A Long March 4C rocket takes off Nov. 22 from the Jiuquan launch base with the Gaofen 3-02 remote sensing satellite Credit: CASC
China has launched four space missions from three different spaceports in the span of a week, hauling cargo into orbit for military communications, radar surveillance, and optical imaging.
The surge of launches began Nov. 20 with the blastoff of a Long March 4B rocket from the Taiyuan launch base in Shanxi province, a region of northern China, with a high-resolution optical remote sensing satellite.
The spacecraft on-board the rocket was the third in a series of Gaofen 11-class Earth observation satellites.
China has released little information about the design or capabilities of Gaofen 11 satellites. The state-owned prime contractor for the Chinese space program said the satellite will provide imagery to support land surveys, urban planning, road network design, agricultural monitoring, and disaster prevention and mitigation.
Other types of Gaofen satellites have civilian purposes, but the Gaofen 11 series may be designed to serve the Chinese military, or have a dual purpose.
The Long March 4B rocket is a three-stage launcher designed to loft medium-sized satellites into orbit.
After taking off from Taiyuan at 0151 GMT on Nov. 20 (9:51 a.m. Beijing time; 8:51 p.m. EST on Nov. 19), the liquid-fueled rocket deployed the Gaofen 11-03 spacecraft into an oval-shaped polar orbit between 151 miles (243 kilometers) and 432 miles (695 kilometers) above Earth, according to orbit data published by the U.S. military.
A Long March 4B rocket launches from the Taiyuan space center on Nov. 20 with the Gaofen 11-03 remote sensing satellite. Credit: CASC
Three days later, a Long March 4C launcher fired off its launch pad at the Jiuquan space center in the Gobi Desert of northwestern China.
The payload on that mission was another Gaofen remote sensing satellite named Gaofen 3-02. Liftoff occurred at 2345 GMT (6:45 p.m. EST) on Nov. 22, or 7:45 a.m. Beijing time on Nov. 23.
The Long March 4C, also a three-stage rocket, delivered the Gaofen 3-02 satellite to an orbit about 470 miles (760 kilometers) in altitude, with an inclination of 98.4 degrees to the equator, according to publicly-available U.S. military tracking data.
The civilian-operated Gaofen 3-02 satellite will capture high-resolution all-weather imagery of Earth from its position in orbit. Carrying a C-band synthetic aperture radar, the craft weighs nearly 3 metric tons — about 6,500 pounds — and should help Chinese authorities better respond to natural disasters like earthquakes and floods, officials said.
The new satellite will focus on gathering imagery day and night, regardless of weather conditions. The all-weather capability of radar imaging will give officials updated information even if clouds or rain showers block the view of space-based optical cameras.
The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp., or CASC, which manages the government-run enterprises within the Chinese space program, said the C-band radar instrument will gather information to meet needs in maritime environmental monitoring, emergency response, water conservation, weather observations, and agriculture.
Gaofen 3-02 will work in tandem with the first Gaofen 3-type satellite launched in 2016.
A solid-fueled Kuaizhou 1A launcher fires into the sky from the Jiuquan launch base Nov. 24 with the Shiyan 11 satellite. Credit: Xinhua
The week of Chinese launches continued almost exactly 48 hours later with the flight of a solid-fueled Kuaizhou 1A rocket from Jiuquan.
Sized to deploy small satellites in space, the Kuaizhou 1A carried a mysterious payload named Shiyan 11. U.S. military data showed the Shiyan 11 satellite in a roughly 310-mile-high (500-kilometer) polar orbit.
Chinese officials released few details on Shiyan 11. According to CASC, the spacecraft will be used for land imaging, urban planning, crop yield estimation, and disaster monitoring.
But China’s Shiyan family of satellites are typically used for technology demonstrations or scientific experiments. Some satellites may use the Shiyan name as a cover for military-related clandestine activities.
The fourth, and final, launch of the week occurred at 1640 GMT (11:40 a.m. EST) on Nov. 26, or at 12:40 a.m. Beijing time on Nov. 27, CASC said in a statement.
A Long March 3B rocket deployed a communications satellite named Zhongxing 1D, or Chinasat 1D, in an elliptical geostationary transfer orbit stretching as 22,264 miles (35,831 kilometers) from Earth.
A Long March 3B rocket blasts off from the Xichang launch base Nov. 26 with the Zhongxing 1D, or Chinasat 2D, communications satellite. Credit: CASC
The mission lifted off from the Xichang spaceport in Sichuan province in southwestern China. Independent analysts believe Zhongxing 1D is likely a communications satellite for the Chinese military.
The spacecraft will use its on-board propulsion system to circularize its orbit at geostationary altitude more than 22,000 miles over the equator, where Zhongxing 1D will match Earth’s rotation, hovering over a fixed geographic position to provide uninterrupted communications to military users.
The four successful rocket missions raised the total number of Chinese orbital launch attempts this year to 47, a number that includes two failures.
Two spacesuits inside the Quest airlock on the International Space Station. Credit: NASA
A planned spacewalk outside the International Space Station by astronauts Tom Marshburn and Kayla Barron was called off early Tuesday after NASA received an overnight warning about possibly threatening space debris.
The station’s seven-member crew was not told to take shelter in their Earth-return spacecraft and no other actions were required. But the spacewalk was delayed, NASA said in a blog post, “due to the lack of opportunity to properly assess the risk [the debris] could pose to the astronauts.”
The post did not say where the “debris notification” came from or whether the debris in question originated from a November 14 anti-satellite weapon test by Russia that created a cloud of some 1,700 trackable fragments, and an unknown number of smaller pieces. The test was blasted by the U.S. as “reckless,” and NASA ordered the ISS crew to take shelter in their Crew Dragon and Soyuz spacecraft as a precaution soon after the satellite was destroyed.
The ISS crew took the news of the spacewalk delay in stride on Tuesday.
“It’s just real life, this is how things work out sometimes, and I’m really glad you fellows are looking out for our safety,” Mark Vande Hei radioed flight controllers in Houston.
Mission control said: “We don’t have any TCAs [times of close approach] or any conjunctions we’re worried about right now in terms of crew actions for you guys, but of course we’ll keep you posted.”
Marshburn, a veteran spacewalker, and Barron, a Navy submariner making her first spaceflight, had planned to carry out a six-and-a-half-hour excursion to replace a failed S-band radio antenna on the left side of the lab’s power truss.
The station has multiple antennas in a highly redundant communications system, but managers want to replace the failed unit before the lab’s orbit carries it into extended periods of sunlight and higher temperatures.
The spacewalk, whenever it occurs, will be the first since the Russian military destroyed a retired electronic intelligence satellite in an anti-satellite weapon test earlier this month. That test created a cloud of debris along the demolished spy satellite’s orbital track.
Given that the space station, and everything else in low-Earth orbit, is moving at nearly five miles per second, debris impacts pose a potentially catastrophic hazard, regardless of the source.
Thousands of objects the size of a softball and larger are tracked by U.S. Space Command radars on the ground. For trackable objects that pose a collision risk, the station’s Russian thrusters can be fired to move out of the way. But objects too small to track can hit without warning.
The Russian ASAT test generated a cloud of debris that is slowly spreading out. NASA officials said Monday the risk to Marshburn and Barron was only about 7% higher than the normal 1-in-2,700 odds of a spacesuit penetration.
“When the initial breakup occurred, the debris was very concentrated,” said Dana Weigel, deputy manager of the space station program at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. “Over time it has dispersed, but initially it was very concentrated and as ISS passed through the orbit of the debris, we had a heightened concern for about 24 hours after the event.”
She said the background debris environment is still “slightly elevated — it’s about two times what it had been prior to the event for the space station as a whole.”
But the change in the risk to spacewalkers was much smaller, “it was on the order of about 7%,” she said. “So, this particular EVA, its risk falls within the family of what we’ve had for EVAs over the last few years.”
What prompted the overnight debris notification was not yet clear on Tuesday morning.
The shuttle-era spacesuits, or extra-vehicular mobility units — EMUs in NASA-ese — are multi-layer pressure suits with backpacks housing batteries, air tanks, carbon dioxide removal chemicals and pumps that circulate water through small tubes sewn into the astronauts’ undergarments. The water can be heated or cooled as needed to keep spacewalkers comfortable in sunlight or darkness.
The suits also feature a 30-minute emergency oxygen supply to enable an astronaut with a puncture or tear to make it back to the safety of an airlock. In the hundreds of station and non-station spacewalks carried out to date, no such emergency has ever occurred.
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A Falcon 9 rocket streaks into the sky over Cape Canaveral during a launch with Starlink satellites in March 2021. Credit: SpaceX
Forecasters predict a 90% chance of good weather Wednesday night at Cape Canaveral for launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with a fresh group of Starlink internet satellites.
SpaceX is readying a Falcon 9 launcher for liftoff at 6:20 p.m. EST (2320 GMT) Wednesday from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The two-stage launcher will place another batch of Starlink satellites into orbit a few hundred miles above Earth at an inclination of 53.2 degrees to the equator.
Mostly clear skies and mild temperatures are expected Wednesday evening, according to an outlook from the U.S. Space Force’s 45th Weather Squadron.
The forecast team says a “rather benign weather regime” will remain in place on Florida’s Space Coast through the middle of the week.
“Surface high pressure is expected to develop over the western Gulf of Mexico and will extend into the southeastern U.S.,” forecasters wrote in a launch weather forecast. “As a result, there will be light winds during the launch window and limited low-level moisture. The primary concern for a Wednesday evening launch is a few cumulus clouds with the onshore flow.”
Winds are predicted to be from the northeast at 10 to 15 mph, with a temperature of around 70 degrees Fahrenheit for the instantaneous launch window Wednesday. Forecasters expect identical weather conditions during a backup launch opportunity Thursday evening.
SpaceX rolled out the Falcon 9 rocket for the next Starlink mission from its hangar Monday and erected it vertical on pad 40. A static fire test is planned as soon as Monday night, when SpaceX’s launch engineers will oversee the loading of kerosene and liquid oxygen into the two-stage rocket for a brief on-pad firing of the Falcon 9’s Merlin main engines.
Hold-down clamps will keep the rocket on the ground as the nine Merlin 1D engines throttle up to produce 1.7 million pounds of thrust. The test-firing will last less than 10 seconds.
The mission will use a previously-flown booster from SpaceX’s Falcon 9 inventory. But SpaceX hasn’t yet confirmed which booster is assigned to the Starlink mission, which is designated Starlink 4-3.
SpaceX also has not confirmed the number of Starlink satellites on-board the 229-foot-tall (70-meter) rocket. The previous Starlink mission, which kicked off deployment of a new phase of the Starlink network, carried 53 satellites, all with inter-satellite laser links.
The Nov. 13 launch of the Starlink 4-1 mission was the first to go into a new “shell” some 335 miles (540 kilometers) above Earth.
Most of the Starlink satellites launched so far have deployed into a 341-mile-high (550-kilometer), 53-degree inclination orbit, the first of five orbital shells SpaceX plans to complete full deployment of the Starlink network. SpaceX finished launching satellites in that shell with a series of Starlink flights from Cape Canaveral from May 2019 through May of this year.
Since May, SpaceX has rushed to complete development of new inter-satellite laser terminals to put on all future Starlink satellites. The laser crosslinks, which have been tested on a handful of Starlink satellites on prior launches, will reduce the reliance of SpaceX’s internet network on ground stations.
The ground stations are expensive to deploy, and come with geographical — and sometimes political — constraints on where they can be positioned. Laser links will allow the Starlink satellites to pass internet traffic from spacecraft to spacecraft around the world, without needing to relay the signals to a ground station connected to a terrestrial network.
SpaceX is currently providing interim internet services through the Starlink satellites to consumers who have signed up for a beta testing program.
In September, SpaceX launched the first batch of 51 Starlink satellites into a 70-degree inclination orbit on a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base. That orbital shell will eventually contain 720 satellites at an altitude of 354 miles (570 kilometers).
Aside from the 53-degree and 70-degree orbital shells, SpaceX’s other Starlink layers will include 1,584 satellites at 335 miles (540 kilometers) and an inclination of 53.2 degrees, and 520 satellites spread into two shells at 348 miles (560 kilometers) and an inclination of 97.6 degrees.
The mission Wednesday will be the second Starlink flight to target the 53.2-degree inclination orbit, slightly offset from the 53-degree inclination planes populated during the first phase of the Starlink network deployment.
SpaceX has regulatory approval from the Federal Communications Commission for approximately 12,000 Starlink satellites. The company’s initial focus is on launching 4,400 satellites on a series of Falcon 9 rocket flights. SpaceX’s next-generation launcher, a giant rocket called the Starship that has not yet reached orbit, may eventually be tasked with launching hundreds of Starlink satellites on a single mission.
The launch Wednesday will be the 32nd Falcon 9 flight dedicated to hauling satellites into orbit for the Starlink program.
It will also be the 27th Falcon 9 launch overall this year, exceeding a mark of 26 Falcon 9 missions SpaceX completed in 2020.
Russia’s military successfully deployed a spacecraft in orbit Nov. 25 to join a constellation of satellites circling the globe to monitor for missile launches.
A Soyuz-2.1b rocket and Fregat upper stage lifted the military payload into orbit from the snow-covered Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia. Launch occurred at 0109 GMT on Nov. 25 (8:09 p.m. EST on Nov. 24), according to a statement issued by the Russian Ministry of Defense.
The Soyuz rocket’s four first stage boosters fired two minutes, followed by jettison of the rocket’s core stage at the five-minute mark. A third stage engine burned next to place the Fregat upper stage and the Russian military payload on a suborbital trajectory.
The Fregat upper stage ignited its main engine multiple times to place its satellite payload into the targeted orbit, and the spacecraft separated from the Fregat space tug several hours after liftoff.
The Russian Defense Ministry did not identify the purpose of the payload, but the circumstances of the mission — including the trajectory southeast from Plesetsk after launch — suggest the satellite is likely the fifth in a line of EKS, or Tundra, missile warning satellites for the Russian military.
The spacecraft received the name Kosmos 2552, keeping with the Russian naming convention for military satellites.
Orbital tracking data from the U.S. military showed the Kosmos 2552 spacecraft circling Earth in an elongated orbit ranging in altitude between 1,018 miles (1,638 kilometers) and 23,936 miles (38,522 kilometers), with an inclination of 63.8 degrees to the equator.
The orbit, known as a Molniya-type orbit, matches the altitude and inclination of four previous EKS satellite launches in 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2020.
Russia uses the missile warning satellites, along with ground-based radars, to track missiles that approach the country’s territory. The Molniya-type orbits used by the EKS satellites give the spacecraft’s thermal infrared sensors long views over the northern hemisphere on each 12-hour loop around Earth.
The orbits provide the satellites the ability to detect missile launches from North America, and detect incoming missiles that threaten Russian territory.
The launch of the fifth EKS early warning satellite marked the second blastoff of a Soyuz rocket in 12 hours, a half-day after a Soyuz launcher took off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with a new module heading for the International Space Station.
It was the 20th orbital launch of a Russian-built rocket this year.
The James Webb Space Telescope inside a clean room at the Guiana Space Center. Credit: Stephen Clark / Spaceflight Now
NASA engineers have cleared teams at the Guiana Space Center in South America to begin loading 63 gallons of fuel and oxidizer into the James Webb Space Telescope, after extra testing showed the observatory suffered no damage during a processing incident in the clean room earlier this month.
During a “consent to fuel” review held Wednesday, Nov. 24, mission managers gave approval to begin the propellant loading process at the French Guiana spaceport the following day.
“Additional testing was conducted this week to ensure the observatory’s health following an incident that occurred when the release of a clamp band caused a vibration throughout the observatory,” NASA said in a statement Wednesday.
The start of propellant loading keeps the $9.7 billion James Webb Space Telescope on track for liftoff Dec. 22 aboard a European Ariane 5 rocket. The half-hour launch window opens at 7:20 a.m. EST (1220 GMT; 9:20 a.m. French Guiana time).
The propellant loading operations inside the S5B fueling cell at the Guiana Space Center will take about 10 days to complete, according to NASA. The 10-day period includes steps to prepare, purge, and pressurize elements within the spacecraft bus, the lower section of the 35-foot-tall (10.66-meter) observatory.
The propellant loading itself will occur over several hours on two separate days, mission team members told Spaceflight Now.
The Webb telescope’s spacecraft bus, built by Northrop Grumman, will be filled with 42 gallons (159 liters) of hydrazine and 21 gallons (79.5 liters) of dinitrogen tetroxide, a mix of storable fuel and oxidizer to feed the mission’s 20 rocket thrusters.
Four of the small engines — a primary and redundant thruster in two pods — will consume fuel and oxidizer for major course correction maneuvers. Webb has eight more thruster modules, each with two small engines to nudge the observatory with a single pound of thrust, providing pointing control in concert with spinning reaction wheels inside the spacecraft.
Ground teams wearing self-contained protective suits will be inside the clean room during loading of the toxic propellants. Technicians will also load helium pressurant into the spacecraft.
Webb’s spacecraft bus provides propulsion, electrical power, and communications for the observatory.
NASA announced last week that Webb’s launch was delayed from Dec. 18 to Dec. 22 after managers ordered additional testing on the spacecraft.
The space agency said a “sudden, unplanned release” of a clamp band sent a vibration through the observatory Nov. 9, when technicians were mating Webb to its launch vehicle adapter, a device that connects the observatory with the upper stage of the Ariane 5 rocket.
The adapter’s high-tension clamp band system secures the spacecraft to the rocket until the command to separate Webb about a half-hour after liftoff.
RUAG Space, a Swiss company that specializes in building rocket structures and other components, supplied the payload adapter system for the Ariane 5 rocket and Webb, according to posts on the company’s social media pages.
The processing work inside the S5 payload facility at the Guiana Space Center is being performed under the “overall responsibility” of Arianespace, the French launch services provider for the Ariane 5 program. The European Space Agency, a junior partner on Webb, is paying for the launch as part of its contribution to the mission.
Once fueled, Webb will be transferred to the final assembly building at the spaceport in French Guiana, where a crane will hoist the observatory on top of its Ariane 5 launcher.
The James Webb Space Telescope is folded up in launch configuration to fit inside the Ariane 5 rocket’s 17.7-foot-wide (5.4-meter) payload fairing. Once in space, the observatory will unfurl a power-generating solar panel and a high-gain communications antenna, then start a series of make-or-break deployments of its five-layer sunshield, which will open to the size of a tennis court.
Webb, designed to peer deeper into the cosmos than ever before, has 18 gold-coated beryllium mirror segments that will combine to create the largest telescope mirror ever sent into space, with a diameter of 21.3 feet (6.5 meters). Some of the mirrors are mounted on deployable wings that must fold into place to configure the telescope for science observations.
Then the telescope’s infrared detectors have to cool down to cryogenic temperatures, with parts of the instruments chilled to near absolute zero at a temperature of 7 Kelvin (minus 447.1 degrees Fahrenheit).
The telescope’s mirror segments each have tiny mechanical actuators to adjust focus and alignment. The design makes Webb the most expensive and most complex science mission ever launched into space.
“When you work on a $10 billion telescope, conservatism is the order of the day,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, head of NASA’s science mission directorate.
File photo of a previous Blue Origin New Shepard launch. Credit: Blue Origin
The third piloted flight of Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital spacecraft will launch December 9 with a crew of six, including a network morning anchor and the eldest daughter of Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard, the first American in space, the company announced Nov. 23.
Michael Strahan of ABC’s “Good Morning America” and Laura Shepard Churchley will fly as guests of Blue Origin, joining four paying customers: philanthropist Dylan Taylor, investor Evan Dick, Lane Ventures founder Lane Bess and his son, Cameron.
Owned by Amazon-founder Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin named its sub-orbital spacecraft and rocket after the late Alan Shepard, who blasted off on a sub-orbital up-and-down flight in NASA’s Freedom 7 capsule on May 5, 1961. He was the second man to fly in space after cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin and the first American to do so.
Shepard went on to become the fifth man to walk on the moon as commander of the Apollo 14 mission in 1971, famously hitting a golf ball on the lunar surface. His daughter Laura, now 74, serves as chair of the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation Board of Trustees, which raises funds and provides mentoring for college students and STEM scholars.
“It’s kind of fun for me to say an original Shepard will fly on the New Shepard,” Churchley said in a video tweeted by Blue Origin. “I’m really excited to be going on a Blue Origin flight.
“I’m very proud of my father’s legacy,” she added. “He was the first American in space and the fifth man on the moon and so far, has been the only man to play golf on the moon. I believe he would say the same thing as my children: Go for it, Laura.”
Strahan, a former professional football player and co-anchor of “Good Morning America,” will become the first representative of a news organization to fly in space and the second NFL veteran after retired NASA astronaut Leland Melvin.
All six crew members will strap into a New Shepard capsule on Dec. 9 at Blue Origin’s launch site near remote Van Horn, Texas. It will be the third New Shepard flight carrying a crew, the company’s sixth flight this year and the first carrying a full complement of six crew members.
“When I was a young boy growing up in rural Northern Idaho, I thought spaceflight was a possibility that only a handful of astronauts could achieve, and I could have never imagined that would someday include me,” Taylor wrote in a blog post.
“To be one of just 600 humans to cross … into space since the beginning of time? How could this even be possible? What an extraordinary privilege. But as many of us believe, with great privilege comes great responsibility. That is why I intend to buy one/give one. More on that later.”
The New Shepard spacecraft is designed to carry passengers just above 62 miles, the internationally recognized “boundary” between the discernible atmosphere and space. As the spacecraft arcs up to the top of its trajectory and starts back down, the crew will experience three to four minutes of weightlessness.
Blue Origin is competing with Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic for passengers willing and able to pay upwards of $500,000 a ticket to experience the absence of gravity and panoramic views of Earth from the lower reaches of space.
Virgin Galactic has launched four piloted flights of its VSS Unity spaceplane, carrying Branson and company pilots and engineers to altitudes just above 50 miles, the boundary recognized by NASA and the FAA. Commercial flights are expected to start next year.
Blue Origin’s first piloted flight, carrying Bezos and three passengers, came in July, followed by a flight in October that carried “Star Trek” actor William Shatner into space, along with a company executive and two paying customers.
Overall, 601 individuals have flown in space, 29 on suborbital spaceflights aboard the X-15 rocket plane, a privately developed spaceplane known as SpaceShipOne, Blue Origin’s New Shepard and Virgin Galactic’s Unity.
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Russia’s Prichal node module moments before docking at the International Space Station. Credit: Roscosmos
Russia’s Prichal docking module linked up with the International Space Station Friday, adding the final planned piece of the Russian segment of the outpost to provide a new connection for future crew and cargo ships.
The spherical, ball-shaped docking node launched Wednesday at 8:06:35 a.m. EST (1306:35 GMT) on top of a Russian Soyuz-2.1b rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The propulsion module from a modified Progress supply ship guided the Prichal module on a two-day pursuit of the space station, culminating in an automated docking at 10:19 a.m. EST (1519 GMT) Friday.
The Progress tug lined up the Prichal module with its new home attached to the Nauka multi-purpose lab module on the bottom side of the space station’s Russian segment. The long-delayed Nauka module docked at the station in July, becoming the largest pressurized module to arrive at the outpost in more than a decade.
“Contact confirmed, and capture confirmed,” said Rob Navias, a NASA spokesperson providing commentary of the docking on NASA TV. “A holiday season delivery of a new module to complete the Russian segment of the International Space Station.”
Docking occurred as the space station soared 262 miles (421 kilometers) over Ukraine.
Hooks closed a few minutes later to create a firm mechanical connection between the Prichal module and the space station. After equalizing pressure in the docking adapter, Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov planned to open hatches and enter the new module.
Contact and capture confirmed.
Russia’s new Prichal node module has arrived at the International Space Station after a two-day pursuit from a launch pad in Kazakhstan.
The cosmonauts will ready the module for the disconnection and departure of its Progress propulsion tug Dec. 21. The Progress propulsion module will burn up when it re-enters the atmosphere.
Shkaplerov and Dubrov plan to head outside the space station Jan. 19 on a spacewalk to connect cables between the Nauka and Prichal modules, preparing the new docking node to receive a Soyuz crew capsule in March.
The combined Prichal and Progress spacecraft weighed around 18,000 pounds (8.2 metric tons) at launch. Prichal itself has a mass of about 10,250 pounds (4,650 kilograms), according to Roscosmos, the Russian space agency.
Prichal has a diameter of about 11 feet (3.3 meters), and features six docking ports. One was used to link up with the Nauka module at the space station, while the other docking ports will receive visiting crew and cargo ships.
Russia’s new Prichal node module took the place of the Progress MS-17 spacecraft previously docked at the Nauka module. The Progress spacecraft undocked from Nauka on Thursday, clearing a path for Prichal’s docking. The Progress took with it a docking adapter that launched with Nauka to temporarily accommodate Soyuz and Progress vehicles.
The Prichal module will become a standard docking location for visiting Soyuz crew ferry ships.
Russian ground teams packed around 1,543 pounds (700 kilograms) of cargo inside the Prichal module, including water treatment equipment, medical and sanitary supplies, and rations for the space station crew.
A Soyuz-2.1b rocket blasts off with the Prichal module. Credit: Roscosmos
“The International Space Station has received its second module this year!” Shkaplerov tweeted Friday. “Now, the Prichal Node Module has become part of the ISS Russian segment. Its creation and launch is a big step towards the concept of a renewable national space station with an unlimited lifespan.”
Dmitry Rogozin, head of Roscosmos, said in a statement that the Prichal module will allow engineers to develop technologies that could be used on a future Russian-led space station. The design of the Prichal node module, with its five radial docking ports, could allow the replacement of individual modules over time.
“Today, we can state the fact that the formation of the Russian segment of the International Space Station has been completed,” Rogozin said.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off with NASA’s DART asteroid deflection mission. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
A small NASA space probe blasted off from California early Wednesday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on a first-of-its-kind mission to change the orbit of an asteroid, pioneering a technique that may one day be used to divert an asteroid off of a collision course with Earth.
The $330 million Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART mission, is taking aim on a stadium-sized asteroid named Dimorphos. Next September, the spacecraft will slam into the asteroid at a speed of roughly 15,000 mph (24,000 kilometers per hour) to knock it slightly off course.
Scientists will use telescopes on Earth to measure how much the collision changes the orbit of Dimorphos around its larger companion asteroid, named Didymos. The data will allow scientists to determine how effective a kinetic impactor spacecraft might be against another asteroid that might pose a future threat to Earth.
DART is humanity’s first planetary defense mission, part of a new NASA division established to find, characterize, and potentially protect Earth from asteroids in our region of the solar system.
“DART is a technology demonstrator,” said Elena Adams, DART’s mission systems engineer at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, which developed the mission for NASA. “We are demonstrating a variety of technology. The most important thing that we’re demonstrating is the ability to impact an asteroid. Just to give you an idea of how hard that is, we are traveling 107 million miles to hit something that’s 0.1 mile in size.”
“What we’re trying to learn is how to deflect a threat that would come in,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, head of NASA’s science mission directorate. “Rest assured, that rock right now is not a threat, and it will not be a threat before or after. Of all the near-Earth objects we know today, none of them are a threat within 100 years or so.”
Liftoff of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket with DART, humanity’s first experimental mission to prove technology that could protect planet Earth from a threatening asteroid. https://t.co/fg2AwrSDNApic.twitter.com/PDvIhTS8Og
The 1,358-pound (616-kilogram) DART spacecraft lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, at 1:21:02 a.m. EST Wednesday (0621:02 GMT; 10:21:02 p.m. PST Tuesday) on top of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
Nine Merlin 1D main engines throttled up to full power to propel the 229-foot-tall (70-meter) launcher off the pad with 1.7 million pounds of thrust. After rocketing through a low haze layer, the Falcon 9 arced downrange through a clear sky toward the south-southeast from the Vandenberg launch base on California’s Central Coast.
The first stage booster, designated B1063 in SpaceX’s inventory, cut off and separated two-and-a-half minutes into the mission. The booster descended back through the atmosphere and made a propulsive landing on SpaceX’s drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You” parked around 400 miles (650 kilometers) downrange from Vandenberg in the Pacific Ocean.
The landing completed the reusable first stage’s third trip to space and back.
Meanwhile, the Falcon 9’s single-use second stage burned its engine nearly six minutes to reach a preliminary parking orbit with the DART spacecraft. A second burn, lasting nearly a minute, started 28 minutes after liftoff to accelerate DART to a speed of more than 24,000 mph (39,000 kilometers per hour), placing DART on a trajectory to escape the trip of Earth’s gravity.
The rocket deployed the DART spacecraft around 55 minutes into the mission. A live view from the launcher showed the probe receding from the Falcon 9 second stage.
DART was the first NASA interplanetary probe to launch on a SpaceX rocket.
SpaceX says the Falcon 9 booster landed on the drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You” in the Pacific Ocean after launch with NASA’s DART asteroid deflection mission.
NASA later confirmed ground controllers established communications with DART, first through a European Space Agency antenna in Australia, then through NASA’s own Deep Space Network station in Spain.
DART then unfurled two power-generating solar array wings to a span of more than 60 feet (19 meters) tip-to-tip. The roll-out solar arrays, made by Redwire, are the first of their kind to fly on a deep space mission, following previous use on the International Space Station.
Didymos and Dimorphos, the binary asteroid system targeted by DART, orbit the sun in an elongated path that occasionally bring them into Earth’s neighborhood.
That classifies them as near-Earth asteroids, although scientists say there is no near-term threat from the pair. No space mission has ever explored Didymos and Dimorphos, but scientists who have observed them through telescopes say the asteroids are about a half-mile (780 meters) and 525 feet (160 meters) in diameter, respectively.
Scientists estimate there should be around 25,000 near-Earth asteroids the size of Dimorphos. An asteroid of that size that impacts Earth could wipe out a metropolitan area, causing mass casualties.
NASA says surveys have discovered around 40% of similar-sized near-Earth asteroids. Scientists have found more than 95% of the population of larger 1-kilometer-class (0.6-mile) near-Earth asteroids, which could wreak global damage if they hit our planet. The percentage is much lower for the smaller asteroids, but they pose a more limited risk.
NASA plans to launch its second planetary defense mission, an infrared telescope and follow-on to DART, in 2026 to find most of the undetected dangerous near-Earth asteroids.
“Our work right now with the DART mission is one possibility of what we might do if we found an asteroid on an impact course with the Earth,” said Lindley Johnson, NASA’s planetary defense officer. “So we’re testing this kinetic impactor technique, where we just ram a spacecraft into the asteroid at high velocity to shave a little bit of speed off of its path, and that changes into the future.”
A small speed adjustment could result in large changes in the asteroid’s location years or decades into the future, meaning that with enough warning, a relatively compact spacecraft could be all that is needed to safeguard Earth from an impact.
“Our objective is to find these objects far way in time and far away from Earth, and to be able to enact this change in their orbit many years in advance, so it doesn’t take much to change them at all,” Johnson said.
NASA’s DART spacecraft during pre-launch processing at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. One of the spacecraft’s roll-out solar arrays is visible on the right. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Ed Whitman
With an on-time launch Wednesday, DART’s arrival at Dimorphos is tentatively set for Sept. 26, 2022, according to Adams.
Over the next 10 months, DART will prove out several new technologies that could be used on future deep space probes.
The NASA Evolutionary Xenon Thruster-Commercial, or NEXT-C, thruster is a technology demonstration component of the DART mission. Developed by NASA’s Glenn Research Center and Aerojet Rocketdyne, the new thruster is an upgraded, more powerful version of ion propulsion system used on previous NASA space missions.
DART’s NEXT-C thruster is not required for the craft to reach asteroid Dimorphos, but a series of “neutral” burns of the ion propulsion system over the next few months will demonstrate the engine for use on future probes.
Ion propulsion systems operate at low thrust, but they can fire continuously for months or years while consuming relatively little fuel. They work by accelerating ionized gas using electricity. In DART’s case, the electricity will be generated by two roll-out solar panels, also a relatively new technology.
DART also carries flat radio antennas as another of the mission’s tech demos.
The DART mission was supposed to launch in July, but NASA announced earlier this year that the launch would slip to November due delays in delivering the spacecraft’s primary instrument and solar arrays.
NASA said the delay was caused by “technical challenges” associated with the spacecraft’s Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation, or DRACO, imaging system, which needed to be reinforced to ensure it can survive the stresses of a rocket launch.
The DRACO camera will take pictures of the Didymos and Dimorphos asteroids just before impact, collecting information on the asteroids’ locations to help DART navigate toward an aim point at the center of Dimorphos.
The delivery of the spacecraft’s roll-out solar arrays was also delayed due to supply chain issues, partly blamed on the COVID-19 pandemic.
DART separation confirmed!
NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission got a successful start with a launch from California aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
A small CubeSat provided by the Italian Space Agency rode to space with DART. It will deploy next September, about 10 days before impact with Dimorphos. The ridealong spacecraft, named LICIACube, will maneuver to a trajectory offset from DART, allowing it to safely fly by and watch the collision with a pair of optical cameras.
DART will take over autonomous control of its flight about four hours before smashing into Dimorphos. The spacecraft will use sophisticated on-board navigation algorithms derived from missile guidance systems, called Small-body Maneuvering Autonomous Real Time Navigation, or SMART Nav.
The corrections needed to guide DART in toward Dimorphos will be too fast for mission control to command, and there will be a 38-second communication delay from the asteroid’s location to Earth, a distance of around 6.8 million miles (11 million kilometers).
Twelve hydrazine-fueled thrusters will steer DART on its final collision course.
DART will stream live video back to Earth from its DRACO cameras. Because of the high-speed approach and the small size of Dimorphos, the target asteroid will only be revealed in DRACO’s view finder in the final hour before impact.
“At about four minutes out … we’re finally starting to see the shape of Dimorphos, and then in four minutes we slam into it,” Adams said. “So there’s really not much time to react, and we’ve got to be right the first time.”
The collision will destroy DART and likely leave a small crater on Dimorphos. Then comes telescopic observations to monitor the double asteroid for changes in its orbit.
This graphic illustrates the major elements of the DART mission, showing the spacecraft’s approach and collision with asteroid Dimorphos, while the Italian LICIACube ridealong satellite and ground-based telescopes observe the impact. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University APLL
Dimorphos currently circles its larger companion about once ever 11 hours, 55 minutes. Officials expect that orbital period to change by about 10 minutes from the transfer of kinetic energy caused by DART’s crash.
“With that we can we can do a lot of the analysis we need to determine the effectiveness of using kinetic impact as a tool, as one of the strategies, to protect Earth from asteroid impacts,” said Ed Reynolds, DART’s project manager at APL.
[…] As outlined in AmericaSpace’s preview story, the 1,480-pound (670-kilogram) DART is a ten-month mission to hit Dimorphos at a velocity of about 4.1 miles per second (6.5 kilometers per second) in October 2022. It is hoped that the impact will disrupt Dimorphos sufficiently as to slow its near-circular path around Didymos by as much as ten minutes, reducing its orbital length from 11.9 hours to about 11.83 hours. […]
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[…] Additional launches included a pair of geostationary communications satellites for SiriusXM and the Turkish Government and last September’s historic all-civilian Inspiration4 crewed mission to low-Earth orbit. […]
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NASA TV’s live video webcast begins at 0530 GMT (12:30 a.m. EST), and will be available on this page.
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[…] This year’s roster to date has seen 15 dedicated Starlink missions, a pair of multi-payload Transporter “rideshares” in January and June and two Cargo Dragon and two Crew Dragon flights to the International Space Station (ISS). […]
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[…] 15 dedicated Starlink missions, a pair of multi-payload Transporter “rideshares” in January and June and two Cargo Dragon and two Crew Dragon flights to the International Space Station […]
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@SpaceX has launched its record-tying 26th Falcon 9 mission of 2021, carrying the DART impact mission, bound for the binary asteroid system Didymos/Dimorphos.
These photos show SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket standing on Space Launch Complex 4-East at Vandenberg Space Force Base, hours before liftoff with NASA’s DART mission, an experiment to test how a spacecraft might deflect a hazardous asteroid away from Earth.
The 229-foot-tall (70-meter) launcher is awaiting blastoff at 10:21:02 p.m. EST Tuesday (1:21:02 a.m. EST; 0621:02 GMT Wednesday) from Vandenberg, a military launch facility on California’s Central Coast between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, spacecraft is sitting on top of the rocket. The Falcon 9 will send the spacecraft — about the size of a small car — on a course toward a pair of companion asteroids named Didymos and Dimorphos.
DART will collide with Dimorphos — the smaller of the two — at around 15,000 mph (24,000 kilometers per hour) next September. Scientists will use ground-based telescopes to measure how much the impact, which will destroy the DART spacecraft, changed the orbit of Dimorphos around Didymos, its larger companion.
Didymos and Dimorphos are not a threat to Earth any time in the near future, but the kinetic impact technique could be used if scientists found an asteroid on a collision course with our planet. A deflection mission far enough in advance of the threat to Earth could nudge an asteroid into a different orbit, eliminating the hazard to our planet.
Credit: Gene Blevins / LA Daily NewsCredit: Gene Blevins / LA Daily NewsCredit: Brian Sandoval / Spaceflight NowCredit: Brian Sandoval / Spaceflight NowCredit: Brian Sandoval / Spaceflight NowCredit: Brian Sandoval / Spaceflight Now
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is set for liftoff from Vandenberg Space Force Base, heading southeast over the Pacific Ocean with NASA’s DART asteroid deflection experiment.
The 229-foot-tall (70-meter) rocket is poised for takeoff from Space Launch Complex 4-East at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, at 10:21:02 p.m. PST on Nov. 23 (1:21:02 a.m. EST; 0621:02 GMT on Nov. 24).
The payload for the mission is NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, mission. The first-of-its-kind mission will take aim on a binary asteroid next September, guiding itself to strike the smaller of the pair.
The target asteroid, named Dimorphos, is about the size of a football stadium. Scientists will use ground-based telescopes to measure how much the kinetic impact from DART changed the orbit of Dimorphos around its larger companion, named Didymos.
The experiment will demonstrate how a future spacecraft could be launched to nudge an asteroid off of a collision course with Earth. Didymos and Dimorphos, the asteroid system targeted by DART, do not pose any near-term threat to our planet.
DART was developed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, and funded by NASA. The entire mission costs $330 million, according to NASA.
The Falcon 9 first stage booster set to launch the DART mission has two previous flights to its credit. It first flew in November 2020 with the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich oceanography satellite, then launched again in May with 60 Starlink internet satellites.
The timeline below outlines the launch sequence for the Falcon 9 flight with DART.
Data source: SpaceX
T-0:00:00: Liftoff
After the rocket’s nine Merlin engines pass an automated health check, hold-down clamps will release the Falcon 9 booster for liftoff from the SLC-4E launch pad at Vandenberg Space Force Base.
T+0:01:00: Mach 1
The Falcon 9 rocket reaches Mach 1, the speed of sound, as the nine Merlin 1D engines provide more than 1.7 million pounds of thrust.
T+0:01:12: Max Q
The Falcon 9 rocket reaches Max Q, the point of maximum aerodynamic pressure.
T+0:02:33: MECO
The Falcon 9’s nine Merlin 1D engines shut down.
T+0:02:36: Stage 1 Separation
The Falcon 9’s first stage separates from the second stage moments after MECO.
T+0:02:44: First Ignition of Second Stage
The second stage Merlin-Vacuum engine ignites for a five-and-a-half-minute burn to put the rocket and DART spacecraft into a preliminary parking orbit.
T+0:03:11: Fairing Jettison
The 5.2-meter (17.1-foot) diameter payload fairing jettisons once the Falcon 9 rocket ascends through the dense lower atmosphere. The 43-foot-tall fairing is made of two clamshell-like halves composed of carbon fiber with an aluminum honeycomb core.
T+0:06:40: Stage 1 Entry Burn Begins
A subset of the first stage’s Merlin 1D engines begin an entry burn to slow down for landing. A final landing burn will occur just before touchdown.
T+0:08:06: SECO 1
The second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket shuts down after reaching a preliminary low-altitude orbit around Earth. The upper stage and DART begin a coast phase scheduled to last more than 20 minutes before the second stage Merlin Vacuum engine reignites.
T+0:08:52: Stage 1 Landing
The Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage booster touches down on SpaceX’s drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You” in the Pacific Ocean.
T+0:28:37: Second Ignition of Second Stage
The Falcon 9’s second stage Merlin engine restarts to propel the DART spacecraft on an Earth escape trajectory.
T+0:29:30: SECO 2
The Merlin engine shuts down after a 53-second burn to put the DART spacecraft on the proper trajectory to escape Earth’s gravity.
T+0:55:40: DART Separation
NASA’s 1,358-pound (616-kilogram) DART spacecraft separates from the Falcon 9 rocket’s second stage.
Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a Vega rocket with the French military’s CERES electronic intelligence-gathering satellites. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter.
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The James Webb Space Telescope inside its clean room in French Guiana. Credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/P. Piron
NASA said Monday the launch of the $9.7 billion James Webb Space Telescope will be delayed at least four days until no earlier than Dec. 22 out of “sheer caution” to ensure the observatory suffered no damage from vibrations during a processing incident at its launch site in French Guiana.
Ground teams are retesting parts of the observatory to make sure all systems remain healthy for launch aboard a European Ariane 5 rocket next month. The launch was previously scheduled for Dec. 18.
NASA said technicians were preparing to attach the 35-foot-tall (10.66-meter) James Webb Space Telescope to the launch vehicle adapter, a device that connects the observatory with the upper stage of the Ariane 5 rocket. The adapter has a clamp band system that secures the spacecraft to the rocket until the command to separate Webb about a half-hour after liftoff.
In a written update Monday, NASA said a “sudden, unplanned release” of the clamp band during processing in French Guiana “caused a vibration throughout the observatory.”
“It’s a clamp band with very high tension,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s science mission directorate. “In doing so, we had an anomaly. That clamp band came off in a way that the clamp band is not designed to come off.”
RUAG Space, a Swiss company that specializes in building rocket structures and other components, supplied the payload adapter system for the Ariane 5 rocket and Webb, according to posts on the company’s social media pages.
The processing work inside the S5 payload facility at the Guiana Space Center is being performed under the “overall responsibility” of Arianespace, the French launch services provider for the Ariane 5 program. The European Space Agency, a junior partner on Webb, is paying for the launch as part of its contribution to the mission.
NASA said it is leading an anomaly review board to investigate the incident.
“When you work on a $10 billion telescope, conservatism is the order of the day,” Zurbuchen said.
Engineers analyzed the potential energy that could have been transferred into the Webb observatory when the clamp band released.
“Just for sheer caution, what we have done after these calculations is gone back to a small number of subsystems to just do the functional tests … just to be sure that nothing happened as this energy went into the bus,” Zurbuchen said. “That’s what we’re working on. That’s why we need a few extra days.
“We’ve always said that we will launch this telescope when we’re absolutely ready to go,” he added. “The right thing to do right now is to do these tests to make sure that everything is ready as we think they are. I hope that in just a few days here we will be in good shape … We’ll keep you informed as we go forward with it.”
NASA said it will release another update on the Webb launch campaign when the testing is completed at the end of this week.
The James Webb Space Telescope is folded up in launch configuration to fit inside the 17.7-foot-wide (5.4-meter) payload fairing of its Ariane 5 rocket. Once in space, the observatory will unfurl a power-generating solar panel and a high-gain communications antenna, then start a series of make-or-break deployments of its five-layer sunshield, which will open to the size of a tennis court.
Webb has 18 gold-coated beryllium mirror segments that will combine to create the largest telescope mirror ever sent into space, with a diameter of 21.3 feet (6.5 meters). Some of the mirrors are mounted on deployable wings that must fold into place to configure the telescope for science observations.
Then the telescope’s infrared detectors have to cool down to cryogenic temperatures, with parts of the instruments chilled to near absolute zero at a temperature of 7 Kelvin (minus 447.1 degrees Fahrenheit).
The telescope’s mirror segments each have tiny mechanical actuators to adjust focus and alignment.
The design makes Webb the most expensive and most complex science mission ever launched into space.
The problem of asteroid hazard is very serious and will always hang over humanity like the sword of Damocles. It is quite natural when everyone wants to hope for the success of space missions aimed at preventing this danger. But when such a mission is conceived with violating the law of physics (the impossibility of momentum transferring to the target as a whole during an perfectly inelastic collision) and astronomical data (the crumbly internal structure of the near-Earth asteroids in the presence of large vacuum voids, which are able to completely damp the shock wave already near the collision zone), then without sufficient theoretical and model-experimental substantiation the probability of its success will be extremely low.
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NASA’s DART spacecraft was encapsulated inside the payload fairing of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Nov. 16. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Ed Whitman
A small NASA spacecraft set to launch on a collision course with an asteroid has been encapsulated inside the payload fairing of its Falcon 9 rocket for blastoff from California this week, a mission that will mark SpaceX’s first launch with a solar system science probe.
NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, mission will mark the first time a spacecraft will demonstrate a planetary defense technique that could protect Earth from a future threatening asteroid.
The $330 million mission is small in scale compared to many of NASA’s interplanetary probes. Instead of traveling across the solar system for years, the 1,345-pound (610-kilogram) DART spacecraft will blast off on a 10-month one-way trip to a pair of asteroids named Didymos and Dimorphos.
The mission take aim on Dimorphos, the smaller of the two asteroids, and crash into it. Astronomers on Earth, some 6.8 million miles (11 million kilometers) will measure how the kinetic impact changes the orbit of Dimorphos around its larger companion Didymos.
“Our mission is to hit an asteroid at 15,000 mph (24,000 kilometers per hour),” said Ed Reynolds, DART project manager at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. “That’s rough. That’s hard. We’ve worked really, really hard to design a mission that will hit the moon of an asteroid system.”
Assuming the mission blasts off from Vandenberg Space Force Base at 1:21:02 a.m. EST Wednesday (10:21:02 p.m. PST Tuesday), DART will reach Dimorphos on Sept. 26, 2022.
DART is the first NASA interplanetary probe to launch on a SpaceX rocket.
“Everything on the rocket is looking great for launch,” said Julianna Scheiman, director for civil satellite missions at SpaceX, in a pre-launch press conference Monday afternoon. “We’re planning to roll out this evening, and we’re not tracking any issues.”
DART will fly on a Falcon 9 rocket powered by a twice-flown reusable first stage. Designated B1063 in SpaceX’s fleet, the booster launched from Vandenberg on its first flight last November to carry the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich oceanography satellite into space.
After landing back at Vandenberg, the booster was transported across the country to Cape Canaveral for a launch with 60 Starlink internet satellites May 26. SpaceX shipped the rocket by truck back to California for the launch with DART.
On this mission, the Falcon 9’s first stage will shut down its Merlin 1D engines about two-and-a-half minutes into the mission, then begin maneuvers toward a landing on a SpaceX drone ship parked downrange in the Pacific Ocean.
The Falcon 9 upper stage will continue heading south over the Pacific, firing its single Merlin engine to propel DART on an escape trajectory away from Earth and into the solar system.
Didymos and Dimorphos orbit the sun in an elongated path that occasionally bring them into Earth’s neighborhood. That makes them potentially hazardous asteroids, although scientists say there is no near-term threat from the pair. No space mission has ever explored Didymos and Dimorphos, but scientists who have observed them through telescopes say the asteroids are about a half-mile (780 meters) and 525 feet (160 meters) in diameter, respectively.
“It’s an intentional crash of a spacecraft into a rock,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s science mission directorate. “Of course, what we’re trying to learn is how to deflect a threat that would come in. Rest assured, that rock, right now, is not a threat, and it will not be a threat before or after. Of all the near-Earth objects we know today, none of them are a threat within 100 years or so.”
NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, spacecraft during pre-launch processing at a SpaceX facility at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Ed Whitman
Scientists estimate there should be around 25,000 near-Earth asteroids the size of Dimorphos, with the approximate dimensions of a football stadium. An asteroid of that size that impacts Earth could wipe out a metropolitan area, causing mass casualties.
NASA says surveys have discovered around 40% of similar-sized near-Earth asteroids. Scientists have found more than 95% of the population of larger 1-kilometer-class (0.6-mile) near-Earth asteroids, which could wreak global damage if they hit our planet. The percentage is much lower for the smaller asteroids, but they pose a more limited risk.
DART is the first space mission in NASA’s planetary defense program. The agency plans to launch its next planetary defense mission, an infrared telescope, in 2026 to find most of the undetected dangerous near-Earth asteroids.
The DART spacecraft arrived at Vandenberg on Oct. 2 after a cross-country trip by truck from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.
A small CubeSat provided by the Italian Space Agency will ride to space with DART, then deploy about 10 days before impact. The ridealong spacecraft, named LICIACube, will maneuver to a trajectory offset from DART, allowing it to safely fly by and watch the collision with a pair of optical cameras.
Since DART’s at Vandenberg, ground teams tested the spacecraft to ensure it survived the transport from Maryland, then loaded around 110 pounds (50 kilograms) of hydrazine fuel to feed the probe’s 12 small rocket thrusters. The rocket jets will be used for fine pointing and maneuvers of spacecraft during its flight to Didymos and Dimorphos.
The DART spacecraft shipped from the Applied Physics Laboratory with xenon gas already loaded for its ion propulsion system. The mission will be the first for a new high-efficiency electric thruster developed by NASA’s Glenn Research Center and Aerojet Rocketdyne.
The NASA Evolutionary Xenon Thruster-Commercial, or NEXT-C, thruster is a technology demonstration component of the DART mission. The new thruster is an upgraded, more powerful version of ion propulsion system used on previous NASA deep space probes.
Ion propulsion systems operate at low thrust, but they can fire continuously for months or years while consuming relatively little fuel. They work by accelerating ionized gas using electricity. In DART’s case, the electricity will be generated by two roll-out solar panels.
The DART mission was supposed to launch in July, but NASA announced earlier this year that the launch would slip to November due delays in delivering the spacecraft’s primary instrument and solar arrays.
NASA said the delay was caused by “technical challenges” associated with the spacecraft’s Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation, or DRACO, imaging system, which needed to be reinforced to ensure it can survive the stresses of a rocket launch.
The DRACO camera will take pictures of the Didymos and Dimorphos asteroids just before impact.
The delivery of the spacecraft’s Roll-Out Solar Arrays, known as ROSA, was delayed due to supply chain issues, partly blamed on the COVID-19 pandemic.
Illustration of NASA’s DART spacecraft and the Italian Space Agency’s (ASI) LICIACube prior to impact at the Didymos binary system. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben
DART was originally slated to fly as a secondary payload on a commercial launch, but NASA in 2019 chose SpaceX to launch the mission on a dedicated ride. NASA awarded SpaceX a $69 million contract for the launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base, the company’s first mission with a spacecraft heading to another planetary body.
It won’t be SpaceX’s first launch on an Earth escape trajectory. That happened in 2018, when SpaceX dispatched a Tesla Roadster into the solar system on a stylish debut of the company’s Falcon Heavy rocket.
But the Tesla was not a science probe, and it didn’t launch on a course to visit a planet or asteroid.
DART is the first of a growing list of solar system exploration missions booked to launch with SpaceX.
A Falcon Heavy rocket is scheduled for launch next August with NASA’s Psyche robotic science mission to visit a large metal-rich asteroid. Another Falcon Heavy is assigned to launch NASA’s flagship Europa Clipper spacecraft toward Jupiter in October 2024.
There are also commercial lunar landers and a South Korean moon orbiter in SpaceX’s backlog to fly on future Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy missions.
