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United Launch Alliance successfully launched its first Vulcan Centaur rocket early Monday. The rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 2:18 a.m. Eastern after a problem-free countdown. The primary payload, Astrobotic's Peregrine lunar lander, deployed from the Centaur upper stage 50 minutes after liftoff. Peregrine will head towards lunar orbit and set up for a landing attempt Feb. 23. This launch, called Cert-1 by ULA, capped a decade of development of Vulcan, which will replace ULA's Atlas and Delta rockets. A second launch, Cert-2, is planned for as soon as April and, if successful, will certify the rocket for national security payloads. [SpaceNews]
The United Arab Emirates will provide an airlock module for the lunar Gateway. NASA and the UAE's Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre announced Sunday that the UAE will develop the Crew and Science Airlock for the Gateway, allowing crews to perform spacewalks and to install and retrieve external payloads. That airlock is expected to be ready around 2030. In exchange for providing the airlock, the UAE will get a seat on a future Artemis mission. The agreement is the latest milestone for the UAE's growing space program, which has included a successful Mars orbiter mission and flying an astronaut on a long-duration space station flight. [SpaceNews]
The U.S. Space Force is nearing completion of a commercial strategy document. Deputy Chief of Space Operations Lt. Gen. DeAnna Burt said Friday that the service was "days away" from signing off on the strategy, which will guide the Space Force's integration of commercial satellite services into its routine operations. Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman previously said the strategy will provide "tangible guidance" on issues like data procurement, asset ownership, and the division of responsibilities between government and private entities. [SpaceNews]
An Indian solar science spacecraft has arrived at its destination, the Earth-sun L-1 Lagrange point. Aditya-L1 completed a maneuver at 5:30 a.m. Eastern Saturday to go into a halo orbit around the L-1 point, 1.5 million kilometers from Earth in the direction of the sun. The spacecraft launched in September and is India's first dedicated mission to study the sun. The spacecraft is designed to operate for at least five years to study solar activity and space weather. [SpaceNews]
NASA has added funding and milestones to agreements with two commercial space station developers. NASA said Friday it added a combined $99.5 million to Space Act Agreements with Blue Origin and Voyager Space, primarily using money from a similar agreement with Northrop Grumman. That company withdrew from its agreement in October after electing to partner with Voyager Space. The funding will go towards additional technical milestones, including work on life support systems for Blue Origin's Orbital Reef station and modifying Northrop's Cygnus spacecraft to dock with Voyager's Starlab station. [SpaceNews]
| | Other News
SpaceX launched a set of Starlink satellites Sunday evening. A Falcon 9 lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 5:35 p.m. Eastern and placed 23 Starlink satellites into orbit. A SpaceX executive said that the launch set a new company record of going from rollout to launch in 6 hours and 33 minutes. [Spaceflight Now]
China launched another set of weather satellites Friday. A Kuaizhou-1A lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center at 6:20 a.m. Eastern and deployed four Tianmu-1 commercial weather satellites. Eight other Tianmu-1 launched on two other Kuaizhou-1A launches in late December. [Xinhua]
NASA and the Space Development Agency (SDA) will collaborate on the development of laser communications technologies. NASA has been concentrating on the ground component of optical communications networks while SDA focuses on space-to-space communications. Those efforts will intersect in two to three years when NASA determines whether the commercial terminals SDA is adopting for satellite-to-satellite communications can transmit data to Earth. Space-to-ground optical communications is more challenging because of atmospheric interference, although NASA has demonstrated the ability of such systems to peform high-bandwidth downlinks in several tests. [SpaceNews]
Some people at SpaceX and other companies run by Elon Musk are concerned about his alleged use of illegal drugs. Musk has reportedly used LSD, cocaine and other drugs over the last several years. At a 2017 event at SpaceX, Musk was "strangely incomprehensible" in a speech, slurring words, forcing company president Gwynne Shotwell to step in. Use of illegal drugs could jeopardize SpaceX's government contracts, but a lawyer for Musk said he is "regularly and randomly drug tested at SpaceX and has never failed a test." [Wall Street Journal]
| | The Week Ahead
Monday-Wednesday: Monday-Thursday: Monday-Friday: - Orlando, Fla.: The AIAA SciTech Forum features sessions on a wide range of aerospace activities.
Tuesday: - Xichang, China: Scheduled launch of the Einstein Probe astrophysics spacecraft on a Long March 2C at 2:20 a.m. Eastern.
Wednesday: - Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif.: Scheduled launch of Starlink satellites on a Falcon 9 at 12 a.m. Eastern.
- Tanegashima, Japan: Scheduled launch of the IGS-Optical 8 reconnaissance satellite at 11 p.m. Eastern.
Thursday: - Chinese Coastal Waters: Scheduled inaugural launch of the Gravity-1 rocket at 12:30 a.m. Eastern.
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