Vega launches a dozen smallsats

A Vega rocket successfully launched a dozen small satellites Oct. 8 while its more powerful version remains grounded for another year. The Vega rocket lifted off from the European spaceport at Kourou, French Guiana, at 9:36 p.m. Eastern. The launch was originally scheduled for Oct. 6 but scrubbed in the final minute of the countdown. Arianespace said the delay was due to “a measurement slightly above its maximum threshold” but did not elaborate. The company rescheduled the launch to Oct. 7 but pushed it back an additional day to complete checks on the vehicle. The two largest payloads on the launch were THEOS-2 and FORMOSAT-7R/TRITON, both placed in sun-synchronous orbits between 600 and 617 kilometers nearly 55 minutes after liftoff. The 417-kilogram THEOS-2 was built by Airbus Defence and Space for Thailand’s Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency. It will provide imagery at resolutions of up to 0.5 meters, providing service continuity for the 15-year-old THEOS-1, also built by Airbus. FORMOSAT-7R/TRITON was built and will be operated by the Taiwan Space Agency. The 241-kilogram satellite will collect radio occultation data from navigation satellites for use in weather forecasting. The Vega carried 10 secondary payloads, cubesats ranging in size from 3U to 12U. The satellites come from a variety of European developers, including those supported by the European Space Agency and European Union, primarily for technology demonstration purposes. Those satellites were released 1 hour and 44 minutes after liftoff, although Arianespace said in an Oct. 9 statement that it was still awaiting confirmation of the deployment of two of the cubesats.

A Vega rocket lifts off Oct. 8 on the first launch for that family of vehicles since a December 2022 failure of a larger Vega C rocket. Credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace

The launch, designated VV23 by Arianespace, was the first for the Vega family of vehicles since the December 2022 failure of the more powerful Vega C on its second launch. That failure was blamed on the Zefiro 40 motor used as the second stage of the Vega C. The original Vega, flown on this launch, uses the smaller Zefiro 23 motor as its second stage.

The Vega C remains grounded after an anomaly during a static-fire test of the upgraded Zefiro 40 motor in June. The investigation into that incident found problems with the design of the motor’s nozzle after its carbon-carbon throat insert was replaced to address the cause of the December launch failure.

ESA said Oct. 2 that the return to flight of the Vega C, previously projected to take place before the end of this year, has been pushed out to the fourth quarter of 2024 to given engineers time to make changes in the motor and conduct two static-fire tests.

Arianespace said a final launch of the original version of Vega is planned for the second quarter of 2024. The customer for that launch, as well as the return to flight of Vega C, has not been announced.

Rocket Lab opens engine facility in former Virgin Orbit headquarters

Rocket Lab has opened a new engine development center in a building that, six months earlier, was the headquarters of a competing launch company, Virgin Orbit. Rocket Lab held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Oct. 4 for its Engine Development Center here. The 13,400-square-meter facility will be used for production of both the Rutherford engines used on its Electron rocket and larger Archimedes engines it is developing for the Neutron rocket. The facility had previously been the headquarters for Virgin Orbit, where that company built its LauncherOne rockets. Virgin Orbit filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in April and Rocket Lab acquired the lease on the building, along with the machinery and equipment inside, for $16.1 million in a bankruptcy auction in May. Rocket Lab previously estimated the value of the facility and its contents at about $100 million. However, Adam Spice, Rocket Lab’s chief financial officer, said in an interview that the biggest impact of the purchase is “de-risking” the schedule for scaling up engine production. “Things that we were thinking we could probably get done in 12 to 18 months, well, it’s done. So really it was more of a timeline and uncertainty shrinker, if you will,” he said. “Getting stuff for 16 cents on the dollar didn’t hurt as well.” Before the bankruptcy sale, Rocket Lab has planned to produce engines in its existing headquarters just a few blocks away. “We could have done that, but that wouldn’t have allowed for the expansion of our space systems business,” he said, which produces satellites. “It’s freed up a tremendous amount of ability to scale up our space systems business. It’s probably a bigger enabler for space systems than it is for the rocket part of our business.”

Rocket Lab will use the former headquarters of Virgin Orbit for producing Rutherford and Archimedes engines. Credit: Rocket Lab/Austin Adams

The proximity of the new engine facility to Rocket Lab’s existing headquarters is another benefit, he added. “We really lucked out.”

Rocket Lab began moving into the building days after the bankruptcy sale closed. Employees started setting up equipment for engine production while organizing the items left behind by Virgin Orbit. Company employees said on a tour that they are still cataloging the inventory of items in the building, which ranged from advanced industrial equipment to large stockpiles of furniture and office equipment.

Spice said the company is already producing parts for the Archimedes engine, and over the previous weekend started moving the production line for the Rutherford engine into the new building. Full-scale engine production will ramp up over the next few months.

The new Rocket Lab facility also benefits the city of Long Beach, which has made a concerted effort in recent years to attract space companies to the city, including Rocket Lab as well as Relativity Space, SpinLaunch and Vast, under an initiative called “Space Beach”. Virgin Orbit had been the first, setting up that facility when it was still a division of Virgin Galactic.

“We were bummed about that,” Rex Richardson, mayor of Long Beach, said of Virgin Orbit’s bankruptcy at the dedication ceremony. “That was our first Space Beach company.”

He thanked Rocket Lab for taking over the facility and working with the city on job fairs for former Virgin Orbit employees. “What that means is that this burgeoning space cluster we have in Long Beach is resilient,” he said.

Rocket Lab, meanwhile, is continuing to investigate the Sept. 19 Electron launch failure. Spice said the investigation is still in its “early days” and didn’t offer a specific timetable for completing it or returning Electron to flight.

“Nothing right now would indicate anything different” for a return to flight compared to the two previous Electron launch failures in July 2020 and May 2021, he said. Those two previous failures both involved the upper stage, which also appeared to be the case with the latest failure, and the company resumed Electron launches within a few months.

“We’re confident we’ll get back relatively soon,” he said.

China outlines Chang’e-8 resource utilization mission to the lunar south pole

China has laid out details of its planned Chang’e-8 mission to test in-situ resource utilization on the moon, while also opening the project to international cooperation. Chang’e-8 is slated to launch in 2028 on a Long March 5 rocket from Wenchang spaceport. It will serve as a basis for China’s future, larger-scale International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) project, China National Space Administration (CNSA) officials stated at the 74th International Astronautical Congress in Baku, Oct. 2. The mission will consist of a lander, rover and robot. Science objectives include investigating the local geology, moon-based Earth observation, analyzing in-situ lunar samples and experimenting with resource utilization. Testing an enclosed terrestrial ecosystem in the lunar environment is also noted. The mission builds on China’s progress and achievements over the past decade and will verify key technologies for future missions. Li Guoping, chief engineer at CNSA, announced that China is open to international cooperation for the mission at different levels, from mission, to system and payload-levels. This was later clarified to include 200 kilograms of payload capacity for piggyback missions. CNSA set a deadline of Dec. 31 for letters of intent, with preliminary and final selections to be completed by April and September 2024 respectively. Wang Qiong, deputy chief designer of Chang’e-8, provided further details on the mission.

Artist impression of China's Chang'e-8 moon lander. Credit: CNSA

Regions around Leibnitz Beta, Amundsen crater, Cabeus crater and the Shackleton-de Gerlache Ridge are cited as preliminary landing sites. Three of these, including the latter connecting ridge, are being considered for the Artemis 3 crewed landing mission.

The Chang’e-8 lander will carry 10 science payloads with a further four on the rover. The lander will carry landing and topography cameras, a seismometer, moon-based Earth radiometer and multispectral imager, a soft X-ray telescope and other payloads along with the ecosystem and ISRU instruments.

The rover is equipped with 4 scientific payloads. These include a panoramic camera and lunar penetrating radar, as with rovers from the Chang’e-3 and -4 missions. It will also feature an infrared spectrum mineral analyzer and in-situ lunar sample analysis and storage device.

The mission will follow Chang’e-7 in 2026. That mission will also target the lunar south pole. Together with Chang’e-8 these missions will lay the groundwork for the grander ILRS project in the 2030s.

Chang’e-6, a first-ever lunar far side sample return, will launch in the first half of 2024 according to CNSA officials. This will follow the deployment of the Queqiao-2 relay satellite to support the mission.

The ILRS will be constructed using super heavy-lift rocket launches in the 2030s, according to Yu Dengyun, chief designer of the fourth phase of China’s lunar exploration project.

Yu stated that the ILRS would also, in its later utilization phase around 2040, serve as validation of technology and capabilities for a crewed mission to Mars.

Ispace revises design of lunar lander for NASA CLPS mission

The American subsidiary of Japanese company Ispace has revised the design of a lunar lander it is providing for a NASA mission, pushing back the launch of that mission by a year. The company, ispace technologies U.S., unveiled the new lander design, called APEX 1.0, at a Sept. 28 event at its new headquarters in the Denver suburb of Centennial, Colorado. The lander will be used on a NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) mission awarded to Draper in July 2022 that, at the time, planned to use a lander called Series-2. The lander redesign was driven by the needs of the NASA payloads. “The environmentals didn’t close on the Series-2 design, particularly in the area of vibration,” said Ron Garan, chief executive of ispace U.S., in an interview. “We needed to do a complete redesign of the vehicle in order to accommodate that.” The redesign, he said, ensures that the lander can accommodate the widest possible range of payloads. APEX 1.0 will be able to host up to 300 kilograms of payloads, with the ability to expand to 500 kilograms. The lander also supports the ability to release satellites in lunar orbit, which will be used for the CLPS mission to relay communications from its landing site on the lunar farside. Garan said there is strong interest from other customers in flying payloads both on the CLPS mission, called Mission 3 by ispace and CP-12 by NASA, and subsequent ones. That includes rovers as well as experiments in in situ resource utilization (ISRU). “We’re going after both commercial and government contracts to supplement CP-12. We have payload capacity right now,” he said.

The APEX 1.0 lander from ispace U.S. was designed to better accommodate payloads such as those flying on a NASA CLPS mission in 2026. Credit: ispace U.S.

The APEX 1.0 design has completed preliminary design reviews, with ispace projecting it will pass its critical design review (CDR) by March 2024. Garan said CDR is currently scheduled for December.

The revised lander, though, will delay the mission. When NASA selected the Draper-led team for the mission last year, it projected launch in 2025. That launch has now slipped to 2026, ispace said, because of the lander design.

That has financial implications for the company. In a Sept. 28 statement, ispace, traded on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, said it was lowering its sales forecast for the current fiscal year, which runs through March 2024, by more than 50% to 3.05 billion yen ($20.4 million) because the delays in Mission 3 mean payload sales will be recognized in later years.

Separately, ispace said it was lowering its projected net loss for the year by 3.385 billion yen to 4.5 billion yen, citing the payout from an insurance policy on its HAKUTO-R M1 lander that crashed attempting to land on the moon in April.

The company anticipates growing demand for lunar landers, which motivated the decision to move into a new 4,600-square-meter U.S. headquarters. “If we win some more contracts, we’re going to take off on a steeper exponential curve of growth, and so we need a facility that will enable that,” Garan said.

The facility will be able to support production of future landers, although other partners will handle the assembly, integration and testing of the Mission 3 lander. It will also host a growing engineering workforce. Garan said that ispace U.S. had about 50 employees when he joined three and a half months ago, and has now grown to 85. He projected the company will have more than 100 employees by the end of the year.

“It took ispace U.S. a little bit of time to get off the ground, to get going. We are firing on all cylinders now,” he said. “Out goal is to be a significant player, to make a significant contribution to the establishment of lunar infrastructure.”

China’s Galactic Energy suffers first launch failure

Chinese commercial rocket firm Galactic Energy experienced its first failure Thursday with its 10th launch attempt. Airspace closure notices pointed to a launch attempt from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China at around 1:00 a.m. Eastern, Sept. 21. The window passed without notification of a launch, which would typically follow within an hour of liftoff. Galactic Energy published an article confirming the loss of a Ceres-1 rocket and its payload via its WeChat social network account roughly six hours after launch. The company stated a four-stage Ceres-1 solid rocket lifted off from Jiuquan at 12:59 a.m. Eastern, carrying the Jilin-1 Gaofen-04B satellite for commercial remote sensing firm Changguang Satellite Technology (CGST). The specific reasons are being further analyzed and investigated, according to the Galactic Energy statement. The firm also expressed sincere apologies to its customers.The launch was the firm’s first major setback. All of its nine previous launches were successful, starting in November 2021. Galactic Energy had been executing a high-density period of launches, carrying out four missions between July 22 and Sept. 5, including a first launch from a mobile sea platform off the coast of Shandong province. Ceres-1 has a diameter of 1.4 meters, a length of about 20 meters, a mass at take-off of about 33 tons and a liquid propellant upper stage. It can deliver 400 kg to low Earth orbit (LEO) or 300 kg to a 500-kilometer-altitude sun-synchronous orbit (SSO). This was the first launch to 800 kilometers.

The company, which was founded in February 2018, is meanwhile also preparing for the first launch of its Pallas-1 kerosene-liquid oxygen launcher.

The reusable two-stage Pallas-1 will be capable of carrying 5,000 kilograms to LEO or 3,000 kilograms to 700-km SSO. The first expendable launch is slated for the third quarter of 2024.

CGST is an offshoot from the state-owned Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics (CIOMP) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Established in 2014, CGST has more than 100 satellites in orbit.

The company announced last year that it intends to expand its Jilin-1 constellation from a planned 138 satellites to 300 satellites by 2025.

Galactic Energy’s impressive record up to today appears to have secured it vital contracts to launch Jilin-1 satellites.

The launch was China’s 44th orbital mission of 2023 and the first failure. China’s state-owned main contractor has carried out 30 launches so far of a planned 60 or more, suggesting an intense period of launch activity in the remaining months of the year. The breakdown also highlights the growing role of commercial launch service providers in China.