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Welcome to the 5.28th edition of the Rocket Report! We’ve had a big week with news about the United Launch Alliance. All three of his entries in the “Heavy Rockets” section are about the company, which may be only two months away from the highly anticipated debut of his Vulcan booster. Alright, let’s go!
As always, we look forward to reading your contributions. If you don’t want to miss an issue, use the box below to subscribe (the form is not visible in his AMP-enabled version of the site). Each report includes information on small, medium and heavy rockets and a summary of his next three launches on the calendar.
Rocket Lab May Abandon Helicopter RecoveryIn comments at the company’s earnings call on Feb. 28, Rocket Lab chief executive Peter Beck said that rather than catching the stage with a helicopter, the company would retrieve the stage from the sea and prepare it for launch. said it was considering retrofitting them, Space News reports. On his second “catch” attempt last November, Rocket Lab called off the helicopter’s approach after a brief loss of telemetry from the booster. Instead, the company splattered the stage into the ocean, where a boat retrieved it and brought it back to Rocket Lab’s facility.
A happy accident? … “This turned out to be a very happy event,” said Beck. “Electron survived ocean recovery in very good condition, and in many cases its components actually qualify for reflight.” “Until this result of stage testing and analysis, the mission has moved us in the direction of sticking entirely to ocean recovery, resulting in significant savings across operations.” ,” said Beck. (Posted by EllPeaTea and Ken the Bin)
Blue Origin Investigating New Shepard FailureNearly six months after the in-flight anomaly occurred on the New Shepard suborbital mission, Blue Origin said it was still investigating the accident and said it had no firm schedule for resuming launches. increase. The NS-23 mission was an unmanned survey flight, and the capsule safely ejected and landed under a parachute after the rocket exploded about a minute into flight.
Get back to business when you’re ready “We are currently investigating the anomaly,” Gary Lai, chief architect of Blue Origin’s New Shepherd, said at a conference on Tuesday. Other than saying that we intend to fully resume business as soon as we are ready, we are unable to discuss specific timelines or plans for when the situation will be resolved.” (Courtesy of EllPeaTea)
Astra Completes Tropics-1 InvestigationIn a lengthy update, Astra said it had concluded a “rigorous” six-month investigation into the failure of its Rocket 3.3 vehicle to deliver two of NASA’s small satellites into orbit. “The rocket has completed nominal first stage flight, stage separation and upper stage ignition,” the company said. “Immediately after the upper stage engine ignition, the upper stage fuel consumption rate increased and remained abnormally high for the remainder of the flight time. With oxygen still on board, the upper stage could only obtain about 80% of the required trajectory.
So the upper stage and its payload re-entered the atmosphere … “Our analysis showed that the abnormal fuel consumption during upper stage flight was due to a combustion chamber wall blow-through that occurred 18 seconds after upper stage flight,” the company said. increase. “Flight data showed that the burnthrough was caused by substantial blockage of the fuel injectors. The combustion and regenerative cooling mechanisms are complex, and there was no immediately apparent root cause for this failure. The rest of the report goes into this root cause analysis. Astra then retired the Rocket 3.3 in favor of a larger rocket currently under development. (Posted by Ken the Bin and EllPeaTea)
Capella announces multi-launch deal with Rocket LabOn Tuesday, satellite company Capella Space said it had reached an agreement with Rocket Lab for four dedicated launches on Electron rockets for the Acadia satellite. The four satellites are required for Capella’s synthetic aperture radar imaging capabilities due to the growing market demand for the highest quality SAR data, the company said.
1 plus 4 equals 5 … these missions are scheduled to start in quick succession and will follow existing flights in Capella Space’s Rocket Lab manifesto. The “Stronger Together” mission is scheduled to launch in March 2023 from Launch Complex 2 in Wallops, Virginia. Capella Space includes BlackSky Global, Hawkeye 360, Synspective, Planet, Spire, Fleet Space and more. (Posted by Ken the Bin)
ArianeGroup increases investment in MaiaSpaceThe company, Europe’s leading rocket maker, set up a subsidiary, MaiaSpace, in late 2021 with the aim of building a reusable micro-launcher called Maia, which is expected to debut in 2026. Cargo to low earth orbit. This is one of several early European efforts to develop reusable rockets.
keep growing … European Spaceflight reports that ArianeGroup invested €6 million in MaiaSpace in late January, according to public documents. MaiaSpace issued an additional 1.5 million shares of his shares as part of the deal, according to filings. This brings ArianeGroup’s total investment in the company to €10.9 million. Additional funding should drive growth. MaiaSpace currently has about 40 employees. (Provided by EllPeaTea)
