A Crispy Delta IV Heavy | TMRO:News

Hello, citizens of Earth, and welcome to Station 204. So glad to have you aboard with us this week, because we've got a lot to go over. Ryan has a hefty SpaceX update. I'm going to be covering some hot fire aborts, some Starliner scheduling. Dr. Tamitha Scove has our space weather, and I'll be giving you a little bonanza at the end as well. Now, before we officially get started, just want to, of course, remind you that if you like what we do here tomorrow, consider subscribing to us, liking our videos, setting up notifications, and sharing us everywhere that you can. So let's go ahead and get tomorrow news ready to go for the week of September 2nd, 2020. Ryan, you got a lot to say, so get to it. A lot has happened over the past couple weeks for SpaceX, so I'm just going to run through them all in chronological order. After the successful launch of Starlink-10, which was the sixth launch of the B1049 booster, Elon Musk replied to a tweet saying that they are planning a world record-smashing 10 flights on the same booster whilst carrying Starlink payloads. When the booster arrived back at Port Canaveral, you could definitely tell that it was very sooty as cleaning is not part of the SpaceX reuse schedule. Marston Space Systems has also signed a contract with SpaceX, which will see them launching the Marston Mission-1 to the moon in 2022 with Marston's XL-1 lander on board, which, again, will be carrying nine payloads on board for NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. So it's a contract to launch a mission with a lander on board, which is carrying payloads contracted by NASA, basically a payload within a payload within a SpaceX fairing. Elon Musk also said on Twitter that the next SpaceX update was likely to be this October after they have usually come in September. Following the successful hop of Starship SN5, SN6 was given the go-ahead to static fire on the 23rd of August, which went pretty much as expected. And because of this successful static fire, SN6 is out on the pad as we speak as it waits for the go-ahead to perform a hop of its own. But it's not only Starship getting in on the launching action, it's the Falcon 9 as well. The B1059 booster launched its way out of the Earth's atmosphere at 2318 UTC on August the 30th, carrying the SAOCOM-1B mission into space, making it the fourth flight for that specific booster. This booster originally flew on the penultimate contracted CRS-1 mission, carrying the Dragon for CRS-19. This was also the 100th ever Falcon family launch for SpaceX, so congratulations, guys. This was also the first return to launch site landing we have had since CRS-20, and it was the first ever polar launch from the East Coast since all the way back in 1969. Thanks, Ryan. Now yesterday, Elon spoke at the Human to Mars Summit, saying that SpaceX was making good progress on Starship and that the focus is specifically on the development of production facilities instead of test flights. And that's really assuring to hear as an engineer myself. Processes need the kinks worked out before the hardware can tell you how good it is. So glad to see that focus on a project as daunting as Starship Super Heavy is. I wanna move over now to talk about United Launch Alliance's Delta IV Heavy. It is a beast of a rocket. I have been lucky enough to actually see two of them launch out of Vandenberg in person. And I have a bit of a soft spot for rockets that are powered by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. And if you were like me, you were most certainly watching the launch that was just happening a couple days ago. And you were also a couple seconds away from having a heart attack. Seven, six, five, four, three, two, and liftoff. And that is what's known as a hot fire abort. That huge fireball is perfectly normal. It's a side effect of how the RS-68A engines start up hydrogen rich, which is then burned off by the ROFI system. ROFI, a great acronym standing for the Radially Outward Firing Initiators. And they're very similar to what was used to burn off the excess hydrogen that was used to start up the space shuttle's main engines. What was not perfectly normal was the hot fire abort. Only the starboard side engine lit. The other two RS-68As hadn't gone through their ignition in their startup sequence. Shutdown was immediate. Saving of the vehicle began and all was well. Recently, it seems that Delta IV Heavies have gotten a little uppity. In 2018, Parker Solar Probes Heavy had a helium alarm go off during the terminal count on the first launch attempt. Then a few months later to close out the year, NROL-71s Heavy aborted the countdown seven and a half seconds before liftoff due to a detection of excess hydrogen at the pad. So why would a vehicle normally as reliable as the Delta IV have all these hiccups? The old saying of if you don't use it, you lose it could apply here. The complexity of launch operations isn't just making sure the rocket gets its payload to where it needs to be in space after it leaves the launch pad. It's also making sure that all of the preparations leading to it leaving the launch pad go smoothly as well. It's critical that that ground support equipment, better known as GSE, works as it should. Now GSE is things like power to the rocket, cooling for the payload, avionics, communications, fueling, payload access, and much, much more. The Delta IV Heavy requires some very complex GSE thanks to the fact that because it uses both liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, it's a fully cryogenic launch vehicle. And Delta IV Heavies are very, very rare birds. For launches from the Cape out of SLC-37, the last was Parker Solar Probe in August of 2018, over two years ago. And before NROL-71's first attempt in December of 2018, the last launch out of SLC-6 at Vandenfog was in 2013 with NROL-65. Even though there are a multitude of single stick Delta IV launches between these Heavies at both pads, those still aren't using the primary GSE systems the triple core lifter does. And whenever NROL-44 actually launches, it's gonna be an absolutely beautiful sight. And it was great to see that the systems in place to prevent multi-billion dollar classified spy satellites from atomizing on their way to orbit actually worked. It was a true task failed successfully moment. Now, lest we forget, space shuttles, they've had aborts after engine ignition. Seven, six, five, four. And we have a main engine shutdown at T minus three seconds. We have a redundant set line sequencer abort. And Falcon nines have had their fair share of hot fire aborts as well. Three, two, one, zero. Liftoff. Disregard. We have an abort. It's always a good day when you end it with an intact launch vehicle on the pad. As I like to say, better delayed than detonated. Earlier, Ryan did talk a little bit about Masten Space Systems purchasing a launch from SpaceX to go to the moon using a Falcon nine. And I wanna get into a little bit more of the details about Masten Space Systems and their plan itself. Dave and the gang, they're going to the moon with their first lunar lander mission as a part of NASA's recently created Commercial Lunar Payload Services Program, also known as CLPS. Now, the mission is planned for launch in late 2022. And as Ryan mentioned, it'll see a Masten XL1 lander deliver nine science and tech demo payloads to the lunar south pole in what they're calling Masten Mission One. Now, this is really exciting because we've got a commercial company with a solid track record and a great knowledge base actually having a crack at getting to the moon. But something that excited me even more, but it seemed that everybody overlooked was something very, very specific that Masten Space Systems said about their XL1 lander. Masten views the XL1 as a pickup truck. That's literally what the company called it, a pickup truck. Payloads that don't change the design of the lander, they just shift their positions around to give the customers what they need. Masten doesn't want to build one-off lunar landers. They have a design that's easily repeatable. And as it tends to go, the more you make of something, the cheaper it gets. And as a nice bonus, you tend to find the problems and make a better product. I can't imagine anything coming out of Masten needing much improvement. They've been doing vertical takeoff, vertical landing reusable vehicles before SpaceX had even flown a Falcon 9. We've had Dave Masten on Tomorrow a lot, so many times that I'll put links to the episodes down in the description because there's simply too many to count off. Check them out because it's not very often that you get to hear someone in aerospace, specifically linked to a company, speak so candidly. Well, I'm about to say something that many of you consider to be a very vulgar word, Boeing. Yes, that's right. We're going to be talking about Starliner, every aerospace enthusiast's favorite pinata when the space launch system isn't available. Now, NASA has actually been working with Boeing to try to help get them back on track. And there's been enough progress made that the schedule for the return to flight of Starliner is beginning to come together. Now, a quick refresher here. In December of 2019, Starliner performed the Orbital Test Flight One mission and it completely blew it. Software problems involving the mission clock and a potential to cause the service module to run into and maybe damage the heat shield right before reentry occurred. And that meant that there was no docking with the International Space Station as planned. Boeing Space Division got a justified reckoning and NASA gave Boeing 80 recommendations and told them, get it together. Boeing all of a sudden remembered that they had a multi-billion dollar contract. And in fact, they got more than their competitor, which has beaten them at every avenue so far. Boeing suddenly got themselves right back on track as quickly as they could. And now they're actually starting to act like an aerospace company, which is great because maybe they should have started doing that since, I don't know, the beginning of the contract. With that stack of recommendations, NASA has said Boeing is through three quarters of them. At present, Boeing engineers are working the software, making sure it'll operate correctly this time. In addition, a massive test that's being called the formal qualification testing will put the software under the microscope. With all of this work done, NASA is now comfortable to set a schedule for when the next three flights of Starliner are going to occur. Orbital Flight Test Two, an uncrewed mission, which will do what December of 2019's Orbital Flight Test One should have done, is set to fly this upcoming December, but that could slip to early January 2021. Boeing's certainly in need of getting this one right, so as far as I'm concerned, take all of the time that you need. If Orbital Flight Test Two works as planned and the data reviewed is satisfactory to NASA, the next step will be the crew test flight mission around June 2021. Boeing astronaut Chris Ferguson will run the show with NASA astronauts Mike Fink and Nicole Mann coming along. And no duration for that mission has been announced yet. The first operational flight, currently called Starliner One, will occur no earlier than December of 2021. And when it does occur, there's gonna be a little bit of history involved. The current crew for Starliner One has NASA astronaut Sunita Williams commanding with Josh Cassada aboard as well. But they've gotten a new addition to their crew, Jeannette Epps. She was originally assigned to fly to the International Space Station in mid-2018, but was removed from her flight for undisclosed reasons. She's now been assigned to Starliner One, and this will make her the first African-American woman to fly on a long-duration mission. In addition, Sunita Williams will become the fourth woman to command an American space flight. These are really great things to see and a great reflection of the growing diversity in NASA's astronaut corps. You know how many rocket launches that we had outside of SpaceX this week? Well, that would be two, and a departure from the International Space Station. So let's go ahead and jump right into this week's space traffic. HTV-9, a cargo vehicle from the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, departed the International Space Station on August 18th, unberthing at 1351 Universal Time, and then releasing from the Remote Manipulator System at 1736 Universal. Loaded with trash and other unneeded equipment, it was deorbited to a destructive reentry on August 20th at 0707 Universal over the Pacific Ocean. Then we're once again back at the Jiquan Satellite Launch Center, where once again, a Long March 2D, lifted off at 0227 Universal Time on August 23rd. It successfully deployed, once again, GALFIN-905, the fifth satellite in China's GALFIN-9 Earth Observation Program, the second GALFIN-9 satellite deployed this month, and the fourth GALFIN-9 deployed this year. The flight was declared a success after GALFIN-905 was placed into a sun-synchronous orbit, carrying an optical imaging system capable of one meter resolution. Two smallsats hitched a ride, Tiantao 5 from the National University of Defense Technology, which will test data collection and a new electric propulsion system for smallsats. The other hitchhiker was a unnamed multifunction system tester flown by the Academy of Military Science. Both institutes were founded and operated by the Chinese People's Liberation Army. Five, four, three, two, one. Lift off. Hardy, welcome back to our friends from New Zealand. A Rocket Lab Electron had a successful return to flight, lifting off from the beautiful Mahia Peninsula on August 31st at 0305 Universal Time. The mission, named I Can't Believe It's Not Optical, carried a satellite from Capella called Sequoia as the solo payload. Sequoia is the first of seven planned Earth imaging synthetic aperture radar satellites to provide all weather views from orbit to customers. Interesting to note, Sequoia was originally set to fly as a secondary payload on the just-launched SALCOM-1B mission, but with a delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Capella tapped a launch services contract with Rocket Lab. Both ended up launching on the same day, just a few hours apart. Oh, well, and some extra good news from Rocket Lab. They were just granted their launch operator license from the Federal Aviation Administration, so they're set to fly from their new launch pad at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport sometime in the next few weeks. And here are your upcoming launches. And for this week's space weather, here's Dr. Tametha Scope. Space weather this week is definitely getting a bit exciting. Right now, we're already in the middle of some fast solar wind that has bumped us up to storm levels multiple times and has brought some gorgeous aurora to many parts of the world. But believe it or not, that's not the only story. As we take a look at our front side sun, you can see that coronal hole that's rotating in through the Earth's strike zone right now. That's the coronal hole that's been sending us some fast solar wind, and it will continue to do so here over the next couple days before it settles down. But take a look at the east limb of the sun. Do you see all those bright regions? And if you look closely, do you see those little snake-like filaments up there? Oh my goodness, on the 31st, the one that's furthest to the east, whammo, do you see that? It launches as a solar storm, and it looks like it's gonna head toward the STEREO spacecraft, but we're paying attention to it. And because it launched, it looks like it destabilized this other one that's in the middle of the Earth-facing disk right now. And if that one goes, it sure could be Earth-directed. Now, switching to our coronagraph view, this is LASCO, and it's a coronagraph view looking from Earth's point of view. And what we do is we make a false eclipse in the sky, and you can see the sun right there. On the 31st, that sun launches that little filament, and you can see it kind of moving out in the solar atmosphere of the LASCO instrument. Look at moving out to the east like that. It doesn't make a halo. That means it isn't like wrapping around the sun. It definitely looks like it's moving off to the east, so we know that it's headed more toward the STEREO spacecraft and not towards Earth. But as that thing hits STEREO, as I mentioned before, it could give us a decent heads-up, because remember, we still have one more filament, and that one, if it launches, could be Earth-directed. And now for your LEO, MEO, GEO orbit outlook. As we switch to our low-energy particle environment, these are the particles that cause surface charging on the outside of spacecraft, including charging up the solar panels that then can discharge and cause electrical short circuits. We do see that we had a little bit of flux buildup in and around the GEO orbits right around the 28th, but it got flushed reasonably quickly. This was when that fast solar wind hit, and it managed to flush everything, and it took a little while for fluxes to begin to build up again, but oh my goodness. As we began to move into the 29th and into the 30th, you can see those fluxes have really begun to build up at GEO. And now, as we've moved into the 31st, we are definitely dealing with some serious surface charging issues for you satellite operators in GEO, especially in the near midnight and pre-dawn sectors. So just be aware, these issues are likely gonna continue for you over the next maybe two or three days before things begin to calm down. For more details on this week's space weather, including information on the eruption of those snake-like filaments, and how that might affect space comms and traffic, come check out my channel or see me at spaceweatherwoman.com. I got a bunch of small stories to talk about. You ready for a bonanza? Let's do it, let's get in the bonanza. NASA is on track for performing its Green Run test on the Space Launch System core stage, being performed at the Stennis Space Center. Preparations were in full swing this year for this really big test, but then the COVID-19 pandemic threw a wrench in the gears. Then several storms rolled through the Gulf of Mexico, stopping work again. But tasks and tests are once again underway. There's two more major tests, a wet dress rehearsal where the SLS stage will be loaded with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants, set to occur sometime this month. And once all of that data is verified, it will be followed by the big one, a full-duration static fire where it will light up those RS-25E engines sometime in October. And if all goes well, the core stage will arrive at the Kennedy Space Center in January of the new year, with a launch scheduled for November of 2021. Blue Origin, head of the national team in the Artemis lunar lander concepts program, has delivered an engineering model of their lander design in the space vehicle mock-up facility at the Johnson Space Center. This will allow NASA engineers and astronauts to check layouts, cabin ergonomics, ability to see outside the lander, and give the national team, which also includes Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, some feedback to influence their design. For this week's news, I want to thank all of you citizens who contribute to the shows here at Tomorrow. I'm stunned at the fact that so many folks participate in helping make Tomorrow possible. Everything that we make is thanks to you. All of this equipment that we have to make this, that's you. Myself, Ryan, Dr. Scove, and the many of us who put in the effort to make this channel possible, that's you. Station 204, that's you. It's no exaggeration that you all help make this channel possible. If you'd like to join in and help make the shows of Tomorrow a reality, you can head on over to youtube.com slash tmro slash join and check out all of the levels of support and the rewards that you get. And of course, don't forget that subscribing to the channel, setting up notifications, liking our videos, and sharing them everywhere that you can is an incredible help as well. As we wrap up this week's episode of Tomorrow News, we want to take a moment to remember a good friend of Tomorrow who's recently passed, Skylab astronaut Gerald Carr. Born August 22nd, 1932, Gerald Carr began his military service in the U.S. Navy, became a U.S. Marine Corps officer, and flew as a naval aviator. He was accepted in NASA's Astronaut Group 6 in 1966, and he would work as CAPCOM on Apollo 8 and Apollo 12, notably relaying the SCE to Oxcall during the launch of Apollo 12. He also helped in the development and testing of the Lunar Roving Vehicle. He was in line to be the lunar module pilot for Apollo 19, but that mission was canceled due to budget cuts. He was then assigned to command Skylab 4, the first rookie to command a mission since Neil Armstrong on Gemini 8. Carr and his crew, which included Ed Gibson and William Pogue, set the then-record duration for a stay in space, 84 days, a record that stood until 1978. They also performed Earth and solar observations and medical studies that provided a wealth of knowledge. Skylab 4 was his one and only mission. He retired from the Marine Corps as colonel in 1975 and to NASA in 1977, but continued working in aerospace as a consultant. Passing away at the age of 88 on August 26, Ad Astra, Gerald Carr.