Space, Rockets, Satellites, oh my!

[Quickshot0]

Do these happen to be Methane Engines then? Lately the more modern engines seem to be moving to fuel mixtures like that after all.

 

[thanix01]

Do these happen to be Methane Engines then? Lately the more modern engines seem to be moving to fuel mixtures like that after all.

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Nah these are YF-100K engine an uprated version of China YF-100 staged combustion Kerolox Engine, which some speculate to be derived from the Soviet RD-120.

It is pretty safe choice for their first manned lunar rocket since the engine predecessor YF-100 have been in service for almost 2 decade now.

 

[silentorphan]

NASA delays Artemis 2 moon mission to 2026, Artemis 3 astronaut landing to mid-2027

Artemis 2, the first crewed moon mission since 1972, had been targeted for September 2025.

www.space.com

NASA announced today (Dec. 5) that it's delaying the planned launch of Artemis 2, a flight that will send four people around the moon and back, from September 2025 to April 2026. And Artemis 3, a crewed moon landing that had been targeted for late 2026, is now scheduled for mid-2027. The extra time is needed primarily to finish prepping the Orion capsule for its first-ever crewed flights, according to NASA officials.

... [P]ostflight analyses [after Artemis 1] revealed that Orion's heat shield wore away more unevenly during its reentry to Earth's atmosphere than engineers had predicted. Temperatures inside Orion remained near room temperature, meaning that astronauts would have remained safe, had any been aboard. But engineers needed to figure out what happened — and they've now come to some conclusions, NASA officials announced in today's press conference.

The uneven ablation was a consequence of Orion's "skip" reentry trajectory, in which the capsule bounced off the atmosphere and then came back in again multiple times. This strategy is required to dissipate the tremendous energy associated with high-speed returns from the moon, NASA officials said, but it had an unexpected downside on Artemis 1.

More heat was retained than expected in the outer layers of the heat shield, forming gases that were trapped in the material. "This caused internal pressure to build up and led to cracking and uneven shedding of that outer layer," [NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy] said.

... [P]lanners will alter the reentry trajectory [for future Artemis missions] to minimize the issues experienced during Artemis 1.

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Artemis 2 likely would've been delayed by a year or so, to late 2026, had a heat-shield replacement been required, NASA officials said today. But the mission team still needs more time than originally envisioned to get Orion up to crew-carrying speed, explaining the roughly six-month push.

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PSLV rocket launches Europe’s Proba-3 mission to mimic solar eclipses

HELSINKI — India launched the Proba-3 European technology demonstration mission Wednesday which will use a pair of spacecraft to create artificial solar eclipses. A Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (…

spacenews.com

A Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) lifted off at 5:34 a.m. Eastern (1034 UTC, 4:34 p.m. local time) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre. It successfully sent the Occulter and Coronagraph spacecraft pair forming the Proba-3 mission into the desired orbit. Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman S. Somanath congratulated both the PSLV project and Proba-3 teams following separation of the spacecraft.

The launch was originally scheduled to occur at 5:38 ET (1038 GMT) on Wednesday Dec.4, but was scrubbed due to a technical issue.

The 550-kilogram European Space Agency's Proba-3 mission aims to study the solar corona by emulating a total solar eclipse using two spacecraft flying in precise formation.

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The launch was India's fourth of 2024. It follows the early January launch of the XPoSat X-ray astronomy satellite on a PSLV, the INSAT-3DS meteorological satellite on a [Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle] in February, and the solid [Small Satellite Launch Vehicle] rocket launch of the EOS-08 Earth observation satellite in September.

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Europe's Vega-C rocket returns to space after two-year gap

Europe's Arianespace launched the Vega-C rocket on Thursday, marking a return to space for the upgraded Italian launcher two years after it failed during a debut commercial mission.

Carrying the Sentinel-1C satellite into orbit for the European Union's flagship Copernicus Earth observation programme, Vega-C blasted off into leaden skies from its Kourou launch pad in French Guiana at 6:20 p.m. (2120 GMT), live images showed.

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In December 2022, Vega rockets were grounded after the latest model failed two-and-a-half minutes into its second mission - and the first commercial flight - due to an anomaly with a motor, destroying two Earth-imaging satellites.

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Sentinel-1C is expected to expand radar imagery to monitor Earth's environment. With 12 Sentinel satellite families, developers say Copernicus is the world's biggest Earth observation system and holds the largest store of radar data.

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[silentorphan]

Orbex halts work on own spaceport, shifts launches to SaxaVord

Small launch vehicle developer Orbex will halt work on its own launch site in northern Scotland and instead use a rival facility in the Shetland Islands.

spacenews.com

Orbex announced Dec. 4 that it would "pause" construction of Sutherland Spaceport in Scotland and instead use the SaxaVord Spaceport on the island of Unst in the Shetlands for its Prime launch vehicle.

The move, Orbex said, will free up resources to allow the company to focus on launch vehicle development, including both Prime and a new medium-class vehicle called Proxima.

Orbex had been linked to Spaceport Sutherland since the U.K. Space Agency announced in 2018 it selected the site for a vertical launch complex. The agency awarded contracts to both Orbex and Lockheed Martin to conduct launches from the site.

Lockheed Martin, partnered with ABL Space Systems, subsequently shifted its launch to SaxaVord; ABL announced Nov. 15 it was pivoting from launch to missile defense. Orbex, though, continued to work on the Sutherland launch site, going through a years-long approval process that the company said in 2023 was complete.

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Orbex had not disclosed the full cost of developing the spaceport, which had backing of more than £‎14 million pounds from various government organizations. The company did not state how much it will save by launching from SaxaVord, which will still require construction of facilities to support Prime.

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