Space tourism has long been cited as the most obvious future for private space flight. Before Artemis and the Chinese efforts to return to the Moon, space tourism was held up by many as the only way to get real money into a space economy. And while enthusiasm certainly has not waned, some of the early momentum that groups like Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic seemed to enjoy early on have since dissipated to some extent. Virgin Galactic recently provided insight into what it sees as the next steps in its goals of providing suborbital flights to paying customers. In this episode, I’ll explain the potential ramifications of these announcements, as well as everything else happening in the world of space. Welcome to the Undiscovered Country.
Hello and welcome to the “Undiscovered Country”. I am your host Bryant A.M. Baker. Today, I will present the top 5 most important things happening in the world of space. Let’s get started.
1.
Virgin Galactic has announced that their second suborbital spaceplane won’t enter service in 2023 like they previously planned. This is because of demands on company personnel to both return the first spaceplane to flight and begin work on a next generation of vehicles.
In a Nov. 3 earnings call, Michael Colglazier, chief executive of Virgin Galactic, said the company was “prioritizing our resources” towards getting its SpaceShipTwo vehicle, VSS Unity, back into service in the second quarter of 2023 while ramping up design work on the Delta-class of vehicles slated to begin flights no earlier than late 2025.
The new class of space tourist ship for Virgin Galactic, called Delta, is coming together with a new deal to fly Axiom Space astronauts along with contracts to secure key suppliers, the company said in press releases this week. Delta may fly as frequently as once a week and is slated to enter service in 2026. I explained more on the developments of their Delta flyer previously, be sure to check that out.
Virgin has made four crewed test flights, the latest of which was in July 2021.
One of Virgin's next flights with the current-generation SpaceShipTwo, which flies to space after detaching mid-air from carrier ship Eve, will help an Axiom astronaut get accustomed to weightlessness ahead of a flight to the International Space Station.
The delays, Colglazier explained, are linked to demands on the company’s most experienced engineers, who are working on Unity and Eve or on Delta-class design work. “They require not just engineers, they require the engineers with the most history with our existing ships, and that is a limited resource,” he said. “We need to make sure we focus those deeply experienced engineers on those two things.”
Colglazer said that he expected the company would reopen ticket sales after Unity begins commercial flights next year. He added, though, that the company has a backlog of customers “pushing towards four years.”
What are your thoughts? Is there hope on the horizon for Virgin Galactic?
https://www.space.com/virgin-galactic-roadmap-space-tourist-spaceship
https://spacenews.com/virgin-galactic-delays-introduction-of-second-suborbital-spaceship/
2.
China has a new, powerful communications satellite heading to geostationary orbit after a successful launch that took place over the weekend.
A Long March 3B rocket blasted off at 7:50 a.m. EDT on Saturday, Nov. 5, from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China.
The Zhongxing 19 satellite, also known as the ChinaSat 19 satellite, will orbit at a fixed spot over the Asia-Pacific region, 22,236 miles above the equator. From there it will mainly provide communications services for important travel routes across the Pacific, the eastern Pacific Ocean and the west coast of North America, according to the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation.
The satellite is based on a DFH-4 satellite platform. It was manufactured by the China Academy of Space Technology and will be operated by China Satcom, both subsidiaries of the corporation. The China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, another institute owned by CASC, provided the launch vehicle for the mission.
Zhongxing 19 was China's 49th launch of 2022. The nation looks set to beat its record of 55 launches, which was set last year.
https://www.space.com/china-launches-zhongxing-communications-satellite
3.
In December 2020, China’s Chang’e 5 brought back the first sample of lunar regolith to Earth in almost 50 years. Using part of that sample, researchers from several Chinese universities have recently developed an automated system to create rocket fuel and oxygen out of CO2, using the lunar regolith as a catalyst.
Rocket fuel and oxygen will be necessary parts of any significant space exploration effort, but are heavy and expensive to transport off of the Earth. So utilizing a plentiful material found on the lunar surface like regolith to catalyze a CO2 reaction into these two valuable materials sounds like a win-win.
Specifically, the reaction using the regolith at a catalyst splits the CO2 into O2 and methane, a potent greenhouse gas that also serves as an effective rocket fuel.
But the researchers didn’t just stop at proving that the lunar regolith can serve as a catalyst – they went so far as to automate the system completely. The researchers reasoned that any base on the moon will have a severe workforce shortage for the foreseeable future, so any production reaction had to be completely automated.
The system didn’t require any human intervention to produce a relatively small amount of methane and O2 from part of the sample that Chang’e 5 brought back.
If any lunar colony ever exists, the current system will need a significant scaling up and plenty more raw feedstock to be a useful part of that colony. But any proof of concept like this is a step in the right direction leading towards permanent human habitation on the moon.
4.
Rocket Lab successfully launched a Swedish atmospheric science satellite on an Electron rocket Nov. 4, but a telemetry problem kept the company from attempting a mid-air recovery of the rocket’s booster. The company said it would instead recover the stage from the ocean, as on several previous launches.Recovery of the Electron rocket’s first stage was a secondary goal for Saturday’s mission, with the primary aim being the successful launch and deployment of a single science research satellite for Sweden.
The “Catch Me If You Can” mission marks the ninth launch of 2022 for Rocket Lab and the second mission geared towards stage reusability.
Unlike SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets — which use retropropulsion to land themselves, Rocket Lab’s Electron booster can be caught in mid-air using a helicopter while descending under a parachute.
Rocket Lab made its first attempt at a mid-air recovery in May, and the hook was able to grapple the stage’s parachute. However, the helicopter released the stage moments later after noticing what the company called “different load characteristics than what we’ve experienced in testing.” The stage splashed down instead.
Peter Beck, chief executive of Rocket Lab, explained that this time the “Rocket telemetry dropped out (it happens a bit during reentry) but we did not regain a solid link in time. . . .Without that link it’s just not safe to put the helicopter into the recovery zone, so we stood it off.”
Another Electron mission is slated to launch before the end of the year, acting as the long-anticipated debut of Rocket Lab’s first U.S.-based spaceport: Launch Complex 2 (LC-2) at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The mission is expected to be a rideshare mission, featuring multiple customer payloads.
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2022/11/catch-me-if-you-can/
https://spacenews.com/rocket-lab-launches-swedish-satellite-fails-to-catch-booster/
5.
The Office of Space Commerce, or OSC, is working to build out an infrastructure able to handle the demands of tracking the tens of thousands of active satellites and debris objects in orbit, a function that was previously being accomplished by the military.
Speaking Nov. 3 at the CyberSatGov conference, OSC Director Richard DalBello said the standup of a civilian space traffic management office is moving along, but cautioned the process will move slower and more incrementally than many expect.
He emphasized that the OSC’s primary job is to advocate for the U.S. space industry and oversee commercial remote-sensing regulations. However, currently most of the office’s efforts are focused on implementing a 2018 policy directive to provide spaceflight safety services for civil and commercial satellite operators.
The departments of Commerce and Defense signed an agreement in September formalizing their commitment to cooperate. But DalBello said that the memo was just the beginning of a discussion to take place over the next several months to hash out the details.
Importantly, OSC will not be regulating or managing the space traffic. Rather, it will provide information that operators can use to help prevent collisions. Once that warning is issued, “all the responsibility transfers to the operator.”
That said, Mr. DelBallo added that “we clearly are in the beginning of what will be a long, long process” to define what responsibilities should fall on the government and on the private sector with regard to space traffic management. “If you look back at air traffic control, it kind of started in the same way. The first air traffic control centers were organized by the airlines.”
OSC will not overnight learn how to do everything that the Department of Defense has been doing for decades. And there will not be a “big magic date” when a fully operational civilian system will be turned on and the military system turned off.
But the transition of services from DoD to OSC perhaps will start with geostationary orbit Space Situational Awareness , then launch collision avoidance, and so on. He stated, “Once we have those up and running and stabilized, we can say to the Defense Department, okay, you can stand down on that.”
What do you think? Is this a step in a positive direction? Are you frustrated or relieved at the slow careful progress this transition is taking? Let me know.
https://spacenews.com/civilian-space-traffic-management-office-coming-along-but-dont-expect-magic/
Thank you for joining me. Links to all the stories are in the description. The world of Space law, policy and business is changing every day. If you missed what happened yesterday, be sure to check out the video I did covering it. I would love to hear your thoughts on everything I talked about here today?
In my last episode, citizen Jet Li, in response to the story we covered on backlash to the recent Chinese rocket stage debris that performed an uncontrolled descent, asked the question, “Exactly who should China have reported their rocket trajectory to?”
Excellent question! The international space environment has become so crowded, that it is vital that nations communicate openly about information important to understand where objects are in space, especially when they could cause damage to other objects or to the earth. China should have been more open with its trajectory information both with the US and the EU, but any nation with a significant risk of damage.
Thank you for being here, and I’ll see you again next time.
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