Starship Test Flight 4 Set for June 5 to Last >1 Hour, Test Re-Entry Survivability

The next dramatic Starship flight launching from Starbase at Boca Chica, Texas is scheduled for NET June 5 at 07:00 CDT — and dependent on FAA approval. It will be the fourth flight of a Starship and second flight this year (Flight 3 occurred March 14). The primary objectives are to achieve a successful landing burn of Super Heavy booster and controlled entry of Starship toward proving recoverability / reusability, as opposed to the goal of achieving orbit or performing fuel transfer or other tests. The Super Heavy Boost (B11) is planned to perform a landing burn and soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico about 7 minutes, 4 seconds after launch. The Ship 29 upper stage will attempt a controlled entry splashdown in the Indian Ocean at 1 hour, 5 minutes, 48 seconds. Starship 33 Raptor engines cutoff is planned at 8 minutes, 23 seconds setting up the ~39-minute coast phase, followed by the entry phase where it will become transonic, then subsonic before attempting a landing flip at 1 hour, 5 minutes, 38 seconds. Among software and hardware adaptations made after Starship Flight 3, more thrusters were added to help control Starship’s attitude, and the Super Heavy hot-stage ring will be jettisoned at 3 minutes, 54 seconds to reduce booster mass. This ring will likely be replaced in the future to fit into the rapid reusability scheme. (Image Credits: SpaceX)

MONDAY 

☆ Jun 3 — International Space Station, ~415-km LEO: Expedition 71 seven-member crew working with Progress 88P cargo, Astrobee – CLINGERS free flyer operation experiment, and preparing for June EVAs; planned to be nine-member crew if Starliner CST-100 crew launches June 1-2.

☆ Jun 3 — Tiangong Space Station, ~390-km LEO: Shenzhou 18 three-member crew monitoring new installations and work performed after 8.5-hour EVA in which pace debris protection devices were installed; future EVAs to install external payloads.

☾ = Moon activity

★ = Space and… ☆ = International space / astro events in Hawaii Standard Time unless noted. Add 10 hours to obtain UT (‘Universal Time’).

CO School of Mines Assembles the 24th Space Resources Roundtable

Space Resources Roundtable will be convened by SRR President Dr Angel Abbud-Madrid at Colorado School of Mines, Golden, June 6-9, for world experts to address space-resource activities in cislunar space and on the Moon, Mars and small bodies, with presenters from Australia, Japan, Luxembourg, Canada, Germany, Turkey, United Kingdom, Hong Kong, South Korea and USA. Space agencies, research organizations, mining companies, manufacturers for transport, infrastructure and robotics, and analysts of legal, policy, economic, ethics and environmental issues will present technical papers and posters and engage in roundtable discussions. The Keynote Presentation is by Morgan Hendry of Blue Origin on “Space Resources for the Benefit of Earth.” NASA updates include Gerald Sanders on In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU), Julie Kleinhenz on PRIME-1 and VIPER, which is planned for mission to the Moon South Pole to view concentration of water, ice. Other NASA updates to include testing results of TRIDENT Drill, ice formation experiments, effect of vacuum on Ultrasonic Penetrator, Regolith Simulant, Lunabotics Competition on Site Preparation, the International Mars Ice Mapper Mission, and Comparing Hydroponics and Regolith Growth and Evolution (CHRGE). Jun Shimada will report on JAXA’s Study of a Lunar ISRU Pilot Plant, Antonino Salmeri on Space Law, Laszlo Keszthelyi of USGS on Lunar Resource Assessments, and Thomas Gardner and Jeffrey Parker of Advanced Space on cislunar navigation. (Image Credits: CO School of Mines, SRR, PTMSS, NASA, SpaceResources.lu)

● Jun 3-7 — Colorado School of Mines, Golden CO: 24th Meeting: Space Resources Roundtable (SRR 2024).

☆ Jun 3 — Mercury: 5.0° SE of the Pleiades, 08:00; with Jupiter and Pleiades within circle of diameter 5.09°, 10:00.

TUESDAY

☾ Jun 4 — Chang’E-6 Lunar Sample Return, Apollo Basin, South Pole–Aitken Basin: Up to 2kg of samples from lunar regolith taken from scooping / drilling on lunar farside from a depth of up to 2 meters now in return capsule to be returned to Inner Mongolia, China.

● Jun 4 — The Washington Post, Washington DC: The New Space Age with the Artemis II Crew; a discussion with NASA Astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency Astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

☾ Jun 4 — Moon: At superior conjunction with Sun, 1.735 AU from Earth, 05:00; with Jupiter and  Pleiades within circle of diameter 5.21°, 23:00.

☆ Jun 4 — Mercury: 0.12° SE of Jupiter, 01:00.

☆ Jun 4 — Venus: At superior conjunction with Sun, 1.735 AU from Earth, 05:00

☆ Jun 4 — Apollo Asteroid 2024 KF: Near-Earth Flyby (0.063 AU)