space station punched a hole in the roof of a Florida home, a rare instance of terrestrial property damage attributed to a piece of space junk. In May, a 90-pound chunk of a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft that departed the International Space Station fell on the property of a “glamping” resort in North Carolina. At the same time, a homeowner in a nearby town found a smaller piece of material that also appeared to be from the same Dragon mission.

These events followed the discovery in April of another nearly 90-pound piece of debris from a Dragon capsule on a farm in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. NASA and SpaceX later determined the debris fell from orbit in February, and earlier this month, SpaceX employees came to the farm to retrieve the wreckage, according to CBC.

Pieces of a Dragon spacecraft also fell over Colorado last year, and a farmer in Australia found debris from a Dragon capsule on his land in 2022.

NASA and SpaceX misjudged the risks from reentering space junk Read More »

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NASA orders more tests on Starliner, but says crew isn’t stranded in space

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Boeing's Starliner spacecraft is seen docked at the International Space Station on June 13.

Enlarge / Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is seen docked at the International Space Station on June 13.

NASA and Boeing officials pushed back Friday on headlines that the commercial Starliner crew capsule is stranded at the International Space Station but said they need more time to analyze data before formally clearing the spacecraft for undocking and reentry.

Two NASA astronauts, commander Butch Wilmore and pilot Suni Williams, will spend at least a few more weeks on the space station as engineers on the ground conduct thruster tests to better understand issues with the Starliner propulsion system in orbit. Wilmore and Williams launched June 5 aboard an Atlas V rocket and docked at the station the next day, completing the first segment of Starliner’s first test flight with astronauts.

NASA managers originally planned for the Starliner spacecraft to remain docked at the space station for at least eight days, although they left open the possibility of a mission extension. The test flight is now likely to last at least a month and a half, and perhaps longer, as engineers wrestle with helium leaks and thruster glitches on Starliner’s service module.

Batteries on this Starliner spacecraft were initially only certified for a 45-day mission duration, but NASA officials said they are looking at extending the limit after confirming the batteries are functioning well.

“We have the luxury of time,” said Ken Bowersox, associate administrator for NASA’s space operations mission directorate. “We’re still in the middle of a test mission. We’re still pressing forward.”

Previously, NASA and Boeing officials delayed Starliner’s reentry and landing from mid-June, then from June 26, and now they have bypassed a potential landing opportunity in early July. Last week, NASA said in a statement that the agency’s top leadership will meet to formally review the readiness of Starliner for reentry, something that wasn’t part of the original plan.

“We’re not stuck on ISS”

Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s commercial crew program, said Friday that he wanted to clear up “misunderstandings” that led to headlines claiming the Starliner spacecraft was stuck or stranded at the space station.

“I want to make it very clear that Butch and Suni are not stranded in space,” Stich said. “Our plan is to continue to return them on Starliner and return them home at the right time. We have a little bit more work to do to get there for the final return, but they’re safe on (the) space station.”

With Starliner docked, the space station currently hosts three different crew spacecraft, including SpaceX’s Crew Dragon and Russia’s Soyuz. There are no serious plans under consideration to bring Wilmore and Williams home on a different spacecraft.

“Obviously, we have the luxury of having multiple vehicles, and we work contingency plans for lots of different cases, but right now, we’re really focused on returning Butch and Suni on Starliner,” Stich said.

“We’re not stuck on the ISS,” said Mark Nappi, Boeing’s vice president in charge of the Starliner program. “It’s pretty painful to read the things that are out there. We’ve gotten a really good test flight that’s been accomplished so far, and it’s being viewed rather negatively.”

Stich said NASA officials should have “more frequent interaction” with reporters to fill in gaps of information on the Starliner test flight. NASA’s written updates are not always timely, and often lack details and context.

NASA officials have cleared the Starliner spacecraft for an emergency return to Earth if astronauts need to evacuate the space station for safety or medical reasons. But NASA hasn’t yet approved Starliner for reentry and landing under “nominal” conditions.

“When it is a contingency situation, we’re ready to put the crew on the spacecraft and bring them home as a lifeboat,” Bowersox said. “For the nominal entry, we want to look at the data more before we make the final call to put the crew aboard the vehicle, and it’s a serious enough call that we’ll bring the senior management team together (for approval).”

NASA orders more tests on Starliner, but says crew isn’t stranded in space Read More »

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Mere days before its debut, the Ariane 6 rocket loses a key customer to SpaceX

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Zut Alors! —

“I am impatiently waiting to understand what reasons could have led Eumetsat to such a decision.”

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The flight hardware core stage for Europe’s new rocket, Ariane 6, is moved onto the launch pad for the first time. A launch is due to occur on July 9, 2024.

Enlarge / The flight hardware core stage for Europe’s new rocket, Ariane 6, is moved onto the launch pad for the first time. A launch is due to occur on July 9, 2024.

ESA-M. Pédoussaut

In a shocking announcement this week, the European intergovernmental organization responsible for launching and operating the continent’s weather satellites has pulled its next mission off a future launch of Europe’s new Ariane 6 rocket. Instead, the valuable MTG-S1 satellite will now reach geostationary orbit on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket in 2025.

“This decision was driven by exceptional circumstances” said Phil Evans, director general of the organization Eumetsat. “It does not compromise our standard policy of supporting European partners, and we look forward to a successful SpaceX launch for this masterpiece of European technology.”

The decision, taken at a council meeting of Eumetsat’s 30 member nations on Wednesday and Thursday, comes less than two weeks before the debut of the Ariane 6 rocket, scheduled for July 9.

Stabbed in the back

Outwardly, at least, this decision reflects a lack of confidence in the reliability of the Ariane 6 rocket, the ability of European companies ArianeGroup and Arianespace to produce future versions of the Ariane 6, or both. It comes not just on the eve of the long-awaited debut of the Ariane 6, but also at a time when European officials are trying to close ranks and ensure that satellites built in Europe get launched on European rockets.

The retirement of the Ariane 5 rocket last July, and years of delays in the readiness for the Ariane 6 rocket, have led to a painful period in which European officials have had to come hat-in-hand to their longtime competitor and nemesis in the rocket industry, SpaceX, for launch services. As a result some of Europe’s most valuable missions, including the Euclid space telescope and several Galileo satellites, have already launched on the Falcon 9.

This has been embarrassing enough for European launch officials, who effectively created the concept of “commercial” space launch with the first Ariane rockets decades ago. For a long time, they, alongside Russia, were the kings of launching other people’s satellites. But now, on the eve of restoring European access to space, Eumetsat has effectively stabbed this industry in the back.

That is not too strong of language, either. In its release, Eumetsat described its new Meteosat Third Generation-Sounder 1 satellite as a “unique masterpiece of European technology.” The organization added, “This first European sounding satellite in a geostationary orbit will bring a revolution for weather forecasting and climate monitoring in Europe and Africa, and make it possible, for the first time, to observe the full lifecycle of a convective storm from space.” Critically, Eutmetsat was not willing to entrust this spacecraft to Europe’s new flagship rocket.

Philippe Baptiste, the chairman and chief executive of the French space agency CNES, certainly felt the sting, calling the decision a “brutal change” and saying it was a “disappointing day” for European space efforts.

“I am impatiently waiting to understand what reasons could have led Eumetsat to such a decision, at a time where all major European space countries as well as the European Commission are calling for launching European satellites on European launchers!” Baptiste wrote on LinkedIn. “Not mentioning the fact that we are 10 days away from the maiden flight of Ariane 6. How far will we, Europeans, go in our naivety?”

Why did they do this?

It is difficult to fully understand the motivations of Eumetsat in this decision. Most probably, there were some timing and reliability concerns. The MTG-S1 satellite was due to launch on the third flight of the Ariane 6 rocket, a mission nominally scheduled for early 2025. On this timeline the satellite very likely would have gotten to space more quickly than it otherwise would now on a Falcon 9.

However, because this 4-ton satellite is going to geostationary orbit, it would have been the first mission to require the use of a more powerful version of the Ariane 6 rocket. Instead of using two solid-rocket boosters, this “64” version of the rocket uses four solid-rocket boosters. It seems likely that Eumetsat officials had concerns that the timeline for this launch would drag out and perhaps some mission assurance concerns about being the first launch of an Ariane 64 rocket.

Whatever their reasons, the European satellite officials have thrown a massive turd into the punchbowl at festivities for the debut of the Ariane 6 rocket.

Mere days before its debut, the Ariane 6 rocket loses a key customer to SpaceX Read More »

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Rocket Report: China flies reusable rocket hopper; Falcon Heavy dazzles

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SpaceX's 10th Falcon Heavy rocket climbs into orbit with a new US government weather satellite.

Enlarge / SpaceX’s 10th Falcon Heavy rocket climbs into orbit with a new US government weather satellite.

Welcome to Edition 6.50 of the Rocket Report! SpaceX launched its 10th Falcon Heavy rocket this week with the GOES-U weather satellite for NOAA, and this one was a beauty. The late afternoon timing of the launch and atmospheric conditions made for great photography. Falcon Heavy has become a trusted rocket for the US government, and its next flight in October will deploy NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft on the way to explore one of Jupiter’s enigmatic icy moons.

As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

Sir Peter Beck dishes on launch business. Ars spoke with the recently knighted Peter Beck, founder and CEO of Rocket Lab, on where his scrappy company fits in a global launch marketplace dominated by SpaceX. Rocket Lab racked up the third-most number of orbital launches by any US launch company (it’s headquartered in California but primarily assembles and launches rockets in New Zealand). SpaceX’s rideshare launch business with the Falcon 9 rocket is putting immense pressure on small launch companies like Rocket Lab. However, Beck argues his Electron rocket is a bespoke solution for customers desiring to put their satellite in a specific place at a specific time, a luxury they can’t count on with a SpaceX rideshare.

Ruthlessly efficient … A word that Beck returned to throughout his interview with Ars was “ruthless.” He said Rocket Lab’s success is a result of the company being “ruthlessly efficient and not making mistakes.” At one time, Rocket Lab was up against Virgin Orbit in the small launch business, and Virgin Orbit had access to capital through billionaire Richard Branson. Now, SpaceX is the 800-pound gorilla in the market. “We have a saying here at Rocket Lab that we have no money, so we have to think. We’ve never been in a position to outspend our competitors. We just have to out-think them. We have to be lean and mean.”

Firefly reveals plans for new launch sites. Firefly Aerospace plans to use the state of Virginia-owned launch pad at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility for East Coast launches of its Alpha small-satellite rocket, Aviation Week reports. The company plans to use Pad 0A for US military and other missions, particularly those requiring tight turnaround between procurement and launch. This is the same launch pad previously used by Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket, and it’s the soon-to-be home of the Medium Launch Vehicle (MLV) jointly developed by Northrop and Firefly. The launch pad will be configured for Alpha launches beginning in 2025, according to Firefly, which previously planned to develop an Alpha launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Now, Alpha and MLV rockets will fly from the same site on the East Coast, while Alpha will continue launching from the West Coast at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California.

Hello, Sweden… A few days after the announcement for launches from Virginia, Firefly unveiled a collaborative agreement with Swedish Space Corporation to launch Alpha rockets from the Esrange Space Center in Sweden as soon as 2026. Esrange has been the departure point for numerous suborbital and sounding rocket for nearly 50 years, but the spaceport is being upgraded for orbital satellite launches. A South Korean startup named Perigee Aerospace announced in May it signed an agreement to be the first user of Esrange’s orbital launch capability. Firefly is the second company to make plans to launch satellites from the remote site in northern Sweden. (submitted by Ken the Bin and brianrhurley)

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China hops closer to reusable rockets. The Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST), part of China’s apparatus of state-owned aerospace companies, has conducted the country’s highest altitude launch and landing test so far as several teams chase reusable rocket capabilities, Space News reports. A 3.8-meter-diameter (9.2-foot) test article powered by three methane liquid-oxygen engines lifted off from the Gobi Desert on June 23 and soared to an altitude of about 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) before setting down successfully for a vertical propulsive touchdown on landing legs at a nearby landing area. SAST will follow up with a 70-kilometer (43.5-mile) suborbital test using grid fins for better control. A first orbital flight of the new reusable rocket is planned for 2025.

Lots of players … If you don’t exclusively follow China’s launch sector, you should be forgiven for being unable to list all the companies working on new reusable rockets. Late last year, a Chinese startup named iSpace flew a hopper rocket testbed to an altitude of several hundred meters as part of a development program for the company’s upcoming partially reusable Hyperbola 2 rocket. A company named Space Pioneer plans to launch its medium-class Tianlong 3 rocket for the first time later this year. Tianlong 3 looks remarkably like SpaceX’s Falcon 9, and its first stage will eventually be made reusable. China recently test-fired engines for the government’s new Long March 10, a partially reusable rocket planned to become China’s next-generation crew launch vehicle. These are just a few of the reusable rocket programs in China. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Spanish launch startup invests in Kourou. PLD Space says it is ready to start construction at a disused launch complex at the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana. The Spanish launch startup announced this week a 10 million euro ($10.7 million) investment in the launch complex for its Miura 5 rocket, with preparations of the site set to begin “after the summer.” The launch pad was previously used by the French Diamant rocket in the 1970s and is located several miles away from the launch pads used by the European Ariane 6 and Vega rockets. PLD Space is on track to become the first fully commercial company to launch from the spaceport in South America.

Free access to space … Also this week, PLD Space announced a new program to offer space aboard the first two flights of its Miura 5 rocket for free, European Spaceflight reports. The two-stage Miura 5 rocket will be capable of delivering about a half-ton of payload mass into a Sun-synchronous orbit. PLD Space will offer free launch services aboard the first two Miura 5 flights, which are expected to take place in late 2025 and early 2026. The application process will close on July 30, and winning proposals will be announced on November 30. (submitted by Ken the Bin and EllPeaTea)

Rocket Report: China flies reusable rocket hopper; Falcon Heavy dazzles Read More »

nasa-will-pay-spacex-nearly-$1-billion-to-deorbit-the-international-space-station

NASA will pay SpaceX nearly $1 billion to deorbit the International Space Station

deorbit, iss, NASA, Science, Space, spacex / /
Illustration of the SpaceX Dragon XL as it is deployed from the Falcon Heavy's second stage in high Earth orbit on its way to the Gateway in lunar orbit.

Enlarge / Illustration of the SpaceX Dragon XL as it is deployed from the Falcon Heavy’s second stage in high Earth orbit on its way to the Gateway in lunar orbit.

SpaceX

NASA has awarded an $843 million contract to SpaceX to develop a “US Deorbit Vehicle.” This spacecraft will dock to the International Space Station in 2029 and then ensure the large facility makes a controlled reentry through Earth’s atmosphere before splashing into the ocean in 2030.

“Selecting a US Deorbit Vehicle for the International Space Station will help NASA and its international partners ensure a safe and responsible transition in low Earth orbit at the end of station operations,” said Ken Bowersox, NASA’s associate administrator for Space Operations, in a statement. “This decision also supports NASA’s plans for future commercial destinations and allows for the continued use of space near Earth.”

NASA has a couple of reasons for bringing the space station’s life to a close in 2030. Foremost among these is that the station is aging. Parts of it are now a quarter of a century old. There are cracks on the Russian segment of the space station that are spreading. Although the station could likely be maintained beyond 2030, it would require increasing amounts of crew time to keep flying the station safely.

Additionally, NASA is seeking to foster a commercial economy in low-Earth orbit. To that end, it is working with several private companies to develop commercial space stations that would be able to house NASA astronauts, as well as those from other countries and private citizens, by or before 2030. By setting an end date for the station’s lifetime and sticking with it, NASA can help those private companies raise money from investors.

Do we have to sink the station?

The station, the largest object humans have ever constructed in space, is too large to allow it to make an uncontrolled return to Earth. It has a mass of 450 metric tons and is about the size of an American football field. The threat to human life and property is too great. Hence the need for a deorbit vehicle.

The space agency considered alternatives to splashing the station down into a remote area of an ocean. One option involved moving the station into a stable parking orbit at 40,000 km above Earth, above geostationary orbit. However, the agency said this would require 3,900 m/s of delta-V, compared to the approximately 47 m/s of delta-V needed to deorbit the station. In terms of propellant, NASA estimated moving to a higher orbit would require 900 metric tons, or the equivalent of 150 to 250 cargo supply vehicles.

NASA also considered partially disassembling the station before its reentry but found this would be much more complex and risky than a controlled deorbit that kept the complex intact.

The NASA announcement did not specify what vehicle SpaceX would use to perform the deorbit burn, but we can draw some clues from the public documents for the contract procurement. For example, NASA will select a rocket for the mission at a later date, but probably no later than 2026. This would support a launch date in 2029, to have the deorbit vehicle docked to the station one year before the planned reentry.

NASA will pay SpaceX nearly $1 billion to deorbit the International Space Station Read More »

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Some European launch officials still have their heads stuck in the sand

ariane 6, falcon 9, Science, Space, starship / /

This is fine —

“Starship will not eradicate Ariane 6 at all.”

–

The first stage of Ariane 6 rocket Europe's Spaceport in Kourou in the French overseas department of Guiana, on March 26, 2024.

Enlarge / The first stage of Ariane 6 rocket Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou in the French overseas department of Guiana, on March 26, 2024.

LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP via Getty Images

There was a panel discussion at a space conference in Singapore 11 years ago that has since become legendary in certain corners of the space industry for what it reveals about European attitudes toward upstart SpaceX.

The panel included representatives from a handful of launch enterprises, including Europe-based Arianespace, and the US launch company SpaceX. At one point during the discussion, the host asked the Arianespace representative—its chief of sales in Southeast Asia, Richard Bowles—how the institutional European company would respond to SpaceX’s promise of lower launch costs and reuse with the Falcon 9 rocket.

“What I’m discovering in the market is that SpaceX primarily seems to be selling a dream, which is good. We should all dream,” Bowles replied. “I think a $5 million launch or a $15 million launch is a bit of a dream. Personally, I think reusability is a dream. How am I going to respond to a dream? My answer to respond to a dream is, first of all, you don’t wake people up.”

To be fair to Bowles, at the time of his remarks, SpaceX had only launched the Falcon 9 five times by the middle of 2013. But his condescension was nevertheless something to behold.

Later in the discussion, Bowles added that he did not believe launching 100 times a year, something that SpaceX was starting to talk about, was “realistic.” Then, in a moment of high paternalism, he turned to the SpaceX official on the panel and said, “You shouldn’t present things that are not realistic.”

In response, Barry Matsumori, a senior vice president at SpaceX, calmly said he would let his company’s response come through its actions.

Actions do speak louder than words

Eleven years later, of course, SpaceX is launching more than 100 times a year. The company’s internal price for launching a Falcon 9 is significantly less than $20 million. And all of this is possible through the reuse of the rocket’s first stage and payload fairings, each of which have now proven capable of flying 20 or more times.

One might think that, in the decade since, European launch officials would have learned their lesson. After all, last year, the continent had to resort to launching its valuable Euclid Space Telescope on a Falcon 9 rocket. This year, because the new European Ariane 6 rocket was not yet ready after myriad delays, multiple Galileo satellites have been launched and will be launched on the Falcon 9 rocket.

Some officials have taken note. In a candid commentary last year, European Space Agency chief Josef Aschbacher acknowledged that the continent faced an “acute” launcher crisis amid the Ariane 6 delays and the rise of SpaceX as a launch competitor. “SpaceX has undeniably changed the launcher market paradigm as we know it,” Aschbacher wrote. “With the dependable reliability of Falcon 9 and the captivating prospects of Starship, SpaceX continues to totally redefine the world’s access to space, pushing the boundaries of possibility as they go along.”

But not everyone got the message, it seems.

Next month, the Ariane 6 rocket should finally make its debut. It will probably be successful. Europe has excellent technical capabilities in regard to launch. But from day one, the Ariane 6 launch vehicle will cost significantly more than the Falcon 9 rocket, which has similar capabilities, and offer no provision for reuse. Certainly, it will meet Europe’s institutional needs. But it likely will not shake up the market, nor realistically compete with a fully reusable Falcon 9.

Who really needs to be woken up?

And what about Starship? If and when SpaceX can deliver it to the market, the next-generation rocket will offer a fully reusable booster with five times the lift capacity of the Ariane 6 rocket for half its cost or less. How can Europe hope to compete with that? The European Space Agency’s director of space transportation, Toni Tolker-Nielsen—who works for Aschbacher, it should be noted—said he’s not concerned.

“Honestly, I don’t think Starship will be a game-changer or a real competitor,” he said in an interview with Space News. “This huge launcher is designed to fly people to the Moon and Mars. Ariane 6 is perfect for the job if you need to launch a four- or five-ton satellite. Starship will not eradicate Ariane 6 at all.”

In one sense, Tolker-Nielsen is correct. Starship will not change how Europe gets its small and medium-sized satellites into space. Made and launched in Europe, the Ariane 6 rocket will be a workhorse for the continent. Indeed, some European officials are going so far as to press for legislation mandating that European satellites launch on European rockets.

But to say Starship will not be a game-changer represents the same head-in-the-sand attitude displayed by Bowles a decade ago with his jokes about not waking the deluded dreamers up. In hindsight, it’s clear that the dreamers were not SpaceX or its customers. Rather, they were European officials who had lulled themselves into thinking their dominance in commercial launch would persist without innovation.

While they slumbered, these officials ignored the rise of reusability. They decided the Ariane 6 rocket should look like its expendable predecessors, with solid rocket boosters. Meanwhile, following the rise of the Falcon 9, nearly all new rocket projects have incorporated a significant reusability component. It’s no longer just SpaceX founder Elon Musk saying companies need to pursue reuse or perish. Almost everyone is.

Perhaps someone should wake Tolker-Nielsen up.

Some European launch officials still have their heads stuck in the sand Read More »

nasa’s-commercial-spacesuit-program-just-hit-a-major-snag

NASA’s commercial spacesuit program just hit a major snag

collins, Science, Space, suit / /

Suit issues —

“Unfortunately Collins has been significantly behind schedule.”

–

NASA astronaut Christina Koch (right) poses for a portrait with fellow Expedition 61 Flight Engineer Jessica Meir, who is inside a US spacesuit for a fit check.

Enlarge / NASA astronaut Christina Koch (right) poses for a portrait with fellow Expedition 61 Flight Engineer Jessica Meir, who is inside a US spacesuit for a fit check.

NASA

Almost exactly two years ago, as it prepared for the next generation of human spaceflight, NASA chose a pair of private companies to design and develop new spacesuits. These were to be new spacesuits that would allow astronauts to both perform spacewalks outside the International Space Station as well as walk on the Moon as part of the Artemis program.

Now, that plan appears to be in trouble, with one of the spacesuit providers—Collins Aerospace—expected to back out, Ars has learned. It’s a blow for NASA, because the space agency really needs modern spacesuits.

NASA’s Apollo-era suits have long been retired. The current suits used for spacewalks in low-Earth orbit are four decades old. “These new capabilities will allow us to continue on the ISS and allows us to do the Artemis program and continue on to Mars,” said the director of Johnson Space Center, Vanessa Wyche, during a celebratory news conference in Houston two years ago.

The two winning teams were led by Collins Aerospace and Axiom Space, respectively. They were eligible for task orders worth up to $3.5 billion—in essence NASA would rent the use of these suits for a couple of decades. Since then, NASA has designated Axiom to work primarily on a suit for the Moon and the Artemis Program, and Collins with developing a suit for operations in-orbit, such as space station servicing.

Collins exits

This week, however, Collins said it will likely end its participation in the Exploration Extravehicular Activity Services, or xEVAS, contract. On Tuesday morning Chris Ayers, general manager at Collins Aerospace, met with employees to tell them about the company’s exit from the program. A NASA source confirmed decision.

“Unfortunately Collins has been significantly behind schedule,” a person familiar with the situation told Ars. “Collins has admitted they have drastically underperformed and have overspent on their xEVAS work, culminating in a request to be taken off the contract or renegotiate the scope and their budget.”

NASA and Collins Aerospace acknowledged a request for comment sent by Ars early on Tuesday morning but as of the afternoon did not provide substantive replies to questions about this action, nor steps forward.

The agency has been experiencing periodic problems with the maintenance of the suits built decades ago, known as the Extravehicular Mobility Unit, which made its debut in the 1980s. NASA has acknowledged the suit has exceeded its planned design lifetime. Just this Monday the agency had to halt a spacewalk after the airlock had been de-pressurized and hatch opened due to a water leak in the service and cooling umbilical unit of Tracy Dyson’s spacesuit.

As a result of this problem, NASA will likely only be able to conduct a single spacewalk this summer, after initially planning three, to complete work outside the International Space Station.

Increased pressure on Axiom

During the bidding process for the commercial spacesuit program, which unfolded in 2021 and 2022, just two bidders ultimately emerged. A unit of Raytheon Technologies, Collins was the bidder with the most experience in spacesuits, having designed the original Apollo suits, and it partnered with experienced providers ILC Dover and Oceaneering. Axiom is a newer company that, until the spacesuit competition, was largely focused on developing a private space station.

As they evaluated bids, NASA officials raised some concerns about Collins’ approach, noting that the proposal relied on “rapid acceleration of technology maturation and resolution of key technical trade studies to achieve their proposed schedule.” However, in its source selection statement, the agency concluded that it had a “high level of confidence” that Collins would be able to deliver on its spacesuits.

It is not clear what NASA will do now. One person suggested that NASA would not seek to immediately re-compete the xEVAS because it could signal to private investors that Axiom is not capable of delivering on its spacesuit contracts. (Like a lot of other companies in this capital-constrained era, Axiom Space, according to sources, has been struggling to raise a steady stream of private investment.)

Another source, however, suggested that NASA likely would seek to bring a new partner on board to compete with Axiom. The space agency did something similar in 2007 with its Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program to provide cargo to the space station. When Rocketplane Kistler could not deliver on its commitments, the agency recompeted the contract and ultimately selected Orbital Sciences. If NASA were to re-open competition, one of the bidders could be SpaceX, which has already designed a basic spacesuit to support the private Polaris Dawn mission.

Since the awards two years ago, Axiom has been making comparatively better technical progress on its spacesuit, which is based on the Extravehicular Mobility Unit design that NASA has used for decades. However, the Houston-based company has yet to complete the critical design review process, which can be demanding. Axiom is also battling a difficult supply chain environment—which is especially problematic given that NASA has not built new suits for such a long time.

NASA’s commercial spacesuit program just hit a major snag Read More »