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A Falcon 9 booster tipped over in a fiery landing after a launch early this morning. The rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 3:48 a.m. Eastern and successfully deployed 21 Starink satellites into low Earth orbit. The booster landed on a droneship eight minutes and 20 seconds after liftoff, but upon landing flames erupted from the base of the booster and it tipped over within seconds. SpaceX said it was investigating what happened with the booster, which was making its fleet-leading 23rd flight, and postponed another Falcon 9 launch also scheduled for early today from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. [SpaceNews]
Experts warn that the United States is falling behind in utilization of commercial satellite imagery for real-time intelligence. At a conference Tuesday, David Gauthier, the former head of commercial operations at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), said the commercial satellite industry has to innovate further to meet the U.S. military's needs for continuous monitoring of military activity, based on the experience from the war in Ukraine. He called for "virtual constellations" of satellites collecting different kinds of intelligence as well as crosslinks so that those satellites can provide data faster. He noted that while the NRO has committed to spending $4 billion over 10 years on commercial imagery, that is less money on an annual basis than what the government spent on commercial imagery in 2011. [SpaceNews]
Astrobotic's Peregrine lunar lander failed to make it to the moon because of a faulty valve. The company released Tuesday the results of an independent review into the mission, where the spacecraft had a propellant leak hours after launch that prevented a lunar landing attempt. That investigation found that a valve used to control the flow of helium into an oxidizer tank failed, over-pressurizing the tank and causing it to burst. The valve suffered "vibration-induced relaxation" missed in earlier tests of the spacecraft, causing a mechanical failure. The company is redesigning the valves and other parts of the propulsion system for its larger Griffin lander, scheduled to launch late next year. [SpaceNews]
A communications company is trying to make Hungary into a major European space power. 4iG, a terrestrial telecoms and IT specialist that made nearly $1.7 billion last year, is looking to build out a vertically integrated space company following a series of investments inside and outside Hungary. It has sought to buy a controlling stake in Israeli satellite operator Spacecom while also establishing a joint venture that plans to order its own GEO communications satellite. The efforts to take over Spacecom, though, have been slowed by that company's financial problems as well as objections from the Israeli government. [SpaceNews]
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| Other News
Weather has further delayed the Polaris Dawn private astronaut mission. SpaceX said Tuesday evening that it was delaying the launch, which had been scheduled for early Wednesday, until at least Friday because of poor weather at Crew Dragon splashdown locations off the Florida coast. SpaceX had corrected a helium leak in an umbilical line that delayed an early Tuesday launch attempt. The latest delay came before the Falcon 9 launch early this morning that had an unsuccessful booster landing; it is unclear if that will affect the launch of Polaris Dawn. [BBC]
NASA has installed solar arrays on the Europa Clipper spacecraft. The agency said Tuesday that the two arrays, each 14.2 meters long and 4.1 meters high, are now in place on the spacecraft at the Kennedy Space Center as part of prelaunch preparations. The arrays, the largest used on a NASA planetary mission, are so big because of the relatively feeble sunlight at Jupiter's distance from the sun. Europa Clipper is scheduled to launch in a three-week window that opens Oct. 10, but NASA has not provided any recent updates on whether an issue with transistors on the spacecraft, reported in July, will affect those plans. [NASA/JPL]
The head of India's space agency is counting on big budget increases in the coming years. In an interview, ISRO chairman S. Somanath said he expects his agency's budget to grow by 20% to 30%, but over "a long period of time." ISRO is projected to get about $1.5 billion this year. He added that he believed that India's space sector is growing increasingly competitive on global markets, with the LVM-3 similar in price to Falcon 9, although that vehicle has captured few contracts from foreign customers. [Reuters]
NASA is troubleshooting a deployment problem with a solar sail on a smallsat. NASA reported this week that it attempted to unfurl the solar sail on the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) smallsat earlier this month, but paused the deployment of booms when the spacecraft reported higher motor currents than expected. ACS3 is designed to test new deployable structure technologies with booms that, when extended, would deploy a solar sail nine meters on a side. NASA said other systems on ACS3 are operating normally. [NASA]
| |  | Fielding Error
"I really found that, looking at the team and looking at what happened, there wasn't a point in the flow… You play the ground ball when it's hit to you."
– John Horack, the Ohio State University professor who chaired Astrobotic's Peregrine failure review board, discussing at a briefing Tuesday why he didn't disagree with the decisions the company made in the development and testing of the lander, which suffered a valve problem that prevented it from reaching the moon.
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