Where June was dotted with launches from multiple agencies and private companies, July finishes out with just a few remaining launches.
July 22, Falcon 9, Telstar 19V
Communications satellite targeting the Americas. Launch from SpaceX’s usual slot at SLC 40, Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Launched it targeted for a pre-dawn window.
July 25, Ariane 5, Galileo
Another spray of Galileo satellites—ESA’s navigation satellites that are more-or-less equivalent to the US GPS or Russia’s Glonass, but without the military control. This group of satelittes goes up on an Ariane from Arianespace’s lauch facility at Kourou, French Guiana (that’s on the northeast edge of South America, in cause you lost track). This launch was delayed from June.
July 25, Falcon 9, Iridium Next
Another dozen of Iridium’s next generation low-altitude communications satellites that are aimed more at phone / broadband than broadcast. This time SpaceX is launching from the West Coast at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, and this may be the first flight where they do a booster landing back at Vandenberg. It’s scheduled for a morning launch. In fact, if both flights on the 25th go as planned, the Falcon 9 will leave the pad just ten minutes after the Ariane roars up from French Guiana. Fortunately, there’s a lot of space — on the ground, and in the air — between them.
There’s still the potential for another July launch, as Rocket Lab’s next Electron launch, which was bumped from June 23 to July 6, before being halted, is now on something of an “any day now” schedule.
August is going to bring a more robust launch schedule, including the Parker Solar Probe on August 4 and potentially — potentially — the launch of a Crew Dragon test flight. But … more on that last one after the break.
Commercial crew (more) behind schedule?
A recent report from the GAO suggests that the Commercial Crew program, which will bring manned launches home from Russia and return the US to the business of launching people as well as satellites, is falling behind it’s already considerably behind schedule. The GAO feels that that Boeing’s StarLiner is actually a few months ahead of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon when it comes to getting certified for manned flight — a position that seems to be helped by Boeing’s long experience in working with NASA and handling the complex steps necessary to have a spacecraft man-rated. As it stands, the GAO is putting the potential launch date for a manned flight of an Atlas V with StarLiner in December 2019, with Crew Dragon following in the first months of 2020. This is … not good. Not in terms of being able to support the ISS or being able to break free of dependence on Russia’s Soyuz.
By the way, the GAO report linked above has a good overview of both the Boeing and the SpaceX proposal for those who want a refresher.
But there is some good stuff still happening. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule has arrived at the Cape for testing. Theoretically, Crew Dragon could still make an unmanned flight next month, but the odds are that an actual flight date in more in the “before the end of the year” rather than “in the next month.”
Odds seem good that both companies will fit in an unmanned flight before the end of the year, but hitting the target for a manned flight of either system looks much more unlikely following the GAO report.
2019: The year of the space tourist
A handful of people have had themselves lofted into space on stacks of thousand dollar bills, but if AFP News is right, 2019 is going to see a lot more people who can afford a ticket getting at least a brief taste of space.
Virgin Galactic, founded by British billionaire Richard Branson, and Blue Origin, by Amazon creator Jeff Bezos, are racing to be the first to finish their tests -- with both companies using radically different technology.
Tourists on either Virgin’s space plane or Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket will get get a few miles over the official line of “space” and have a few minutes to play around with free-fall before gravity calls them home. It’s a far cry from spending a week at the ISS. But then, even the six-figure price of tickets on either system is a long way from the $20 million or so that some tourists have paid the Russians for a trip on Soyuz.
Virgin recently completed the second powered flight of the latest iteration of its plane. Blue Origin just made another in a series of successful flights. And it would seem the only thing holding either company back at this point would be enough repetitions to be sure they’re not going to put their well-heeled early adopters at risk.
NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler telescope hasn’t been put to sleep in a veterinary sense, but it is taking a prolonged nap. On July 6, Kepler’s controllers got the expected signal that the spacecraft is getting very low on the fuel it needs to keep itself positioned properly to conduct its extra-solar scans. Kepler will wake up briefly in August 2 to download its latest batch of data. If all goes well, the Kepler team will then launch what will likely be telescope’s last campaign on August 6. Hopes are it can still up its tally of 2,650 planets located.
Fortunately, the planet-spotting TESS was successfully launched earlier this year, and should soon take up the task of finding planets in much more difficult situations than could be managed by Kepler.
It’s not exactly the discovery of life on another world, but it is a different world for NASA. The space agency’s coverage of Cassini’s big finish at Saturn, is actually up for an Emmy Award.
The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences nominated NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, for Outstanding Original Interactive Programfor its coverage of the Cassini mission's Grand Finale at Saturn, including news, web, education, television and social media efforts.
The next big mission on NASA’s schedule is it’s plan to “touch the sun” with the Parker Solar Probe.
In order to unlock the mysteries of the Sun's atmosphere, Parker Solar Probe will use Venus’ gravity during seven flybys over nearly seven years to gradually bring its orbit closer to the Sun. The spacecraft will fly through the Sun’s atmosphere as close as 3.8 million miles to our star’s surface, well within the orbit of Mercury and more than seven times closer than any spacecraft has come before. (Earth’s average distance to the Sun is 93 million miles.)
With Parker’s launch only a few weeks away, expect a longer post about this upcoming mission in … one week. One week minus one second. One week minus two seconds. One week minus ...