Falcon Heavy To Launch at The End of This Month! - Weekly Spaceflight News [8:42]

Transcript

In this week’s space flight industry update, SpaceX continues to add to their massive global lead in mass to orbit for the year. We get updates from Rocket Lab, Relativity Space, and Blue Origin. And the next Falcon Heavy launch is just around the corner. So, let’s dig in and take a closer look.

SpaceX Falcon 9 Activity

Starting off with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 activity. The first launch of the week came on Saturday morning when the Starlink Group 17-38 mission lifted off from Space Launch Complex 4E at the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Booster 1093 took to the skies for the 16th time, successfully sending 24 satellites on their way to Sun-Synchronous orbit before landing downrange on, of course, I Still Love You. Just a little less than 72 hours later on the east coast, Booster 1085 blasted off from Space Launch Complex 40 on its 18th mission. The rocket carried 29 Starlink satellites on their way to low Earth orbit before touching down on a shortfall of gravitas. The rocket, as well as both fairing halves from the mission, returned to Port Canaveral a few days later for processing ahead of their next flights.

The final mission of the week was yet another Starlink launch. This flight, which launched Wednesday morning, also lifted off from Vandenberg, carrying 24 satellites to Sun-Synchronous orbit, just like Saturday’s mission. Booster 1103 served as the launch’s first stage in its fifth overall mission and had a successful landing on, of course, I Still Love You several minutes, seconds later.

Falcon Heavy / NASA Electromagnetic Thruster

In other space news, on Monday, NASA posted that they’ve completed testing on a lithium-fed electromagnetic thruster. This new thruster could be big for deep space missions such as ones to Mars and beyond, as testing showed the thruster producing five times the power of the electric propulsion systems used currently. That same day, the agency also reported that work is underway to integrate their Nancy Grace Roman space telescope with SpaceX launch hardware. Work continues to progress on schedule towards its launch on a Falcon Heavy, which is still tracking for the morning of the 30th, less than two weeks from now.

Catalyst Space

NASA also announced that Catalyst Space has successfully uploaded updated flight software to their link spacecraft. Despite the previous control issues and the loss of functionality on multiple elements of the control systems, the company has managed to regain control and, with this new update, is looking to continue towards its mission of capturing and rebooting NASA’s Swift Observatory.

Mike Frink

This week, NASA also announced that veteran astronaut Mike Frink is leaving the agency. During his 30-year tenure with NASA, Frink flew on four missions to space, two aboard Russian Soyuz crafts as part of the NASA Roscosmos swap agreement, one shuttle mission, and most recently aboard a spacecraft Dragon capsule on the Crew 11 mission. He has totaled over a year and a half in space and is now retiring six months after the Crew 11 mission was cut a little short due to an odd and still unexplained medical issue experienced that left him unable to speak for 20 minutes, seconds. Neither NASA nor Frink has yet said what is next for him, but it seems clear that he plans to remain involved in the space industry going forward.

Firefly Aerospace

Firefly Aerospace released footage from their recent static fire test of one of their Miranda engines. Seven of these new engines are planned to power the first stage of the company’s Eclipse rocket, and this 226-second test verified that the engine is capable of exceeding the planned burn duration for launches. The company also announced this week that the Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Unit has awarded them a contract to develop a de-orbit vehicle using the Elytra spacecraft. This would serve to remove satellites from orbit at the end of their lifespan in an effort to avoid additional clutter and debris in space.

JAXA

Early on Tuesday morning, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency launched one of their H3 rockets from Tanegashima Space Center. This mission carried the Mitsubishi-built QZS7 satellite to geostationary transfer orbit so it can go on to join its predecessors and support the Japanese satellite navigation system. Kepler Communications announced this week that its first dedicated launch will be on Rocket Lab’s Neutron rocket and is planned for 2028.

Rocket Lab

Rocket Lab announced their new GO system this week. GO stands for Global Hypersonic and Orbital Spaceport Technology and is a containerized launch system that will give them the capability to launch Electron and Haste missions from anywhere. The system is planned to debut from two separate launch pads in Alaska next year. Rocket Lab also shared their second quarter earnings report on Monday, giving us a deeper look into the company. They posted another record quarter with $234 million in revenue and also contracted for over a billion dollars of new work.

The company also set a new record for their responsive space missions, launching Victus Hayes with just 16 hours and 42 minutes, seconds notice. They also beat the targets for rapid spaceport ops and on-orbit pursuit by a wide margin. Flight hardware is progressing steadily for the inaugural launch of their Neutron rocket, and overall business is good for Rocket Lab, and its future is bright.

Our own Joshua C was on the ground outside Rocket Lab’s facility in Middle River, Maryland, and brought us some shots of a new article being built outside by the structural testing stand. In these photos taken two days apart, we can see that the robust box-shaped structure is still under construction, with at least a third side having been added in the interim. What do you think this will be used for? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Rocket Lab Updates

Finishing off a busy news week for the company, on Thursday, Rocket Lab posted some new pictures of the Hungry Hippo payload fairing. The article now has had its thermal protection, guidance flaps, avionics, and fluid systems installed ahead of its next round of testing. PDL Space announced this week that they’ve shipped a mere five-second stage to the United States for testing of their flight termination system. FTS testing is a crucial step to a debut launch, as it’s vital to know if there is an anomaly they’re able to destroy the rocket rather than potentially letting it continue on uncontrolled or outside of its predetermined launch corridor.

Relativity Space

Relativity Space released another monthly update on their Terran R program on Tuesday. The design team has released more than a thousand more parts this month and hit a major milestone of fully releasing the stage 1 shipping assembly. Work continues with the assembly of the stage 1 flight article as well as the thrust structure. Work on flight 1 engines is nearing completion, and they’re being prepared for installation in the near future. Teams are working on both the forward and aft barrels of the rocket’s interstage prior to them being joined.

Even if work continues on flight 1 hardware, work is already underway on the tanks and engines for flight 2. The first stage structural qualification campaign has been completed, and the first stage downcomer for flight 1 has begun acceptance testing at NASA’s Stennis Space Center. Work on the A2 stand was completed, and the second stage was installed on the stand, where it then underwent crowd proofing and COPV testing. Nearby, their flight 1 AONV second stage completed acceptance testing, being the last of the flight 1 engines to do so.

Launch Complex 16

At launch complex 16 in Florida, the horizontal integration facility now has power, and crews have performed initial qualification testing on the building’s bridge crane. The upper strongback for the transporter erector arrived and was moved into the building, and the rail system that’ll move the completed structure to and from the pad is being installed. Outside, work continues on the various ground systems to support the pad.

Blue Origin

Blue Origin officially announced the rather public secret that they’re building out a second New Glenn pad at launch complex 36 that’ll be called 36B. CEO Dave Limp went on to say that while getting 36A rebuilt and launching New Glenn before the end of the year is their top priority, the new pad is important for their future plans for New Glenn as it’ll be home to their larger NX4 variant of the rocket. He went on to say that the plan is to build 50-foot cube sections of the new pad’s launch tower on the ground, then stack them into a massive 700-foot tall structure. On Thursday, Limp made another post, this one to say that they’ve successfully run their first vertical conops test using a second stage simulator and a forward dome section, emphasizing the speed their teams are working at to try to get back to flight this year.

Blue Origin also announced this week that they’ve successfully built and tested the first three ground stations for their new quartz ground communication network. They’re developing this new system to streamline ground communications, which they say has been one of the most fragmented and costly elements of space operations. The company plans to bring another six sites online before the end of the year.

Wrap

Well, that’s going to do it for this week’s Avid Space Flight Industry Update. Thanks for watching, and we’ll see you next week.

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