NASA
On Monday, NASA’s latest probe to Mars will come screaming in at high speed for another dramatic, and way, way too exciting landing on the red planet. From the time it does it final entry burn, hits the upper reaches of the Martian atmosphere, and arrives—hopefully intact—on the rosy sands, should be right at seven minutes. Add about eight more minutes before technicians at JPL learn if it reached ground successfully.
The timetable of events on Mars has Insight separating from the rocket that brought it from Earth orbit at around 2:40 PM EST. Seven minutes later, it begins it’s plunge into the thin atmosphere of Mars at a speed of almost 20,000 kph. And then …
2:49 PM — the heat shield hits maximum temperature of around 1,500° C
2:51 PM — the parachute deploys. Fifteen seconds later, the heat shield is dropped, and ten seconds after that, the landing legs pop out.
2:52 PM — Radar begins to ping the distance to the Martian surface.
2:53 PM — InSight drops it’s protective shell and … lets go of the parachute!. Then, half a second later, retrorockets begin to fire, slowing the probe to walking speed. And … landing.
3:01 PM — First possible signal from the surface of Mars. Expect much cheering … and hope it’s not moaning. Within five minutes, there should be images returning from the surface. Even more cheering.
Unlike the last few missions to land on Mars, InSight is not a rover. When it lands, it had landed. But it’s certainly not done with its mission. Tools positioned beneath the lander will dig down and probe beneath the surface of Mars, looking for Marsquakes and getting a sense of the planet’s internal composition. What it finds could be critical in planning for how explorers or colonists will operate on Mars.
Watch closely, keep your fingers crossed, and remember that half of all Mars-bound missions have ended in failure. Even for rocket scientists, this is hard.
SpaceNews: NASA sets date for test of SpaceX Crew Dragon
Jeff Foust
After months of delays, NASA has selected January 7 as the launch date for the unmanned test of the SpaceX Crew Dragon vehicle. Crew Dragon is the craft that can ferry as many as seven astronauts to the International Space Station. This flight will be made with no one on board, but the craft will automatically dock with the ISS and spend some time there before returning to Earth. If all goes will, NASA will conduct a test flight of Crew Dragon with two astronauts aboard later in 2019. That flight is tentatively scheduled for June.
And yes, I’ve already applied for my press credentials to be at Kennedy in January for this test launch. Stay tuned.
Ars Technica: NASA closes small lunar lander project.
Eric Berger
Last Monday was the deadline for telling NASA what you wanted to do with your <15 kg payload to the moon. The project appears to have landed (so to speak) a number of solicitations.
NASA expects to issue eight to 12 awards under this program in spring 2019, and, for the most part, these will probably be instruments that land on the surface and remain in one place. However, one company, Lunar Outpost, is developing a miniature rover that fits within these mass requirements. In an interview with Ars, executives with the company outlined their plans for a "Lunar Prospector" rover. Lunar Outpost envisions swarms of up to two dozen of these rovers crawling on the Moon's surface looking for ice, precious metals, and other resources.
CNN: Virgin Orbit carries their rocket aloft for the first time.
Tara John
Virgin Orbit's plane, Cosmic Girl, took to the Californian skies for an 80 minutes on November 18 with a 70-foot-long rocket, called Launcher One, strapped under its wing, the company wrote in a statement.
Virgin Orbit is likely to take several more test flight before one of those rockets heads for orbit, but that may happen by summer.
Forbes: Rocket Lab cracks both reaching space, and reaching funds.
Jonathan O'Callaghan
Deliberately small rocket company Rocket Lab has delivered on their first commercial flight with a successful launch on November 11. They also completed a new round of $140M funding on November 15.
Their Electron rocket, nicknamed “It’s Business Time”, lifted off from the company’s Launch Complex 1 on New Zealand’s Māhia Peninsula at 10.50pm Eastern time yesterday. Nine minutes after launch, the two-stage rocket separated and the upper stage – called Curie – took the satellites into their final orbit orbit 500 kilometers (310 miles) above the surface of Earth.
The Curie “skip stage” is a clever bit of kit that lets satellite manufacturers concentrate on their instrument, while leaving Rocket Lab with the complete task of getting them into the right position. It should be popular. According to Rocket Lab, 62 percent of all satellite launches are within the size allowed by their launcher — that includes their plan to deliver one of those small moon-bound landers next year.
LAUNCH SCHEDULE
November 26— PSLV | HySIS
Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle from the Indian space program carrying imaging satellite HySIS.
November 29— Delta 4-Heavy | NROL 71
ULA’s big Delta 4-Heavy rocket launching classified military payload from Vandenberg.