Author: Bob Luthar

NASA‘s veteran astronauts aboard the Crew Dragon spacecraft commended the craft, saying that it was a fantastic experience to board the vehicle.

Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley were full of praises for the collaborated efforts of SpaceX and NASA’s commercial crew program after designing the Crew Dragon spacecraft. The two astronauts safely jetted back to Earth after a mission that took over two months. 

Hurley reported that the flight had no hitches whatsoever, an experience that is spectacular compared to what they usually go through on space missions. In his experience, Hurley explains that this is the first mission that was glitch-free from the beginning to the end. Not even space shuttle missions are this way perfect.

An illustrative example is that Hurley anticipated that the vehicle shifts out of position and swerve into the dense atmosphere before the subsequent parachute ejection. However, he narrates that the space vehicle was steady and in perfect motion throughout the reentry mission.

Behnken recollects a pictographic memory of the capsule diving down the Earth’s atmosphere. He states that the Dragon came to life approaching the atmosphere and propelled downwards to stay in the orthodox altitude in the reentry mission.

Behnken explains that the Dragon exceptionally thrust itself down the atmosphere like a bird following its path. The capsule was outrightly steady and moving down the Earth withstanding the atmospheric pressure and winds.

Nonetheless, the atmospheric noise and the Dragon’s propulsion noise were high though the astronauts were ready for noise-proof devices. The cataclysmic motion of the spacecraft was an exuberant sight from the astronauts’ view. The astronauts felt like they were moving inside an animal’s body.

Initially, NASA’s plan was for the Demo-2 mission to spend a few days at the International Space Station before jetting back to Earth. NASA altered the plan to increase the days to months so that Behnken and Hurley can perform various operations at the station, including spacewalking. Additionally, this extension was to test the spacecraft’s feasibility to stay in space for such a long period.

Behnken is happy to have experienced the Crew-1 mission, tests, and the Crew-2 mission is confident that the upcoming missions will be eventful and tantalizing. He remarks that the upcoming mission to fly four astronauts to space will be memorable after experiencing this Demo-2 mission. The spacecraft is fully fit for the upcoming launches since the two experienced astronauts tested their performance while at the International Space Station.

Finally, Behnken connotes that some modifications can be done on the spacecraft for more comfort of the crew. NASA is keen to make the vital modifications as it reviews the report.

WASHINGTON - A Cubesat initiated earlier in the current year has adequately tested an edition of an instrument that will hover on a more significant NASA operation in development.  

The Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter (HARP) Cubesat was installed in February from the International Space Station (ISS) following its delivery to the station on a Cygnus cargo space ship. The Cubesat ferries imaging Polarimeter was built to gauge the properties of aerosol and cloud particles in Earth’s atmosphere.  

Space Dynamics Lab (SDL) of Utah State University manages the three-unit Cubesat and also designed the spacecraft. The payload was created and is run by the University of Maryland B Baltimore County (UMBC). The payload accomplished “first flight” in April and took their original pictures in May. 

Tim Nelson, the program director for HARP at SDL, stated that the spaceship displays that CubeSats can offer valuable data in Earth sciences. Tim confirmed in a statement that the application of Earth observation technology-based in space has, in the past, been the domain of big satellites. He added that HARP helps confirm that miniaturized antennas on tiny satellites can generate a high degree of reliability at a portion of the time and cost it takes to construct bigger satellites. 

The instrument’s utility derives from its capability to gauge the size allotment of cloud droplets that can give information on the ice and water clouds properties. That could, in turn, enhance aerosol processes modeling and assist in reducing qualms in climate modeling.

HARP is a forerunner for a related instrument dubbed, HARP2, being developed by UMBC for NASA’s Plankton, Cloud, Aerosol, ocean Ecosystems mission. HARP2 is set to feature enhanced resolution and antenna performance and will be in a position to offer world coverage every two days from the sun-synchronous orbit of PACE. 

PACE has been the talk of frequent attempts at cancellation in the budget request of the administration, comprising in the 2021 fiscal year budget proposal earlier in the current year. Nonetheless, Congress has declined those proposals and decided to fund the development of PACE. The spaceship is set to initiate on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in late 2022. 

Tiny satellites such as CubeSats play a significant role in technology demonstration, exploration, scientific research, and educational research at NASA. These small satellites offer a cheap platform for NASA operations, comprising planetary discovery, Earth observations, and essential space and Earth science.

The US Air Force has selected the United Launch Alliance and SpaceX to meet the NSSL Phase 2 contract’s demands. This five-year contract involves the deployment of national security payloads for the US forces, which attracts $653 million.

ULA and SpaceX overtook Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman to win the Phase 2 contract called the National Security Space Launch payload deal. 

So far, the United Launch Alliance confirmed the reception of a $337 million deal while SpaceX got a $316 million deal for the respective projects. These contracts will run through the 2022 financial year according to the press release by the Pentagon.

SpaceX and ULA will be launching missions beginning 2022 to 2027 when the Phase 2 contract schedules to come to a halt. The Department of Defense and the National Reconnaissance Office will be launching over 30 missions in this Phase 2 contract. 

Air Force’s assistant secretary for procurement, technology and transit services, Will Roper, stated that the agency motivates innovation by serving both the government and commercials through the competitive launch market. 

Roper reiterates that the success of Phase 2 contracts will mark a milestone in which the US will stop depending on Russia for the launch of payloads. He said that the deployment of the American payloads via the American rockets would minimize their reliance on the Russian RD-180 engines. The US will be able to launch space vehicles in both its private and public sectors.

The transition to the advanced space launch cars will help the US minimize their use of Atlas V rocket, which has a Russian-made engine. The Department of Defense will no longer purchase the Atlas V rockets for its launches once this ideology becomes law at the terminal of 2022.

Phase 2 of the NSSL contract details that ULA will receive 60% of the subcontracts, while SpaceX will receive 40%. The Pentagon will be giving out missions to these rockets’ developers annually, depending on the rising demand. The Air Force forecasts to purchase launches in the next half-decade until the purpose comes to a cataclysmic end.

The initiation of the Phase 2 NSSL contract began last year with the auction of agreement between various firms. The firms that participated in this bid include Blue Origin, the United Launch Alliance, SpaceX, and Northrop Grumman. The startups like Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman lost the contracts to ULA and SpaceX, forcing them to focus on their ongoing projects.

Nonetheless, ULA is organizing the creation of the Vulcan Centaur launch vehicle, which survives on Blue Origin’s engine. SpaceX, on the other hand, is giving out Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy, the approved projects for Phase 2. The CEO of Blue Origin is happy that their engine will be usable in the upcoming eventful launches of the Vulcan.

In conclusion, Northrop Grumman was unhappy with the Pentagon’s choice but confident that they submitted a quality proposal for consideration in the NSSL Phase 2 contract bid.

A commercial operator’s permit might be just a single spaceflight away for the Virgin Galactic.  The Virgin Galactic head space officer, George Whitesides, confirmed that the firm’s latest SpaceShipTwo vehicle, VSS Unity, has been to suborbital space two times on the piloted trial flight, initially in December 2018 and subsequently in February 2019. One or two additional operations should be sufficient to gratify the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) permit requirements. 

Whitesides confirmed during a news discussion held on Tuesday, July 28, that their trust is that the statistics they got from the forthcoming flight will be able to give them final data that is needed to clear their commercial operating permit.  

The central focus of the media occasion was to converse about the cabin interior of SpaceShipTwo, the blueprint of which Virgin Galactic revealed on Tuesday. 

The SpaceShipTwo that is steered by two pilots and carries about six passengers is towed up by a shipper plane dubbed WhiteKnightTwo. At close to 50,000 feet altitude, SpaceShipTwo detaches and blasts off it aboard shoot up motor that powers the spaceship to space.

The six passengers on board the SpaceShipTwo will observe the Earth’s curvature against the deep space and get several minutes of buoyancy before returning for a runway touchdown at Virgin Galactic commercial hub spaceport in New Mexico.  

Whiteside confirmed that close to 600 people had secured a seat onboard the suborbital spaceship at a recent price of $250,000 for one ticket, and the number is expected to increase in the coming days. However, Whitesides also stressed that Virgin Galactic targets bringing down the price after a while, making spaceflight more available to more customers all over the world.  

The two spaceflights of VSS Unity to date the two came from Space Port and Mojave Air in California, close to the central offices of The Spaceship Company, the manufacturing subsidiary of Virgin Galactic. However, Spaceport America will accommodate the future space missions of the company. VSS Unity, together with its shipper plane, which is a WhiteKnightTwo car dubbed VMS Eve, moved to the New Mexico location earlier in the current year to finalize their test operation. 

The operation will not finish with the two piloted flights or the forthcoming one, even after they net Virgin Galactic, a profitable functioning license from the FAA. The last phase is going to be a small number of flights which will have some test passengers; who are going to be four in the back, where they are going to perform final phases of testing out customer experience. 

The US FCC (Federal Communications Commission) has agreed to Amazon’s demand for running a fleet of approximately 3200 network satellites that operate in the low-Earth orbit.

The FCC told Amazon to hasten this project to deploy about half of the satellites in this project before 2026. This move will ensure that they fulfill part of the project whose completion must not exceed 2029 for the full constellation in the low-Earth orbit.

Amazon revealed that it would be cashing in $10 billion in Kuiper to facilitate the deployment of these internet satellites. However, Amazon is still developing the deployment plan of the Kuiper project’s satellites. Amazon stated that it intends to launch the spacecraft in five consecutive sets with the first set of 578 satellites to the low-Earth orbit.

FCC explained that the Kuiper satellite system would improve the internet services for the hypersonic broadband for the customers, the government, and commercial businesses.

For this project to proceed, Amazon must give a detailed debris handling plan once the Kuiper satellite development is complete. Amazon will run the Kuiper project in three foldings with one at 590 kilometers, the other at 610 kilometers, and the final one at 630 kilometers.

The chair of FCC Ajit Pai reiterated his plan to launch the constellation with the Kuiper project. He tweeted earlier that this project will avail high-speed internet connectivity for Americans and the world at large.

Dave Limp, the Vice President of Amazon, is thankful to Pai for his agency’s unanimous support for the Kuiper project. Amazon is the latest addition to the firms that facilitate the deployment of high-speed internet satellites. These firms include SpaceX, Viasat, Telesat, and OneWeb.

Limp explains that the Kuiper project will facilitate hypersonic internet connectivity to places where there is none. Kuiper will alter the US landscape and create new jobs for its citizens in this $10 billion project. Amazon hopes that this project will expand the 4G and 5G internet connectivity to places where this network connection is yet to reach.

The lead technologist of the Kuiper project, Rajeev Badyal, noted that Amazon is working to avail internet connectivity at an affordable price. Experts think that this project depends on the accessibility of cheap mass-developed antennas. Amazon is creating an R&D facility for this Kuiper project in Redmond. 

Finally, Amazon has another comparable project whose purpose is to sell cloud services in the satellite industry. The founder of Amazon Jeff Bezos said that his other firm Blue Origin would be reaching out for the Kuiper contracts. Blue Origin is also championing for additional agreements with SpaceX through its New Glenn rocket facility. The success of these projects will facilitate the layout of this firm in the space industry roadmap.