This week of Feb 20, 2019 is yet another busy week of space launches and other space activities. Here is some info about the missions and pointers on how to follow the launches.
|
LAUNCH VEHICLE |
MISSION |
LAUNCH SITE |
DATE/TIME (EST) |
1 |
VSS Unity, Virgin Galactic |
Test flight |
Mohave Desert, CA |
Wed Feb 20, morning
Fri Feb 22, morning
|
2 |
Russian Soyuz 2-1b |
EgyptSat-A satellite |
Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan |
Thu Feb 21, 11:47 a.m. EST |
3 |
Spacecraft HAYABUSA-2 |
Sample collection from asteroid Ryugu |
|
Thu Feb 21, 6 p.m. EST |
4 |
SpaceX Falcon 9 |
Nusantara Satu satellite and Beresheet moon lander |
Kennedy Space Center, FL |
Thu Feb 21, 8:45 p.m. EST |
1. VSS Unity, Virgin Galactic. Mojave Desert, California. Wed, Feb 20 morning. Fri Feb 22, morning.
This will be the 5th supersonic powered test flight of the Virgin Galactic spacecraft. This is a test flight to collect some more data about the spacecraft before it is used to carry humans into space later this year. Richard Branson himself will be the first passenger.
Videos from Virgin Galactic generally get posted on the twitter site shortly after the conclusion of the mission.
The Wed morning launch has been scrubbed due to strong surface winds; the new launch date is Fri Feb 22.
Take a look at the videos below for more information and footage of previous flights.
As was done in the previous flight, there will be four NASA technology payloads on board the spacecraft, which will conduct experiments and gather data in low-gravity conditions -
- Microgravity Multi-Phase Flow Experiment for Suborbital Testing, NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston
- Vibration Isolation Platform, Controlled Dynamics Inc. in Huntington Beach, California
- Collisions into Dust Experiment, University of Central Florida in Orlando
- Electromagnetic Field Measurements, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore
Back to the hanger. You can hear the wind in the video below.
Outer Space
Currently, the boundary of outer space is defined by the Von Kármán Line, about 100 km above Earth’s surface. A new paper proposes that the boundary between the Earth's atmosphere and outer space be redefined at 80 km, just where the Mesosphere ends, also known as the mesopause, which is the coldest part of Earth's atmosphere with temperatures below −143 °C (−225 °F). The exact upper and lower boundaries of the mesosphere vary with latitude and with season (higher in winter and at the tropics, lower in summer and at the poles). See the paper for the history of the Von Kármán Line and the rationale for the new lower altitude definition.
The December 2018 flight reached an altitude of 82.7 km, which is now considered as space.
Space Tourism
The SpaceShipTwo (SS2) spacecraft is eventually projected to fly to a height of 110 km. SS2 will have a crew of two and room for six passengers. By August 2013, 640 customers had signed up for a flight, initially at a ticket price of $200K per person, but raised to $250K in May 2013. en.wikipedia.org/...
2. EgyptSat-A satellite, Soyuz 2-1b, Baikanur, Kazakhstan. Thu Feb 21, 11:47 a.m. EST.
EgyptSat-A is a remote-sensing/reconnaissance satellite, built jointly by Egypt and Russia. It will be placed in Low-Earth-Orbit (LEO) and replace the EgyptSat-2 satellite which failed in 2015.
Live video will be posted on YouTube. Try this link.
3. HAYABUSA-2, Landing and Sample collection at Asteroid Ryugu, Thu Feb 22, 6:00 p.m., EST
The Japanese spacecraft is expected to land and grab some regolith samples from the surface of asteroid Ryugu Thu evening EST, for return to Earth in 2020.
The spacecraft has been in orbit around Ryugu since June of 2018 and had earlier deployed a few small hopping landers on the asteroid.
The spacecraft will approach the surface of the asteroid with a sampling horn. When the horn touches the surface, a projectile (5-gram tantalum bullet) will be fired at 300 m/s into the surface. The resulting ejecta particles will be collected by a catcher at the top of the horn.
There will be live coverage; there are real-time images at www.hayabusa2.jaxa.jp/... but no live video, since the comm. data rate is quite low.
The spacecraft descent has begun —
Here is the link for the live webcast, beginning at 4:45 p.m. EST.
Here is an animation of the mission including the regolith collection event -
4. Nusantara Satu satellite (Indonesia) and Beresheet moon lander (Israel), SpaceX Falcon 9, Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Florida, Thu Feb 21, 8:45 p.m. EST.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will carry and deploy 3 different spacecraft —
- The primary spacecraft is Nusantara Satu, an Indonesian communications satellite, which from its perch in geostationary orbit, will provide voice and data communications, and broadband Internet to the Indonesian archipelago and South East Asia.
- Beresheet is a small moon lander, built by SpaceIL, an Israeli private company
- An Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) S5 micro-satellite prototype for tracking satellites and space debris
The Beresheet will be deployed first, which in turn will undergo a series of orbit-raising maneuvers over several weeks to reach the moon. Nusantara Satu and AFRL S5 will be deployed next, which will travel together, using electric propulsion to reach geo-sync orbit. Subsequently, AFRL S5 will separate and slide over to its own spot in geo-sync orbit.
Weather forecast is good (80% go). The night launch is expected to produce some dazzling images, captured by the usual cadre of professional and amateur photographers.
Livestream links at SpaceX and Youtube will be posted shortly before the launch time. SpaceFlightNow does a nice real-time blog with video for most launches.
The SpaceX booster has flown twice and will be recovered using the drone ship Of Course I love You. The fairing capture ship Mr. Steven was recently transported from the West Coast to Florida and will make its first attempt on the East Coast to catch and recover the payload fairing. Mr. Steven has come close but has not successfully captured a fairing yet.
Beresheet, which means "in the beginning," was designed by SpaceIL to participate in the Google Lunar X Prize (GLXP) to land a spacecraft on the Moon. The contest ended with no launches, but SpaceIL continued with the mission and will launch this Thursday.
Beresheet will take 40 days to reach the moon, flying in a series of increasing altitude orbits and will be inserted into lunar orbit around 4 April at 14:07 UTC. Beresheet will spend 6 days circling the Moon, before landing in Mare Serenitatis around 11 April at 15:30 UTC.
Beresheet, after landing, will last a few days in the extreme heat and cold on the Lunar surface. It will send back high-resolution imagery and scientific readings with a magnetometer. The lander will also carry a NASA-provided array of mirrors to reflect laser signals from spacecraft in lunar orbit.
This is a mission with fairly modest objectives but it will be a major step for Israel; Beresheet will be the first Israeli spacecraft to travel beyond Earth orbit and the first private lander on the moon.
Jason Davis at the Planetary Society has a comprehensive article on the Beresheet mission to the moon.
Here are couple of videos from SpaceIL -
Epilogue
2019 is shaping up to be an exciting and productive year for the space program, with new satellite launches, crewed spacecraft from SpaceX and Boeing, progress by Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, moon rovers and further inroads into the trip to the Moon and Mars.
Check out spaceflightnow.com/… for an up-to-date list of space launches planned this year.
And let’s keep working to elect Democrats into office, who will spend our tax dollars on Science, not walls.
Coverage of other recent space missions
- Spacecraft Departures and Arrivals this Week, Dec 16, 2018 — www.dailykos.com/…
- Virgin Galactic Nails its First Human Space Flight — www.dailykos.com/…
- SpaceX Falcon 9 Launch with Booster Landing at Vandenberg AFB — www.dailykos.com/…
- The Aug 7, 2018 SpaceX Launch of the Indonesian Satellite Merah Putih — www.dailykos.com/...