Small Space News Story Roundup 39

Just because:

Poland Launches First Rocket to Reach Space

According to European Spaceflight (.com!) the Łukasiewicz Institute of Aviation has made history with the launch of its ILR-33 Amber 2K rocket from the Andøya Space Centre in Norway. It's the first time a rocket designed and built in Poland has made it to space, but it's still a work in progress. Perhaps that's better said as "technically made it to space."

The ILR-33 Amber 2k rocket was launched on its first space shot on 3 July from the Norwegian launch facility. Powered by a hybrid core stage and two solid-fuel boosters, the rocket reached an altitude of 101 kilometers, which is above the generally accepted boundary separating Earth’s atmosphere from outer space, known as the Kármán Line.

“The crossing of the space barrier by the ILR-33 AMBER 2K rocket developed at the Łukasiewicz – Institute of Aviation is a historic moment,” said Dr. Michał Wierciński, Vice President of the Polish Space Agency. “Never in our history has a Polish rocket reached such a level. This is a historic day for the Łukasiewicz – Institute of Aviation, but also a historic moment for the entire Polish rocket community.”

The development of the ILR-33 rocket has been going on for a decade - since 2014 - and they've launched three times so far. The last flight in 2019 made it to 23 km, and they developed an upgraded variant with larger, more powerful strap-on boosters. 

To this observer, they still have a long way to go, but I'm glad to see it. They didn't claim to have made orbit, just that they made it to the generally accepted definition of space at 100 km. They can enjoy the accomplishment and begin work on a version that can put small payloads in orbit, like under a metric ton. Sort of a Polish version of the Rocket Lab Electron.

The ILR-33 Amber 2K rocket. Image credit: Łukasiewicz Institute of Aviation 

Congress to NASA: find more customers for SLS

And I can't resist the subtitle to the source article: “Because I'm tall enough, I'm orange enough, and doggone it, Senators like me.”  Shades of Stuart Smalley from back when Saturday Day Night Live was funny more often.

There's a strange little section stuck into NASA's new reauthorization bill making its way out of the committees and into the budget - should they actually pass one. 

The section is titled "Reaffirmation of the Space Launch System," and in it Congress asserts its commitment to a flight rate of twice per year for the rocket. The reauthorization legislation, which cleared a House committee on Wednesday, also said NASA should identify other customers for the rocket.

"The Administrator shall assess the demand for the Space Launch System by entities other than NASA and shall break out such demand according to the relevant Federal agency or nongovernment sector," the legislation states.

Twice a year is about 4x the actual SLS launch rate of once every two years - and that's being generous. Congress further requires NASA respond within 180 days, explaining how they can achieve the twice a year rate for SLS and Artemis. 

Additionally, Congress is asking for NASA to study demand for the SLS rocket and estimate "cost and schedule savings for reduced transit times" for deep space missions due to the "unique capabilities" of the rocket. The space agency also must identify any "barriers or challenges" that could impede use of the rocket by other entities other than NASA, and estimate the cost of overcoming those barriers.

How do they achieve that? Let me 'splain it to you. NFW. No way. 

For newbies who don't know the back story, the SLS program was created at the end of the Space Shuttle program to keep the gravy train flowing to the contractors - so they could keep skimming the congress critters' share of that gravy back to them. There might be something new about the details of the SLS, but it's virtually entirely recycled hardware from the Shuttle era. It reuses engines that actually flew on Shuttles over 15 years ago, for God's sake.

Congress created the SLS rocket 14 years ago with the NASA Authorization Act of 2010. The large rocket kept a river of contracts flowing to large aerospace companies, including Boeing and Northrop Grumman, who had been operating the Space Shuttle. Congress then lavished tens of billions of dollars on the contractors over the years for development, often authorizing more money than NASA said it needed. Congressional support was unwavering, at least in part because the SLS program boasts that it has jobs in every state.

Under the original law, the SLS rocket was supposed to achieve "full operational capability" by the end of 2016. The first launch of the SLS vehicle did not take place until late 2022, six years later. It was entirely successful. However, due to various reasons, the rocket will not fly again until September 2025 at the earliest.

As for the "unique capabilities" of the SLS, more bullcrap. It costs over $2.5 billion to launch an SLS. When the Europa Clipper program was told to use the SLS, they (somehow) got their mission moved to a Falcon Heavy. A single recycled Space Shuttle Main Engine on the SLS costs $146 million. That's per engine and there are four of them on the SLS core stage. Compare that to NASA's entire cost for the Falcon Heavy: the total for the Falcon Heavy launch services is approximately $178 million.

If you think NASA is nothing but government waste, you're not exactly right. It's not 100% waste but think of the old Ivory soap commercials: it's 99 and 44/100% waste.