China's space program seems to be popping up in the news threads a lot this week. They've made moves to start a mega-constellation to rival Starlink. The astronauts on the Tiangong space station have been enjoying the Olympics, haven't we all? Their top secret, or not so secret, space plane has been spotted by astronomers over Europe, and they've added a new cloud of space debris to Leo. Oh dear. T-minus. Twenty seconds to L-O-N, we're open aboard. Today is August the 9th, 2024. I'm Alice Carruth and this is T-minus. China's long March 6th upper stage leaves 300 pieces of space debris in Leo. UTEL, SAT and Rocket Lab deliver financial reports. NASA ends NIO-wise. And Alicia Segal from NSF will be bringing us the Space Traffic Report, taking a look at the space launch news from the week that's been and a look ahead at the week to come. We're kicking off this Friday. Intel Breathing was some news that's been kicking around as a rumour on social media platforms over the last few days. We reported earlier this week that China had launched the first satellites in its planned broadband constellation, but what was not shared at the time, at least not by China, was an anomaly with the Long March 6th's upper stage after deployment. The United States' space command has confirmed that the rocket upper stage broke apart after delivering the satellites to Leo, creating a cloud of debris. It's created over 300 pieces of trackable space junk, eke, but US Space Com says that there are no immediate threats and that they will continue to assess the situation. Staying in China and Olympic fever has reached the take-naughts on the Tiangon Space Station. The China manned space station released video of the three Shenzhou A-Team crew members playing space games, including a mock torch relay. There was also a table tennis match, a volleyball game, weightlifting and a mock swimming race. The crew used the opportunity to send their best wishes to Team China, encouraging them to "embrace challenge and pursue their dreams." I'm sure it was a fun break from all the work that's been performed on the Chinese space station. The crew are currently halfway through their six-month rotation on Tiangong. Their work this week is included testing a fire alarm system on the orbiting lab and collecting blood samples, we assume from themselves, for testing as part of their medical exams. Yesterday we featured four financial results as Q2 and fiscal year ends drive reporting. Today we have two more, starting with UK's U-Tail Sat's full fiscal year 23 details. The U-Tail Sat and OneWeb combination closed at the end of September 2023, creating the first Leo Geo operator. As you can imagine, the communications giant closed another successful year reporting revenues of 1.2 billion euros. And over to the US, Rocket Lab has also shared a financial update after the close of the second quarter. According to Rocket Lab founder and CEO, Sir Peter Beck, this year's second quarter was Rocket Lab's highest revenue quarter in the company's history at $106 million. That's a 71% year-on-year revenue increase. The company also used their investor call to share some business updates, including news of the successful hot fire of its Archimedes engine for its neutron rocket. The engine for Rocket Lab's new medium lift rocket reached 102% power, and Rocket Lab says it's on track for the first launch in mid-2025. Rocket Lab has also started installation of an automated fibre placement or AFP machine in the company's neutron rocket production line in Middle River, Maryland. The company says the new AFP machine will enable them to automate production of the largest carbon composite rocket structures in history. AST Space Mobile is celebrating the arrival of its first commercial satellites at Cape Canaveral ahead of their scheduled launch in September. The five Bluebird satellites will be the first of AST's planned commercial communication arrays to be deployed in Leo to deliver broadband connectivity to mobile users worldwide. The US Space Force has released a request for information calling for industry insight on how it could leverage the commercial space industry's capabilities to improve the resilience, effectiveness and capacity within the commercial space industry. The Space Systems Command Commercial Space Office known as SSC-COMSO is seeking review and feedback on the commercial augmentation space reserve framework, draft readiness plan, draft incentive plan and draft H clauses. And it's good night and goodbye to NASA's NIOWISE mission. The near-Earth object-widefield infrared survey explorer mission commanded the spacecraft to turn off its transmitter for the last time on Thursday, concluding more than ten years of its planetary defence mission to search for asteroids and comets. NASA ended the mission because NIOWISE will soon drop too low in its orbit around the Earth to provide usable science data. An uptick in solar activity is heating the upper atmosphere, causing it to expand and create drag on the spacecraft, which does not have a propulsion system to keep it in orbit. Now decommissioned, NIOWISE is expected to safely burn up in our planet's atmosphere later this year. That concludes our briefing for today. You'll find links to further reading in the show notes. I've also included a piece reminding us space nerds that Butch and Sunny are not stranded on the ISS or even experiencing the worst return flight delay. Frank Rubio still holds that record. Although the messaging from NASA and Boeing has been a bit of a mess of late, we should always remember that this is a test flight and that space is hard. Hey, Team Miners crew, tune in tomorrow for Team Miners Deep Space. Our show for extended interviews, special editions and deep dives with some of the most influential professionals in the space industry. Tomorrow we'll be sharing Maria's full chat with Dr Kelly Haston talking about the Chappelle One Analog mission. Check it out while you're out and about and catching up on chores this weekend. You don't want to miss it. The Space Traffic Report is brought to you by our partners at nasaspaceflight.com. Alicia Segal brings us a look at the space launch updates from the week that's been and a look ahead at the week to come. I'm Alicia Segal for NSF and this is your weekly Space Traffic Report for Team Miners Space. Starting off the week on August 2nd, an electron lifted off from Rocket Lab's launch complex in New Zealand. The rocket carried the fifth satellite for Sinspective's Strix constellation into low Earth orbit. This mission was named Owl for One, One for Owl, and as this is just the fifth out of 16 launches for this constellation, Rocket Lab is going to have to hunt for more owl-based puns. Electron lifted off at 1639 UTC with the satellite encased in a custom fairing. The first stage flight performed without issues, but when staging came around, we all held our breath as the first stage rotated away violently. It even looked like the nozzle of the second stage engine hit something on its way out of the interstage. Fortunately, this didn't end up causing any issues as the second stage ignited without problems and, in the end, the payload was successfully delivered into orbit. CEO Peter Beck later explained that Electron has wide margins for staging, but that Rocket Lab likes staging to be cleaner and will investigate what caused the rotation. Next, on August 4th, we had a Falcon 9 launch from Vandenberg. This was the first mission of Starlink Group 11. A new group usually means that something is different compared to other Starlink missions and often indicates new satellite capabilities or a change to a different type of orbit. Now that said, we don't really know what changed this time around. The 23 satellites were launched into a low Earth orbit with the same inclination as groups 7 through 10, so we'll have to wait and see what's different enough to warrant this new group number. The booster flying this mission was B-1082, which ended its sixth flight by successfully touching down on SpaceX's drone ship of course I still love you. The booster did have a substantial lean when it returned to the port of Long Beach, which happens occasionally when the landing is a little hard or the seas are rough. Later that day, another Falcon 9 lifted off from Florida carrying a Cygnus cargo vehicle with a bunch of supplies for the International Space Station. The spacecraft is named SS Francis R. Dick Scoby, honoring the fallen commander of the ill-fated final flight of Space Shuttle Challenger. The mission was originally scheduled for a day earlier but was scrubbed due to bad weather. But the weather improved for the second attempt when T-minus zero came around at 1502 UTC on August 4th. The booster for this mission, B-1080, flew for the tenth time and successfully landed on landing zone one at the Cape. While the launch went smoothly, Cygnus experienced an issue on the way to the International Space Station when the spacecraft's first engine burn was automatically aborted due to a low pressure sensor reading. After evaluating the data, engineers at Northrop Grumman concluded that it was safe to proceed and Cygnus performed two so-called "Delta Velocity" burns to make up for the missed burn. Despite the issue, Cygnus still arrived at the ISS at its scheduled time on August 6, after which NASA astronaut Matthew Dominic captured the spacecraft using the station's robotic Canadarm. Roughly two hours later, Cygnus was berthed to the Unity module's Earth-facing port and the astronauts commenced the unloading of the nearly 4,000 kg of cargo onboard. We also had a Changjiang 6A launch from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in China. The mission lifted off at 642 Universal Time on August 6, carrying the first 18 Internet satellites for the Qianfan or G-60 constellation. This constellation is often referred to as the Chinese version of Starlink. The first phase of this will consist of nearly 1,300 satellites to be launched by 2027. But there are also plans to eventually expand the constellation to a massive 12,000 satellites. Later in the week, it was reported that the Changjiang 6A upper stage had exploded a day after satellite deployment. Several organizations have now reported tracking debris from the breakup, with LEO Labs tracking over 700 pieces of space debris. Alarmingly, these explosions seem to have become the norm for this rocket as the upper stages for four out of the seven Changjiang 6A launches did not re-enter in one piece, but rather broke up and left a lot of space debris instead. Going into next week, we'll have a Falcon 9 launching another Starlink mission on August 10. Lift-off is set to take place from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida during a four-hour window starting at 1121 UTC. The following day, Electron's next launch is set to take place from Rocket Lab's spaceport in New Zealand. This mission will carry the third Acadia satellite for Capella space into low Earth orbit. Lift-off is currently scheduled for August 11 at 1115 UTC. On August 12, a Falcon 9 is set to launch from Vandenberg, carrying two satellites built by North of Grumman into a highly elliptical orbit. The satellites are outfitted with multiple instruments from different providers, including the Norwegian Ministry of Defense, Inmarsat, and the U.S. Air Force. Lift-off is currently scheduled for 2 o'clock UTC. The Progress MS-26 cargo vehicle is set to leave the International Space Station on August 13. Undocking is currently scheduled for 2 o'clock UTC. The spacecraft will then burn up on reentry and dispose of some waste from the orbital outpost while doing so. Now that's a way to take out the trash. We'll have another Falcon 9 launch on August 14, launching two Earth observation satellites for Digital Globe's Worldview Legion constellation into a sun-synchronous orbit. The launch will take place from Florida with a return to launch site landing, so get ready for sonic booms and some amazing views. On August 15, the Progress MS-28 cargo vehicle is set to launch from Baikonur in Kazakhstan. The spacecraft will bring more supplies to the crew onboard the ISS. Lift-off is scheduled for 320 UTC. Less than half an hour later, another launch is expected from India. An SSLV rocket is set to lift-off from the Satish-Tivan Space Center. This will be the final developmental launch of the SSLV launch vehicle, after which the rocket should become operational. And it looks like August 15 will be a busy day for spaceflight, as the final launch of next week is also planned for that day. This time, a Falcon 9 is scheduled to launch the Transporter 11 rideshare mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. I'm Alicia Siegel for NSF, and that's your weekly Space Traffic Report. Now back to T-Minus Space. We'll be right back. Welcome back. We do love to share opportunities for students in academia to get involved in the space industry on the show, and today is no exception. NASA is calling on all innovators to apply for the 2025 Lunar Botics Challenge. Colleges, universities as well as technical and vocational schools around the country are asked to test their engineering skills to design and build an autonomous or telerobotic robot capable of navigating a simulated lunar surface and completing the assigned construction task. The robots will have to master the complexities of regolith simulants used to excavate and construct berm structures in a lunar environment, be capable of operating by remote control or through autonomous operations, and account for weight and size limitations. NASA encourages creative construction techniques and evaluates student designs and data just like it does for its own prototypes, increasing the chances of finding smart solutions for the challenge the agency may encounter at the moon under the Artemis campaign. More than 700 students have participated in past challenges, and you could be next. Follow the link in our show notes to find out more. That's it for T-Minus for August 9th, 2024, brought to you by N2K Cyberwire. For additional resources from today's report, check out our show notes at space.n2k.com. We'd love to know what you think of this podcast. Your feedback ensures that we deliver the insights that keep you a step ahead in the rapidly changing space industry. If you like the show, please share a rating and review in your podcast app. Please also fill out the survey in the show notes or send an email to space@n2k.com. We're privileged that N2K Cyberwire is part of the daily routine of the most influential leaders and operators in the public and private sector. From the Fortune 500 to many of the world's preeminent intelligence and law enforcement agencies. N2K makes it easy for companies to optimize your biggest investment, your people. We make you smarter about your teams while making your team smarter. Learn how at n2k.com. Our associate producer is Liz Stokes. We're mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Trey Hester, with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jen Ivan. Our executive editor is Brandon Karp. Simone Petrella is our president, Peter Kilpie is our publisher and I'm our producer and standing host, Alice Carruth. Thanks for listening. *Music Um genuine* *Music Ends* [MUSIC]
