Space, Rockets, Satellites, oh my!

Quickshot0 · Nov 30, 2024

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 · Nov 30, 2024

Quickshot0 said:
Do these happen to be Methane Engines then? Lately the more modern engines seem to be moving to fuel mixtures like that after all.

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 · Dec 5, 2024

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.

...

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.

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.

...

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.

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.

...

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.

...

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.

silentorphan · Dec 6, 2024

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.

...

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.

silentorphan · Dec 18, 2024

silentorphan said:
Boom.

Japan's Space One rocket explodes shortly after launch

The firm's solid-fuel Kairos rocket burst into flames just seconds after liftoff, in a major setback for Japan’s space development aspirations.

www.japantimes.co.jp

Boom.

Second Kairos launch fails

The second flight of a Japanese small launch vehicle failed when the vehicle lost control a couple minutes after its Dec. 17 liftoff.

spacenews.com

The Kairos rocket lifted off from Spaceport Kii, a launch site in southern Honshu, at 9 p.m. Eastern. Weather conditions postponed launch attempts on Dec. 13 and 14.

The [18-meter, 23-ton] solid-fuel rocket swiftly ascended from the pad and appeared to be flying normally in the initial phases of the flight. However, video of the launch showed that the vehicle appeared to lose attitude control about two minutes after liftoff, tumbling and creating a corkscrew contrail.

Space One terminated the flight some three minutes into the flight at an altitude of 62 miles (100 kilometers). ... [The company] acknowledged in a statement that the launch failed, but provided few details about what happened.

... The rocket was carrying five satellites developed by Japanese commercial firms, high school students and a Taiwanese company.

...

Space One's Kairos rocket features three solid-fuel stages and a liquid propellant upper stage. It was designed to carry payloads up to 550 pounds (250 kilograms) into low Earth orbit, filling a gap in Japan's current competitiveness in the space launch market.

silentorphan · Dec 22, 2024

Axiom's private space station is coming sooner than we thought

Axiom Station could become a free flyer as early as 2028.

www.space.com

By revising the order in which it will launch the station's modules to Earth orbit, Axiom Space will be able to start operating a free-flying platform as early as 2028, the Houston-based company announced this week.

Axiom previously planned to start operating its private space station in 2030, so the new plan moves up the timeline by two years.

...

To create its space station, Axiom plans to launch five modules: a payload/power/thermal element, an airlock, a research/manufacturing hub, and a pair of habitat modules. The original plan was for Axiom to launch the Habitat 1 module to the ISS first, followed by the additional elements.

The new assembly sequence will see the Payload, Power and Thermal module launch to the ISS first. This module could detach from the station — and become a free flyer called Axiom Station — as soon as 2028, according to the company.

After that happens, Axiom will continue assembling the outpost, launching the Habitat 1 module to meet up with it. Habitat 1 will be followed by the airlock, the Habitat 2 module, and then the research and manufacturing facility.

NASA delays launch of heliophysics missions

NASA is delaying the launch of three missions to study the sun by several months because of issues with the primary payload.

spacenews.com

In a statement issued after the close of business Dec. 20, NASA announced the launch of its Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) spacecraft on a Falcon 9, previously scheduled for the spring of 2025, had been pushed back to no earlier than September. The agency said only that the delay gives "additional time for IMAP flight systems preparations prior to launch."

IMAP will operate from the Earth-sun L-1 Lagrange point, 1.5 million kilometers from Earth in the direction of the sun. It will study the heliosphere, the magnetic bubble created by the sun that shields the solar system from interstellar particles. It will also examine the solar wind.

IMAP was once scheduled to launch in 2024 but has slipped several times. In November 2023, NASA delayed the launch from February 2025 to April or May 2025 after completing a review called Key Decision Point D, stating that then delay would "ensure that the project team has adequate resources to address risks and technical complexities during system integration and testing."

Rocket Lab launches sixth Synspective radar imaging satellite

A Rocket Lab Electron successfully launched a radar satellite for Synspective Dec. 21, days after that Japanese company lifted off on the stock market.

spacenews.com

The Electron rocket lifted off from Pad B of Rocket Lab's Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand at 9:17 a.m. Eastern. The launch was postponed a few days because of weather and a previous launch attempt was scrubbed Dec. 20 when the company reported an out-of-family reading with an unspecified sensor.

The Electron's payload, a StriX synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging satellite developed and operated by Japanese company Synspective, was deployed by the kick stage into sun-synchronous orbit nearly an hour after liftoff.

The launch was the sixth StriX satellite for Synspective, all on Electron rockets. The company signed a contract with Rocket Lab in June for 10 additional Electron launches from 2025 through 2027. Rocket Lab said at the time that the contract, whose value was undisclosed, was the largest launch contract it had signed to date.

...

The launch was the first for Synspective since the company went public on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Growth Market Dec. 19. The company announced plans to sell 21.3 million shares, with an overallotment of nearly 3.2 million shares, at 480 yen (US$3.07) per share.

silentorphan · Dec 29, 2024

Blue Origin hot fires New Glenn rocket for first time and scores FAA license for test launch

The hotfire was completed just hours after the FAA gave clearance for New Glenn's first launch

www.space.com

Standing atop Launch Complex 36 (LC-36) at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, the company's New Glenn rocket conducted a successful 24-second seven-engine hotfire on Friday night (Dec. 27). It was the first time that the entire launch vehicle operated as a integrated system.

...

The company said the test campaign demonstrated "day-of-launch" operations of the rocket and validate vehicle and ground systems before an actual launch attempt. "The campaign met all objectives and marks the final major test prior to launch," the company stated.

The test came hours after the Federal Aviation Administration granted a launch license to Blue Origin for New Glenn. The FAA determined the company met all safety, environmental and other licensing requirements. The license authorizes the company to carry out New Glenn launches from Cape Canaveral, although with few details about specific trajectories or other conditions for such launches.

Hal Jordan · Dec 30, 2024

when are we supposed to land on the moon again?

Quickshot0 · Dec 30, 2024

Hal Jordan said:
when are we supposed to land on the moon again?

I think under current real world funding and technological constraints, it probably won't happen any earlier then 2027-2028. Substantial progress is happening towards it, but the total list of things to achieve before a landing can be safely attempted is long.

Current official timeline for it... not sure, though I doubt it's any earlier then 2026.

Tasrill · Dec 30, 2024

Artemis III (the landing one) currently has a no earlier than time of mid-2027.

NASA further delays next Artemis missions

WASHINGTON — NASA has further delayed the next two Artemis missions to the moon, pushing back the first crewed landing of the program to the middle of 2027. At a press conference Dec. 5, NASA leade…

spacenews.com

mistakenot · Jan 3, 2025

Europe's OneWeb satellite constellation, a competitor to SpaceX's Starlink, has recovered from a two-day outage due to a leap year bug:

Eutelsat resolves OneWeb leap year software glitch after two-day outage

Eutelsat said Jan. 2 it has restored services across its low Earth orbit OneWeb broadband network following a two-day outage.

spacenews.com

Article:

The software issue was caused by a failure to account for 2024 being a leap year, according to Eutelsat spokesperson Joanna Darlington, who told SpaceNews that services were partially restored 36 hours after the disruption began Dec. 31.

[ . . . ]

Eutelsat says its multi-orbit capabilities give it an edge amid Starlink's dominance in LEO, as the French operator plans to supplement OneWeb services with geostationary capacity in high-demand areas.

The geostationary fleet also provides network redundancy, according to Eutelsat, although its geostationary satellites were not used to provide backup services during the recent outage.

Source: https://spacenews.com/eutelsat-resolves-oneweb-leap-year-software-glitch-after-two-day-outage/

Leap Year Calendar Error Takes Down OneWeb Constellation | Aviation Week Network

“The root cause was identified as a software issue within the ground segment,” Eutelsat said on Jan. 2.

aviationweek.com

Article:

Eutelsat's OneWeb constellation went down for 48 hr. after its ground segment, maintained by Hughes Network Systems, was not programed so that 2024 was a 366-day-long leap year. The calendar error caused the "manual calculation for the GPS to UTC offset," Eutelsat said on Jan. 3.

Source: https://aviationweek.com/space/commercial-space/leap-year-calendar-error-takes-down-oneweb-constellation

Since OneWeb has relatively few customers and mostly caters to businesses rather than directly to consumers, I guess it wasn't as disruptive as such a prolonged Starlink outage would be.

Condolences to the poor programmer who forgot to account for leap years.

mistakenot · Jan 12, 2025

New Glenn, Blue Origin's first orbital rocket, will launch in approximately one hour: Jan 13, 2025 at 1:00 AM

For anyone out of the loop, Blue Origin is a private rocket company founded 24 years ago by Jeff Bezos, former CEO of Amazon. Blue Origin previously launched New Shepard, a small suborbital rocket that took tourists on short hops into space, but it has never launched a payload into orbit before.

That all changes with New Glenn, a partially-reusable rocket that will recover its first stage by landing it on a barge.

https://www.blueorigin.com/missions/ng-1

Article:

New Glenn will launch for the first time from LC-36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The NG-1 mission will carry our Blue Ring Pathfinder and mark the vehicle's first National Security Space Launch certification flight.

[ MISSION UPDATES ]

Source: https://www.blueorigin.com/missions/ng-1

View: https://x.com/blueorigin/status/1878079517484265811

Here's a glimpse of the New Glenn-1 flight profile 🚀

View: https://x.com/blueorigin/status/1878094619063325180

From reusability to engine development to operational experience, New Shepard helped pave the way for New Glenn.

View: https://x.com/blueorigin/status/1878139886013722792

The New Glenn-1 launch may be visible to those throughout the regions below, weather permitting. Here's when and where to look to the skies!

Official livestream and other commentary streams:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOEPTWQrN7A

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1D8ymH0cHoQ

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YBAsi5pY2o

Good luck to Blue Origin and the New Glenn team!

silentorphan · Jan 13, 2025

Update.

Blue Origin scrubs 1st New Glenn rocket launch due to technical issue

It's unclear when the powerful new rocket will make its debut.

www.space.com

Blue Origin, the aerospace company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, aimed to launch its first New Glenn heavy-lift rocket from Florida's Space Coast this morning (Jan. 13), during a three-hour window that opened at 1 a.m. EST (0600 GMT).

Blue Origin pushed the planned launch time back multiple times before finally calling the attempt off at around 3:10 a.m. EST (0810 GMT).

"We're standing down on today's launch attempt to troubleshoot a vehicle subsystem issue that will take us beyond our launch window. We're reviewing opportunities for our next launch attempt," the company announced via X.

That post did not identify the subsystem or the issue, and neither did the hosts of the company's launch webcast.

...

Blue Origin has a few days to address the issue; the current NG-1 launch window runs through Jan. 16.

mistakenot · Jan 13, 2025

Earlier, Eric Berger said that if the launch was aborted then it would likely be at least two days before the next attempt:

View: https://x.com/SciGuySpace/status/1878707574486499709

If the New Glenn launch attempt is aborted this morning, it likely would necessitate a 48-hour delay (at least). The weather becomes poorer two days from now, and the current launch window closes on January 16. So this may be their only chance for a bit. We'll see.

Also, a reminder that space is hard:

View: https://x.com/SciGuySpace/status/1878715587398135835

Also, this is totally expected and normal with large, new rockets. It's not a slight on Blue Origin. They're going to get some great data, correct a couple of issues with the rocket, and be back and ready to go soon.

Taking a step back, it's not surprising that the first attempt to launch an all-new rocket would be scrubbed. It would probably be more surprising if it wasn't.

Hopefully they can fix the issues soon and Blue Origin will get another shot at their first orbital launch ever.

Quickshot0 · Jan 13, 2025

Yeah, early launch vehicles having a few delays isn't strange really, you just put together a really complicated machine working on the edge of the possible performance envelope. Not strange if even some what minor anomaly might make one hesitate to launch if one doesn't sufficiently understand what's going on there.

Hopefully they'll have it sorted out soon enough and they'll finally get to space with out incident.

Somebody · Jan 16, 2025

New Glenn has gone to space!

The second stage made it to orbit, but the first stage was lost.

Maybe performing booster stage separation above the Karman Line was pushing things higher and harder than usual. (SpaceX usually does stage separation at much lower altitudes when attempting booster recovery.)

EDIT: After watching the New Glenn launch video again, I saw that stage separation occurred below the Karman Line. Still at a higher altitude than for the Starship-Superheavy stack though, and the remaining momentum brought New Glenn's booster above the 100 km mark before it went down...

Quickshot0 · Jan 16, 2025

Congratulations to Blue Origin with getting their rocket to space!

And maybe like SpaceX they're trying to push the envelope a bit to see how much they can get their rocket to do? The exact limits of rockets is always a bit hard to determine beyond experimenting with it, and you might as well find out earlier rather then later.

What ever the case may be, hopefully they soon get booster recovery mastered.

Kuja · Jan 16, 2025

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/16/spacex-launch-starship-flight-seven-starlink-satellite-test.html

SpaceX launched the seventh test flight of its Starship rocket on Thursday, but lost communication with the uncrewed upper stage of the rocket that continues on into space.
"We can confirm that we did lose the ship," SpaceX senior manager of quality systems engineering Kate Tice said.
The Federal Aviation Administration issued a warning to pilots of a "dangerous area for falling debris of rocket Starship," according to a notice.

View: https://bsky.app/profile/bnonews.com/post/3lfvfkdw7yk2x

View: https://bsky.app/profile/jonostrower.com/post/3lfvihkegop2o

Somebody · Jan 16, 2025

That was one huge scatter zone for debris.

We haven't had explosive failures at very high altitudes for launches like Skylab and Buran. Also, there were simply fewer flights to divert in the older days of the Space Age, budget flights weren't really a thing in the 20th Century.

silentorphan · Jan 29, 2025

Blue Origin scrubs landmark New Shepard moon-gravity launch due to weather, rocket glitch

The company has not yet announced a new target date for the NS-29 mission.

www.space.com

The company, which was founded by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, had planned to launch its New Shepard suborbital vehicle for the 29th time [Jan. 28] from its West Texas launch site. But two different issues conspired to prevent an on-time liftoff.

"We are scrubbing today's launch. In addition to thick clouds we've been tracking all morning, we also encountered an issue related to the booster's avionics. New launch target forthcoming," Blue Origin announced via X.

India launches navigation satellite into orbit on nation's 1st mission of 2025

It was the 100th launch from India's Satish Dhawan Space Centre.

www.space.com

The Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) lifted off from Satish Dhawan Space Centre on schedule [Jan. 28] at 7:53 p.m. EST (0053 GMT and 6:23 a.m. local time on Jan. 29).

The three-stage, 167-foot-tall (50.9 meters) GSLV succeeded in its mission, delivering a satellite called NVS-02 to geostationary transfer orbit about 19 minutes after liftoff.

...

[Jan. 28]'s launch was the first of the year for India. The nation launched five space missions in 2024, including the historic SpaDeX satellite-docking demonstration on Dec. 30.

silentorphan · Jan 31, 2025

silentorphan said:
Asteroid-mining company AstroForge gets 1st-ever FCC license for commercial deep-space mission

The license covers the Odin mission, which will launch in early 2025 on board the next Intuitive Machines moon launch.

www.space.com

Up...date? At least now we know where it's going.

Space mining company AstroForge identifies asteroid target for Odin launch next month

"Odin's role is to gather critical imagery of the target asteroid, preparing the way for our next mission, Vestri, which will aim to land on the asteroid and begin extraction."

www.space.com

California-based AstroForge has identified asteroid 2022 OB5 as the destination for its Mission 2 spacecraft, named Odin, which is set to launch next month, SpaceNews reports. The Odin spacecraft will be flying as a secondary payload aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which will send Intuitive Machines' IM-2 lander toward the moon.

Odin will separate shortly after the Falcon 9 upper stage fires its engines to head for the moon. The launch window for the mission opens no earlier than Feb. 26.

On to something else.

Safety panel reports progress in Starliner investigation

Boeing and NASA are making “significant progress” on addressing issues seen on a test flight of the company’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft last year, an independent NASA safety panel says

spacenews.com

Paul Hill, a member of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP), said at a Jan. 30 public meeting that the committee was briefed on the status of the investigation into Starliner's Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission recently. That mission launched in June with NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on board, but the spacecraft returned to Earth three months later uncrewed because of agency concerns about the performance of spacecraft thrusters.

"Integrated NASA-Boeing teams have begun closing out flight observations and in-flight anomalies," he said.

He didn't elaborate on the specific issues that the teams had closed out but stated that it did not include the thrusters, several of which shut down during the spacecraft's approach to the station. The propulsion system also suffered several helium leaks.

...

While the ASAP meeting did not provide many technical details about the Starliner investigation, it was perhaps the most detailed public update into the investigation since Starliner's return nearly five months ago. Neither NASA nor Boeing have provided much information about the investigation since the landing.

Quickshot0 · Feb 1, 2025

Will be interesting to see how the space mining probe works out, that hasn't been done before. Though would be interesting to see if the Lunar lander will actually make it as well considering that's not been easy to succeed at. So that's a few extra things to keep an eye on this year then.

silentorphan · Feb 2, 2025

silentorphan said:
India launches navigation satellite into orbit on nation's 1st mission of 2025

It was the 100th launch from India's Satish Dhawan Space Centre.

www.space.com

Alas.

Indian navigation satellite stuck in transfer orbit after propulsion failure

A recently launched Indian navigation satellite is stranded in a transfer orbit after the failure of its onboard propulsion system and could soon renter.

spacenews.com

According to a statement posted on [Indian Space Research Organisation]'s website but not otherwise publicized by the agency, "the orbit raising operations towards positioning the satellite to the designated orbital slot could not be carried out as the valves for admitting the oxidizer to fire the thrusters for orbit raising did not open."

...

ISRO noted in its statement that other systems on the spacecraft were working well, including a successful deployment of its solar panels. That statement, though, suggested that ISRO had given up on fixing the propulsion system on the satellite.

However, the low perigee of NVS-02 would put the spacecraft in danger of reentering soon because of the high atmospheric drag at that low altitude. It was not clear if there are alternative propulsion systems on the spacecraft that could raise the perigee enough to avoid a reentry in the near term.

Elsewhere...

Japan launches a navigation satellite on a new flagship rocket for an improved positioning system

Japan has launched a navigation satellite on its flagship H3 rocket as the country seeks to have a precise positioning system of its own.

apnews.com

Everything went smoothly and the satellite successfully separated from the rocket as planned about 29 minutes after the liftoff, said Makoto Arita, H3 project manager for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA.

Officials said it is expected to reach its targeted geospatial orbit in about two weeks.

Japan currently has the quasi-zenith satellite system, or QZSS, with four satellites for a regional navigation system that first went into operation in 2018. The Michibiki 6 will be the fifth of its network.

...

Sunday's launch, delayed by a day due to the weather, was the fourth consecutive successful flight for the H3 system after a shocking failed debut attempt last year when the rocket had to be destroyed with its payload.

Quickshot0 · Feb 2, 2025

Lots of space stuff going on these days it seems, perhaps to be expected with launches now becoming increasingly regular.

CyberFemme · Feb 5, 2025

thanix01 said:
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.

Also modern solvent grade kerosine is incredibly resistant to coking and polymerization, so reliability will automatically be higher for the name engine even if all else is constant.

And to be frank, the performance benefits of methane over kerosine are not as high as pop-sci make it seem, and really come down to a lot of system level engineering trades and externalities.

Space, Rockets, Satellites, oh my!

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