December 30, 2021

Iran Launch of Simorgh Rocket Likely Failed to Orbit Payloads (Source: IRNA)
Iran announced Thursday it launched a rocket carrying three payloads, but it was unclear if the payloads reached orbit. Iranian state media said the Simorgh rocket carried three "research payloads" to an altitude of 470 kilometers. The announcement, though, did not explicitly state that the payloads reached orbit, and the top speed of 7.35 kilometers per second given in the report is a little less than the minimum orbital velocity. Satellite imagery earlier this month indicated Iran was preparing for a launch, but the Iranian government gave no advance notice. (12/30)

China Launches Experimental Satellite (Source: Space News)
China wrapped up a record-breaking year with the launch of an experimental communications satellite Wednesday. A Long March 3B rocket lifted off from launch complex 2 at Xichang in southwest China at 11:43 a.m. Eastern and placed the TJSW-9 satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit. The satellite was manufactured by the China Academy of Spaceflight Technology but no further details were revealed, suggesting it has at least some military uses. That launch was the 55th Chinese orbital launch attempt of 2021, far surpassing the previous record of 39 launches conducted by China in 2018 and 2020. (12/29)

Firefly Ownership Concerns Halt Vandenberg Work While Polyakov Works to Divest (Source: Space News)
Firefly Aerospace says the government has halted activities at its Vandenberg launch site while its largest shareholder sells its stake in the company. Noosphere Ventures, run by Ukrainian-born Max Polyakov, said Wednesday it will hire an investment bank to sell its roughly 50% stake in Firefly. That sale was requested by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), Noosphere said, although the specific reason for the sale wasn't disclosed. Firefly said that, as a result of that CFIUS request, "the government has made a decision to limit our operations at Vandenberg" until the issue is resolved. Firefly had been planning a second launch of its Alpha rocket from Vandenberg as soon as late January. (12/29)

Viasat Readies Broadband Satellite for Falcon Heavy Launch (Source: Space News)
Viasat says its first ViaSat-3 broadband satellite remains on schedule for launch next year. A Viasat executive said the broadband payload developed by the company has been integrated with a Boeing-built bus for tests that will continue into early next year. The satellite is scheduled to launch in the first half of 2022 on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy. Viasat had initially planned to launch the first ViaSat-3 satellite in 2019 before pre-pandemic problems with an unnamed component supplier, and then manufacturing delays related to COVID-19, pushed it into 2022. (12/30)

SpaceX Almost Loses Falcon 9 Booster at Sea (Source: Teslarati)
After more than a week at sea, the SpaceX Falcon 9 booster responsible for the company’s 100th successful landing finally returned to port on Wednesday, revealing that it nearly toppled into the sea during the recovery process. Falcon 9 B1069 completed its first launch without issue early on December 21st, carrying a reused Cargo Dragon capsule into space and sending it on its way towards orbit and the ISS. Nine minutes after liftoff, it touched down on drone ship Just Read The Instructions (JRTI) without any apparent issue, more or less hitting the platform’s painted bullseye.

While it’s difficult to determine with certainty, B1069 appeared to be in fine condition after landing, standing roughly straight up with all nine Merlin 1D engines well above the drone ship’s deck. That was decidedly not the case when the once-flown Falcon 9 booster finally sailed into Port Canaveral eight and a half days later. There remains plenty of ambiguity about how exactly things transpired after the landing but when B1069 was finally within eyeshot, the booster was significantly damaged, riding low on all four legs, inches away from falling off the drone ship’s deck, and only partially attached to the “Octagrabber” robot tasked with securing it.

Based on photos of the damaged rocket taken by Teslarati, most or all of B1069’s nine Merlin 1D (M1D) engines suffered likely irreparable damage to their fragile bell nozzles. It appears that B1069 somehow fell on top of the drone ship’s Octagrabber robot during or after its recovery attempt, as the creases would be far cleaner if the booster had merely landed hard and pressed its M1D nozzles against the deck. But a very short fall onto Octagrabber still doesn’t quite explain the apparent damage to one of the booster’s landing legs or the fact that it’s sitting lower to the deck than usual – both potentially indicative of a hard landing. (12/30)

NASA Says Webb’s Excess Fuel Likely to Extend its Lifetime Expectations (Source: NASA)
After a successful launch of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Dec. 25, and completion of two mid-course correction maneuvers, the Webb team has analyzed its initial trajectory and determined the observatory should have enough propellant to allow support of science operations in orbit for significantly more than a 10-year science lifetime.  (The minimum baseline for the mission is five years.)

The analysis shows that less propellant than originally planned for is needed to correct Webb’s  trajectory toward its final orbit around the second Lagrange point known as L2, a point of gravitational balance on the far side of Earth away from the Sun. Consequently, Webb will have much more than the baseline estimate of propellant – though many factors could ultimately affect Webb’s duration of operation. (12/29)

Elon Musk Rejects Claims His Satellites are Squeezing Out Rivals in Space (Source: California News Times)
Elon Musk argued against criticism that his company’s Starlink satellites occupy too much space in space, and instead space for “tens of billions” of spacecraft in orbit near Earth. Insisted that there might be. “The space is very huge and the satellites are very small,” Musk said. “This isn’t a situation that effectively blocks others. I haven’t blocked anyone from doing anything, and I don’t expect to.”

Musk rejected the proposal to “squeeze” future satellite competitors and compared the number of satellites in low earth orbit with the number he said was 2 billion cars and trucks on Earth. .. The “shell” of each orbit around the Earth is larger than the surface of the planet, with additional shells in the universe every 10 meters or so. “That would mean room for tens of billions of satellites,” he said. “Thousands of satellites are nothing. It’s like there are thousands of cars on Earth. It’s nothing.” (12/29)

LEGO to Launch NASA-Inspired Moon Sets in Time for Artemis I Launch (Source: CollectSpace)
LEGO is launching a new series of building toys themed around NASA's Artemis program just in time to coincide with the first mission. The toy company recently revealed the first two of its NASA-inspired LEGO City Space sets with hints of more to come. The new Rocket Launch Center and Lunar Research Base are scheduled for release on March 1, 2022.

After several delays, NASA is now looking to launch its Artemis I moon mission in March or April. The LEGO City Rocket Launch Center includes a mobile launch tower and rocket that resembles the Space Launch System (SLS) heavy-lift booster making its first flight on Artemis I. The LEGO rocket, which features NASA "meatball" and "worm" logos just like the real vehicle, stands more than 16.5 inches tall and 4 inches wide (42 by 11 cm). (12/29)

Japan Wants a JAXA Astronaut to be First “Non-American” to Join a NASA Lunar Landing (Source: Space News)
Japan’s recently elected prime minister set an end-of-the-decade goal for sending Japanese astronauts to the moon as part of the U.S.-led Artemis program. “We will promote the Artemis project to perform manned activities on the moon, and in the late 2020s, we will try to realize the lunar landing of Japanese astronauts,” said Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

Kishida, Japan’s former top diplomat and the head of the country’s long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party, said the goal was part of a revised space policy roadmap he’s submitting for cabinet approval. Japan’s new fiscal year begins April 1. The revised roadmap calls for cooperating with Japan’s private sector to develop crewed lunar rovers and other “systems that are essential for human activities on the moon.” (12/29)

Blue Origin Joins U.S. Military ‘Rocket Cargo’ Program (Source: Space News)
Blue Origin has signed a cooperative agreement with the U.S. military to explore the possibility of someday using its rockets to transport cargo and people around the world. A cooperative research and development agreement known as a CRADA was signed Dec. 17 with Blue Origin, a U.S. Transportation Command spokesman said Dec. 29. U.S. TRANSCOM oversees global military logistics operations.

The command last year signed similar agreements with SpaceX and with Exploration Architecture Corp. (XArc). Blue Origin is the third company to ink a CRADA for the rocket cargo program. Under CRADAs, companies agree to share information about their products and capabilities but the government does not commit to buying anything. U.S. TRANSCOM’s analysis of industry data will inform the newly created “rocket cargo” program led by the Air Force Research Laboratory and the U.S. Space Force.

The Air Force in its budget proposal for fiscal year 2022 is seeking $47.9 million to conduct studies and rocket cargo demonstrations. The rocket cargo project will use modeling and simulations to analyze the military utility, performance and cost of transporting loads on commercial rockets and air dropping cargo payloads. (12/29)