Rocket Lab Electron Leads Growing Small Satellite Launcher Business

Rocket Lab prepares for its next orbital flight NET December 13 from Launch Complex-1 in the Mahia Peninsula of New Zealand. The payload will be NASA Educational Launch of Nanosatellites ELaNa XIX, 10 CubeSats From NASA Centers and Universities. The satellites will study subjects from the Van Allen Belt to space weather. This will be the first NASA Venture Class Launch Services mission. Though Rocket Lab plans to launch satellites twice per week, they are unsure whether reusing rockets is truly economical. Rocket Lab secures US$140M in funding for a valuation of US$1 Billion, a “Space Unicorn” company. Texas-based Firefly Aerospace, one of nine companies chosen for NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services, is building the 102-foot Firefly Beta (R) to carry 4,000 kg to LEO. Firefly is opening a research and development center in Ukraine to utilize Ukrainian rocket experience. Launcher, a Brooklyn-based startup company, on Dec 4 hires a chief designer with 30 years’ experience from Ukraine. Launcher hopes to leverage Ukrainian work with oxygen-rich staged combustion. Virgin Orbit has completed carry tests of its Launcher One aboard a 747. Vector (TL) a microsatellite launch provider founded by veterans of SpaceX and the aerospace industry, secures US$70M in funding.  The 43-foot Vector-R will carry 65 kg into orbit.  Vector will launch from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Wallops Island, Virginia. (Image Credits: Vector, Rocket Lab, Firefly Aerospace)

MONDAY

South Korea Advancing Indigenous Rocket, Moon Missions, Astrophysics

Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) is developing indigenously-built, 3-stage KSLV-2 rocket with the goal of a 2021 maiden flight. The November KRE-075 engine test successfully launched a single-stage Test Launch Vehicle (TLV) with 52.1-ton wet mass to 209-km altitude and landed 429 km SE of Jeju island. Its next test (likely 2019) is expected to fly a 2-stage TLV and utilize KRE-007 as well as KRE-075 engines. KSLV-2, with an estimated launch cost of US$30M, will be used in launching future KOMPSAT Earth-observation satellites, customer medium-class satellites, and KARI Moon lander, rover and orbiter NET 2021. Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO) with 6 payloads is set to be launched by SpaceX Falcon 9 in December 2020. It will attempt to achieve lunar polar orbit at 100 km and collect data on the lunar environment, topography, permanently shadowed regions and potential landing sites. The city of Busan will be hosting the 31st General Meeting of the International Astronomical Union in August 2021. Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in Daejeon is holding the 3rd ‘Light Dark World International Forum 2018’ on Dec 17-21. Researchers will join from Korea, China, USA, Turkey and Nigeria. KAIST operates the Korean VLBI Network, comprised of three 21-meter radio telescopes that function as an interferometer at respective separations of 300–500 km. (Pictured: Former KARI Astronaut Soyeon Yi; Image Credits: KARI, KAIST)

 Dec 10 —

 Dec 10 — W. M. Keck Observatory, Rob and Terry Ryan Foundation, Kamuela HI: Shining Light on Gravity: Sometimes All That Shimmers IS Gold; by Astronomer Ryan Foley from UC Santa Cruz, at HPA 19:00.

 Dec 10-12 — Thirty Meter Telescope Corporation, Pasadena CA: 6th Annual TMT Science Forum: Breakthrough Science with the Thirty-Meter-Telescope.

 Dec 10-14 — American Geophysical Union, Washington DC: 2018 Fall Meeting of AGU; featuring live press conference Dec 10 at 14:00 on first science results from OSIRIS-REx.

 Dec 10 — Apollo Asteroid 2001 XG1: Near-Earth Flyby (0.020 AU)

 Dec 10 — Apollo Asteroid 2018 VX6: Near-Earth Flyby (0.043 AU)

 Dec 10 — Apollo Asteroid 2015 XV129: Near-Earth Flyby (0.060 AU)

 Dec 10 — Apollo Asteroid 2003 NW1: Near-Earth Flyby (0.069 AU)

 Dec 10 — Aten Asteroid 2017 NK: Near-Earth Flyby (0.090 AU)

Continued from…

Dec 8 – Jan 3, 2019 — Chang’e-4 Lander & Rover, Moon Trajectory: China CE-4 lander and rover on journey to Moon far side, will attempt touchdown at northwestern South Pole – Aitken basin 180-km diameter Von Kármán crater (45-46° S, 176.4-178.8° E).

 Dec 9-14 — European Southern Observatory, Pucon, Chile: Conference: The Galactic Bulge at the Crossroads (GBX2018).