Astronomy Prints 🌌: ULA Vulcan completes second flight despite SRB anomaly

A SpaceNews daily newsletter | Friday, October 4, 2024

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ULA's Vulcan Centaur completed its second flight Friday morning but appeared to suffer a problem with one of its solid rocket boosters (SRBs). The Vulcan lifted off from Cape Canaveral on the Cert-2 mission at 7:25 a.m. Eastern. About 35 seconds after liftoff, material came off one of the two SRBs and its plume changed appearance. The vehicle, though, remained on its trajectory and reached orbit, completing the second Centaur burn on schedule 35 minutes after liftoff. ULA CEO Tory Bruno said after the second Centaur burn that there was an "observation" with the SRB but that the rest of the flight was nominal. Cert-2 is the second of two launches needed by ULA to win Space Force certification for national security launches. [SpaceNews]

All.Space has raised $44 million to kickstart the delayed commercial launch of its first multi-orbit flat panel antenna. Defense-focused investment firm Boka Group led the Series C funding round for All.Space, which has raised about $160 million since its founding as Isotropic Systems in 2013. The funding round comes seven months after the company said it delivered its first electronically steered antenna terminal to SES. The company had planned to start initial production of that terminal by the end of 2022. [SpaceNews]

A second test of a redesigned motor clears the way for the return to flight of the Vega C. Avio conducted the static-fire test of the Zefiro-40 motor Thursday, and initial data reviews showed the motor performed as expected. The motor passed a similar test in May. This test was the final major milestone before the resumption of Vega C launches after a failure in December 2022 linked to the nozzle of the Zefiro-40, which serves as the second stage of the rocket. The return to flight could take place as soon as late November, carrying the Sentinel-1C Earth science satellite. [SpaceNews]

NASA has selected two concepts for far-infrared and X-ray space telescopes for study. The agency announced Thursday it will award $5 million contracts to teams working on the Advanced X-ray Imaging Satellite and Probe far-Infrared Mission for Astrophysics missions for one-year studies. NASA will select one of the proposals in 2026 for development, with launch planned in 2032. The selected mission will be the first in a new line of "probe-class" astrophysics missions with a budget, excluding launch, of $1 billion. Such missions are intended to fill a gap between smaller Explorer-class astrophysics missions and more expensive flagship missions like the James Webb Space Telescope. [SpaceNews]

The director of the NRO said his agency is making progress with the Pentagon on the use of surveillance satellites to track targets on the battlefield. Speaking at a CSIS event Thursday, Chris Scolese said that approximately 100 satellites could be in orbit as part of this initiative by the end of the year. The classified sensor satellites are designed to support military operations by providing real-time data on enemy movements, a shift from the traditional use of NRO satellites for intelligence gathering. Scolese acknowledged the challenges of providing data from those satellites "at the speed and with the characteristics that the user needs" but said the NRO was making progress on those issues. [SpaceNews]

The Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) is funding a study by Sierra Space on returning cargo from space. Sierra Space said it won a contract of undisclosed value as part of the AFRL's Rocket Experimentation for Global Agile Logistics (REGAL) program. The contract will support work on the company's Ghost spacecraft, a system designed to deliver cargo from space to any location on Earth in under 90 minutes. The company earlier this year reported successful drop tests at the Kennedy Space Center and plans further testing over the next year to refine concepts of operations and develop the necessary infrastructure. [SpaceNews]

Other News

Solar power technology startup mPower Technologies said it won a contract to provide power modules to Airbus. Under the agreement, mPower will supply DragonSCALES solar modules to Airbus for MDA Aurora, the software-defined satellites being built for communications constellations including Canadian satellite operator Telesat's Lightspeed constellation. Those units will be used on more than 200 satellites. In 2022, mPower raised $10 million in a Series B investment round to scale up production of its interconnected photovoltaic cells, which are designed to be more customizable, flexible and inexpensive to produce than traditional solar cells. [SpaceNews]

Charter Space has started beta testing its space systems and program management software platform. The platform, called Ubik, is designed to help engineering teams manage and execute space programs throughout their lifecycles. Several companies, as well as project teams at JPL, are testing the software. [SpaceNews]

Boeing and Virgin Galactic have settled a lawsuit over work on a new "mothership" aircraft for the suborbital spaceflight company. The companies said Thursday they settled the suit, filed by Boeing in March in federal court in Virginia, but did not disclose terms of the settlement. Boeing alleged that Virgin Galactic did not pay $25 million under terms of the 2022 contract to develop the plane and also stole trade secrets. Virgin Galactic denied the charges and filed a countersuit in April in California, claiming Boeing failed to live up to terms of the contract. Virgin later dropped its countersuit, deciding to instead focus on the case in Virginia court. [Reuters]

UP Aerospace performed a suborbital launch this week at New Mexico's Spaceport America. The SL-15 mission by the company's SpaceLoft sounding rocket took place Tuesday, carrying a set of payloads from customers that included NASA's Flight Opportunities program. The spaceport said the launch was a success. UP Aerospace has been performing suborbital launches from the spaceport since 2006, before the construction of Virgin Galactic's facilities there. [Spaceport America]

The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs may have had an accomplice. Scientists announced Thursday that they have discovered a depression in the seabed of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of West Africa that dates back to roughly the same time as the asteroid impact at the present-day Chicxulub site on the Yucatan Peninsula that caused the mass extinction event that killed off the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. Researchers say they believe the depression was caused by an impact of an asteroid somewhat smaller than the Chicxulub event, but don't know if it happened shortly before or after Chicxulub. [BBC]

Grad Student Experiments

"I already promised I'll be the first one to take a bite. If I survive, we can move on to grad students."

– Joshua Pearce, an engineering professor at Western University in Ontario who is working on a project that could allow future crewed missions to convert asteroid material into food using bacteria. [New York Times]

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