AckSed

Yes. The stated future performance is when it can bounce the photons back and forth 10,000 times. Currently, it's roughly 1000 times or so, which at 6.6mN per kilowatt is still better than most solar sails and micro-thrusters, and for a much lesser opportunity and deployment cost. There's nothing stopping you from encoding information into that laser both ways, either.

Not new news, but I found an interesting article about photonic laser thrusters and their potential to create a 'laser highway': https://spacesettlementprogress.com/enabling-a-multiplanetary-civilization-with-photonic-laser-thrusters/ Essentially, it uses a thin laser amplification medium and 99.99% reflective dielectric mirror on the powering spacecraft, with an identical mirror on the target spacecraft to bounce the laser light back and forth thousands of times, essentially turning it into a very long laser cavity itself. In the demonstration below a 500 watt infra-red laser, incident on a mock 750g cubesat, acts like a 500 kilowatt laser, with a measurable increase in thrust that pushes the satellite away and decelerates it. It's just 3.3 milliNewtons, but like a solar sail, this is continuous thrust that does not use propellant and has extremely high velocity. Because I know people will ask, the researcher says it is "insensitive to mirror motions". I haven't been able to access the journal he cites, though. (Y.K. Bae, Journal of Propulsion and Power, Vol. 37, pp. 400-407 (2021)) The slides and audio on this presentation are available, and they propose that a small 1-ton spacecraft (50% of that payload) with a 30m mirror and a 10 MW laser could reach the Moon in 20 hours with a beam incidence time of 6.8 hours - a delta-V of 11.6 km/s. The same mass with a 50m mirror and a gigawatt laser could reach Mars in 18.5 days and an incidence time of 1.2 hours - a phenomenal 141 km/s (with an acceleration of 3.4 gravities!). It presumes you sent on another gigawatt laser ahead to Mars so you could slow down. Or use that Mars laser and a new probe to do a flyby of the asteroids in 6-18 days, or Jupiter and its moons in 45 days. Impressive. It grew out of earlier research funded by NASA's NIAC, where the researcher was looking at formation-flying satellites that used laser light from the 'mother' or the 'flock' to move around in orbit. Thus one spacecraft could keep multiple others in orbit: https://www.nasa.gov/general/propellantless-spacecraft-formation-flying-and-maneuvering-with-photonic-laser-thrusters/

NASA, in partnership with Sierra Space, has extracted oxygen from lunar soil simulant in a vacuum. This is interesting because not only did they perform this in a vacuum chamber, they attempted to simulate focused energy from a heliostat with a 15kW laser. This has apparently bumped the TRL up to 6, and it's ready to be tested in space.

My goodness, the announcer actually sounds bored. Amazing.

Oh wow. Astronomy Live processed raw footage captured off the Keys and found that the front half of StarShip was relatively intact and tumbling: The front really did fall off!

Something else: the exhaust is hot enough to make orange-brown nitrogen dioxide as it blasts the atmosphere. Very lean-burning internal combustion engines have the same trouble, expelling nitrogen oxides as the oxygen is consumed. Although I also thought it was running fuel-rich at the start.

It doesn't look quite as zippy as SLS, but then I realise SH's carrying a lot more and I give it some slack. Those shockwaves look immense. RGV Aerial's view of the launch pad afterwards: https://i.redd.it/6eobv3gi451c1.jpg

I don't envy the job of figuring out how to stage those without causing pressurisation issues in the downcomers, but clearly their efforts worked.

That is a fair amount of tiles. Might be time to switch to the spray-on heatshield.

EA's Robocam not only revealed the immediate area outside the site was free of debris with some standing water, all the cameras set up were still standing. Edit: Got a shot of an angled solar panel with light-to-moderate dust deposition. I call this a win.

I noted that SH tried its best to flip after staging and succeeded even as the engines shut down. Which is why I was so surprised when it went boom. There was swearing. Edit: just before termination there is a big vent that matches the expanding cloud of gas after termination, and dwarfs the cold-gas thrusters. I think it was the hot-staging, and it caused a leak.

I noted that pre-launch the cloud of vapour blanketed the site and surroundings, so a weather satellite would pick up on clouds. I think that puff of vapour just after SECO we saw on EA's stream might have been the SS going bye-bye.

Over on NSF forums, someone has a timelapse gif of both RUDs caught on radar: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=59871.msg2541337#msg2541337 The puffs of green confetti are when the SH and then SS went boom.

Honestly, I was too damn anxious to register that it was flying so well until the booster had indeed kept up its full burn.

I saw NSF's shot of the OLM post-launch. It looked completely fine, but we'd need to see the ground. Edit: NSF's pad stream shows no debris, no chaos, looks pristine. Stage 0 upgrades seem to have worked.

An hour to go. The EA stream has an IR camera, which is a very cool idea, pun unintended.

Buried in that report was this neat little site listing all the things space factories could make: https://www.factoriesinspace.com/

Huuge opportunity costs for something that hasn't been proven yet. It hasn't been proven yet because no-one's been crazy enough to try. Round and round we go...

A key part of the light weight of the 2nd stage tank is, I think, Rosie. Back in 2019, this carbon-fibre-laying and drilling robot reduced the production time of the carbon composite components for the whole Electron from 400 hours down to 12 hours. The razor-edged mass requirements of Electron mean that it has to be consistent enough to make those, and I think I saw it laying curved pieces in the first Neutron presentation so... All in all, seems like a fast way to prototype and iterate. Another part of it is the hung stage, with the payload cone transmitting the thrust of the payload into the body of the first stage, leaving the tank and engine free to dangle. So it only has to take the strain of the mass of propellant and the compressive load of whatever a vacuum Archimedes can supply. And they've carefully designed it so that the mounting point for the tank to hang is a ring around the sides, not the neck, spreading the load. It's ingenious.

Part of the report is dedicated to the sections of production of CPUs that the LEO microgravity environment makes simpler: Absences of buoyancy and sedimentation (responsible for many gravity-induced issues in Si crystal growth); Absence of convection; Absence of hydrostatic pressure (helps with precision placement); Absence of container requirements (helps avoid contamination from the vessel holding it); Access to 'free' vacuum, abundant solar energy and reduction in environmental impact. It's also saying that the silicon wafer market is pretty much locked down, but the advanced semiconductor market (SiC, GaTe, CaTe) is just getting started, and the ISS has precisely one facility capable of running experiments to the temperatures needed - but it's not being used. Tiangong has that furnace. Rest of the world (i.e. the US) needs to get in on that, especially as in another study (An Analysis of Publicly Available Microgravity Crystallization Data: Emergent Themes Across Crystal Types, 2022) 90% showed an improvement in one metric or another, sometimes by orders of magnitude. Of the 160 or so semiconductor materials known, 80% showed an improvement in one metric or another, again sometimes by orders of magnitude: In short, high startup cost, but the potential to rake in the money, as long as you do the research and read the damn reports.

Necessary for the US as a competitive edge over those dreadful, too-far-ahead Asians.

I'm still boggling at the 2nd stage tank being that lightweight. Remember, that almost has to have a common dome inside it for the methane tank, and then bonded to the wall securely enough that it isn't affected by the oxygen.

Aww yiss. Go on my son!

Third part: First stage to splashdown was there for an hour; they found barnacles on the engine. Once you gift it to the sea, the ocean "instantly starts consuming it". Marine assets still suck because they dissolve in front of your eyes, but they're a necessary evil. RE: Electron recovery on the manifest: Performance is always maximised over recovery Launch manifest a giant game of whack-a-mole; always changing, so recovery may end up added or taken away to missions Tank reuse relatively low-risk, but it's a small part of the rocket compared to the engines. Have been reusing previously-flown pressurisation and vent-relief systems. Priority is getting customers to orbit on time. Venus probe A "nights and weekends project" for them and the other teams working on it. NASA provided heatshield for reentry probe. Biggest question: "Are we the only life in the universe?" Descent probe passing through the semi-habitable zone 50km up will essentially have a "go/no-go gauge for life". It will have 120 seconds before it is crushed and melted. If yes, chances are life is all around the universe, if no it means we have to be a bit more careful with ourselves. Either way, a super-important and exciting thing to do. They've reached the point on Photon and Electron they can do this for a tiny amount of money. Wary of scope creep, but with Photon they can go anywhere in the near Earth regime, notably the Escapade missions for NASA. Is something about small satellites harder, given the amount of launch services struggling? What makes RL different? Incredible efficiency and automation; for e.g. flight-safety team, they can't afford to hire 30 people on a $7.5 million sticker-price, they have to do it with 3. With regard to small launch vehicles: not everything scales. E.g. a pressure transducer only goes so small. If you can pull that off, engineering a large launch vehicle is a piece of cake. Large vehicles take capital. A launch site for small launch doesn't take that much concrete or steel. The trouble with Neutron is the quanta of capital and the quanta of infrastructure required. It's why nearly all rocket companies start off with a small launcher to gain credibility and thus attract the capital for a large launcher. Neutron Tank test bigger milestone than people realise. Second stage has to be the lightest, highest-performing and also cost the least, because it's disposable. Economics, materials science, manufacturing all have to pass the test. Second-stage tank is 5 metres across and weighs the same as a Harley-Davidson - 300-something kilograms. Made comparison to Centaur [Note: dry mass of Centaur 2247 kg]. In comparison, the first stage tank has much more margin - thicker walls, made to be reused. In the honeymoon period where they are figuring out the margins and what works, what doesn't. It's a hung stage, but the payload load path is spread out over the launch cone to intersect with the sides - "super clean". Designed that first. Holding the fairings is a parasitic load, so you have to find other ways to save mass. Talks about the spiral of doom. You know you've done your job right when every engineer is unhappy with the compromises. Image listing achievements this year: 2nd stage tank testing, critical engine components manufactured, combustion device testing, stage lock and pusher, actuator motor controller, power management module, engine/stage controller functional testing, avionics I/O controller testing, TPS testing, canard test rig built. Still to do: fairing and upper module testing, Archimedes engine build and first hardware-in-the-loop flight to orbit Next year is a big year. Archimedes development going well, but it remains the long pole in the tent. Chose oxidiser-rich staged combustion because if you dial it back a bit from squeezing out every last bit of performance, you end up in really benign operation at the same level of performance as a gas-generator cycle, but "kind of bulletproof". Compared it to an airplane engine. Ox-rich combustor couldn't be dialed back too much or it would extinguish; had to solve that in the process of building the most boring, unboring engine. How many launches per year do you hope to get out of Neutron? Can't put a number on it, because you'll turn out to be wrong. Generally following the Electron beginning cadence. Customers they're talking to looking to use it as a mega-constellation deployer. Designed for high flight rate. Would you ever use drone ships for more intensive launches? Kind of resigned to it. Return to launch site is 8 tons, while downrange is 13 tons. You just trade out too much payload. Any hop tests? No, just try to bring it home, they learned from Electron's recovery. Fairing design now just two halves. Render not updated because they've been working on the rocket. No chance right now of reusable second stage, because payload suffers so horrendously if you have the reusable fairing on that. Also have to direct that to where you care. 70% of the cost of the vehicle is in the first stage. Cleared land to build LC3 for Neutron at Wallops. It's a big pad. Can't launch from NZ, there isn't the industrial base. All the LOX produced in NZ would fill half a Neutron - once. USA can supply multiple tanker-trucks. Wallops gives a good SSO dog-leg corridor, better than the Cape. Also supportive thanks to existing relationships built with Electron. Designing it to be human-rate*able*, not human-rated out of the gate. No market as of now, as the one customer for it is well-served. Needs more space stations, more destinations before they would try. Would jump on it if it made sense. Personal First launch he saw was the last Space Shuttle night launch. Favourite launch is every successful one. Most memorable was the NASA launch "This One's For Pickering" [NZ founder of JPL], as they had Pickering's family in the launch and growing up he always wanted to work for NASA. No allegiance to NASA 'meatball' or 'worm'. Capstone mission had the 'worm' - "craziest flight ever" - and there was a three hour debate over whether they could afford the mass of the sticker on the side of the vehicle or not. The worm was probably slightly lighter. Two/thirds of their business is building spacecraft. Escapade, Varda, MDA Global Star... whole goal of Rocket Lab is to be an end-to-end space company. Launch gives you the keys to space but is just one element. If you can put infrastructure into space, it's incredibly hard to compete. Methodically stepping their way through to that ultimate endpoint. How do you ensure RL survives the next two years? Small launch suffered from a lot of aspiration and not a lot of execution. RL not immune to that. Rigid on "did you do what you said you would do?" Prefer to execute and then tell rather than pump up. Trying to build a multigenerational, enduring space company; everyone's got a use-by date, so it can't be the Peter Beck show. Going public means you have to be profitable, to deliver - called it a forcing function. Without investment in Neutron, RL's profitable, but they're investing in the future.

Takeaway the second: Production is a pain but they're scaling just have to hold the rate; 1 Electron rocket every 15-17 days; Have 3 cleanrooms for integration; Why electric motor on 2nd stage? Propellant residuals on small stage can be 30kg; You risk cavitation on other methods of powering the engine; 1st stage can be completely sucked dry, and so can 2nd stage; Constantly monitoring mixture ratio which is easy with electric motors; Electron's a relatively tiny vehicle for the payload it can lift. Little launch vehicles more sensitive to added mass - 100 grammes on Electron is significant. Wallops a "key site". Certified for automated FTS at Wallops. Rapid-response good capability to have, but it's just how they roll anyway. Launch sites are "money hoovers"; they'll build a site if they feel there's a market opportunity, but not until then. Ocean recovery of Electron 1st stage: discovered not that much they need to do to make them waterproof and marinised. Cost of refurbishment vs. cost of helicopter pretty well neutral. Able to bring it down on last recovery within 400m of predicted landing, which is pretty good for a passive recovery. They don't do a braking burn. Now focusing on recovering in different weather conditions without damaging it. Not just about recovering and reusing, but doing so economically. Next step recovering and reflying all 9 first stage engines, then whole vehicle. Reuse on Electron a 'nice to have' not a must-have, as they're focusing on production.