Chinese rocket falling - "extremely low" risk on Earth

 

CASC - China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation logo.

May 7, 2021

The likelihood of damage to Earth from a Chinese rocket dropping out of control from space is considered "extremely low" by China.

Image above: The Long-March 5B rocket, carrying the first of three elements of the future Chinese space station core Tianhe, during take-off from Wenchang, in southern China, on April 29, 2021.  

China on Friday judged the probability of damage on Earth linked to the fall from space of one of its rockets, which is expected to make an uncontrolled re-entry into Earth's atmosphere this weekend, "extremely low". The Asian country launched the first of three elements of its future space station last week. The launch was carried out with a Long-March 5B rocket. It is the body of this launcher, still in Earth orbit but gradually losing altitude, that must return to Earth. The point of impact of his fall remains difficult to predict for now. 

Falling area in red

The United States is not ruling out that debris is crashing into a populated area and has said it is monitoring the situation closely. "Due to the technical design of this rocket, the majority of the components will be burned and destroyed upon re-entry," Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry said Friday. "The probability of causing damage to air activities or (to people, buildings and activities) on the ground is extremely low," he said at a regular press conference.

Irregular trajectory

After the separation of the space module, the launcher began to orbit the planet in an irregular trajectory, slowly losing altitude, making any prediction of its point of entry into the atmosphere almost impossible. If it remains intact after re-entering the atmosphere, there is a good chance that the rocket will crash into the sea because the planet is 70% water. But it could also crash into an inhabited area or onto a ship.

Tiangong-1 space laboratory

This is not the first time that China has lost control of a space object upon its return to Earth. In April 2018, the Tiangong-1 space laboratory disintegrated on re-entry into the atmosphere, two years after it ceased to function. The Chinese authorities had denied that the laboratory had escaped their control.

Related article:

CASC - Long March-5B Y2 launches the Tianhe Core Module
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/04/casc-long-march-5b-y2-launches-tianhe.html

For more information about China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), visit: http://english.spacechina.com/n16421/index.html

Images, Text, Credits: CASC/AFP/Orbiter.ch Aerospace/Roland Berga.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Lunar Crater Radio Telescope: Illuminating the Cosmic Dark Ages

 

NASA logo.

May 07, 2021

The early-stage NASA concept could see robots hang wire mesh in a crater on the Moon’s far side, creating a radio telescope to help probe the dawn of the universe.

Image above: This illustration depicts a conceptual Lunar Crater Radio Telescope on the Moon’s far side. The early-stage concept is being studied under grant funding from the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program but is not a NASA mission. Image Credit: Vladimir Vustyansky.

After years of development, the Lunar Crater Radio Telescope (LCRT) project has been awarded $500,000 to support additional work as it enters Phase II of NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program. While not yet a NASA mission, the LCRT describes a mission concept that could transform humanity’s view of the cosmos.

The LCRT’s primary objective would be to measure the long-wavelength radio waves generated by the cosmic Dark Ages – a period that lasted for a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, but before the first stars blinked into existence. Cosmologists know little about this period, but came the answers to some of science’s biggest mysteries may be locked in the long-wavelength radio emissions generated by the gas that would have filled the universe during that time.

“While there were no stars, there was ample hydrogen during the universe’s Dark Ages – hydrogen that would eventually serve as the raw material for the first stars,” said Joseph Lazio, radio astronomer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and a member of the LCRT team. “With a sufficiently large radio telescope off Earth, we could track the processes that would lead to the formation of the first stars, maybe even find clues to the nature of dark matter.”

Radio telescopes on Earth can’t probe this mysterious period because the long-wavelength radio waves from that time are reflected by a layer of ions and electrons at the top of our atmosphere, a region called the ionosphere. Random radio emissions from our noisy civilization can interfere with radio astronomy as well, drowning out the faintest signals.

But on the Moon’s far side, there’s no atmosphere to reflect these signals, and the Moon itself would block Earth’s radio chatter. The lunar far side could be prime real estate to carry out unprecedented studies of the early universe.

Image above: The conceptual radio telescope could be constructed from a wire mesh dish inside a crater. In this illustration, the receiver can be seen suspended over the dish via a system of cables anchored at the crater’s rim. Image Credit: Vladimir Vustyansky.

“Radio telescopes on Earth cannot see cosmic radio waves at about 33 feet [10 meters] or longer because of our ionosphere, so there’s a whole region of the universe that we simply cannot see,” said Saptarshi Bandyopadhyay, a robotics technologist at JPL and the lead researcher on the LCRT project. “But previous ideas of building a radio antenna on the Moon have been very resource intensive and complicated, so we were compelled to come up with something different.”

Building Telescopes With Robots

To be sensitive to long radio wavelengths, the LCRT would need to be huge. The idea is to create an antenna over half-a-mile (1 kilometer) wide in a crater over 2 miles (3 kilometers) wide. The biggest single-dish radio telescopes on Earth – like the 1,600-foot (500-meter) Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) in China and the now-inoperative 1,000-foot-wide (305-meter-wide) Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico – were built inside natural bowl-like depressions in the landscape to provide a support structure.

This class of radio telescope uses thousands of reflecting panels suspended inside the depression to make the entire dish’s surface reflective to radio waves. The receiver then hangs via a system of cables at a focal point over the dish, anchored by towers at the dish’s perimeter, to measure the radio waves bouncing off the curved surface below. But despite its size and complexity, even FAST is not sensitive to radio wavelengths longer than about 14 feet (4.3 meters).

With his team of engineers, roboticists, and scientists at JPL, Bandyopadhyay condensed this class of radio telescope down to its most basic form. Their concept eliminates the need to transport prohibitively heavy material to the Moon and utilizes robots to automate the construction process. Instead of using thousands of reflective panels to focus incoming radio waves, the LCRT would be made of thin wire mesh in the center of the crater. One spacecraft would deliver the mesh, and a separate lander would deposit DuAxel rovers to build the dish over several days or weeks.

Concept of operations for building LCRT. Image Credit: Saptarshi Bandyopadhyay

DuAxel, a robotic concept being developed at JPL, is composed of two single-axle rovers (called Axel) that can undock from each other but stay connected via a tether. One half would act as an anchor at the rim of the crater as the other rappels down to do the building.

“DuAxel solves many of the problems associated with suspending such a large antenna inside a lunar crater,” said Patrick Mcgarey, also a robotics technologist at JPL and a team member of the LCRT and DuAxel projects. “Individual Axel rovers can drive into the crater while tethered, connect to the wires, apply tension, and lift the wires to suspend the antenna.”

Identifying Challenges

For the team to take the project to the next level, they’ll use NIAC Phase II funding to refine the capabilities of the telescope and the various mission approaches while identifying the challenges along the way.

One of the team’s biggest challenges during this phase is the design of the wire mesh. To maintain its parabolic shape and precise spacing between the wires, the mesh must be both strong and flexible, yet lightweight enough to be transported. The mesh must also be able to withstand the wild temperature changes on the Moon’s surface – from as low as minus 280 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 173 degrees Celsius) to as high as 260 degrees Fahrenheit (127 degrees Celsius) – without warping or failing.

Another challenge is to identify whether the DuAxel rovers should be fully automated or involve a human operator in the decision-making process. Might the construction DuAxels also be complemented by other construction techniques? Firing harpoons into the lunar surface, for example, may better anchor the LCRT’s mesh, requiring fewer robots.

Image above: The Moon’s surface is covered in craters, and one of the natural like depressions could provide a support structure for a radio telescope dish. As shown in this illustration, DuAxel rovers could anchor the wire mesh from the crater’s rim. Image Credit: Vladimir Vustyansky.

Also, while the lunar far side is “radio quiet” for now, that may change in the future. China’s space agency currently has a mission exploring the lunar far side, after all, and further development of the lunar surface could impact possible radio astronomy projects.

For the next two years, the LCRT team will work to identify other challenges and questions as well. Should they be successful, they may be selected for further development, an iterative process that inspires Bandyopadhyay.

“The development of this concept could produce some significant breakthroughs along the way, particularly for deployment technologies and the use of robots to build gigantic structures off Earth,” he said. “I’m proud to be working with this diverse team of experts who inspire the world to think of big ideas that can make groundbreaking discoveries about the universe we live in.”

NIAC is funded by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, which is responsible for developing the new cross-cutting technologies and capabilities needed by the agency.

Related article:

NASA Selects Innovative, Early-Stage Tech Concepts for Continued Study
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/04/nasa-selects-innovative-early-stage.html

Related links:

DuAxel: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/this-transforming-rover-can-explore-the-toughest-terrain

NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC): https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/index.html

Lunar Crater Radio Telescope (LCRT): https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2020_Phase_I_Phase_II/lunar_crater_radio_telescope/

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Clare Skelly/JPL/Ian J. O'Neill.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

CASC - Long March-2C launches Yaogan-30-08 and Tianqi-12

 

CASC - China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation logo.

May 6, 2021

Long March-2C launches Yaogan-30-08 and Tianqi-12

A Long March-2C launch vehicle launched a new group of three Yaogan-30 remote sensing satellites from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, Sichuan Province, southwest China, on 6 May 2021, at 18:11 UTC (7 May, 02:11 local time).

Long March-2C launches Yaogan-30-08 and Tianqi-12

The satellites (遥感三十号08) will work as part of a constellation for electromagnetic environment detection and related technological tests. According to official sources, the satellites have entered the planned orbits.

Chinese Satellites Constellation's and the Art of the Pivot

The rocket also launched the Tianqi-12 (天启星座12, part of the Tianqi/Apocalypse Constellation).

For more information about China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC): http://english.spacechina.com/n16421/index.html

Images, Video, Text, Credits: CASC/China Central Television (CCTV)/SciNews/Orbiter.ch Aerospace/Roland Berga.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Astronauts Study how Space Affects Immune System, Exercise

 

ISS - Expedition 65 Mission patch.

May 6, 2021

Human Research and space physics topped the science schedule aboard the International Space Station today. The seven-member Expedition 65 crew also spent Thursday servicing a variety of life support gear.

The new Celestial Immunity study underway aboard the orbiting lab this week is looking at how the human immune system is affected by long-term weightlessness. NASA Flight Engineer Mark Vande Hei started the day readying blood cell samples for the human research experiment inside the Life Science Glovebox (LSG). In the afternoon, NASA Flight Engineer Megan McArthur thawed the samples, placed them in a centrifuge, and inoculated them inside the LSG located in the Kibo laboratory module.

Image above: NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough is pictured inside the Kibo laboratory module with the Astrobee free-flying robotic assistants. Image Credit: NASA.

Commander Akihiko Hoshide joined Flight Engineer Thomas Pesquet for a long-running space workout study today. The duo took turns attaching sensors to themselves then pedaling on an exercise cycle. The exercise study measures an astronaut’s aerobic capacity and the effort required to perform strenuous activities such as spacewalks.

A space physics experiment is looking at the production of semiconductor crystals aboard the orbiting lab. Flight Engineers Shane Kimbrough of NASA and Oleg Novitskiy of Roscosmos swapped hardware for the study taking place inside the Microgravity Science Glovebox. Results may improve the quality of semiconductors to benefit industries on Earth.

International Space Station (ISS). Animation Credit: ESA

Maintenance is key to ensuring life support systems and science hardware stay in tip-top shape on the station. The crew is constantly monitoring and servicing lab hardware with support from mission controllers on the ground.

Cosmonaut Pyotr Dubrov worked throughout Thursday checking out fans and navigation hardware in the station’s Russian segment. Vande Hei, McArthur, and Pesquet partnered together and replaced components in the U.S. segment’s oxygen generation system throughout the day.

Related links:

Expedition 65: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition65/index.html

Celestial Immunity: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7818

Life Science Glovebox (LSG): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Facility.html?#id=7676

Kibo laboratory module: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/japan-kibo-laboratory

Exercise study: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=644

Microgravity Science Glovebox: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Facility.html?#id=341

Space Station Research and Technology: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/overview.html

International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

Image (mentioned), Animation (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Mark Garcia.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Why Ingenuity’s Fifth Flight Will Be Different

 

NASA - Ingenuity Mars Helicopter logo.

May 06, 2021

Around the time of our first flight, we talked a lot about having our “Wright brothers moment” at Mars. And that makes a lot of sense, since those two mechanically-minded bicycle builders executed the first powered, controlled flight on Earth, and we were fortunate enough to do the same 117 years later – on another planet.

Image above: NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter took this color image during its fourth flight on April 30, 2021. “Airfield B,” it’s new landing site, can be seen below; it will seek to set down there on its fifth flight attempt. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

But the comparisons shouldn’t stop with a first flight. Ingenuity’s fifth flight is scheduled for Friday, May 7. As always (at least so far), our targeted takeoff time is 12:33 p.m. local Mars time (3:26 p.m. EDT, or 12:26 p.m. PDT), with data coming down at 7:31 p.m. EDT (4:31 p.m. PDT). Ingenuity will take off at Wright Brothers Field – the same spot where the helicopter took off and touched back down on all the other flights – but it will land elsewhere, which is another first for our rotorcraft. Ingenuity will climb to 16 feet (5 meters), then retrace its course from flight four, heading south 423 feet (129 meters).

But instead of turning around and heading back, we’ll actually climb to a new height record of 33 feet (10 meters), where we can take some color (as well as black-and-white) images of the area. After a total flight time of about 110 seconds, Ingenuity will land, completing its first one-way trip. When it touches down at its new location, we will embark on a new demonstration phase – one where we exhibit what this new technology can do to assist other missions down the road.

Animation above: NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter took these images on its fourth flight, on April 30, 2021, using its navigation camera. The camera, which tracks surface features below the helicopter, takes images at a rate at which the helicopter’s blades appear frozen in place. Animation Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

The Wrights did that, too. They didn’t quit after one successful flight with Flyer I, or even the other three flights they did on that historic December day in 1903. They flew higher and farther in an upgraded Flyer II in 1904, and even higher and farther with 1905’s Flyer III. By 1908, the Wrights felt they had conquered the air (at least enough) to begin looking at what kind of practical applications an airplane could be used for. That year they flew the first air passenger (Charles Furnas, their mechanic) and began demonstrating how scouting from an aerial perspective could become a thing.

So in a sense, over the course of three weeks and four flights, the Ingenuity team has gone from the Wright brothers of 1903 to the Wright brothers of 1908, but in weeks rather than years. We’ve been able to do this because the rover, which carries the helicopter’s communications base station, will remain in the general vicinity for many sols (Martian days) and because on the fourth flight, we actually scouted for a landing zone over 100 meters (328 feet) away. The digital elevation maps put together by the Ingenuity team gave us confidence that our new airfield is flat as a pancake – a good thing when you have to land on it.

Image above: NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter's fourth flight path is superimposed here atop terrain imaged by the HiRISE camera aboard the agency's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Image Credits: HiRISE/NASA/JPL-Caltech.

There is one other significant factor in Ingenuity’s continued operations: Our helicopter is even more robust than we had hoped. The power system that we fretted over for years is providing more than enough energy to keep our heaters going at night and to fly during the day. The off-the-shelf components for our guidance and navigation systems are also doing great, as is our rotor system. You name it, and it’s doing just fine or better.

Which leads me back to our fifth flight. We are traveling to a new base because this is the direction Perseverance is going, and if we want to continue to demonstrate what can be done from an aerial perspective, we have to go where the rover goes. The Wrights did the same in 1908 – even traveling all the way to LeMans, France, to demonstrate the capabilities of their aircraft.

Ingenuity Mars Helicopter. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

I think a lot about the Wrights during our flights. I’m sure part of the reason is that I (along with teammate Chris Lefler) had the honor of attaching the small swatch of material from the lower left wing of Flyer I to Ingenuity. But it’s more than that. The Wrights showed what could be accomplished with a combination of teamwork, creativity, and tenacity – and a bit of ingenuity and perseverance.

On flight day, when I look around the room and online at our team, I see a lot of the same sort of vision and tenacity/spirit that made the Wright brothers who they were. Together, we are continuing our Wright brothers moments on Mars.

More About Ingenuity

The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter was built by JPL, which also manages the technology demonstration for NASA Headquarters. It is supported by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, the NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, and the NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate. NASA’s Ames Research Center and Langley Research Center provided significant flight performance analysis and technical assistance.

At NASA Headquarters, Dave Lavery is the program executive for the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter. At JPL, MiMi Aung is the project manager and J. (Bob) Balaram is chief engineer.

Bring the excitement of Ingenuity into classrooms and homes through NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement toolkit. Educators, students, and families can follow along the mission by building a paper helicopter or coding an Ingenuity video game.

For more information about Ingenuity:

https://go.nasa.gov/ingenuity-press-kit and https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter

Images (mentioned), Animation (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/JPL/Written by Josh Ravich, Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Mechanical Engineering Lead at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Boeing’s Starliner System Completes Full Space Station Mission Simulation

 

Boeing & NASA - Starliner - Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2) patch.

May 6, 2021

NASA and Boeing recently completed an integrated mission dress rehearsal of Starliner’s uncrewed Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2) mission to the International Space Station for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. The campaign conducted largely inside Boeing’s Houston-based Avionics and Software Integration Lab (ASIL) culminated in a five-day end-to-end mission simulation known as the ASIL Mission Rehearsal, or AMR.

Gearing up for the program’s first AMR took several months of preparation configuring hardware and software, routing communications channels, mapping simulated sensor data, verifying flight procedures, and completing weeks of dry runs.

Image above: Boeing Starliner flight directors Bob Dempsey and Edward Van Cise operate a simulated Orbital Flight Test-2 rendezvous and docking with the International Space Station from inside the Mission Control Center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. As part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, OFT-2 is a critical developmental milestone on Boeing’s path to fly crew missions for NASA.
Image Credit: Boeing.

“The AMR is one of many examples of Boeing’s commitment to flying NASA astronauts as safely as possible,” said Chad Schaeffer, commercial crew software certification manager. “The joint Boeing and NASA system and software teams have worked very closely to prepare for the OFT-2 mission, including building stronger relationships and improved processes that are paying dividends for our commercial crew missions.”

Mission operation teams inside flight control rooms at Johnson Space Center in Houston commanded the simulation using actual flight procedures. The run for record began 26 hours before launch and continued through docking, space station quiescent operations, 32 hours of power up procedures ahead of undocking, then landing and power down.

NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Mike Fincke monitored every dynamic event from inside the lab using crew displays connected to the simulator. Wilmore and Fincke will fly aboard Starliner’s Crew Flight Test along with NASA astronaut Nicole Mann. Launch control teams at Boeing’s Mission Control Center in Florida participated in the rehearsal along with United Launch Alliance (ULA), which supported onsite in Houston after testing Starliner’s hardware inside its own Denver-based integration lab earlier this year.

Image above: NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Mike Fincke monitor the launch portion of an integrated mission dress rehearsal of Boeing’s uncrewed Orbital Flight Test-2 from Boeing’s Houston-based Avionics and Software Integration Lab. Along with NASA astronaut Nicole Mann, Wilmore and Fincke will fly aboard Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft for the company’s Crew Flight Test, as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. Image Credit: Boeing.

“I can feel that on the NASA/Boeing team, there is a deep passion for spaceflight and doing what it takes to have a successful mission,” said NASA astronaut Mike Fincke. “I am glad to be on this team.”

An AMR will be conducted before every future flight serving as an additional confidence and integration test recommended by the NASA/Boeing Joint Independent Review Team as a result of Starliner’s first test flight. With the conclusion of the AMR, all the review team’s recommended actions relating to Starliner software are complete and pending closure by NASA. Boeing and NASA will continue supporting post-test reviews and updating the software to include lessons learned from the AMR campaign.

Boeing CST-100 Starliner. Animation Credit: Boeing

NASA and Boeing are targeting 2:53 pm EDT Friday, July 30, for the launch of Starliner’s next test flight, OFT-2.

“We’re feeling very confident in the software with the success of end-to-end testing,” said John Vollmer, Starliner program manager. “This campaign is about more than just our next mission. We’re working to ensure the safety and success of all future Starliner flights for NASA and every commercial customer to come.”

Related links:

CST-100 Starliner: https://www.boeing.com/space/starliner/

Commercial Crew: https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/commercial/crew/index.html

International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

Kennedy Space Center (KSC): https://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/home/index.html

Images (mentioned), Animation (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/James Cawley.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

SpaceX Starship prototype SN15 high altitude flight success, landed safely

 

SpaceX - Starship (Unofficial) patch.

May 5, 2021

Image above: Starship prototype SN15 undergoing a cryogenic test in April 2021 at SpaceX’s South Texas site. SN15 has been fitted with many updates, in hopes of preventing it from exploding, as have 4 earlier Starship prototype vehicles within the past 5 months. Image via SpaceX.

SpaceX’s test flight of Starship SN15 went off without a hitch today, May 5, 2021. Following 4 Starship prototypes that exploded upon landing after their high-altitude flight tests, the SN15 landed safely.

Starship | SN15 | High-Altitude Flight Test. Video Credit: SpaceX

Fifth time’s the charm. After four unsuccessful attempts at high-altitude test flights for its Starship prototype, SpaceX now has successfully launched and landed its most recent prototype, Serial Number 15 or SN15. The launch took place late in the day on May 5, 2021 at SpaceX’s South Texas facility. Starship soared about 6 miles (10 km) upwards and then returned to Earth, landing upright. SpaceX calls Starship a “fully reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the moon, Mars and beyond.” NASA has chosen this system as the moon lander for its crewed Artemis program, intended to carry the first man since the 1970s, and first woman ever, to the moon in this decade.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted after the landing:

Credit: Twitter

The prototype had undergone a series of tests last week. The high-altitude test flight was originally scheduled for April 30, but it had been delayed several times. Now the high-altitude test has been accomplished. The final system will be paired with a giant SpaceX rocket booster known as Super Heavy.

SN15 was the fifth Starship prototype to attempt this upward flight in less than five months. The four before it – SN8 through SN11 – all flew well until the very end, when each exploded in a dramatic show of fire. See the amazing video comparison at the end of this post. SN10 landed in one piece, but blew up on the landing pad about eight minutes later. SN11’s launch took place about a month ago on March 30, soaring to its maximum altitude as planned, then exploding upon landing due to a “plumbing problem,” SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk announced a week later. Essentially, there was too much methane in the combustion chamber and the pressure was therefore too high.

And thus SN15 has had many “adjustments,” to keep it from exploding. SpaceX has built a reputation for persevering through failure, and it has the funds and resources to continue building prototypes and trying again. Both Starship and Super Heavy will be fully and rapidly reusable, potentially cutting the cost of spaceflight dramatically, Elon Musk has said.

SpaceX's Starship prototype flies to 32,000 feet and land safe

SpaceX expects its Starship to succeed and perhaps even develop a form of routine, and who could doubt it? They expect Starship and Super Heavy to be up and running soon. The date often mentioned for the final system to be fully operational is 2023. The Artemis program has the stated goal of returning humans to the moon – specifically to the moon’s south pole region – by 2024, although many believe that goal is not feasible.

According to Elon Musk, SpaceX’s reason for jumping from SN11 to SN15 is that it was built at the same time as SN12, SN13, and SN14, but with major improvements. For that reason, SpaceX engineers have decided to run with SN15 rather than finish building SN12–SN14, which the engineers already know are outdated at this point. It’s expected that a similar scrapping will happen with Starships SN18 and SN19. SN20 will likely have another set of major upgrades, and SpaceX currently has the ambitious goal of flying SN20 to orbit with Super Heavy before July.

SpaceX's Starship prototype landed safely. Image via SpaceX

SN15’s first static fire came just three days after the launch of Crew-2, SpaceX’s second operational crewed mission to the International Space Station (ISS) for NASA. The Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Crew Dragon capsule lit up the predawn skies over historic pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, blasting off at 5:49 a.m. Eastern (09:49 UTC; translate UTC to your time). It docked with the ISS early April 24.

Related article:

SpaceX Starship SN15 1st test flight expected soon
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/04/spacex-starship-sn15-1st-test-flight.html

Related link:

SpaceX: https://www.spacex.com/

Images (mentioned), Animation, Video (mentioned), Text, Credits: SpaceX/EarthSky/Lia Rovira/TechCrunch.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch