Blue Origin's morning launch of their New Glenn was looking like an unqualified success when the launch coverage shutdown on YouTube. The second flight of the booster named, Never Tell Me the Odds, started late due to a countdown hold for unknown reasons; starting at 7:25 AM instead of the expected 6:45 AM. The flight itself looked to be by the numbers and recovery of the booster on their recovery drone, Jacklyn, looked like it was exactly on the mark.
The problem didn't show up for more than another hour, when the upper stage was to ignite to put the payload into the desired orbit. The payload was the second "Block 2" satellite in the internet constellation of Texas-based company AST SpaceMobile, called BlueBird 7. Its predecessor, BlueBird 6, is a phased array of antennas on a large plane. It's one of the largest satellites in space, with an antenna that spans 2,400 square feet. BlueBird 7 has the same dimensions. While not actually square in shape, for reference, that would be a square almost 49 feet on a side. The purpose is "direct to cell" coverage from orbit.
BlueBird 7 was to be deployed into orbit one hour and 15 minutes after launch. Nothing was said or streamed until about two hours after liftoff, when Blue Origin reported that something appeared to go wrong.
"We have confirmed payload separation. AST SpaceMobile has confirmed the satellite has powered on," Blue Origin wrote in a social media update. "The payload was placed into an off-nominal orbit. We are currently assessing and will update when we have more detailed information."
A little later on Sunday, AST SpaceMobile provided its own update, and the news was not good.
"While the satellite separated from the launch vehicle and powered on, the altitude is too low to sustain operations with its on-board thruster technology and will [be] de-orbited," the company said in a statement. "The cost of the satellite is expected to be recovered under the company’s insurance policy."
An artist's concept of a giant AST SpaceMobile BlueBird mobile broadband
satellite for smartphone connectivity. (Image credit: AST SpaceMobile)
In my mind any mission that ends with a statement like, "the cost of the satellite is expected to be recovered under the company’s insurance policy" was a failure - so even though the booster performed remarkably well, that's not the point of the mission. The point of the mission, what the customer is paying for, is to put their payload into its assigned orbit. Reusability is tremendously important but that's after the primary mission has been completed.
The drive to increase the pace of the Artemis moon missions could quite possibly be affected by this second stage failure. It was mentioned recently that Blue Origin's Blue Moon Mark 1 lunar lander was being shipped across the Gulf of America to the space coast here for testing to continue. The goal is to test that lander and SpaceX's Human Landing System on next year's Artemis 3 mission. There are many, many ways to delay that and only one way to accelerate it; to be perfect all the time.
That sucks for BO. Though I pretty much hate the bastards due to being more interested in lawfare than actually producing a working product, I still don't want them to fail when carrying someone else's stuff.
ReplyDeleteWhat is it? Is SpaceX the only company that makes space seem relatively easy? And celebrates their failures as a learning moment?