Review-Netflix Series Return To Space

 

Review: Return to Space

by Jeff Foust
Monday, April 11, 2022

Return to Space
directed by Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
128 minutes, rated TV-MA
streaming on Netflix

Last Friday, a Falcon 9 lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center and placed into orbit a Crew Dragon spacecraft called Endeavour. The spacecraft docked to the International Space Station less than 24 hours later, delivering four private astronauts on the Ax-1 mission for Axiom Space. Shortly after Endeavour returns from its ten-day mission, another Crew Dragon, named Freedom, will launch on the Crew-4 mission for NASA, delivering American and European astronauts for a five-month stay.

“He’s a human just like the rest of us,” Hurley saus of Musk. “We all have pluses and minuses.”

Ax-1 and Crew-4 will be the sixth and seventh crewed missions launched by SpaceX in less than two years. That streak started with the launch of Demo-2 in May 2020, carrying NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley on Endeavour to the ISS on the first crewed orbital flight from the US since the retirement of the Space Shuttle nearly nine years earlier. That flight is the subject of a new documentary, Return to Space, that premiered on Netflix last week.

The documentary, done in cooperation with NASA and SpaceX, takes viewers inside the preparations for flight, the launch itself, and through splashdown. That includes interviews with Behnken and Hurley, as well as SpaceX’s Elon Musk, Gwynne Shotwell, and Hans Koenigsmann, and then-NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine. Lori Garver, deputy administrator of NASA at the time the commercial crew program started, appears to discuss the origins of the program and the political opposition to it a decade ago.

There are no great revelations in the documentary, at least for those who followed the commercial crew program for years. The value is more in the views behind the scenes during preparations for the flight. Musk, in the launch control center during the first launch attempt that was scrubbed by weather, is frustrated and asks if the weather information that led to the scrub was up to date. In another, Bridenstine watches as NASA and SpaceX personnel rehearse NASA TV coverage for the launch, including what they would do if there was an anomaly on the pad (stay with a wide shot of the pad, a NASA official says, and not cutaway as a SpaceX person suggests.)

There is also some interesting archival footage, such as rarely seen views of the first three failed Falcon 1 launches, illustrating the company’s willingness to embrace failure. “The great thing about Elon is that he understands failure is part of the development,” Koenigsmann says.

While Return to Space is billed as an inspiring documentary, it runs out of steam about two-thirds of the way through.

Notably, the film shies away from any controversies beyond the origins of the commercial crew program itself. Musk’s infamous tweets, and his joint-smoking incident on Joe Rogan’s podcast, get brief mentions before the film moves on. (“He’s a human just like the rest of us,” says Hurley. “We all have pluses and minuses.”) While the launch turned into a political spectacle, with both President Trump and Vice President Pence attending and Trump giving a speech in the Vehicle Assembly Building after liftoff, it never comes up in the movie: we see only a fleeting glimpse of Pence and nothing of Trump.

While Return to Space is billed as an inspiring documentary, it runs out of steam about two-thirds of the way through. After the successful launch of Demo-2 and docking with the station, the film covers their two months on the ISS, including a spacewalk by Behnken and Chris Cassidy. But these activities are no different from those astronauts have performed on the station for two decades, and the drama building up to the launch has dissipated. Only when it’s time to return home, with the nail-biting in mission control as Musk and others await restoration of communications and deployment of the parachutes, does that drama return.

With a regular cadence of NASA and commercial Crew Dragon missions now, it’s easy to see then as commonplace, something that SpaceX officials reject. “This is not routine,” Benji Reed, SpaceX’s senior director for human spaceflight programs, said in a call with reporters after the launch of Ax-1 Friday, seeking to ward off any thoughts of complacency. The cadence of Crew Dragon missions is still far short of the shuttle at its peak, but it has restored a capability that was lost for nearly a decade. Return to Space celebrates that achievement.

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Jeff Foust (jeff@thespacereview.com) is the editor and publisher of The Space Review, and a senior staff writer with SpaceNews. He also operates the Spacetoday.net web site. Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone.

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What are current Russian military options in Ukraine?

Another day, another glitch with NASA and SLS! Is this as bad as Boeing...

This makes me REALLY ANGRY!! Where's the love for UK launch providers?

 

An illustration of the Chang’e-5 orbiter and sample return capsule hearing back to Earth from the Moon in 2020. The orbiter is now in a distant retrograde orbit around the Moon, perhaps to prepare for the next phase of China’s lunar exploration plans. (credit: CNSA)

What is China doing at the lunar distant retrograde orbit?

by Kristin Burke
Monday, April 11, 2022

China’s Chang’e 5 (CE-5) orbiter, which as of January 2022 has likely moved to the lunar distant retrograde orbit (DRO), is probably conducting enabling telemetry, tracking and control and Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) tests to support Chinese preparations for the next stage of China’s Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP), according to Chinese government information and Chinese academics.[1,2,3,4,5] According to western space watchers, if CE-5 is indeed in DRO, it would be the first human-made object there.[6] In 2020, China invited domestic and international payload proposals for its next CLEP mission, Chang’e 7 (CE-7), and specifically requested a VLBI payload for the relay satellite and a test laser communications payload for the orbiter.[7] However, in advance of and even after this solicitation, Chinese researchers have continued to publish competing proposals for the ultimate navigation and communications architecture which CE-7’s relay satellite will eventually support.[8,9,10] Among these competing proposals are architectures which include communications relay satellites in DRO, indicating CE-5’s tests in this orbit are a key component to Chinese planners’ decisionmaking.

It was no mystery that CE-5 would continue China’s trend for mission extensions.

China intends to launch the CE-7 probe between 2024 and 2025 to the lunar south pole. CE-7 is composed of five separate spacecraft, namely an orbiter, lander, rover, hopping probe, and a polar relay satellite. CE-7 cannot use China’s current lunar relay satellite, Queqiao, orbiting the Earth-Moon Lagrange Point 2 (E-M L2) because Queqiao’s specific E-M L2 position isn’t able to support a landing closer to the lunar south pole, according to a detailed Chinese media report.[11] To achieve precise landing determination, CE-7 will release its relay satellite before the other four components move into lunar orbit. Chinese academic articles describe that CE-7’s relay satellite will eventually be networkable with Queqiao and probably become the first components of China’s future lunar communications and navigation architecture for deep space exploration, and robotic and crewed missions.[12,13]

China has consistently built backup spacecraft for its national missions and upon achieving its primary goals, Chinese engineers use the backups for science and technology tests to support future missions. The Chang’e 2 was the first such mission extension.[14] In the case of CE-5, it is not a backup but composed of many components in order to achieve China’s multi-stage lunar sample return mission. After delivering the return capsule to Earth orbit in December 2020, CE-5 has used the remaining 200 kilograms of propellant to first travel to Earth-Sun Lagrange Point 1, where it conducted space environment tests and snapped a picture of the Earth and the Moon.[15,16] It then seems to have proceeded back to lunar orbit in September 2021.[17] Space trackers, as of January 2022, believe they have identified CE-5 in DRO.[18]

It was no mystery that CE-5 would continue China’s trend for mission extensions. The 2014 Chang’e 5-T1 tested very similar spacecraft components and fuel reserves for the lunar sample return mission, so Chinese planners knew how much reserve fuel they would have if it wasn’t used for any emergency measures.[19] China also shared insights with the global community on CE-5’s mission extension. During the Global Space Exploration Conference (GLEX) in June 2021, normally widely attended under non-COVID conditions, the CE-5 Deputy Chief Designer shared with reporters that the spacecraft would return to the Earth-Moon system.[20]

Endnotes

1. China Lunar Exploration Program, “关于开展探月工程四期嫦娥七号任务载荷竞争择优的通知,” 082020.
2. Liu Lei, et al, “OmniUV: A Multi-Purpose Simulation Toolkit for VLBI Observation,” (Draft submitted 01/2022).
3. Gao Zhaoyang, et al, “Coverage Analysis of Lunar Communication/Navigation Constellations Based on Halo Orbits and Distant Retrograde Orbits,” 03/2020.
4. 曾豪, et al, “地月 Halo 与 DRO 支持的往返月球任务轨道,” 宇 航 学 报, 12/2021
5. Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Science, “探月与航天工程中心主任刘继忠一行考察调研上海天文台指控中心与天马望远镜,” 07/2021.
6. Scott Tilley, “What in tarnation is a Distant Retrograde Orbit (DRO)?,” 01/2020.
7. China Lunar Exploration Program, “关于开展探月工程四期嫦娥七号任务载荷竞争择优的通知,” 082020.
8. Zhang Lihua, “Development and Prospect of Chinese Lunar Relay Communication Satellite,” 10/2020.
9. Liu Lei, et al, “OmniUV: A Multi-Purpose Simulation Toolkit for VLBI Observation,” (Draft submitted 01/2022),
10. Gao Zhaoyang, et al, “Coverage Analysis of Lunar Communication/Navigation Constellations Based on Halo Orbits and Distant Retrograde Orbits,” 03/2020.
11. Sohu, “嫦娥七号有多难？五台航天器合体内含新月球车，还要制造人工月震,” 12/2021.
12. Zhao Kanglian et al, “Network protocol architectures for future deep-space internetworking,” 04/2018.
13. Wu Xiaobo et al, “Modelling and Simulation of Dynamic Connectivity in Different Cislunar Satellite Constellations Networking,” 2012.
14. Gunter’s Space Page, “CE2.”
15. Sohu, “嫦娥七号有多难？五台航天器合体内含新月球车，还要制造人工月震,” 12/2021.
16. Andrew Jones, “China's moon-sampling Chang'e 5 probe beams home eerie images from deep space,” 05/2021.
17. Ibid.
18. Andrew Jones, “A Chinese spacecraft is testing out a new orbit around the moon,” /a> 02/2022.
19. The Space Report, “CE-5T1,” 2017.
20. Andrew Jones, “China's moon rocks are ready to be loaned out for science research,” 06/2021.

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Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are solely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the Air University, the Department of the Air Force, the Department of Defense, or any other US government agency. Cleared for public release: distribution unlimited.

Kristin Burke is the Senior Space and Counterspace Researcher at the China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI), under the Air Force's Air University. Prior to joining CASI she was a Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Space at the Office for the Director of National Intelligence and a China Science and Technology Analyst at the Department of State. She speaks and reads Mandarin.

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Amazon Announces A Mega Rocket Deal

 

The Amazon deal includes 38 launches of Vulcan Centaur rockets, more than all the previous orders for the vehicle combined. (credit: ULA)

A megaconstellation megadeal

by Jeff Foust
Monday, April 11, 2022

Megaconstellations need mega rockets. Or, rather, mega amounts of rockets.

Last week, Amazon outlined its launch plans for a broadband constellation called Project Kuiper. The company received an FCC license in July 2020 for the system, which will place 3,236 satellites into low Earth orbit. The company had, to date, procured nine Atlas V launches from United Launch Alliance for an initial subset of the constellation, as well as a single launch of ABL Space System’s RS1 small launch vehicle that will launch a pair of prototype satellites as soon as late this year.

“Securing launch capacity from multiple providers has been a key part of our strategy from day one,” said Amazon’s Badyal.

But, in a single announcement April 5, the company announced how it deploy the rest of its constellation. Amazon said it signed contracts with Arianespace for 18 Ariane 6 launches, Blue Origin for 12 New Glenn launches with an option for 15 more, and ULA for 38 Vulcan Centaur launches. In total, Amazon is buying at least 68, and as many as 83 launches, that it says will be spread out over five years.

The company said it deliberately chose three companies as a diversification strategy. “Securing launch capacity from multiple providers has been a key part of our strategy from day one,” Rajeev Badyal, vice president of technology for Project Kuiper at Amazon, said in a statement. “This approach reduces risk associated with launch vehicle stand-downs and supports competitive long-term pricing for Amazon.”

The sheer number of launches, though, made it unlikely that the company could work with a single company, given the available capacity on the market and demands of other customers, like the US and European governments. While many speculated that Blue Origin had the inside track, given that it is owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin executives long insisted that it would be competitive tender.

The size of the order will affect some of those companies, particularly ULA. The Amazon order includes more launches than the company had booked to date for the Vulcan from all other customers, primarily the US Space Force. At an event during the 37th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs to announce the contracts, ULA CEO Tory Bruno said his company would be making major changes to accommodate the order.

“We are essentially going to be doubling America’s launch industrial base,” Bruno said. “These additional launches will take us to about twice our flight rate, which means about twice our infrastructure.”

ULA will be doing everything short of building a second launch complex for Vulcan to accommodate the Amazon order. That includes a second vertical integration facility where rockets are stacked and a new mobile launch tower to transport the rockets to the pad. The company even plans to buy a second ship to transport rocket stages from ULA factory in Alabama to the launch site. Bruno said it would take a couple years to complete that infrastructure.

“With this launch contract, it allows us to have a pretty clear line of sight to an engine recovery program we’ve talked about for a number of years, because reuse is all about launch cadence,” Bruno said.

That investment extends to ULA’s suppliers. Northrop Grumman will expand production of the solid rocket strap-on boosters for Vulcan: each Kuiper launch will require six such boosters. Aerojet Rocketdyne will also increase production of the RL10 engines that power the rocket’s Centaur upper stage. On Monday, Aerojet announced it received an order for 116 such engines, specifically a variant known as RL10C-X produced using additive manufacturing technologies.

Amazon is buying up to 83 launches of vehicles that, to date, have combined yet to make a single launch. (credit: Amazon)

Bruno said ULA has already started those investments by ordering tooling for its factory needed to increase production rates. The company will convert its Spaceflight Processing Operations Center at Cape Canaveral, which ULA previously upgraded to assemble a new Vulcan launch platform, into a second vertical integration facility.

He estimated that, to support the Amazon contract and other customers, ULA will need to produce 20 to 25 vehicles a year; enough, he said, for ULA to start thinking about reusability. The company has previously discussed a concept it calls Sensible Modular Autonomous Return Technology (SMART) to recover and reuse the first stage engines, but not the whole stage itself.

“With this launch contract, it allows us to have a pretty clear line of sight to an engine recovery program we’ve talked about for a number of years, because reuse is all about launch cadence,” he said. “Now we know exactly how to close that business case.”

Bruno added that ULA had been in talks with other megaconstellation developers. “This isn’t the only opportunity we had to do a megaconstellation,” he said. “We really wanted to work with Amazon because the service they’re going to offer is pretty amazing and the culture that they have is a much better fit for us.” He did not disclose what other megaconstellation providers ULA had been in talks with the launch.

Arianespace is also using the Amazon contract to make upgrades, in this case to the Ariane 6 itself. All but two of the 18 launches Amazon ordered will use an enhanced version of solid-fuel strap-on boosters that feature a larger engine called the P120C+. The larger engine on the Ariane 64—the version of the Ariane 6 with four strap-on boosters—will increase the vehicle’s payload capacity to low Earth orbit by about two tons.

Arianespace CEO Stéphane Israël said the company doesn't need to make production or launch site upgrades to accommodate the Amazon order. The order fits into the company’s plans for 11 to 12 Ariane 6 launches a year, and the launch site in French Guiana can support up to 20 launches annually.

He said the order validated Arianespace’s plans to support that launch rate despite soft demand from the conventional GEO communications satellite market and limited demand for European governments. “We are also considering with the European Space Agency other upgrades,” he said, but didn’t specify what they are. Funding for those upgrades could come from ESA’s next ministerial meeting, scheduled for late this year, where member states allocate funding for the agency for the next three years.

Blue Origin announced no changes to its New Glenn rocket in the contract announcement. That vehicle is lagging Ariane 6 and Vulcan Centaur in development (see “The launch market squeeze”, The Space Review, March 28, 2022) and CEO Bob Smith did not provide specifics about when it will be ready to fly at the Space Symposium event. “We’re in build mode,” he said, outlining work on both the vehicle itself and final testing of the BE-4 engine that powers both New Glenn and Vulcan Centaur.

Indeed, in the announcement of the contracts and at the event, Amazon and its launch providers offered few specifics about the deals. The companies were coy about launch schedules, costs, and reasons why Amazon chose this particular mix of vehicles.

None of the companies would say when the launches would begin, only that they would take place over five years (Arianespace said its launches would be over three years.) None of the vehicles has yet to make its first launch, and even if the satellites were ready, it’s unlikely any Kuiper launches would take place until least later in 2023.

Amazon is, for now, focused on its prototype satellites, getting them launched to test how well they work in space. “We’re assuming success” with those prototypes, said Dave Limp, senior vice president for Amazon Devices and Services, the division of Amazon that includes Project Kuiper. “We’re beginning to bring up production and manufacturing.” There are now more than 1,000 people working on Kuiper, including at a new facility in the Seattle suburb of Redmond, the same city where SpaceX produces Starlink satellites.

“We’re assuming success” with those prototypes, said Amazon’s Limp of its prototype satellites. “We’re beginning to bring up production and manufacturing.”

Amazon, though, is under schedule pressure to get those satellites launched. Its FCC license requires it to have half its satellites, or more than 1,600, in orbit by July 2026. The full constellation needs to be in orbit three years later. A company spokesperson said the contracts are designed to meet those FCC license requirements.

The panel discussion at Space Symposium revealed how many satellites each company will launch. Each Ariane 6 can accommodate 35 to 40 Kuiper satellites, while a Vulcan Centaur can launch 45 satellites and New Glenn 61. (Beyond Gravity, a company until recently called RUAG Space, will build satellite dispensers for all three launch vehicles at a hew factory in Sweden.)

That means that, assuming none of the New Glenn launch options are exercised, ULA will launch a little more than half the satellites, with Arianespace and Blue Origin splitting the rest. If 40 Kuiper satellites fit on an Ariane 6, those confirmed orders would, combined, launch 3,162 satellites, with the previously ordered Atlas V launches likely covering the rest. The New Glenn options likely would accommodate spare satellites or cover for shortfalls by other launch providers, either because of delays or failures.

The companies also did not disclose the costs of the contracts. Assuming a very favorable average price of $75 million per launch—slightly higher than the current list price of the Falcon 9—the confirmed order would cost Amazon $5.1 billion, and justify its claim as the largest commercial launch order ever. Amazon has previously stated it plans to invest at least $10 billion into the overall Kuiper system, including satellites, launches, and ground infrastructure.

Notably absent from the contracts were SpaceX and Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI). SpaceX is, of course, a competitor in the broadband megaconstellation market, but SpaceX has shown its willingness to support those competitors by signing a launch agreement with OneWeb after that company lost access to the Soyuz vehicles it planned to use to complete its constellation. MHI is still developing its H3 rocket, which promises to be less expensive than the H-2A, but has not offered an updated schedule for its first launch—factors that did not stop Amazon from ordering other rockets yet to make their debuts.

“Amazon has talked to every major launch provider and they will continue to explore all options for future launch services,” a spokesperson representing Amazon said. “The three launch vehicles selected offered the right combination of capacity, performance, and cost to meet needs.”

For Amazon, there are few other options. Russian vehicles are now no longer an option with sanctions imposed on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine, but even before that, vehicles like Proton and Soyuz were falling out of favor on the commercial market. Chinese vehicles remain off-limits for export control reasons.

Amazon also ruled out using large numbers of small rockets to deploy its constellation. While the dozens of companies developing those small launchers have played up the benefits of dedicated launch, the economics, on a price-per-kilogram basis, work in favor of large rockets for at least the deployment of those constellations.

“We do need new, larger launch vehicles that make it economic,” said Limp. While he did not disclose technical details of the satellites, he suggested they would be larger than those used by OneWeb and SpaceX, whose satellites weigh between 150 and 300 kilograms each.

“I think this announcement by Kuiper is just going to create more scarcity in launch,” said Markusic.

Amazon’s bulk buy will make it harder for other megaconstellation companies, like AST SpaceMobile and Telesat, to secure the launches they need, unless they’re willing to work with SpaceX, which may have plenty of capacity between its current Falcon vehicles and the under-development Starship. It might also encourage other launch companies to move into larger vehicles, particularly those currently in the small end of the launch market.

“I think this announcement by Kuiper is just going to create more scarcity in launch,” said Tom Markusic, CEO of Firefly Aerospace, in an interview. The company is working towards a second launch of its Alpha small launch vehicle but also planning the medium-class Beta rocket that he wants to start flying in about three years. “We want to get it out on the market as fast as we can.”

Relativity and Rocket Lab are also moving ahead with larger vehicles, with Rocket Lab holding a groundbreaking ceremony Monday in Virginia for the factory that will build its larger Neutron rockets. Depending on how the megaconstellations shake out, not to mention the effect vehicles like Starship have in the market, scarcity in launch could easily become a glut.

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Jeff Foust (jeff@thespacereview.com) is the editor and publisher of The Space Review, and a senior staff writer with SpaceNews. He also operates the Spacetoday.net web site. Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone.

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What is the Ax-1 Mission?