August 22, 2021

Starship will Splash Down Near Kauai (Sources: Honolulu Star Advertiser, SpaceFlight Now)
In coming months, Elon Musk’s SpaceX could launch its nearly 400-foot Starship on its first orbital test flight most of the way around Earth, with the spacecraft’s 164-foot-long, 30-foot-diameter upper stage aiming for a rocket­-powered “soft” ocean landing just 62 miles northwest of Kauai.

The Starship orbital stage will ignite its Raptor engines at T+plus 3 minutes, 56 seconds, and accelerate into orbit, heading east over the Gulf of Mexico and following a track passing between South Florida and Cuba. Cutoff of the Raptor engines is expected about 8 minutes, 41 seconds, into the mission, SpaceX said, once the rocket achieves the required orbital velocity of around 17,000 mph.

“The Orbital Starship will continue on flying between the Florida Straits. It will achieve orbit until performing a powered, targeted landing approximately 100 kilometers (about 62 miles) off the northwest coast of Kauai in a soft ocean landing,” SpaceX said. The entire flight — from liftoff in Texas to splashdown near Hawaii — will last around 90 minutes. (8/22)

Hard to Believe Ohio is Missing from NASA's Upcoming Moon Missions (Source: Toledo Blade)
Talk about your awkward silences. So I’m in a gaggle of reporters here on Aug. 11, getting sound bites from public officials just after an event in which NASA’s 6,400-acre campus formerly known as Plum Brook Station was renamed the Neil A. Armstrong Test Facility. U.S. Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) and U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Toledo) were there, as were former U.S. Sen. and current NASA Administrator Bill Nelson (D-FL), and Mr. Armstrong’s son, Mark Armstrong.

It was a fun day filled with lots of memories, anecdotes, and high-fives for Ohio and its history of aviation. Ohio should be mighty proud of its connection to the Wright Brothers, Chuck Yeager, John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, Toledo-raised Gene Kranz, and many others who have served as astronauts or had something to do with Americans traveling in outer space.

I pointed out that Ohio - which has put 25 astronauts into space, more than any other state - has none it can call its own on the Artemis team that NASA has assembled for America’s next manned spaceflights to the moon, starting in 2024. Crickets. As in dead silence. It was obvious they didn’t know. It’s understandable the news might have eluded them, though I was surprised it did. Nelson fumbled for words. (8/22)

Roscosmos: Number of OneWeb Satellites Launched on Each Baikonur Mission Can Increase to 36 (Source: TASS)
Flight paths for launches of OneWeb communication satellites from the Baikonur spaceport will be improved to increase the number of spacecraft launched at a time, Roscosmos said. "Optimization of flight paths from Baikonur are underway now, considering that the size of satellites is slightly higher than anticipated," the corporation said. Studies are performed to launch 36 OneWeb spacecraft from Baikonur instead of 34 as at present, Roscosmos noted. (8/22)

Russian (Arianespace) Soyuz Launches 34 OneWeb Satellites (Source: Space.com)
An Arianespace Soyuz rocket carrying the 34 satellites of OneWeb's Launch 9 mission lifted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Saturday (Aug. 21) following a two-day delay. All 34 spacecraft — which together weigh 12,165 pounds — separated as planned from the Soyuz by three hours and 45 minutes after launch. The satellites deployed into a near-polar orbit 280 miles above Earth, then will migrate over the coming weeks to their operational orbit, which features an altitude of 746 miles. (8/22)