Hey, so it is Friday, end of the week, but it's actually the start of a new week. Happy World Space Week, everybody! It's the global celebration of all things in space exploration past, present, and future, and it kicks off today and goes through October 10th. To borrow a bit from our associate producer, Liz Stokes, Fun Fact Friday here, World Space Week starts today specifically, because why? Can you guess why? Well, that's because October 4th is the anniversary of the beginning of the space age, with the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik on October 4th, 1957. Today is October 4th, 2024. I'm Maria Varmausis, and this is T-minus. ULA's Walcons Centaur, CERT 2, lifts off. NASA launches a new Explorer's mission class. Impulse Space lands a $150 million series B. And as always on Fridays, after the news briefing is our weekly NSF Space Traffic Report. Happy Friday, everybody! We are back to our daily briefings as of today. Thanks for joining us. And this morning from Florida, ULA's Walcons Centaur had its second successful certification launch for the Space Force with its CERT 2 mission. And after a small launch delay due to a technical hold, the rocket launched at 7.25 a.m. Eastern Time from Cape Canaveral. And it was a mostly nominal launch, though many viewers of the launch noticed something a little bit off during the launch. Some guesses were that a nozzle on one of the solid rocket boosters may have failed, as some of the exhaust flames were shooting out sideways, not usually the direction you want. Pointy side up, flamey side down, right? Still the launch proceeded otherwise without issue. And Tori Bruno, who is ULA's president and CEO said, and I quote, "Orbital insertion was perfect." He also added earlier about the launch itself. The success of Vulcans second certification flight heralds a new age of forward-looking technology committed to meeting the ever-growing requirements of space launch and supporting our nation's assured access to space. We had an observation of one of our solid rocket boosters that we are reviewing, but overall we are pleased with the rocket's performance and had a bullseye insertion. And assuming that observation of the solid rocket booster isn't a cause for concern, this launch should certify the Vulcan for use by the Space Force. Next we have three NASA-related items. First is news that NASA is establishing an entirely new mission class for astrophysics, filling a gap in the Explorer's program between major flagship operations and small-scale missions. And this new class of Goldilocks missions that aren't too big or too small will be called Probe Explorers. And as part of this new mission class, two new missions by NASA have been selected for further review. The advanced X-ray imaging satellite out of NASA Goddard, and the Probe Far Infrared mission for astrophysics out of JPL. According to NASA, each proposal team will receive $5 million to conduct a 12-month mission concept study. And after detailed evaluation of those studies, NASA expects to select one concept in 2026 to proceed with construction for a launch in 2032. So it's an east coast/west coast face-off. First of luck to both groups. A second NASA item is a bit of progress on the hardware for the lunar Gateway build. The Space Station's Habitation and Logistics Outpost, or HALO, successfully completed its static load testing by Talisillini Space in Turin, Italy. Basically, the question this testing answered was, "Can HALO hold up to the forces that it'll encounter in deep space?" The answer is now officially yes. So that's good news. Much more testing is needed, but bit by bit, with tests like these, we are closer every day to one day having a lunar Space Station. And lastly on the NASA news items today, Alleria and Intuitive Machines have been awarded NASA contracts to enhance space communications capabilities. Alleria's work will focus on its cutting-edge laser communication system, while Intuitive Machines will develop solutions to support lunar missions and deep space communications. These advancements hope to improve connectivity for NASA's upcoming lunar exploration efforts under the Artemis program and other space missions. Moving on from NASA items to other items now, Argo Space has secured $7.9 million in funding to develop orbital tugs powered by water sourced from the Moon. These tugs are designed to facilitate satellite positioning, maintenance, and de-orbiting in space. The use of lunar water as fuel aims to create a sustainable solution for long-term space infrastructure, reducing the need for frequent Earth-based refueling missions. The nation of Oman is planning its first space launch, likely in December 2024. The maiden launch is expected to carry a small satellite, further positioning Oman within the growing Middle Eastern space industry. Axiom Space has officially begun astronaut training for Axiom Mission 4, or AX4, which is scheduled to launch in 2025. The mission's crew includes Commander Peggy Whitson, pilot Shubhanshu Shukla, mission specialist Tibor Kapu and Swavosh Ujnansky. The training encompasses spacecraft familiarization, microgravity operations, and emergency protocols at Axiom headquarters, SpaceX, and NASA's Johnson Space Center. Here's an interesting update for you. Boeing and Virgin Galactic recently reached a settlement regarding a lawsuit over the development of Virgin's Mothership, which is an aircraft designed to carry its spacecraft to launch altitude. The lawsuit, filed by Boeing and its subsidiary Aurora Flight Sciences, had alleged that Virgin Galactic failed to pay for work done on the Mothership and misused trade secrets. And then Virgin countersued, claiming that Boeing had provided subpar work. Now both parties have resolved the dispute through a mutual settlement, and we should note that details of the agreement were not disclosed. Polaris Space Plains' Mira2 has received an operational license for its Aerospike engine. The license allows Polaris to further develop and test this advanced propulsion technology. The Aerospike engine's unique design is aimed at enhancing performance in various atmospheric conditions, potentially reducing costs and increasing sustainability for future space missions. This development highlights progress in reusable space plane technology. Impulse Space has secured $150 million in Series B funding, led by Founders Fund, bringing its total funding to $225 million. The funding will support the continued development of its in-space transportation vehicles, Ilios and Mira, which are designed to provide high Delta V capabilities for rapid orbital maneuvering. The investment follows several key milestones for Impulse, including the Leo Express 1 mission and its selection for StratFy and Ciber Awards. Impulse is gearing up for more launches and expanding its team. Canopy Aerospace has secured a $2.8 million contract from the U.S. Air Force to advance its Next Generation Thermal Protection Systems, or TPS, for hypersonic and space reentry vehicles. The initiative focuses on developing transpiration-cooled TPS, which improves vehicle durability under extreme heat and smart TPS with embedded sensors for enhanced performance monitoring. These technologies are key for reusable space systems. And that is it for this Friday's Intel Briefing for you. We have some extras and the show notes for you, including a story on Japan's government as an incubator for the space industry. All this and more over at space.educate.com or, as always, in our show notes. Hey T-minus crew, tune in tomorrow for T-minus Deep Space, our show for extended interviews, special editions and deep dives with some of the most influential professionals in the space industry. And tomorrow we have astronomer Kat Trosh talking about visiting the incredible observatories at Atacama in Chile and Sidewalk Astronomy in New York City. Check it out while you're going to the pumpkin patch or heading out for apple picking or I don't know, maybe just recovering from some intense business travel. Not going to name names, but yeah. I'm Ryan Kate and for NSF and this is your weekly space traffic report for T-minus Space. Starting off the week right as I was editing the previous episode, we had the launch of a Changjiang 2D rocket from China. Lift-off took place on September 27th at 1030 UTC from the Zhou Chen satellite launch centre carrying the Shai Tian-19 spacecraft to a low earth orbit. Shai Tian-19 is an experimental satellite developed by the China Academy of Space Technology fitted with a recoverable capsule capable of flying up to 15 times. This satellite is capable of carrying about half a metric ton of recoverable payload and up to 200kg of unrecoverable payload. Not a lot of details are known about its cargo other than it is carrying a variety of experiments on board such as breeding of plants in space, testing of materials under different space conditions and testing of new space technologies. To wrap up the month of September, we had another crew flying to the International Space Station and this time on a Crew Dragon spacecraft. Lift-off of Crew Dragon Freedom atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket took place on September 28th at 1717 UTC from Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida. On board Freedom were Commander and NASA astronaut Nick Hague and mission specialist and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Gorbanov. This mission was a peculiar one for a myriad of reasons, some good and some bad. The first peculiarity was that this was the first Crew Dragon mission to take place from Space Launch Complex 40. This is a capability that SpaceX has been working on for the last couple of years and it has finally been realised. The reason to launch from this pad and not from Launch Complex 39A as has been the case so far is because SpaceX is preparing to launch from there a Falcon Heavy with NASA's Europa Clipper. That's not the only peculiarity though. If you've noticed, the number of crew members is two instead of the usual four. That is because this mission will be bringing home NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams who launched on board Boeing's Starliner spacecraft back in June. As you probably know by now, NASA decided in August not to return them on that spacecraft due to uncertainties in the reliability of its thrusters, although it eventually demonstrated that it was capable of returning home safely without crew. With that decision taken, both astronauts were incorporated into the crew of Expedition 71 and in fact, with the start of Expedition 72 last week, now Suni commands the space station. As you probably know that already if you watched last week's episode. After separation from Falcon 9's second stage, Crew Dragon Freedom took a 28-hour rendezvous profile to the station where it docked to the front port on September 29th at 2130 UTC. Since then, Butch and Suni have already completed their full transition from using Endeavour, Crew 8 Crew Dragon as a lifeboat to using Freedom. The duo completed fit checks of their own SpaceX intravehicular activity spacesuits, emergency drills and communication checks, deeming them and their equipment ready for return if an emergency were to occur on the station. A nominal return though will have to wait until February of next year. With both now firmly assimilated into the crew of Crew 9, they'll be on the station until it is time for said mission to finish, which is once again next February. While Crew Dragon successfully travelled to the station, Falcon 9's second stage did not have so much of a success. After the spacecraft separation, the second stage was meant to perform a disposal burn that would have brought it over an area in the Pacific Ocean to the east of New Zealand. However, a few hours after Crew 9's launch, SpaceX announced on social media that this burn, while it brought the second stage down to the ocean, did not make it come down over the established safety corridor. This in turn prompted the company to pause all flights until they could understand the situation. This is not just because of a matter of safety, but also because of the potential that this could affect other missions going forward. With interplanetary missions such as Hera or Europa Clipper coming up soon, it's quite important for SpaceX to figure out what happened to the second stage and why it didn't perform a certain burn the way it should. As expected, the issue also fell under what the FAA considers a mishap and therefore requires SpaceX to perform a mishap investigation. This makes it the third issue in the last three months with Falcon that has prompted such an investigation. But we know from those past instances that SpaceX doesn't necessarily need to complete those investigations before returning to flight. As it stands, the FAA allows companies to return to flight as long as the company demonstrates that public safety was never in any danger and that a preventative measure is in place that would not allow the issue to reoccur. This is what SpaceX did for the past two issues with Falcon and in both cases, the company was able to resume flight after two weeks and three days respectively. Also just given past experience, it's very likely this pause in launches will not take too long to end and we'll see soon Falcon 9 flying again. Despite the issue with the second stage, the first stage for this mission, B1085, successfully completed its second launch and landing, returning back to SpaceX's landing zone 1 and bringing sonic booms across the space coast. With crew 9's launch complete, the world ended September at 181 total launches, with the US still leading thanks to SpaceX. During the month of September, the company carried out 9 out of the total 23 launches that took place around the world. If this pace continues, it's very likely we're going to see last year's record-breaking number of launches worldwide being surpassed. That record currently stands at 221 total launches worldwide and under current trends, it looks like we're going to be hitting around 240 launches by the end of 2024. Kicking off the month of October, we had the second launch of ULA's Vulcan rocket. It took place this morning, October 4th at 11.25 UTC from Space Launch Complex 41. The rocket was carrying an inert payload to a heliocentric orbit. This was Vulcan's second and last certification flight for the second phase of the Department of Defense's National Security Space Launch Contract, often shortened to NSSL. This mission was originally set to fly Sierra Space's Dream Chaser, but this space plane is not yet ready to spread its wings, so ULA instead had to fly an inert payload on board. This payload simulates the weight and mass distribution of a real payload, and because there are no real payloads on board, the company was able to add more experiments and technology demonstrators. These will be used to further upgrade and improve the Centaur 5 upper stage in the future. Vulcan's second launch flew a very similar profile to the first one, also fitted with two Gem 63 XL solid rocket motors, a standard payload fairing length and sending its Centaur upper stage into a heliocentric orbit. Without speaking of those Gem 63 XL SRMs, the plume appeared a tad asymmetrical on a scent. Shortly after liftoff, it appears a section of the right nozzle from this perspective burned through, and shortly after there was a bright flash with SRM bits flying everywhere. NSF-D-Wise was able to capture an object that looks like a nozzle flying off, whilst Max Evans saw the vehicle tilt to the damaged side, requiring the BE-4 engines to correct the trajectory. Definitely not normal. Centaur 5's burn lasted 20 seconds longer than planned, which is highly likely a result of stage 1 underperformance. According to Tori Bruno, on the official broadcast after launch, quote "we had an observation". NSF has reached out to the Federal Aviation Administration for comment, and we're going to be keeping an eye on the words coming from ULA and the boss Tori Bruno, so following us on the socials might be wise to keep up with this developing story over the next few days. ULA hopes that with this launch now completed, the Department of Defence will certify the rocket for NSSL missions in time to fly the first two of these before the end of the year. These two missions, USSF 106 and USSF 87, already have their payloads ready to go, and in fact, ULA and the US Space Force already started preparing them for launch before this certification mission took place. The company will not stop there though, as it hopes to launch up to 20 times next year with a roughly even split between Atlas V and Vulcan missions. These missions will also see the activation of ULA's West Coast Vulcan launch site at Space Launch Complex 3. In recent weeks, ULA made progress at that launch pad, installing new ground propellant tanks and swing arms to be used on Vulcan. Going into next week, we're going to see another crew returning home from the ISS. With crew 9 now on board the station, it's time for the previous mission, Crew 8, to come home. If the weather cooperates, this should take place as early as this weekend. NASA has yet to announce a final schedule, but current plans call for Crew 8 to depart the station on October 6th in the evening, UTC. Crew Dragon Endeavour will then set for a splashdown off the coast of Florida the next day, October 7th, in the morning Eastern Time. Bloorigen is set to debut their second human-rated vehicle next week on Monday, October 7th at 1300 UTC, with the launch of NS-27. This is to quote "meet growing customer demand" and it also looks like New Sheppard's booster as a nice looking new livery. While SpaceX is still finishing its investigation into the Falcon upper-stage issue, the company is proceeding with two very important missions coming up next week. The first of these will be ESA's Hera spacecraft being sent into an interplanetary cause to meet with double asteroids, Didymos and dimorphos. That mission is currently planned to lift off no earlier than October 7th at 1452 UTC from SpaceWatch Complex 40 in Florida. The other all-important mission coming up next week as well is the launch of NASA's Europa Clipper. This flagship mission is set to launch on board a fully expendable Falcon Heavy at full power from Launch Complex 39A no earlier than October 10th at 1631 UTC. Apart from those two launches, SpaceX may also have on-tact two other missions, Stulling Group 1010 and OneWeb 20, launching from Florida and Vandenberg respectively. However, due to the uncertainty in when the company may be able to return to flight and NASA imposing a 48-hour cutoff on launches before Europa Clipper, it's very likely that these won't happen until that mission takes place first. Of course, you won't have to wait for next week's report to know whether these launches took place or not as you can keep up to date with the latest launches on nextspacepflight.com and also on the Next Space Flight app. I'm Ryan Caten for NSF and that's been your weekly space-trafficking report. Now back to Team Liner Space. [Music] We'll be right back. [Music] Welcome back! And this is an official T-minus Aurora alert. Listeners, please sound the Aurora Klaxon. Do we have one of those? [Music] Because the Sun is definitely approaching its maximum and that means when it comes to active sunspots yielding coronal mass ejections, the Sun is doing the most. And did it ever just yesterday? An X-class solar flare erupted and, to put it unscientifically, it was super mega-huge. And the resultant coronal mass ejection was Earth-directed, which means when it hits our Earth's magnetosphere, that is when we see lovely auroras, Australis or Borealis. We don't know quite yet how big the geomagnetic storm will be that these huge CMEs will cause, but we do know that they'll be happening this weekend, especially late Saturday night, into Sunday morning. The closer to G5 on a scale of 1 to 5, the more dramatic and widely seen the auroras will be. You might remember the ones that impressed a lot of us in May. Those were actually a G4/G5, and right now, as of this recording, there seems to be a lot of agreement that we're likely looking at G4 this weekend, so that's very promising for those of us who want to see auroras again. So if you missed out on the aurora sightings this past May and the weather seems to be on your side this time, definitely check the aurora maps for activity in your area this weekend. Depending on where you are, you might get very lucky with some beautiful colors in your night skies. Good luck and clear skies to you. That's it for T-Minus for October 4th, 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 short review in your favorite podcast app. Also you could fill out the survey in the show notes, or even 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 teams smarter. Learn how at N2K.com. This episode was produced by Alice Carruth, 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 Jennifer Iben. Our executive editor is Brandon Karp. Simone Petrella is our president, Peter Kilpie is our publisher, and I am your host, Maria Vormazis. Thanks for listening! Have a wonderful weekend, and good luck finding those auroras! [Music] [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
