Small Space News Story Roundup 23

Very little going on - we should have another Falcon 9 launch tonight at 10:17 local (EDT).  The previous launch was this morning at about 4:00 AM ET from the left coast; Vandenberg. The local news is saying tonight's launch will be a record 58th launch from Cape Canaveral and the KSC.  All but four of those have been SpaceX launches.  It's SpaceX's 76th mission of the year.

Russians dropping plan to update the pad Yuri Gagarin launched from

Because they lack the funding to modernize their most historic launch pad, Russia now instead plans to turn the pad they call "Gagarin's Start" into a museum.  This pad hosted the world's first human spaceflight in 1961, when the Vostok 1 mission carrying Yuri Gagarin blasted into orbit. Between 1961 and 2019, this workhorse pad accommodated a remarkable 520 launches, more than any other site in the world. 

The final launch from the site took place in September 2019, with the Soyuz MS-15 mission carrying Russian cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka, NASA astronaut Jessica Meir, and United Arab Emirates astronaut Hazza Al Mansouri to the International Space Station.

After the launch of Al Mansouri, the Russian Roscosmos agency had created an agreement with the United Arab Emirates to help fund the project, but that fell apart like so much after Russia invaded the Ukraine.  

Roscosmos said Kazakh officials will lead the project to create the museum, as the site is the state property of Kazakhstan. It is hoped by Kazakh officials that the addition of the museum will increase the viability of Baikonur as a tourism site.

A Soyuz FG rocket launches from Gagarin's Start in Kazakhstan.  Image credit: NASA

Small launch companies struggle to compete with SpaceX's Transporter missions

Why are their prices so low?  SpaceX launches these Transporter missions regularly and charges $5000 per kilogram or  $2272/lb.  Prices are reported to be going up to $5500/kg ($2500/lb) and those reports say they'll be raising prices regularly.  If their costs are going up under the insane inflation, why wouldn't they pass that along?

“They definitely control and have a dominant position in the market,” said Curt Blake, former chief executive of launch services company Spaceflight, who now leads the commercial space group at law firm Wilson Sonsini, of SpaceX. “I think the real question is pricing, and what is their cost, and why so low, so dramatically low?”

“I don’t think they had to go that low to have a commanding share of the market,” Blake said, estimating SpaceX could have gained significant business at prices of $10,000 to $12,000 per kilogram. “That had to have a hugely chilling effect on any other money flowing into startup launch companies.

Somehow, I'd bet that the colleges and small companies that want to put those small sats into orbit aren't complaining about the price being too low.  This is what a free market does; a guy has a better idea, makes it work and gets the business.  The customers won in that market disruption, too.

Say it with me again, "reusability changes everything."  

NASA convenes board to investigate rescuing the Mars Sample Return mission 

A month ago, NASA received a report from an independent review board saying that the Mars Sample Return Mission was unworkable in its current form and wasn't feasible on the schedule and costs they were working under.  They recommended the issues be studied and NASA has announced they've started.  

Sandra Connelly, NASA deputy associate administrator for science, said at an Oct. 20 meeting of the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG), an advisory committee, that the agency has convened a team to address the recommendations made by an independent review board (IRB) in September.
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“We want to make sure that we’re taking into consideration the findings and recommendations so that we can structure this program to be successful and do so within a balanced budget,” Connelly said.

The Mars Sample Return Independent Review Board (MSR IRB) Response Team, or MIRT (an acronym of acronyms!) is expected to work until March and will then offer their revised Mars Sample Return mission architecture. 

A complication along the way is that the Sample Return mission is more or less a joint venture between NASA and the European Space Agency. Budget issues are complicated and messy enough with just NASA; adding a second government agency, especially one as complex as the ESA is bound to be an obstacle.