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SpaceFlightVolume 63 No.12 December 2021 £5.99

A British Interplanetary Society publication

World Space Week promotes womenItalian Space Agency President interviewBritish space based solar power?’Oumuamua’s interstellar lessons2021: a space retrospective

Russia’s ChallengeWhy not more female cosmonauts?

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CONTENTS

SpaceFlight Vol 63 December 2021 1

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16 Italy’s plans are large and smaller Giorgio Saccoccia, Italian Space Agency President sets out Italy’s priorities.

20 ’Oumuamua: a guide for future human probes? Speculation on what the strange object means for space exploration.

24 No space for Russia’s women? Tony Quine reports on the impact of Russia’s cosmonaut actress.

28 Waste not want not Nina Kojima argues not littering should be space colonisation’s first rule.

30 2021: a space retrospective What a year it has been.

2 Behind the news Russia’s glide back booster – Nuri fails – Virgin Galactic grounded – World Space Week

8 Space UK

9 New Space Scotland’s strategy embraces the new space

way of working.

10 ISS Report 9 September – 8 October 2021.

34 Obituary Ed Buckley is remembered.

36 Space Models Willy Ley’s rockets live on in plastic.

38 Satellite Digest 587– sponsored by Seradata September 2021

43 Letters to the Editor

44 Society news / Diary / Membership What’s happened/ What’s coming up

Features

Regulars

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Editor Rob Coppinger Assistant Editor David McPadden Creative Consultant Andrée Wilson Design & Production MP3 Media Promotion Elizabeth Anderson Advertising Elizabeth Anderson Distribution Warners Group Distribution, The Maltings, Manor Lane, Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PH, England Tel: +44 (0)1778 391 000 Fax: +44 (0)1778 393 668 SpaceFlight, Arthur C. Clarke House, 27-29 South Lambeth Road, London SW8 1SZ, England Tel: +44 (0)20 7735 3160 Email: [email protected] www.bis-space.com

Published monthly by the British Interplanetary Society, SpaceFlight is a publication that promotes the mission of the British Interplanetary Society. Opinions in signed articles are those of the contributors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editor or the Council of the British Interplanetary Society. Registered Company No: 402498. Registered charity No: 250556. The British Interplanetary Society is a company limited by guarantee. Printed in England by Buxton Press Ltd.

© 2021 British Interplanetary Society ISSN 0038-6340. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording by any information storage or retrieval system without written permission from the Publishers. Photocopying permitted by license only.

OUR MISSION STATEMENTThe British Interplanetary Society

promotes the exploration and use of space for the benefit

of humanity, connecting people to create, educate and inspire,

and advance knowledge in all aspects of astronautics.

Letter from the Editor

Russia has claimed another first, filming scenes for a movie in space. Actress Yulia Peresild and her director, Klim Shipenko, spent 12 days on the International Space Station (ISS) filming scenes. Coinciding with a women themed World Space Week (See pages 7 and 44-47), Peresild’s flight, and her selection process, has highlighted the lack of female cosmonauts. Only four female cosmonauts and Peresild in the 60 years since Yuri Gagarin’s flight is a poor record. Russia has sent more space tourists into orbit and Peresild and Shipenko will be followed by Japanese businessman Yusaku Maezawa and video producer Yozo Hirano who fly in December. Maezawa has already agreed a lunar trip with SpaceX on Starship. With the September all-civilian Inspiration4 flight aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and the two Blue Origin commercial flights in July and October, there is a slowly growing level of commercial activity in low Earth orbit (LEO). While commerce has previously been limited to experiment racks on the ISS, it is now encompassing sub-orbital and orbital human spaceflight. We went to print on this December edition while the International Astronautical Congress was ongoing. Expect more IAC LEO commerce news from the biggest annual space exploration event in SpaceFlight’s January 2022 edition. Ad Astra.

Rob [email protected]

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2 Vol 63 December 2021 SpaceFlight

Aprototype reusable winged flyback first-stage booster is to be built this year, Russian space agency director general Dmitry Rogozin told the 72nd International Astronautical Congress (IAC)

in Dubai on 25 October.Speaking to the IAC head of agencies plenary

session, Rogozin explained that this first stage would use a single RD-171 engine which delivers 800 tonnes thrust. After this winged first stage separates from the upper stage, the flyback booster would return like an aircraft, gliding to its launch site. The RD-171 would not be fired again. Rogozin added that the vehicle’s design should be simple and reliable. Russia has previously developed a winged flyback first-stage booster. It was called Baikal, named after Russia’s deepest lake, but it was never used.

“This [new flyback first-stage] rocket should be as efficient as the Kalashnikov machine gun,” Rogozin told the heads of agency plenary, adding the joke, “We will even call it this name if we have your [IAC audience’s] support for it.” The Russians have concluded that due to the location of their Vostochny Cosmodrome they cannot take the same approach as SpaceX and its boost back landing of the Falcon 9 rocket. Landings at sea on a drone ship are also unfeasible because of the rough sea states in the sea of Okhotsk.

Russia has previously announced its Amur rocket which looks just like the SpaceX Falcon 9 but Rogozin’s comments indicate that does not have a future. Winged reusable rocket designs go back to the 1950s and Werner Von Braun who proposed a winged third stage and winged Mars “landing boats”. At the time Mars’ atmosphere was thought to be thick enough to allow an aircraft-like landing on the Red

Planet. Rogozin also announced at the IAC that Russia was developing a liquid methane engine which would not have to be cleaned after each flight and it could fly 100 missions, firing up to 300 times.

At the start of the heads of agency plenary, International Astronautical Federation (IAF) President Pascale Ehrenfreund introduced the panel. A video was shown of NASA Administrator Nelson talking about the importance of the environment and how satellites can help that vital mission. NASA deputy administrator, and former astronaut, Pam Melroy, repeated her boss’ message. European Space Agency director general Josef Aschbacher spoke of the imminent launch of the James Webb Space Telescope and his agency’s work on delivering terrestrial services with space assets. Canadian Space Agency President Lisa Campbell said that Canada plans to send a rover to the Moon among other future projects.

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) President Hiroshi Yamakawa said a new recruitment campaign for astronauts would begin soon and the selected class would go to the ISS and eventually the Gateway, which will be a Moon orbiting space station, and the Moon’s surface. JAXA wants to develop the life support system for the Gateway, resupply Gateway with its HTVX cargo spacecraft and create a crewed pressurised lunar rover.

India Space Research Organisation Chairman K. Sivan told the plenary that astronaut selection to fly its in-development Gaganyaan crewed spacecraft had been completed and the candidates’ training was underway.

In a pre-recorded video, China National Space Agency Administrator Kejian Zhang said China would publish its fifth five-year space plan in 2022. SF

BEHIND THE NEWS

Russia builds glide back boosterABOVE

(L-R) ISRO Chairman K. Sivan,

CSA President Lisa Campbell,

Roscosmos director general

Dnmitry Rogozin, his translator, NASA deputy administrator

Pam Melroy, ESA director general

Josef Aschbacher, JAXA President

Hiroshi Yamakawa, IAF executive

director Christian Feichtinger, IAF

President Pascale Ehrenfreund.

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BEHIND THE NEWS


China started its first six-month mission on 16 October when its three-crew Shenzhou-13

spacecraft docked with the Tiangong station, potentially starting a permanent Chinese presence in orbit.

The Shenzhou-13 mission will include two or three extravehicular activities to install devices for mechanical arms for the station and carry out other various unspecified science and technology experiments. On 16 October, a Long March-2F Y13 rocket carrying the Shenzhou-13 crewed spaceship launched from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northern China at 0023hrs (Beijing Time). Shenzhou-13’s three crew are Zhai Zhigang, Wang Yaping and Ye Guangfu. The spacecraft automatically rendezvoused and docked with Tiangong 6.5 hours later at 0656hrs (Beijing Time).

Zhai was commander of Shenzhou-7 in September 2008 when he became the first Chinese astronaut to conduct an extravehicular activity (EVA). He was awarded the title “Spaceflight Hero”. Wang flew on the Shenzhou-10 mission in June 13 when the spacecraft visited Tiangong-1, the prototype Chinese space station. She was awarded the title “Hero Astronaut”. Ye, a former People’s Liberation Army Air Force pilot,

is flying on his first mission. Wang is the first woman to board Tiangong and the first female Chinese astronaut to fly twice. Wang will also lecture students during her mission.

Due to Wang’s experience and Zhai’s previous EVA, they are expected to take the space walks to complete the station’s robotic arm. This will mean Wang will become the first Chinese woman to conduct an EVA. Shenzhou arrived at the nadir port, a belly port, of Tiangong’s central module, Tianhe, on 16 October. Tianhe is 16.6 metres long, has a diameter of 4.2 m and a launch mass of 22.5 tonnes. Shenzhou-13 docked at the nadir port as Tianhe has two resupply Tianzhou vessels docked either end. At 0958hrs (Beijing Time) on 16 October Zhai opened Tianhe’s hatch, and his crew entered the core module.

One of the crew’s first tasks was to transfer cargo to Tianhe. The crew opened Tianzhou-3’s hatch at 0950hrs (Beijing Time) on 17 October. Tianzhou-3 was launched on 20 September to deliver supplies including one EVA space suit for back-up, other EVA supplies, station platform materials, payloads and propellants. Tianzhou-2, the other docked resupply ship, was launched on 29 May. Tianhe was launched on 29 April. The next

rocket and spacecraft to go to Tiangong, Shenzhou-14, is already at Jiuquan, suggesting the Chinese want to be ready in case a rescue of the Shenzhou-13 crew is needed.

Tiangong’s final configuration has three modules, Tianhe and the two planned laboratories, Wentian and Mengtian. They could both be launched in 2022. The station could then have two or more Tianzhou craft docked to it along with a Shenzhou ship. Shenzhou-13’s six-month mission should end on 16 April next year and Shenzhou-14 is planned to fly in the March to April timeframe. Shenzhou-15 is planned to launch in November. All future Tiangong missions are to be 180-days long, so history may record Shenzhou-13 as the start of a permanent Chinese presence in orbit, just like the International Space Station.

It is perhaps not a coincidence that according to Universal Time Coordinated, Sheznhou-13 launched on 15 October, the 18th anniversary of the first Chinese human space flight. Another significance for Shenzhou-13 is the presence of Wang, which may indicate that China will have mixed gender crews from now on. SpaceFlight will have a China dedicated edition next year examining the Middle Kingdom’s space exploration programmes. SF

China’s 6-month space station missionsbegin

ABOVE(L-R) The crew of Shenzhou-13 who launched on 16 October Beijing Time are shown here, new astronaut Ye Guangfu, Zhai Zhigang the mission commander, and Wang Yaping on her second mission.

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BEHIND THE NEWS


T he Republic of Korea’s domestically developed rocket, Nuri, failed to place its dummy payload into the correct orbit on its first launch on 22 October.The three-stage liquid fuelled rocket launched from

South Korea’s Nora Space Center in Goheung, Jeonnam, in the morning and its third stage reached orbit but the dummy payload missed its target orbit. The test launch was to verify the performance of Nuri by deploying a dummy satellite and placing it in a sun synchronous orbit at 700 km altitude. The rocket launched at the beginning of the planned launch window which stretched from 21-28 October with the expectation weather would be the delaying factor.

“Korea Aerospace Research Institute’s [KARI] applied date for launch is Oct. 21, 2021 (1st launch), May 19, 2022 (2nd launch),” KARI said in a 14 September statement about a 12 August meeting of the Ministry of Science and ICT (MIST) and KARI. The date of the second launch, which would loft two satellites, will now be in doubt while the failed orbit investigation goes on. Prior to the launch decision

made in September, the rocket programme had passed a review by the Nuri Launch Management Committee, hosted by MIST.

Nuri had passed performance verification test for each of its stages. On 25 February, the second combustion test of Nuri’s first-stage propulsion engine took place at the Naro Space Center. The MIST and KARI announced a 100 second burn had been successfully completed. Nuri was unveiled as the first domestically produced rocket in February 2020. In March this year, the Korean government announced its 2021 space development implementation plan. The plan includes investments of £378.5 million.

The plan set out the goals of a successful Nuri launch followed by the orbiting of an earth observation satellite to observe the Korean Peninsula. Four nanosatellites for monitoring the space environment were also planned for the second half of 2022. Under the plan a Korean space-based navigation system will be developed along with a geostationary telecommunication satellite. It will provide disaster and safety response capabilities and provide public satellite communication services. Cheollian 3, which is based on a 500 kilogramme platform, is to be launched by a Soyuz rocket in February 2023. The satellite is expected to spur Korean industry to produce satellite technology.

Next August will see the launch of Korea’s first lunar exploration orbiter by SpaceX. Its final assembly was expected to be completed in October. It will film the lunar surface and have onboard a number of scientific payloads. The orbiter will use NASA’s ShadowCAM to film craters that never seen any sunlight and operate for one year. Korea is cooperating with NASA on its Artemis Moon programme and Korean involvement in Artemis is part of its space development plan. Under Korea’s plan, moon exploration with NASA is focused on developing deep space navigation and communication technology.

“We look forward to the moon exploration project securing the core technology of deep space exploration, at the same time becoming the starting point of space exploration such as developing lunar landing module in the future through mutual beneficial cooperation between Korea and the US,” said Korean government space and big science policy division officer, Kwon Hyeon-jun.k.” SF

Nuri fails to orbit

BELOWNuri blasts off

from Korea’s Nora Space Center

(above right) on 22 October 2021.

Unfortunately the rocket failed

to place its dummy payload

in its target Sun-synchronous orbit.

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NASA has not found the root cause of the valve problem which has potentially delayed the second

test flight of Boeing’s Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 Starliner spacecraft until next June.

NASA is now planning a rerun next year of the Starliner’s uncrewed Orbital Flight Test (OFT)-2, abandoned in August, on the assumption that it can solve the oxidiser isolation valve problem.

One known causal factor is the combination of moisture and oxidiser which is corrosive for the valves. But NASA and Boeing are not sure where the moisture comes from and think it is from natural humidity. Boeing’s spacecraft must pass the OFT-2 test to then carry astronauts in another test flight. Under Boeing’s contract with NASA, it is shouldering the costs of these delays. Starliner was originally planned to fly astronauts in 2017.

“This is a complex issue involving hazardous commodities and intricate areas of the spacecraft that are not easily accessed. It has taken a methodical approach and sound engineering to effectively examine,” said NASA Kennedy Space Center commercial crew programme manager, Steve Stich. Yet when Starliner flew without

crew in December 2019 for the OFT-1 mission, it did not have valve problems. The reason it failed, by not reaching its orbit and docking to the International Space Station (ISS), was because Starliner’s computer had the wrong time and so made incorrect decisions.

To investigate the ongoing valve problem Boeing has partially disassembled three of the affected orbital manoeuvring and attitude control thruster valves and is removing another three from the OFT-2 spacecraft for inspection. For OFT-2, Starliner will launch on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from space launch complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The Starliner that launches may be another spacecraft. Both Boeing and SpaceX will have fleets of reusable crew spacecraft. Boeing may use a Starliner in production for OFT-2 or it may refurbish the problematic CST-100 for the 2022 test flight.

Boeing was awarded a $4.2 billion contract on 16 September 2014 under the commercial crew program to develop Starliner. In 2014, Boeing predicted passengers for Starliner in 2017, which was NASA’s goal at the time for astronauts to return to flying on US spacecraft. NASA’s Space Shuttle fleet had been retired in 2011. Called the commercial crew

transportation capability contracts, Boeing received its $4.2 billion in 2014 while SpaceX was awarded $2.6 billion. The two companies would provide a taxi service to and from the ISS.

The commercial crew contracts differed from NASA’s previous approach because the companies were now agreeing to a fixed fee. Historically NASA paid ‘cost plus,’ it would cover any additional costs contractors incurred. With the new contracts, the longer development and test takes for the spacecraft, the less profit the companies are likely to make. In a NASA media teleconference on 19 October, Boeing commercial crew vice president and program manager, John Vollmer, declined to comment on whether Boeing would make any profit now on Starliner.

SpaceX’s Dragon capsule started ferrying astronauts in November 2020. Its Dragon spacecraft took “Crew-1” the first crew rotation flight of a US commercial spacecraft with astronauts to the ISS following the spacecraft’s official human rating certification. Such is the delay with Starliner that NASA has moved CST-100 crew to a SpaceX Dragon flight. On 6 October, NASA reassigned astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada to the SpaceX Crew-5 ISS mission. Mann and Cassada had been assigned to NASA’s Boeing crew flight test and Starliner-1 mission, respectively. These missions can only take place after a successful OFT-2. SF

Fading Starliner ABOVEEarly August, Boeing engineers are working on the Starliner propulsion system valves at the United Launch Alliance Vertical Integration Facility at Kennedy Space Center. On 19 August, the CST-100 Starliner was returned to its production facility in Florida by teams from Boeing and United Launch Alliance.

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Virgin Galactic is delaying its Virgin spaceship (VSS) Unity’s 23rd test flight to 2022 while it improves the spaceplane and Virgin mothership (VMS) Eve, the firm announced in October.

Unity’s 23rd test flight was to have been in mid-October this year with the spaceline’s first commercial passenger launch planned for September 2022. Recent materials analysis convinced Virgin Galactic to improve VSS Unity and its carrier aircraft VMS Eve before continuing. Improvements to Eve are not expected to be finished until mid-2022. An “enhancement program” for Unity and Eve was announced on 6 August, but it was to occur after Unity’s 23rd flight. Virgin Galactic has repeatedly, over many years, had long gaps between test flights, delaying the start of its commercial services.

In the October announcement, Virgin Galactic chief executive officer, Michael Colglazier, said: “Virgin Galactic vehicles are designed with significant margins for safety, providing layers of protection that far exceed loads experienced and expected to occur on our flights. The re-sequencing of our enhancement period and the Unity 23 [test] flight…provides the most efficient path to commercial service...”

Eve and Virgin Galactic’s spaceplanes have composite structures, and this may be the problem. Unity has flown 22 times with four space flights since its factory roll out in February 2016, replacing VSS Enterprise which was lost to a fatal accident in 2014. NASA developed a composite crew capsule from 2007 to 2010 and decided not to use it before flying it. Virgin Galactic’s recent materials analysis found a possible reduction in the strength margins of materials used to modify specific joints in its vehicles. Unity’s improvements are to shorten its preparation time between flights to four to five weeks. Virgin Galactic originally planned for a fleet of five spaceplanes with one spaceship flight per week.

Virgin Galactic also said in its October statement that “before starting commercial flights” it would conduct a vehicle testing programme for VMS Eve

and VSS Unity after all the improvements. How long this will take is not known but the spaceline is still aiming for the September 2022 first commercial passenger flight. Before that Unity’s 23rd and 24th test flights have to take place. Unity 23 will have three Italians onboard, two Italian Air Force officers and the third from Italy’s National Research Council. Test flight 24 will fly Virgin Galactic “mission specialists to confirm the cabin interior adjustments are functioning,” the company said.

Last March, Virgin Galactic unveiled its third spaceplane, VSS Imagine, which it said was a third-generation spaceship designed for improved flight rate performance. Referred to as “SpaceShip III” or “Delta Class” vehicles by the spaceline, this third-generation is how future spaceplanes will be designed and manufactured. Colglazier stated on 6 August that Imagine’s time between flights would be shorter than four to five weeks. Imagine was to undergo glide flights in mid-2021 but this did not happen. Another SpaceShip III, VSS Inspire, was said in March to be in production.

The mothership, Eve, has been flying since December 2008 and has flown hundreds of times since then. Eve’s enhancements are expected to allow it to potentially fly 100 flights between major maintenance inspections. The interval between major inspections now is 10 flights. On 6 August, Colglazier said a “new generation” mothership was in development and that “additional motherships” would be built. Virgin Galactic stated long ago it would have a second carrier aircraft, to have two motherships serving a fleet of five spaceplanes.

VSS Imagine is planned to complete flight testing during Unity’s commercial service operations, no date has been given for Inspire’s test flight start. Unity had been grounded by a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) investigation of the spaceplane’s flight path deviation during its 11 July 86 km altitude trip. On 29 September, Virgin Galactic announced that it had accepted all of the FAA’s recommendations regarding the flight path deviation. SF

ABOVEVirgin Galactic

VSS Unity’s rocket motor burns on its

11 July ascent to above 80 km.

Virgin Galactic grounded

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W orld Space Week, the annual celebration of space for

humankind’s benefit, focused on women this year and the British Interplanetary Society held its inaugural NextGen Rising Stars In Space Award.

World Space Week (WSW) 2021, held from 4 -8 October, was themed “Women in Space” to celebrate the accomplishments and contributions of women to sciences and the space sector. Its aim was to inspire young women around the world to pursue science, technology, engineering and mathematics to take careers in the space industry. Thousands of events were held worldwide across 90 nations, and dozens of events took place in the UK. In Scotland, the Women in Space Scotland held a virtual event on 9 October, while in London, the British Interplanetary Society (BIS) held its inaugural NextGen Rising Stars In Space Award. As WSW’s theme was women in space, the inaugural award was open to women aged 18-35.

NextGen Network co-founder and Rising Stars In Space Award organiser, Jenna Tiwana, said: “Our mission statement is to connect, inspire and empower the next generation of space in the UK… These women are beyond amazing, their dedication, their strength and their selflessness really left me and all the other judges speechless.”

Five rising women were chosen as winners. In alphabetical order, the winners were, Rosie Cane, Outreach Lead at UK Launch Services Ltd; Sara Motaghian, Space and Planetary Science PhD Researcher at Natural History Museum London and Imperial College London; Megan Maunder, PhD Student at the University of Exeter; Kristina Tamane, Space Business Development Executive

at the University of Edinburgh, and Dr Heidi Thiemann, Project Manager at Truro and Penwith College, Director of the Space Skills Alliance.

The background of all the nominees was varied from scientists and engineers to artists and community volunteers. The judging panel included Korean astronaut Yi So-yeon and Ugandan born Elizabeth Nyeko, chief executive officer of intelligent energy asset monitoring service provider Modularity Grid. The BIS NextGen Network aims to connect, inspire and empower students and young professionals in the space community. Through networking, events, and career development support, the NextGen Network will bring the next generation of the space community together.

The BIS is the National Co-ordinating Body for WSW in the UK. The Society supported and encouraged everyone to create educational opportunities, activities, and events during WSW. BIS WSW UK coordinator,

Vix Southgate, said: “As World Space Week coordinator for the UK, and on behalf of British Interplanetary Society, thank you everyone for coming along [to the award ceremony], thank you to Jenna and the NextGen Network for running this Rising Stars award as part of World Space Week and all the women in space and elsewhere, just absolutely phenomenal.”

The BIS CEO, Elizabeth Anderson, gave the closing remarks. She said: “A massive thank you to Jenna and Harriet, the organising team and judges. I have been privileged and so inspired to work with Jenna and Harriet and the entire NextGen team and everyone who has joined that NextGen network.” SF

World Space Week women win

ABOVENextGen Network co-founder, Jenna Tiwana, and Rising Stars In Space Awards organiser, speaks to the gathering for the NextGen Network Rising Stars In Space Awards on 8 October at BIS HQ in Vauxhall, London.

BELOWThe nominees, winners and organisers of the NextGen Network Rising Stars In Space Awards 2021 together at BIS HQ.

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WITH ROCKETING GAS PRICES, space-based solar power might be the UK’s next ‘levelling up’ project. Space-based solar power (SBSP) could be developed by 2040 according to a UK government funded report but in just two years key SBSP systems will already be tested in orbit.

The UK could achieve net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 with the help of SBSP, a government funded study by the engineering firm Frazer-Nash Consultancy concluded. The consultants found that SBSP is technically feasible, economically viable, and ready for development by 2040. The SBSP systems to be tested in orbit within two years were developed at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and are to be launched in 2023. Frazer-Nash studied three concepts but did not look at the Caltech design.

Those three concepts produced gigawatts of power (see SpaceFlight, October 2021) each and a gigawatt can power 750,000 average homes. One design was from a NASA

researcher, John Mankins, the second concept was from Xinbin Hou of the China Academy of Space Technology and the third was British. The UK’s International Electric Company SBSP system is called CASSIOPeiA. It uses mirrors to reflect sunlight on to solar cells which share a structure with the power transmitting antenna - the Mankins concept also had this approach. The Caltech design has a more modular approach using many satellites.

CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’The Caltech design uses spacecraft with very thin and wide unfolding arrays that have lightweight solar cells and integrated electronics for transmitting the captured sunlight. The electronics convert the captured solar radiation into millimetre wave and microwave radio frequencies (RF) for transmission to the ground. The receiver technology is a lightweight flat panel that can be rolled out anywhere. The systems being tested in space in 2023 are prototypes for collecting sunlight

and converting it to electrical energy. Wireless energy transfer will also be tested and an “ultralight” 1.8 metres by 1.8 m structure will be deployed in orbit.

The Frazer-Nash study’s high-level findings included a £16.3 billion development programme which would need public funding for almost 18 years before SBSP would be operational. It is this long-term investment which has dogged SBSP projects. The Caltech concept avoids this long development period and heavy sunken costs because it is modular. The Caltech approach is based around a power module, a single spacecraft, which can be launched by existing rockets, such as SpaceX Falcon 9, and that satellite starts transmitting power immediately.

A large SBSP power station is built from these spacecraft modules. Over time other spacecraft are launched and a constellation of extremely close proximity flying formations using picosecond timing combine to deliver huge quantities of power. The Caltech approach was announced eight weeks before the Frazer-Nash study was published. Called the Space-Based Solar Power Project (SSPP), a California real-estate developer and Caltech donor had poured $100 million into the research since 2013.

The same day the Frazer-Nash study was published, 27 September, the UK government’s National Space Strategy was released. It referred to SBSP systems as offering, “a potential zero carbon energy source. We will support our rapidly expanding space sector to integrate net zero thinking into its growth, monitor its environmental impact and encourage low-carbon and sustainable development.” The strategy made no mention of a government intention to take the technically feasible, economically viable technology and develop it by 2040, or any date. SF

Space-based solar Britain?SPACE UK

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based solar power satellite high

above the Earth beaming its power

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NEW SPACE


NEW SPACEWhat’s hot – and what’s not

Orbital Scotland

T he Scottish government announced its plans to foster commercial space development in A Strategy for Space in Scotland, published in October. With a strong New Space slant, the strategy is intended to grow Scotland’s space

sector by more than five times – enabling indigenous orbital launch services in the process – and contribute £4 billion to the economy.

Most notable of the companies planning to fly from Scotland are Orbex and Skyrora, their launch sites being the Sutherland and SaxaVord spaceports respectively. As five spaceports continue to develop across the country, there is room for further expansion of the local space industry.

The report also stresses the importance of low-cost satellite production and operation, describing Scotland as an ‘international leader’ in the small satellite business – particularly the cubesat form factor. Clyde Space, based in Glasgow, specialises in these satellites, which measure 10 x 10 x 10 cm. With many prospective New Space companies developing smallsat launch vehicles as their primary products, this puts the country in a unique position to make a significant impact in the sector.

Scotland has already seen growth in its space sector

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over the past several years, with employment increasing by 10% and the number of space-related companies up 65%. The industry produced more than £800 million during 2017-2018. Of the strategy, Scottish government Business Minister, Ivan McKee, said: “We will broaden the diversity of the sector, increase its sustainability, exports and inward investment, and enhance education to inspire the next generation of space industry workers.”

COLD STEPS FORWARD SpaceX conducted the first polar-orbit launch of satellites for its Starlink internet constellation on 14 September. The mission launched from space launch complex-4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base and successfully deployed 51 satellites into orbit. The reusable first-stage booster used for the Starlink mission, B1049, which flew for the tenth time, landed successfully on the Of Course I Still Love You drone ship. Several other companies, such as Amazon, are aiming to provide satellite internet services. Amazon’s Kuiper constellation is intended to contain 3,236 satellites and is expected to take up to a decade to launch.

Starship, SpaceX’s upcoming super-heavy launch vehicle, continues to make progress ahead of its inaugural orbital flight test. Starship 20, a prototype of the fully reusable system’s second stage, began its prelaunch test campaign with a cryogenic proof test on 29 September. In this procedure, cryogenic liquid nitrogen is loaded into the vehicle’s tanks to ensure it can withstand flight pressures. In the case of Starship, this is often accompanied with hydraulic rams to simulate thrust. The test was a success, allowing teams to proceed with engine testing. SF Henry Philp

ABOVEEdinburgh and

the Firth of Forth as pictured from

space.

LEFTStarlink’s latest

batch of satellites is prepared for

launch.

Amazon’s Kuiper

constellation is intended to contain 3,236 satellites and is expected to take up to a decade to

launch

ISS REPORT


Roscosmos reported that at 0155hrs UTC on 9 September “during the automatic recharging of the batteries” aboard Zvezda “the smoke detector was triggered, and the alarm system turned on”. Novitskiy

and Dubrov activated air filters to eliminate any possible smoke and Roscosmos added “all systems work normally”. According to The Independent newspaper the crew “could see smoke and smell burning” and NASA spokesperson Dan Huot said the crew smelt “burnt plastic” inside Zvezda and “a faint smell” in Unity but “no source was found”

with “no impact to the crew”. The Russian space agency added that the crew “continued their rest” and “regular preparations” ahead of the spacewalk. During a NASA extra-vehicular activity (EVA) briefing the following day, Deputy ISS Programme Manager, Dana Weigel reassured reporters that “overall Space Station’s doing very well….everything is stable and great onboard”.

RUSSIAN SPACEWALKNovitskiy and Dubrov began the mission’s sixth spacewalk and their third EVA at 1451hrs UTC on 9 September. The cosmonauts completed the external outfitting of the Nauka (Science) Multipurpose Laboratory Module (MLM) that they began on their previous spacewalk (SpaceFlight Vol 63 No. 11 p 15). Novitskiy and Dubrov finished laying power and data lines

ISS Report9 September – 8 October 2021

Expedition 65 is into its sixth month of orbital operations, led by its new French commander Thomas Pesquet and his crew of flight engineers, Russians Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov, Americans Mark Vande Hei, Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur and Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide. The crew were joined in early October by Russians Anton Shkaplerov, Klim Shipenko and Yulia Peresild.Report by George Spiteri

BELOWThe International Space

Station’s Russian segment, including the Nauka

multipurpose laboratory module, figures prominently

in this photograph taken during a spacewalk by ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet.

The station was orbiting 425 km above the southern Indian Ocean off the coast of Madagascar at the time.

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between Nauka and Zvezda, including television, rendezvous system and ethernet cables. They also installed handrails on Nauka’s exterior and placed the Biorisk biology experiment outside Poisk. About seven hours into the EVA Novitskiy jettisoned a cover and a cable reel which were no longer required. The spacewalk lasted 7hrs 25mins.

On 10 September, Novitskiy and Dubrov stowed their Orlan EVA suits and conducted a debriefing session with ground specialists at mission control Korolev. Hoshide and Pesquet continued with preparations for their spacewalk, whilst Kimbrough and McArthur took part in a pair of botany investigations and Vande Hei replaced components inside the combustion integrated rack (CIR).

Zvezda’s engines were fired for 31sec at 1854hrs UTC on 11 September to raise the Station’s altitude by 750 metres. This placed the complex in a 419.51

x 439.45 km orbit in readiness for the arrival and departure of the next Soyuz spacecraft. Kimbrough took time out to mark the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US by sending down a special message to the American people. He recalled the “strength and resilience” of the US following the attacks and added “we will never forget”.

JAXA/ESA SPACEWALKHoshide and Pesquet began the mission’s next spacewalk at 1215hrs UTC on 12 September. The astronauts successfully assembled and attached a support bracket on the Station’s P4 truss in preparation for the future installation of the third ISS roll-out solar arrays (IROSA). Hoshide and Pesquet also removed and replaced a floating-point measurement unit on the P1 truss, which NASA explained “measures the electrical charging potential of the arrays and associated surfaces in

ABOVECosmonaut Pyotr Dubrov

from Roscosmos is pictured during a spacewalk to begin

outfitting Russia’s Nauka multipurpose laboratory

module with ethernet cables, power cables and

handrails.

SATELLITES


its vicinity”. The spacewalk was the first in ISS history to involve two astronauts from the United States orbital segment (USOS) crew who were from the programme’s international partners using the Quest airlock. The EVA lasted 6hrs 54mins and both Hoshide and Pesquet have become their respective nation’s most experienced spacewalkers. This was the 244th EVA dedicated to ISS assembly and maintenance totalling 64days 5hrs 54mins.

On 13 September, Hoshide and Pesquet took part in a routine medical health check following their spacewalk. Vande Hei swapped and cleaned components for the advanced colloids experiment-temperature control and gradient samples-11 physics study, which is exploring space manufacturing techniques. McArthur replaced fuel bottles inside the CIR and worked with the plant habitat and plant habitat-04 space crop experiments and tweeted she “loved” getting her “hands on the pepper plants and pollinating them!” Kimbrough set up hardware for NASA’s rodent research-demonstration 1 (RR-D1) for Hoshide and Pesquet who worked with the experiment the next day. Novitskiy and Dubrov conducted Progress cargo transfers and continued to stow their EVA tools and gear.

NASA officially confirmed on 14 September that Vande Hei and Dubrov would remain aboard the ISS until March 2022. The announcement came as no surprise as Roscosmos planned to launch the three person Soyuz MS-19 including two Russian spaceflight participants on a short duration visit to the Station (SpaceFlight Vol 63 No. 7 pp 8-9). If all goes to plan, Vande Hei will break the record for

the single longest spaceflight by a US astronaut. Vande Hei said that to deal with the psychological element of long duration space flight he spends “sometime meditating every day” talking to his family daily, including his wife “almost every day, those things are hugely helpful”.

Hoshide prepared NASA’s three free-flying Astrobee robots on 15 September for the Kibo robot programming challenge which a NASA blog reported “is designed to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers”. Vande Hei used an ultrasound device to examine his commander’s neck, clavicle, shoulder and leg veins, whilst McArthur and Kimbrough continued

ABOVEJAXA astronaut Akihiko Hoshide works to install a modification kit on the

Port-4 truss structure during a spacewalk that lasted a

total of 6hrs 54mins.

BELOWNASA’s Megan McArthur

cleans up debris in the orbiting laboratary’s Plant Habitat, which is growing Hatch Green chiles for the

Plant Habitat-04 space crop experiment.

ISS REPORT


with the RR-D1 experiment. Dubrov resumed configuring Nauka for orbital operations and Pesquet worked with ESA’s Kubik incubator and deployed a microbiology investigation.

SPACEFLIGHT RECORDThe 16 September witnessed the achievement of a new spaceflight record, with the launch of the four person Inspiration4 crew, there was a record fourteen people in space. This included the seven person ISS crew and the three taikonauts who had spent three months aboard the Chinese Space Station (SpaceFlight Vol 63 No. 8 p 7). This was also the first time there were three SpaceX Dragon spacecraft in orbit.

Canadarm2 grappled a specialised video camera on 16 September that filmed Hoshide and Pesuqet’s spacewalk in immersive virtual reality. The camera was placed on a pallet outside Kibo and retracted into Kibo’s airlock where Pesuqet retrieved and stowed it. The cinematic videos are part of the ISS Experience programme which are downlinked to Earth for audiences to view. Vande Hei performed further ultrasound tests and Hoshide configured JAXA’s cell biology experiment facility (CBEF) for a further round of research. Kimbrough installed a new carbon dioxide remover in Destiny and McArthur replaced components inside Tranquility’s oxygen generator. Novitskiy and Dubrov tested hardware inside Nauka and conducted the first of two days of maintenance tasks in the Station’s Russian segment.

Hoshide and Pesquet transferred some of the hardware stowed inside the Bigelow expandable activity module to the cargo Dragon on 17 September. McArthur worked with the Astrobee robots and Vande Hei completed the working week by conducting more scans on his crewmates.

The crew worked with the RR-D1 and the ISS Experience experiments during their light-duty weekend 18-19 September. Novitskiy and Dubrov spoke to the Chairman of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation, Ella Pamfilova on the occasion of the elections to the Russian State Duma. According to a Roscosmos statement, Novitskiy said that “voting on board the ISS was without problems”.

The five USOS crewmembers kicked-off the new working week on 20 September by working with JAXA’s mouse habitat unit. They also resumed research with the RR-D1 experiment and the Astrobee robots. Pesquet set up hardware for another session with NASA’s Sally Ride Earth knowledge acquired by middle school students (Sally Ride EarthKAM). The EarthKAM allows students to remotely control a digital camera aboard the ISS and take photographs of coastlines, mountain ranges and other interesting features for use in the classroom. Novitskiy and Dubrov continued to configure Nauka for scientific research and conducted communications and life support maintenance.

The following day, McArthur and Kimbrough continued the RR-D1 experiment. The crew also collected surface samples for NASA’s microbial

tracking-3 investigation and placed them in cold storage. NASA’s daily on-orbit status report explained that the experiment “aims to identify, analyse, and characterise pathogenicity, antibiotic resistance, and genomics to augment the NASA GeneLab with the statistical confidence to characterize microbes associated with closed habitation and predict those that may pose a threat to crew health”.

On 22 September, Pesquet and Dubrov configured the European robotic arm (ERA) attached to Nauka, ahead of operations. McArthur once again replaced fuel bottles in the CIR and conducted another day of research with the microbial tracking-3 experiment. Vande Hei serviced communications hardware inside Kibo and switched samples in the Materials Science Laboratory and Novitskiy and Dubrov devoted the first of three days to checking the Soyuz spacecraft and reviewing procedures with ground specialists ahead of its relocation.

The USOS crew resumed activities with the RR-D1 study on 23 September. McArthur and Kimbrough joined Pesquet inside Kibo to conduct space biology research. Vande Hei worked with the life sciences glovebox (LSG) and Hoshide prepared an experiment that could help researchers understand the microbial environment of the Station and future spacecraft.

ORBITAL CORRECTIONZvezda’s engines were fired again for 47.5secs at 1438hrs UTC on 24 September to lower the Station’s altitude by 1.2 km. This placed the complex in a 417.49 x 438.83 km orbit at what NASA described as “the correct phase” for the arrival and departure of the next Soyuz spacecraft. Hoshide and Vande Hei spent two hours loading Dragon ahead of its undocking. McArthur swabbed and collected more microbe samples, photographed the area and stowed the samples for future analysis. Kimbrough and Pesquet took their turn to work with the RR-D1 experiment and Kimbrough and Vande Hei ended the week by answering questions from students in New York and New Jersey.

The crew reviewed the work conducted with

Canadarm2 grappled a

specialised video camera on 16

September that filmed Hoshide and

Pesuqet’s spacewalk in

immersive virtual reality

ABOVEThe seven-member

Expedition 65 crew gathers for a portrait inside the vestibule in between

the Unity and Tranquility modules. In the front row (l-r) Commander Thomas

Pesquet of ESA and NASA Flight Engineers Megan

McArthur and Shane Kimbrough. Behind them (l-r) are Roscosmos Flight Engineer Oleg Novitskiy, Flight Engineer Akihiko Hoshide of the Japan

Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), NASA

Flight Engineer Mark Vande Hei, and Roscosmos Flight

Engineer Pyotr Dubrov.

.

ISS REPORT


the RR-D1 experiment during their light-duty weekend 25-26 September. They also completed the latest round of studies using the Sally Ride EarthKAM hardware and collected saliva samples for NASA’s standard measures biomedical investigation.

Kimbrough and McArthur continued with Dragon cargo operations and spoke to students from Iowa on 27 September. Hoshide and Pesquet conducted a series of biology experiments inside Kibo, whilst Novitskiy, Dubrov and Vande Hei made final preparations for the Soyuz relocation.

SOYUZ RELOCATIONNovitskiy, Dubrov and Vande Hei undocked Soyuz MS-18/64S from Rassvet at 1221hrs UTC on 28 September as the complex flew 418.4 km above the South Atlantic Ocean, east of Brazil. Once Novitskiy had flown Soyuz 120 metres away from the Station, Dubrov floated into the spacecraft’s orbital module and spent about eight minutes taking still and video film of the exterior of the complex for specialists to examine. Forty-three minutes later at 1304hrs UTC, Soyuz became the first spacecraft to dock to Nauka. This was the 20th Soyuz port relocation conducted at the ISS, the last being in March 2021 (SpaceFlight Vol 63 No. 6 p 13). The manoeuvre was necessitated to allow Soyuz MS-19 to arrive at Rassvet a week later.

Following the relocation, Novitskiy tweeted what he described as “unique images” of the ISS that Dubrov took during the fly around. The cosmonauts also took TV viewers on a tour of Nauka before servicing a variety of Russian life support equipment and conducting an hour-long cardiac study. The USOS crew packed final items inside Dragon including science freezers and other critical experiments for return to Earth. Hoshide conducted further research with the Astrobee robots inside Kibo. Vande Hei and Pesquet took turns with the cycle ergometer with vibration and stabilisation exercise bike in Destiny, to measure how working out affects an astronaut’s pulmonary function in weightlessness.

CARGO DRAGON DEPARTSSpaceX’s uncrewed Dragon spacecraft undocked from Harmony’s forward port at 1312hrs UTC on 30 September as the complex flew above the

Pacific Ocean. It was loaded with more than 2,806 kg of supplies and scientific research including the ring sheared drop, anti-atrophy and the genes in space-8 biomedical experiments. Dragon splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida at 0259hrs UTC on 1 October (2259hrs local time 30 September) to complete the commercial resupply services-23 (CRS-23) mission. SpaceX tweeted that once the spacecraft was retrieved by the “recovery team, the critical science aboard” was “transported via helicopter” to KSC’s Space Station Processing Facility.

On 1 October, McArthur and Kimbrough scanned each other’s neck, shoulders and leg veins with the Ultrasound 2 device. Using near infrared imaging gear, Kimbrough also examined Vande Hei’s eyes and retinas. Novitskiy and Dubrov resumed Progress cargo operations and used the lower body negative suit to counteract the pooling of fluids toward the head.

The crew conducted another regular ISS Ham radio passes as part of the amateur radio on the ISS (ARISS) programme on 2 October and enjoyed a light-duty schedule the following day.

NEW COMMANDERThe highlight of 4 October was the change of command ceremony. Pesquet replaced Hoshide to become the first French ISS commander and said he was proud “to represent” his country “up here” and told his colleagues they had “been amazing crewmates”. Aside from the ceremony, Hoshide installed JAXA’s tele-luminescence analysis system inside Kibo, which observes tissues and genes in small animals. Pesquet set up the Fluidics experiment, which aims to better understand how fuel behaves inside spacecraft fuel tanks, whilst Kimbrough and Vande Hei worked with the LSG and CIR respectively.

FILM CREW IN SPACESoyuz MS-19/65S was launched from Baikonur’s Launch Pad 6 at Site 31 at 0855hrs UTC on 5 October (1355hrs local time) atop a Soyuz 2.1a rocket. Aboard the Soyuz was spacecraft commander and retired Russian Air Force Col Anton Shkaplerov on his fourth spaceflight. With him were first-time spaceflight participants, Russian film director and producer Klim Shipenko

BELOWSoyuz MS-18 spacecraft

is pictured docked to the Rassvet module

(left) moments before beginning its relocation to the Nauka multipurpose

laboratory module (right). The manoeuvre freed up

Rassvet to accept the Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft carrying

the inbound Russian film crew a week later.

With only one professional

cosmonaut aboard, Roscosmos

reported that this particular Soyuz was “modified to be operated by a

single cosmonaut”

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and Russian actor Yulia Peresild. Shipenko and Peresild were launched under a commercial agreement between Roscosmos and Moscow based media entities including Russia’s TV Channel One to make a film aboard the ISS. The film is a docudrama called Challenge (SpaceFlight Vol 63 No. 11 p 42-45). It aims to be the first feature-length fiction film shot in space. With only one professional cosmonaut aboard, Roscosmos reported that this particular Soyuz was “modified to be operated by a single cosmonaut”.

Soyuz made a manual docking to Rassvet ten minutes behind schedule at 1222hrs UTC on 5 October nearly three and a half hours after launch and two orbits later as the complex flew 418.4 km above north of the Philippines. Shkaplerov took over control of Soyuz due to what NASA TV commentator Rob Navias described as “some unexplained communications issues” when Soyuz was 75 m from the Station.

Following leak checks, the hatches were opened over two and a half hours later at 1500hrs UTC and

the new arrivals took part in a welcoming ceremony inside Zvezda. Peresild said she felt like she was “still dreaming” and received a congratulatory message from the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova. Shkaplerov was scheduled to remain aboard the ISS until next March, while Shipenko and Peresild will return to Earth with Novitskiy after nearly twelve days in orbit.

Four CubeSats were deployed on 6 October. These included the Australian BINAR-1 and the Philippino Maya-3 and Maya-4 1U satellites at 0920hrs UTC. Harvard University astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell tweeted on 6 October that they were released “from the Kibo airlock and the deployer ejected” them. The other satellite was the Australian CUAVA-1 3U CubeSat deployed at 1055hrs UTC. The event was photographed by Hoshide from inside the Cupola.

On 6 October Vande Hei, McArthur and Kimbrough conducted Cygnus cargo transfers. Shkaplerov moved items from Soyuz MS-19 to the Station and Dubrov performed his own cargo transfers from Progress whilst Pesquet took time out to answer questions from French students.

Vande Hei scanned his fellow USOS crewmembers’ eyes on 7 October. Pesquet worked with the CBEF and installed a device that NASA reported “will enable the observation of fluid physics and materials science experiments at high temperatures”. Their Russian cosmonaut colleagues checked computers and electronics gear inside the two docked Soyuz vehicles and assisted Shipenko and Peresild with their filmmaking activities.

On 8 October, the SpaceX Dragon-Endeavour passed the 168day record in orbit set by Dragon-Resilience on the previous mission earlier this year (SpaceFlight Vol 63 No. 7 p 12). The USOS crew continued working with the Astrobee robots, the TELAS hardware and ESA’s BioLab. SF

ABOVEThe Cargo Dragon resupply ship pictured from the Crew Dragon vehicle (left) as the ISS orbited 420 km above Beijing, China and (right)

Cargo Dragon backing away from the station’s

forward-facing international docking adapter. Its beacon lights and a plume from one

of its engines during the departure burn make for a

colourful show.

RIGHTThe crew of the Challenge

misson, which filmed part of a movie on the

International Space Station: (l-r) Roscosmos cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov, actress

Yulia Peresild and film director Klim Shipenko.

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EUROPE IN SPACE


Italian Space Agency President Giorgio Saccoccia spoke to the British Interplanetary Society on the eve of the 72nd International Astronautical Congress about his agency’s activities.by Rob Coppinger

Q Italy recently hosted the G20 and for the first time the nations’ space agencies had their

own parallel meeting, what was the outcome?

We organised here in the headquarters of the Italian Space Agency in Rome on 20 and 21 September, actually, two events in the margins of the G20 Italian presidency. The first one was dedicated to the heads of space agencies of the G20 countries. It was the second edition of the “Space Economy Leaders Meeting 2021” which had the intention to raise the level of attention

Italy’s plans are large and smaller

among political decision makers to make space economy an official item at the G20’s future summits. The day after we organised an event dedicated to space industry within the framework of the G20. The idea is that now space is such an important subject that it deserves to be included in the official agenda of the G20. On this occasion we underlined the importance of space economy for the global economy and, in particular, the importance of space activities for the protection of our planet and the support that space can give to the achievements of the United Nation’s sustainable development goals. Together with the UK we are taking care of the organisation of the COP26 conference that will take place in 2022 and this year we have had in Italy the pre-COP conference. Of course the importance of space for the support of the future environmental issues was also recalled during the meeting and how space can help the future preservation of our planet.

QExoMars has been an important mission now for many years, are you confident that we will

see it launch next year?

Of course we are! ExoMars is an ESA mission that we strongly support together with other member states and Italy is one of the major participants to this programme: about one third of the programme is supported by this agency and Italy. The programme is in good progress and is in the final stages of qualification and flight readiness so we are confident to launch next year. We are looking forward to this moment as the interest in Mars activities in Italy is very high. We have a big

BELOWThe ExoMars rover will be launched in 2022 and

incorporates a drill intended to penetrate an ambitious two metres down into the

Martian soil.

ABOVEItalian Space Agency

President Giorgio Saccoccia.

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knowhow in this field that goes back in time with a number of technologies and scientific payloads that we have developed: ExoMars is the next logical step in this path! A highlight of the Italian contribution to ExoMars is the drill. For the first time we have a drill capable of taking samples to quite a depth in the surface of the planet. We have recently performed tests in our simulation facilities here in Italy and we went down to 1.7 metres of depth which is an absolute record. So far, we have got samples on Mars from no more than 10 centimetres of depth. So, this will really be a way of going back in time millions or billions of years and this is the only way to perform the search for the past signs of life. It’s like having a time machine. We really hope with these technologies we can perform good science.

Q Italy is providing CubeSats for two missions, Argomoon which will fly on NASA’s Artemis

1 flight and Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging Asteroids which will participate in NASA’s asteroid DART mission. Are CubeSats of growing importance to the Italian space industry?

I am personally a very strong believer of the incredible value added that these little machines can give to space exploration and many other applications. CubeSats were born in universities to be something simple to give students exposure to satellites and launches. Now, thanks to technology miniaturisation, the small CubeSats can really contribute dramatically to applications, services and to science and exploration. The two examples you gave of ArgoMoon and LiciaCube are very visible ones of the kind of contribution they can give also in terms of international collaboration. We really look forward to the launch of those satellites. But at the Italian Space Agency recently we have also launched a big programme for

the development of a number of CubeSat class missions for different areas of applications, from Earth observation to space science and exploration. The idea is that, in parallel to the support of big missions, in this way we can have frequent innovation and also small and medium sized companies can have more frequent opportunities to fly their technologies and do experiments in space. At the end of last year, we had a call for a number of ideas for new missions in this class. We have selected for the first phase more than 20 of those which will be carried out under the national programme or in collaboration with ESA. We definitely have identified the class of CubeSats as an important one that can support future space activities.

Q Another international project Italy is involved in which is to launch on 13

December is the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE). When do you think we can expect to see scientific data from it?

ABOVEArgoMoon will perform

operations in close proximity to NASA’s Artemis 1 mission interim cryogenic

propulsion stage (ICPS). It will record images

of the ICPS to provide valuable mission data on the deployment of other

CubeSats and will also test optical communication capabilities with Earth.

.BELOWA schematic showing the Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging Asteroids flying alongside the main DART

spacecraft and the impact on the moonlet of asteroid

(65803) Didymos. Post-impact observations will

measure the change in the moonlet’s orbit about the

parent body.

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The satellite is ready it is just a question of identifying the correct launch window. We are looking forward to the launch. IXPE is an example of what we have done at ASI [Italian Space Agency] for many years: international collaboration with a very large number of countries. We do this as part of our contribution to ESA, but we also have a large number of missions where we’re working with, for example the US [United States], and other international partners in a bilateral way. These are opportunities to develop technologies for more service orientated applications. For example, sensors developed for Mars can be used for an application on an Earth observation satellite. It is a virtuous way of investing in science and an incredible way of achieving technology growth with a big science return.

Q A mission that produces a lot of science data is Italy’s Earth observation COSMO-

SkyMed (constellation of small satellites for the Mediterranean basin observation) constellation. You have decided to launch the next COSMO-SkyMed spacecraft on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and not to use the European Vega launcher. Can you talk about that decision?

COSMO-SkyMed is a champion of the products of the Italian Space Agency and a peculiarity of this constellation is that these satellites are dual use for both civil and defence applications and this details quite a strict schedule of availability of the services that need to be provided in orbit. For this reason, the launch of the second satellite of the second generation of COSMO-SkyMed was foreseen for this year with very tight constraints and unfortunately the two failures, of Vega 15 [in July 2019] and 17 [November 2020], have delayed what we call the launch of the new generation Vega, the Vega-C, to next year. Our full commitment to use the Vega launchers we believe is absolute. The first goal of any launcher is to launch a payload and for this reason with the delay of the launch of Vega-C we investigated an alternative with our European launch supplier

and after a long process of assessment the only alternative was to go with a launch with SpaceX. But this has nothing to do with our commitment to continue to use Vega and we have already allocated the launch of the third satellite of COSMO-SkyMed’s second generation to Vega-C, according to the schedule we have in mind for the full deployment of the second generation.

Q While there is further work for Vega-C, there is also a proposal for a Vega-E version and

there is a plan to launch the reusable European robotic spaceplane, Space Rider, on Vega. Do you now need Vega-E to launch Space Rider?

No, Space Rider will be launched on Vega-C. For us, Vega is a family of generations of launchers that have continuous improvement of performance and when I talk of performance I am not only talking about launch, but also features in terms of cross competitiveness, flexibility and the final orbital destination and so on. It’s not by chance that ASI [Italian Space Agency] supports ESA’s programme for the current and future versions of Vega. While we are funding the Vega-C development at the same time we started work on Vega-E, which is the liquid propulsion [upper stage] version of Vega, and at the same time we took the leadership of the Space Rider which is using at the best the synergy with the Vega-C. The [expendable] service module

BELOWCOSMO-SkyMed is an Italian Earth-imaging

constellation consisting of four identical satellites.

ABOVEIXPE stands fully integrated

at Ball Aerospace in Boulder, Colorado.

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of the Space Rider which provides power is also a part of the Vega-C providing the interface [with the reusable spaceplane]. It is the conical part attached to Space Rider vehicle while it operates in orbit. At the end of the operational period in orbit this part, which is the modified interface of the Vega vehicle, it will detach from Space Rider and be lost in space and the rest of the vehicle will return to be used again up to seven times. Space Rider can be seen as an element of a flexible system that involves Vega. Vega-E’s third stage uses liquid propulsion as this provides extra features [for a wider range of possible orbital insertions] and it uses methane as a move towards a greener propulsion system. [Using methane] presents a number of interesting features that will make the Vega family more competitive for the future. It will increase the envelope of the launcher, orbits that can be covered and the mass of payload that can be delivered. We look at the full Vega family as a very flexible system, it is not by chance that we have invested, also through ESA on the development of a smaller payload deployer, SSMS system that basically increases the flexibility of the payload capability of Vega. Not only single or double large payloads but also very large and mixed number of micro, nano and mini satellites. We were talking before of CubeSats, the portfolio of potential payloads is getting larger and larger and more composite. We wanted Vega to be capable of providing a response to the increasing number of potential clients for a future space launch system. This is why Vega can launch Space Rider or use the small payload deployment system or launch many other payloads in between.

Q How do you see Italy working with the UK on space projects in the future?

I have to say for sure this is a very important moment for space activities in Italy and in Europe. We like to do these activities through ESA and through bilateral and multilateral cooperation with other countries in Europe. With the UK we have a long history of collaboration, and we look forward to the future to have more and more opportunities to interact. There are many areas where there is a shared interest between the UK and Italy in space constellations, space transportation or hypersonics where the UK has quite a high interest and it is the same for Italy. We look forward to a growth in the role of space in our countries, in Europe but also for strategic collaboration with other countries. SF

ABOVESpace Rider is the European

Space Agency’s reusable robotic spaceplane for in-

orbit experiments which will have its first launch from

Guiana Space Centre on an Arianespace Vega-C

rocket in 2023.

BELOWOn 16 August 2021, Vega lifted off from Europe’s Spaceport in French

Guiana on flight VV19 to deliver into two separate

Sun-synchronous orbits the Earth observation satellite Pléiades Neo-4 and four

auxiliary payloads.

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INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL


The strange extra-solar object named after the Hawaiian word for ‘Scout’ may present lessons for humanity’s inevitable interstellar spacecraft.by Duncan Lunan & Rob Coppinger

’Oumuamua: a guide for future human probes?

Leaving at 27 km/s, well over Solar System escape velocity, in the direction of the Constellation of Pegasus, the object first thought to be a comet and then redesignated an asteroid, when estimates made it a 400 m long x 40 m wide

cylinder, was found to possibly have biaxial or even triaxial rotation, with periods ranging from 6.58 to 54.48 hours. The European Southern Observatory issued an artist’s impression depicting the object known as ’Oumumua as dark and spindle-shaped and that image has dominated media coverage since; although it may be misleading. To begin with, its albedo was roughly 70%, as bright as the clouds of Venus, or polished metal, not so dark after all.

Another claim that ’Oumuamua would be dark red in colour matching Kuiper Belt objects was not confirmed and observations found that the oddly shaped object was rotating, possibly tumbling. This was determined from the light-curves, which are variations in brightness with time, seen in astronomical observations as ’Oumuamua traversed the inner Solar System in September and October 2017. The spindle shape claim was also undermined by the rotation rate. In 2018, a Tuscon-based Belton Space Exploration Initiatives team, led by Dr Michael Belton, found that short rotation periods were the best fit from the light curve data.

That meant ’Oumuamua was more likely to have an extremely oblate spheroid shape, a squashed sphere. At Belton’s request, Dr William Hartmann of the Planetary Science Institute, also based in Tucson, painted Oumuamua as a thick disc. In 2019, further analysis by Sergey Mashchenko, senior research associate in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at McMaster University in Ontario, showed that if ’Oumuamua is a disc, it is apparently a very thin one.

’Oumuamua was a more like a shiny solar sail shape than an asteroid or shard of Kuiper belt rock.

Harvard University professor of science, Abraham (Avi) Loeb, has argued that ’Oumuamua could be an extraterrestrial artefact, most likely a solar sail, in his book Extraterrestrial. As ’Oumuamua left the Solar System it was slowly accelerating. If the acceleration was due to solar radiation pressure, then ’Oumuamua would be much less massive than believed.

If ’Oumuamua was a natural object, the slow acceleration could have been due to outgassing of its surface and interior material due to solar radiation heating the surface and penetrating to the interior. That heat should have been detected by NASA’s now retired Spitzer infrared space telescope, but it was not. No dust or water vapour emissions were observed by the joint NASA-ESA Solar & Heliospheric Observatory or NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory solar-orbiting spacecraft either. Spitzer would have detected carbon dioxide too, yet it did not. For ’Oumuamua’s acceleration to be the rocket effect of expelled material, 10-40% of the total mass would have been lost and the spin rate would inevitably be altered.

LEFTA worldship design from the Institute

for Interstellar Studies. This type

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carry a community with everything

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BELOWDr William Hartmann’s painting of

’Oumumua as a flattened,

pancake-shaped disk.

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Two possible natural explanations for the lack of detectable outgassing are that ’Oumuamua consists of solid hydrogen or solid nitrogen, the latter suggested by Arizona State University researchers, astronomer Alan Jackson and astrophysicist Steven Desch. Loeb states that the hydrogen would have already been lost during ’Oumuamua’s interstellar voyage and that the probability of an object that consisted entirely of nitrogen was extremely low, though a nitrogen iceberg would also have a higher albedo.

Another oddity for a natural outgassing object is that ’Oumuamua’s acceleration rate out of the Solar System was consistent and unbroken despite the rotation and possible tumbling. To achieve that, a flat solar sail would need adjustable tip-vanes, like those of Mariner 4 or the proposed US mission to Halley’s Comet, to present a constant surface area to the Sun.

ASTRONAUTICAL CONSIDERATIONSWhatever ’Oumuamua is, it appeared to come from very near Vega, in the constellation Lyra, 25 light-years away. In March this year, the University of Boulder Colorado announced that there is evidence of a possible ‘hot Neptune’ or ‘hot Jupiter’ close to the star Vega. If humanity was going to send a probe to a Vegan exo-planet what does ’Oumuamua have to teach humankind about interstellar voyages? Is ’Oumuamua’s possible dark red surface, indicated by circumstantial evidence, an accumulation of interstellar dust? Is the tumbling due to an impact or another effect of dust accumulation?

If ’Oumuamua has one lesson to teach humanity, it may be an inspiring one about what technologies scientists and engineers should be focusing on, or not. One possibility is a cloud of mini-solar sails, under central control, and manoeuvring like a flock of starlings, a shoal of fish, or bats rising from a roost. At any given time, some could be under solar propulsion and others sending data, changing places as they overtake one another, looking like a single body when actually they are all in motion with respect to one another.

Given the small size of the mini-sails, eight hours seems a reasonable turnover time for the continual front-to-back rearrangement, especially if the swarm’s overall appearance from a distance is a thin disc. It is possible to imagine the individual processors acting to produce an apparently concerted effect, but central processing seems more likely. Why? If the spacecraft or swarm was transmitting data to some distant collecting

point, then it would have to be so, or intended to be.Another possibility is a faceted spheroid of hexagons.

If the facets could both absorb and emit radiation, as the spheroid rotated one or more of them could be absorbing solar power while the reflected sunlight provided propulsion. The others could be tracking and transmitting data to any distant target on the celestial sphere, undetectable from here unless the beam happened to sweep across the Earth. Mashchenko has proposed that a sphere with black and white hemispheres was a possible fit with the observed light curves, and that a more complex pattern could provide a still better one.

The challenges of interstellar travel which may have led to a damaged, tumbling ’Ouamuamua probe hurtling through the Solar System are varied, not least due to dust. A 2018 paper by researchers at the United States government’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), published in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, set out the interstellar dust and grain challenge. If ’Oumuamua is a flattened sphere, an oblate spheroid, the thickness may be a hindrance. The LLNL researchers found that: “For thin structures, such as light sails, grains pass through with little damage. For thick structures, all the grain energy will be deposited, possibly leading to significant damage.”

The researchers ran computer simulations of grain collisions, modelling the resulting energy transport by conduction and radiation, the expansion of the heated volume melting and other damage processes to surrounding material. The results showed that grain energy is deposited in a long, thin cylindrical volume within the structure it strikes, potentially creating temperatures larger than 107 Kelvin above absolute zero. The spreading of this heat energy can potentially lead to a large, damaged volume. To avoid damage to the main spacecraft shielding material on the leading surfaces a a thin shield, not a thick one, in front of the vehicle to atomize and disperse the grains before they hit the main

ABOVEA solar sail powering a

starship. Could ’Oumuamua be such an object?

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structure would be needed. Proposals for future human interstellar probes have

incorporated this shielding concept but would they be enough? Is ’Oumuamua a hydrogen ramjet with a damaged scoop, or a long thin fusion-based rocket, or a cylindrical worldship, and the oblate spheroid detected is the front shield used for the latter two concepts? Does ’Oumuamua look like an oblate spheroid at a vast distance because it is a squat Project Daedalus-like fusion rocket? Or is ’Oumuamua more like the British Interplanetary Society / Tau Zero Foundation’s Project Icarus fusion rocket?

Determining ’Oumuamua’s origins and purpose, whether it is planetoid debris or a built space probe, may seem like an impossible task but the mysterious object could be intercepted. ’Oumuamua was will not be beyond the Sun’s gravitational pull until 2430. On 30 October 2017, the Initiative for Interstellar Studies (i4is) announced its Project Lyra. The project’s goal is to assess current and near-term technology for a fly-by or rendezvous with ’Oumuamua and other potential interstellar objects. On 8 November 2017 Project Lyra produced proposals for reaching ‘Oumuamua within a timeframe of a few decades.

Work by the i4is Project Lyra team shows that opportunities for catching up with ’Oumuamua are coming up in 2030 and 2033. With trip times of 17 and 16 years, the arrival dates are, respectively, 2047 and 2049. The ’Oumuamua interceptor could be launched by a SpaceX Falcon 9 Heavy. It would then use conventional chemical rocket propulsion combined with fly-bys of planets such as Jupiter for a gravitational assist to fling the spacecraft out further. It will need to get to a speed of tens of kilometers per second for a trip time of 17 years. The interceptor does not have to use rocket propulsion, it could use laser electric, solar sail or laser sail.

For a laser sail, an Earth based laser aimed at a solar sail would accelerate the spacecraft, providing much more energy than a normal solar sail which relies only on radiation pressure from the Sun’s emissions. In 2016, the $100 million Breakthrough Starshot programme was announced. Its plan is to launch swarms of microchip-size spacecraft to Alpha Centauri. The spacecraft would each have a very thin reflective sail and be propelled by an Earth-based laser. The tiny spacecraft would accelerate up to 20% of light speed, 60,000 km per second to reach the exoplanet Proxima b in the Proxima Centauri system in just over 20 years.

Another possibility proposed by Loeb is that ’Oumuamua is a buoy, or an interstellar beacon, virtually at rest in the interstellar medium. It did not travel to us, the Solar System travelled to it. It was closely aligned with the Sun’s path, which is either an extraordinary coincidence or it implies it was deliberately placed there – but is it still functional? It would have to have been left there for a very long time.

If ’Oumuamua’s path through the Solar System was deliberately chosen, did the supernovae shortly beforehand (Tycho’s Star in 1572 and Kepler’s Star in 1604) provide some useful fine-tuning of the approach? With 400 years to take effect, even a small impulse might make quite a difference to the apparent point of entry into the Solar System. If ’Oumuamua is returning to its origin, then its trajectory is highly significant. In 29,000 years ’Oumuamua will pass the star Ross 248 at 0.459 pc (1.5 light-years) with a velocity of 104 km/s and could perhaps close the gap.

Ross 248 is 10.26 light years from Earth and has a red dwarf sun, so it may have planets; though none have been detected. In 33,000 years from now, it will be the closest star to the Solar System, passing us at 3.024 light-years 4500 years later. The only closer stars which ’Oumuamua might have targeted would be Proxima or Alpha Centauri. It makes one wonder what ’Oumuamua or its creators may know about it that we do not. For living beings that wait would be unconscionable, but for an artificial intelligence the time spent in transit is nothing – literally, neither here nor there. SF

BELOW LEFTOne version of I4iS’s Project

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which would not use propellant is one that uses the proposed Mach

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RIGHTIs ’Oumuamua an ancient solar sail

or is it a cylindrical type object of some sort, the

debate continues.

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Almost 60 years separate actress Yulia Peresild’s flight to the ISS to film scenes for a Russian movie, another first in space for Russia, and the first woman in space Valentina Tereshkova, launched into orbit in her

single seat spacecraft in June 1963. Her solo flight was masterminded by Nikolai Kamanin, head of the cosmonaut team, who wanted to deliver another ‘space first’ for the Soviet space programme. Kamanin believed that he might be in another ‘race’ with America, so he initiated a female cosmonaut selection programme in late 1961. Within a few weeks, using the Volunteer Society for Cooperation with the Army, Aviation (known as DOSAAF) and Navy network Kamanin had recruited a team of five women. They were all in their twenties and mainly experienced parachutists, from whom the first woman in space would be chosen.

The October International Space Station (ISS) trip of actress Yulia Peresild made her the fifth Russian woman to complete a spaceflight, a small number considering Russia’s space history. Tony Quine looks at Russian female cosmonaut history and asks what might happen next.

No space forRussia’s women?

After just over a year of training, Tereshkova was selected to fly on Vostok 6 on 16 June 1963.

Her back-up was a champion parachutist, Irina Solovyeva. Tereshkova was 26 years old at the time of her launch and in 2021, she remains the youngest woman to go into orbit. Vostok 6 was the last spacecraft in the Soviet Union’s first crewed spaceflight series. Her flight lasted for three days and like previous Vostok missions another Vostok spacecraft was launched with a cosmonaut onboard. Vostok 6 flew at the same time as Vostok 5 which was piloted by Valery Bykovsky.

The two spacecraft maintained two-way radio communications and also established communications with Mission Control at regular intervals. Television pictures of the cosmonauts in their cabins were shown and biomedical and scientific experiments were conducted. After completing 48 orbits in 70.7 hours the spacecraft landed on 19 June 1963, northeast of Karaganda in Kazakhstan. Launched attached to a service module which provided electrical power, manoeuvring propulsion and other support equipment, the crew capsule would separate from that before it re-entered the atmosphere. Tereshkova flew for three days after a year of training while Peresild flew for 12-days after a few months training. Much has been written and speculated about Tereshkova’s performance in orbit, and the true facts will probably never be fully revealed. It is sufficient to say here that she was a

ABOVEAlyona Mordovina, runner up to Yulia Peresild and her

backup, has been invited to join

the Roscosmos cosmonaut corps.

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Tereshkova joins (l-r) Yuri Gagarin, Pavel Popovitch

and Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev at Lenin’s Tomb,

Moscow, 23 June 1963 to celebrate

her flight into space aboard

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brave and determined young woman who undertook a perilous flight at the dawn of the space age.

There was some suggestion that Solovyeva might undertake a spacewalk on an all-female Voskhod flight in 1965 or 1966, but such plans never progressed. With America showing no appetite for including women in their Gemini or Apollo programmes, the Soviet Union closed down the Tereshkova group in 1969.

This resulted in a nineteen-year gap until another woman would fly in space. She would be Svetlana Savitskaya, a former world aerobatic champion, a test pilot and daughter of a Soviet war hero, and so was extremely well qualified and connected. When she became aware that NASA had recruited their first group of female astronauts in 1978, she lobbied Valentin Glushko, head of the Soviet space programme, to be allowed to beat the Americans, once again.

Savitskaya’s plan probably did not go exactly as she had intended as a programme was initiated to recruit a sizeable group of women, including engineers and doctors, with Savitskaya the only aviator. Glushko had a plan to eventually fly an all-female Soyuz crew, and so recruited ten women. Savitskaya was still the stand-out candidate and flew on Soyuz T-7 in 1982, backed up by Irina Pronina, an engineer.

The visiting Soyuz T-7 three-person crew Savitskaya was part of delivered experiments and mail to the two-person Salyut station crew, codenamed Elbrus. On 21 August, the five cosmonauts traded seat liners between their two Soyuz spacecraft as the T-7 visiting crew, codenamed, the Dneipers, would

be going home in the Soyuz T-5 which had brought the station crew to Salyut 7. The Soyuz-T-7 spacecraft would stay beyond for the long duration crew.

Pronina was then due to fly on the following mission, Soyuz T-8, but she was bumped around a month before launch. It was allegedly over uncertainties about whether a woman was suitable for a long duration stay on the Salyut 7 space station. Pronina was never assigned to another mission. Savitskaya flew again, on Soyuz T-12 in 1984, when she completed the first female extra-vehicular activity (EVA), a spacewalk, and was backed up by Ekaterina Ivanova, another engineer.

WALK TO NOWHEREIt was on 25 July 1984 that the first EVA by a woman took place. Savitskaya did not just walk either, she tested welding equipment and other complex operations in the vacuum of space. Stepping out from the Salyut-7 space station, Savitskaya worked in tandem with the station’s commander, Vladimir Dzhanibekov. The welding gun, called the versatile hand tool (VHT), which they tested looked like a movie camera with two lenses but in fact they were electron beam guns. Over 3hr 35 min, Dzhanibekov and Savitskaya performed welding operations, cut metal, soldered and silvered metal surfaces.

The entire test was monitored by television cameras beaming the images back to Roscosmos Mission Control Center. The specialists who created the VHT could see its operation and advise the cosmonauts. The work Savitskaya and Dzhanibekov caried out was the first-time welding had been done

BELOWSpace Shuttle STS-84 mssion specialist Elena Kondakova talks to fellow mission

specialist, British- born Michael Foale, during

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in space. Welded samples were taken back aboard the station and eventually returned to Earth. After the mission, Savistkaya said that she found small movements difficult in a spacesuit while moving large objects was easy in the microgravity.

With these sorts of demonstrations of women’s abilities the all-female crew idea began to take shape in 1985. Savitskaya was lined up for a third flight with Ivanov and a doctor from the Institute of Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP), Yelena Dobrokvashina. However, problems with the Salyut-7 space station (ironically dramatised by Klim Shipenko in his movie of the same name) caused delays, before Saviskaya became pregnant and the mission was quietly forgotten.

Through the 1980s and 1990s American women were flying regularly and routinely on NASA’s Space

Shuttle, and the periodic cosmonaut recruitment groups started to include occasional women, but the numbers were very small. Between 1989 and 2010 around seventy-five new cosmonauts were selected, but only three were women. All three were engineers with the Energia design and construction bureau. They were Elena Kondakova in 1989, Nadezdha Kuzhelnaya in 1994 and Elena Serova in 2006.

Kondakova flew the first long-duration mission to the Mir space station by a Russian woman in 1994-5, on Soyuz TM-17 and was in orbit for 169 days. From January through June of 1994, she was training for the 17th main Mir mission and the Euromir-94 flight, as a flight engineer of the prime crew. From 4 October 1994 through 22 March 1995, Kondakova flew on Soyuz TM-17 to Mir where she was a flight engineer onboard the station. She spent 169 days in space including five days with NASA Astronaut Norman Thagard. The European Space Agency astronaut Ulf Merbold also spent time on Mir with Kondakova.

In 1997 she flew a shorter visiting mission on the Space Shuttle Atlantis on the STS-84 flight, which lasted nines day and 23 hours. NASA astronaut Eileen Collins was also on Atlantis.

Serova was the first Russian woman to visit the ISS in 2014, as part of Expeditions 41 and 42, and she completed a 167 day stay. But she left the cosmonaut team soon after her return to pursue a career in politics.

SHUTTLE ENDS ALL HOPENadezdha Kuzhelnaya was not so lucky. She had several back-up and prime crew assignments between 1997 and 2002 but at that time plans were very fluid, as Russia transitioned from visits to Mir, to the ISS, and the first ‘space tourists’ appeared on the scene. The Space Shuttle accident in 2003 was the final straw for Kuzhelnaya. It became clear that many Soyuz seats

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cosmonaut Elena Serova, Expedition 41 flight engineer,

floats through the Rassvet

Mini-Research Module 1 of the

International Space Station.

BELOWAnna Kikina, seem here undergoing

spacewalk training, is

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due to launch in September 2022. She will stay on

the ISS for at least six months and should become

the sixth Russian woman in space.

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would be required for international crew members, and opportunities for Russian rookies would be very limited. She left the team in 2004 and became a pilot with Aeroflot, eventually flying Airbus A330 aircraft.

In 2012, Roscosmos launched the first ever ‘open recruitment’ for cosmonauts. Previously, the vast majority of applicants came from organisations connected to the aerospace industry, such as the Air Force, Energia or the IMBP. But this time anyone could apply who met the demanding academic, professional and physical requirements. This resulted in eight recruits included Anna Kikina, an engineering graduate of the Novosibirsk State Academy of Water Transport.

Kikina is assigned to Soyuz MS-22, due to launch in September 2022. She will stay on the ISS for at least six months and should become the sixth Russian woman in space.

That open process was repeated in 2018 and 2021 and 12 men from a variety of backgrounds began cosmonaut training, but no women. This is despite about 25% of applications being from female candidates. When questioned by journalists, officials have simply said that no women met the criteria.

Both the head of Roscosmos, Dmitri Rogozin, and Maxim Kharmalov, head of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre (GCTC) have expressed concerns that Kikina is the only woman in the cosmonaut corps. They have pledged to find and fly more female cosmonauts in the future. Perhaps the filming for the Russian movie, Challenge, which led to Peresild going to the ISS in October will provide an initial chance to make good on that promise?

Publicised as a movie that would be filmed on ISS, the call for candidates for the leading role saw 3,000 applications. This number dwarfed the total applications from the previous two professional cosmonaut selection processes; especially when only applications from women are considered.

Different figures have been reported from Moscow but the total number of applications for each previous selection was below 1000, with around 20-25% from women. Applicants

have said that the process is quite onerous and costly with the candidates having to produce lots of certified documents. They will cover academic achievements, experience, health, motivation and so on. Only the most committed candidates seem prepared to complete this initial step.

The actress selection process was entirely online and easy to complete. Candidates self-certified their physical fitness, qualifications and experience. Clearly these attributes would be reviewed and tested for short-listed candidates, but this approach generated a much greater level of interest.

Encouraged by this, after selecting the actresses Yulia Peresild and Alyona Mordovina, Roscosmos announced a recruitment drive for professional female cosmonauts from the original pool of movie candidates. However, although many (possibly all) were contacted and asked to formally register their interest, nothing tangible has happened in the following six months.

Even so, there are signs that Roscosmos is actively looking at how they can leverage the movie project and expand the female cosmonaut corps. Galina Kairova, a pilot, who reached the final three for the lead role selection process, was offered the opportunity to continue to the professional cosmonaut team. When asked about this invitation during an interview

in August Kharmalov said that he was in continuous contact with Kairova, but there was no indication of how, or when, the offer would be fulfilled.

Similarly, after the successful launch of Soyuz MS-19 carrying Peresild, Mordovina, the runner up in the movie competition and Peresild’s backup was invited by Rogozin to join the Roscosmos cosmonaut team. As SpaceFlight went to press, Mordovina was still to formally reveal her response. With, Kairova, Mordovina and Peresild, the only women to pass the cosmonaut selection process in almost 10 years perhaps this is the moment for Roscosmos to adopt a different approach. They are qualified, smart and committed, so why would Roscosmos let the opportunity to expand the corps slip through its fingers? SF

BELOWRunner up to Yulia

Peresild, Galina Kairova, a pilot,

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join the cosmonaut corps.

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The future of humanity is driven by nanotechnology, law and science but it needs to be supported by philosophy, particularly ethics, for society to evolve in the right direction. So far, the views on such progress remain

pessimistic. We are not just trashing Earth, we are polluting space too. There is no law, treaty or space ethics that demands we clean up low Earth orbit (LEO). There is no enforcement over the space industry to change its behaviours to more sustainable ones.

In early May this year, a huge, out-of-control rocket that launched China’s first module for its Tiangong space station fell back to Earth. This incident sounded the SOS alarm in several densely populated regions, including New York, Beijing, Sydney and the Italian province of Calabria. Not even 10 days later, another piece of space junk slammed into the International Space Station (ISS), leaving a hole in its robotic arm. Scientists are monitoring 23,000 fast-moving pieces of space junk that could harm the ISS and endanger the lives of the astronauts living on board.

A year ago, the same type of Chinese rocket, the Long March which launched the Tiangong module, deorbited

Cleaning up after ourselves should be our first rule for colonising the Universe.by Nina Kojima

and a 10 m-long rod from the debris cut through the roof of a family home in the Ivory Coast. These rockets orbit the Earth at a speed of 29,000 kilometres per hour, and it is impossible to predict where the debris will land. In 2009, an inactive Russian communication satellite, designated Kosmos-2251, collided with an active commercial communication satellite operated by US-based Iridium. The incident occurred about 800 km above Siberia. The international law applicable for such collisions is mainly derived from the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and the 1972 Liability Convention.

Under these treaties, the ‘launching state’ is liable for the damages caused by objects in orbit. According to the common legal definition of ‘launching state’ established by these treaties, Russia is held accountable for Kosmos-2251. However, it is unclear whether the launching state for Iridium 33 is Russia, the United States (US), or Kazakhstan. The satellite was not registered with the United Nations, as required by the 1974 Registration Convention. There were no warnings issued ahead of potential collisions between Kosmos-2251 and Iridium 33. However, the military in both the US and Russia had accurate tracking data on the two satellites well

Waste not want notABOVE

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket deploys

60 satellites for the Starlink internet constellation in

May 2019.

BELOWThe Very Large

Telescope at Cerro Paranal during the total lunar eclipse

of 21 December 2010.

SPACE DEBRIS


before the collisions. If analysed this data would have anticipated the occurrence.

Starlink is a satellite internet constellation constructed by SpaceX. It will consist of mass-produced small satellites providing internet access, working in combination with ground transceivers. Some of these satellites will be sold for scientific, exploratory and army purposes. By late 2021 or 2022, 1,584 satellites will be deployed by SpaceX. In October 2015, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) filed to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) on behalf of SpaceX to arrange a spectrum for 30,000 additional Starlink satellites to supplement the 12,000 Starlink satellites already approved by the FCC.

Astronomers, including Dr Jonathan McDowell from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, have raised concerns about the constellation’s effect on ground-based astronomy. McDowell said: “The proliferation of satellite constellations, while exciting for space technology fans, is a serious threat to ground-based astronomy... It is therefore critical that there be international action… to regulate satellite systems to help preserve humanity’s view of the heavens.” He explained that the impact on the observations is sensitive to the exact design of the constellation. This also means it is technically feasible to deploy constellations that will make it very difficult to make observations for significant parts of the year.

In her book, Dr Space Junk vs the Universe, archaeologist Alice Gorman reminds us how much junk we have already sent into space. Space is a massive place, too vast to imagine, but does this give us the right and justification to pollute it? For the foreseeable future most astronomical observations are still from the Earth, from ground-based telescopes. Vast numbers of satellites orbiting Earth are causing destruction, and from some observatories it is almost impossible to reach the night sky. The Starlink satellites will add substantially to the already jammed orbital environment.

The ethical question posed here is how can a single company unilaterally change the night sky’s appearance? And who will clean the waste once the satellites are no longer in use and the company that launched them into orbit no longer exists? Satellites are one of the most important inventions of modern society. Their orbits around Earth substantially help forecast the weather, monitor climate change, make observations, and aid navigation and telecommunication. They can be used for spying and killing, or alternatively for saving lives.

The life expectancy of satellites launched in the 1990s

was 12 years; for those launched at the millennium it was 15 years. Starlink’s life expectancy is three to four years before deorbit. Arguably, satellite waste causes pollution in several ways, preventing astronomical observations, creates extra LEO rubbish and if not vaporised on re-entry, debris will land in the sea or someone’s backyard. In the case of Starlink’s full constellation of 11,000 satellites, it only takes simple maths to calculate that three to four satellites will have to be replaced every day. Where are the old ones going to go?

Ground astronomy observations were at the heart of science even before our civilisation. Ancient Egyptians’ lives depended on the predictions of the Sirius star in the sky for the Nile flooding so they knew when to plant seeds. According to Sirius’ position, they knew when the right time for the harvest was. Many civilisations before ours were marking the year according to the position of the Moon. The first laws of physics were discovered on the basis of observing the night sky. But because of pollution from satellites, astrophysicists are finding it harder to observe the sky.

With some of the most advanced terrestrial telescopes, like the Gran Telescopio Canarias and the Very Large Telescope in Cerro Paranal in Chile, becoming less effective, where do we go from here? We need laws and ethics to support our progressive interventions and explorations in space. Here on Earth, our only home for now, we are setting targets for fighting global pollution and climate change. It is rather sad to recognise that, to paraphrase Shakespeare, “our little life is rounded by our junk”. Many would agree that cleaning LEO should be put at the top of the agenda at this year’s UN Climate Change Conference.

Can the exploration of our solar system, and life in human colonies on the Moon and Mars, be ethical? Can we make it ethical before we put our footprints on another object in our solar system? We are not going into space, because we are in space already. Copernicus, Newton, Einstein and other magnificent thinkers have proven our home is far bigger than the Kenyan valley that we left long ago after shedding the fur on our skins. Our home is now the Universe.

These days we can live independently, more or less regardless of the climate. We have invented clothes and swapped caves for houses. Sooner rather than later we’ll be building structures far beyond LEO. But at the same time, with the rapid development of technology, it would be quite wrong to think we are the last of the generations who are able to reach towards the stars, simply because we can still see them! SF

Waste not want not

The ethical question

posed here is how can a

single company

unilaterally change the night sky’s

appearance?

2021 REVIEW


2021: a space retrospective

17 JanuaryVirgin Orbit achieved a successful flight with its LauncherOne when the liquid propellant rocket put 10 payloads into space. Carried to an altitude of more than 9,100 m under the port wing of a converted Boeing 747-400, the two-stage rocket was dropped for an air-ignition and ascent to low Earth orbit carrying a group of CubeSat payloads for universities and institutions.

SpaceX Starship’s first high-altitude landing, China’s new space station, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter on Mars, space tourism’s hesitant start and a UK National Space Strategy – the last 12 months have seen many significant milestones, 20 years after the iconic year of 2001.by Griffith Ingram and Rob Coppinger

1 AprilUK Space Command officially came into existence as a joint command staffed by the Royal Navy, British Army, Royal Air Force, civil servants, and commercial partners. UK Space Command has been initially located at RAF High Wycombe, alongside RAF Air Command.

18 FebruaryThe Mars 2020 lander, carrying the Perseverance rover and the Ingenuity helicopter, touches down in Jezero Crater. The fabric for the parachute was made at Heathcoat Fabrics of Tiverton, Devon, UK.

NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image during its descent to Mars, using its descent stage down-look camera. This camera is mounted on the bottom of the descent stage and looks at the rover. This image was acquired on 22 February 2021 at the local mean solar time of 19:20hrs.

Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket ignites moments after being released by carrier aircraft Cosmic Girl for the company’s Launch Demo 2 mission, 17 January 2021.

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2021 REVIEW


2021: a space retrospective

2 AprilSpaceX wins NASA’s Human Landing System contract which set in train unprecedented contract challenges by Blue Origin against the award.

19 AprilThe Ingenuity helicopter flies for the first time on Mars and has flown 13 times up to 5 September. The Perseverance rover acquired this image using its left Mastcam-Z camera – one of a pair located high on the rover’s mast. This image was acquired on 15 June, 2021 (Sol 114) at the local mean solar time of 12:38hrs.

29 AprilChina launches its space station’s core module, Tianhe (right). In October, the Chinese space station’s second crew were launched. The third crew arrives in March and next year additional modules will arrive to advance the station’s assembly.

14 MayChina’s Tianwen-1 orbiter carried the Zhurong rover to Mars, where it landed in the Utopia Planitia region.

5 MayStarship SN-15 (above) achieves a successful landing. It was SpaceX’s fifth high-altitude flight test of a Starship prototype from Starbase in Texas. SpaceX had hoped to have an orbital launch for Starship but it has not obtained the necessary licence and there is an ongoing Federal Aviation Administration review of SpaceX’s Starship operations.

9 JuneUS-based Sierra Space signs a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Spaceport Cornwall to land Dream Chaser spaceplanes there after trips to the ISS. The MOU will lead to a more detailed study of Dream Chaser landings in Cornwall.

An early colourimage of theZhurong roveron the surface ofMars.

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11 JulySir Richard Branson (above) flew on his SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity to sub-orbit with three others and the spaceplane’s two pilots. It was supposed to be the flight that began Virgin Galactic’s commercial services for passengers but Branson’s company is delaying the next flight (see page 6).

20 JulyThe New Shepard launch system successfully completed its first human flight with four private citizens onboard. Along with Blue Origin boss Jeff Bezos were Oliver Daemen (left), Wally Funk (centre) and Bezos’s brother Mark (right), here pictured by Jeff Bezos with the spacecraft at apogee.

6 AugustSpaceX assembles its Starship launch system for the first time, placing SN20 on top of Super Heavy Booster Four on the orbital launch mount next to the launch and landing tower.

15-18 SeptemberThe Inspiration4 mission funded by billionaire Jared Isaacman sent the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule Resilience into space for three days with a crew of four civilians. Inspiration4 is the first all-civilian orbital flight.

27 SeptemberThe UK government announced its National Space Strategy which included ambitions to launch rockets from UK soil and for British astronauts and participation in Moon and Mars missions.

16 OctoberChina launches its second crew to its space station Tiangong’s Tianhe central module. The crew consists of two men, Zhai Zhigang and Ye Guangfu, and one woman, Wang Yaping. Shenzhou 13 made the first autonomous docking and docked with Tianhe’s Nadir port.

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2021 REVIEW


16 OctoberNASA launches its Lucy mission to study the Trojan asteroids. It lifted off from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 0534hrs local time, on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.

18 DecemberNASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is due to be launched from the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana, on an Arianespace Ariane 5 ECA rocket.

8 DecemberA Soyuz rocket will launch the Soyuz MS-20 spacecraft to the International Space Station with Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin (left) and two spaceflight participants, Japanese businessman Yusaku Maezawa and video producer Yozo Hirano.

24 NovemberFrom Baikonur, a Soyuz rocket is due to launch the new Uzlovoy docking port module, Prichal (pictured as a mock-up at the Yuri Gagarin Space Centre) to the ISS. It will dock with Russia’s Nauka science module and serve Russian vehicles.

22 OctoberThe Republic ofKorea (South Korea)launched its newKorea Space LaunchVehicle 2 (KSLV-2)rocket, Nuri, from NaroSpace Center but itfailed to put itsdummy payloadinto the correct orbit.

Nuri, KSLV-2, transferred to the launch pad and mounted on the launch platform..

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OBITUARY


Buckley’s interest in space and science fiction was stimulated by a visit to the Kelvingrove Museum in 1945, to see a German V1 and V2 captured at the end of World War Two. He began painting on space themes after

the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957. His early paintings featured space battles in comic-strip style, but they were not published until a Daily Mail story about him many years later. He began training as a commercial artist but gave up to look after his mother, who died of cancer in 1967.

While working shifts as a conductor on the Glasgow buses, Buckley began serious painting such as ‘Mars Expedition over Deimos’ (1960) with amazing detail, often working with a single-hair brush. A few were on near-contemporary themes like the Blue Streak first stage of the Europa booster. But others included

Ed Buckley(1927-2021)

REMEMBERING

Edmund David Buckley was one of the world’s finest space artists, though he kept his light mostly under a bushel and published little except for illustrating in books.by Duncan Lunan

astronauts on moons of Jupiter, interstellar probes and starships in Earth orbit, and planets of a red dwarf, a red giant, and binary stars. ‘Follow the Leader’, with an elephant-like creature in a bubble vehicle, was the first to feature non-terrestrial life.

AD ASTRABuckley was a member of the British Interplanetary Society (BIS) Scottish branch before it became independent and known as ASTRA in 1963. In December 1962, for his talk, ‘Born, Luna City, 2140 AD’, he produced a pen-and-ink study of the Lunar Module; sketches of lunar exploration and the first lunar base; a detailed diagram of the lunar city in Arthur C. Clarke’s Earthlight, and painted in colour, ‘The Inheritance,’ showing a notional lunar capital of a Federation of Solar Worlds.

In the summer of 1967, Buckley and the author formulated the Interstellar Project of discussions which led to the book Man and the Stars (1974). Buckley introduced preliminary artwork for the first chapter, ‘The first phase of interstellar colonisation, out to 12 light-years’, in the form of chalk drawings for a Glasgow meeting in March 1970. To meet the deadline for the book’s publication in 1974, he began painting in acrylics, changing to a day job as a security guard at the Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery. The first two

ABOVEEd Buckley

pictured in 1971 with his star cloud

mural for the ASTRA meeting

rooms in Hamilton, Scotland.

RIGHT‘Old Moon’,

painted in 1975 for New Worlds for

Old by the author (1979).

BELOW‘Mars Expedition

over Deimos’ (1960).

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paintings in acrylic were used to illustrate the author’s article ‘Space Probe from Epsilon Boötis’ by request of the British Interplanetary Society. One was in the April 1973 edition of SpaceFlight and both were printed in colour in the book Man and the Stars.

At the same time, Buckley created a mural of the star clouds in Scorpius for ASTRA’s first meeting rooms at Peacock Cross in Hamilton. Unfortunately, the building was summarily demolished in February the following year, and only photographs remain. In 1970 and 1971 his paintings were shown in public for the first time, first in an STV interview with the ASTRA Secretary and then at exhibitions in the ASTRA rooms. In December 1971, Buckley’s talk, ‘An Artist’s View of the Solar System’, featured recent discoveries by Apollo 15 and by Mariner 9 over Mars. In his talk he also predicted correctly some of the discoveries that were to come with the Pioneer and Voyager missions to the outer planets.

This led to the ‘Interplanetary Project’ which generated the author’s books New Worlds for Old (1979) and Man and the Planets (1984), with Buckley sharing the honours as illustrator with Gavin Roberts. Black-and-white reproductions of three early paintings appeared in Beyond This Horizon, An Anthology of Science Fiction and Science Fact published by the Ceolfrith Arts – Sunderland Arts Centre in 1973. The book Man and the Stars came out in May 1974, and in July 1975 Buckley travelled to see the launch of the Apollo-Soyuz rendezvous mission, with other ASTRA members.

The ASTRA party watched from the VIP area before the Launch Control Centre and had a private tour of Kennedy Space Center a few days later, by courtesy of Jeri Bell of NASA. In April 1977, Buckley was elected ASTRA President, but resigned in April 1978. A display of his work appeared in ‘The High Frontier, a Decade of Space Research 1969-1979’, at the Third Eye Centre in Glasgow from September-October 1979. He also gave a talk there entitled, ‘Spaceships of the Pen,’ which he repeated several times at science fiction conventions thereafter. In April 1990 there was a display of his paintings old and new at the 90s Gallery in Otago Street, Glasgow, in the ‘Urban Spacemen’. This exhibition took place during the city’s year as European

City of Culture. At this time, Buckley was also exhibiting frequently at science fiction conventions.

Buckley’s ‘Old and New Mars’ paintings from New Worlds for Old were reprinted in black-and-white in The Directory of Discarded Ideas (1983) by John Grant, who edited the two Solar System books produced by Buckley and the author. After that, David A. Hardy reproduced two early Buckley paintings and one from Man and the Planets in his book Visions of Space (1989). Buckley’s New Worlds for Old cover painting was reproduced by the Slovenian editor Samo Resnik for the collection Fantazia (Ljlubjana 1990).

But, otherwise, few if any of Buckley’s paintings have been published or reprinted in book form. Likewise, almost all of the magazine reproductions have been from the books with articles of the author’s in SpaceFlight, Analog, Speculations in Science & Technology, Space Voyager, Space World, Jeff Hawke’s Cosmos and Orkney News. Buckley also provided diagrams for the author’s paper ‘Project Starseed’ published in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society in 1983. With further use in Man and the Planets, Incoming Asteroid, and in amateur magazines such as Spacereport, Infinity, Asgard and Settlers’ Sentinel, his many contributions to the spaceflight and science fiction scenes will be greatly missed, particularly in Scotland. SF

BELOW1967…or Earlier?

(1964).

ABOVEUranus, ‘Golgotha

Moon’ (1973).

SPACE MODELS


SPACE MODELSKit building and modelling for space enthusiasts of all ages

Into orbit with Willy

M entioned last time around, in connection with the film Frau im Mond (SpaceFlight Vol 63 No11 Nov 2021) was the German space scientist Willy Ley. Ley was employed by movie-maker Fritz Lang, along with Hermann

Oberth, as an advisor, though Ley tended to play second fiddle to the older Oberth. Ley became one of a number of German rocket scientists who would decamp to, and become a citizen of, the United States. Another, of course, was Wernher von Braun.

Ley and von Braun actually worked a lot together in the USA, co-authoring books, articles for Collier’s magazine and cooperating on Disney projects. Unfortunately for Ley, he continued to play second fiddle – it was usually, “Wernher von Braun and, oh, Willy Ley” (or a number of others for that matter). But this was the mid-Fifties and besides books and the newly popular television, many US model

kit companies were also exploring the new frontier of space including Revell, Hawk, Lindberg and Strombecker. The last, especially, used the talents of von Braun to give authenticity to its kits. But Monogram, another of the original names, decided to join the club and hired Willy Ley to devise a series of ‘Willy Ley Space Models’. Ironically he was the only one of these rocket scientists to actually get his photo on the box! The Monogram series were issued in 1959 and consisted of four kits. They are a somewhat eclectic mix.

The first two represent arguably the most logical route to crewed spaceflight: a large reusuable booster rocket piggybacked with a smaller craft designed to reach space. The ‘Trans-Oceanic Passenger Rocket Ship’ was intended to travel half way around the world in a sub-orbital hop before landing at its destination like a conventional airliner, leaving the crewed booster rocket to return to the point of departure.

Very similar in concept was the ‘Orbital Rocket’, which had an identical first stage, but carried a smaller two-stage spacecraft that would boost its crew into full Earth orbit. Intended for military operation, it carried ‘US Space Force’ markings.

The first stages of both kits came complete with an operating three-point undercarriage and two pilot figures visible

RIGHTThe original box

art for the Orbital Rocket displays a certain degree of artistic licence!

RIGHTThe built-up Passenger Rocket (left) and Orbital Rocket.

BELOWA page from the 1960 Monogram

catalogue advertising all four kits. Interestingly

– given the time – there is a girl among the group of boys

surrounding Ley.

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through the clear cockpit canopy. Both kits sat on identical bases with two ground crew for scale (around 1:190).

The third kit features a change of approach, being an early design for a rocket-launched meteorological satellite containing a TV camera to view the Earth’s cloud cover from orbit. It comprises the rocket on its launch pad, together with a service tower and three launch pad personnel. The pad bears a passing resemblance to the one used to launch the US Navy’s Vanguard rocket, but is three-sided rather than four. The rocket itself is interesting

in that the second stage extends beyond the entire length of the first stage, its engine bell protruding though the same engine plate. The final stage, with the camera in

its nose, sits on top of this. The scale is 1:96.

The fourth kit – the ‘Space Taxi’ – returns to the crewed spaceflight theme and is subtitled a ‘Transport and Work Ship’. It is the largest in scale of the four, being the common model aircraft scale of 1:48.

The Space Taxi was a design for a small space tug that could be used to manoeuvre stores and equipment to and from

larger orbiting craft. Four figures were included – one in shirt-sleeves in a pressurised piloting position, and three wearing spacesuits. Two of the figures were mounted on adjustable metal wires representing their umbilicals, giving them a realistic ‘floating’ appearance while moving stores from the cargo bay. Manoeuvring thrusters were mounted in the exposed cages at either end and the entire ensemble was supported on a base of the Earth’s globe (though they were not restricted to Earth orbit; the box art showed the craft in orbit around the Moon).

The Space Taxi reappeared in 1969, at the time of Apollo 11, now called the ‘Space Buggy’ and in a slightly different box style. The kit was basically the same, though some parts, including the cages and the astronaut figures, were now chrome-plated.

And that is not the end of the story, for in the 1990s the Willy Ley Quartet were included in Revell-Monogram’s Selected Subjects Program (SSP) – reissues of kits in as near to their original form as possible, including the box art (a major plus point for collectors). The Space Buggy was reissued – now back as the Space Taxi – in SSP Phase 15 in

1996, but in a box that was somewhat larger than the 1959 version. The Passenger Rocket followed in Phase 16, this time in its original box size. Unfortunately the other two kits were not reissued and the SSP ceased as an ongoing series in 1998. But the good news is that the tooling for all four still exists, now in the possession of Atlantis Models, so you never know: we may get the opportunity to get these kits again. SF Mat Irvine

ABOVE The1:48 scale

Space Taxi transport and work ship (left) and the reissued Space Buggy version

(right).

RIGHTThree of the explanatory booklets included in the kits. Such booklets were a common feature of many of the model kits of the era.

BELOW The built-up TV Orbiter in 1:96

scale.

SLUG

38 Vol 63 April 2021 SpaceFlight

SATELLITE DIGEST


Satellite Digest is SpaceFlight’s regular listing of world space launches using orbital data from the United States Space Command space-track.org website.

Compiled by Geoff Richards Sponsored by Seradata

Satellite Digest 587Spacecraft International Date Launch Launch vehicle Mass Orbital Inclin. Period Perigee Apogee Notes designation site (kg) epoch (deg) (min) (km) (km)

DREAM,BSS 1 Sep 3.02 WTR Alpha 92 Failed to reach orbit [1]

Gaofen 5-02 2021-079A Sep 7.13 Jiuquan Chang Zheng 4C 2,300 Sep 11.90 98.28 98.75 700 701 [2]

Zhongxing 9B 2021-080A Sep 9.49 Xichang Chang Zheng 3B 5,100? Sep 22.65 0.06 1,436.01 35,769 35,804 [3]

Kosmos 2551 2021-081A Sep 9.83 Plesetsk Soyuz-2.1v 250? Sep 10.14 96.34 90.51 295 307 [4]

Starlink 3096 2021-082B Sep 14.16 WTR Falcon 9FT 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.66 283 337 [5]

Starlink 3090 2021-082C 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.67 284 336 [5]

Starlink 3077 2021-082D 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.66 283 337 [5]

Starlink 3078 2021-082E 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.65 283 336 [5]

Starlink 3073 2021-082F 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.66 282 337 [5]

Starlink 3084 2021-082G 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.66 283 336 [5]

Starlink 3055 2021-082H 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.65 282 336 [5]

Starlink 3058 2021-082J 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.65 282 336 [5]

Starlink 3057 2021-082K 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.65 282 336 [5]

Starlink 3118 2021-082L 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.64 281 336 [5]

Starlink 3093 2021-082M 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.64 282 336 [5]

Starlink 3042 2021-082N 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.64 281 335 [5]

Starlink 3109 2021-082P 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.63 281 335 [5]

Starlink 3100 2021-082Q 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.63 281 335 [5]

Starlink 3119 2021-082R 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.62 280 335 [5]

Starlink 3116 2021-082S 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.63 281 335 [5]

Starlink 3071 2021-082T 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.63 281 336 [5]

Starlink 3048 2021-082U 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.62 280 335 [5]

Starlink 3053 2021-082V 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.62 280 335 [5]

Starlink 3104 2021-082W 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.61 280 335 [5]

Starlink 3102 2021-082X 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.62 280 335 [5]

Starlink 3081 2021-082Y 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.60 279 335 [5]

Starlink 3072 2021-082Z 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.61 280 335 [5]

Starlink 3068 2021-082AA 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.60 279 335 [5]

Starlink 3060 2021-082AB 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.61 279 335 [5]

Starlink 3085 2021-082AC 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.59 278 335 [5]

Starlink 3051 2021-082AD 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.60 278 335 [5]

Starlink 3083 2021-082AE 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.59 278 334 [5]

Starlink 3056 2021-082AF 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.60 278 335 [5]

Starlink 3095 2021-082AG 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.59 278 334 [5]

Starlink 3080 2021-082AH 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.59 278 335 [5]

Starlink 3082 2021-082AJ 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.58 277 334 [5]

Starlink 3088 2021-082AK 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.58 277 335 [5]

Starlink 3106 2021-082AL 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.57 276 334 [5]

Starlink 3052 2021-082AM 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.58 276 335 [5]

Starlink 3089 2021-082AN 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.57 277 334 [5]

NOTES


1. New Firefly Aerospace Alpha vehicle suffered an electrical problem which caused fuel valve on one first stage engine to close at 15 s. Planned orbit was 300 km at 137° inclination. Payloads were DREAM (Dedicated Research and Education Accelerator Mission) educational payload platform built by Firefly Aerospace carrying Cubesat deployers for Serenity, Hiapo and an Origin 1 mass simulator, a deployer with six PocketQubes, the BSS 1 commercial Cubesat and components including an ST-25 Hall-effect thruster for planned Space Utility Vehicle kick stage for test. Second stage also carried Spinnaker 3 4.2 m square polyimide dragsail technology development payload built by Purdue University and California Polytechnic for NASA with two cameras to observe sail deployment and the Firefly Capsule 1 with a number of commemorative items including photos, artwork, books and the LifeShip collection of 430 samples of plant DNA. Serenity is an educational and technology 3U Cubesat built by Teachers in Space carrying a Pi camera for Earth observation, two Geiger counters for radiation, sensors for atmospheric pressure and temperature, a transponder to test communications using blockchain technology and a GPS receiver. Hiapo is an educational 1U Cubesat built by Hawaii Science and Technology Museum with a magnetometer for solar wind effects on the Earth’s field. PocketQubes were FossaSat 1b and 2, a pair of technology development PocketQubes, 1p and 2p respectively, built by Fossa Systems, each with a LoRa transponder for IoT communication and, for FossaSat 2, a camera for Earth observation; Qubik 1 and Qubik 2, a pair of technology development 1p PocketQubes built by Libre Space Foundation and each carrying an amateur band transponder for communication including testing modulation techniques and identification signals and GENESIS L (Light) and GENESIS N (Normal), a pair of technology development 1.5p PocketQubes built by Amsat-EA and each carrying an amateur band transponder for communication including testing and an AIS-gPPT3-1C Teflon micropulse plasma motor for performance test. BSS 1 was a technology development 3U Cubesat built using a 3U-FastBus from NearSpace Launch by Benchmark Space Systems carrying a Starling warm gas propulsion system for performance test.

2. Earth resources satellite built using a SAST-500B bus for SASTIND with an Advanced Hyperspectral Imager (AHSI) and a multi-channel scanner covering visible and near, short and thermal infra-red bands (VIMS) for Earth imaging and surface characteristics, a scanning grating infra-red spectrometer (GMI) for greenhouse gas concentration, a limb-sounding infra-red spectrometer (AIUS) for atmospheric composition, a four-band ultraviolet/visible grating imaging spectrometer (EMI) for atmospheric ozone and other trace gases and an eight-band visible/infra-red radiometer/polarimeter (DPC) for clouds and aerosols. Satellite has manoeuvred to its operational orbit.

3. Telecommunications and direct broadcast satellite built using a CAST DFH-4E bus for China Satcom. Mass estimated above is at launch. It is located over 101.4°E, replacing Zhongxing 9A, to provide a service to China and surrounding countries.

4. Military reconnaissance satellite, reportedly the second EMKA, built by VNIIEM for MORF carrying a high-resolution panchromatic scanner for Earth observation.

5. Set of 51 communication satellites built by SpaceX, each carrying transponders for communications, an inter-satellite optical communication system and an autonomous collision avoidance system. Launch Group 2-1 in Starlink broadband system, first to a new constellation shell, first of v1.5 version. All satellites have manoeuvred up to a 360 km holding orbit to allow drift to correct planes. First stage, that previously flown on Starlink v1.0 L25 launch, landed on the Of Course I Still Love You barge 640 km downrange.

The Zhongxing 9B satellite lifts off from Xichang, 9 September.

CN

ASA

SATELLITE DIGEST


Spacecraft International Date Launch Launch vehicle Mass Orbital Inclin. Period Perigee Apogee Notes designation site (kg) epoch (deg) (min) (km) (km)

Starlink 3054 2021-082AP 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.57 277 334 [5]

Starlink 3101 2021-082AQ 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.56 276 334 [5]

Starlink 3046 2021-082AR 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.57 276 334 [5]

Starlink 3074 2021-082AS 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.55 275 334 [5]

Starlink 3107 2021-082AT 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.56 276 334 [5]

Starlink 3091 2021-082AU 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.55 275 334 [5]

Starlink 3045 2021-082AV 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.27 248 333 [5]

Starlink 3047 2021-082AW 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.56 275 334 [5]

Starlink 3087 2021-082AX 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.55 275 333 [5]

Starlink 3069 2021-082AY 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.54 274 333 [5]

Starlink 3103 2021-082AZ 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.55 275 333 [5]

Starlink 3086 2021-082BA 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.54 274 333 [5]

Starlink 3043 2021-082BB 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.54 274 333 [5]

Starlink 3050 2021-082BC 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.53 274 333 [5]

Starlink 3059 2021-082BD 260 Sep 20.58 70.00 90.53 274 333 [5]

OneWeb 0292 2021-083A Sep 14.75 Baykonur Soyuz-2.1b-Fregat-M 148 Sep 16.67 87.40 93.62 441 466 [6]

OneWeb 0303 2021-083B 148 Sep 16.67 87.40 93.79 450 474 [6]

OneWeb 0306 2021-083C 148 Sep 16.67 87.40 93.73 445 472 [6]

OneWeb 0307 2021-083D 148 Sep 16.67 87.40 93.66 445 466 [6]

OneWeb 0320 2021-083E 148 Sep 16.67 87.40 93.81 451 474 [6]

OneWeb 0321 2021-083F 148 Sep 16.67 87.40 93.60 439 465 [6]

OneWeb 0322 2021-083G 148 Sep 16.67 87.40 93.62 441 466 [6]

OneWeb 0324 2021-083H 148 Sep 16.67 87.40 93.77 447 474 [6]

OneWeb 0325 2021-083J 148 Sep 16.67 87.40 93.80 451 474 [6]

OneWeb 0326 2021-083K 148 Sep 16.67 87.40 93.73 445 472 [6]

OneWeb 0327 2021-083L 148 Sep 16.67 87.40 93.75 446 473 [6]

OneWeb 0328 2021-083M 148 Sep 16.67 87.40 93.63 443 466 [6]

OneWeb 0331 2021-083N 148 Sep 16.67 87.40 93.76 447 473 [6]

OneWeb 0333 2021-083P 148 Sep 16.67 87.40 93.64 443 466 [6]

OneWeb 0334 2021-083Q 148 Sep 16.67 87.40 93.57 438 464 [6]

OneWeb 0335 2021-083R 148 Sep 16.67 87.40 93.71 445 471 [6]

OneWeb 0336 2021-083S 148 Sep 16.67 87.40 93.68 445 468 [6]

OneWeb 0337 2021-083T 148 Sep 16.67 87.40 93.72 445 471 [6]

OneWeb 0338 2021-083U 148 Sep 16.67 87.40 93.61 440 466 [6]

OneWeb 0339 2021-083V 148 Sep 16.67 87.40 93.68 445 467 [6]

OneWeb 0340 2021-083W 148 Sep 16.67 87.40 93.79 449 473 [6]

OneWeb 0341 2021-083X 148 Sep 16.67 87.40 93.78 448 474 [6]

OneWeb 0342 2021-083Y 148 Sep 16.67 87.40 93.56 437 463 [6]

OneWeb 0343 2021-083Z 148 Sep 16.67 87.40 93.74 446 473 [6]

OneWeb 0344 2021-083AA 148 Sep 16.67 87.40 93.70 445 470 [6]

OneWeb 0345 2021-083AB 148 Sep 16.67 87.40 93.70 445 469 [6]

OneWeb 0346 2021-083AC 148 Sep 16.67 87.40 93.78 449 474 [6]

OneWeb 0348 2021-083AD 148 Sep 16.67 87.40 93.57 438 464 [6]

OneWeb 0350 2021-083AE 148 Sep 16.67 87.40 93.66 445 466 [6]

OneWeb 0351 2021-083AF 148 Sep 16.67 87.40 93.52 437 459 [6]

OneWeb 0352 2021-083AG 148 Sep 16.67 87.40 93.67 445 467 [6]

OneWeb 0354 2021-083AH 148 Sep 16.67 87.40 93.52 437 460 [6]

OneWeb 0355 2021-083AJ 148 Sep 16.67 87.40 93.65 444 466 [6]

OneWeb 0357 2021-083AK 148 Sep 16.67 87.40 93.58 438 465 [6]

SATELLITE DIGEST


NOTES

Spacecraft International Date Launch Launch vehicle Mass Orbital Inclin. Period Perigee Apogee Notes designation site (kg) epoch (deg) (min) (km) (km)

Inspiration4 2021-084A Sep 16.00 KSC Falcon 9FT 12,000? Sep 16.15 51.64 96.06 570 579 [7]

Tianzhou 3 2021-085A Sep 20.30 Wenchang Chang Zheng 7 13,000 Sep 20.54 41.47 92.08 381 385 [8]

Jilin 1 Gaofen 02D 2021-086A Sep 27.26 Jiuquan Kuaizhou 1A 172 Sep 27.52 97.53 95.38 532 546 [9]

Shiyan 10 2021-087A Sep 27.35 Xichang Chang Zheng 3B 5,000? Sep 27.69 51.04 715.85 177 40,105 [10]

Landsat 9 2021-088A Sep 27.76 WTR Atlas V 401 2,864 Oct 2.45 98.22 98.31 672 687 [11]

Cesium Satellite 1 2021-088B 10? Sep 29.61 97.62 95.94 550 582 [12]

Cesium Satellite 2 2021-088C 10? Sep 28.63 97.62 95.93 550 581 [12]

CUTE 2021-088D 10? Sep 28.87 97.62 95.87 550 574 [13]

CuPID 2021-088E 8 Sep 28.56 97.62 95.86 550 573 [14]

ADDITIONS AND UPDATESDESIGNATION COMMENTS DESIGNATION COMMENTS

2009-044A JCSat 12 was manoeuvred off station at 169°E September 14 and is drifting to the west.

2011-013A Beidou DW8 (I3) was relocated from late August to early September from orbit centred over 118°E to 106°E.

2012-019A AEHF 2 (USA 235) was manoeuvred off station at 68°W September 22 and is drifting to the west.

2013-050A AEHF 3 (USA 246) was relocated back at 155°W September 1.

2014-058A Luch (Olimp-K) was manoeuvred off station at 56.9°E September 28 and was relocated at 60°E October 4, possibly to target Tongxin Jishu SW3 as it drifted past that point.

2018-079A AEHF 4 (USA 288) was relocated at 67.5°W September 25.

2020-025X Starlink 1322 began moving down from 547 km operational orbit September 1.

2020-055 Starlink 1514 and 1535 began moving down from 547 km September 4.

2020-073 Starlink 1823 began moving down from 547 km September 4, followed by Starlink 1809 September 24 and Starlink 1831 September 27.

2020-074BL Starlink 1947 began moving down from 547 km September 11.

2020-087A Chang’e 5 passed 16,500 km from the Moon September 12, apparently a gravity assist manoeuvre for a new phase of the mission, according to amateur trackers.

2021-012 Fourth batch (Starlink 1972, 1985, 1992, 2012, 2015, 2019 and 2060) began moving up from holding orbit September 18 to 20. Starlink 1985 halted at 375 km September 24.

2021-017 Starlink 2132 began moving up September 5. Sixth batch (Starlink 2107, 2129, 2142 and 2177) began moving up September 25 to 28.

6. Set of 34 low-orbit communications satellites built by OneWeb Satellite and launched by Starsem/Arianespace for OneWeb, tenth batch launched. All satellites began manoeuvring to operational 1,220 km orbit by September 24.

7. Crew Dragon spacecraft, Resilience, built and launched by SpaceX as first privately financed orbital flight with two-man, two-woman crew: Commander Jared Isaacman, who is funding the mission, Pilot Dr Sian Proctor, Medical Officer Hayley Arceneaux, and Mission Specialist Christopher Sembroski. First stage, that previously flown on Navstar 78 launch, successfully landed on the Just Read the Instructions barge 544 km downrange. Carried out a series of investigations of crew physical and mental response to space flight. It was de-orbited September 18.93 for touch down in the Atlantic Ocean about 45 km from the Florida coast September 18.96.

8. Unmanned freighter spacecraft built by CAST and launched to the CSS with 5,600 kg of cargo. Spacecraft docked at Tianhe aft port September 20.59.

9. Jilin 1 Gaofen 02D is an Earth survey satellite built by the Chang Guang Satellite Technology Co. carrying two high-resolution panchromatic and multi-spectral scanners for Earth observation.

10. Technology development satellite built by CAST for verification tests of new technologies such as space environmental monitoring. Satellite suffered an unspecified failure during launch and is

reportedly tumbling.

11. Landsat survey satellite built using a LEOStar-3 bus by NGIS for NASA and USGS. Payload consists of two instruments for Earth imaging: the OLI-2 multi-spectral visible/infra-red scanner and the TIRS-2 dual-band long-wave infra-red scanner. Orbit is co-planar with that of Landsat 7.

12. Cesium Mission 1 are a pair of communications technology 6U Cubesats built by CesiumAstro, each carrying a Ka-band software-defined radio and phased-array antenna to demonstrate advanced communications techniques, an S-band inter-satellite link and an electric propulsion system. It is not yet clear which Cubesat corresponds to which object.

13. Colorado Ultraviolet Transit Experiment is an astronomy 6U Cubesat built using a Blue Canyon Technologies XB1 bus by University of Colorado, Boulder for NASA and carrying a telescope and CCD ultraviolet spectrograph for atmospheric composition of exoplanets. Together with CuPID, comprised the NASA ELaNa 34 mission.

14. Cusp Plasma Imaging Detector is a geophysical science 6U Cubesat built by Boston University carrying a wide-field soft X-ray telescope for interaction of solar wind and Earth’s magnetosphere, two solid-state microdosimeters for ions and electrons and a three-axis magnetometer for the Earth’s field. Initially failed to transmit.

SATELLITE DIGEST


CHINA SPACE STATION ACTIVITY There were the following orbital manoeuvres of CSS during September. Pre-manoeuvre orbit: Sep 1.30 41.47° 91.99 min 374 km 383 kmPost-manoeuvre orbit: Sep 1.86 41.47° 92.09 min 382 km 384 km

Pre-manoeuvre orbit: Sep 17.23 41.47° 92.07 min 381 km 384 kmPost-manoeuvre orbit: Sep 17.78 41.47° 92.09 min 381 km 385 km


End-of-September orbital data: Sep 30.72 41.47° 92.10 min 383 km 385 km

RECENTLY DETAILED ORBITAL DECAYS

1998-067PN SPATIUM-I Sep 232019-029BF Starlink 76 Sep 26.632020-001BA Starlink 1081 Sep 30.242020-001BK Starlink 1095 Sep 20.02020-073AB Starlink 1794 Sep 29.722021-053A Shenzhou 12 Sep 17.232021-084A Inspiration4 Sep 18.96

International Object name DecayDesignation

ADDITIONS AND UPDATESDESIGNATION COMMENTS DESIGNATION COMMENTS

OneWeb launch from Baikonur, 14 September.

2021-018P Starlink 2381 moved down to 547 km September 2.

2021-021 Starlink 2366 moved down to 355 km September 2 to 6. Starlink 2328 began moving up September 26.

2021-023 RAAF M2 separated into its two component satellites September 10.20. RAAF M2A retains the 2021-023C designation. Add object and orbit:

2021-023J RAAF M2B

Sep 10.57 45.01° 95.56 min 545 km 558 km

2021-024 Starlink 2309 reached 550 km September 17. Starlink 2301 began moving up August 30, reaching 547 km September 28. Starlink 2264, 2294 and 2317 began moving up September 4 to 6, Starlink 2283 September 8, Starlink 2265 and 2279 September 14 and Starlink 2218 and 2229 September 26. Starlink 2263 moved down to 547 km September 7, followed by Starlink 2226 September 11 and Starlink 2278 and 2290 September 27. Starlink 2259, 2261, 2277, 2281, 2289, 2302 and 2311 moved down to 340 km September 10 to 12 and back to 350 km September 23 to 25, with Starlink 2277 immediately moving down again.

2021-027BD Starlink 2486 began moving up September 21.

2021-031 OneWeb satellites all reached their operational 1,210 km orbit between August 29 and September 23.

2021-036A Starlink 2567 began moving up September 12.

2021-038D Starlink 2637 moved down to 547 km September 17.

2021-040 Starlink 2633 reached 552 km September 11. Starlink 2699 and 2700 began moving up September 6, followed by Starlink 2680 September 16.

2021-041 Starlink 2274 and 2713 reached 547 km September 4 to 6. Starlink 2251 and 2714 began moving up from 440 km September 9 to 11. Starlink 2251 halted at 541 km September 25 and Starlink 2714 reached 547 km September 27. Starlink 2234 began moving up from 440 km September 29.

2021-044 Starlink 2715 and 2753 reached 547 km September 17, followed by Starlink 2616, 2741 and 2748 September 26 to 28. Starlink 2618, 2725 and 2740 moved up September 4 to 6, Starlink 2629, 2750 and 2752 September 15 to 17 and third batch (Starlink 2617, 2743, 2751, 2756) September 27.

2021-046A Tianzhou 2 undocked from Tianhe aft port September 18.10 and redocked at forward port September 18.3.

2021-053A Shenzhou 12, crewed by Nie, Liu and Tang, undocked from Tianhe forward port September 16.04, separated to 2 km, then re-rendezvoused to keep station 20 m away from Tianhe nadir port before departing a second time September 16.23. Retro manoeuvre performed September 17.20 and cabin landed at Dongfeng near Jiuquan September 17.23.

2021-059 2021-059BS is now identified as QMR-KWT and 059CM as Ghalib.

2021-064 Zhongzi Group 02 manoeuvred to be equally phased around orbit by September 27.

2021-075 All OneWeb satellites began manoeuvring up by September 10.

2021-078A Dragon CRS 23 was undocked from ISS September 30.55 and de-orbited October 1.09 for touchdown in the Atlantic Ocean about 65 km from the Florida coast October 1.12.

INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION ACTIVITY There were the following orbital manoeuvres of ISS during September, boosted by Zvezda. Pre-manoeuvre orbit: Sep 11.88 51.64° 92.89 min 418 km 423 kmPost-manoeuvre orbit: Sep 12.02 51.64° 92.91 min 421 km 423 km


End-of-September orbital data: Sep 30.92 51.65° 92.87 min 417 km 423 km

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CORRESPONDENCE


Out of this world?

Sir: The article “Is there anybody there?” was clearly written by someone who was trying very hard not to mention the dreaded acronym UFO. It was based on two extremely important events: the appearance of a very strange object called ‘Oumuamua which displayed unusual orbital and speed characteristics but which may have been a perfectly natural interstellar object, and a profound change of direction by the Pentagon. The combination of the two was then somehow taken to mean a search for “lost civilisations”.

But why? The argument seems to be based on a single, purely hypothetical consideration that ‘Oumuamua was a sad and lonely relic of a defunct civilisation. The theories that it might have been a “probe” or surveillance craft are stitched into the narrative but without any explanation of how such a probe would communicate with an advanced and distant society. By electromagnetic spectrum? Really?

It is however the second point that the article skirts around most adroitly. The Pentagon has suddenly made it politically correct to speak of UAPs in a respectable journal but what the US research is really talking about is what the world has laughed at for decades – UFOs. The 2004 sightings and recordings by the US Navy, as well as subsequent ones by military aircraft and ships have, at long last, led the Americans (and probably the British too) to treat the whole subject in a more balanced way and – even more importantly – to tell the general public that this is their new approach..

James T Abbott, in his compelling and balanced two volume study of the topic The Outsider’s Guide to UFOs, describes literally scores of highly credible sightings over the past century. He calculates quite fairly that there may be around 6,000 credible sightings of the things across the world each year. Even the Pentagon now admits that a high proportion of such sightings are “real and not imagined”. More than 120,000 sightings of credible UAPs/UFOs this century alone is a sobering statistic.

I would also take issue with Prof Loeb and his belief that all this should be left to the scientists. It has been the stubborn, blinkered opposition to the whole topic on the part of the main scientific community that has delayed any serious research for at least the past century. A great many trained scientists and engineers over the years have taken UFOs seriously and attempted to conduct scientific studies – Dr J Alan Hynek, Dr Bruce Macdonald, Dominique Weinstein, and Jacques Vallée, all come to mind – but they were marginalised and scorned by the mainstream scientific community. The extra-terrestrial issue is certainly not one which should be reserved for scientists – it has bearings on all of us and the sociologists, psychologists, politicians, and many more should have their voices heard.

The topic of UAPs has now been opened to wider study and debate and it is incumbent upon us to address

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

it head on and with open minds – especially in such a forum as the BIS. We may or may not be alone but we sure as heck should act like logical, intelligent beings.

Keith C Pye, FBIS

The British Interplanetary Society is devoted to new concepts and technical information about space flight to inspire people, so humanity builds a future beyond the Earth. The emphasis is on human civilisation exploring space with new technology, not other civilisations. The United States’ Department of Defense’s announcements are about unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) in US military airspace, not even space. The policy of this Editor is to focus on what the magazine and the Society does best, identifying the technologies that will take humanity to alien worlds, which may be chosen based on environmental or techno-signatures. What the UAPs in our atmosphere are is for other magazines to investigate.– Ed

Youth vs experience

Sir: It’s interesting to note that Inspiration4 Mission crew member (SpaceFlight Vol 63 No.11 pp 20-23) Hayley Arceneaux, 29, is the youngest American in space. It points up the striking contrast between the early spacemen (and one spacewoman) of the USA and the USSR. The earliest American astronauts were experienced military pilots who tended to be in their 30s. I think the youngest American in orbit was Gene Cernan, 32 at the time of his first flight, Gemini 9 (and, of course, later the last man on the Moon). The youngest person to fly on an American spacecraft was the Saudi Prince Sultan, 28 when he flew on Shuttle flight STS-51-G. But Gagarin was 27 when he flew Vostok 1; the second Russian in space, and the second man in orbit, Gherman Titov, was 25 (still the youngest person ever to go into orbit); and Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, was 26 when she flew Vostok 6 (which I saw in the superb Cosmonauts exhibition at the Science Museum in 2016).

Ray Ward

Funding and recycling Sir: I am glad to see that some people are using Amazon Smile to support the BIS [British Interplanetary Society]. It is such an easy way to add a little bit extra to the Societies coffers. With regard to the packaging for SpaceFlight, is this recyclable? There does not seem to be anything that says if it is. If it is not, I think the BIS should consider changing the way it is sent. A plain white or brown envelope would suffice. Lord Kimberley Thank you for highlighting how members can donate to the Society through Amazon Smile, every penny goes towards our advocacy for space exploration. On the matter of a recyclable wrapping for the magazines, we are in contact with the company we are using, and we have requested up-to-date information about our options as the situation may have changed since our last enquiry.– Ed

More than 120,000

sightings of credible

UAPs/UFOs this century alone is a sobering statistic


SOCIETY NEWS

WOMEN IN SPACE Scotland is holding its Women in Space & Defence Conference on 12 November, eight months after its successful Edinburgh Women in Space Conference last March.Women in Space and Defence is an international live conference that brings together a variety of individuals in the space sector. It is a celebration of women and gender minorities in the industry and will showcase the careers available in space and defence, as well as available funding opportunities. Women in Space Scotland was founded by then University of Edinburgh mechanical engineering student, Christina MacLeod, who is now a business development and marketing officer at in-space manufacturing specialist, Space Forge.

At the British Interplanetary

Society’s (BIS) branches day during World Space Week, whose theme was women, MacLeod spoke about her journey to creating Women in Space Scotland which operates as a charity. The organisation exists to provide a platform for inspiring women and gender minorities to share their work; provide inspiration to event attendees, to encourage them to follow their passion; create a community where participants can form connections with like-minded individuals and promote the Scottish space sector and connect it with the global space sector.

While a student, a friend of MacLeod spent time at rocket developer Skyrora and this inspired MacLeod, who grew up in Canada, to look at the UK space industry more closely. It was October 2019 when MacLeod went to a women’s space event held by Equate Scotland which encourages women to study science, engineering, and mathematics. MacLeod was surprised by the number of women there and learned for the first time about BIS and UK students national space society, known as UKSEDS. MacLeod told the BIS branches day that she had felt that space was for clever people but soon learned about all the other people who contribute to space industry. MacLeod asked herself, where were the role models who were not astronauts or world leading scientists.

This led MacLeod to start Women in Space Edinburgh in 2020 and that led to an international conference with 600 registrants from 50 countries. MacLeod was able to organise the virtual event with the help of a team of 16 women from seven countries. At about the time work began on that conference MacLeod started her Miss Astronautica blog. After the conference, Women in Space Scotland was born, and that activity and her blog convinced MacLeod that she could connect technical and non-technical people; “that’s what I enjoyed”. Connecting people is why she is a business development and marketing officer. MacLeod had spoken to Space Forge at a UKSEDS conference in March 2020 and was intrigued by Space Forge’s goals, then later she saw a marketing internship there advertised.

To take Women in Space Scotland forward, “we restructured the whole organisation and brought on team leads, events, diversity, systems team for the website. We have really grown, and we’ll continue to grow and we’re currently registering as a unofficial charity which is very exciting.” MacLeod cites the Space Skills Alliance October report that said only 29% of UK space employees are women. “We want to get that Space Skills Alliance report number up.” SF

Connecting women in space

ABOVE RIGHT Women in Space

Scotland organise events to raise

the profile of the space industry as a career for

women.

Christina MacLeod saw women needed to know about space.

BELOW Women in

Space Scotland organiser, Christina

MacLeod, talks during World

Space Week to BIS branches day

virtual event.

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SOCIETY NEWS


INTERNATIONAL ROCKET WEEK (IRW) is an annual event held in southwest Scotland, not far from the Faslane nuclear submarine base and its origins were the basis for a BIS branches discussion in October as part of World Space Week.

The IRW is held in the run up to the August bank holiday and in the late 1990s the IRW became the event where the inaugural meeting of the UK Rocketry Association (UKRA) took place. Mark Perman, BIS West Midlands branch secretary, explained that the UKRA became the governing body for hobby

rocket flying in the UK, and still exists today. The IRW sees people firing expendable rockets that use gunpowder or black powder as fuel and can be bought with diameters of up to 24 mm.

Larger rockets have composite propellant rocket motors, which is the same material as some missiles use and can still be bought commercially. The casing for these large rockets is reusable and they are recovered by parachute. The location of the landed rocket can now be easily found but in the past, it could require hours of searching.

BIS nostalgia trip to rocket town

This was the launch event for BIS South East, and it brought together a panel of inspiring female leaders from the space industry to discuss the topics of gender equality and diversity, and what more can be done to promote equality in the workplace. It made clear how important it is to attract and develop diverse talent to create diverse thinking and decisions.

As befits a World Space Week event, our leaders covered all parts of space industry from manufacture to applications: Anita Bernie, Natalia Efremova, Charlotte Fenn, Joanna Hart and Elizabeth Seward, who discussed their own experiences and highlighted the importance of having men as allies to boost gender equality because everyone makes large or small decisions that can aid or hamper inclusion.

We were delighted to host such an enlightening discussion and explore these topics with an engaged audience through a provoking discussion. You could feel the synergy in the virtual room and

ABOVE LEFTBIS West Midlands secretary Mark Perman (top) recalls the origins of International Rocket Week.

BIS South East: Space Industry Leadership Panel

one hour didn’t feel enough to discuss such an important topic led by like- minded women. The key message delivered was: ‘believe in yourself and what you can do, no one should never stop you or get in the way, one day aim to be a role model!’

For those who missed the event, we are planning to share a short film which we are producing to capture the feeling of the day. SF

Adele Gammarano / Robin Tucker

ABOVEBIS South East event (from L-R) Anita Bernie, Charlotte Fenn, Dr Natalia Eframova, Elizabeth Seward, Dr Joanna Hart.A

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DR BILLING IS WORKING on the West Midlands Space Cluster Development, a project attempting to realise the region’s potential as a hub for the UK’s space industry. Branches Day continued with a talk about this, organised by BIS West Midlands and featuring Dr Chloe Billing from the University of Birmingham. Billing outlined the current strengths of the region, notably its strong contingent of universities and the many West Midlands companies with capability to operate within the space industry. Billing’s work aims to build awareness of the possibilities within the space sector, and to persuade local government to help businesses transition into the space industry. SF David McPadden

BIS West Midlands: The Space Cluster Development - Business Case Report

Rocketry is good for STEM as children can easily build a rocket that can go to 1,000 feet altitude in an afternoon. You can learn maths, physics, engineering, electronics, aerodynamics. SF

Rob Coppinger

SOCIETY NEWS


AS PART OF OUR World Space Week celebrations, the BIS’ online lecture series continued on the 7 October with an exciting presentation from Emanuela Palombo, an Astronautical Engineer at ESA/ESTEC.

Emmanuela explained that her role involved providing technical support to ESA projects: managing initial R&D phases through to launch campaigns. One project Emmanuela was heavily involved with was the Solar Orbiter Mission which launched in February 2020. Industry and scientific

participation in the mission came from across Europe, with the solar orbiter designed and built by Airbus Defence and Space, in Stevenage.

The mission aims to perform close-up observations of the Sun – and take the first images of the Sun’s polar regions. In addition, the Solar Orbiter will improve understanding of space weather by exploring the connection between Earth and its Sun. This aspect of the mission is particularly vital, as solar flares can damage power and communication systems on Earth. The solar orbiter will make

its closest approach to the Sun in October 2022 and will be 300 million km from Earth at its furthest. This is the first time ESA has gone so close to the Sun and protecting the orbiter from fatal exposure to the Sun’s rays was the most challenging part of the mission. Unless the spacecraft follows stringent de-pointing requirements, it would be unable to withstand the temperatures facing it and the mission would fail.

Emmanuela remarked that the Orbiter had an extreme number of instruments on board – 11 compared to the usual 1 or 2 on most spacecraft. These instruments will perform high-resolution imaging of the Sun, as well as measure solar wind and the solar magnetic field. Emmanuela explained that the AOCS ensured that the orientation of the spacecraft could be known and changed. The system could be used, in the case of the Solar Orbiter, to accurately direct instruments towards the Sun or to ensure the spacecraft was in a safe state during emergency situations.

The solar orbiter is now approaching the end of its cruise phase, and its current position can be viewed live on the ESA website. Emmanuela noted that several women were involved in the mission, making it a perfect fit for World Space Week’s Women in Space theme. SF

David McPadden

Design and commissioning of Solar Orbiter’s attitude and orbit control system

The BIS Italia presentation discussed briefly how the local branch, set up in 2013, quickly expanded basing most of its activities on many engineering students that took the opportunity also to enhance their engineering skills. As a service to the local membership, BS and MS thesis have been offered and also tutored, in cooperation with different universities. The experience of a thesis with a distinguished practical flavour has been an important asset in the CV of the future engineers, who often maintained their involvement with the BIS. Member Francesca Ingiosi (right) then enthusiastically presented her story as a student and her growth to become a project manager in ArgoTec, a career path enhanced by her experiences with BIS-Italia. SF Fabrizio Bernardini

BIS Italia: The Pink Side Of The Moon

ABOVEThe Design and Commissioning of Solar Orbiter

AOCS talk (L-R) Emanuela

Palombo, and Fabrizio Bernardini,

Council Member and BIS Italia Branch Lead.

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SOCIETY NEWS


THE TCPU PROVIDED the thrust to enable the PAC to exploit the null range vector (NRV) approach to the follow-on to Polaris, the UK’s submarine launched strategic missile system. The presentation was given by two people, John Harlow and Paul Jackman, both of whom worked on Chevaline, one of whom was responsible for the development of the thrust chambers. John Harlow opened the proceedings by giving a brief run-down on the need for a replacement for Polaris and the options available before Chevaline was selected.

One pre-requisite for the PAC was that it moved along the NRV and distributed penetration aids around the warheads. Thus the PAC needed a suitable propulsion system and it came down to a choice of using a solid or liquid propellant system. There were disadvantages in using solids, one being the changes to the PAC centre of gravity due to propellant used during motor burning. The other was that once ignited, the solid would continue to burn until propellant was consumed. With a suitable tank arrangement, the liquid propellant solution was far more flexible and could cope with those disadvantages added to which it could also provide a higher degree of security as to the manoeuvring capability of the PAC. Therefore, it was the liquid propellant propulsion system that was selected.

For simplicity and reliability, the choice of propellants for the immediate past project, the Packaged Liquid Test Vehicle (PLTV) was retained, as they were hypergolic ie they ignited spontaneously on contact. However, there was no follow up programme, and the technology became a solution looking for a problem. With the piston expulsion design of the propellant tanks the problems of centre of gravity migration during the burn were solved and this was adopted for the TCPU. However, because the PAC released another warhead (the P Body) and sub-missiles during the deployment sequence the PAC’s centre of gravity change was quite large. This was countered by the use of two thrust chambers of identical design but with different nozzle cant angles.

The propellants themselves, Inhibited Red Fuming Nitric Acid (IRFNA – an oxidizer) and Mixed Amine Fuel (MAF Type 1 – a fuel), were rather nasty materials being corrosive or carcinogenic, or both! However, the ignition delay when these materials came into contact was small and highly repeatable – all ideal qualities for use in the TCPU. These propellants would be forced into the combustion chamber by high pressure gas acting on the internal pistons in the tanks. The hot gas was generated by catalytic decomposition of Hydrazine in the Hydrazine Actuation System – provided by a US company.

One major safety challenge was the fact that the Royal Navy was averse to the use of liquids on board ships, especially submarines and it took a great deal of effort to satisfy these additional concerns. The detailed design and methods of construction were questioned, and issues resolved along with the addition of other systems such as secondary containment, suitable propellant detection suites and shock detector systems.

Jackman discussed some of the aspects of performance testing and the changes made such as ensuring a fairly high combustion chamber pressure to enhance thrust and efficiency. In addition, reliability testing and thrust vector accuracy measurement each presented their own set of issues. Despite some difficulties, all were overcome.

As can be imagined with over 40 people in attendance there were many questions not least about the performance of the TCPU on flight trials. The propulsion system of the TCPU was found to be very reliable both in flight trials and in demonstration and shakedown operations – flight tests that the Royal Navy undertake after submarine refits before starting an operational patrol SF

At last the lid has been lifted on one of the major systems carried on board the Chevaline Penetration Aid Carrier (PAC), the Twin Chamber Propulsion Unit (TCPU). John Harlow tells all from the September talk given to the BIS West Midlands branch.

Twin chamber advantage

ABOVETwin Chamber Propulsion Unit on trolley – showing two combustion chambers with canted nozzles (at top centre) and two fuel tanks with gold-coated secondary containment (top).

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SOCIETY NEWS

ARGOMOON AND THE ANDROMEDA CONSTELLATION, BY FRANCESCA IGNIOSI10 November 2021, 6pm via CrowdcastVENUE: BIS HQArgoMoon and ANDROMEDA are two programs of the Italian aerospace company Argotec Srl, and we are delighted that Project Manager Francesca Igniosi will be giving us an overview of these microsatellite projects.

THE WORMSHIP: A DARK ENERGY RAMJET, BY STEPHEN BAXTER20 November 2021, 2pm BST via ZoomVENUE: West Midlands BranchFollowing on from his paper published in JBIS, Stephen Baxter will speculate how the Bussard ramjet concept could be updated to use dark energy as a propellant to build a Wormship before

going on to consider the implications of this when applied to civil engineering on a galactic supercluster scale.

ROLLS ROYCE NUCLEAR SPACE POWER, BY MIKE CRAWFORTH4 December 2021, 2pm BST via ZoomVENUE: West Midlands BranchMike Crawforth will explore a broad overview of space nuclear power and propulsion systems, before diving into the current activities of Rolls-Royce, who are developing a nuclear fission reactor for space.

BIS LECTURES & MEETINGS MEMBERSHIP NEWS


NEW MEMBERSA total of 8 new members joined the Society in September – 5 from the UK, 2 from the USA and

1 from Italy. A warm welcome to all.

AS I HEAD OFF TO A NEW ROLE, I wanted to thank the Fellows, Members and supporters of the BIS for their enthusiasm and making me feel so welcome within the Society – and indeed in the wider space sector. Leaving the BIS at the end of November, I will have spent 18 months working on some ambitious changes within the Society – and I am proud of what I was able to achieve with a fantastic staff team, including those who joined us through internships and placements over the last few months.

From creating and putting into place the first five year strategy, through starting to engage with our audience in a new way, I hope that the Society is now able to focus on bringing in new groups of people, whether they work in, study or feel passionate about space exploration. Having delivered a new website, worked with a vibrant team to transform our social media, and kicked off space policy and advocacy work, I’m thrilled at some of the successes I have seen. From the BIS gaining our first mention in the House of Commons (recorded in perpetuity in Hansard) earlier this year, to talking to The Times Online and BBC Radio 4 in October about the role space can play in climate action – responding to Prince William’s comments – it’s been a great time for the Society to see its reach and profile grow as space travel becomes a growing reality around the world.

The partnerships we have created, especially the NextGen Network, have been immense, and I have been so inspired to work with Harriet Brettle and Jenna Tiwana on their vision for this vital programme of work. I’m excited at the chances I’ve had to work to formalise relationships with the UK Space Agency and Women in Aerospace: Europe, as well as exciting talks with the UAE Space Agency and industry bodies.

I wish the wider BIS team well in capturing this growth and period of change and furthering the Society’s goals in the months and years to come. SF Elizabeth Anderson

Our CEO bids farewellElizabeth Anderson speaks to the British Interplanetary Society NextGen Network Rising Star in Space Awards 2021 on 8 October.

RO

LLS

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YCE

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