North Korea test-fired a powerful new solid rocket motor for its next-generation ICBM.
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Rocket Report: Russia’s rocket engine predicament; 300th launch to the ISS
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Honestly, the surprise of the morning is that the Astroscale mission is flying on an PSLV and not on RocketLab I thought that PSLV was actually fairly small
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A mention of New Glenn and Blue Origin. They have been really quiet (to me at least). Wondering what happened to them.
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I wonder what Potemkin-like activities were done at that rocket engine factory so that Putin was impressed with how busy it was, relative to the "non visit" state. (the delusion that Russia is capable of doing anything on large engines is almost so funny as to be worthy of Python-esque jokes about the dead-parrot)
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I seem to recall that in a mention a couple of Rocket reports ago they were supposedly trying to launch again before end of year, but there are doubts.
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Just wondering if anyone has done the math on refueling a Falcon 9 second stage in orbit. If a Starship can carry 100 tons to orbit, that's about the propellant mass a Falcon 9 2nd stage can hold. I know that kerosene requires a separate tank as payload, but the size and mass fraction of the 2nd stage is seriously impressive. For a mission to the outer planets, one launch of Starship and one F9 launch could orbit a spacecraft, and provide a 4 ton dry mass "3rd stage", instead of refueling a 100 ton dry mass Starship.
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Why wouldn't the starship just carry the f9 upper stage with it along with the payload. That's a heck of a lot more straight forward than trying to transfer kerosene on orbit. And it saves a pointless F9 launch.
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The Escapade launch was NET September 29th, but Eric cast considerable doubt on that a few weeks ago, and said November was more likely. I see on nextspaceflight.com that it's now marked as Q4 2025.
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i am very much against expanding on the thougths of a mass murderer putin...one sentence, thats all.
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ICBMs are generally moved around in transport canisters, which would hold it at specific reinforced attachment points (and provide protection against small impacts)
It's not like they're going to be loading them on and off trucks with a forklift, given the sizes involved.
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The propellant mass itself is slightly more than the expected 100 ton payload of Starship, if Starship evolves to a heavier payload, your approach is obviously better.
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I believe they have a launch scheduled for Sept 29. I am hoping it launches on time. I want to see that one going.
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We don't really know what the payload would be today, or even next year, but considering the lead time of missions to the outer planets and that starship hasn't any on the books neither particularly matter at the moment. But there's nothing to say they would necessarily need to completely fill the upperstage. A 90% load of propellant is still a good deal of impulse.
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"But many of us who were born after the Apollo Moon landings have been waiting for this moment our whole lives. It is almost upon us."
I was working on NASA's Skylab project in Dec 1968 when the Apollo 8 astronauts became the first humans to reach Earth escape velocity, travel to the Moon, enter low lunar orbit (LLO), make ten orbits of the Moon, blast out of LLO, successfully reenter the Earth's atmosphere at 11 km/sec, and splashdown safely in the Pacific Ocean. That was 57 years ago. As you said: A long wait.
I was working on NASA's Skylab project in Dec 1968 when the Apollo 8 astronauts became the first humans to reach Earth escape velocity, travel to the Moon, enter low lunar orbit (LLO), make ten orbits of the Moon, blast out of LLO, successfully reenter the Earth's atmosphere at 11 km/sec, and splashdown safely in the Pacific Ocean. That was 57 years ago. As you said: A long wait.
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The second flight of New Glenn had been scheduled for NET 9/29, but is presently NET Q4. It will carry ESCAPADE, a NASA SIMPLEx-program mission consisting of a pair of Mars-orbiting satellites built on the Rocket Lab Photon bus (official, Wikipedia).
The New Shepard NS-35 launch (an uncrewed mission with 40 science payloads), originally scheduled for 8/23 but scrubbed four times, is back on the calendar for 9/18.
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ISRO's PSLV is a family of launchers (official, Wikipedia) which can deliver a payload (depending on version and orbit) between 1,100 and 3,800 kg. That's much greater than the Rocket Lab Electron capability of 300 kg to LEO.
Astroscale's official page for ISSA-J1 doesn't have much beyond the objective: not the target, its orbit, nor the spacecraft size. The ADRAS-J spacecraft massed 150 kg (mentioned on a 2023 slide show to NASA but not the official page) and launched on an Electron in February 2024.
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One wonders if Putin actually believes there could be an international market for Russian engines at this point or if that was a pro forma statement. There are certainly countries that would buy things from Russia, but I’m not sure which, if any, that develop rockets don’t (perhaps unlike in the past) also develop their own engines.
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It's worth noting the time between the first two flights of some recent rockets:
Ariane 5: 17 months
Ariane 6: 8 months
Vulcan Centaur: 9 months
Falcon 9: 6 months
Even if the next New Glenn launch slips to November as has been speculated, that's only 10 months from the inaugural launch. That's not particularly abnormal.
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That's the only date I can find publicly posted anywhere (although the mission page itself merely says "NET Fall 2025"), but it seems increasingly dubious. I mean, it's barely more than two weeks away, but there's been no news about the spacecraft being integrated with the launch vehicle?
I know very little about orbital mechanics, but I'm wondering what the advantage of launching at this time would be? According to a Universe magazine article describing the new transfer plan:
So if they launch now it will take nearly 2 years to arrive at Mars, whereas if they waited for the next normal (Hohmann transfer, AIUI) launch window in December 2026, the spacecraft would arrive in... September 2027.
Meanwhile, the spacecraft are exposed to direct solar radiation for an extra year in space; what's the advantage in launching sooner if they don't arrive until approximately the same time?
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Putin might actually be that delusional. He also believes there is a market for Russian weapons despite their horrible performance in Ukraine. There is also the chance he is being fed constant lies from subordinates that don't want to take a short walk out of a high window.
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Question: Why do all rocket launches qualify their scheduled dates with NET (No Earlier Than)? The dates are freely moved around, often adjusted outwards, so it isn't like they say NET October and then launch in November without updating them.
I am genuinely curious what is the point of it?
I am genuinely curious what is the point of it?
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I think it’s just to quantify that a launch will most definitely NOT occur before the NET date. Launches can always move to the right. Schedules usually don’t allow for rockets to fly early because you need to set up all the proper steps to get to launch in the first place. That is all scheduled ahead of time with a minimum set point date. That’s my guess.
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Well, NET reflects the planned schedule, struck at the beginning of the endeavor. Things happen, actual dates are what they are, but the original schedule usually stays firm so the deltas can be assessed later. It's harder to learn from a schedule that is constantly updated. Also, some contract terms may be anchored to a struck schedule, performance fees metered on meeting milestones.
That, and even if the prep campaign meets NET, launches move because of things not in the program's control, like weather and range scheduling.
All this plays into the "range chicken" game. All the participating folks with schedule risk breathe a sigh of relief when one part (not theirs) breaks the critical path...
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It's not as simple as "x material better than y". For a given weight, CF has a MUCH higher tensile strength than steel. The trick is in how you use that, since a rocket is a combination of both tension and compression loads.
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normally butters
Ars Praefectus
That's one way to skin the cat.
If there's a "Program of Record" for Starship outer solar system missions, it's Elon's concept of an orbitally-refilled Starship doing the initial departure burn from LEO and then spitting out multiple Starlink-based spacecraft which use their high-Isp Hall Effect propulsion to fly independently to targets of interest in the outer solar system.
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Sure, but nothing ever randomly launches earlier. It launches when it was scheduled, or it gets pushed out. The NET part seems completely redundant. I dunno, just seems weird to an external observer like me. I was curious if there was some kind of internal reason for it.
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It's interesting to note that Artemis II will more equal the trajectory path of Apollo 13 than Apollo 8. And of course for Apollo 13, that was not intended.
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Just curious, how would swapping EUS for different new upper stage “eliminate the need for NASA to finish building an expensive new launch tower”?
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I was alive, but too young to remember Apollo 8. The first one I explicitly remember is Apollo 12. I think I might remember 11's landing and "small step," but it's hard to be sure with as many times I've seen that later in life. 12, I'm sure, along with all the others.
While the robotic exploration programs have been amazing, it's been maddening watching the US crewed space program stagnate. Skylab and the ASTP brought hope, as did the early tests of the STS (Shuttle), but the reality is that the crewed space program has been slowly and steadily contracting since Apollo 17. ISS is all well and good, but I've long had the firm conviction that it's a make-work program without a solid mission beyond its initial diplomatic goals. We've found things to do with it.
My only hope these days is with commercial providers. Dragon is awesome. Starship has SOOOO much promise to change spaceflight. New Glenn and Neutron can provide mass to "New Space" if they ever actually get going. I have more faith in Rocket Lab than Blue Origin in that regard, BTW.
We'll see. I hope Artemis flies to - and eventually lands on - the Moon. But after 50+ years of promises, slide decks, and political games, I'm not holding my breath.
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The current launch tower could not have been used to fill the propellant tanks on EUS. Long ago it was determined that it was cheaper to build a second than to retrofit the current tower to do both (hah!).
Both the Centaur V and Short New Glenn Upper are substantially smaller than the EUS and the existing tower could be modified to fill them.
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It's a tacit acknowledgement that launch dates are generally aspirational - even when very close. All it takes is a bad storm and you're on to the next day.
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normally butters
Ars Praefectus
In the original concept for SLS, from NASA's 2011 RAC study, the architecture was supposed to support a variety of upper stage options, and the mobile launcher's tower was supposed to have a variable-incline crew access arm and umbilical arms that could be raised and lowered to accommodate this variety. Perfect for the #FlexiblePath marketing of that era.
I guess nobody involved in the RAC study really cared about the practicality of the ground support equipment they were proposing to flatter the Shuttle-derived option in that study, and the variable-incline tower interfaces did not survive initial scrutiny by the ground support engineers.
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The first step to fixing something requires acknowledging that it needs fixed, and that implies acknowledgement of what is wrong but also why.
It requires a lot of introspection to acknowledge Russian problems if you are Putin as the assessment for “why” begins with “1) my misguided and increasing authoritarian leadership for 25 years”
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Bill Swallow
Ars Centurion
... at a cost of a mere thirty billion dollars, as per Bechtel. A pittance, really!
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They're not exposed for another year to the dangers of the warehouse. Deep space is a pretty benign environment. No oxidation, no moisture, very little dust, absolutely zero hamfisted forklift drivers, no brain dead techs that try to move the probe without making sure it's bolted down.
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I am sure that will buff out… great career move I bet coming out of that.
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I'm with you on this one. I do remember Apollo 8, but I was a precocious child already interested in spaceflight. But I can't say I've been holding my breath for over fifty years to see that mission repeated using techniques not that different than the original. We should have regular cis-lunar tugs running by now, and a lot of other things.
But no crying over missed milk. I don't care much for flag and footprints Artemis, but if the new players, commercial and otherwise, are actually moving for a reusable and affordable foothold past LEO -- that's what I've been waiting for.
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