Northrop Grumman successfully launched its Cygnus cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station this morning, but one of the two solar arrays did not deploy. The company is troubleshooting the problem while NASA assesses what issues could arise when berthing Cygnus to ISS in that condition. Cygnus is carrying equipment needed for a spacewalk next week, so those plans could change if berthing is not possible.
NASA once again is keeping a watchful eye on a tropical storm that could impact plans to launch the Artemis I uncrewed test flight of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft. A hurricane watch has just been posted for Florida’s Atlantic Coast for the storm named Nicole. The SLS/Orion stack was taken back to the safety of the Vehicle Assembly Building in September when Hurricane Ian hit the state and just rolled back to the launch pad on Friday.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week plus two days of November 6-14, 2022 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in recess except for pro forma sessions.
An independent review of why NASA’s Psyche asteroid mission was not ready for its scheduled launch this fall uncovered a host of problems not just with that mission, but more broadly with management of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The review found that JPL is stretched to the limit, with inadequate flight project staffing and “erosion of Line organization technical acumen.” Instead of terminating Psyche, NASA will fix the problems and launch next year, but an unrelated JPL mission to Venus, VERITAS, will be delayed three years so its funding can be diverted to Psyche and the JPL workload reduced.
China’s Long March-5B rocket stage made an uncontrolled reentry this morning. No reports of debris falling on populated areas have surfaced so far. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson issued another statement criticizing China for taking unneccessary risks and not sharing information needed to accurately predict where it would come down.
The U.S. pledge not to conduct debris-producing direct-ascent antisatellite tests is gaining more ground. Switzerland is the eighth country to join the U.S. commitment and a United Nations committee approved a draft resolution supporting it as a norm of responsible behavior in space.
China’s launch of its Mengtian space station module means that another Long March-5B rocket stage is about to make an uncontrolled reentry somewhere on Earth. Previous international criticism of China’s decision not to equip the stage with a system to target its reentry into an unoccupied spot in the Pacific Ocean does not seem to have made any difference. When and where it will land is difficult to predict, but calculations by the Aerospace Corporation and the European Union’s space tracking organization estimate reentry tomorrow, November 4, with many populated areas including in the United States under the possible debris path. …
NASA announced today that the Crew Flight Test of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft has been postponed again. Now expected in April 2023, a slip from February, it will take two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station for a two-week visit to certify the spacecraft meets NASA requirements. Meanwhile, routine crew rotation flights will continue using SpaceX’s Crew Dragon.
Gen. B. Chance Saltzman took command of U.S. Space Force today as Gen. Jay Raymond retires after 38 years of service. At a ceremony attended by military and industry leaders, Raymond was heralded for his leadership as “the father of the Space Force” in standing up the new service, created almost exactly three years ago. Saltzman, one of Raymond’s deputies, inherits the mantle and vowed to build on Raymond’s success.
China launched its third and final space station module today, completing construction of Tiangong-3. It comes as China gets ready for its first crew rotation later this year, the beginning of China’s permanent human occupancy in Earth orbit. Coincidentally, the launch comes exactly 22 years after the first Russian-American crew launched to the International Space Station, which initiated permanent human occupancy in space for the ISS partners. China’s achievement may be two decades later, but is still a milestone for its growing space program.