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SpaceX scrubs Starlink satellite launch due to apparent rocket helium leak
November 4, 2024
SpaceX scrubbed a launch of its Starlink satellites this weekend due to an issue with one of its rockets.
The company was scheduled to launch a Falcon 9 rocket containing 23 of its Starlink satellites on Sunday (Nov. 3) from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, but SpaceX held the countdown at two minutes and 36 seconds due to what appears to be a helium leak.
"Hold, hold, hold. Standing down for helium, stage one," a SpaceX team member called out during the live broadcast of the planned launch on X (formerly Twitter).
A new launch date has not been set for the mission, designated Starlink 6-77.
SpaceX has another Falcon 9 rocket launch planned for Monday (Nov. 4), the CRS-31 robotic resupply flight to the International Space Station (ISS), currently set for 9:29 p.m. EST (0129 GMT on Tuesday, Nov. 5).
When the Starlink 6-77 mission does launch, its Falcon 9 first stage booster will come back down and land on the Just Read the Instructions droneship waiting offshore in the Atlantic Ocean.
This is the third scheduled flight for this particular booster, which also launched the Crew-9 astronaut mission for NASA.
https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-6-77-launch
https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=crs-31
Charter’s Plan to Fix Space Insurance
November 4, 2024
Charter, a CA-based space program management startup, has a plan to open up access to space insurance, the CEO told Payload.
Charter’s Ubik operating system manages complex space programs, recording inputs and data during the manufacturing process of satellites and other spacecraft.
By marrying that tech with an AI-powered underwriting tool, the startup is hoping to automate some of the burdensome process of creating insurance policies for space assets.
“[Underwriting] is a highly manual format, and because it’s so manual, essentially only a certain class of satellites—the very largest—can actually get insurance.
It’s a problem of economics, because the actual underwriting process is so laborious and so time consuming,” Charter CEO Yuk Chi Chan told Payload.
The problem: Charter estimates that approximately 97% of the ~10,500 active satellites on orbit are uninsured.
The bulk of those are smaller birds operating in LEO, where congestion can boost the risks of collisions.
This means that tens of billions of dollars worth of satellite technology is flying around without a financial safety net.
For insurers of space assets, this small risk pool has led to some devastating losses.
In 2023—a year marked by the loss of the ViaSat-3 satellite, among others—Slingshot Aerospace estimated that space insurers paid out nearly $1B in claims, posting a net loss of $438M for the year.
“Some insurers are exiting the space industry, while the ones who remain are substantially increasing premiums to hedge against the record losses in the industry,” Slingshot’s general manager Melissa Quinn said in the report.
Annual in-orbit insurance rates just about doubled in 2023, according to Slingshot.
Ultimately, this high barrier to entry means that many good ideas fail to get funding because financiers aren’t willing to take the risk on uninsured tech.
The solution: Charter is aiming for its insurance tool to increase the number of companies that can afford insurance.
“I hate using this term, but it will really democratize access to space because now all of a sudden, way more people can take risks without requiring a huge pool of capital behind them to basically buffer any shocks,” Chan said.
“People want insurance, insurers want to insure, and there is basically a giant valley of death in between supply and demand.”
It takes a similar amount of time and effort to underwrite a small satellite as it does a large one, according to Chan, so automating part of this effort will vastly reduce the time and costs to craft a policy.
What’s next: When it’s up and running in 2025, Charter hopes its insurance tool will create a mutually beneficial insurance market.
https://payloadspace.com/charters-plan-to-fix-space-insurance/
Astronomers urge FCC to halt satellite megaconstellation launches
November 4, 2024
Over 100 astronomers from leading U.S. universities have signed an open letter calling for an assessment of potential impacts of satellite megaconstellations on Earth's environment.
The researchers urge the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which approves satellite deployments in the U.S., to halt megaconstellation launches and conduct a thorough assessment of their possible environmental impacts before awarding further licenses.
U.S. government agencies are bound by the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), which requires them to consider the environmental impacts of their decisions.
A 1986 categorical exclusion, however, means that satellites are exempt from this requirement.
Researchers from leading U.S. universities including Harvard, Princeton and the University of California, Berkeley, are now calling for an end to this categorical exclusion.
While just a few hundred satellites orbited Earth in 1986, the number has risen to nearly 10,000 today, and a further tenfold increase is expected in the next decade.
This trend is driven mostly by the emerging satellite megaconstellations, such as SpaceX's Starlink, which promise to bridge the digital divide and provide people with no or insufficient connectivity with decent-quality internet.
Megaconstellation operators plan to regularly update their fleets with newer, more capable technology.
To prevent the accumulation of space debris, they send the outdated spacecraft into Earth's atmosphere to burn up at the end of their mission.
The potential harmful effects of this satellite incineration concern the researchers.
In addition to that, the growing number of satellites in orbit disrupts astronomical observations, creating unwanted streaks in telescope images.
"Artificial satellites, even those invisible to the naked eye, can obstruct astronomical observations that help detect asteroids and understand our place in the universe," Robert McMillan, research professor of astronomy emeritus at the University of Arizona and one of the letter's authors, said in an emailed statement.
"The potentially long-term environmental harms of deploying tens of thousands of satellites are still unclear."
Harvard University celebrity astrophysicist and extraterrestrial life researcher Avi Loeb is among the signatories of the letter. So are Jonathan McDowell, a leading space debris expert, satellite tracker and astronomer at Harvard Smithsonian; David Jewitt, the discoverer of the first Kuiper Belt object and distinguished professor of astronomy at UCLA; and space environmentalist Moriba Jah.
The U.S. nonprofit Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) conceived the letter following the release of its report detailing the potential hazards of satellite mass incineration in August.
PIRG estimates that when megaconstellation deployment reaches its peak, some 29 tons of metallic waste will be vaporizing in Earth's atmosphere every day, the equivalent of "a car falling from space" every hour.
Satellites are mostly made of aluminum, which forms aluminum oxide when burnt.
Aluminum oxide, or alumina, contributes to ozone depletion and can alter the atmosphere's ability to absorb heat, thus affecting Earth's climate.
Satellite reentries also produce nitrogen oxides, which, too, are known to damage ozone.
"The long-term effects of this massive change to our environment aren't clear," the scientists said in the letter.
"We can bring the world online without the unknown environmental harms of satellite megaconstellations.
The FCC should coordinate closely with the Environmental Protection Agency, NASA, and other national and international regulators to require extensive environmental reviews for the new space age.
We're in a short window of time when we can prevent making a mess of space and our atmosphere rather than spend decades cleaning it up."
PIRG campaign director Lucas Gutterman, the main force behind the initiative, told Space.com in an email that the group has reached out to FCC Space Bureau Chief Julie Kearney, asking for a meeting to discuss the concerns expressed in the letter.
"We're continuing to work with experts to bring their concerns to the FCC and lawmakers in D.C.," Gutterman wrote.
"The space industry has moved faster than the public or regulators were able to keep up, and we'll continue to raise the importance of this issue with the public.
The speed and scale of the new space race should be a kitchen-table issue, not an esoteric discussion among a small group of industry insiders."
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/satellites/astronomers-urge-fcc-to-halt-satellite-megaconstellation-launches
https://pirg.org/edfund/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/PIRG-Satellite-Letter-to-FCC-from-100-researchers.pdf
Japan launches military communications satellite on 4th flight of H3 rocket
November 4, 2024
Japan's new H3 rocket flew for the fourth time ever on Monday morning (Nov. 4).
The H3 launched Kirameki 3, a military communications satellite also known as DSN-3, from Tanegashima Space Center on Monday at 1:48 a.m. EST (0548 GMT; 3:48 p.m. local Japan time).
The flight was apparently a success: Kirameki 3 deployed at about 29 minutes after liftoff as planned, eliciting cheers and handshakes in mission control, as seen in the launch webcast by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
The two-stage H3 is Japan's new workhorse medium-lift rocket, the successor to the H-2A, which is about to retire after more than two decades of service.
The H-2A has just one mission left, and it's expected to lift off before the end of the year.
The H3, which was developed by JAXA and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, debuted in March 2023, about three years later than originally planned.
That first launch failed, resulting in the loss of the payload — the Advanced Land Observing Satellite-3 (ALOS-3, also known as DAICHI-3).
The rocket's next two flights were successful, however.
This past February, the H3 carried a 5,900-pound (2,600 kilograms) mass simulator to orbit and also successfully deployed two small Earth-observation satellites.
Then, on June 30, the rocket delivered the ALOS-4, or DAICHI-4, Earth-observation satellite to low Earth orbit as planned.
Monday morning's launch targeted a more distant destination — geostationary orbit, which lies 22,236 miles (35,786 kilometers) above Earth.
At this altitude, satellites complete one orbit in exactly one Earth day, meaning that satellites in geo "hover" over the same patch of the planet continuously.
According to NextSpaceflight.com, Kirameki 3 will be operated by DSN Corporation and "will be used for military communications by the Japanese military."
The satellite will communicate in the X band, part of the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum.
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/japan-launching-military-communications-satellite-early-nov-4-on-4th-flight-of-h3-rocket
>NASA they're all working together
Watch Rocket Lab launch mystery mission early on Nov. 5
November 4, 2024
Rocket Lab plans to launch a hush-hush mission early Tuesday morning (Nov. 5), and you can watch the action live.
The mission, for a "confidential commercial customer," is set to lift off atop an Electron vehicle from Rocket Lab's New Zealand site on Tuesday at 5:30 a.m. EST (0930 GMT).
Rocket Lab will webcast the launch live, beginning 30 minutes before liftoff. Space.com will carry the feed if Rocket Lab makes it available.
Tuesday's mission, which Rocket Lab calls "'Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes," will send one commercial satellite to low Earth orbit.
That's pretty much all we know about it, however; the company did not provide further information, presumably at the request of its unnamed customer.
"Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes" will be Rocket Lab's 12th launch of 2024 and 54th overall.
All of these missions have been performed by the 59-foot-tall (18 meters) Electron, which is designed to give small satellites dedicated rides to Earth orbit or beyond.
(An Electron launched NASA's CAPSTONE mission, which sent a cubesat to the moon.)
But that will change soon, if all goes according to plan: Rocket Lab is developing a larger, partially reusable rocket called Neutron, which is expected to debut next year.
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/watch-rocket-lab-launch-mystery-mission-early-on-nov-4
Orb people?