Offshore Sea Launch Gains Momentum with China Success While Efforts Underway in Germany and USA
Beidou GNSS constellation now augmented with CentiSpace-1 satellites, which will boost signal and test optical satellite-to-satellite comms, following 4th successful Long March 11 launch on October 7 from floating vessel Tai Rui in the Yellow Sea (36.23° N, 121.20° E). Ocean launch capability allows CNSA to avoid flying over populated land mass while also allowing longitudinal flexibility with respect to desired orbital inclination, advantages once capitalized on by the commercial Sea Launch platform / Zenit-3SL rocket. While Sea Launch has been in stasis at the Port of Vladivostok since 2020, reportedly awaiting Irtysh / Soyuz-5 rocket development (scheduled completion Q4 2023), other initiatives towards water launch are close to realization. German Offshore Spaceport Alliance, which includes commercial spacecraft manufacturer OHB, is targeting small-lift launch offshore Bremerhaven in the North Sea NET 2023. SpaceX is retrofitting oil drilling platforms Deimos and Phobos for orbital launch / landing and point-to-point intra-Earth transit. Phobos is being worked on in Pascagoula MS, while Deimos is undergoing refurbishment at the Port of Brownsville in TX. At least 1 ship is expected to have a launch tower completed by EOY, and CEO Elon Musk claims such platforms will eventually be “stationed around the world”. Startup The Spaceport Company also plans ocean launch and reentry operations off the coast of Florida starting NET January of 2024. (Image Credits: CNSA, SpaceX, @Kendall_Dirks via Twitter)
MONDAY
☆ Oct 17 — ISS,~415-km LEO: Expedition 68 seven-member crew to participate in livestream events with JAXA, Associated Press / Native American media affiliates, Univision (en Español) this week; to welcome Progress 82P next week.
☆ Oct 17 — Tiangong Space Station, ~390-km LEO: Shenzhou 14 three-member crew continue work in Wentian module while preparing for Mengtian arrival this month; Shenzhou-15 crew of 3 (unnamed publicly) crew increase training for Dec flight.
Highlights…
o NewSpace: CAPSTONE on course to reach Lunar halo orbit following recovery maneuver allowing mission team to regain 3-axis attitude control; Astra signs deal to supply Maxar with spacecraft engines in 2023 as company struggles to raise stock price to >US$1 to avoid NASDAQ delisting.
☆ Solar System: NASA and JHUAPL astronomers work to understand 32-minute shortening of Dimorphos oribit by DART, exceeding mission goal of 73 seconds by 25x; ESA Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre now monitoring 1,425 asteroids with some potential to impact Earth out of 30,039 total NEA catalogued.
☆ Galaxy: VLA, ALMA MeerKAT, Australian Telescope Compact Array, Chandra and Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory being used by researchers at Harvard CfA to analyze outflow from black hole tidal disruption event AT2018hyz; Human hibernation is possible, per Univ of CO biomedical scientist Sandy Martin, and may be key to human interstellar travel, says NASA technologist Les Johnson.
o Global:China-led study utilizes computer modelling to predict presence of phosphorus emanating from Enceladus underwater seabeds; JAXA investigating cause and mitigation of Epsilon-6 rocket failure; French study finds microbes may have caused Mars cooling by replacing hydrogen with methane in atmosphere.
●USA: Ship 20 / Booster 7, stacked at SpaceX Boca Chica Launch Site, await WDR and 33-engine hot fire tests preparatory to first orbital test launch; Late Blue Origin BE-4 engines and Astrobotic request for additional time lead ULA to push inaugural flight of Vulcan Centaur to NET Q1 2023; Dennis and Akiko Tito to fly on 2nd SpaceX Starship mission around Moon.
● Hawai’i: Cambridge Institute of Astronomy researcher Yinuo Han utilizing Keck NIRC / NIRC2 to directly observe dust being pushed by stellar winds between WR140 binary stars; 5 speakers at ILOA Galaxy Forum Hawaii 2022 Kamuela to highlight ‘Astronomy and Culture in Hawaii and on the Moon’.
● = Terrestrial events, and…
o = International terrestrial events in local time.
★ = Space events, and… ☆ = International space / astro events in Hawaii Standard Time unless noted. Add 10 hours to obtain UT (‘Universal Time’).
25th Mars Society Convention Shares Science, Tech Developments, Advocates Permanent Human Settlement within Next Decade
The 25th Annual International Mars Society Convention is being held October 20-23 at Arizona State University in Tempe AZ and online under theme Searching for Life with Heavy Lift. The theme correlates to NASA SLS and SpaceX Starship eventually being capable of lofting significant payloads / supplies to Mars, allowing for long-term surface missions for exploration, science and search for life. There will be plenary talks, panel discussions, interactive public debates, an evening banquet, >100 presentations, and sessions covering: Political & Legal, Technology R&D, Medical, Analog Research & Facilities, and Permanent Settlement. Some of the speakers are Robert Zubrin (Mars Society), Pam Melroy (NASA), Jingnan Guo (Univ. of Science & Technology of China), Ezinne Uzo-Okoro (USA White House), Peter Beck (Rocket Lab), and Maria Antonietta Perino (Thales Alenia). The Telerobotic Mars Expedition Design Competition will feature 6 teams from Canada, Europe / Germany, USA and Poland presenting designs for robotic exploration hardware using a human-class, 10,000-kg payload capacity lander. Strategic planning may put humans on the Moon NLT 2026 and to Mars before 2030, while the Red Planet boasts more robotic companions than any other in the Solar System besides Earth: 3 landers (InSight, Tianwen-1, Perseverance), 2 rovers (Curiosity, Zhurong), 1 helicopter (Ingenuity), and 7 orbiters (Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, Mars Reconnaissance, MAVEN, ExoMars 2016, Hope, Tianwen-1). ISRO MOM / Mangalyaan recently depleted its fuel supply. (Image Credits: Mars Society, NASA, UAE Space Agency, CNSA, JPL, et al)
☆ Oct 17 —INTErnational Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL), LEO: Detecting some of the most energetic radiation in space, ESA, NASA, Roscosmos spacecraft reaches 21 full years / enters 22nd of operations; launched 2002, expected to run out of fuel early 2020s and fall to Earth Feb 2029.
o Oct 17-26 — National Space Foundation, NOIRLab, International Dark-Sky Association, AURA, Online / Global: Globe at Night October Campaign; to raise awareness of light pollution by inviting citizen-scientists to measure & submit night sky brightness observations (goal 20,000 data points for 2022, 12,826 so far).
☆ Oct 17 — Moon: At apogee (distance 404,311 km), 00:00; 5.3° S of Castor, 01:00; 1.78° S of Pollux, 07:0; at last quarter, 07:15.
Continued From…
★ Jun 28 – Nov 13 — CAPSTONE, Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit Trajectory: Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment heading to operating position at NRHO / cislunar space.
☆ Aug 4 – Dec 16 — Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO), Lunar Trajectory: South Korea ‘Danuri’ to search for lunar resources, test technologies using Ballistic Lunar Transfer, 3 highly elliptical Earth orbits to initiate a trans-lunar injection and arrive at 100-km lunar orbit.
o Aug 8 – Nov 11 — IAU, NAOJ, NARIT, Online / Global: NameExoWorlds 2022.
● Oct 18-19 — Lunar and Planetary Institute, Universities Space Research Association (USRA), Online / Houston TX: Planetary Protection in Practice.
☆ Oct 18 — Moon: 3.9° NNE of Beehive Cluster, 11:00.
☆ Oct 18 — Venus: 3.2° NNE of Spica, 07:00.
☆ Oct 18 — Amor Asteroid 2022 SB5: Near-Earth Flyby (0.057 AU)
☆ Oct 18 — Amor Asteroid 2022 SK21: Near-Earth Flyby (0.081 AU)
WEDNESDAY
★ Oct 19 — Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX), HEO: NASA spacecraft mapping boundary between the Solar System and interstellar space reaches 14 full years / enters 15th year in space; launched on this day 2008.
☆ Oct 19 — ExoMars 2016 Orbiter, Mars Orbit: ESA and Roscosmos spacecraft reaches 6 full years / enters 7th years at Mars, launched 2016; craft continues collecting data on atmosphere, deployed Schiaparelli demonstration lander 19 Oct 2016 (unsuccessful).
● Oct 19-20 — Secure World Foundation, Consortium for Execution of Rendezvous and Servicing Operations (CONFERS),Arlington VA: 2022 Global Satellite Servicing Forum.
☆ Oct 19 — Apollo Asteroid 2022 SF63: Near-Earth Flyby (0.014 AU)
☆ Oct 19 — Apollo Asteroid 2020 TH6: Near-Earth Flyby (0.061 AU)
☆ Oct 19 — Amor Asteroid 2022 SQ3: Near-Earth Flyby (0.097 AU)
☆ Oct 19 — Venus: Brightest, magnitude -3.93°, 06:00.
THURSDAY
☆ Oct 20 —BepiColombo,Mercury Trajectory: European Space Agency / JAXA Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (dubbed Mio ‘waterway or fairway’) reach 4 full years / enter 5th year in space today, launched 2018; expected to reach Mercury polar orbit 2025 to map planet, investigate magnetosphere.
● Oct 20-22 — American Branch of the International Law Association, New York NY: 2022 International Law Weekend; featuring ‘The Rush for Resources: International Legal Implications of Space Mining Panel’.
● Oct 21 — Orionids Meteor Shower Peak: The 2nd of 2 showers from Halley’s Comet dust, Orionids appear to radiate from Constellation Orion, are swift (68 km/sec), can be bright & leave persistent trains; between 20-70 meteors per hour, 00:00.
☆ Oct 21 — Aten Asteroid 2021 TE1: Near-Earth Flyby (0.077 AU)
SATURDAY
☆ Oct 22 — Venus: At superior conjunction with Sun, 1.717 AU from Earth, 11:00.
☆ Oct 22 — Apollo Asteroid 2022 RB5: Near-Earth Flyby (0.033 AU)
☆ Oct 22 — Aten Asteroid 2020 HP1: Near-Earth Flyby (0.088 AU)
SUNDAY
● Oct 23 — National Space Foundation, NOIRLab, Online / Hilo HI: Maunakea Wonders Teacher Workshop; gives participants a background on existing Maunakea Observatories, scientific discoveries, engineering / instrumentation, and career paths available to HI islands students.
☆ Oct 23 — Apollo Asteroid 2022 TX: Near-Earth Flyby (0.086 AU)
☆ Oct 23 — Aten Asteroid 2016 TA57: Near-Earth Flyby (0.094 AU)
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