Source: SpaceX

The Seattle-based company announced Sept. 25 that it performed an initial series of taxi tests of a prototype flight vehicle it calls PFV01 at an unidentified airport in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. The tests included what it called “short hops” by the vehicle as it tested its handling characteristics for takeoff and landing.

PFV01 is designed to test the aerodynamics of the company’s proposed Radian One, a spaceplane that would take off horizontally using a rail sled system more than three kilometers long and reach orbit using rocket engines before returning to a runway landing. The vehicle, as currently designed, could carry up to five people and 2,270 kilograms of cargo to low Earth orbit and return with up to 4,540 kilograms of cargo.

Radian has already done extensive computer modeling and wind tunnel testing of the design, said Livingston Holder, chief technology officer and co-founder, in an interview. “But, we wanted to get a system in the air to see if the analytical work done to date matches our predictions.”

The runway tests, he said, confirmed those models. “It’s an important step,” he said, “validating that the analytical models that we’re using match what we’re seeing in real life.”

Tianwen-2 is scheduled to launch in 2025, Bian Zhigang, deputy head of the China National Space Administration (CNSA), said Sept. 24, according to Chinese media The Paper.

The mission will first focus on sampling near-Earth asteroid Kamoʻoalewa (2016 HO3). After delivering samples to Earth, the spacecraft will use our planet for a gravitational slingshot maneuver and set it on a course for main-belt comet 311P/PANSTARRS.

Kamoʻoalewa is a quasi-satellite of Earth and is roughly 40-100 meters in diameter. This small body may be a fragment of the Moon, ejected into space by a past impact event, according to one journal article.

Penultimate launch of the H-IIA rocket.

| Scheduled for (UTC) | 2024-09-26 05:24 | |

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| | Scheduled for (local) | 2024-07-01 14:24 (JST) | | Launch site | LA-Y1, Tanegashima Space Center, Japan | | Launch vehicle | H-IIA 202 | | Launch provider | Mitsubushi Heavy Industries / JAXA | | Mission success criteria | Successful launch and deployment of IGS-Radar 8 into Sun-Synchronous Orbit |

Livestreams

| Stream | Link | |

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| | NVS | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR233zV8xRo | | The Launch Pad | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_Cp1NIbsv4 |

Stats

☑️ 2nd launch from LA-Y1 this year

☑️ 2nd H-IIA launch this year, 49th overall

☑️ 5th launch out of Japan this year (IGS-Radar 8, H3 flight test 2, KAIROS flight test 1, and ALOS-4)

Payload info (NextSpaceflight)

The IGS-Radar 8 is a Japanese radar reconnaissance satellite. The satellite is operated by the Cabinet Satellite Information Center. The satellite serves both Japan's national defense and civil natural disaster monitoring.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/25502187

A Starlink antenna costs $250 compared to the $25,000 price of a VSAT terminal a couple of years ago, KVH Industries CEO Brent Bruun said on the panel.

He said vessels can now get up to 200 megabits per second of service for about a dollar a gigabit, versus 20 Mbps on a typical VSAT for $10 per GB.

These orders of magnitude differences across three different metrics enable video calls and many other activities onboard a ship that used to be confined to land, significantly boosting ship operations and crew morale.

All at once, India's government has approved plans to develop a new reusable rocket, the centerpiece of an Indian space station, and robotic sample return mission to the Moon, and a science probe to explore Venus.

India's union cabinet also approved $1 billion for the development of the Next Generation Launch Vehicle (NGLV), a heavy-lift rocket with a reusable first stage booster that ISRO wants operational by around 2033.

The NGLV, also known as the Soorya launcher, is a three-stage design capable of delivering payloads up to 30 metric tons (66,000 pounds) into a 500-kilometer (310-mile) orbit. The rocket's payload capacity will be somewhat less when the first stage reserves propellant for recovery. It will come in two configurations, one with a core liquid-fueled launch vehicle, and another version augmented by two strap-on solid rocket boosters. The next-generation rocket will outclass the LVM3, India's heaviest rocket flying today.

Just realized that no one had posted this here yet.