{"id":44692,"date":"2024-10-11T21:41:40","date_gmt":"2024-10-11T13:41:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/rocket-report-ula-investigating-srb-anomaly-europa-clipper-is-ready-to-fly\/"},"modified":"2024-10-11T21:41:40","modified_gmt":"2024-10-11T13:41:40","slug":"rocket-report-ula-investigating-srb-anomaly-europa-clipper-is-ready-to-fly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/rocket-report-ula-investigating-srb-anomaly-europa-clipper-is-ready-to-fly\/","title":{"rendered":"Rocket Report: ULA investigating SRB anomaly; Europa Clipper is ready to fly"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to Edition 7.15 of the Rocket Report! It\u2019s a big week for big rockets, with SpaceX potentially launching its next Starship test flight and a Falcon Heavy rocket with NASA\u2019s Europa Clipper mission this weekend. And a week ago, United Launch Alliance flew its second Vulcan rocket, which lost one of its booster nozzles in midair and amazingly kept going to achieve a successful mission. Are you not entertained?<\/p>\n

As always, we welcome reader submissions. If you don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

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PLD Space is aiming high. <\/b>Spanish launch provider PLD Space has revealed a family of new rockets that it plans to introduce beyond its Miura 5 rocket, which is expected to make its inaugural flight in 2025, European Spaceflight reports. The company also revealed that it was working on a crew capsule called Lince (Spanish for Lynx). PLD Space introduced its Miura Next, Miura Next Heavy, and Miura Next Super Heavy launch vehicles, designed in single stick, triple core, and quintuple core configurations with reusable boosters. At the high end of the rocket family\u2019s performance, the Miura Next Super Heavy could deliver up to 53 metric tons (nearly 117,000 pounds) of payload to low-Earth orbit. The Lince capsule could become Europe\u2019s first human-rated crew transportation spacecraft.<\/p>\n

Still a year away from reaching space <\/i>\u2026 These are lofty ambitions for a company that has yet to launch anything to space, but it\u2019s good to think big. PLD Space launched a high-altitude test flight of its Miura 1 rocket last year, but it didn\u2019t cross the boundary of space. The first launch campaign for Miura 5, PLD Space\u2019s orbital-class rocket sized for small satellites, is on course to begin by the end of 2025, the company said. The Miura Next family would begin flying by 2030, followed by the heavier rockets a few years later. In April, PLD Space said it had raised 120 million euros ($131 million) from private investors and the Spanish government. This is probably enough to get Miura 5 to the launch pad, but PLD Space will need a lot of technical and financing successes to bring its follow-on vehicles online. (submitted by Ken the Bin and EllPeaTea)<\/p>\n

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Impulse Space wins Space Force contract. <\/b>Fresh on the heels of a massive funding round, Impulse Space has landed a $34.5 million contract from the Space Force for two ultra-mobile spacecraft missions, TechCrunch reports. Under the Space Force\u2019s Tactically Responsive Space (TacRS) program, the two missions will demonstrate how highly maneuverable spacecraft can help the military rapidly respond to threats in space. Both missions will use Impulse\u2019s Mira orbital transfer vehicle, which can host experiments and payloads while moving into different orbits around the Earth.<\/p>\n

Looking for an advantage <\/i>\u2026 Mira completed its first test flight earlier this year. The payloads on the two Space Force demonstration flights will perform space domain awareness missions, the military service said in a statement. The first mission, called Victus Surgo, will combine the Mira transfer vehicle with Impulse\u2019s higher-power Helios cryogenic methane-fueled kick stage on its first use in orbit. Helios will boost Mira into a high-altitude geostationary transfer orbit after launching on a Falcon 9 rocket. The second mission, called Victus Salo, will send a second Mira spacecraft into low-Earth orbit on a SpaceX rideshare mission. Impulse was founded by rocket scientist Tom Mueller, who was a founding employee at SpaceX before leaving in 2020. (submitted by Ken the Bin)<\/p>\n

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The launch campaign begins for Vega C\u2019s return to flight. <\/b>Days after a crucial test-firing of its redesigned second stage motor, a European Vega C rocket is now being stacked on its launch pad in French Guiana for a return to flight mission scheduled for December 3. Photos released by the French space agency, CNES, show the Vega C\u2019s solid-fueled first stage moving into position on the launch pad. The Vega C launcher is an upgraded version of the Vega rocket that completed its career with a successful launch in September.<\/p>\n

A lot of t(h)rust <\/i>\u2026 Vega C made a successful debut in July 2022, then failed on its second flight five months later, destroying a pair of high-value commercial Earth-imaging satellites owned by Airbus. Engineers traced the failure to the second stage motor\u2019s nozzle, prompting a redesign that grounded the Vega C rocket for two years. There is a queue of European space missions waiting for launch on Vega C, and first to go will be the Sentinel 1C radar imaging satellite for the European Commission\u2019s flagship Copernicus program.<\/p>\n

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Australian launch company rehearses countdown. <\/b>Gilmour Space still thinks it has a chance to conduct the maiden launch of its Eris rocket sometime this year, despite no launch license from the Australian Space Agency (ASA), having to go hunting for more money, and a wet dress rehearsal throwing up issues that will take several weeks to fix, Space & Defense Tech and Security News reports. Gilmour\u2019s Eris rocket, capable of hauling cargoes up to 672 pounds (305 kilograms) to orbit, would become the first homegrown Australian-built orbital-class rocket.<\/p>\n

WDR <\/i>\u2026 The Australian Space Agency has worked on Gilmour\u2019s launch license for around two years, but has yet to give the company the green light to fly the Eris rocket, despite approving licenses for two companies operating privately owned launch ranges elsewhere in Australia. At the beginning of the year, Gilmour targeted a first launch of the Eris rocket in March, but there were delays in getting the vehicle to the launch pad. The rocket went vertical for the first time in April to begin a series of ground tests, culminating in the launch rehearsal at the end of September, in which the company loaded propellants into the rocket and ran the countdown to T-10 seconds. The test uncovered valve and software issues Gilmour must fix before it can fly Eris. (submitted by mryall)<\/p>\n

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Falcon 9 launches European asteroid mission. <\/b>The European Space Agency\u2019s Hera mission lifted off Monday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, heading into the Solar System to investigate an asteroid smashed by NASA two years ago, Ars reports. It will take two years for Hera to travel to asteroids Didymos and Dimorphos, a binary pair, and survey the aftermath of the impact by NASA\u2019s DART spacecraft on Dimorphos in September 2022. DART was NASA\u2019s first planetary defense experiment, demonstrating how a kinetic impactor could knock an asteroid off course if it was on a path to hit Earth. Fortunately, these two asteroids are harmless, but DART proved a spacecraft could deflect an asteroid, if necessary. Coming in at high speed, DART got only a fleeting glimpse of Didymos and Dimorphos, so Hera will take more precise measurements of the asteroids\u2019 interior structure, mass, and orbit to determine exactly how effective DART was.<\/p>\n

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Falcon soars again<\/i> \u2026 The liftoff Monday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station was the first flight of a Falcon 9 in nine days, since an upper stage anomaly steered the rocket off its intended reentry corridor after an otherwise successful launch. The Federal Aviation Administration grounded the Falcon 9 while SpaceX investigated the problem, but the regulator approved the launch of Hera because the Falcon 9\u2019s upper stage won\u2019t come back to Earth. Instead, it departed into deep space along with the Hera asteroid probe. As of Thursday, all other commercial Falcon 9 missions remain grounded. (submitted by Ken the Bin)<\/p>\n

Emiratis go with Japan. <\/b>A UAE mission to travel to the asteroid belt reached a milestone on Wednesday, when an agreement was signed to provide services for the 2028 launch of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Explorer spacecraft, The National reports. Emirati officials selected the Japanese H3 rocket from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) to launch the asteroid explorer. The UAE is a repeat customer for MHI, which also launched the Emirati Hope spacecraft toward Mars in 2020. The mission will see the Mohammed Bin Rashid Explorer perform close flybys of six asteroids to gather data before landing on a seventh asteroid, Justitia.<\/p>\n

H3 racking up wins<\/em> \u2026 Japan\u2019s new H3 rocket is taking a slice of the international commercial launch market after achieving back-to-back successful flights this year. The H3, which replaces Japan\u2019s workhorse H-IIA rocket, is primarily intended to ensure Japanese autonomous access to space for national security missions, scientific probes, and resupply flights to the International Space Station. But, somewhat surprisingly, the H3 now has several customers outside of Japan, including the UAE, Eutelsat, and Inmarsat. Perhaps some satellite operators, eager for someone to compete with SpaceX in the launch business, are turning to the H3 as an alternative to United Launch Alliance\u2019s Vulcan, Europe\u2019s Ariane 6 rocket, or Blue Origin\u2019s New Glenn. All of these rockets are under pressure to launch numerous payloads for their domestic governments and Amazon\u2019s Kuiper megaconstellation.<\/p>\n

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China launches mystery satellite. <\/b>China launched a new communications satellite toward geostationary orbit Thursday, although its precise role remains undisclosed\u200b, Space News reports. The satellite lifted off aboard a Long March 3B rocket, and China\u2019s leading state-owned aerospace contractor identified the payload as High orbit Internet satellite-03 (Weixing Hulianwan Gaogui-03). This is the third satellite in this series, following launches in February and August. The lack of publicly available information raises speculation about its potential uses, which could include military applications.<\/p>\n

Shortfall<\/em> \u2026 This was China\u2019s 47th space launch of the year, well short of the 100 missions Chinese officials originally projected for 2024. This launch rate is on pace to come close to China\u2019s numbers the last three years. Around 30 of these 100 projected launches were supposed to be with rockets from Chinese commercial startups. China\u2019s commercial launch industry encountered a setback in June, when a rocket broke free of its restraints during a first stage static fire test, sending the fully fueled booster on an uncontrolled flight near populated areas before a fiery crash to the ground.<\/p>\n

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Vulcan\u2019s second flight was successful but not perfect<\/b>. United Launch Alliance\u2019s Vulcan rocket, under contract for dozens of flights for the US military and Amazon\u2019s Kuiper broadband network, lifted off from Florida on its second test flight October 4, suffered an anomaly with one of its strap-on boosters, and still achieved a successful mission, Ars reports. This test flight, known as Cert-2, was the second certification mission for the new Vulcan rocket, a milestone that paves the way for the Space Force to clear ULA\u2019s new rocket to begin launching national security satellites in the coming months.<\/p>\n

Anomalous plume \u2026 <\/i>What happened 37 seconds after launch was startling and impressive. The exhaust nozzle from one of Vulcan\u2019s two strap-on solid rocket boosters failed and fell off the vehicle, creating a shower of sparks and debris. The launcher visibly tilted along its axis due to asymmetrical thrust from the twin boosters, but Vulcan\u2019s guidance system corrected its trajectory, and the rocket\u2019s BE-4 engines vectored their exhaust to keep the rocket on course. The engines burned somewhat longer than planned to make up for the shortfall in power from the damaged booster, and the rocket still reached its target orbit. However, ULA and Northrop Grumman, the booster manufacturer, must determine what happened with the nozzle before Vulcan can fly again. (submitted by Ken the Bin)<\/p>\n

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Starship could launch this weekend<\/b>. We may not have to wait as long as we thought for the next test flight of SpaceX\u2019s Starship rocket. The world\u2019s most powerful launcher could fly again from South Texas as soon as Sunday, assuming the Federal Aviation Administration grants approval, Ars reports. The last public statement released from the FAA suggested the agency didn\u2019t expect to determine whether to approve a commercial launch license for SpaceX\u2019s next Starship test flight before late November. There\u2019s some optimism at SpaceX that the FAA might issue a launch license much sooner, perhaps in time for Starship to fly this weekend.<\/p>\n

Going for the catch \u2026 \u201c<\/i>The fifth flight test of Starship will aim to take another step towards full and rapid reusability,\u201d SpaceX wrote in an update posted on its website. \u201cThe primary objectives will be attempting the first ever return to launch site and catch of the Super Heavy booster and another Starship reentry and landing burn, aiming for an on-target splashdown of Starship in the Indian Ocean.\u201d For the Starship upper stage, this means it will follow pretty much the same trajectory as the last test flight in June. But the most exciting thing about the next flight is the attempt to catch the Super Heavy booster, which will come back to the launch site in Texas at supersonic speed before braking to a hover over the launch pad. Then, mechanical arms, or \u201cchopsticks,\u201d will try to grapple the rocket in midair.<\/p>\n

Europa Clipper is ready to fly.<\/strong> As soon as this weekend, a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket will lift off from Kennedy Space Center, carrying NASA\u2019s $4.25 billion Europa Clipper spacecraft, Ars reports. This mission is unlikely to definitively answer the question of whether life exists in the liquid water ocean below the icy crust of Jupiter\u2019s icy moon Europa, but it will tell us whether it could, and it will answer so many more questions. The best part is the unknown wonders it will discover. We cannot begin to guess at those, but we can be certain that if all goes well, Clipper will be a thrilling and breathtaking mission. Europa Clipper will zip by Europa 49 times in the early 2030s, probing the frozen world with a sophisticated suite of instruments to yield the best-ever data about any moon of another planet.<\/p>\n

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Delayed for weather<\/i> \u2026 The launch of Europa Clipper was supposed to happen Thursday, but NASA and SpaceX suspended launch preparations earlier this week as Hurricane Milton approached Florida. The spacecraft is already attached to the Falcon Heavy rocket inside SpaceX\u2019s hangar. Once teams are cleared to return to the space center for work after the storm, they will ready Falcon Heavy to roll to the launch pad. NASA says the launch is currently targeted for no earlier than Sunday.<\/p>\n

Next three launches<\/h2>\n

Oct. 13:<\/strong> Starship\/Super Heavy | Flight 5 | Starbase, Texas | 12:00 UTC<\/p>\n

Oct. 13: <\/b>New Shepard | NS-27 uncrewed flight | Launch Site One, Texas | 13:00 UTC<\/p>\n

Oct. 13:<\/strong> Falcon Heavy | Europa Clipper | Kennedy Space Center, Florida | 16:12 UTC<\/p>\n

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