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Welcome to 321 Launch, FLORIDA TODAY’S weekly space newsletter. Here are the top space stories of the past week.
SpaceX, Isaacman unveil “Polaris,” world’s first private astronaut program
The billionaire entrepreneur who flew SpaceX’s first all-civilian mission to orbit last year has commissioned the company for three more missions, including the first crewed flight of Starship.
Jared Isaacman is working with SpaceX on the Polaris Program, named after the North Star, that more or less operates as a private crewed spaceflight program. Polaris’ first two missions are slated to fly on Crew Dragon capsules starting late this year followed by a third on Starship, the SpaceX vehicle that will eventually take humans to the moon and Mars.
Included in the program so far are Isaacman (commander) and three astronauts-to-be: Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, both engineers at SpaceX; and Scott Poteet, a former Air Force pilot and mission director for Isaacman’s Inspiration4 mission last September. Gillis and Menon join as mission specialists and Poteet as a pilot.
The first mission, set to launch from Kennedy Space Center no earlier than the fourth quarter of this year, is Polaris Dawn: a Falcon 9 rocket will boost the crew of four to push the altitude limits of Crew Dragon, conduct the first ever commercial spacewalk, work on health and science experiments, and test SpaceX’s Starlink internet network’s ability to relay communications.
Astra launches from Cape, but NASA payload fails to reach orbit
Space startup Astra launched its first Florida mission on Thursday, but four NASA and university payloads were lost shortly after the rocket reached space as its second stage failed to fly properly.
Just over three minutes after Rocket 3.3’s launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, the rocket’s second stage – connected to and responsible for deploying the four payloads – appeared to be in an uncontrolled tumble before the video feed cut out. Astra confirmed all seemed to go well until roughly that point in the flight when the first and second stages separated.
Prior to Thursday’s liftoff from Launch Complex 46, Astra had only flown from a small spaceport in Kodiak, Alaska.
Space storm cooks Starlink internet satellites
A geomagnetic storm knocked out most of the Starlink internet satellites launched from Kennedy Space Center earlier this month, forcing SpaceX to run safe-mode procedures and de-orbit the spacecraft.
SpaceX on Tuesday confirmed 40 of the 49 flat-packed satellites launched from pad 39A were lost to a geomagnetic storm, a type of space weather event caused by solar winds interacting with Earth’s atmosphere. A Falcon 9 rocket boosted the satellites to orbit on Thursday, Feb. 3.
In total, 40 of the 49 satellites will or already have re-entered Earth’s atmosphere. The satellites will burn up during re-entry.
Rocket set to crash into the moon likely Chinese, not SpaceX
A piece of space junk expected to slam into the moon on March 4, previously suspected of belonging to a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, is now thought to be an errant chunk of Chinese rocket launched in 2014.
The case of mistaken identity was announced on Saturday on the Project Pluto website by Bill Gray, an astronomer, and manager of the Project Pluto software used to track near-Earth objects. Gray had originally announced the lunar collision potential on the Project Pluto website about three weeks ago.
An email from a NASA engineer made Gray re-examine his data.
The most likely candidate turned out to be a piece of a Chinese Long March 3C rocket. The rocket launched China’s moonbound Chang’e 5-T1 mission in October 2014.
Space Force sees dramatic increase in launch activity coming in 2022
The Space Force is seeing near-daily requests from launch providers so far in 2022, a dramatic increase over recent years as the military branch works with other federal organizations to find more efficiencies in how to support launches.
Requests to launch – just requests, not the actual launches themselves – filed with the Space Force and others are expected to top 300 this year, or nearly one a day. Space Force is one of several organizations responsible for overseeing launch operations on the Eastern Range, which includes Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and Kennedy Space Center.
“Prior to 2020, we would receive about 100 requests to launch per year,” said Col. Mark Shoemaker, Space Launch Delta 45’s vice commander of operations, noting that some were understandably pulled due to technical issues or weather concerns. “In 2021, we were getting over 200 requests. Now we project over 300 requests.”
A 25+ year veteran of FLORIDA TODAY, John McCarthy currently oversees the space team and special projects. Support quality local journalism by subscribing to FLORIDA TODAY. You can contact McCarthy at 321-752-5018 or [email protected].
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