Category: Civil

Antares Soars Back Into Service – UPDATE

Antares Soars Back Into Service – UPDATE

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 18, 2016 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: October 23, 2016 11:27 am ET

UPDATE, October 23, 2016:   Cygnus OA-5 was successfully berthed to the ISS this morning as planned.

ORIGINAL STORY, October 18, 2016: Orbital ATK’s Antares rocket is back in service after a successful launch five hours ago from Wallops Island, VA.  The rocket delivered a Cygnus cargo spacecraft to orbit.  Cygnus will be berthed to the International Space Station (ISS) on Sunday after an extended period of independent flight while a new crew arrives.

The 7:40 pm ET launch on October 17 from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility slipped to 7:45 pm ET, the end of the 5-minute launch window.  A commentator on NASA TV said at the time it was due to a minor engine problem.  At a post-launch press conference, however, Orbital ATK’s Frank Culbertson said it was to give the launch crew one last chance to check everything over according to a tweet from Jeff Foust (@jeff_foust) of Space News.

Whatever the reason for the brief delay, the launch appeared flawless when it took place.


Antares Liftoff on Orbital ATK Cygnus OA-5 Mission, October 17, 2016.  Photo Credit: NASA Wallops/Patrick Block

This is first flight of Antares since a failure almost exactly two years ago (October 28, 2014).  In the intervening time, Orbital ATK replaced the old Russian NK-33/AJ26 engines with newer Russian RD-181 engines.

The launch was delayed many times since this spring, most recently from Sunday to Monday.  It is designated OA-5, for Orbital ATK-5, even though OA-6 already has been launched.  While Antares was being re-engined, Orbital ATK launched two Cygnus cargo spacecraft on United Launch Alliance Atlas V rockets. OA-4 was launched in December 2015 and OA-6 in March 2016.   This mission was intended to launch in between those, hence the non-sequential numbering.

If this launch had taken place as planned on Sunday, Cygnus OA-5 would have gone directly to the ISS and been berthed there on Wednesday.  Because of the one-day delay, however, it will have to wait until Sunday because a new ISS crew (Soyuz MS-02) will be launched on Wednesday and dock on Friday.  NASA wants to wait for that to occur and the new crew to have a day to acclimate.   Cygnus will be grappled using the robotic Canadarm2 at about 7:05 am ET on Sunday and berthed to an ISS port about two hours later.

Last Updated: Oct 23, 2016 11:27 am ET
GOES-R Launch Delayed Due to Hurricane Matthew Impacts – UPDATE 2

GOES-R Launch Delayed Due to Hurricane Matthew Impacts – UPDATE 2

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 18, 2016 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: November 20, 2016 3:15 pm ET

NOAA announced today that the launch of the first of its new generation of weather satellites, GOES-R, will be delayed because of impacts from Hurricane Matthew.  The scheduled November 4 launch now will take place no earlier than November 16. [UPDATE: The launch date slipped again to November 19 due to technical issues with the Atlas V rocket.  It was successfully launched on November 19 at 6:42 pm ET, the end of its hour-long launch window after another Atlas V technical issue and an undisclosed problem at the Eastern Test Range were resolved.]

The revised launch date is tentative pending approval of the Air Force’s 45th Space Wing, which operates Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS).  GOES-R will be launched by a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket, which is launched from Launch Complex 41 at CCAFS.

NOAA stressed that the spacecraft itself was safe inside the Astrotech Space Operations facility in nearby Titusville, FL during the storm.  It is fine.  The delay is due to unspecified damage to launch infrastructure.  

ULA said in a tweet that the damage is “minor to moderate.” 

ULA spokeswoman Lyn Chassange added via email on October 19 that the
“areas hardest hit were some ground equipment at the SLC-41 Vertical
Integration Facility, damage to the Mobile Service Tower doors at SLC-37
and the Delta Operations Center roof.”

NOAA and the weather community are anxiously awaiting the launch of GOES-R, the first of four satellites expected to provide revolutionary capabilities to improve weather forecasting.   It is somewhat ironic that its launch is being delayed by the very type of weather system — a hurricane — that it is designed to track.  

Hurricane Matthew was forecast to wreak severe damage in Florida earlier this month due to very high winds and storm surge.  In the end, Florida was spared the worst case scenario.  The storm’s greatest damage was in North Carolina caused by heavy rains and flooding.  Still, the Cape Canaveral area suffered winds in excess of 100 miles per hour.

Note:  This was article was updated on October 19 to include the comments from Lyn Chassange and again on November 20 to indicate when the launch took place.

 

Last Updated: Nov 20, 2016 3:15 pm ET
What's Happening in Space Policy October 16-22, 2016

What's Happening in Space Policy October 16-22, 2016

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 16, 2016 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: October 16, 2016 6:36 pm ET

Here is our list of space policy events for the week of October 16-22, 2016 and any insight we can offer about them.  The House and Senate are in recess until November 14. 

During the Week

At 7:30 pm Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) tonight, China will launch a two-man crew aboard the Shenzhou-11 (SZ-11) spacecraft from the Jiuquan launch site in the Gobi desert (where it will be 7:30 am Monday),  They are headed to the new Tiangong-2 space station with docking expected in two days.  They will remain aboard for 30 days, doubling the duration of China’s longest human spaceflight mission to date. Tiangong-2 is small, 8.6 metric tons (MT), compared to the 400 MT International Space Station (ISS), but it is a precursor to a larger 60 MT space station the Chinese plan to have in place in the early 2020s.

ISS is a partnership among the United States, Russia, Canada, Japan and Europe.  It has been permanently occupied by multinational crews rotating on 4-6 month shifts since the year 2000 and is regularly resupplied via cargo missions launched by two U.S. companies (Orbital ATK and SpaceX) and the Japanese and Russian space agencies.  The next cargo mission, Orbital ATK’s OA-5,  was scheduled for launch tonight from Wallops Island, VA at 8:03 pm EDT.  At press time, however, Orbital ATK announced that the launch of the Cygnus cargo spacecraft is being postponed for 24 hours because of a bad ground support cable.  The new launch time is Monday at 7:40 pm EDT.   Cygnus OA-5 will deliver supplies, equipment and scientific experiments to the three crew members currently aboard (one each from NASA, JAXA and Roscosmos).  Cygnus is being launched with a new version of Orbital ATK’s Antares rocket.  This is the first flight of Antares since an October 28, 2014 failure.  If launched tonight, Cygnus was to arrive at ISS Wednesday morning, but with a Monday launch, arrival at ISS will be delayed a few days.  Three new ISS crew members are being launched to ISS on the Soyuz MS-02 spacecraft early Wednesday morning EDT.  They are taking the 2-day route to ISS arriving on Friday.  NASA and Orbital ATK said at a press conference yesterday that if the OA-5 launch was delayed to Monday, as now has happened, they would have the Cygnus spacecraft loiter in orbit for a few days to allow the Soyuz MS-02 crew to dock first.  The Cygnus arrival is now scheduled for Sunday, October 23.  The Soyuz MS-02 crew (one American, two Russians) will restore the ISS to its usual crew complement of six.

The European Space Agency (ESA)-Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) mission already had an important event today. The spacecraft is carrying a small lander, Schiaparelli, and they made the trip to Mars together.  They are three days away from Mars now and it was time for them to separate.  Separation occurred at approximately 10:30 am EDT, but was followed by a nail-biting period of time when ESA was not receiving telemetry from TGO.  That problem appears to be resolved now and the mission is proceeding as scheduled.  On Wednesday, Schiaparelli will land on Mars and TGO will enter orbit.  ESA will provide live coverage of those events and hold a press conference on Thursday.

To recap only these events (all EDT):

Today (Sunday)

  • ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter/Schiaparelli lander separation
  • Chinese launch of Shenzhou-11 with two crew members to Tiangong-2 space station at 7:30 pm EDT (usually broadcast on China’s CCTV, available in English on the Internet)

Monday

  • New launch date for U.S. Orbital ATK launch of Cygnus OA-5 cargo mission to ISS, 7:40 pm EDT (broadcast on NASA TV)

Tuesday

  • Chinese crew arrives at Tiangong-2 (time not announced)

Wednesday

  • Russian Soyuz MS-02 launch to ISS from Kazakhstan with three crew members (one American, two Russian) at 4:05 am EDT (watch on NASA TV)
  • ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter enters Martian orbit and Schiaparelli lands (watch on ESA’s website, 9:00 am – 4:00 pm EDT)

Thursday

  • ESA press conference about ExoMars (watch on ESA’s website, 4:00-5:00 am EDT)

Friday

  • Soyuz MS-02 docks at ISS (time not announced)

Sunday

  • Orbital ATK Cygnus OA-5 arrival at ISS (if launch is on October 17), grapple at approximately 7:00 am EDT

Many other events are on tap this week in addition to those launches and arrivals.  Among them is the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s Division on Planetary Sciences (DPS) in Pasadena, CA.  This year it is combined with a meeting of the European Planetary Science Congress.  Exciting discoveries and other results from planetary exploration missions are the staple of this conference.  It starts today and runs through Friday.

The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Analysis (CSBA) is having an interesting discussion on Tuesday morning at the Newseum in Washington, DC.  CSBA challenged teams from four prominent Washington think tanks to develop alternative strategies and rebalance DOD’s major capabilities in light of today’s security challenges.  They could choose from over 1200 pre-costed options provided by CSBA to add to or cut from the projected defense program for the next 10 years.  They will present their conclusions at the meeting.  It will be interesting to see if they recommend any changes to the national security space portfolio.  The event will be webcast.

On Friday, the State Department and the Secure World Foundation will hold a day-long seminar at the State Department on International Best Practices for Space Sustainability. It features four panels of top experts from around the world (your SpacePolicyOnline.com editor is lucky enough to moderate the industry panel).  Hopefully you followed the instructions and registered by last Friday as required for this event (for security checks etc.).

And last but not least of our highlighted events for the week, the final 2016 presidential debates is Wednesday night from 9:00-10:30 pm EDT.  It will be nationally televised (check local listings).   The election is on November 8.

All of those events and others we know about as of Sunday morning are shown below.  Check back throughout the week for others that we learn about later and add to our Events of Interest list or for schedule changes.

Sunday, October 16

Sunday-Friday, October 16-21

Monday, October 17

Tuesday, October 18

Wednesday, October 19

Thursday, October 20

Friday, October 21

Last Updated: Oct 16, 2016 6:36 pm ET
Antares Ready for Sunday Night Launch, Viewable Along East Coast – UPDATE

Antares Ready for Sunday Night Launch, Viewable Along East Coast – UPDATE

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 16, 2016 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: October 16, 2016 6:33 pm ET

UPDATE, October 16, 6:30 pm ET:  Orbital ATK has postponed the launch for one day because of a bad ground support cable. The new launch date and time are Monday, October 17, at 7:40 pm ET.  If that date holds, Cygnus OA-5 will loiter in orbit for a few days rather than going directly to ISS in order to allow the Soyuz MS-02 crew to dock on Friday first.  Cygnus will wait until Sunday, October 23, with grapple by the robotic Canadarm2 at approximately 7:00 am ET.

ORIGINAL STORY, OCTOBER 16, 6:04 am ET:  Orbital ATK will launch an Antares rocket with a Cygnus spacecraft full of cargo for the International Space Station (ISS) at 8:03 pm ET tonight (Sunday).  There is a 5 minute launch window.  Weather is forecast 95 percent “go” for the launch from Wallops Island, VA on the Delaware-Maryland-Virginia (DELMARVA) peninsula.  By coincidence, the launch will take place just half an hour after China launches a two-man crew to its new Tiangong-2 space station.

NASA TV coverage begins at 7:00 pm ET of the launch of Orbital ATK’s Commercial Resupply Services-5 (OA-5) mission, but it also should be visible to the naked eye from New England to South Carolina and as far west as Charleston, WV.  Orbital ATK provided a map of where and when to look.


Where to Look for the Orbital ATK OA-5 Launch on October 16, 2016.  (L = launch) Image credit: Orbital ATK.

This is the first flight of Antares since an October 28, 2014 launch failure that was caused by one of its two Russian NK-33/AJ26 rocket
engines.  During the past two years, Orbital ATK has substituted newer
Russian RD-181 engines in all of its Antares rockets, so this is also
the first flight of the re-engined Antares.  

The failed mission in 2014 was designated Orb-3 — the third operational ISS cargo mission for Orbital Sciences Corporation, which later merged with ATK to form Orbital ATK.

Orbital ATK launched two Cygnus missions from Cape Canaveral, FL using United Launch Alliance
(ULA) Atlas V rockets while Antares was being readied for flight.  Those were Orbital ATK-4 (OA-4) in December 2015 and OA-6 in March 2016,   Today’s mission is OA-5 and, as the name indicates, was originally intended to fly in-between those two launches, but was delayed for a variety of technical reasons.

The OA-5 Cygnus spacecraft is loaded with 5,300 pounds (2,400 kilograms) of supplies, equipment, and science experiments.  The spacecraft is named after the late Alan Poindexter, a former NASA astronaut who died in 2012 from injuries sustained in a non-space-related accident.  Poindexter flew on two space shuttle missions that delivered modules to the ISS. 

If all goes as planned, OA-5 will arrive at the ISS on Wednesday morning and be grappled using the robotic Canadarm2 at about 7:00 am ET and berthed to the space station approximately two hours later.  If the launch is delayed for any reason, the next opportunity is tomorrow, Monday, at 7:40 pm ET.

This is the beginning of a busy two-week period at the ISS.  Three new crew members will launch to the ISS on Wednesday aboard the Soyuz MS-02 spacecraft, about three hours before OA-5 arrives at ISS.  The Soyuz MS-02 crew is taking the two-day trajectory to ISS, with arrival on Friday.  The three crew are NASA’s Shane Kimbrough and Roscosmos’s Andrey Borisneko and Sergey Rhyzhikov.

If the OA-5 launch slips to Monday, NASA and Orbital ATK plan to have the Cygnus spacecraft loiter in space for several days and berth after the Soyuz MS-02 crew is aboard.  Ten days after Soyuz MS-02 arrives, the three crew members currently aboard the ISS (NASA’s Kate Rubins, JAXA’s Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos’s Anatoly Ivanishin) will return to Earth. They will be replaced in November.

OA-5 will remain berthed to ISS for about one month.  After it departs from the ISS in November, several cubesats will be deployed.  For the first time, they will be released from an altitude above the ISS, providing a longer orbital lifetime.   In subsequent days, a second SAFFIRE fire experiment will be conducted inside the Cygnus capsule to study how fires behave in weightlessness.  Once the experiment is completed, Cygnus will be commanded to reenter Earth’s atmosphere and the entire capsule will burn up due to the heat of reentry.  Cygnus spacecraft are not designed to survive reentry and are used for trash disposal.

This “commercial cargo” launch is part of Orbital ATK’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract with NASA under which the company is delivering a total of 66,000 pounds (33,000 kilograms) of cargo to the ISS through 2018.   SpaceX, with its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft, is Orbital ATK’s competitor for CRS missions.   Both companies as well as Sierra Nevada were awarded at least six flights each under the follow-on CRS2 contract,  Sierra Nevada is building the Dream Chaser winged spacecraft (which looks like a small space shuttle) that will be launched with ULA’s Atlas V rocket.  The CRS2 missions begin in 2019.  

ISS is a partnership among the United States, Russia, Canada, Japan and 11 European countries acting through the European Space Agency (ESA).  All the partners except Europe are committed to operating the ISS at least through 2024.  ESA is expected to agree at its December 2016 ministerial meeting where the ministers in charge of space activities for each of its member countries make decisions about future activities.

Last Updated: Oct 16, 2016 6:33 pm ET
China Set to Launch Two-Man Crew to New Tiangong-2 Space Station

China Set to Launch Two-Man Crew to New Tiangong-2 Space Station

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 16, 2016 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: October 16, 2016 6:03 am ET

Just one day before launch, China finally officially announced the names of the two crew members and launch time for the first mission to its new Tiangong-2 space station.  The Shenzhou-11 spacecraft with Jing Haipeng and Chen Dong will launch at 7:30 pm Eastern Daylight Time tonight (Sunday), which is 7:30 am Monday (October 17) local time at the Jiuquan launch site in the Gobi desert.

Andrew Jones, a reporter in Finland who writes for gbtimes.com, had calculated the launch time several days ago based on observations of the space station’s orbital position and a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) issued by China, but China’s official announcement through its Xinhua news service was not made until late last night EDT.   In fact, China’s CCTV television network released a story yesterday with an incorrect launch day and time.

In any case, Xinhua states that the launch aboard a Long March-2F rocket is at 7:30 pm EDT tonight.  Jing and Chen are headed to China’s Tiangong-2 space station, which was launched last month, where they will remain for 30 days. The longest Chinese human spaceflight mission to date is 15 days.

By coincidence, the Shenzhou-11 launch is just 33 minutes before NASA and Orbital ATK will launch a cargo mission to the International Space Station (ISS). The two space stations are in completely different orbits.

Tiangong-2 is a small, 8.6 metric ton (MT) space station.  It is similar to China’s first space station, Tiangong-1, which was launched in 2011 and occupied by two three-person crews in 2012 and 2013.  (For a list of all Chinese human spaceflight launches, see this SpacePolicyOnline.com fact sheet.)  These two small stations are precursors to a multi-modular 60 MT space station China plans to have in place by the early 2020s.  

By comparison, ISS has a mass of approximately 400 MT.  It is a partnership among the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada and 11 European countries acting through the European Space Agency.  ISS has been permanently occupied by multinational crews rotating on 4-6 month schedules since the year 2000.  NASA is prohibited by law from bilateral cooperation with China unless it makes specific certifications to Congress in advance.

Jing, 50, is the Shenzhou-11 mission commander.  This is his third spaceflight.   Chen, 38, is on his first mission.  They will dock with the space station two days after launch.  In addition to conducting scientific experiments and other tasks, they will serve as “special correspondents” sharing “their work and life in space via text, audio and video through Xinhua’s media services.”

The experiments include taking ultrasound measurements for the first time in space, cultivating plants, and testing the three winners of an experimental design competition in Hong Kong for secondary students, according to Xinhua.

China plans to launch its first cargo mission to Tiangong-2 in April 2017.  The Tianzhou-1 spacecraft will conduct a refueling test.  Until now, all Chinese human spaceflight-related missions have been launched from Jiuquan, but Tianzhou-1 will launch on a new Long March 7 rocket from the new Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on Hainan Island.

Chinese sources have variously stated that Tianzhou-1 will be the last launch to Tiangong-2 or that a second two-man crew will be sent on Shenzhou-12.

 

Last Updated: Oct 16, 2016 6:03 am ET
Forget Matthew, It's Nicole Delaying the Return to Flight of Antares-UPDATE

Forget Matthew, It's Nicole Delaying the Return to Flight of Antares-UPDATE

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 11, 2016 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: October 14, 2016 2:29 pm ET

Update, October 14:   NASA/Wallops PAO Keith Koehler reports that there was little damage to the tracking station and final testing remains scheduled for tomorrow.  Launch is still on for Sunday, October 16, at 8:03 pm ET, as of now.

Original Story, October 11, 2016: Orbital ATK’s return to flight of the Antares rocket has been delayed again.  The new launch date is Sunday, October 16, at 8:03 pm ET.  Last week’s concerns that Hurricane Matthew might impact the launch site at Wallops Island, VA have given way to new worries that Tropical Storm Nicole will affect a critical tracking site on Bermuda.  Nicole is expected to reach hurricane status by the time it arrives there.  Ironically, a hurricane also delayed the last Antares launch, which failed two years ago this month.

The launch date for this cargo mission to the International Space Station (ISS), Orbital ATK-5 (OA-5), has been delayed many times this year.  It is the first Antares launch since an October 28, 2014 failure that was traced to one of the Russian-built NK-33/AJ26 rocket engines. Orbital ATK decided to replace those engines for all Antares rockets with new Russian RD-181 engines.  Technical challenges in doing that slipped the launch, originally expected in the spring, until now. 

The October 28 failure was of the Orb-3 cargo mission to ISS.  At the time, the company was Orbital Sciences Corporation and its ISS cargo missions were designated “Orb.”  As the number implies, it was the third operational cargo mission for that company, which later merged with ATK and is now Orbital ATK.  Orbital ATK has launched two cargo flights, OA-4 and OA-6, to ISS in the interim, using United Launch Alliance Atlas V rockets instead of Antares.

In a twist of fate, the Orb-3 launch also was delayed by a hurricane hitting Bermuda — Gonzalo.

Most recently, the Antares return-to-flight mission was scheduled for October 13, but slipped to October 14 because of minor technical issues and preparations for Hurricane Matthew, whose path was difficult to forecast and could have come up the East Coast.  (Instead, it caused wind and storm surge damage in Florida and then dealt a punishing blow to North and South Carolina with rain).

Having dodged that bullet, however, the launch is now being affected by Tropical Storm Nicole.  It does not threaten the U.S. East Coast, but is headed towards Bermuda and is forecast to reach hurricane status before it arrives there on October 13.

“The tracking station at Bermuda is required to conduct the Antares launch from Wallops,” said Steven Kremer, chief of the Wallops Range and Mission Management Office. The threat to not only the tracking station itself, but Bermuda’s overall infrastructure, are of concern.  Once the storm passes, a damage assessment will be performed, mission readiness will be tested, and the site will be brought back to operational status NASA said in a press release today.

Two pre-launch briefings that were scheduled for tomorrow, October 12, also have been postponed.  They now will take place on Saturday, October 15, at 4:00 pm ET (science) and 6:00 pm ET (mission status).  They will be aired on NASA TV. 

If the launch takes place on Sunday, October 16, at 8:03 pm ET, NASA TV coverage will begin at 7:00 pm ET.

Last Updated: Oct 14, 2016 2:29 pm ET
What's Happening in Space Policy October 9-14, 2016

What's Happening in Space Policy October 9-14, 2016

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 9, 2016 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: October 9, 2016 3:52 pm ET

Here is our list of space policy events for the week of October 9-14, 2016 and any insight we can offer about them.  The House and Senate are in recess until November 14.

During the Week

The week starts tonight (Sunday) with the second presidential debate between Hillary Clinton (D) and Donald Trump (R).  Don’t expect the space program to come up at all, but these debates are important elements of the presidential election, the foundation of our democracy.   Everyone should be paying attention!  This one is a town-hall format at Washington University in St. Louis from 9:00-10:30 pm ET (nationally televised, check local listings).

Tomorrow, October 10, is a Federal holiday (Columbus Day), so government workers, at least, will have a day off to recuperate. This is a holiday that many businesses do NOT observe, however, choosing instead to close on the day after Thanksgiving.  So whether you get to sleep in tomorrow or not depends on where you work.

For the space program, this week’s big event is the launch of Orbital ATK’s re-engined Antares rocket on a cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS).  Launch schedules are always subject to change, but at the moment it is planned for 9:13 pm ET on Thursday night (two pre-launch briefings will take place the day before).  Antares launches from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, VA.  It is a night launch.  Weather permitting, it should be viewable for a good-sized segment of the East Coast.  This is the first Antares flight since an October 28, 2014 failure that destroyed that rocket and a Cygnus spacecraft loaded with cargo for ISS.  This mission is designated OA-5, for Orbital ATK-5, although it is the sixth operational flight in this series.  Orbital ATK names its cargo spacecraft after deceased astronauts.  This one is named after Alan Poindexter who died in 2012 from injuries sustained in an accident.  He flew on two space shuttle missions (STS-122 as pilot, STS-131 as commander) that delivered modules to the ISS as part of its construction.

Also on Thursday night, Women in Aerospace (WIA) will hold its annual awards dinner in Arlington, VA.   Six distinguished women will receive awards — including a posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award for Molly Macauley — and Patti Grace Smith, who passed away earlier this year, will also be recognized.

The annual International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight (ISPCS 2016) will be held in Las Cruces, New Mexico on Wednesday and Thursday, with pre- and post-events the prior and following days.  The website does not indicate if any of the symposium will be webcast.   If we find out that it will be, we’ll post the link in our calendar item about this event.   Looks really interesting, so hopefully it will be livestrearmed.

Those and other events we know about as of Sunday morning are listed below.  Check back throughout the week for others that we learn about later and add to our Events of Interest list.

Sunday, October 9

Monday, October 10

  • U.S. Federal Holiday (Columbus Day), government offices will be closed

Tuesday, October 11

Wednesday, October 12

Wednesday-Thursday

Wednesday-Friday

Thursday, October 13

Friday, October 14

Last Updated: Oct 09, 2016 3:52 pm ET
Russia, China Ready to Launch New Space Station Crews

Russia, China Ready to Launch New Space Station Crews

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 7, 2016 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: October 23, 2016 10:32 am ET

Russia has scheduled the Soyuz MS-02 launch for October 19.  Delayed from September 23 for technical reasons, it will take one American and two Russians to the International Space Station (ISS).  Meanwhile, China is getting ready to launch a two-man crew to its new Tiangong-2 space station sometime this month.

Soyuz MS-02 is the second flight of a new version of the Soyuz spacecraft, which made its first flight in 1967.  The spacecraft has been upgraded several times over the decades.  The MS version replaces TMA-M and has improved solar arrays, a new digital computer, and a new docking system, among other upgrades.  The first spacecraft, Soyuz MS-01, was launched in July and is currently docked to the ISS. That launch also was delayed — from June 24 to July 7 — for technical reasons reportedly related to the new docking system.

Russia’s official news agency TASS announced the new Soyuz MS-02 launch date today adding that the delay was due to a “squeezed cable” in the spacecraft.

It will take NASA’s Shane Kimbrough and Roscosmos’s Andrey Borisenko and Sergey Ryzhilov to ISS.  They will be welcomed by the three crew members currently aboard — NASA’s Kate Rubins, JAXA’s Takuya Ohishi and Roscosmos’s Anatoly Ivanishin — when they arrive two days later.   Russia is using the longer 2-day trajectory to get to ISS instead of the short 6-hour journey in order to check out the new spacecraft’s systems.

ISS has been permanently occupied since November 2000 by crews rotating on roughly 4-6 month tours of duty.  The approximately 400 metric ton (MT) multi-modular station is a partnership among the United States, Russia, Japan, Europe, and Canada.   The United States has not been able to launch crews to the ISS since it terminated the space shuttle program in 2011.   NASA hopes that two new U.S. “commercial crew” systems will be operational by 2018 so it is no longer reliant on Russia for crew transportation.

Russia has extensive experience with space stations, launching six successful Salyut space stations between 1971 and 1982 and the multi-modular Mir space station that operated from 1986-2001.  ISS is the second space station for the United States.  The first was Skylab in 1973-1974 (not to be confused with Spacelab, a science laboratory that flew in the cargo bay of the space shuttle).

China launched its first space station, Tiangong-1, in 2011.  It was visited by two three-person crews in 2012 and 2013.  Last month it launched Tiangong-2 and said that a two-man crew would be launched in mid-late October on the Shenzhou-11 spacecraft.  The launch date has not been officially announced, but Andrew Jones (@AJ-FI), a journalist in Finland who writes for gbtimes.com and closely follows the Chinese space program, tweeted that he expects the launch on October 17 and docking on October 19.

The Tiangong space stations are quite small (8.6 MT) in comparison to the first Russian (Salyut 1, 18.6 MT) and U.S. (Skylab, 77 MT) space stations, not to mention ISS.  Nonetheless, it is a step on China’s path to a larger 60 MT space station planned for the early 2020s and sending people to the Moon in the 2030s.

China has a very modestly paced human spaceflight program.   It launched four uncrewed test flights of the Shenzhou spacecraft from 1999-2002.  China’s first “taikonaut,” Yang Liwei, flew in 2003 oh Shenzhou-5.  Shenzhou-6 in 2005 grew the crew size to two followed by Shenzhou-7 in 2008 with a three-man crew, included the first Chinese spacewalk.  Shenzhou-8 was an uncrewed test flight to the Tiangong-1 space station.  Shenzhou-9 and -10 were missions to that space station, each composed of two men and one woman.

The names of the Shenzhou-11 crew have not been announced, but their gender has — male.  Both planned flights to Tiangong-2 will take two-man crews for 30 days each.

A list of all Chinese human spaceflight-related launches is available in a SpacePolicyOnline.com fact sheet.

Last Updated: Oct 23, 2016 10:32 am ET
David Webb: In Memoriam

David Webb: In Memoriam

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 5, 2016 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: October 5, 2016 10:20 pm ET

David Webb, who was instrumental in the formation of International Space University and of the Space Studies Program at the University of North Dakota (UND), passed away on October 1 at the age of 87.  Webb also was a member of the 1985-1986 U.S. National Commission on Space (NCOS).

Webb was a mentor to many in the space policy community,
including the Aerospace Corporation’s Senior Policy Analyst Jim Vedda and Naval War College
National Security Affairs Professor Joan Johnson-Freese.

Vedda credited Webb with shaping his career.  “As I told him
many times, he was the most influential person in my life aside from my
parents,” Vedda said via email.  “He took me to my first international
space conference (Unispace 82), convinced me to go to grad school (in
John Logsdon’s program at GWU), and offered me a teaching job when he
formed the Department of Space Studies at UND.” 

Freese said via email that “David was a visionary with a
kind soul and the heart of a lion.  He inspired students, who he loved
to work with, and was a voice of reason and responsibility to his
peers.”


David Webb at the UNISPACE’82 conference in Vienna. Austria, 1982.  Photo credit:  Jim Vedda

His commitment to education is exemplified by his creation of the Space Studies Program at UND and serving as founding chairman of International Space University.  He also taught space policy courses at the University of Central Florida and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

Webb was one of 15 members appointed by President Ronald Reagan to the congressionally-chartered National Commission on Space (NCOS).   NCOS was a one-year commission created by Congress in the 1985 NASA Authorization Act to lay out a long term U.S. civil space program building on the space shuttle and space station programs underway at that time.  Chaired by former NASA Administrator Tom Paine, the Commission’s report, Pioneering the Space Frontier, was published by Bantam Books in 1986.

Webb received his Ph.D. in International and Development Education from
the University of Pittsburgh in 1971.   His B.A. in Political Science
and M.A. in International Relations were from McGill University in
Montreal (1959 and 1961 respectively). 

Among the many testaments to his professional contributions to the space program are Lifetime Achievement Awards from the National Space Society and the International Space University, both in 2010, and the first Arthur C. Clarke award from Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) in 1983.  He was a member of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society (BIS).

A memorial service is planned in the Florida Space Coast area in the spring. Details are pending.

Editor’s Note:  I was Executive Director of NCOS and very much enjoyed working with David during that year and in other circumstances.  He was, indeed, a kind and generous person whose commitment to and enthusiasm for a robust space program never faltered.

Last Updated: Oct 05, 2016 10:20 pm ET
Antares Return to Flight Will Be October 13 if Matthew Doesn't Interfere – UPDATE 2

Antares Return to Flight Will Be October 13 if Matthew Doesn't Interfere – UPDATE 2

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 4, 2016 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: October 14, 2016 1:43 pm ET

UPDATE, October 14, 2016:   The launch is currently scheduled for October 16 at 8:03 pm ET.  It was delayed from October 13 to October 14 due to a “minor vehicle processing issue…together with time spent on contingency planning for Hurricane Matthew” which could have come up the East Coast (but did not).  It was delayed again from October 14 to October 16 because of concerns about Hurricane Nicole’s impact on Bermuda where a critical tracking station is located.   There was little damage, however, and NASA/Wallops PAO Keith Koehler reports today that, as of now, the launch remains on track for October 16.

ORIGINAL STORY, October 4, 2016: Orbital ATK and NASA have agreed on October 13 as the launch date for the next Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) cargo mission to the International Space Station (ISS).  That date is contingent on the company completing pre-launch integration and testing activities and on the path of Hurricane Matthew.

A launch date range of October 9-13 was previously announced.  The launch time on October 13 is 9:13 pm ET.

This will be Orbital ATK’s first flight of the re-engined version of Antares, using two Russian RD-181 engines instead of Russian NK-33/AJ26 engines.   The company is retrofitting its Antares rockets with the newer engines because of an October 28, 2014 launch failure that was blamed on the older engine.  It destroyed the rocket and the Cygnus cargo spacecraft that was filled with cargo headed to the ISS.  That was the third operational ISS cargo mission for Orbital Sciences Corporation and was designated Orb-3.

Orbital Sciences later merged with ATK to become Orbital ATK.   While waiting for the new Antares to be ready, Orbital ATK launched two ISS cargo missions using United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket .  They were designated OA-4 and OA-6.

The upcoming flight, OA-5, was supposed to launch in between those two, hence the disrupted numbering system.

Antares launches from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, VA.   That is on the Atlantic Coast of the Delaware-Maryland-Virginia (DELMARVA) peninsula.   Hurricane Matthew, which is expected to inflict severe damage on Haiti today, is a variable that could change the launch date.  Forecasters are not able to pinpoint Matthew’s course after Haiti, although Florida has declared a state of emergency already just in case it heads in that direction.  If it comes up the East Coast, it could affect coastal Virginia and delay pre-launch preparations.

Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that the original Antares used a single NK-33/AJ26 engine.  It used two.

Last Updated: Oct 14, 2016 1:43 pm ET

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