SpaceX Shatters RECORD! | China not far behind (Top 5 in Space Today)

In this episode, we will bread down the record-breaking year that SpaceX just had, and talk about what that may mean for the future.  We will also review what space has looked like in the rest of the world in 2022. Welcome to the Undiscovered Country!

5.  SpaceX Shatters Launch Record in 2022

SpaceX shattered the record for launches in a calendar year by a single rocket type in 2022.  The Falcon 9 Block 5 launched 61 times in 2022, with all flights successfully completing their missions.  The previous record was set by the Soviet Soyuz-U launcher in 1979, with 45 successful launches out of 47 overall that year.

 This year’s record launch cadence for Falcon 9 was made possible by the availability of a number of used boosters and payload fairings. Other factors included the need to continue to fly out the Starlink broadband constellation and some new geostationary satellites replacing older ones due to a requirement to clear some parts of the C-band.  In addition, a number of customer payloads finally became ready after delays caused by factors like COVID-related supply chain disruptions and an industry-wide issue with Honeywell reaction wheels.

 The record launch cadence is planned to be broken again in 2023, with as many as 100 launches planned according to Elon Musk. Starship, the eventual successor to the Falcon 9, did not fly this year as had been planned but is currently on track for its first orbital test flight as early as the first quarter of 2023.

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2022/12/spacex-2022-2023/

4.  SpaceX Start 2023 Off Right

As a first flight of 2023, SpaceX's Falcon 9 stands poised for a mid-morning liftoff on Tuesday, 3 January, from the Space Launch Complex (SLC)-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fla. The veteran B1060 core—making her 15th flight—will deliver 114 small “rideshare” cargoes into orbit on the Transporter-6 mission.

 This will be SpaceX’s sixth haul of multi-payload Transporter “stacks”.  Five earlier missions in January and June of 2021, and more recently in January, April and May of last year, lifted some 435 payloads—including miniaturized CubeSats and PocketQubes.  Customers included no fewer than 32 sovereign nations.

 Notably, Transporter-1’s haul of 143 small satellites—totaling 11,000 pounds (5,000 kilograms)—still stands as the greatest number of discrete payloads ever placed into orbit by a single U.S. orbital-class launch vehicle.

 SpaceX tweeted about their upcoming launch that “There are 114 payloads on this flight including CubeSats, microsats, picosats and orbital transfer vehicles carrying spacecraft to be deployed at a later time.”

 And key for SpaceX to hit their huge launch targets for 2023 will be booster reusability and turnaround.  B1060 entered service back on 30 June 2020 and is set to become only the second Falcon 9 core to log a 15th launch.

 https://www.americaspace.com/2022/12/31/spacexs-first-2023-mission-includes-114-strong-payload-haul/

3.  Other Nations trying to keep pace

2022 was not nearly as kind to Japan, India and Europe.

 Europe didn’t conduct its first launch until June 22 when the year was nearly half over.  The Arian 5only had 3 lauches for the year, with only one more launch scheduled in 2023 before the rocket is retired.  Meanwhile, technical problems have delayed the maiden flight of its successor, the Ariane 6, to the fourth quarter of 2023.

 Meanwhile, the Vega-C rocket made its maiden flight on July 13 by placing eight payloads into orbit.  But a second Vega-C launched on Dec. 21 suffered a pressure drop in its second stage, causing the booster to veer off its planned trajectory.

 Indian meanwhile ended off with five launches after launching only four times during the previous two years due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

 However, Japan’s Epsilon only launch of 2022 failed after launch on Oct. 12 from Uchinoura Space Center with the loss of eight satellites designed to demonstration new technologies.

 JAXA said an anomaly in the second stage’s attitude control system caused the rocket to be misaligned when the third stage separated.

 On top of all of that, Japan’s new H3 launcher, which will replace the retiring H-IIA booster, is running far behind schedule. The booster’s maiden flight is now scheduled for Feb. 12.

 https://parabolicarc.com/2022/12/31/europe-india-and-japan-faced-launch-delays-setbacks-in-2022/

2.  China Keeps up the Pressure

China, meanwhile, successfully completed 62 of 64 space launches in 2022, a record high for the nation.  Among these missions, 53 were conducted by the Long March carrier rockets, the country's backbone launch vehicles.

 Successful missions included the deployment of  22 satellites into space by a Long March-8 rocket, the debut flight of a Long March-6 rocket with solid strap-on boosters, and the launch of reusable test spacecraft by a Long March-2F rocket.

 But the most high-profile rocket launches this year were related to the construction of the Chinese space station, with two manned spaceships, two cargo craft and two 20-tonne-level lab modules sent into orbit.

 China has also made advances in its manned space program. A total of nine taikonauts on three missions - Shenzhou-13, Shenzhou-14 and Shenzhou-15 - which participated in the construction of the space station.  The country also carried out its first in-orbit crew rotation, with six Chinese citizens aboard China's space station at the same time.

 https://parabolicarc.com/2022/12/31/europe-india-and-japan-faced-launch-delays-setbacks-in-2022/

1.  Chang'e 5's Regolith Discoveries

A new study has made some revealing discoveries about the surface of the moon thanks to samples returned from China's Chang'e 5 mission.  The fifth lunar exploration mission of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, and China's first lunar sample-return mission was launched on 23 November 2020 and returned around 1,732 grams of lunar sample from the Moon's Northern Oceanus Procellarum region, near the huge volcanic complex named Mons Rümker.

 In a paper published in Nature Astronomy on Dec. 22, Dr. ZENG Xiaojia, Prof. LI Xiongyao and Prof. LIU Jianzhong from the Institute of Geochemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IGCAS) identified seven exotic igneous clasts in Chang'e-5 samples from more than 3,000 Chang'e-5 regolith particles.

 By comparison with lunar rocks from the U.S. Apollo mission, the researchers found that three exotic igneous clasts in the Chang'e-5 regolith exhibited unusual petrological and compositional features.

 The magnesian anorthosite clast, which was not observed in Apollo samples, provides evidence that magnesian anorthosite is also an important component of the near-side lunar crust.

 This research suggests there are still unknown geological units on the moon, which may help in planning future lunar exploration missions.

 While this information could seem merely academic at first, understanding the makeup of the lunar surface is absolutely crucial to any future that hopes to take advantage of resource potentially located there.

 https://www.moondaily.com/reports/Exotic_clasts_in_Change_5_samples_indicate_unexplored_terrane_on_moon_999.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chang%27e_5#Landing_site

 Thank you for joining me. Links to all the stories are in the description.  If you want to know more about what has been happening in Space, take a look at the other recent episodes. I would love to hear your thoughts on everything I talked about here today.  If you feel like This information has been helpful for you, please consider giving it a like or a rating, and subscribing and following the content. I am honored to be a part of this community of citizens in this Undiscovered Country of ours. I’ll see you again next time.