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Saturday, July 6, 2024

NASA Hires SpaceX to Launch Another New Space Telescope

NASA announced on Tuesday the 2nd they've awarded a contract to SpaceX to launch a small research satellite designed to study the violent processes behind the creation and destruction of chemical elements. The telescope's launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is expected in 2027, although no more specific date was given. Added to the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, and Europa Clipper (not simply a telescope) both of which will ride Falcon Heavy to space is why I said "Another."

The Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI) mission features a gamma-ray telescope that will scan the sky to study gamma-rays emitted by the explosions of massive stars and the end of their lives. These supernova explosions generate reactions that fuse new atomic nuclei, a process called nucleosynthesis, of heavier elements.

Using data from COSI, scientists will map where these elements are forming in the Milky Way galaxy. COSI's observations will also yield new insights into the annihilation of positrons, the antimatter equivalent of electrons, which appear to be originating from the center of the galaxy. Another goal for COSI will be to rapidly report the location of short gamma-ray bursts, unimaginably violent explosions that flash and then fade in just a couple of seconds. These bursts are likely caused by merging neutron stars.

The COSI mission will be sensitive to so-called soft gamma rays, a relatively unexplored segment of the electromagnetic spectrum. The telescope is based on a design scientists have flown on research balloon flights.

COSI is relatively small satellite, less than a ton, and built by Northrop Grumman. It will ride alone on a Falcon 9 because of the peculiar orbit it requires takes as much energy as delivering a much larger satellite to geosynchronous orbit.  COSI will operate in an unusual orbit about 340 miles over the equator, an orbit chosen to avoid interference from radiation over the South Atlantic Anomaly, the region where the inner Van Allen radiation belt comes closest to Earth’s surface.

SpaceX's Falcon 9 will deliver COSI directly into its operational orbit after taking off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, then will fire its upper stage in a sideways maneuver to make a turn at the equator. This type of maneuver, called a plane change, takes a lot of energy, or delta-V, on par with the delta-V required to put a heavier satellite into a much higher orbit.

The contract is what appears to be SpaceX's preferred type, "firm-fixed price," like they bid to design the Deorbit Vehicle for the Space Station, for $69 million. In 2019 NASA paid SpaceX about $43 million for the launch of the similarly sized IXPE X-ray telescope into a similar orbit as COSI. The 37% higher price seems pretty close to the damage done by inflation. What else that you buy isn't up in price since 2019? 

Artist's concept rendering of COSI with some cool gamma ray colors that are quite invisible in real life. Image credit: Northrop Grumman/European Southern Observatory (background image)



15 comments:

  1. FYI
    On a sailing/cruiser forum I occasionally drop in on, several sailors have reported interference with their compasses while transiting the South Atlantic. The Long/Lat correspond to locations between the island of St Helena and offshore the northern Brazilian coastline. Also, GPS function on the fritz is sometimes reported by both mariners and aviators in that area of the S. Atlantic.

    (More precision from mariners should not be expected as passage is measured from one landfall to the next.)

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    1. I've heard stories like that before and I don't know how far they go back. The South Atlantic Anomaly was a topic in a couple of jobs I worked on as far back as 1990. Both jobs were on satellites. Wikipedia says it was discovered in 1958 but I don't know if mariners in the age of big sailing ships knew about it.

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    2. The South Atlantic Anomaly, or a variation of it, was known back in the great days of exploration by the Spanish and Portuguese. Their way of dealing with that huge dead spot of weirdness was to sail over to the edge of the Caribbean and scoot down south, basically hugging the coast until way south of Brazil.

      Big open going crossing through the mid-Atlantic directly to Brazil? Nope.

      Funny, if you look at standard sailing 'lanes of travel' over the centuries, pretty much everyone, until the age of modern steam screw ships and later, that big patch of emptiness was avoided.

      And... it's also sucked down a few jetliners over the years. It's actually much more mysterious than The Devil's Triangle and nobody's really done much research and discovery over it.

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  2. Dealing with SpaceX must be like dealing with a normal business. "Hi, I want to buy some spacelaunch service." "Okay, how much and to where?" "About this much and to here." "That will be XX million, half now, half due upon delivery, and here's your tracking number." "Great, thanks." "Have a nice day! Thank you for coming to your local launch provider."

    Dealing with everyone else? That's like dealing with a WE SELL USED CARS AND PROVIDE LOANS place. "I'd like to buy some launch service." "Okay, first thing, it's going to be XXX millions once you sign and an additional XXX millions when we eventually launch." "So how much is it?" "Well, (sounds of adding machine being used, for a very long time) first, there's the initial payment, then additional initial payment, then a holding payment, then there's inflation, then there's payment for our vacation (first class, of course,) and for our lobbyists and bought congresscritters, the cost of this adding machine tape (at XX millions per linear centimeter,) and then there's the value of air, the value of water, the air velocity of a laden African sparrow...)" "Wow, that's a lot! Can't you just drop the price a bit?" "Oh, that's just the initial up front we're telling you now costs. Additional costs will be charged to your account whenever we want." "How much is that going to cost?" "You'll find out (evil chuckle...)"

    Seriously, why is anyone allowing "Cost +" anything anymore?

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    1. Excellent take, Beans! That's exactly right. It's hard for us outsiders to know exactly what a Falcon 9 launch costs SpaceX but reusability has dropped it to numbers never before heard of. That $69 million Falcon 9 launch probably costs SpaceX about $15 or 20 million.

      Remember that story that the gubmint wants cost plus jobs because it's easier to spread the money back to the congress critters. The small colleges and businesses that want to put a small telescope or some instrument in space have to compete with the infinite checkbook of the Feds.

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    2. In a past life I ran a const company. Cost + was favorable. My point is that type contract is not the problem, per se.
      I always assured the client a cap. I reckon gov does not insist upon, nor expect a cap.
      In fact, I know that since about eleven percent of my business was gov contracts.

      I did alright but lousy compared to others because I refused to play that game of infinite extra work orders. Then after a contract at VAFB, I swore never again.

      I sware, it was so out of hand that you'd think guys couldn't read blue prints. But that's how it's played.

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    3. Thanks, all y'all.

      And I am so over Cost + pricing. I mean, it's okay to put an inflation modifier into a contract for materials and such, but, seriously, I see Boeing and other Legacy Aerospace delaying and delaying and delaying, all the while the price is going up and up and up.

      Sigh.

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    4. And all the while the REQUIREMENTS for the contract are continually changing!
      But I am certain DEI will fix that. Do you not agree?

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    5. I think cost plus has a place, it's just a very small place. If you're doing something that has never been done before and have nothing to go by but models that have never been verified, that fits. But that's one in a million contracts. Something like SLS, like the old joke "Shuttle's Leftover Shit", that's literally using engines that have flown on shuttle flights, No Effin' Way.

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    6. Well, Beans, you're basically correct. The user DOES have to specify weight, spacecraft buss size, center of gravity, power, and size requirements and fluids/propellants - but that's all fiddly bits.
      Gimme a price, then we can get together and figger out the details!
      Easy-Peasy

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  3. So, what is nasa other than a small project management office with authority to let contracts? Could one save a lot of money trimming 95% of the staff and actually get more things and people into space and back?

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  4. I would think that nasa would rather use dei boeing boeing gone.

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