Axiom AX-4 back on Schedule for pre-dawn Thursday

After some more troubleshooting of the air leakage issues on the Space Station we talked about last week, the launch of Axiom Space's AX-4 has been put back on the calendar.  Launch is scheduled for Thurs, Jun 19, @ 4:53 AM EDT or 0853 UTC on Thursday.  This will be the second launch of booster B1094 and SpaceX's 76th mission of 2025, all Falcon 9 missions.  

I think that means B1094 is still going to look white before it frosts over.  

In the linked article about the leakages on the ISS last Friday (the 13th), we talked about how they've been dealing with leaks in the Russian Zvezda module and the areas it's connected to since 2019, and there were still pressure readings they didn't exactly have high confidence in.  

"Following the most-recent repair, pressure in the transfer tunnel has been stable. Previously, pressure in this area would have dropped. This could indicate the small leaks have been sealed," NASA wrote in a June 14 update. 

"Could indicate the small leaks have been sealed?"  And it could be less definitive.  NASA hasn't said this one is 100% fixed and done with.  

"Teams are also considering the stable pressure could be the result of a small amount of air flowing into the transfer tunnel across the hatch seal from the main part of space station," officials wrote in the update. "By changing pressure in the transfer tunnel and monitoring over time, teams are evaluating the condition of the transfer tunnel and the hatch seal between the space station and the back of Zvezda."

Meanwhile, the issues with Falcon 9 B1094 are a bit better addressed.  While B1094 has one prior flight, the Starlink 12-10 mission at the end of April, it apparently showed signs of a leak during that flight as well.

SpaceX's vice president of build and flight reliability, Bill Gerstenmaier, told reporters during a June 9 press conference that technicians "discovered that we had not fully repaired the booster during refurbishment — or we didn't, actually, didn't find the leak and didn't get it corrected."

But the repairs are complete now. SpaceX announced on June 12 that it has completed a new "wet dress rehearsal," or fueling test, with the rocket, and the launch vehicle is ready for the Ax-4 liftoff.

It's hard to tell from the published quote if Gerstenmaier sounded adequately embarrassed at not having fixed B1094 until the last few days.

Although it doesn't enter into the fuel leak discussion, it's worth noting that this is a new, unflown Crew Dragon, which the Axiom crew will have the honor of naming.  It is being talked about as the last Crew Dragon SpaceX will build.  Until the planned replacements and upgrades to the Falcon 9 with Crew Dragon are fully operational, it's harder to be fully sure that's the last one than that it will be "among the last couple" of Crew Dragons.  

The Ax-4 crew includes Mission Commander and Axiom Space's director of human spaceflight, Peggy Whitson of the U.S., in front, and the L-R around her, Pilot Shubhanshu Shukla of India, Mission Specialist Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski of Poland, and Mission Specialist Tibor Kapu of Hungary.

EDIT TO UPDATE 6/18 1115 AM EDT:  Within a couple of hours of hitting the "Post" button, this mission was rescheduled, yet again.  It's now scheduled for Sunday morning Jun 22, 2025 3:42 AM EDT

Pulsar Fusion engines opening office in Texas

The UK nuclear propulsion startup Pulsar Fusion has dreams of propelling rockets to destinations from the Moon to the outer solar system — but first, they’re headed to Texas.  Why?  Get closer to potential US clients and investors, of course.  For over a decade, Pulsar has been studying, developing, and testing its nuclear propulsion tech.  It's getting to be time to step up the level of efforts.  

Pulsar’s nuclear fusion spacecraft—Sunbird—consists of a dual direct fusion drive (DFDD), and eight Hall-effect thrusters. Together, these should provide the massive thrust capable of reaching speeds of 329,000 mph, and the smaller pulses needed for precise maneuvers. 

If you're used to reading about the speeds of probes we send up, 329,000 miles per hour sounds pretty fast; for example, when the Parker solar probe dove close to the sun last December, its speed peaked at 211,194 mph and that was fast.  The speed of light, though, is 186,000 miles per second.  There's 3600 seconds in an hour, multiplying that 186,000 by 3600 seconds per hour results in light speed equating to 670,000,000 miles per hour.  Speeds like 329,000 mph might shave whole digits off the flight to outer planets in years, but is dreadfully slow of what would be needed to go to other star systems. 

That said, their DFDD engine appears to be actual nuclear fusion and not a clever renaming of some other phenomenon.  

Pulsar plans to test its nuclear fusion tech in space by 2027, and is expected to test components of the Sunbird’s power system in orbit as soon as this year. In the meantime, the company is ramping up its ground-based tests.

• Pulsar is test-firing its Hall-effect thrusters to demonstrate their technical capabilities; it has also signed an MoU with Thales Alenia Space, which has shown interest in the electric propulsion tech.
• Pulsar also recently built two space grade vacuum chambers in England—the largest of their kind in the UK—which it will use to conduct endurance tests for its Hall-effect thrusters, and its Sunbird fusion spacecraft.

Here and now: Nuclear fusion propulsion has long felt out of reach, but thanks to AI, Pulsar officials say they have been able to refine the complicated propulsion technology to make it an operational reality. The company is using AI to help make their nuclear fusion reactors smaller, more intelligent, more precise, and ultimately, more practical.

Pulsar’s MarsEffect 10kW thruster, which has been test-fired under a UK Space Agency grant for Nuclear Electric Propulsion.  Image: Pulsar Fusion

Perhaps converting to horsepower might be useful: 1 HP = 746 watts so these 10,000 W thrusters reduce to 13.4 HP

One out of two isn't that bad? Fuggedabout it.

Only one out of two is pretty bad.  

I'm talking, of course about last Saturday's post about "a strange weekend before an important weekend."  But it's worse than that.  All told, I spent hours on Monday and  Tuesday working on the weed removal, and that cap I included a picture of when it was in place on the weed trimmer broke within a few minutes of turning it on back on last Monday.  I had to print a replacement, which meant I had to push that overnight to Tuesday.  

Still, the weed trimming was complete in a day's worth of work.  The radio contest was great on Saturday the 14th but was almost completely dead today.  There's simply no way anybody working in the contest for points could have had a competitive score with one day. 

My emphasis in these contests is essentially never for scoring lots of points; my emphasis tends to be working "new ones" where new can mean, a state, a Maidenhead Grid, or a new country.  All for collecting "wallpaper."  Over the course of the hours spent in BIC time (Butt In Chair) you'll see the odd specificity of cross county openings that seems to be from the "couple of square miles" you're sitting in to a random couple of other square miles hundreds or thousands of miles away.  Then suddenly the exact locations of the other ends you hear change, some times just to an adjacent grid square, 3 or 4 miles away, sometimes hopping over neighboring squares to connect you to more distant places.  Often one or both ends of those cross-country hops reverse resulting in hearing the far end move back and forth.  

This year so far had a few days that resulted in great totals but yesterday was probably the best day of the year.  The problem is it would have been better for the contest if both days had been good instead of one truly great and one well-below average.  

If I gave you a bad impression that this weekend be better than it ended up being: my apologies.  There's a popular quote that I use often, accredited to physicist Niels Bohr: "Prediction is very difficult. Especially if it's about the future."  Because of that, I don't usually do bold quotes and predictions. 

You're not likely to encounter anyone more disappointed than I am about the contest.  

I've published this map several times; it's map of all the Two Letter grid squares in the USA handed out by Icom America at hamfests and other gatherings. This map gets you to the first level of descriptors, things like EM00 - two letters, two numbers. The level below this gets you two more letters after the number. So you get to smaller grid units like EM00aa.

SpaceX Tries something new with Falcon 9

That statement is hard to wrap your head around.  With the 500th launch of a Falcon booster just last week,  the concept of doing something new with a Falcon 9 is a bit hard to grasp.   Haven't they done pretty much everything that can be done with a Falcon?  

Not according to this week's Rocket Report from Ars Technica.  

[T]he company tried something new following a launch on June 7 with a radio broadcasting satellite for SiriusXM. The Falcon 9's upper stage placed the SXM-10 satellite into an elongated, high-altitude transfer orbit, as is typical for payloads destined to operate in geosynchronous orbit more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) over the equator. When a rocket releases a satellite in this type of high-energy orbit, the upper stage has usually burned almost all of its propellant, leaving little fuel to steer itself back into Earth's atmosphere for a destructive reentry. This means these upper stages often remain in space for decades, becoming a piece of space junk that transits across the orbits of many other satellites.

Now, a solution ... SpaceX usually deorbits rockets after they deploy payloads like Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit, but deorbiting a rocket from a much higher geosynchronous transfer orbit is a different matter. "Last week, SpaceX successfully completed a controlled deorbit of the SiriusXM-10 upper stage after GTO payload deployment," wrote Jon Edwards, SpaceX's vice president of Falcon and Dragon programs. "While we routinely do controlled deorbits for LEO stages (e.g., Starlink), deorbiting from GTO is extremely difficult due to the high energy needed to alter the orbit, making this a rare and remarkable first for us. This was only made possible due to the hard work and brilliance of the Falcon GNC (guidance, navigation, and control) team and exemplifies SpaceX's commitment to leading in both space exploration and public safety."

This graphic illustrates the elliptical shape of a geosynchronous transfer orbit in green, and the circular shape of a geosynchronous orbit in blue. In a first, SpaceX recently de-orbited a Falcon 9 upper stage from GTO after deploying a communications satellite.  Image credit: European Space Agency

Over the course of the last few years, you've probably noticed a bit of an emphasis on trying to keep Earth orbit cleaner and less cluttered.  This is a topic I've devoted column space to over the years - another example.  I guess it's attractive to the greenies. 

The Ax-4 mission delay isn't just a routine delay

Axiom Spaces' Ax-4 mission was scheduled to launch early this past Tuesday morning, and has been delayed a couple of times.  There was talk about a fuel leak on the Falcon 9 booster and it listed as NET Thursday and then NET Today but it's currently not showing a launch date or time at all.  

The real reason for the delay is a recent big effort to address a leak on the ISS which has been tracked and worked on since 2019.  The results have been less than perfectly clear.   

The air leaks have been linked back to the transfer tunnel of the space station's Russian Zvezda service module, one of the oldest elements of the complex, the first elements of which were launched in 1998. The transfer tunnel, known by the Russian acronym PrK, connects the Zvezda module with a docking port where Soyuz crew and Progress resupply spacecraft attach to the station. 

From time to time, Russian cosmonauts have experimented with repairs to the small cracks, but they have generally only slowed the progression of the leak, which amounts to a couple of pounds of air per day. The best solution has been to close the hatch leading to the PrK module except when spacecraft dock with the attached port.

The problem is that both NASA and Roscosmos have said the leak on the PrK module had been "completely sealed."  However other sources have said that the space station is still losing air pressure.  The obvious conclusion to jump to is that something else on the station is leaking and nobody knows where, what or any of those important little details.  

"The postponement of Axiom Mission 4 provides additional time for NASA and Roscosmos to evaluate the situation and determine whether any additional troubleshooting is necessary," NASA said in a statement. "A new launch date for the fourth private astronaut mission will be provided once available."

One source indicated that the new tentative launch date is now June 18. However, this will depend on whatever resolution there is to the leak issue.

The obvious real concern is that the ISS is nearing its end of life and the people in charge of the station need to look at calculated values for the remaining service life not as as being absolutely right but  a BAGATOE (Best Available Guess At the Time Of Estimate).  The reality of the calculations is pretty much that.  

The worst case scenario on the ISS is that the leaks are a sign of a phenomenon known as "high cycle fatigue," which affects metals.  Pretty much everyone has seen something like bending a solid copper wire, having it harden as you continue to bend it and then suddenly lose its flexibility before cracking. This tends to happen suddenly and unexpectedly.

And that means that something major on the ISS could be be getting ready to fail suddenly and unexpectedly.

Accordingly, in its previous assessments, NASA has classified the structural cracking issue on the space station as the highest level of concern on its 5v5 risk matrix to gauge the likelihood and severity of risks to the space station.

In the meantime, the space agency has not been forthcoming with any additional information. Despite many questions from Ars Technica and other publications, NASA has not scheduled a press conference or said anything else publicly about the leaks beyond stating, "The crew aboard the International Space Station is safely conducting normal operations."

Oh, that inspires confidence. 

This photo of the International Space Station was captured by a crew member on a Soyuz spacecraft. Credit: NASA/Roscosmos

Time Out

Much like Peter at Bayou Renaissance Man posted on Tuesday, I'm having to pull a temporary break in blogging.

Long time readers might remember that a couple times I've mentioned I have a hernia that needs to be fixed.  As many have said, they don't get better on their own.  The last time I mentioned it, I said that it might be getting fixed "real soon now."  

The surgery will be first thing tomorrow morning - I'm supposed to be there by 6:15 EDT.  I don't know that it's possible for me to know how long I'll be lying around before I get over it.  I have a routine 2 week followup appointment with the surgeon's office (that's actually 13 days and not 14) but should be up and around the house pretty quickly.  It's just that sometimes it takes a little longer.  

I also wrote a couple of days ago that this weekend is my favorite operating event on ham radio these days.   I should at least be able to post an update before Saturday afternoon.  

Now, if you'll pardon me, I have to be up early tomorrow.   Until next time, this is running through my head, but I have to make you go to YouTube to watch and hear it. 

About that next New Glenn mission

I forgot to mention it in yesterday's post until the comments today, but the second flight of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket has slipped out again.  

Around the end of May, Blue Origin's CEO, Dave Limp, called an all-hands meeting for the more than 12,000 employees.  Among the most critical items he discussed was the launch rate for the New Glenn rocket and how the company would fall significantly short of its goal for this year.

Before 2025 began, Limp had set expectations alongside Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos: New Glenn would launch eight times this year.

However, since the rocket's mostly successful debut in January, five months have passed. At one point the company targeted "late spring" for the second launch of the rocket. However, on Monday, Limp acknowledged on social media that the rocket's next flight will now no longer take place until at least August 15. Although he did not say so, this may well be the only other New Glenn launch this year.

If you go to Next Spaceflight, you'll see the next three launches from around the world detailed on that landing page.  Below those there are eight buttons to get you to an individual company's next launches, which sometimes spread for many pages.  If you go to Blue Origin's page, you can count 18 launches that say NET 2025 (as always - NET means No Earlier Than).  Remember that launching in 2050 is Not Earlier Than 2025. 

All that aside, if they really intended to get 18 more launches in 2025, after their "one and done" - I can't see that happening.  The hold up to their launches that Limp talks most about is that they're not making enough second stages.  

That launch that was penciled in for August 15th is expected to be the second certification flight.  It has a payload that Blue hasn't released any information on and the mission will be called "Never Tell Me the Odds," in reference to the mission including an attempt to land the booster.  There are indications that the payload may be a NASA mission we've talked about before, ESCAPADE.

"One of our key mission objectives will be to land and recover the booster," Limp wrote. "This will take a little bit of luck and a lot of excellent execution. We’re on track to produce eight GS2s this year, and the one we’ll fly on this second mission was hot-fired in April."

In this quote, "GS2" translates to Glenn Stage 2. The only problem with all of that is that Limp and Bezos had set the goal of eight launches for this year and it looks they'll be lucky to get two (and I saw no mention of a third).  

On May 28, a couple of days after Limp's all-hands meeting, the chief executive emailed his entire team to announce an "organizational update." As part of this, the company's senior vice president of engines, Linda Cova, was retiring. Multiple sources confirmed this retiring was expected and that the company's program to produce BE-4 rocket engines is going well.

However, the other name in the email raised some eyebrows, coming so soon after the announcement that New Glenn's cadence would be significantly slower than expected. Jarrett Jones, the senior vice president running the New Glenn program, was said to be "stepping away from his role and taking a well deserved year off" starting on August 15. It is unclear whether this departure was linked to Bezos' displeasure with the rocket program. One company official said Jones' sabbatical had been planned, but the timing is curious.

A screen capture of the first couple of rows in Blue's backlog of launches on NextSpaceflight.

Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos' other (other-other?) company, Project Kuiper, is building satellites, but is said to have more satellites built and ready to launch than rides for them into orbit.  The next batch is scheduled to launch atop an Atlas V on Monday, June 16 at 1:25 PM EDT.  Although I'm sure Jeff Bezos' "gorge doth rise at it," there is one way everybody else uses when they need to get something in orbit.  It's that company a few launch complexes over, SpaceX.  (No charge for the tiny quote from Hamlet - as always)

SpaceX pushes Axiom 4 out one day and has wild Starship plans

The first story is a small one: the next Axiom Space mission to the International Space Station, called Axiom or Ax-4, has been bumped from Tuesday morning at 7:20 AM EDT (approximate - I'm not 100% sure I remember that) and has been pushed to 8:00 AM on Wednesday morning.   The reason cited was weather along the ascent corridor. 

Peggy Whitson, former NASA astronaut and director of human spaceflight at Axiom Space, will command the commercial mission, while ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla will serve as pilot. The two mission specialists are ESA (European Space Agency) project astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski of Poland and Tibor Kapu of Hungary.  

Not to demean Peggy Whitson in any way, from what I know of her as NASA's and America's record holder for the most cumulative time spent in space she's as close to being unquestionable as it gets, but the fact that she's the only experienced astronaut on this flight seems a little "light."  The other, other hand is that since she's Axiom Space's director of human spaceflight, she probably hand picked the crew to fly with.

The big story is that SpaceX is about to tear up part of the Cape Canaveral infrastructure

As many of us here on the blog have said in posts and comments that in the world of launch to orbit there's SpaceX and everyone else.  Last year, they submitted a plan to move into Space Launch Complex (SLC) 37, one of the largest launch complexes at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.  Why? They plan to use the facility for up to 76 launches of the company's Starship rocket each year.

76 Starships each year?!?  Be still my beating heart!  I can hardly wait to see Starships flying from the CCSFS, "just up the road." 

A draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) released this week by the Department of the Air Force, which includes the Space Force, found SpaceX's planned use of Space Launch Complex 37 (SLC-37) at Cape Canaveral would have no significant negative impacts on local environmental, historical, social, and cultural interests. The Air Force also found SpaceX's plans at SLC-37 will have no significant impact on the company's competitors in the launch industry. 

SLC-37 was the launch site for United Launch Alliance's Delta IV missions, and that vehicle has been retired.  The last Delta IV mission from SLC-37 was April 9, 2024. 

Ground crews are expected to start dismantling the existing launch complex immediately with some reports saying as early as Thursday.  

Emre Kelly, a Space Force spokesperson, deferred questions on the schedule for the demolition to SpaceX, which is overseeing the work. But he said the Delta IV's mobile gantry, fixed umbilical tower, and both lightning towers will come down. Unlike other large-scale demolitions at Cape Canaveral, SpaceX and the Space Force don't plan to publicize the event ahead of time. 
...
In their place, SpaceX plans to build two 600-foot-tall (180-meter) Starship launch integration towers within the 230-acre confines of SLC-37.  [BOLD added: SiG]

A Delta IV Heavy rocket stands inside the mobile service tower at Space Launch Complex-37 in this photo from 2014. SpaceX is set to demolish all of the structures seen here. Credit: United Launch Alliance

So when can we look forward to a Starship launch?  I've seen talk of a Florida Starship launch before the end of this year, but that would have to be from the existing and unfinished facilities at Pad 39A, which is a bit northwest of SLC-37, by about 6 miles.  The Starship facilities have been started, stopped and restarted before, but are ahead of the mods to SLC-37.

Don't forget any Starship operations are separate from and don't affect the timing of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches. 

Within a few years, SpaceX could have as many as nine active launch pads spread across three states. The company's most optimistic vision for Starship would require many more, potentially including offshore launch and landing sites. 

Nine launch pads for SpaceX while their competitors largely have two.  

A strange weekend before an important weekend

Another reason to have a 3D (plastic) printer.  

At least a decade ago, we replaced our poured concrete back porch with pavers.  From where we sit now, I can say it was a silly fad the took away my common sense, because while the new porch was prettier for a few weeks, it takes about 9 Godzillion times the amount of work that the poured concrete took.  In particular, if you turn your back on them, the weeds that grow between the pavers grow so fast they'll overgrow and eat you.  (DISCLAIMER: it might be unique to Florida, but I doubt it.)

Roundup can be effective but hard to find, and the complaints about it are still high volume, although they are easing down from fever pitch (example).  I've switched over to Ortho's Ground Clear which seems more effective than Roundup and nobody is screaming about it and suing Ortho.  So far.  That I know of.

At least a week ago, maybe two, I sprayed every seam between pavers on the back porch.  They didn't all die back, for reasons unknown, so my plan was to take our ancient (seriously - like 20 year old) combo edger, grass/weed whacker and clean out every seam between pavers.  I got to it Saturday morning.  It worked for about a quarter of what I needed to get done before there was a snapping sound and the motor started revving too fast.  Like many weed whackers, it has a spool holding heavy monofilament line (like fishing line but much bigger diameter), and it's held in place by a snap cover.  That cover had turned into these two pieces.  The one on the right is an inside view of the cap that sits facing up on the piece to the left. 

The immediate answer is to go find a replacement part, but that's not easy on a Saturday.  Almost immediately, a voice in my head suggested I print a replacement.  Off to the Thingiverse to search for a Black and Decker edger snap spool.  I downloaded a couple and while I could tell they both were very close to the sizes I could measure here, I wasn't sure if they'd work with mine.  So I printed one up today. 

It printed for a couple of hours and must have taken something like 25 cents worth of filament, but by 6:30 tonight, I tested the fit and found it fit perfectly, then tested the whole tool by hacking back dead weeds for a few minutes. It worked perfectly.  

Tomorrow I plan to clean up the back porch and spray Ground Clear on anything that isn't alive.

I know I've said something like this before, but while a 3D printer might be a bit expensive to get started with, and require a bit more general familiarity with CAD software, and computers, until the Star Trek replicators that can turn the energy output of an atomic bomb into solid matter come around, these are the ultimate answer for those "need it right f**king now" plastic things that keep Walmart, and the People's Republic of China in business. 

The Big Deal is Next Weekend - if you're a Radio Amateur

If you reflexively hit the "CLOSE" button when you find I've gone on to do a ham radio post, especially about VHF and the 6meter band, go for that button and see you next time. If you're considering getting on 6m, this is for you.

This coming weekend, starting Saturday the 14th at 1800 UTC or 2:00 PM EDT, is the ARRL's annual June VHF contest.  Before I started chasing wallpaper on 6m, I played in that contest once or twice in the 1980s on 2m SSB on a transverter I designed and built.  It has always been the single best operating time for VHF in the US.  The ARRL does three VHF contests per year - this one, September and January.  Those have never been anywhere near as good as June; at least, around here.  With one exception.  The January contest is near the time of year when we get those few once-a-year chances to work Australia and New Zealand, although I've since worked other south Pacific stations in the winter and early spring. 

If you haven't gotten around to putting up your antenna, or have an idea for one you never built, I'm here now to tell you to go for it - you have five days to get ready.  I first tried the contest in 2002, after I discovered my HF log periodic antenna matched well on 6m - although it pointed kinda "wonky".  Over the years, I know I've mentioned this contest many times.  Two years ago, I worked Japan.  While trying to figure out how many grids I've worked in the USA, I've found several important contacts made in this contest after searching my log. 

Oops - missed a spaceflight anniversary

A Rule of Thumb (ROT) for life might well be that if someone has to remind you of an anniversary it's for their benefit, not yours.  You just don't care that much about it.  

Thursday the 5th was the one year anniversary of the launch of the Starliner Crewed Flight Test - The Adventures of Butch and Suni - an 8 day mission that turned into almost 9 months.  Liftoff was at 10:52 AM Local Time.  

But today's a Starliner anniversary, too.  A year ago today, the Starliner docked with the ISS.   

The interesting thing that brings this to memory was that Spaceflight Now ran a story today saying that Starliner is behind schedule again.  

A year later, the future of the Starliner program remains uncertain as NASA announced late Friday that the next flight of the spacecraft was being delayed from no earlier than late 2025 to now early 2026 at the soonest.

The agency said the timing of the next launch is “pending system certification and resolution of Starliner’s technical issues.” Repeating what it said back in a March 27 press release, NASA said it was still determining whether or not the next flight of Starliner would carry astronauts onboard.  

It probably doesn't come as a surprise that Suni Williams from that first crewed flight believes the next flight should be uncrewed, saying it would be “the logical thing to do.”  

“I think that’s the correct path,” Williams told Reuters, adding that she hoped “Boeing and NASA will decide on that same course of action.”

You might find her crewmate Butch Wilson's response interesting, too.

Asked during a Crew-9 post-mission press conference if he would ride on Starliner again, Wilmore said, “Yes.”

“Because we’re going to rectify all of these issues that we encountered. We’re gonna fix ‘em. We’re gonna make it work,” Wilmore said. “Boeing’s completely committed, NASA’s completely committed and with that, I’d get on in a heartbeat.”

The takeaway I got from the Spaceflight Now article is that nothing has really been decided.  The article goes over a lot of options for a potential crew and their mission.   Many names get mentioned and more than a few of them were familiar.  That said, none of the questions touched on here - such as crewed or uncrewed, later this year or next year - get resolved.  The real story here is that uncertainty, to my way of thinking of it.  Starliner doesn't sound the least bit better suited for a repeat of last year's planned short mission than it did in March. 

Starliner docked to the ISS during June 2024's flight. Image credit: NASA

SpaceX launches 500th Falcon mission

Several weeks ago I said that sometimes SpaceX just kind of amazes me. That was in the context of a backup launch being available 20 seconds after the scheduled launch time.  Nobody works that fast, and they didn't have to.  Today's news is amazing in a different sort of way.    

On Wednesday, 6/4, one of SpaceX's regular Starlink missions, Starlink 11-22 from Vandenberg Space Force Base, marked the 500th orbital launch of a Falcon family rocket.  That includes the short-lived Falcon 1, the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy.  

Liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East occurred at 4:40 p.m. PDT (7:40 p.m. EDT, 2340 UTC) on Wednesday, which also happens to be the 15th anniversary of the first Falcon 9 rocket launch.

The booster landed on the offshore recovery vessel, Of Course I Still Love You or OCISLY, a little over eight minutes after liftoff.  This completed the 134th landing on this vessel and the 457th booster landing to date. 

The Wednesday mission was also the 26th flight for Falcon 9 first stage booster tail number B1063. It previously launched a trio of missions for the National Reconnaissance Office, NASA’s DART spacecraft and 17 batches of Starlink satellites. 

There's only one rocket family to exceed the 500 launches, the Atlas series.  Yes that counts since the development of the Atlas ICBM in the 1950s through the still-flying-though-its-days-are-numbered Atlas V.   The Atlas family holds the record for the most-flown family of space launchers in the United States, with 684 launches to date.  

In reality, however, the Atlas V shares virtually nothing in common with the Atlas ICBM, other than its name. The Atlas V has new engines, more modern computers, and a redesigned booster stage that ended the line of pressure-stabilized "balloon tanks" that flew on Atlas rockets from 1957 until 2005. The Falcon 1, Falcon 9, and Falcon Heavy share more heritage, all using variants of SpaceX's Merlin engine. If you consider the Atlas rocket as the US record-holder for most space launches, SpaceX's Falcon family is on pace to reach 684 flights before the end of 2026.  

ULA appears to have 14 Atlas V launches left, counting from the list of future launches on Next SpaceFlight.  So move that "end of 2026" date back 14 Falcon 9 launches - maybe a month.

 

While not Wednesday's launch, this always struck me as an essential, if not the essential, Falcon 9 picture.  One taking off while another sits on its launch pad waiting to be next.

True to form, the 501st Falcon 9 launch is less than 2-1/2 hours from now, 11:19 PM EDT, a launch of satellite for Sirius XM satellite broadcast radio. 

Resilience is Lost

I managed to get some free time within 10 minutes of 1915 GMT today (3:15 PM EDT) for the landing of the ispace Resilience lander by scurrying around a bit.  During the last two minutes of the descent to landing, telemetry went down and contact with the lander was lost.  I left the ispace video playing, which they muted themselves.  I think it was a half hour later that they signed off.  

As I started working on this post, I went through every source I regularly check and found Spaceflight Now was covering a press conference in Japan, where ispace CEO and Founder Takeshi Hakamada said they consider the mission has failed.  They will continue trying to contact the spacecraft, but don't expect a response.

When I first went to Spaceflight Now, there was one update which was time tagged almost two hours after the video coverage, 5:03 PM EDT and posted nearly a half hour later:

Here's the latest statement from ispace, which was published at 5:03 p.m. EDT (2103 UTC):

"At this moment, we have not yet been able to establish communication with RESILIENCE, but ispace engineers in our Mission Control Center are continuing to work to contact the lander. We will share an update with the latest information in a media announcement in the next few hours. Thank you for your patience--please check back with us soon."

Around 3:30 EDT, Spaceflight now posted this screen capture from 1:45 before expected landing (I believe that's in minutes and seconds).  Notice that the display showed the lander's speed was 187 km/h and its altitude was 52 meters (171 feet) at L-00:01:45.  You might want to think of that as an altitude of .052 km. 

A few seconds with a calculator shows that .052km divided by 187 km/hr says it was 1.00 second (0.000278 hour) from crashing.  It's not a proper calculation because the vehicle was firing its engines to slow itself down to land, but my guess is that there wasn't enough time to decelerate.  It was simply going too fast to decelerate enough to land.  That sounds like whatever caused it to be "too fast to slow down" is the root cause. 

An update from the press conference seems to agree with that: 

Based on the currently available data, the Mission Control Center has been able to confirm the following: The laser rangefinder used to measure the distance to the lunar surface experienced delays in obtaining valid measurement values. As a result, the lander was unable to decelerate sufficiently to reach the required speed for the planned lunar landing. Based on these circumstances, it is currently assumed that the lander likely performed a hard landing on the lunar surface.
...
“Given that there is currently no prospect of a successful lunar landing, our top priority is to swiftly analyze the telemetry data we have obtained thus far and work diligently to identify the cause,” said Takeshi Hakamada, Founder and CEO of ispace. “We will strive to restore trust by providing a report of the findings to our shareholders, payload customers, HAKUTO-R partners, government officials, and all supporters of ispace.”

It's worth adding that ispace doesn't consider this anything other than a data-gathering opportunity.  They already have decided they're not going to launch the Resilience-sized physical package but are developing what they're calling Lander 3 and Lander 4.  There will be no more Resilience-sized lander missions.

Mission 3 will be using the Apex 1.0 lander, which is being designed by ispace-U.S. and Draper Laboratories as part of NASA's Commercial Resupply Services (CLPS) program.

Mission 4 will come from ispace in Japan, but will use a lander more similar to Apex 1.0 than Resilience.

Japan's iSpace Resilience lunar landing is on for June 5

Do you remember the ridesharing SpaceX mission back in mid-January, the launch that sent Firefly's Blue Ghost and ispace's Resilience probes to the moon.   Blue Ghost landed on March 2nd at 3:34 AM ET, making Firefly Aerospace the first private company in world history to achieve that.  Unlike Blue Ghost, Resilience followed a "low energy transfer" path to reach the moon, which added months to the journey

We knew Blue Ghost was only going to operate for one lunar day, but it was still a little surprising to say goodnight and goodbye to Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost Sunday evening after lunar sunset at its landing site on the Mare Crisium Sunday evening the 16th (EST).  

Because of Resilience's lower energy trajectory to the moon, it didn't arrive in lunar orbit until May 6 and is finally ready for its landing attempt, set for tomorrow, June 5th.  The tricky part, as that Space.com article shows, is that we don't know exactly when.  

Currently, ispace's Resilience moon lander is scheduled to land on Thursday, June 5, at 3:17 p.m. EDT (1917 GMT), though it will be 4:17 a.m. Japan Standard Time on Friday, June 6, at touchdown time. That landing time, announced in a June 4 update, is about 7 minutes earlier than ispace's earlier target of 3:24 p.m EDT (1924 GMT),. 
...
The prime landing spot is in the middle of Mare Frigoris, or the "Sea of Cold," on the near side of the moon's northern hemisphere. If ispace decides to use a backup landing site (there are three in all), those attempts would occur on different days and times.

We all know the Moon Is a Harsh Mistress and this is just a bit more of an example.  Yes the daylight is 14 Earth days long, but the mission depends on getting as much use out of those hours as possible. 

 

ispace produced this photo which shows the landing spots. The primary target is marked by a red dot near the right edge of the photo near where a pair of latitude and longitude lines intersect.  If you look carefully right to left, you'll see three other darker red dots marked MFLZ-BU1 through BU3.  While I have no idea what MFLZ stands for, I'm pretty confident the BU is for Back Up.  Unless MFLZ is supposed to be read by Samuel L Jackson.  

The landing will be carried on ispace's YouTube Channel - that link is the English version.  They will also carry it in Japanese but I assume the vast majority of my readers will be more interested in English. 

The livestreams will begin at 2:10 p.m. EDT (1810 GMT/3:10 a.m. JST on June 6) with the landing itself targeted for 3:17 p.m. EDT (1917 GMT; 4:17 a.m. JST on June 6).

It sounds like an interesting mission.  In addition to a Water Electrolyzer Experiment that will test technology to generate oxygen and hydrogen from moon water, and an Algae-based food production module that will experiment with growing algae on the moon, Resilience is carrying a microrover called Tenacious, which was built by ispace's European subsidiary.  If all goes well, the rover will be deployed on the surface to test its camera and sample-collection shovel for future sample return missions.  For reasons I just don't understand, Tenacious will carry a miniature work of art: a tiny model called "Moonhouse," a small red house designed by Swedish artist Mikael Genberg, as part of a cultural program for the mission.

Space Ops: Blue Origin Poised To Leapfrog SpaceX To The Moon

A friend whom I've know since we worked on the International Space Station at Major SE Defense Contractor forwarded an email to me that linked to a story on Aviation Week's Aerospace and Daily Defense Report.  ISTRC that we shared an office in around 1992, but it was before it was called the INTERNATIONAL Space Station and was known as Space Station Freedom^*.  If it's not clear, Aviation Week is a magazine that was always respected at the contractor for both being right and among the first - if not the - first to cover important stories.   

In our post about Blue Origin last Friday, we talked about the fact that New Glenn has only had one mission to successfully achieve orbit, and the next mission is planned to be "later this year," and to be the first test of their version of the Apollo Lunar Excursion Module they call their MK1.   Aerospace Daily & Defense Report gives us a more complete history that's also interesting reading. 

Blue Origin’s Mark 1 lunar lander began life as a structural test article for what the company hoped would be a follow-on contract to its original 2020 Human Landing System (HLS) technology development partnership with NASA.   

But that was a contract that SpaceX won.  It's the one that Blue sued NASA and the General Accounting office over.  And lost the suit.  

Engineers floated the idea of using the Mark 1 (MK1) as a mass simulator, if needed, for the first launch of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket. Instead, the company flew a prototype of its Blue Ring payload hosting and servicing spacecraft for the booster’s Jan. 16 debut.

Then Blue Origin began thinking about outfitting the MK1 with an avionics package, a solar power system, fuel cells, a reaction control system and a BE-7 engine and launching it into low Earth orbit (LEO) so the company could gain in-space operational experience.

At some point, John Couluris, Blue's vice president of lunar permanence, brought the idea to owner Jeff Bezos.  Bezos looked it over and said, "Wow, that’s great. Can you land it on the Moon?" Suddenly the test got much harder and much more involved. 

Blue Origin plans to attempt the landing this year. If successful, the MK1, which is 26 ft. tall and 10 ft. in diameter, would become the largest vehicle to touch down on the surface of the Moon, eclipsing the Apollo program’s Lunar Modules (LM) that landed crews six times in 1969-72. Fully fueled, the MK1 weighs 47,000 lb., compared with the 36,200-lb. mass of the extended Apollo LM.

The MK1 is designed to carry nearly 3.9 tons to any location on the surface of the Moon, Couluris said. Powered by a single liquid oxygen and liquid-hydrogen-fueled BE-7 engine, the MK1 will launch fully fueled onboard a Blue Origin New Glenn rocket. After a week-long journey to the Moon, the MK1 is designed to touch down within 33 ft. of its intended target, Couluris said.

As of last Thursday, when this was written, assembly of the 10,000 lb. thrust BE-7 engine that will power the MK1 is approaching completion.  The next step will be that the MK1 will ship out from its Port Canaveral, Florida, manufacturing facility to the Johnson Space Center for thermal vacuum chamber testing.  Which makes it sound like the first flight of the MK1 should take place this year, and possibly fairly soon, like around the end of the September.

Blue Origin has two MK1 vehicles in assembly and plans to fly both ahead of its uncrewed Blue Moon HLS demonstration for NASA. SpaceX is aiming for an uncrewed demonstration of its Starship-based HLS next year.

Rendering of the Mark 1 lander.  Image credit:  Blue Origin

^*The first time they cut the budget on the Space Station Freedom, we shortened the name to Space Station Fred to reflect the savings from making the station smaller.  When the station shrunk, the name Freedom no longer fit on a module.  Tragically, nobody else adopted our nickname.  

 

Sorry... I Got Nothing

Busy day that started earlier than usual, then dragged on for hours of hurry up and wait.  In a hospital for a medical test.  

I don't see any quick and obvious news headlines to dive into.  I'll get back to it tomorrow.

So a little amusement...

Innumeracy

There's something that I've been aware of in modern American life for a rather long time that I simply don't understand.  

People that admit to being unable to read, illiterate, are looked at entirely differently than if they say they're unable to do simple math or innumerate.  People who can't read at some basic level are grouped differently than people who can't do arithmetic.  Society seems to have more resources dedicated to helping the illiterate read - or, at least, to cope better where so much of life is dependent on reading.  I can't say I've ever heard of equivalents for people that can't do simple arithmetic. 

The prompting for this topic comes to mind a few times every week, but credit where credit is due is to McThag for one of the things that drive him nuts, the way relative differences in size are described.

Are fractions really that hard and terrifying?

Because I am sick of reading, "20 times less" when they mean 1/20th.

This is easy math.  Try it at home.

20 x 1 = 20.  Is 20 more or less than 1?

20 x 20 = 400.  Is 400 more or less than 20?

When you multiply it's always MORE not less.  

Of course, I've seen things like that "20 times less" and it always makes my eyes twitch.  Another one is when they say "100% more."  Why is it that saying "twice as much" or "2x the amount" isn't used?  

The stupidest one I see, and I see it regularly for different things, is like this label on a box of almond extract. Out of my cabinet and in front of my coffee pot.

Note the label at the bottom: "NET 2 FL OZ (59mL)"  Now look at the highlighted yellow box at the top.  "2X MORE THAN OUR 1 FL OZ" 

I maintain that anyone who needs to be told 2 ounces is two times 1 ounce shouldn't be out and about freely in the world.  They need adult supervision.  

This is elementary school-level arithmetic.  How about if you can't do high school level math?  The programs for bachelor's degrees in most of the sciences make sure you can do the math you're supposed to have taken to get into college by making you take it for your college degree, and if you need to do that math in a related college class, you'd better know how to do it.  A lot of technical skills, like for machinists, electricians, various types of repair and maintenance skill sets will go much better if you don't need a math refresher for everything.  

The all time top story I've seen is a rather well known lawyer, and former US congressman who now has a weekly show on Fox News.  Trey Gowdy.  One night early in the life of his show, I watched as he explained that on his way to whatever college degree he was working toward, he had to take a math class.  He said he had to go to the department head and argue that because he was at such a disadvantage in math he should be able to take something else instead of math.  The department head agreed.  

I don't recall the story well enough to be able to say if this was his undergrad, "pre-law" degree or if it was in law school, but I think it was college before law school.