Spaceception

New Glenn has to launch this year, Vulcan and Ariane 6 did.

I'll be honest, I like this a lot better than Blue Origin as a buyer. Blue has a rocket, Sierra doesn't, and Blue is more incentivised to use ULA's technology and contracts to improve and build on New Glenn instead of keeping up with two production lines. Vulcan has a future (however tenuous) if Sierra buys them, it doesn't if Blue does. I also think it holds certain advantages and an appeal to Sierra if they had their own launch vehicle, since they're going into space stations, cargo/crew access and satellite production, which benefits greatly from only having to pay internal costs, instead of purchasing externally.

This is something to watch out for. Coming out on the 15th Glad to see Blue is becoming more open with info these days, I'll definitely be watching

Is Polaris separate enough to warrant its own thread? Either way, looking forward to this mission, and since SpaceX is using this opportunity to develop better spacesuits, I wonder if we'll eventually see Polaris using suits with their own PLSS instead of needing umbilicals, just a safety tether, since that's likely in the pipeline.

They recently shared a video of the engine hotfiring from another test!

Pictures, now that I can post from my laptop

Stoke has hot-fired their first stage engine! About a 2 second burn, but looking to mature the engine, conduct longer tests, abd build flight stages throughout the year. https://x.com/stoke_space/status/1800498602361622906?t=kYqk_E6baBGvdZrehOpuUA&s=19 https://www.stokespace.com/stoke-space-completes-first-successful-hotfire-test-of-full-flow-staged-combustion-engine/ https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/06/stoke-space-ignites-its-ambitious-main-engine-for-the-first-time/

2 minutes, and mentioned a planned flip and burn!

https://www.aerosociety.com/media/23637/efs-day-2-valere-girardin.pdf I don't think this has been shared here, but this is a study for space based solar, using fully reusable rockets developed by Ariane/RFA (page 5). May or may not be funded, but I suppose it's something that they have a concept? https://x.com/KenKirtland17/status/1792995308932063556

https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1793998848584794574 https://www.spacex.com/updates/#flight-3-report Still jettisoning the hotstage ring. This has to be a temporary thing, right? Can't be fully reusable if you're intentionally discarding hardware. https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-4 S29 will be attempting a flip and burn (mentioned in the flight timeline), not just a splashdown. Higher confidence in reentry?

Balanced out by how stressful said job would be

Looks like this may have slipped under the radar here, too distracted by the pictures https://www.rocketlabusa.com/updates/rocket-lab-completes-archimedes-engine-build-begins-engine-test-campaign/ tl;dr They're planning to reuse each engine for at least 20 launches (can definitely be increased down the line) Each engine produces 733 kN or 165,000 lbf, for a combined thrust of 1,450,000 lbf, which with its payload capacity, makes it roughly equal to Falcon 9 v1.1 The engine campaign wasn't given details when it'll start or end, but they reiterated a mid-2025 launch date for Neutron. The Archimedes engine is supposed to be very close to a flight article, and they spent extra time to build up all the teams and infrastructure needed for operations, which contributed to a launch delay. Mentioned a completion of the carbon composite structures for the faring panels, stage 1/2 tanks, and stage 1 reusable structure. Arc-Vac is designed to be restarted up to 6 times in space for payload delivery. Mentioned intentionally developing the engine a couple times to be within medium-capability, to lower stress on the engine, extend its operational lifetime, and aid in "[meeting} the rapidly reusability requirements of Neutron." I wonder what kind of average turnaround times they're expecting to achieve, and what kind of record they can set for themselves.

Yeah, and Musk did mention developing a 'jetpack' which is just going to be a fancier looking MMU so they could move around without tether length being an issue. The training for that alone will be interesting. Probably won't get many details or images for quite some time though.

Yeah, the first missions to establish a base should have dedicated medical studies to see if it's even feasible. How long should such a thing take to work out? The first decade or two? Longer? And now that I think about it, if Polaris II goes ahead as a Hubble maintenance/boost mission, we'll have to see EVA upgrades, to allow longer spacewalks.

I like that they went into designing this suit with the thought of how to scale up production. There's people on xitter wondering why SpaceX wants to make so many spacesuits, and some of them are the same people who decry SpaceX for not working on the items needed for human Mars missions. Yeah, I wonder. Anyway, apparently a PLSS is on the roadmap according to Isaacman, and Musk has tweeted the next-gen suit will be even better, so it looks like they're already working on the upgade. Might see some of those improvements during Polaris II.

There's something prophetic about a guy who's last name is Baron able to invest $1 billion in anything (looking him up, he's apparently got $45 billion in assets). And he'd have that information too, wouldn't he?

Video soon?

It's not. Life support comes from an umbilical with the tether. It's just kind of a bulkier IVA suit that can handle vacuum better.

Spacesuit reveal! Full image on their human spaceflight page. https://www.spacex.com/updates https://www.spacex.com/humanspaceflight/ Imo, it looks better than the IVA suit. Maybe they'll update the design

So they'll connect to the ISS long enough to do checkouts, but are aiming to separate as soon as possible?

Okay, so this probably doesn't count, since it's coming from someone doing a high school project (and it hasn't coalesced into a single paper, updates are sporadic), but I find it interesting enough to mention. The idea is sending weekly missions to Mars, with 24 people, or 10 (they've also mentioned 12) people per ship. This is on average. At certain parts of their orbits, smaller crews or only cargo would be sent on longer trajectories, all leveraging in-orbit refueling. It's not an official proposal from anyone else afaik, but it does raise an interesting question, if Mars missions, particularly crewed ones, have to wait for transfer windows. Most proposals take it as a given since they rely on Hohmann transfers, as a minimum energy approach, but if you didn't have to, why stick to the limitation? Especially for SpaceX, so they don't have to wait 2 years to cram as many Starships in a window as possible, they can spread it out instead. A continuously inhabited base, being replenished constantly, and never cut off from Earth completely.

Saw a tweet earlier that said something along the lines of "we live in a world where it's more likely for a launch feed to crash than a rocket landing itself."

Fair, but; That assumes China doesn't hit delays either, I'd say based on Mars experience alone, the US has a strong edge in pulling this mission off in comparison... if we leveraged it. In either case, the US isn't a stranger to getting spaceflight milestones taken out from under them, and (the threat or event of which) might be the thing to kick us in our pants to actually supply decent support with ESA, and push to do so without putting it at the expense of other major missions like Dragonfly.

SpaceX/Starship is the go-to option to talk about I think, but I don't think they'll make a proposal, at least on their own (though, that is probably what a lot of people thought before HLS, so what do I know). Relativity/Impulse have a Mars landing mission on the horizon, and could form the backbone to a project to pursue a return mission, as Tom Mueller is leading Impulse, and has a lot of experience with methalox (that he's applying to Helios), while also having looked into ISRU for Starship. They might even pull in SpaceX for this reason - giving them real data on making methalox on the Martain surface. Just based on having a slated Mars mission Blue Origin/RocketLab are another potential team, set to launch this summer (EscaPADE), but it's a pair of satellites, not a lander. So probably not. NASA needs a firmer deadline for sample return, NET 2040 is too far, and runs the risk of eventual cancellation. When NASA makes their selections, they need a closer date, preferably in the early/mid 2030s, about a decade from now.

If I'm not mistaken, this will be the 5th vehicle reused for an operational flight (Shuttle, SpaceShipOne, New Shepard, Falcon 9, Electron), and the 3rd for an orbital launch.