The Space Resource Newsletter - May 2021
The OSAM-1 spacecraft bus forms the central component for the vehicle. It will soon refuel the Landsat 7 satellite, which was never designed for refuelling. Credit: Maxar Technologies.
Welcome to The Space Resource monthly newsletter for May 2021. China landed a rover on Mars, SpaceX landed a Starship during a test flight, and NASA’s new Administrator, Bill Nelson, is already pushing for more funding.
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Asteroids
OSIRIS-REx asteroid sampler begins trip back to Earth from asteroid Bennu. After arriving at Bennu in 2018, OSIRIS-REx collected 200 to 400 grams (0.5 to 1 lb) of grain sized material during its time at the asteroid. The spacecraft is now traveling around 2.3 billion km (1.4 billion miles) to reach Earth, arriving in September 2023. Direct asteroid samples are critical for understanding the chemical and physical characteristics of asteroids, enabling future space resource missions more knowledge in how best to collect and process their materials.
Results from NASA exercise show world agencies couldn’t prevent asteroid-impact with 6 months notice. The NASA workshop brought scientists from NASA and the European Space Agency together for a week-long challenge to determine if anything could be done to prevent a deadly asteroid impact after learning of it at a distance of 35 million miles and six months from impact. The group found that no existing technologies could stop the impact in time. This study shows how unprepared humanity is for such a catastrophic event, and the need to advance and develop space architectures that have better odds of handling such an event. Link.
CISLUNAR
On-orbit Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing 1 (OSAM-1) starting fabrication. This NASA and Maxar Technologies spacecraft recently passed its Critical Design Review (CDR), which demonstrated that its design will meet all mission goals. Passing a CDR is a large milestone, as the actual hardware can now be fabricated, assembled, integrated, and tested before launch. The spacecraft should be ready for launch by late 2022. Once in orbit it will robotically refuel Landsat 7 with mono-propellant fuel, the first time such an activity has been performed. Additionally, OSAM-1 will feature a robotic arm (SPIDER) that will demonstrate in-space assembly of a communications antenna and beam structure. This will be a milestone mission for demonstrating in-space servicing capabilities. Link.
Mars
The Mars helicopter Ingenuity transitioned to its operations demonstration phase. Ingenuity will now evaluate its full capabilities, including scouting, aerial terrain observations, and aerial based stereo imaging. Studying these capabilities will allow future missions to develop more refined hardware and mission plans. Ingenuity’s fifth flight was a one-way trip, moving it away from its prior landing area. The sixth flight experienced a timing error that caused the helicopter to experience large gyrations. Fortunately the flight controller maintained control at the cost of more energy consumption, landing the craft safely. Despite this error, the system is exceeding expectations. Link.
China lands their first Martian rover, Zhurong. China has become the second country to have successfully landed a rover on the Martian surface. The 240kg (530lb) rover’s main mission will take around three months, where it will image the surface and take scientific measurements. More importantly, this demonstrates many of the engineering and design choices China used in this mission.
Moon
Commercial lunar orbiter set to launch on a Falcon 9 in early 2022. This SmallSat will weigh around 40kg (88lb) and will study the lunar surface with onboard sensors and cameras. While the NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has been doing the same for over a decade, this mission is notable because it is completely commercial and much lower cost. It will be insightful to see whether Geometric Energy Corporation is able to turn this mission into a profit generating activity.
Colorado School of Mines team receives NASA BIG Idea Challenge funding. The Mines team received funding to design and test their “lily pad” concept for dust-free landing pads to help solve the Moon dust problem posed by landing vehicles kicking up dust, which can travel very long distances at high velocity. This can damage other objects on the lunar surface and even in lunar orbit. The design consists of a central carbon fiber fabric landing “pad” that traps regolith beneath and a larger radius “pond” created by laying down a polymer material that hardens surface regolith, preventing it from being carried away by landing and takeoff rocket exhaust. Link.
ESA proposes a lunar navigation constellation. If approved by the agency’s member nations next year, the first satellite of the constellation, Lunar Pathfinder, would launch and enter operations in 2024. This constellation would provide GPS-like capabilities across the lunar surface, which are critical for safe and efficient surface navigation.
SGAC’s EAGLE team releases their Lunar Governance Report. The Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC), representing young professional and student voices to the United Nation, released a report through their new EAGLE team that advocates for the development of Effective and Adaptive Governance for a Lunar Ecosystem. Read more about the report here.
Starship
Starship test vehicle SN15 lands. The test flight and landing occurred to much surprise. Initially the plan was to refly SN15 but this is thought to be cancelled or delayed because SN15 has had all Raptors removed and it is being prepped for removal from the test stand after initially being placed back on a test stand.
SpaceX files with the FCC for upcoming orbital test flight. According to the plan, the Super Heavy and Starship stack will lift off from Starbase in South Texas. Upon stage separation, the Super Heavy booster will return for an ocean landing just off the Texas coast. Starship, the second stage, will continue a powered ascent into space, albeit it will not circularize its orbit. Instead it will perform a belly-first reentry above the Pacific Ocean, and conduct a soft water landing off the coast of Hawaii. The flight’s primary mission is to test the operation of the first Super Heavy booster and obtain reentry flight data on Starship at orbital velocity for improving the computer modeling. The orbital flight is waiting for the launch infrastructure to be completed, along with both BN3 and SN20. If everything goes to plan, we should expect a launch later this year.
Terrestrial
NASA Administrator and Senator, Bill Nelson, attends his first congressional hearing as NASA administrator. Preferring to keep the Senator title in addition to his new title as the 14th Administrator of NASA, Nelson’s first appearance before Congress occurred on May 19th. Many questions were addressed in the meeting, with Nelson repeating his call for utilizing the Jobs Bill to provide NASA with additional funding. This included the request to expand the HLS program to additional landers besides just SpaceX, who was the sole winner of the initial underfunded competition. Nelson also used China’s successful Martian rover landing as motivation to fully fund NASA’s requests, since China is now only the second country besides the US to have landed a rover on Mars and is continuing its rapid pace across space. Link.
NASA formalizes award of $50M to SpaceX for demo mission. The tipping point contract with SpaceX to demonstrate on-orbit large scale cryogenic propellant management and transfer was formally signed May 4th after being announced in October of 2020. The demo will be performed by SpaceX using two of their Starship vehicles before the end of 2020. Link
Momentus was denied FAA launch approval for the second time due to their corporate structure. There remain ongoing concerns from the Department of Defense over the company’s foreign investment and management. Momentus was denied a June launch aboard a Falcon 9, which would have demonstrated two Vigoride tugs deploying several cubesats for customers. Ongoing steps to fix these concerns are underway. This denial comes at a bad time, as Momentus seeks to become a publicly traded company via merging with a SPAC called Stable Road Acquisition Corporation, which in a slim vote on May 13, extended to August. Reporting in the following weeks confirmed that SpaceX has discontinued work with Momentus until these government approvals are secured. Link.
Voyager Space Holdings acquires Nanoracks After announcing an intent to acquire majority control of Nanoracks in late 2020, Voyager fully acquired Nanoracks through an acquisition of their parent X.O. Markets. This acquisition follows other big moves recently, such as hiring former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine onto its advisory board and acquiring the Launch Company. Link.
