Europe will commission two rocket launches from Elon Musk’s SpaceX after the Ukraine conflict barred access to Russia’s Soyuz, the European Space Agency (ESA) confirmed on Thursday.
The launches include the Euclid space telescope and the Hera probe, a follow-up mission to NASA‘s DART spacecraft which last month succeeded in altering the path of a moonlet in the first test of a future planetary defence system.
“The member states have decided that Euclid and Hera are proposed to be launched on Falcon 9,” ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher told reporters after a meeting of the 22-nation agency’s ministerial council.
The launches will take place in 2023 and 2024 respectively.
Reuters reported in August that ESA had begun preliminary technical discussions with SpaceX that could lead tothe temporary use of its launchers after the Ukraine conflictblocked Western access to Russia’s Soyuz rockets.
Industry sources had said up to two launches could be affected by the switch from Soyuz to SpaceX.
A third payload which had been due to ride on Soyuz — the Earth Cloud Aerosol and Radiation Explorer, or EarthCARE — will now be launched on Europe’s Vega C instead, Aschbacher said.
Built by Airbus on behalf of the European and Japanese space agencies, the EarthCARE satellite will be launched in early 2024 to fill a gap in the scientific modelling of climate change.
ESA is still looking for alternatives for two further missions that had been in the Soyuz launch pipeline.
Aschbacher made the announcement a day after ESA revealed a new fourth-quarter 2023 target for the first launch of Ariane 6, its latest launch vehicle, marking a delay of about six months.
ESA had previously said Ariane 6 could slip into 2023 from 2022 without giving a more precise window, but it was widely understood to be aiming for early next year.
Originally due to make its first launch in 2020, the twin-variant Ariane 6 was developed to counter lower-cost competition from SpaceX and preserve Europe’s independent access to space.
Europe has until now depended on the Italian Vega for small payloads, Russia’s Soyuz for medium ones and the near-retirement Ariane 5 for heavy missions.
ESA said on Wednesday it planned to launch the three remaining Ariane 5 rockets in the first half of next year.
The fourth long-duration astronaut team launched by SpaceX to the International Space Station (ISS) for NASA departed the orbiting outpost on Friday to begin their flight back to Earth, capping a science mission of nearly six months.
The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying three US NASA astronauts and an Italian crewmate from the European Space Agency undocked from the ISS at 12:05pm EDT (09:35pm IST) to embark on a return flight expected to last nearly five hours.
Live video showing the capsule drifting away from the station as the two vehicles soared high over the North Atlantic was shown on a NASA webcast of the undocking.
Wearing helmeted white-and-black spacesuits, the four astronauts were seen strapped into the crew cabin shortly before the spacecraft separated from the station, orbiting some 250 miles (400kms) above Earth.
A series of several brief rocket thrusts then autonomously pushed the capsule safely clear of the ISS and lowered its orbit to line up the capsule for later atmospheric re-entry and splashdown.
If all goes smoothly, the Crew Dragon, dubbed Freedom, will parachute into the sea off the Atlantic coast of Florida at 4:55pm local time (02:25am IST on Saturday).
The Freedom crew, Americans Kjell Lindgren, 49, Jessica Watkins, 34, and Bob Hines, 47, as well as Italy’s Samantha Cristoferetti, 45, arrived at the station on April 27 following a SpaceX launch that day. Watkins became the first African-American woman to serve on a long-duration mission aboard the ISS.
That crew had been designated as “Crew-4,” the fourth full-fledged long-duration group of astronauts launched to ISS by SpaceX since the private rocket company founded by Tesla CEO Elon Musk began flying NASA personnel in May 2020.
Their departure came a week after their replacement team, Crew-5, arrived aboard the station — a Russian cosmonaut, a Japanese astronaut and two NASA crewmates, including the first Native American woman sent to orbit.
Crew-5 is remaining on ISS for now with two other Russians and a third American who shared a Soyuz flight to the ISS in September. One of those cosmonauts, Sergey Prokopyev, assumed ISS command from Cristoferetti of the European Space Agency before Crew-4’s departure.
ISS, spanning the length of a football field, has been continuously occupied since 2000, operated by a US-Russian-led partnership that includes Canada, Japan and 11 European countries.
SpaceX plans to announce two new space tourists slated to fly on the Starship rocket: Dennis Tito, the world’s first-ever space tourist in 2001, and his wife, Akiko.
The couple paid an undisclosed amount to fly around the moon on Starship once the vehicle is complete. They will travel with 10 other undisclosed passengers on a roughly week-long journey. The trip doesn’t include a landing on the lunar surface and it’s unclear if the other passengers have been chosen yet.
It may be a while before the mission gets underway and there’s still no target date. It’s scheduled to be Starship‘s fourth passenger mission, conducted after SpaceX uses the vehicle to land astronauts on the moon for NASA and following trips by other customers who have purchased rides in the vessel.
Then there’s the fact that Starship has yet to travel to space. SpaceX still needs to send an uncrewed version of the vehicle to orbit, which Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said could occur as early as November. The company must also show it can refuel Starship while in space so that it can reach the moon’s vicinity, and it needs the necessary life-support systems and other hardware to keep humans alive.
“I know this rocket is going to be tested backwards and forwards; there’ll be hundreds of flights before we’re flying,” Tito said in an interview with Bloomberg. “We’re not going to fly next year. It’s going to be a wait.”
After a brief stint working as a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Tito co-founded investment-management firm Wilshire Associates in 1972. He was the first civilian space tourist to visit the International Space Station, paying $20 million (nearly Rs. 1,64,500 crore) to purchase a seat on Russia’s Soyuz rocket for a week-long stay. Tito said that, at the time, NASA wasn’t happy with his trip.
Since his flight, space tourism has greatly expanded, and NASA has opened up the ISS to more commercial endeavors. Nearly a dozen tourists have flown there with the help of a company called Space Adventures. The first all-civilian crew visited the space station in April, coordinated by a company called Axiom.
Paying customers are also able to get a brief taste of space by purchasing tickets on suborbital vehicles from companies like Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, which send passengers to the edge of space and back.
SpaceX has also entered the space-tourism market. In 2021, an all civilian crew, sponsored by billionaire Jared Isaacman, flew into orbit for three days on a SpaceX Crew Dragon, a mission called Inspiration4.
‘To the Moon’
Tito’s plans came about when he visited SpaceX in June 2021 after a friend of his wife arranged a meeting with company personnel. He was asked if he wanted to go to space again, either to visit the space station or on a quick trip to orbit.
“No, I want to go to the moon,” Tito recalled saying. “And then I looked at Akiko just when I said that, and she said ‘me, too.’ And that’s how it started.”
Dennis Tito is 82 years old, which could make him the oldest person to go into orbit and into deep space. He acknowledged that he’s been focused on staying fit while waiting for Starship’s development. He and his wife, who is 57, are both pilots, while Dennis says he holds four American weightlifting records for an 80-year-old.
“Whatever will be, will be. It’s going to take a certain amount of time, but it will be ready, and it will be safe when it’s ready,” Tito said. “It’s more limited by how much time I have on this planet.”
Japan’s space agency said it sent a self-destruct order to its Epsilon rocket after a failed launch on Wednesday because of a problem that meant the craft could not safely fly.
The unmanned rocket, designed to launch in three stages, was taking several satellites into orbit on its sixth space mission.
“The rocket can’t continue a safe flight, because of the danger it would create if it falls on the ground,” a JAXA official said in comments broadcast by TBS television network.
“So we took measures to avoid such an incident, and we sent the signal (to destroy the rocket),” he said, adding that information on the problem’s cause was not immediately available.
Public broadcaster NHK and other media outlets said it was Japan’s first failed rocket launch since 2003.
A JAXA livestream of the launch from Uchinoura Space Center in the southern Kagoshima region was interrupted and presenters said there had been a problem, without giving details.
The solid-fuel Epsilon rocket has been in service since 2013.
It is smaller than the country’s previous liquid-fuelled model, and a successor to the solid-fuel “M-5” rocket that was retired in 2006 due to its high cost.
One of the satellites being carried by the rocket, called RAISE-3, had been due to orbit the Earth for at least a year, according to a NASA article about the launch.
Meanwhile, NASA is expected to make its third attempt to launch the Artemis I Moon mission in November. The US space agency had to return the SLS rocket, the most powerful ever designed by the agency so far, to its storage hangar in order to shelter it from the approach of Hurricane Ian last month.
The next possible launch windows – determined according to the positions of the Earth and the Moon – are from October 17 to 31, then from November 12 to 27, according to NASA.
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The European Space Agency announced a team of seven astronauts on Wednesday to train for NASA’s Artemis mission to the moon — but only one will have the chance to become the first European to walk on the lunar surface.
The candidates — France’s Thomas Pesquet, Britain’s Tim Peake, Germany’s Alexander Gerst and Matthias Maurer, Italy’s Luca Parmitano and Samantha Cristoforetti, and Denmark’s Andreas Mogensen — have all completed at least one mission on board the International Space Station.
Between them, the team has the equivalent of 4.5 years in orbit and 98 hours of spacewalking, ESA communications head Philippe Willekens told journalists at the International Astronautical Congress in Paris.
Three of the astronauts will be selected to go to the Lunar Gateway, a planned station that will orbit the moon.
But only one will set foot on the moon by the end of the decade. At some point, the ESA will have to decide which of the seven candidates will get to go.
“We’re all candidates and what matters is to go there as a team,” Pesquet told reporters at the event in Paris.
“Look, we’re all wearing the same shirt,” he added. Pesquet, Gerst, Maurer and Parmitano all attended wearing a navy blue polo shirt with ESA and Artemis logos.
Cristoforetti had to video call in from space, where she is currently onboard the ISS after becoming the first European woman to embark on a spacewalk outside the station in July.
Mogensen also spoke over video as he prepares for his own tour onboard the ISS.
Something inspiring for Europe
The launch of the first Artemis mission, which is uncrewed and aims to test out a new rocket system and Orion capsule, has been delayed several times due to technical glitches including a fuel leak. NASA is now targeting September 27 for launch.
The next mission, Artemis 2, will take astronauts to the Moon without landing on its surface, while the third — aiming to launch in 2025 — will see the first people set foot on the moon since 1972.
The ESA is providing the European Service Module on the Orion capsule.
“During this decade, three ESA astronauts will fly to the Lunar Gateway — our permanent station we’re building around the moon,” David Parker, ESA’s director of human and robotic exploration, told AFP.
“And if all that goes well, by the end of this decade we’ll be ready to send the first European astronaut to the moon,” he added.
Putting a European on the moon would be “something inspiring for Europe, a strong signal to say that ‘here we are, taking our place in the space world, in a cooperative way’,” Pesquet said.
“With a European on the moon, I hope that a united Europe will become more of a reality that it is today,” Maurer said.
Despite deep divisions between Russia and the West over Moscow’s war in Ukraine, on Wednesday a US astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts blasted off to the ISS on a Russian-operated flight.
Buying an affordable 5G smartphone today usually means you will end up paying a “5G tax”. What does that mean for those looking to get access to 5G networks as soon as they launch? Find out on this week’s episode. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
NASA is reportedly considering a third attempt at launching its Artemis I Moon rocket on September 23, according to a senior official. The US space agency could launch the Artemis I SLS-Orion spacecraft on either September 23 or on September 27. The new dates were revealed days after NASA halted the launch of the rocket for the second time, due to a fuel leak. The agency has another important test related to planetary defence against near-Earth objects, which is scheduled to take place later this month.
According to a report by Phys.org, NASA Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems Development Jim Free revealed on Thursday that the next possible dates for the upcoming Artemis I launch attempt could be September 23 and September 27. This will be NASA’s third attempt at launching the spacecraft, after the second attempt was scrubbed last month.
NASA will have an 80-minute launch window on September 23, and a 70-minute launch window on September 27, according to the official, who said that the launch windows for these dates begin at 6:47am EDT (4:17pm IST) and 11:37am EDT (9:07pm IST), respectively.
It is also worth noting that NASA has another important event planned that week — its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) for planetary defence from near-Earth objects, is scheduled to hit an asteroid on September 26.
“We will keep @NASA_SLS and @NASA_Orion at the [launch]pad as we evaluate a seal on one of our fuel feed lines and validate the repair under cryogenic conditions. Additionally, we are reviewing our loading procedures to ensure resolution,” Free said on Twitter.
As per the report, the launch of Artemis I still depends on the space agency’s ability to receive a waiver allowing it to avoid retesting batteries for an emergency flight system designed to destroy the rocket — if it were to move away from its planned path to the Moon. Without the waiver, NASA’s plans to launch the rocket could reportedly take many more weeks.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Ground teams at Kennedy Space Center prepared on Saturday for a second try at launching NASA’s towering, next-generation moon rocket on its debut flight, hoping to have remedied engineering problems that foiled the initial countdown five days earlier.
The 32-story tall Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and its Orion capsule were due for blastoff from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 2:17 p.m. EDT, kicking off NASA’s ambitious moon-to-Mars program Artemis program 50 years after the last Apollo lunar mission.
The previous launch bid on Monday ended with technical problems forcing a halt to the countdown and postponement of the uncrewed flight.
Tests indicated technicians have since fixed a leaky fuel line that contributed to Monday’s canceled launch, Jeremy Parsons, a deputy program manager at the space center, told reporters on Friday.
Two other key issues on the rocket itself – a faulty engine temperature sensor and some cracks in insulation foam – have been resolved to NASA’s satisfaction, Artemis mission manager Mike Sarafin told reporters Thursday night.
Weather is always an additional factor beyond NASA’s control. The latest forecast called for a 70% chance of favorable conditions during Saturday’s two-hour launch window, according to the U.S. Space Force at Cape Canaveral.
If the countdown clock were halted again, NASA could reschedule another launch attempt for Monday or Tuesday.
NASA is set to relaunched on either Monday or Tuesday, weather permitting.REUTERS
Dubbed Artemis I, the mission marks the first flight for both the SLS rocket and the Orion capsule, built under NASA contracts with Boeing Co BA.N and Lockheed Martin Corp LMT.N, respectively.
It also signals a major change in direction for NASA’s post-Apollo human spaceflight program, after decades focused on low-Earth orbit with space shuttles and the International Space Station.
Named for the goddess who was Apollo’s twin sister in ancient Greek mythology, Artemis aims to return astronauts to the moon’s surface as early as 2025.
Twelve astronauts walked on the moon during six Apollo missions from 1969 to 1972, the only spaceflights yet to place humans on the lunar surface. But Apollo, born of the U.S.-Soviet space race during the Cold War, was less science-driven than Artemis.
The new moon program has enlisted commercial partners such as SpaceX and the space agencies of Europe, Canada and Japan to eventually establish a long-term lunar base of operations as a stepping stone to even more ambitious human voyages to Mars.
Getting the SLS-Orion spacecraft off the ground is a key first step. Its first voyage is intended to put the 5.75-million-pound vehicle through its paces in a rigorous test flight pushing its design limits and hopefully proving the spacecraft suitable to fly astronauts.
If the mission succeeds, a crewed Artemis II flight around the moon and back could come as early as 2024, to be followed within a few more years with the program’s first lunar landing of astronauts, one of them a woman, with Artemis III.
Billed as the most powerful, complex rocket in the world, the SLS represents the biggest new vertical launch system the U.S. space agency has built since the Saturn V of the Apollo era.
Barring last-minute difficulties, Saturday’s countdown should end with the rocket’s four main R-25 engines and its twin solid-rocket boosters igniting to produce 8.8 million pounds of thrust, about 15% more thrust the Saturn V, sending the spacecraft streaking skyward.
The SLS is scheduled to make it around the moon and back in 37-days.Getty Images
About 90 minutes after launch, the rocket’s upper stage will thrust Orion out of Earth orbit on course for a 37-day flight that brings it to within 60 miles of the lunar surface before sailing 40,000 miles beyond the moon and back to Earth. The capsule is expected to splash down in the Pacific on Oct. 11.
Although no humans will be aboard, Orion will be carrying a simulated crew of three – one male and two female mannequins – fitted with sensors to measure radiation levels and other stresses that real-life astronauts would experience.
A top objective for the mission is to test the durability of Orion’s heat shield during re-entry as it hits Earth’s atmosphere at 24,500 miles per hour, or 32 times the speed of sound, on its return from lunar orbit – much faster than more common re-entries of capsules returning from Earth orbit.
The heat shield is designed to withstand re-entry friction expected to raise temperatures outside the capsule to nearly 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
More than a decade in development with years of delays and budget overruns, the SLS-Orion spacecraft has so far cost NASA at least $37 billion, including design, construction, testing and ground facilities. NASA’s Office of Inspector General has projected total Artemis costs will run to $93 billion by 2025.
NASA defends the program as a boon to space exploration that has generated tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in commerce.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is set to make its second attempt to launch its powerful new Moon rocket this Saturday. The uncrewed mission, which is dubbed Artemis 1, will bring the United States closer to returning astronauts to the Moon after five decades. The blast off was earlier planned for Monday morning but was cancelled later. Prospects for success for the second attempt appeared clouded and weather reports suggest only a 40 percent chance for a succesful take-off.
Days after failing to send its first uncrewed mission to Moon, NASA will take a second attempt at launching the powerful new Moon rocket this Saturday, September 3. The mission, dubbed Artemis 1, was earlier heading to a launch this Monday but was later cancelled after a test to get one of the rocket’s four RS-25 engines to proper temperature range didn’t turn out to be successful.
According to launch weather officer Mark Burger, a 60 percent chance of rain or thunderstorms has been predicted on the day of the launch this Saturday.
NASA’s Artemis 1 aims to test the 322-foot-long Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule that is sitting on top. NASA earlier planned to launch the Artemis I mission from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
As mentioned earlier, this will be an uncrewed mission and mannequins equipped with sensors will stand in for astronauts on the mission.
“You can expect in a test flight that everything is not going to go as you expect it to. That’s part of a test flight,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson insisted to NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“That’s part of, for example, developing aircraft. That’s why you have a test pilot,’’ he said.
“But we’re pretty confident about this,” Nelson added.
Nelson explained that during a test launch “everything is not going to go as you expect it to.”AP Photo/John Raoux
Nelson’s comments come at a crucial juncture for the space agency. If the moon rocket is successful during its six-week flight into lunar orbit, it could lead to astronauts returning to the moon in a few years.
“This time we’re going back, we’re going to live there, we’re going to learn there,’’ he said of men on the moon.
“We’re going to develop new technologies, all of this so we can go to Mars with humans.” Nelson said the goal is to develop ways to live on other worlds.
“They may be floating worlds, they may be the surface of Mars,” Nelson said. “But this is just part of our push outward, our quest to explore, to find out what’s out there in this universe.”
The Artemis 3 Orion crew module that could be used to eventually land on the moon if the Artemis I is successful. Photo by Pat Benic/UPI/Shutterstock
Three test dummies will be strapped in for the Artemis I mission, which NASA is forging ahead with the take-off Monday despite a series of lightning strikes at the launch pad.
“This first flight is a test. We test it, we stress it,” Nelson told host Chuck Todd. “We make this rocket and the spacecraft do things that we would never do with a human crew.
“The main purpose of the flight is to test the heat shield because you can’t test that in a lab. So if the heat shield survives and does what it is expected to do, it’s a successful test.”
Meanwhile, Nelson, a former US senator from Florida, insisted that despite Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “inexcusable” invasion of Ukraine, NASA’s cooperation with Russia at the International Space Station “doesn’t miss a beat,” including with continued crew exchanges.
“Despite the horrors that are going on in Ukraine, the professionalism, the relationship between the astronauts and the cosmonauts on board the International Space Station, as well as our two mission controls, one in Houston, one in Moscow, it doesn’t miss a beat,” Nelson said.
Weighing in on NASA’s race with China to the south pole of the moon, Nelson added that he doesn’t want the Chinese to arrive first and then claim the territory belongs only to them.
“That’s what I’ve said all along, that we’re in a space race. And we want to get to the south pole of the moon where the resources are, where we think water is,” Nelson said.
“If there’s water, there’s rocket fuel. And we don’t want China suddenly getting there and saying, ‘This is our exclusive territory.’ ”
To honor NASA’s Aug. 29 launch of the unmanned Artemis I mission, Krispy Kreme is releasing a special edition donut that space junkies and snack fiends can equally enjoy.
The cheesecake-filled donut will be dipped in cookies ‘n Kreme icing that’ll include chocolate pieces to look like the moon.
The Artemis program will look to land humans — including the first woman and person of color — back on the moon by 2025, and Monday’s launch will be an important step toward that goal. Artemis I is set to loop around the moon and test key components in the mission.
Photographers place remote cameras near the Artemis 1 rocket as it stands on Launch Pad 39-B at the Kennedy Space Center on Aug. 26, 2022, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. AP
Krispy Kreme wanted to honor the space agency’s achievements in a fitting and edible way for all to enjoy. It’s the second time in as many years the doughnut company is honoring a space achievement, as in 2021 Krispy Kreme rolled out a special doughnut for the Perseverance rover.
“The Artemis I mission is a proud moment, and we are in awe of the amazing Americans behind the world’s most powerful rocket. So, we created these delicious doughnuts to enjoy while you watch the launch,” said Dave Skena, global chief brand officer for Krispy Kreme, in a press release.
“The Orion spacecraft atop the rocket will stay in space longer than any ship for astronauts has done without docking to a space station, but our Artemis Moon Doughnut will be available only Monday, so start the countdown and don’t miss it!”
The limited-edition Artemis donuts will only be available Monday at participating locations. As for the Artemis launch, NASA is looking for a time between 8:33 a.m. and 10:33 a.m. ET, according to CNN.
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