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Space Launches, Landings & Destinations v4


SpaceChampion

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9 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

Lot of people freaked out because the "out-of-control" chinese rocket stage without realizing that similar things happen relatively often.

Well the freaking out was because it was out-of-control and this is not generally accepted space practice among the international community. While this sort of thing does happen (see: recent Falcon9 debris over Washington), nowadays it is tried to be avoided and when it happens it's due to some sort of failure. But in this case, China just doesn't seem to care. This is not the first time they've allowed the Long March 5B to go into an uncontrolled re-entry and AFAIK they've given no indication they won't do so in the future.

Someone called me a "racist bitch" on TikTok for pointing this out, so please let me emphasize that I am not saying this from some sort of anti-Chinese rhetoric perspective. But this is definitely a matter in which they are out of step with the international community and do not seem to care.

Also note that this is not illegal, there are not international regulations for this, but like I said, it's not best practice and has not been for many years, and I would certainly like to see them change their procedures.

ETA: On any individual instance, there's very little need to worry, as the odds are overwhelmingly in favor of it landing in water or uninhabited land. However if done repeatedly, these odds start to shift and it becomes quite likely that at some point this would cause damage to buildings or people. Especially as China is gearing up to do many of these launches for their Tiangong space station.

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12 hours ago, Starkess said:

Well the freaking out was because it was out-of-control and this is not generally accepted space practice among the international community. While this sort of thing does happen (see: recent Falcon9 debris over Washington), nowadays it is tried to be avoided and when it happens it's due to some sort of failure. But in this case, China just doesn't seem to care. This is not the first time they've allowed the Long March 5B to go into an uncontrolled re-entry and AFAIK they've given no indication they won't do so in the future.

Someone called me a "racist bitch" on TikTok for pointing this out, so please let me emphasize that I am not saying this from some sort of anti-Chinese rhetoric perspective. But this is definitely a matter in which they are out of step with the international community and do not seem to care.

Also note that this is not illegal, there are not international regulations for this, but like I said, it's not best practice and has not been for many years, and I would certainly like to see them change their procedures.

ETA: On any individual instance, there's very little need to worry, as the odds are overwhelmingly in favor of it landing in water or uninhabited land. However if done repeatedly, these odds start to shift and it becomes quite likely that at some point this would cause damage to buildings or people. Especially as China is gearing up to do many of these launches for their Tiangong space station.

As a matter of fact China is doing a lot of launches. Only last year US surpassed China in the number of launches thanks to SpaceX. China still has a relatively high failure rate and first stages often fall in their own territory and damage to property is not unheard. Most of the launch sites are in the west of the country and launches are typically towards the east and pass over densely populated regions. 

But it's true, other countries are also at fault. I didn't know about the Washington incident. I remember a different one in Uruguay or Paraguay where the second stage of a Falcon 9 fell over a house and there were interesting tidbit about it. In the end US embassy had to intervene so the locals didn't start selling advanced technology. Other "out-of-control" satellites also fall to the ground. Yes, it's not the best practice and hopefully will be regulated.

However, this widely publicized incident hid something more serious:

China launched the rocket in the general direction towards the ISS

It's highly unlikely they didn't realize that. As you may know, China was explicitly left outside of the ISS treaty and the political hurt is still felt.

 

 

 

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15 hours ago, Starkess said:

Well the freaking out was because it was out-of-control and this is not generally accepted space practice among the international community. While this sort of thing does happen (see: recent Falcon9 debris over Washington), nowadays it is tried to be avoided and when it happens it's due to some sort of failure. But in this case, China just doesn't seem to care. This is not the first time they've allowed the Long March 5B to go into an uncontrolled re-entry and AFAIK they've given no indication they won't do so in the future.

Someone called me a "racist bitch" on TikTok for pointing this out, so please let me emphasize that I am not saying this from some sort of anti-Chinese rhetoric perspective. But this is definitely a matter in which they are out of step with the international community and do not seem to care.

Has China actually confirmed that the uncontrolled reentry was deliberate and not the result of some sort of failure?  I assumed that there was some rocket failure that the Chinese government didn't want to acknowledge or admit. Not admitting to a mistake or failure in the rocket is not the same as simply not caring where all your space debris is landing.  There will be more launches of this class if rockets as they build their space station, so we'll see if all the rockets that enter low earth orbit return the same way.  

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Trying to steal Shotwell from SpaceX was Bezos' smartest move, but always certain to fail because B.O. is a tough sell for anyone other than old aerospace execs or people with no experience who would take it for the opportunity.

Eric Berger says:

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There's a reason why I've heard critics referring to Blue Origin as "Blue Honeywell," and it goes back to Smith. To be fair, it's not easy to grow a company, and still more difficult while competing against a terror like SpaceX. But by any measure, he's not been successful.

I'm not expecting any of the current aerospace companies to be able compete with SpaceX on opening up space beyond activities in LEO.  The only thing I can see competing, and I mean in the sense of being the best tool for the job (not using politics to acquire government contracts) is someone that makes a Starship-like rocket/spacecraft stack that uses a hydrolox engine like Blue Origin's BE-3 or the larger one they have planned BE-7.  Methalox seems best for getting off planets and moons, but hydrolox is best for travelling interplanetary, from the orbit of one planet to the orbit of another.  Blue Origin has the potential to do that but they're moving so damn slow and seem wholly mismanaged.

So the ideal future for this next period of expanding into space is where they are at least two vehicles (which may or may not be from different companies), one for launches and landing, another for interplanetary travel.

I don't see how Blue Origin gets to be part of that with the management team they have:

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The book also delves into the 2014 decision by United Launch Alliance to purchase BE-4 rocket engines from Blue Origin for its Vulcan rocket. Significant fallout ensued a few years later when Blue Origin announced its plans to build the large New Glenn rocket that would compete with Vulcan.

"Executives from the two companies stopped talking; tensions were so high that they walked past one another in the halls of the annual Space Symposium that year without acknowledging one another," Stone writes. "Blue later disputed the notion that its execs stopped talking to counterparts at ULA. Nevertheless, the story ULA execs eventually heard from employees at Blue... was that Bezos was frustrated that the government was funding Elon Musk’s space dreams and wanted to get in on the action."

At the time, Bezos was telling colleagues that he wanted to "get paid to practice" with launching and landing the New Glenn rocket.

As the book makes clear, in seeking to compete with SpaceX, Bezos made a mistake with the hiring of Smith as CEO. In filling out his leadership team, Smith brought in people from companies not known for disruption but rather traditional space practices. Many of his senior hires came from Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, the aerospace division of Rolls-Royce, and other legacy companies. These leaders, alongside Smith, built a culture of caution rather than deliberate risk-taking in order to move more quickly.

Partly because of this slow development pace, Blue Origin has in some ways become even less competitive with SpaceX since Bezos' meetings in fall 2016. At the time, both companies, led by billionaires, seemed on the cusp of a great space race. But whereas SpaceX has launched 100 rockets to orbit since then, more than 1,500 of its own satellites, and several crews of NASA astronauts, Blue Origin has only flown New Shepard about a dozen times, without any people on board. (A first crewed flight is likely to finally occur in July.)

 

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8 hours ago, Mudguard said:

Has China actually confirmed that the uncontrolled reentry was deliberate and not the result of some sort of failure?  I assumed that there was some rocket failure that the Chinese government didn't want to acknowledge or admit. Not admitting to a mistake or failure in the rocket is not the same as simply not caring where all your space debris is landing.  There will be more launches of this class if rockets as they build their space station, so we'll see if all the rockets that enter low earth orbit return the same way.  

As far as I know, this is genuinely intentional. To support their space station launches, they re-designed the rocket last year (May 2020, when this also happened and it fell into the Atlantic). My understanding is they removed the re-ignitable engines and so there is actually no way to guide the rocket stage on re-entry. So it's happened 2/2 with the Long March 5B and there are at least 2 more of these launches planned.

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4 hours ago, Starkess said:

As far as I know, this is genuinely intentional. To support their space station launches, they re-designed the rocket last year (May 2020, when this also happened and it fell into the Atlantic). My understanding is they removed the re-ignitable engines and so there is actually no way to guide the rocket stage on re-entry. So it's happened 2/2 with the Long March 5B and there are at least 2 more of these launches planned.

I'm pretty sure it's just speculation, because I can't find any citation of official designs released by the Chinese government.  I don't think China has released detailed design specification of these rockets.  They are normally very secretive about these things.

Based on these two uncontrolled reentries, some people are speculating that the Long March 5B lacks the capability of controlled reentry, but I've have yet to see any citation to an official source.  

Here's one article from Sky and Telescope:

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Based on this and previous launches, it’s thought that China’s Long March 5 rocket does not have a built-in deorbit capability; its first launch in 2020 also ended with an uncontrolled reentry, and that event drew a rebuke from then NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.

“We don’t know much about the detailed design of the Long March 5B,” says space journalist Andrew Jones, who tracks China’s spaceflight program. “Both Tianhe and the core stage were initially tracked in very similar orbits, so either the stage had no capability to lower its orbit, or any planned measures failed.”

If you have a better source, please share a link.  I skimmed many articles and the same half a dozen or so people are providing the quotes for all the articles.

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7 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

Cringey.  Not a positive impression of his priorities if he spent any time thinking about his title.

Indeed. From my experience in politics it was a big red flag if in private the pol wanted to be referred to by their title, especially if it was a white guy. Those dudes were almost always pricks.

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15 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

I'm not expecting any of the current aerospace companies to be able compete with SpaceX on opening up space beyond activities in LEO. 

Even in that, SpaceX has really little competition. They have completely turned over the space industry. Other launch actors are mostly stuck with government payloads or with particular niches, like small payloads, etc. Many countries are companies are now trying to catch with SpaceX developing similar and alternative designs and well, SpaceX is developing the next generation. No country or company is thinking in anything remotely similar.

15 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

The only thing I can see competing, and I mean in the sense of being the best tool for the job (not using politics to acquire government contracts) is someone that makes a Starship-like rocket/spacecraft stack that uses a hydrolox engine like Blue Origin's BE-3 or the larger one they have planned BE-7.  Methalox seems best for getting off planets and moons, but hydrolox is best for travelling interplanetary, from the orbit of one planet to the orbit of another.  Blue Origin has the potential to do that but they're moving so damn slow and seem wholly mismanaged.

The weak point for interplanetary travel using the Starship concept (either metalox  or hydrolox) is the huge logistical challenge to launch that many refueling missions.

For example. This is apparently the scheme to get the Lunar Starship to the Moon.

https://imgur.com/a/4J0yb20

Of course NASA thinks it's feasible, but if 17/18 launches are required to get to the Moon, how many are required to get to Mars?

I think the only competition in that respect might arrive from nuclear powered space ships assembled in LEO by relatively modest (and cheap!) rockets.

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18 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Indeed. From my experience in politics it was a big red flag if in private the pol wanted to be referred to by their title, especially if it was a white guy. Those dudes were almost always pricks.

Sort of like Dr. Evil complaining that he didn't spend 7 years in Evil school to be called Mr. 

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7 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

The weak point for interplanetary travel using the Starship concept (either metalox  or hydrolox) is the huge logistical challenge to launch that many refueling missions.

For example. This is apparently the scheme to get the Lunar Starship to the Moon.

https://imgur.com/a/4J0yb20

Of course NASA thinks it's feasible, but if 17/18 launches are required to get to the Moon, how many are required to get to Mars?

I think the only competition in that respect might arrive from nuclear powered space ships assembled in LEO by relatively modest (and cheap!) rockets.

The complexities of landing on the Moon are worse for there than Mars because on the Moon the Starship cannot be refuelled from local methane.  So it's about 5 tankers to get a Starship to Mars.  Refuelling on Mars to get back to Earth doesn't require any additional tankers in Mars or Earth orbit.

The plan for Lunar Starship appears to be the same -- 5 tankers to fully refuel.  Each tanker has as payload 20% of the fuel needed for tranferring to one Starship.

Lunar Starship has no heat shield, air flaps or winglets, because it is not returning to Earth.  So it will weigh less, and need less fuel.  The graphic assumes it is returning to Earth, which is NOT the case.  It'll have to get off the Moon to dock with the Orion for returning astronauts home, so will  have to carry enough fuel to do so -- and it can.

Starship is capable of sending 100 tons to the Moon, one way.  Notice the graphic says 20 tons to Lunar surface, 5 tons returning from there -- that's more likely for the second demo mission.  The first demo landing will be uncrewed.  The second demo will have 2 astronauts.  Just a guess but the uncrewed one will carry 100 tons of payload (including extra fuel), while the crewed one will carry little but the basics to survive and enough fuel to launch again.   If necessary the cargo lander would transfer fuel to the crew lander.  So the first demo will stay permanently on the surface while the second returns the crew to lunar orbit.

The plan is for SLS to launch Orion to lunar orbit, meet with the Lunar Lander Starship, and descend to the south pole.  Starship can carry (or be refuleed from the 1st demo cargo lander) enough fuel to take off again and meet up with Orion in lunar orbit to transfer crew, which then returns to Earth.  If Gateway exists by then (i doubt it) it will act as an intermediary waystation where both Orion and Starship can dock.  But it's not necessary.

It's not known what happens to Starship HLS  in lunar orbit then.  Will SpaceX send tankers to it then in lunar orbit to allow it to reused as a lunar lander?  Will it have enough on its own to descend empty to the south pole base and be used as an extra facility?  These questions remain, but is outside the scope of the Artemis program.

Anyway, to compare to the graphic, these two demo flights will probably be 2 Starship HLS + 10 tankers.

Believe it or not, the Moon is more complex and expensive for SpaceX than getting to Mars.

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3 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

The complexities of landing on the Moon are worse for there than Mars because on the Moon the Starship cannot be refuelled from local methane. 

First they need to setup the methane and oxigen plant, which won't be available immediately. How is the plan for that? I don't follow things too closely.

 

3 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

The plan for Lunar Starship appears to be the same -- 5 tankers to fully refuel.  Each tanker has as payload 20% of the fuel needed for tranferring to one Starship.

Lunar Starship has no heat shield, air flaps or winglets, because it is not returning to Earth.  So it will weigh less, and need less fuel.  The graphic assumes it is returning to Earth, which is NOT the case. 

You are reading it wrong. The Lunar Starship doesn't come back, but it goes from the Gateway to the Moon surface and back. Notice this maneuver is energy expensive, in comparison to the Apollo scheme.

The 11 launches are necessary because you need 5 to fuel the Lunar Starship in LEO so it can reach the lunar orbit. Another tanker to LEO and 5 more launches to get the tanker to the Gateway so it can transfer enough fuel to the Lunar Starship so the later can get to the surface and back.

It sounds about right.

 

3 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

 

It'll have to get off the Moon to dock with the Orion for returning astronauts home, so will  have to carry enough fuel to do so -- and it can.

It might be they are assuming a different more efficient orbit than the Gateway.

3 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

Starship is capable of sending 100 tons to the Moon, one way.  Notice the graphic says 20 tons to Lunar surface, 5 tons returning from there -- that's more likely for the second demo mission.  The first demo landing will be uncrewed.  The second demo will have 2 astronauts.  Just a guess but the uncrewed one will carry 100 tons of payload (including extra fuel), while the crewed one will carry little but the basics to survive and enough fuel to launch again.   If necessary the cargo lander would transfer fuel to the crew lander.  So the first demo will stay permanently on the surface while the second returns the crew to lunar orbit.

 

OK, I see.

3 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:


The plan is for SLS to launch Orion to lunar orbit, meet with the Lunar Lander Starship, and descend to the south pole.  Starship can carry (or be refuleed from the 1st demo cargo lander) enough fuel to take off again and meet up with Orion in lunar orbit to transfer crew, which then returns to Earth.  If Gateway exists by then (i doubt it) it will act as an intermediary waystation where both Orion and Starship can dock.  But it's not necessary.

It might be that the Gateway is detrimental from the energy perspective. There have been critics before.

 

 

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1 hour ago, rotting sea cow said:

First they need to setup the methane and oxigen plant, which won't be available immediately. How is the plan for that? I don't follow things too closely.

They're going to build a plant down at Boca Chica to make methane and oxygen, so they'll get operational knowledge.  I believe the plan for Mars is two cargo flights in the first opportunity, and two more cargo flights in the next opportunity along with the first crewed flight.   Solar panels for power and equipment for methane and oxygen production ought to be on the first flight to get things started.

 

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The Senate as expected appears to be adding an amendment to the NASA Authorization bill to fund a second lunar landing option, with $10 billion added.  The details are not really clear -- is it $10 billion additional, or the $2.9B SpaceX was awarded included.  And one of the two losers get's $7 billion??

Edit:  There also seems to be a provision to pay for an "SLS prototype" that some say would just be tested in perpetuity at Marshall -- in other words pure pork intended to hand money over to a district that will have zero benefit for anything NASA is doing.  A prototype made after flight versions are under construction and hopefully soon to be tested?  There is no reason for this, and the Senate should not be forcing engineering decisions on NASA.

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SpaceX's first orbital flight (expected to be SN20, with the BN3 Super Heavy booster) is targeted for early July but they are filed with the FAA to fly some time between then and end of the year.  The flight plan intends to orbit once and then splash down Starship in the Pacific ocean to avoid populations, somewhere in the vicinity Hawaii.  The Super Heavy booster would land in the Gulf of Mexico about 20 miles offshore from Boca Chica, Texas.

The flight is to test the re-entry profile primarily, and operations for the full stack.  Returning the booster to land and the Starship to a platform or drone ship will be attempted on later test flights.

 

 

 

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China attempting to land a rover on Mars tonight!

Quote

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2277645-china-is-about-to-land-its-zhurong-rover-on-the-surface-of-mars/

China’s first Mars rover is about to land. The rover, named Zhurong, has been orbiting Mars aboard the Tianwen-1 spacecraft since February. It is expected to touch down on the surface of Mars on 14 May around 23:11 UTC.

Tianwen-1 is China’s second interplanetary mission, but the first the country has attempted solo. The other, called Phobos-Grunt, was a collaboration with Russia that didn’t make it out of Earth’s orbit due to a rocket failure after it launched in 2011. If Zhurong lands successfully, it will make China the third country to land a rover on Mars, after the US and the Soviet Union, whose 1971 rover mission lost contact with Earth after less than 2 minutes on the surface.

Over the past few months, Tianwen-1 has been taking pictures of Zhurong’s landing site in Utopia Planitia to make sure conditions there are safe. This is the same enormous impact basin where NASA’s Viking 2 lander touched down in 1976.

Hopefully it makes it!  Even Russia finds it hard to land on Mars, losing many landers and rovers there -- if China lands on its first try, it'll be quite an accomplishment.

 

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On 5/11/2021 at 7:45 PM, Mudguard said:

I'm pretty sure it's just speculation, because I can't find any citation of official designs released by the Chinese government.  I don't think China has released detailed design specification of these rockets.  They are normally very secretive about these things.

Based on these two uncontrolled reentries, some people are speculating that the Long March 5B lacks the capability of controlled reentry, but I've have yet to see any citation to an official source.  

Here's one article from Sky and Telescope:

If you have a better source, please share a link.  I skimmed many articles and the same half a dozen or so people are providing the quotes for all the articles.

I believe China themselves said so:

Quote

China Space News, an official media outlet under the Chinese space administration, said on Tuesday that designing a “targeted” re-entry would have reduced the weight the rocket could carry, so China opted against it, given the low probability of debris endangering people.

That's from this South China Morning Post article but I've seen similar claims elsewhere.

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