(air whooshing) It's a bit of a quiet news day today. Undoubtedly, a lot of folks in the United States are getting ready for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. Not a great time to drop major announcements. And normally on a Friday, we do a space-related dad joke, though I admittedly am not really much of a dad joke person. Mom jokes, though, aren't those a thing? Anyway, I've come to learn over the last year of Friday jokes that truly, not all space jokes are terrible. You just have to plan it better. Otherwise, it marrs the punchline. You can tell them all at once, or bit by bit. Okay, I'll stop. - T-minus. 20 seconds to L-O-I, T-minus. Go for the floor. (upbeat music) - Today is November 22nd, 2024. I'm Maria Vermazus, and this is T-minus. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) Vulcan launches for the Space Force officially on hold until next year. China tests an inflatable in space. New Shepard 28 brings the 100th woman to space. And today being Friday, in the second half of our show, we have the Space Traffic Report by Elysia Siegel from nasaspaceflight.com, reviewing the week's launches that were, and taking a look ahead at the launches coming up. That's the second half. Stay tuned. (upbeat music) Happy Friday, everybody. Here's your briefing for today. Confirming what many had already suspected, United Launch Alliance's Vulcan rocket will not be carrying out its first military launches this year and it's delaying two Space Force missions that were originally scheduled for late this year. The delay is because the Space Force and ULA are still reviewing data from Vulcan's second test flight in October, which despite a nominal October test, did encounter a solid rocket booster anomaly. And that, of course, prompts an investigation. Space Systems Command, though, does expect certification in the coming weeks. The missions that are now officially delayed include USSF 106, which will carry the experimental NTS3, or Navigation Technology Satellite 3, to test GPS augmentation capabilities, as well as the classified USSF 87 mission. ULA says both launches are now planned for early 2025. China has successfully tested an inflatable capsule in orbit aboard the Xi Jian 19 Satellite, according to the China Academy of Space Technology. During the test, the capsule demonstrated successful inflation, pressure maintenance, and structural performance under launch and orbital conditions. All performance indicators, such as air tightness and temperature regulation, met expectations. Lightweight inflatables for use in space are designed to unfold and inflate, go figure in space, offering a high efficiency alternative to typical metal tube construction that we often see in space for large sealed enclosures. Welcome back to Earth to the crew of New Shepard 28. Blue Origin completed its ninth human space flight with the NS28 launch this morning. The crew included Emily Kellendrelly, Sharon, and Mark Hagel, who were both on their second flight, by the way. Austin Litterall, JD Russell, and Hank Wolfond. Today's jaunt above the Carmen line brings the total number of individuals flown to space by New Shepard to 47, including three repeat passengers. It also made Emily Kellendrelly, AKA the Space Gal, and Emily of Emily's Wonder Lab, officially the 100th woman to fly to space. I know I can't wait to tell my little space and Science-Loving Girl about what her favorite TV personality did today. There were a lot of VIPs at the sixth SpaceX Starship launch from Texas on November 19th, President Trump being just one of them. US Space Force Chief of Space Operations, General Chance Saltzman was there as well, and not just for sightseeing. Lieutenant General Philip Garant, Commander of Space Systems Command, says the Space Force sees Starship's unmatched payload capacity as a potential game changer for global military logistics through the point-to-point delivery program, which aims to rapidly deliver supplies to remote locations. Of course, one of the primary goals of the rocket is to accelerate the deployment of satellite constellations in low Earth orbit as well, which is of special interest to the Space Force, as you might imagine. Starship, I should note, is not yet certified for national security missions, but little surprised that the Space Force is watching its progress with significant interest. And speaking of the Space Force, they are running a pilot program to attract civilian talent through the Defense Civilian Training Corps, or DCTC, which is a congressionally mandated initiative similar to the ROTC, but focused specifically on civilian careers. Deputy Chief of Space Operations for Human Capital, Catherine Kelly, says the program's goal is to introduce students to Space Force projects during summer breaks, offering guaranteed civilian jobs upon graduation. The program aims to address a lack of awareness about civilian opportunities in the military, and participants will grow their skills in research, problem solving, and use of technologies critical to space operations. DCTC currently partners with North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Purdue University, the University of Arizona, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. For Evolve Space, a European startup specializing in high-performance mechanisms and power systems for small satellites has announced the upcoming in orbit demonstration of its flagship product, SARA, or the Solar Array Rotating Assembly. SARA is an autonomous fail-safe Solar Array Drive Assembly, designed to enhance the performance of small satellites by optimizing solar panel orientation for maximum energy efficiency. And this demo follows a successful 2.6 million euro investment round led by Primo Space Fund, with participation from Takeoff, which was aimed at accelerating revolve spaces growth and scaling production capabilities to meet the increasing demand for advanced satellite components. The European Space Agency, or ESA, has awarded 9.8 million euros, or nearly 10.2 million US dollars, in a contract to French Aerospace and Defense Company, Hemeria. The contract is to design, build, and operate its first space weather nanosatellite, SWING, which is short for Space Weather Ionosphere Nanosat Generation. Scheduled for launch in 2026, SWING will monitor Earth's ionosphere, which is a region that significantly impacts communication and navigation systems. And the nanosatellite is based on Hemeria's HP IoT platform, and will carry instruments from France, Finland, and Norway, including a radiation monitor, an X-ray monitor, a Langmuir probe, and a GNSS radio occultation instrument. Once it's operational in 2027, SWING's data will enhance space weather models, providing real-time ionospheric forecasts, and supporting scientific research on the upper atmosphere. Hemeria will oversee the satellite's development, launch, and operations, with PlainTech, which is an Italian space research and technology company, managing the Mission Operations Center to deliver data to ESA. To talk about precision flying, the European Space Agency's PROBA-3 mission, set to launch on December 4th of this year, will demonstrate precision formation flying with two satellites, maintaining millimeter-scale alignment. This alignment is achieved through a laser metrology system, where one satellite emits a laser beam towards a retroreflector on the other, enabling precise distance measurements. And the technology allows the occultor satellite to cast a shadow onto the coronagraph satellite, facilitating extended observations of the sun's corona. The mission is a collaboration led by Spain's Senair, involving over 29 companies from 14 countries, with satellite integration by Redwire in Belgium. And that's it for our Intel briefing for today. As always, more links for you are in our show notes for some weekend reading. And you can always check out links you might have missed from previous episodes over at space.ntuk.com. Hey, T-minus crew, tune in tomorrow for my chat with Salem El-Nimeri from AWS and Nadine Elame from the Taylor Geospatial Institute. And they'll be telling us all about the Generative AI for Geospatial Challenge as part of our AWS in orbit series. Check it out while you're enjoying your weekend, getting ready to travel for US Thanksgiving, or panicking shopping for all the cooking that you need to do like I will be. You can catch more episodes from this AWS in orbit series over at space.ntuk.com/aws. (upbeat music) - Elysia Siegel from nasaspaceflight.com brings us the Space Traffic Report. - I'm Elysia Siegel for NSF, and this is your weekly Space Traffic Report for T-minus Space. This was quite an active week with five launches from SpaceX, four of them with Falcon 9, and the other one, of course, being Starship. The first of these launches came at the beginning of the week with a Falcon 9 lifting off on November 17th at 2228 UTC from historic launch complex 39A, carrying a somewhat secretive payload into a geosynchronous transfer orbit. This payload goes by at least two known names. On official documentation like NoTams or the FAA's website, the mission is known as Optus X, while SpaceX officially called the mission and payload TD7. It's unknown what this payload or payloads are for, or who ordered them, as SpaceX didn't reveal their customer and said customer also requested SpaceX to not show views of the payload or even the second stage sending the payload into geosynchronous transfer orbit. The name Optus X would lead one to think that perhaps the Australian communications company, Optus, might be related to this mission. NSF approached the company for comments on the mission and despite promising to contact us back with more information, they never followed up on it. So for now, the identity and purpose of the payload remains a mystery. Of course, this being a Falcon 9 mission, it featured a flight proven booster, B1077, flying for a 16th time. It successfully returned back to Earth, landing on SpaceX's drone ship, a shortfall of Gravitas. Right on the heels of that launch, another Falcon 9 rocket took flight, but this time from Vandenberg. Lift-off took place on November 18th at 553 UTC from Space Launch Complex 4 East, carrying another batch of Starlink Direct to Cell and Starlink V2 mini satellites. The first stage, B1071, was flying for a 20th time, becoming the sixth Falcon 9 booster to fly 20 times. It successfully returned to Earth, landing on SpaceX's drone ship, of course, I still love you. This mission marked the fastest turnaround time from SpaceX's West Coast launch pad, going from four days and 12 hours on the previous record, to just four days and 30 and a half minutes. Going back to Florida, there was another Falcon 9 launch, this time from pad 40. Lift-off took place on November 18th at 1831 UTC, completing SpaceX's third Falcon 9 launch in the span of about 20 hours. The rocket was carrying the GSAT-20 satellite into Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit for the Indian Space Research Organization, or ISRO, for short. GSAT-20 is India's latest high-throughput communications satellite and was designed and built by the commercial branch of ISRO, called New Space India Limited, or NSIL, for short. The satellite was originally planned to launch on India's launch vehicle, Mark III, but during its design and development process, the satellite's mass grew beyond the capabilities of this rocket to get it to a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit, so ISRO looked at foreign rockets to launch the satellite. The agency had initially considered Arian Group's Arian 6 rocket, but with delays in its development, ISRO eventually selected SpaceX's Falcon 9 to launch the satellite. GSAT-20 was successfully dropped into its target orbit and teams on the ground have already started its post-launch on-orbit checkouts and orbit-raising. The first stage for this Falcon 9 launch was B-1073, which was flying for the 19th time. The booster successfully landed on SpaceX's drone ship, just read the instructions, ready for another use at a later date. For the next launch, we'll go all the way to Kazakhstan, where Roscosmos launched the latest Progress cargo resupply vehicle to the International Space Station. Lift off of the Progress MS-29 spacecraft took place on November 21st at 1222 UTC, from Site-31-6 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. After an 8.5-minute ride into orbit, the Progress MS-29 spacecraft successfully separated from the third stage of its Soyuz 2.1A rocket and started its two-day trip to the orbiting laboratory. The vehicle, filled with about three tons of supplies, experiments, and fuel, is set to dock to the Poisk module on November 23rd at 1435 UTC. Of course, this week also included the sixth flight of Starship. The world's most powerful rocket lifted off once more on November 19th at 2200 UTC, right at the opening of the window on its very first launch attempt. The super-heavy booster once again lit all 33 of its engines, and Starship made its way over the Gulf of Mexico. Also once again, both stages successfully performed a hot-staging maneuver, and Booster 13, the first stage for this mission, initiated its boost-back burn. Unfortunately, this burn would end up short, as teams on the ground decided to wave off the planned catch attempt of the vehicle. Booster 13 would instead divert to an offshore landing, which had executed just about 30 kilometers off the coast of Starbase. Once on the water, the booster tipped over and blew up as it's not meant to survive such an impact with the water. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk confirmed after the flight that SpaceX controllers had lost communication with the launch tower computers, and while everything might have been good for a catch, the teams decided to err on the side of caution and command an offshore diversion. Ship 31, the ship for this mission, proceeded into its nearly orbital trajectory and coasted through space, heading to the Indian Ocean. About 37 minutes into flight, it also successfully demonstrated an in-flight relight of one of its Raptor engines in microgravity, a crucial step to future orbital flights. Once more, Starship went through reentry, and while it suffered some damage again, it was able to survive the plasma phase. The ship then performed its well-known belly flop maneuver, which features a portion of it in a nose-down orientation, which SpaceX says was to stress the limits of aerodynamic flap control. Ship 31 then ignited its three sea-level Raptor engines for a flip and landing burn, and soft touchdown in the waters of the Indian Ocean, the first time in full daylight. The fourth and final Falcon 9 launch of the week took place just yesterday, once again from Pad 40. The launch happened on November 21st at 1507 UTC and carried another batch of Starlink V2 mini-satellites into low Earth orbit. The first stage for this mission, B1069, was flying for a 20th time, becoming the seventh booster in the fleet to reach 20 flights. As customary, it successfully landed on SpaceX's drone ship, a shortfall of Gravitas. With the two Starlink launches this week, SpaceX has now launched a total of 7,368 satellites, of which 668 have re-entered, and 5,953 have moved into their operational orbit. As of recording, there were a few other launches scheduled to take place. So here's Ryan Katen for a last-minute update on this week's space traffic. - Thanks Alicia. Unfortunately, that few turned into just one launch as the Electron/Haste LIDOS Mission 2 launch was scrubbed just three minutes before launch last night. However, we did get another suborbital flight with NS-28 onboard New Shepard from Blue Origin. Giftoff took place from West Texas at 1531 UTC today, Friday, November 22nd, onboard NS-4. That's the tail number of the booster supporting this flight. Inside of the capsule for New Shepard's ninth crewed flight was a six-person crew consisting of Emily Candrally, Sharon Hagel, Mark Hagel, Austin Literal, James Russell, and Henry Wolfond. Interesting to note, the Hagels were actually flying on New Shepard for the second time. Everything went off without a hitch, and the booster successfully returned back to the ground, performing its classic vertical landing. The same can be said for the capsule, which successfully descended gracefully to the desert under its three main parachutes before cushioning its landing. - Going into next week, we'll once again have a lot more launches, so get ready. - The first should come from the US West Coast with a Falcon 9 launching another Starlink batch. The four-hour window for this mission is set to open on November 24th at 326 UTC. Just minutes after that, we should have the next launch of Rocket Lab's Electron Rocket from New Zealand with the mission Ice/Ace Baby. Ace, AIS, stands for Automatic Identification System, as this mission is aimed at maximizing the detection of ships with ace transponders. The instantaneous launch window for this mission is currently set for November 24th at 355 UTC. Later that day, a Changjiang-2C rocket is set to launch from the Zhouchuan Satellite Launch Center in China. The 33-minute window for that launch is set to open on November 24th at 2326 UTC. Going back to the United States, two more Falcon 9 launches are set to occur back-to-back from Florida. The first one, from Pad 40, has a four-hour launch window set to open on November 25th at 932 UTC. The second Falcon 9, this one from Pad 39A, also has a four-hour launch window opening on November 26th at 331 UTC. And to wrap up the week, we'll have a military launch of a Soyuz rocket from Plesetsk. Notice to air missions and marine hazard notices indicate that this could take place any time within a two-hour window that opens on November 27th at 1900 UTC. I'm Alicia Siegel for NSF, and that's your weekly Space Traffic Report. Now back to T-Minus Space. (upbeat music) (air whooshing) We'll be right back. (air whooshing) (air whooshing) Welcome back. Let's close out today with a star that's firing on all cylinders, and let's be real, its name is just asking for a little fun. F-U, or I honest. (laughs) Yes, you heard that, right? Often called just simply F-U, or E. And apologies to anyone listening named or E. I promise this story is not about you. Well, F-U, or E. has been surprising astronomers since 1936, when it suddenly flared up 100 times brighter than our son. And no, it's not throwing an F-U to our son, it's just living up to its fiery name. Thanks to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, we now know the source of F-U, or E's brilliance. A super hot accretion disk that's nearly twice as hot as expected, reaching a scorching 16,000 Kelvin's. It's safe to say that F-U, or E is turning up the heat and scientists weren't exactly prepared for its level of F-U energy. The star's extreme outbursts have challenged previous models of star and planet formation, raising some questions about how young stars can shape the environments around them. And for any planets forming a bit too close to F-U, or E, well, they might just get fried. Literally, F-U planets living up to its name there. Thanks, F-U, or E, for teaching us more about the explosive nature of young stars and their accretion disks, and for giving me the giggle fits on a Friday. (upbeat music) That's it for T-Minus for a November 22nd, 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 we deliver the insights that keep you a step ahead in the rapidly changing space industry. If you like the show, and we always hope that you do, please share our rating and short review in your favorite podcast app. 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 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 Iban. Our executive editor is Brandon Karp. Simone Petrella is our president. Theor Kilby is our publisher. And I am your host, Maria Vramazes. Thanks for listening. Have a fantastic weekend. (upbeat music) - T minus. (upbeat music) (door slams) [BLANK_AUDIO]
