China has taken another step toward its crewed lunar goals by successfully testing fairing separation for its Long March 10 moon rocket series.

The fairing separation test was conducted recently, according to a Nov. 20 statement from the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT). CALT is a major rocket developer under the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), the country’s main space contractor.

A short clip of the separation test shows the 5.0-meter-diameter, 5.0-meter-high fairing—which is designed to protect spacecraft from the atmosphere during ascent—falling away to reveal a structural test article.

The fairing is not in a conical, nose cone-like shape, as with typical fairing for spacecraft. This is due to the Long March 10 series being designed to launch a new generation crew spacecraft. This will include an escape tower and the return module may be exposed at the tip of the launcher. The fairing is thus similar in shape to that used for the Orion spacecraft. CALT plans static and joint vibration tests in the future.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/28406616

French launch vehicle startup Latitude has signed a multi-launch contract with Atmos Space Cargo, a company developing commercial reentry vehicles.

In a deal announced at Space Tech Expo Europe here Nov. 19, Atmos will buy a minimum of five launches a year of Latitude’s Zephyr rocket between 2028 and 2032. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Each launch will place a Phoenix spacecraft into very low Earth orbit, or VLEO. The spacecraft are designed to accommodate payloads for microgravity research in fields like pharmaceuticals and manufacturing, returning them to Earth.

Another three months, another Progress resupply to the International Space Station.

| Scheduled for (UTC) | 2024-11-21, 12:22 | |

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| | Scheduled for (local) | 2024-11-21, 17:22 (AQTT) | | Docking scheduled for (UTC) | 2024-11-23, 14:40 | | Mission | Progress MS-29 | | Launch site | Site 31/6, Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan | | Launch vehicle | Soyuz 2.1a | | Spacecraft | Progress | | Mission success criteria | Successful launch and docking to the ISS |

Livestreams

| Stream | Link | |

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| | Roscosmos | (launch) https://www.youtube.com/@tvroscosmos/streams | | Roscosmos | (docking) https://www.youtube.com/@tvroscosmos/streams | | NASA+ | (launch) https://plus.nasa.gov/scheduled-video/progress-90-cargo-ship-launch/ | | NASA+ | (docking) https://plus.nasa.gov/scheduled-video/progress-90-cargo-ship-docking/ | | The Launch Pad | https://www.youtube.com/@TheLaunchPad/streams | | Space Affairs | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUYMPbgXLPM |

Mission Details

• NASA
• NextSpaceflight

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/28356279

ESA announced Nov. 19 that it is extending contracts with HyImpulse, Isar Aerospace, Orbex and Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA) worth a combined 44.22 million euros ($46.7 million) through its “Boost!” program to assist in integrated testing of the launch vehicles they are building.

ESA did not disclose the breakout of the funding, but Isar Aerospace said it received 15 million euros in additional Boost! funding. The company said it will use the funding for testing for the first two flights of its Spectrum small launch vehicle. The company has previously stated it planned to conduct the first Spectrum launch before the end of the year but has not provided recent updates on launch preparations.

Orbex said it received 5.6 million euros for integrated testing of its Orbex Prime launch vehicle it is developing for a first launch as soon as 2025. “This funding extension will enable us to make the vital next step in our journey as we move towards our inaugural launch of our microlauncher, Orbex Prime, next year,” said Phil Chambers, chief executive of Orbex, in a statement.

HyImpulse said will use its 11.8 million euros for work on its SL1 orbital launch vehicle, building upon its SR75 sounding rocket. That includes work on a new hybrid engine, avionics and a third-stage propulsion system.

RFA, which lost the first stage of its first RFA ONE rocket in August when it was destroyed during a static-fire test, will use 11.8 million euros to compete a new first stage and perform testing of it.

The transfer tunnel, known by the Russian acronym PrK, connects the Zvezda module with a docking port where Soyuz crew and Progress resupply spacecraft attach to the station.

Air has been leaking from the transfer tunnel since September 2019. On several occasions, Russian cosmonauts have repaired the cracks and temporarily reduced the leak rate. In February, the leak rate jumped up again to 2.4 pounds per day, then increased to 3.7 pounds per day in April.

"The Russian position is that the most probable cause of the PrK cracks is high cyclic fatigue caused by micro-vibrations," Cabana said on November 13. "NASA believes the PrK cracks are likely multi-causal, including pressure and mechanical stress, residual stress, material properties, and environmental exposures."

Crew members aboard the space station are keeping the hatch leading to the PrK closed when they don't need to access the Progress cargo freighter docked at the other end of the transfer tunnel. Russian cosmonauts must open the hatch to unpack supplies from the Progress or load trash into the ship for disposal.

As a precaution, Barratt said space station crews are also closing the hatch separating the US and Russian sections of the space station when cosmonauts are working in the PrK.

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A 7-year-old launch company that has yet to have a rocket successfully lift off announced a radical pivot on Thursday. Its new plan? Focusing on missile defense.

"We have made the decision to focus our efforts on national defense, and specifically on missile defense technologies," Piemont said. "We’ll have more to share soon on our roadmap and traction in this area. For now, suffice to say we see considerable opportunity to leverage RS1, GS0, the E2 engine, and the rest of the technology we’ve developed to date to enable a new type of research effort around missile defense technologies."

Over the last half decade or so, three US companies have credibly vied to develop rockets in the 1-ton class in terms of lift capacity. ABL has been competing alongside Relativity Space and Firefly to bring its rockets to market. ABL never took off. In March 2023, Relativity reached space with the Terran 1 rocket, but, due to second-stage issues, failed to reach orbit. Within weeks, Relativity announced it was shifting its focus to a medium-lift rocket, Terran R. Since then, the California-based launch company has moved along, but there are persistent rumors that it faces a cash crunch.

Of the three, only Firefly has enjoyed success. The company's Alpha rocket has reached orbit on multiple occasions, and just this week Firefly announced that it completed a $175 million Series D fundraising round, resulting in a valuation of more than $2 billion. The 1-ton rocket wars are over: Firefly has won.

A Chinese official expressed willingness to cooperate with the United States in space exploration, interest that appears unlikely to be reciprocated.

Speaking at the Beyond Earth Symposium here Nov. 13, Zhou Guolin, minister counselor for science and technology at the Chinese Embassy here, said China was open to some level of cooperation with the United States on spaceflight, without going into specifics.

“China welcomes participation from space agencies all over the world, including the United States of America, of course,” he said. “History has proved that isolation is not a solution, and that cooperation is the only solution to go forward.”

Interaction between NASA and China has historically been limited. It includes a 2006 visit by then-administrator Mike Griffin to China as well as working group meetings from 2008 to 2010 on topics such as the exchange of Earth and space science data. That was largely severed with the passage by Congress 2011 of the so-called “Wolf Amendment” that sharply restricted bilateral cooperation between NASA and Chinese organizations.

The Wolf Amendment has persisted in annual appropriations bills since 2011 with little effort to remove or significantly change it. NASA’s current administrator, Bill Nelson, told a House committee in 2023 he supported the provision.

“I think the Wolf Amendment, as it’s written, is adequate,” he said in an April 2023 House appropriations hearing. “I think the Wolf Amendment is sufficient for where it is right now.”

Nelson has, on other occasions, warned of China landing humans on the moon ahead of NASA’s own human lunar return, suggesting that China might lay claim to desirable locations at the lunar south pole and prevent NASA from accessing them. He also used an image from China’s Zhurong Mars rover at a 2021 House hearing to warn the U.S. “about our need to get off our duff” on lunar exploration.