Big Flying Rockets: Space Launches V

[SpaceChampion]

Live stream of the Artemis 2 astronaut selection announcements:

 

Edited April 3, 2023 by SpaceChampion

[SpaceChampion]

The Artemis 2 crew:

Mission Specialist:

Canadian / Mission Specialist:

Mission Pilot:

Mission Commander:

 

Edited April 3, 2023 by SpaceChampion

[Rhom]

Kinda interesting to me just how much older all of these astronauts are than the ones we originally sent to the moon.  Health, wellness, and nutrition improvements I suppose.  

Is this a mission that's supposed to actually land on the moon?  Or is it one of the preparatory flyby missions?

[SpaceChampion]

1 hour ago, Rhom said:

Is this a mission that's supposed to actually land on the moon?  Or is it one of the preparatory flyby missions?

Flyby.  The first landing is the one after this.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

7 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

Flyby.  The first landing is the one after this.

When.  I cannot wait to see another Moon landing.  The last one was when I was about a year and a half old.

[SpaceChampion]

3 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

When.  I cannot wait to see another Moon landing.  The last one was when I was about a year and a half old.

Well it's pencilled in on the books for December 2025 but everyone is expecting that to slip.  There are a number of questions: is SpaceX's Starship ready for that then, will Orion, will SLS?   Will the spacesuits be ready?

 

Edited April 3, 2023 by SpaceChampion

[Jace, Extat]

Eh, if there's gas in the tank I say just go. Good ol' American spit and ingenuity'll figure it out on the way. 

[SpaceChampion]

 

[SpaceChampion]

Size comparison of Saturn 5 to Starship to the Space Shuttle stack.

 

[Jace, Extat]

try harder

[SpaceChampion]

A long way to go for China trying to catch up to SpaceX but too few are even trying, so kudoes to these guys.

[SpaceChampion]

I haven't been keeping track very well of what other nations are doing in their space exploration missions, so I missed Japan has a spacecraft in lunar orbit right now that will land on the Moon soon.

 

Meanwhile, something blew up real good on a Centaur V.

 

 

The Mars helicopter Ingenuity has set some records:

 

Edited April 12, 2023 by SpaceChampion

[Rhom]

On 4/10/2023 at 2:19 PM, SpaceChampion said:

Size comparison of Saturn 5 to Starship to the Space Shuttle stack.

 

 

On 4/11/2023 at 5:22 PM, Secretary of Eumenes said:

try harder

Space X... Bigger and Blacker!

[Loge]

ESA's JUICE mission is due to launch in five minutes.

Underway now. Now we need to wait till it reaches Jupiter in 2031.

Edited April 14, 2023 by Loge

[SpaceChampion]

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

 

Is this a lander for a Galliean Moon?

[SpaceChampion]

9 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Is this a lander for a Galliean Moon?

Orbiter.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/jupiter-icy-moon-explorer-begins-journey-to-discover-new-worlds

Quote

On arrival in 2031, JUICE will circle Jupiter and fly past moons Ganymede, Europa and Callisto, making observations and taking measurements, studying the Jovian system as an archetype for gas giants elsewhere in the universe.

Finally in December 2034, JUICE will transfer into orbit around Ganymede, becoming the first spacecraft ever to orbit a moon other than Earth’s. While up close and personal with Ganymede, the mission will investigate the giant ocean that scientists believe hides under its icy crust, seeking evidence of habitability.

 

Edited April 14, 2023 by SpaceChampion

[SpaceChampion]

Starship is Go!  FAA has issued the launch license.

 

The stream is schedule for Monday, April 17th, with a launch window beginning 12:00 UTC / 7am CT (local) / 8am eastern.

Quote

SpaceX is calling this Starship launch an "integrated flight test." It is the first time that the massive Super Heavy rocket will have taken off and the first time both vehicles will fly together. Under the nominal flight plan, the Super Heavy rocket will boost Starship toward space and, after separation, attempt to make a controlled splash down into the Gulf of Mexico about 30 to 35 km off the coast of Texas. SpaceX will not attempt to recover the booster on this flight.

In the meantime, the Starship vehicle will attempt to ascend to an altitude of 235 km and become "nearly orbital." Starship's engines will shut down at 9 minutes and 20 seconds into the flight, after which the vehicle will coast for more than an hour before entering Earth's atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean. It will not complete a full orbit and is expected to make a high-velocity splash down about 225 km north of the Hawaiian island of Oahu. On the nominal timeline, this will occur 90 minutes after liftoff.

 

Edited April 14, 2023 by SpaceChampion

[SpaceChampion]

Starship (the 2nd stage) currently only has 3 Raptors engines for Monday's Integrated Flight Test.  In the future it'll have 6 engines, and likely will be stretched another 10 meters, making it only 9 meters shorter than the 69 meter Super Heavy booster.

Since they are maximizing reuse, there would be far more Starships than the boosters.  The launch tower (Stage Zero) is intended to catch each booster on the "chopsticks", and is capable of lowering it into place immediately onto the launch mount for reloading propellants and stacking the next Starship on top of it, a process that should take just hours, and allowing multiple launches from the same site per day.  This is needed for the Tanker version of Starship, which would need to launch 5 Tankers for every one Crew/Cargo Starship to be sent to Moon or Mars. 

Extended operations in low Earth orbit vicinity would either not be reloaded with propellants or not need more that one Tanker.  The likely plan is to construct a large Fuel Depot in orbit to store propellants long term for future use.  This is the part of the SpaceX's Artemis contract which is publicly vague, at least until they prove the concept of in orbit refuelling and long term propellant storage.  I'm sure they've given NASA a detailed, aspirational plan for the depot.

What to expect for launch operations and flight profile:

They're not planning on recovering the rocket, so Starship is intended to splash down near Hawaii and sink.  These versions of Starship and Superheavy are obsolete, so they're not losing components they would have reused anyway, aside from flight controllers electronics.

They currently produce a new Raptor at a rate of one per day.  So theoretically they could do a new flight with new engines every 6 weeks or so.  Permission to fly Super Heavy though appear to be limited to 5 times a years during this test phase, so every 10 weeks is possible if they stretch the testing out to the end of the year.  After that Starship/SH would probably be reliable enough to launch from KSC.

I'd guess their goal for the 2nd test flight is to land the Super Heavy booster on the launch tower chopsticks, since recovering the booster with its 33 engines is more materially important than perfecting recovery of Starship.  They'll land Starship a few times on water before they attempt a landing on legs on the recovery barge.

I would expect Starlink satellites to be launching to orbit this year on Starship, ASAP.  It's just an easier target to reach than the HLS version needed for Artemis, but also helps gets to HLS by perfecting flight and in-orbit operations.

After that would be an in-orbit fuel transfer test, needed for Artemis.  Possibly developing the depot technology at the same time or after it.

They want to fly hundreds of times before carrying humans, so that means hauling lots and lots of satellites, propellants and water to orbit.  If they only launch Starship once a week beginning next year then it could take 2 years to get to that stage.  But I think they'll fly more often than that.

With luck, 2025 will see the first human missions.  The first of those will likely be Polaris 3, Jason Isaacman's private mission, and then two Moon flybys, one being the dearMoon mission paid for by the Japanese businessman Yusaku Maezawa, and the other paid for by Dennis Tito (who has flown to space 3 times already).  He is currently 82, so would be breaking John Glenn's (77) record for oldest human to get to orbit, but not William Shatner's (90) record for oldest human to get to space, though that was only a suborbital flight with Blue Origin.

The 4th human flight for Starship would be Artemis 3 mission to transfer NASA's astronauts from the Lunar Gateway to the surface of the Moon near the south pole.   But in between the HLS demonstration mission would demonstrate a lunar landing of Starship HLS without a human crew on board.

On the books for the 5th flight is a second human landing on the Moon for the Artemis program, some time in 2027.  The date really depends on when the SLS rocket is ready....   

I would guess some demo missions to Mars might be possible in 2025, dropping off some construction materials for a future human mission to build a proper landing pad or even a landing/launch tower.

But certainly the 2027 launch window is on the company's collective mind, for transferring cargo.  A first human landing could be in the next launch window in 2029.

Edited April 15, 2023 by SpaceChampion

[SpaceChampion]

Updated time is 1300 UTC / 8:00 Central for the beginning of Starship's orbital launch window.

I have hopes for the launch but there is a high chance of a scrub, despite no known issues being worked on and the weather looking great, because it always takes a while for the ground team to learn how to fly a new rocket.
 

The NASASpaceFlight forum stream:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eN57x2a_waw

SpaceX stream:

 

Everyday Astronaut's stream:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Vb9hFqF6i0&pp=ygUSZXZlcnlkYXkgYXN0cm9uYXV0

 

Edited April 17, 2023 by SpaceChampion