Raumfahrt-News: RFA Explosion, Polaris Dawn EVA Start, Richtfest SpaceX Starship Startturm 2 in Boca

The Rocket Factory Augsburg burns the first stage on the launch pad - just shortly before the first launch. According to insiders, severe damage to Blue Origin's New Glen upper stage. Polaris Dawn mission with first private spacewalk launches this week. The SpaceX Starbase celebrates the topping-out ceremony of the second launch and capture tower for the Starship. NASA decision to return Starliner. And the Andøya Space Port in Norway receives permission for the launches of Isar Aerospace's Spektrum rocket. We'll look at that and more today. Welcome to SENKRECHTSTARTER, the space travel channel in the German-speaking area! For my birthday week, I would have liked news of a successful hotfire on all 9 engines of the RFA One. Things turned out differently and I received spectacular but unfortunately sad pictures from Saxaford. The first stage of RFA One was completely destroyed in a fireball. Just 5 days after this fatal test, we received videos and initial analyzes from the XRF. That was only after the editorial deadline, but of course it still had to be included in the SENKRECHTSTARTER space news. Stefan Brieschenk, Chief Operating Officer of the RFA, whom I also interviewed here, (linked below) explained in a video statement what was planned and what then happened. During the test on Monday, the first stage was to be ignited with all 9 staged Helix engines: starting with a central engine and then the 8 on the outer circle in groups of two. What was achieved was filling the stage with the fuels kerosene and liquid oxygen, cooling down the rocket and the engines and pressurizing the tanks for firing. A test of all engines was planned for a burning time of 35 seconds, which was supposed to end when the fuel was used up. Here may be an interesting question: Why so long? And would the damage perhaps not have been so serious if the stage had not been so fully fueled? Would be, would be. Or: hätte, hätte, Fahrradkette. The ignition of 8 engines worked. However, according to Stefan, one of the engines had a very unusual anomaly. From the initial analyzes they concluded that there was a fire in the oxygen pump, which was very difficult to isolate and then spread to other engines. The emergency shutdown that was initiated was not enough to contain the extensive damage from the oxygen fire. The fire lance from the side of the rocket indicates that the fuel lines were severely damaged and kerosene was forced out of vent lines. As a result, the kerosene continued to fuel the fire. They already know from the analysis of the remains: the fire developed into an oxygen fire, which then completely consumed the engines. The fire severely damaged the structure of the stage, which then caused it to collapse. The CO2 fire extinguishing system and the Deluge water system were not adequately sized to control the fire. Stefan continues: The whole thing happened at a very critical time, when the first start was already within reach in the next few weeks. Due to the destruction, this would not be possible now. Despite all the misfortune, the stage - fortunately, one might almost say - did not collapse in the worst direction. The launch tower and important parts of the launch infrastructure were spared. The launch site is largely intact, except for the parts that were directly attached to the rocket - they now have to be rebuilt. According to Stefan, the staged Helix engines were fired more than 100 times and they had never seen an oxygen fire like this before. They are pretty sure that it is not a design flaw in the engine, which would otherwise require an extremely long redevelopment and certification process. Nevertheless, many improvements need to be made to the launch tower and rocket. Stefan emphasizes that this specimen was the very first stage the RFA ever built. You could almost say it was the engineering model. The next first stage is already in production and they have made more than 100 upgrades to this stage. These upgrades mainly concern pressure regulation and fuel distribution, which will help in the future to save the rocket in the event of engine damage, both in flight and on the ground in the event of a fire. Upgrades at the launch table are intended to ensure that - should another serious oxygen fire occur where an oxygen pump has exploded - the entire rocket is not endangered. We must not forget: The second and third stages as well as the payload fairing have already been tested and are ready for integration in Saxaford. In order to become a real rocket company, RFA must put payloads into orbit. Stefan Brieschenk also says that in the statement. The RFA now has to rebuild new engines and the first stage, but they would then be ready for the next launch relatively quickly. Stefan hopes we all enjoy watching the footage of the anomaly. And with a wink: it cost the RFA a lot of money to produce this footage. Wow, a big “respect!” goes out to Stefan and the entire RFA. What openness and what energy with which Stefan sits down in front of the camera again so soon after such a setback and explains to us in the simplest possible terms what went wrong! Many large companies and institutions can gain something here. This is how press work works in 2024! Of course, this setback is an incredible pity! There is a lot of encouragement and “heads up” wishes. Among others from SpaceXer and Raptor engineer Philipp Hartung. He hopes the RFA will emerge stronger from this anomaly. Also ISAR Aerospace boss Daniel Metzler hopes that the RFA will be back on the pad very soon. I also give it a “heads up!” and kudos for everything achieved so far. Get up, fix your crown, carry on! Speaking of Isar Aerospace: At the ILA in Berlin, ISAR Aerospace boss Daniel Metzler was really frustrated with the regulations for the initial launch of the Spektrum rocket. Now there is good news from Norway: The Norwegian spaceport Andøya Spaceport has received approval for the first orbital launch of Isar Aerospace. On August 22, Andøya Spaceport announced that the Norwegian Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries had issued a license allowing Andøya to conduct up to 30 launches per year. Not unimportant in the Arctic Circle: four launches during the night should also be possible. With the license granted, Isar Aerospace can now carry out the final tests of their rocket, including static fire tests. If everything goes according to plan, Isar Aerospace could launch its first test flight this year. The private astronaut mission Polaris Dawn is expected to launch on Tuesday. If everything goes according to plan, it will be a mission for the history books. The big highlight is of course the first commercial extravehicular activity in space with a privately developed space suit. The four-person crew of the Polaris Dawn mission arrived at Kennedy Space Center on August 19. The six-day mission will take the crew to an altitude of up to 1,400 kilometers. This means that this crew will be further from Earth than anyone since Apollo 17 in 1972. In addition to 40 experiments and testing laser communication links with Starlink satellites, the highlight of the mission will of course be the extravehicular activity. The EVA - short for for extravehicular activity - will be the first on a private space mission and the first EVA from a SpaceX Crew Dragon. Two of the four crew members will emerge from the hatch in SpaceX's new spacesuits and conduct tests. This exit is planned for the third day of the flight, with preparations expected to begin shortly after takeoff. The crew will put on their suits on the second day of the flight to carry out mobility tests within the capsule. During the extravehicular activity astronauts will spend 15 to 20 minutes outside the capsule. Jared Isaacman, who funds the Polaris missions and commands the Polaris Dawn mission, emphasized the importance of learning as much as possible about the new suits to improve future developments. Jared Isaacman had already flown into space with the first all-amateur crew, Inspiration 4, which he also financed and commanded. The Polaris Dawn mission is part of a larger program that ultimately aims to achieve the first crewed launch of SpaceX's Starship. The Dawn mission was originally planned for the end of 2022, but was postponed several times due to technical challenges, particularly in the development of the spacesuits and the integration of Starlink technology. Jared did not disclose financial details of the mission, but did disclose that, like the Inspiration 4 mission, the mission will raise funds for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in 2021. There was also no official price for Inspiration 4 as to what price SpaceX had quoted. It is said to have been less than $200 million. As of August 25th, the Polaris Dawn launch is scheduled for Tuesday, August 27th, 9:38 a.m. CEST, our daylight saving time. The Dragon Resilience crew is expected to launch with the crew off the coast of Florida on Sunday, September 1st. In my opinion, an extremely important launch and a highly exciting mission for the history books. Of course I will stream the start live. As mentioned, the Polaris program also has the goal of the first crew flight of SpaceX's Starship. Unfortunately, there is currently nothing new about a possible start number 5 of the Starship. We are currently waiting for new dates for the public hearing on the new environmental report for an extended take-off and, above all, landing permit for the Starship in Boca Chica. Of course, that doesn't mean that nothing is moving at the Starbase in South Texas. The second tower is up. On August 21, SpaceX released photos of Starbase showing the second launch and capture tower at full height. There is still a lot to be done before the second pad is ready for use, but the tower topping out ceremony is now on the credit side. This week we saw pictures of not only two towers, but also two dragons: the Crew Dragons Resilience for Polaris Dawn and Freedom for NASA Crew 9. The ISS currently has Endeavor and the fourth operational crew capsule Endurance, which will then be used for FRAM2 with Rabea Rogge. SpaceX wants to put a fifth crew capsule into service next year. Speaking of FRAM2. A correction is due: I incorrectly claimed last week that the highest inclination up to FRAM2 was flown by a space shuttle mission. That wasn't correct. In 1963, Valentina Tereshkova flew Vostok 6 at an inclination of 65° to the equator. When the NEWS appears on Sunday morning, we should know more about the return of the Boeing Starliner. The Flight Readiness Review will take place at NASA on Saturday, August 24th. The Flight Readiness Review, which also occurs before launches, is the NASA committee in which objections are formally raised and negotiated. If a unanimous decision on flight safety is not made during the review, the final decision could go up to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. Should the Starliner have to return to Earth without a crew, NASA's next Crew Dragon mission would launch with just two astronauts. According to Eric Berger, these would then be Zena Cardman as commander and the Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov as pilot of Crew 9. Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams would then become regular parts of the long-term crew and would not return to Earth until spring 2025. As is well known, the Boeing Starliner took off with a ULA Atlas 5. For about a year the rumor mill has been simmering about a possible takeover of the launch provider. Highly traded candidate so far: Blue Origin. Now, according to unconfirmed rumors, Sierra Space has shown interest in the launch provider. ULA is a joint venture between the launch divisions of Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Sierra Space is building a space plane for cargo transport called the Dream Chaser. Since the number of employees is similar to that of ULA, I didn't have the company on the bidder list. Only time will tell about the truth of the rumors. Return of astronauts. A sensitive topic after Columbia, especially for NASA. During the Artemis I test mission, an Orion capsule without a crew returned from the moon at the end of 2022. While the mission was successful overall, there were problems with the heat shield. Parts of the heat shield had unexpectedly splintered off during re-entry, resulting in visible holes. NASA has subsequently launched internal and independent investigations to determine the cause of this issue. The investigation is still ongoing and no final decision has been made on what to do next. In about a year, Artemis II is supposed to fly with a crew for the first time. It is still being analyzed whether changes need to be made to the re-entry trajectory or if the heat shield itself needs to be modified. The latter would most likely require partial dismantling of the Orion capsule. In that case a launch at the end of 2025 is hardly conceivable. The European Service Module for Orion for Artemis 2 has been at the Kennedy Space Center for a long time. It was built very close to me at Bremen. The ESM 3, which I was able to visit in the clean room while it was still under construction, is now on its way to the Kennedy Space Center. I didn't miss the chance to say goodbye to the ESM again for the first moon landing since Apollo 17. On Thursday it boarded the Ariane 6 transport ship Canopee and is now on its way to Florida to the Kennedy Space Center. Last week I reported on the visit of "Everyday Astronaut" Tim Dodd to the Kennedy Space Center, more specifically about his factory tour with Jeff Bezos in the New Glenn production. I was in error: I incorrectly claimed that only the New Glenn's three central engines were thrust vectored. In fact, the New Glenn's seven engines are arranged in a hexagon. The middle and two engines on the outer circle can be swiveled, but the remaining four engines on the outer circle cannot. I apologize for my error. Because of the stupid error, I looked again at the part about the engine section of the New Glenn. Also perhaps interesting: New Glenn's first stage is capable of floating for a period of time, similar to New Shepard. So the landings will probably initially look a lot less breakneck than on the Falcon 9. I would expect the landing profile to become more aggressive over time because the last minute breakneck landing saves a lot of fuel, which then directly leads to more payload . This is also suggested by a post of Blue Origin on August 23rd. The first launch there is scheduled for October 13th. After watching Tim Dodd's video, I was very optimistic about future developments at Blue Origin. This week there was a setback: As Bloomberg reports, citing insiders, two upper stages of the New Glenn were significantly damaged. The damage to a high school is said to have been caused by a test, and another by the inattentiveness of an employee. The upper stages or parts of them are said to be Flight 2 and 3 hardware. So there is hope that the damage will initially have no impact on the first flight. In the interview with Tim Dodd, Jeff Bezos said that they will change the design of the second stage after the first flight and move to a cheaper structure that does not have an ortho-lattice structure. The structural failure during a test does not necessarily have to have an impact on Flight 1. Not entirely unimportant: The New Glen first flight is also supposed to have a Mars transfer window. Two small satellites built by Rocket Lab for NASA's mission to Mars have arrived in Florida and are scheduled to be launched on Blue Origin's first flight of New Glenn this fall. The two satellites, called “Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers”, or ESCAPADE for short, are intended to investigate the interaction of the solar wind with the Martian magnetosphere. Rocket Lab will now prepare the two probes for launch in the next few weeks. Fun fact: Although Rocket Lab is known to build and operate its own engines, the ESCAPADE probes use engines from the Ariane Group. If the New Glenn is not ready, ESCAPADE would have to wait 26 months for the next Mars transfer launch window. Launch window, which brings us to last week's launches: On Tuesday, SpaceX launched a load of Starlinks from Cape Canaveral. On Thursday, August 22nd, a Long March 7a set off from Wenchang. On board was a communications satellite for geostationary orbit. And on Saturday a load of Starlinks from Vandenberg. By the way, good news about the first Freiburg satellite ERNST! After its launch with Transporter 11, it arrived safely in orbit and Fraunhofer EMI began commissioning the satellite. Congratulations and greetings go out to Freiburg. Was a recurring topic here: The Japanese Astroscale, recently with the inspection of a burned-out H2 upper stage. Following this success, Astroscale has now signed a contract with the Japanese space agency JAXA for a mission to remove this upper stage from Earth orbit. The contract for the ADRAS-J2 mission is worth almost 74 million euros. ADRAS-J2 is intended to capture the H2 upper stage and direct it safely to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere. ADRAS-J2 is scheduled to launch in 2028. The German company Mynaric is struggling with production problems. Mynaric is a major supplier of laser communications terminals to the US Space Development Agency. These terminals are crucial for communication between the satellites, which the US Space Development Agency wants to use for communications and missile detection. SpaceNews.com reports that Mynaric underestimated the challenges of mass producing the optical terminals. Mynaric has sharply cut its revenue forecast for 2024, saying production bottlenecks and higher costs are delaying delivery of the terminals. I visited Mynaric shortly after the inauguration of the new production hall in Gilching. It's a real pity that production ramp-up obviously didn't go according to plan. Preparations for the Indian crew program are currently underway as planned. Dr. Somanath, the head of Indian space travel, announced this week that all parts of the rocket are ready for integration for the first flight - still without a crew. The crew module and the service module will follow and are scheduled to be integrated in November. The test flight is then planned for December. Before we look at next week's launches: Many thanks to all SENKRECHTSTARTER guardian angels. So all people who regularly support the channel financially. On behalf of all viewers and especially warmly from me, a big, big thank you goes out to all of you. If YOU would also like to help get the German-speaking world excited about space travel, you will find a link to the YouTube channel membership under the video. As a small thank you, all of my videos are available in advance and without advertising. Next week's launches: I will definitely be live-streaming: Polaris Dawn with SpaceX Crew Dragon on Falcon 9. Currently scheduled for Tuesday, August 27th. launch time 9:38 a.m. according to our German summer time. On Wednesday, August 28th, launch site directly opposite: SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Starlinks are launched. On Thursday, August 29, China's Galactic Energy will launch its Ceres 1. On board is a payload I don't know. SpaceX is expected to conclude the week from Vandenberg on Thursday, August 29th. On board the Falcon 9 is the secret 'NROL-113' satellite for the Pentagon. I hope you enjoyed the NEWS again - if so, don't forget to give it a Like! Space travel is and remains exciting. #apollomoment I would say, until next time, stay vertical! Your Mo