mission Archives - FLYING Magazine https://cms.flyingmag.com/tag/mission/ The world's most widely read aviation magazine Tue, 13 Aug 2024 19:22:33 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.4 SpaceX Unveils Historic Polar Orbit Mission Backed by Crypto Magnate https://www.flyingmag.com/modern/spacex-unveils-historic-polar-orbit-mission-backed-by-crypto-magnate/ Tue, 13 Aug 2024 19:22:30 +0000 https://www.flyingmag.com/?p=213407&preview=1 Four astronauts will travel to the ends of the Earth on the Fram2 mission, flown by SpaceX on behalf of Bitcoin entrepreneur Chun Wang.

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A crypto entrepreneur, a cinematographer, a polar adventurer, and a robotics expert walk into a SpaceX Crew Dragon.

That’s not the beginning of a bad joke, but rather a description of SpaceX’s newly announced human spaceflight mission, which as soon as this year will send four astronauts to the ends of the Earth for the first time in history.

The company on Monday unveiled Fram2—a mission to explore the planet’s polar regions, over which no spacecraft has ever flown directly. During the three-to-five-day mission, which will launch from Florida atop SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, the crew will enter a 90-degree polar orbit and observe the Arctic and Antarctic wilderness through a cupola fitted to the company’s Dragon capsule.

No crewed spacecraft has ever reached an orbital path higher than 65 degrees, a feat the Soviet Vostok 6 mission, which carried the first woman to space, achieved in 1963. Typically, such orbits are occupied by smaller satellites, while larger spacecraft such as the International Space Station fly closer to the equator.

The expedition, named after the ship Fram used by Norwegian explorers to reach the poles in the late 19th century, will be Dragon’s sixth commercial astronaut mission and third free-flying mission. The spacecraft has flown three private missions to the ISS for customer Axiom Space, completed the Inspiration4 private orbital spaceflight on behalf of billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, and will launch another mission for Isaacman—Polaris Dawn—as soon as this month.

“Polaris Program, Inspiration4, Axiom, & now Fram2 showcase what commercial missions can achieve thanks to @SpaceX’s reusability and NASA’s vision with the commercial crew program,” Isaacman said in a post on social media platform X, which is owned by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. “All just small steps towards unlocking the last great frontier.”

Fram2 similarly is backed by a wealthy CEO, entrepreneur and adventurer Chun Wang, who made his fortune from Bitcoin mining. Wang purchased the mission for an undisclosed amount and will serve as commander.

According to his profile on X, Wang is an avid traveler who has visited half of the world’s countries and territories. But he has grander aspirations.

“I’ve read many sci-fi stories about the first human missions to Mars, usually led by NASA or some fictional government,” Wang said in a post on X. “Rarely does anyone dare to imagine such a mission may be carried out privately. But now, I increasingly believe that someday we will reach Mars—and it may be a person, or a company, not a nation, who gets there.”

Accompanying Wang will be commander Jannicke Mikkelsen of Norway, pilot Eric Philips of Australia, and mission specialist Rabea Rogge of Germany, who told the website Everyday Astronaut they befriended the blockchain entrepreneur on a trek to the North Pole. All four crew members will be making their first trip to the final frontier.

Mikkelson is a filmmaker who seeks out remote or hazardous filming locations and served as payload specialist on the 2019 One More Orbit mission—a record-breaking polar circumnavigation flight on the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11.

According to its website, Fram2 will shatter One More Orbit’s high water mark of 46 hours and 40 minutes, achieved in a Qatar Executive Gulfstream G650ER ultra-long-range business jet, by flying from the north to south pole in just 46 minutes.

Philips, a polar adventurer and guide, knows those regions well, having completed several ski expeditions. But viewing them from orbit has never been possible, even for astronauts on the ISS, to whom they appear invisible.

Fram2 will orbit at about 264-280 miles above Earth, allowing the crew to study strange green and purple light emissions known as Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancements (STEVE), atmospheric phenomena that resemble auroras. Researchers have yet to determine what causes the optical abnormalities. The mission will weigh input from space physicists and citizen scientists alike.

“Having spent much of my adult life in the polar regions this is an incredible opportunity to view the Arctic and Antarctica from space, in particular Antarctica which will be fully lit at this time of year,” said Philips.

Rogge similarly has a fascination with extreme environments, having researched ocean robotics in the Arctic in pursuit of ways to improve the technology. She will get the chance to study tools that could prepare humans for future missions to Mars and beyond, “from capturing the first human x-ray images in space to Just-in-Time training tools to the effects of spaceflight on behavioral health,” according to Fram2’s webpage. The crew will also study what happens to the human body after weeks or months in space.

“Wang aims to use the mission to highlight the crew’s explorational spirit, bring a sense of wonder and curiosity to the larger public, and highlight how technology can help push the boundaries of exploration of Earth and through the mission’s research,” SpaceX said in an update on its website.

Since 2020, SpaceX has flown 50 astronauts to low-Earth orbit across 13 human spaceflight missions, more than any private company. These include the three Axiom Space missions, Inspiration4, and eight NASA Commercial Crew rotation missions to the ISS, as well as the Demo-2 test flight.

Competitors Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, meanwhile, have each completed seven commercial human spaceflights.

All three companies, in addition to NASA contractors such as Boeing and Northrop Grumman, are part of an emerging trend that could soon become the norm. NASA has predicted that when the ISS is retired at the end of the decade, it could become one of many customers enlisting the services of private spaceflight companies, rather than a provider of those services.

That could mean more private astronaut missions financed by millionaire and billionaire backers.

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NASA, Boeing Forgo Starliner Crewed Flight Test Until June Earliest https://www.flyingmag.com/modern/nasa-boeing-forgo-starliner-crewed-flight-test-no-new-timeline-given/ Wed, 22 May 2024 18:27:37 +0000 /?p=208099 The postponement marks the fifth delay to the long-awaited mission, which would be the first time humans have flown on Starliner.

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Boeing’s Starliner, a semireusable vessel to the International Space Station (ISS) that has contended with a decade of delays to its inaugural Crewed Flight Test (CFT), will now launch no earlier than June

After postponing the previously announced May 25 launch attempt of the Starliner CFT on Tuesday, NASA on Wednesday said that it, Boeing, and launch provider United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, are targeting no earlier than Saturday, June 1, at 12:25 p.m. EDT for the next attempt. Additional launch windows include Sunday, June 2, Wednesday, June 5, and Thursday, June 6.

The postponement is the latest in a string of delays that have impacted the mission—and plagued the Starliner program more broadly—for years. An initial launch attempt was scrubbed hours before takeoff on May 6.

The setback follows the discovery of what NASA and Boeing described as a small helium leak on Starliner’s service module, which is designed to power and maneuver the autonomous spacecraft on its journey to the ISS.

According to NASA, Starliner teams have been meeting extensively to identify a new launch date, but further work remains. The agency said the current leak remains stable but that crews are now conducting follow-on performance and propulsion system assessments “to understand potential helium system impacts on some Starliner return scenarios.”

NASA will also perform a Flight Test Readiness Review to recap the work that has been done since May 6 and explain the rationale for attempting the next launch. A date for that review has not been identified but will be announced once selected, it said.

“It has been important that we take our time to understand all the complexities of each issue, including the redundant capabilities of the Starliner propulsion system and any implications to our Interim Human Rating Certification,” said Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew program. “We will launch [astronauts] Butch [Wilmore] and Suni [Williams] on this test mission after the entire community has reviewed the teams’ progress and flight rationale at the upcoming Delta Agency Flight Test Readiness Review.”

NASA views Starliner as an alternative to SpaceX’s Crew Dragon for missions to low-Earth orbit. Dragon has flown each of the space agency’s eight Commercial Crew rotation missions, ferrying astronauts to and from the ISS, and will facilitate the upcoming Crew-9 mission scheduled for August.

But NASA wants to keep two reusable spacecraft in its fleet in case of a contingency, such as the incident that stranded astronaut Frank Rubio on the orbital laboratory for six months.

Boeing and SpaceX in 2014 each signed multibillion-dollar contracts with the agency to secure test flights and several Commercial Crew missions for their respective vessels. SpaceX has since expanded its arrangement multiple times, while Starliner—which is under contract for six flights—has languished in the development phase.

The Starliner CFT is intended to be the spacecraft’s final test flight before NASA certifies it for Commercial Crew rotation flights. If all goes according to plan, the spacecraft’s first commercial mission to the ISS, Starliner-1, could take place next year. But the delays continue to pile up.

The mission was initially scrubbed due to an oscillating pressure regulation valve on ULA’s Atlas V rocket, which will send Starliner into orbit. The partners set a new target launch date of May 10, later revising it to May 17 to give crews additional time to resolve the issue.

Then, last week, teams discovered a new problem—this time involving a helium leak on one of the Starliner capsule’s 28 reaction control system thrusters. Helium allows the thrusters to fire and make minor maneuvers in orbit. As a result, the launch was pushed to no earlier than Tuesday, a timeline that was then revised yet again to Saturday.

With Wednesday’s announcement, the partners are now nearly one month behind schedule, placing the Starliner team in a bind. On one hand, the safety of the astronauts must be prioritized. But on the other, there is some pressure to launch sooner rather than later.

As Ars Technica’s Stephen Clark notes, the ISS docking schedule gets a bit crowded after July, so there is some pressure for Starliner teams to launch sooner rather than later. In addition, Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida—from where Starliner will launch—is used by ULA for other Atlas V and Vulcan Centaur launches.

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What Is Polaris Dawn? Breaking Down the Upcoming SpaceX Mission https://www.flyingmag.com/what-is-polaris-dawn-breaking-down-the-upcoming-spacex-mission/ Wed, 08 May 2024 21:01:36 +0000 https://www.flyingmag.com/?p=202488 SpaceX reveals its first-generation extravehicular activity (EVA) spacesuits, designed to be worn in the vacuum of space as well as the confines of a spacecraft.

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A planned SpaceX mission, which is expected to include the first attempt at a commercial spacewalk and fly humans to heights within Earth’s orbit never before reached, received a major boost over the weekend.

SpaceX on Saturday unveiled its first-generation extravehicular activity (EVA) spacesuit, which will be donned by astronauts aboard the Polaris Dawn mission, scheduled for no earlier than this summer. Polaris Dawn—a five-day, four-person orbital mission to research human health both in space and on Earth—is the first of three potential human spaceflights under the Polaris Program.

SpaceX and entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, who founded the program in February 2022, held a discussion accompanying the announcement on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, which SpaceX CEO Elon Musk acquired in October..

While the mission has no firm launch date, SpaceX on Saturday confirmed that Polaris Dawn would be the next crewed mission the company will fly.

What Is Polaris?

The Polaris Program is the brainchild of Isaacman, the billionaire CEO of integrated payments provider Shift4 who is also a pilot and astronaut, with more than 7,000 flight hours and multiple experimental and ex-military aircraft ratings. Isaacman in 2012 founded Draken International, a private air force that trains pilots for the U.S. Armed Forces.

Isaacman purchased flights from SpaceX in February 2022 to launch the program and is funding Polaris Dawn himself.

Named after the constellation of three stars more commonly known as the North Star, or Polaris, the program comprises three potential missions, one for each star. The effort aims to rapidly advance human spaceflight capabilities with an eye toward future missions to the moon, Mars, and beyond. Simultaneously, it will raise funds and advance research into issues facing humanity on Earth, such as cancer.

Polaris Dawn, the first of the three missions, was announced in 2022 and expected to fly later that year. It has since been delayed multiple times, most recently from February to mid-2024, due in part to SpaceX’s development of the specially designed EVA spacesuits.

Polaris Dawn and a second mission without a timeline, simply called Mission II, will be flown using SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule. Both vehicles are already in use by NASA and a handful of commercial customers, such as Axiom Space.

Falcon 9, a reusable two-stage rocket, is the world’s first orbital class reusable rocket and has been lauded for driving down launch costs in flying 330 times. Crew Dragon, which is capable of carrying up to seven passengers, in 2020 restored NASA’s ability to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS) with the first Commercial Crew rotation mission. It has flown a total of 46 missions, visiting the ISS on 42.

Polaris is expected to culminate in a third mission comprising the first crewed flight of SpaceX’s Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built. Like Falcon 9, the spacecraft is designed to be fully reusable and has so far attempted three orbital test flights, each more successful than the last.

Isaacman has been outspoken about Polaris’ aim to make human spaceflight accessible to all. The new SpaceX suits, for example, are designed to fit a range of body types and accommodate all spacewalkers.

At the same time, the billionaire aviator is focused on solving problems on Earth. Since its founding, Polaris has worked closely with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and helped fund research into childhood cancer.

Civilians in Space

Polaris Dawn is notable for its four-person crew, which includes the first SpaceX employees expected to actually reach space.

Mission specialist Sarah Gillis oversees the company’s astronaut training program, while mission specialist and medical officer Anna Menon manages crew operations. Gillis, trained to be a classical violinist, joined SpaceX in 2015, while Menon is a seven-year NASA veteran. But both have been part of past Crew Dragon flights. Menon in particular was influential in developing Dragon’s crew and emergency response capabilities.

Joining the SpaceX employees will be pilot Scott Poteet, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel with more than 3,200 flying hours in the F-16, A-4, T-38, T-37, T-3, and Alpha Jet.

Isaacman himself will serve as Polaris Dawn mission commander, a role he also filled for  SpaceX’s 2021 Inspiration4 mission: the first all-civilian mission to space. Poteet, who previously served in roles at Isaacson’s companies Shift4 and Draken, was mission director for that flight, which raised $250 million for St. Jude.

To prepare for Polaris Dawn, crewmembers lived inside the decompression chamber at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston for two days, summited the 16,800-foot peak of Illinizas Norte volcano in Ecuador, and experienced 9 Gs of force while training on three different kinds of fighter jets.

The mission will launch from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The crew will spend up to five days in orbit, performing about 40 experiments and testing of hardware and software. Like Inspiration4, it is a charitable effort, with the goal of raising additional funds for St. Jude.

“Fifty or 100 years from now, people are going to be jumping in their rockets, and you’re going to have families bouncing around on the moon with their kids at a lunar base,” said Isaacman in an article on the St. Jude website. “If we can accomplish all of that, we sure as heck better tackle childhood cancer along the way.”

Polaris Dawn aims to fly higher than any SpaceX Dragon mission to date, a height that hasn’t been reached since the end of the Apollo program half a century ago.

The crew will also attempt to reach the highest Earth orbit ever flown. Isaacman during the discussion on X said the mission will target an apogee of 1,400 kilometers, or about 870 miles, more than double the orbital height reached by Apollo 17. That orbit would place the crew just inside the Van Allen radiation belt, where it hopes to research effects of spaceflight and space radiation on human health.

“The benefit of being at this high altitude is that we can better understand the impacts of that environment…on both the human body…as well as on the spacecraft,” said Menon during the discussion on X.

Suit Up

The Dragon capsule will complete seven elliptical orbits until reaching its apogee before descending to a circular orbit at about 700 kilometers (435 miles). At that altitude, crewmembers will attempt the first commercial spacewalk. It would also be the first time four astronauts have been exposed to the vacuum of space at the same time, according to SpaceX.

The spacewalk will mark the first use of SpaceX’s EVA spacesuit in low-Earth orbit, a key milestone that is expected to inform future iterations of the design for long-duration missions.

It’s an evolution of SpaceX’s Intravehicular Activity (IVA) suit that has been modified to enable both intra and extravehicular use. In other words, personnel won’t need to change clothes when moving from the confines of the spacecraft to the harsh environment of space.

The EVA suit adds greater mobility, seals and pressure valves, a helmet camera, and textile-based thermal material, which regulates suit temperature and can be controlled using a dial. Boots were constructed from the same thermal material used to shield Falcon and Dragon from exposure.

“There was a lot of work on both the materials of the suit, developing a whole new layer that we needed to add for thermal management as well as looking at the thermal condition for the crewmembers themselves, and making sure that they were at a comfortable temperature inside the suit,” said Chris Drake, manager of SpaceX’s spacesuit team, on Saturday.

The 3D-printed helmet incorporates a new visor designed to reduce glare as well as a state-of-the-art, heads-up display (HUD). The HUD is active only during spacewalks and displays spacesuit pressure, temperature, and humidity, as well as a mission clock to track how long the astronauts are exposed to the vacuum of space.

Already, SpaceX is developing a second-generation EVA suit for missions to the moon and Mars. It estimates that millions of suits will be required to one day build a lunar base or Martian city.

“This is important because we are going to get to the moon and Mars one day, and we’re going to have to get out of our vehicles and out of the safety of the habitat to explore and build and repair things,” Isaacman said during the discussion on X.

The Dragon capsule has also required modifications to prepare for the landmark spacewalk. SpaceX on Saturday said a structure called “Skywalker” has been attached near the capsule’s hatch to act as a mobility aid. Handrails and foot rails have been installed inside the spacecraft, with a ladder interface added to the hatch opening.

SpaceX also installed a cabin pressurization system that allows the interior of the capsule to withstand the vacuum of space as air is sucked out during the spacewalk. A repressurization system will stabilize it once the astronauts return.

Why It Matters

In addition to achieving the first commercial spacewalk and the highest orbital altitude ever recorded, Polaris Dawn hopes to test Starlink laser-based communications in space for the first time. Data from the test could help develop space communications for future missions.

In addition, Polaris and SpaceX selected 38 scientific experiments from 23 partner institutions—including NASA, the U.S. Air Force Academy, and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University—intended to advance the understanding of human health in space and on Earth.

The crew will use ultrasound to study decompression sickness, for example, and will research spaceflight associated neuro-ocular syndrome: a disease unique to humans who fly in space that can have severe debilitating effects. Upon landing, astronauts will undergo tests to study anemia—an unavoidable effect of traveling to space—and other conditions that might impact humans on Earth.

The scientific aims of the Polaris Program differ from the commercial spaceflight ventures offered by companies such as Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, which could be classified more aptly as space tourism operations.

Tickets for those companies’ orbital and suborbital offerings, some of which involve research, can range from the hundreds of thousands of dollars to the millions. Isaacman and SpaceX’s Inspiration4, meanwhile, raised a quarter of a billion dollars for cancer research.

Isaacman has been particularly outspoken when it comes to accessibility in spaceflight. And by taking on much of the risk himself, the billionaire businessman has lessened the pressure on SpaceX. Isaacman’s funding of Polaris Dawn has allowed the company to focus on developing the spacesuits and other technology necessary to ensure the mission runs smoothly.

Polaris Dawn also represents a critical juncture for SpaceX’s Starship, the lynchpin of the company’s planned human spaceflight offerings. The largest rocket ever built is not quite ready to fly humans. But when it is, the third Polaris mission is expected to be its maiden voyage.

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What to Know About Boeing Starliner’s First Crewed Test Flight https://www.flyingmag.com/what-to-know-about-boeing-starliners-first-crewed-test-flight/ Wed, 01 May 2024 20:41:36 +0000 https://www.flyingmag.com/?p=201754 NASA intends to deploy the reusable capsule for crew rotation missions to the International Space Station, but the program has been marred by delays.

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A historic NASA launch planned for early next week could have major implications for the space agency’s Commercial Crew Program, which ferries astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) and low-Earth orbit in partnership with private companies.

Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner, a semireusable vessel to the ISS that has been marred by nearly a decade of delays, will finally make its first crewed flight test on Monday, barring any further hiccups. Boeing on Friday confirmed that NASA gave Starliner the “go to proceed.”

If the mission—intended to be Starliner’s final test flight—is successful, NASA will work to certify the spacecraft for routine, six-month crew rotation missions to the space station, beginning with Starliner-1, scheduled for 2025. Starliner’s crew capsule is designed to be reusable over 10 missions.

Commercial Crew is one of the linchpins of U.S. space exploration efforts. The program—a public-private partnership between NASA and companies such as Boeing, SpaceX, and Blue Origin—transports and swaps out the astronaut crews responsible for critical research on the orbital laboratory.

Used by astronauts and private companies from around the world, the space station is the only facility that allows researchers to investigate the effects of long duration spaceflight as NASA gears up for future missions to the moon, Mars, and beyond.

Since crew rotation missions began in 2020, all eight missions—including Crew-8, which is still in progress—have been facilitated by SpaceX’s Crew Dragon. The missions have also used the company’s Falcon 9 launch vehicle.

Boeing—which since 2014 has battled SpaceX for supremacy in the commercial crew program—has yet to launch a crewed flight of its Starliner, which NASA views as a redundant but important alternative to Crew Dragon. But the manufacturer on Monday has a chance to throw its hat in the ring.

“As the final flight test for Starliner, NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test will validate the transportation system, including the launch pad, rocket, spacecraft, in-orbit operational capabilities, and return to Earth with astronauts aboard,” NASA said in a mission profile on its website.

A successful crewed flight test would represent the final barrier to the start of Boeing’s commercial contract with NASA, under which the partners are obligated to complete six crew rotation missions. These would represent the manufacturer’s first commercial human spaceflight missions. SpaceX, so far, has flown astronauts to the space station 11 times.

A Decade of Delays

Commercial Crew is NASA’s effort to transport astronauts to the ISS from American soil, using U.S.-built rockets and spacecraft. By involving private companies such as Boeing, a rarity for the agency in years past, the idea was to reduce costs and complexity while keeping missions safe and on schedule.

Boeing unveiled the concept for the CST-100 Starliner—with CST standing for Crew Space Transportation and 100 denoting the Kármán Line, a boundary 100 kilometers above the Earth informally considered to be the edge of space—in 2010. The manufacturer claimed the spacecraft could be operational within five years.

That prediction did not come to fruition. By 2014, NASA had narrowed down its search for a reusable Commercial Crew capsule to two candidates: Starliner and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon.

Each company was awarded billions of dollars to build and certify an aircraft by 2017, the year they were expected to be ready for a first crewed flight test. Boeing’s $4.2 billion contract includes six service missions plus uncrewed and crewed test flights to the space station.

Neither company met its deadline. But Crew Dragon made its first flight with astronauts in 2020. The same can not be said for the Starliner program, which for nearly a decade has been bogged down by delays.

The first uncrewed Starliner Orbital Test Flight Mission, scheduled for 2017, was delayed three times to 2019. Half an hour into that flight, an anomaly forced NASA to abort a planned docking with the space station. Though the mission to the orbital laboratory was scrapped, the spacecraft was safely recovered.

A second uncrewed orbital test flight, OFT-2, was also delayed more than a year due to valve problems late in the initial countdown. It eventually launched in 2022, reaching the ISS for the first time and meeting all mission objectives.

The prelude to Starliner’s first crewed test flight sounds like a familiar tune. The mission was pushed back several times in 2023, culminating in an indefinite delay caused by a pair of issues discovered just weeks before a planned launch in July.

All told, the program has overrun planned costs by $1.5 billion. According to a NASA Office of the Inspector General report, the space agency committed to additional flights and payments not specified in its original contract, in a bid to keep Boeing as a contractor.

The delays to Starliner have forced NASA to put all of its eggs in SpaceX’s basket, jeopardizing Commercial Crew missions should Crew Dragon—which so far has proven reliable—experience issues. But with the agency giving its all clear last week, the long-awaited rocket spacecraft appears set to finally make its debut.

The Mission

Starliner was designed and built by Boeing with the help of more than 425 suppliers. Early missions, including next week’s planned flight, will be launched by United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V launch vehicle. But the spacecraft is billed as “launch vehicle agnostic,” compatible with vehicles in the medium-lift launch class.

Starliner’s unique weldless structure was devised with reusability in mind. Its service modules are expendable, but its crew module can be reused up to 10 times, according to Boeing. The crew module can fit seven crewmembers, but NASA missions will include four or five astronauts.

Combined, the crew and service modules have 40 reaction control system thrusters, which aid in control and steering. While the vehicle is designed to be autonomous, Boeing has trained the crew to be able to take over.

The service module has an additional 20 orbital maneuvering and attitude control thrusters and four launch abort engines, which, combined with a pusher abort system, provide an escape route in the case of emergency during launch or ascent. Stacked on top of Atlas V, the spacecraft stands just over 170 feet.

Commander Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Pilot Sunita “Suni” Williams will command next week’s planned mission. Both are experienced NASA astronauts with multiple spaceflights in the books. During the crewed test flight, Wilmore and Williams will be the first to launch on Starliner and Atlas V and manually control Starliner.

The astronauts’ goal will be to validate the transportation system, including the launch pad, rocket, spacecraft, and in-orbit capabilities, for future missions. 

Before, during, and after their weeklong stay on the space station, the crew will perform an array of tests designed to support the spacecraft’s certification. These include evaluations of equipment such as suits and seats from prelaunch through ascent, as well as assessments of communications, manual and automated navigation, life support systems, and thrusters while aboard the orbital lab.

Boeing has been “tasked with operating the entire mission,” including launch, in-orbit operations, landing, recovery and refurbishment. The company is also responsible for crew training, mission planning, spacecraft and launch vehicle assembly, and testing and integration.

Starliner arrived at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on April 16, where it will launch from historic Space Launch Complex-41. To this point, the launch pad has only hosted uncrewed spacecraft. The spacecraft has already been stacked, with crew preparations well underway.


About 15 minutes into the mission, the Starliner capsule will separate from the booster. Orbital maneuvering and attitude control thrusters will kick in about 30 minutes in, performing an engine burn to align it in orbit and start the approximately daylong sojourn to the space station.

Cameras onboard the capsule will pick out the moving laboratory from among a sea of fixed stars as it approaches to within a few hundred feet over the following few hours. Once flight controllers give the all clear, Starliner will approach and dock autonomously with one of two Boeing-built docking adapters—another critical test.

NASA will provide continuous coverage leading up to the docking through the opening of the hatch. On Thursday, four crewmembers already aboard the space station will relocate a Crew Dragon capsule to a different docking port, making way for the SpaceX rival’s alternative.

After spending a few days evaluating the spacecraft and its systems, Wilmore and Williams will return to Starliner, which will slowly undock from the space station and position itself over the Pacific Ocean. The service module will slow it from orbital speeds of about 17,500 mph as the crew module detaches. It will then accelerate back to Earth into a parachute landing in the Western U.S., touching down at just 4 mph.

What It Means

Starliner’s first crewed test flight has plenty of implications for Boeing, NASA, and U.S. ambitions in space more broadly.

On the commercial side, failure could deal a blow to the aerospace giant, which is under contract for six NASA service missions following the flight. The company also has ambitions to attract other customers, such as Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, describing NASA as Starliner’s “anchor customer.”

The test flight comes as Boeing rival SpaceX continues to thrive. Before Boeing completes its first crewed mission to the space station, its rival has already completed 11 such missions—eight crew rotation missions and three private astronaut missions with customer Axiom Space—and is preparing to fly astronauts to the moon on NASA’s Artemis III.

In addition, Boeing plans to sell the extra fifth seat on its NASA missions to private and commercial- or government-sponsored astronauts. Any ambitions for private commercial spaceflight will depend on next week’s mission.

NASA would also suffer from another setback to Starliner. The space agency hopes for the space station to be continuously crewed as it uses the orbital laboratory to explore future missions to more distant destinations, such as the moon or Mars. At the moment, it is too reliant on SpaceX.

“Our hearts and souls are in this spacecraft, and a little part of us will be lifting off with Butch and Suni,” said Dana Hutcherson, deputy manager of NASA Commercial Crew and a 13-year veteran of the program.

NASA envisions visiting spacecraft such as Starliner being used as “safe havens” in the event of a contingency aboard the space station, such as depressurization, fire, or potential collision.

One such contingency took place in December 2022, when the Soyuz MS-22 capsule that transported NASA astronaut Frank Rubio to the space station sprung a coolant leak, stranding Rubio and two Roscosmos cosmonauts in orbit for months. Rubio’s 355 consecutive days aboard the ISS—his first stint in space—are now a NASA spaceflight record.

SpaceX has been a reliable partner for NASA, having not suffered an incident in service thus far. But the agency wants a contingency plan. For example, in Rubio’s case, NASA was prepared to get its astronaut home in an extra seat on a scheduled Crew Dragon launch. The backup spacecraft was not needed, but it could have rescued Rubio had Roscosmos not delivered a replacement Soyuz in time.

Boeing is also developing launch vehicles for planned NASA lunar landings during Artemis II and Artemis III. Starliner is further intended to transport personnel to the Orbital Reef, a new space station under development by Blue Origin in partnership with NASA.

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First U.S. Moonshot in Decades Will Fall Short—What It Means https://www.flyingmag.com/first-u-s-moonshot-in-decades-will-fall-short-what-it-means/ https://www.flyingmag.com/first-u-s-moonshot-in-decades-will-fall-short-what-it-means/#comments Thu, 11 Jan 2024 16:31:19 +0000 https://www.flyingmag.com/?p=192705 This week’s moon mission won’t be the last in 2024 for NASA…or Astrobotic, the company behind Monday’s launch.

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The first American spacecraft to attempt a moon landing since Apollo 17 half a century ago will not reach the lunar surface, according to the company that built it.

Peregrine Mission One, an expedition to the moon as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, lifted off Monday morning and appeared to be progressing as planned. But a few hours into the spaceflight, Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic, whose Peregrine lander was destined for the lunar surface, released a series of updates on X (formerly Twitter) that cast doubt on the mission’s aims.

Peregrine—which is carrying a total of 20 payloads, five of them from NASA—was expected to attempt a lunar landing on February 23, but that will no longer be the case. The lander would have become the first built by a private company to land on the moon.

Peregrine lifted off Monday morning at 2:18 a.m. EST from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida aboard the Vulcan Centaur V, a heavy-lift launch vehicle built by United Launch Alliance and a 50-50 joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

After climbing to about 310 miles, the lander successfully separated from the rocket and powered on. Astrobotic made contact and began receiving telemetry from Peregrine, which is now flying solo toward the moon. In other words, all appeared to be in order.

But in the following hours, Astrobotic issued a string of updates, each more deflating than the last.

The company’s engineers discovered an issue with Peregrine’s propulsion system that is causing a “critical loss of propellant,” which affects the spacecraft’s ability to orient its solar panels toward the sun. Interestingly, the system is not considered novel.

“The Peregrine lander’s propulsion system uses a hypergolic propellant mixture, combining hydrazine fuel and a solution of nitric oxide and nitrogen tetroxide as the oxidizer,” wrote Stephen Clark of the website Ars Technica. “This is a tried-and-true architecture because hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide immediately combust upon contact with one another, meaning the propulsion system doesn’t need an ignition source.”

On Monday afternoon, the firm posted the first image from Peregrine in space on X, depicting the warped Multi-Layer Insulation (MLI) meant to protect it. Astrobotic called this the “first visual clue” confirming its hunch that the propulsion system is the root of the problem. It later hypothesized that a valve between the spacecraft’s helium pressurant and oxidizer failed to reseal after actuation, though this was not because of the launch.

According to Astrobotic, the propellant leak is causing Peregrine’s altitude control system (ACS) thrusters to burn “well beyond their expected service life cycles” in order to stop the lander from tumbling into space. An update posted Tuesday afternoon announced the final blow.

“Given the propellant leak, there is, unfortunately, no chance of a soft landing on the moon,” Astrobotic said.

However, the mission was not a complete bust. As of Thursday morning, Peregrine continues to fly toward lunar orbit, and the company said all of the ship’s payloads are communicating or powering up as intended. It also confirmed that a crescent shape in a photo the lander snapped on Tuesday is, indeed, Earth.

Peregrine is carrying scientific payloads from NASA and other space agencies, universities, companies, and individuals. The cargo comes from seven nations, including the first lunar or lunar surface payloads from the Mexican, German, English, and Hungarian space agencies.

The mission was intended to search for water, measure radiation and lunar surface conditions, and prepare NASA for Artemis, a series of launches that will attempt to return American astronauts to the moon as soon as 2025.

But although they shot for the moon and missed, Astrobotic and NASA still have the opportunity to land among the stars, so to speak.

Shooting for the Moon

Outside observers, aware of Peregrine Mission One’s aim to reach the lunar surface, may consider the mission’s result a failure. But that certainly isn’t the view of Astrobotic.

“Obviously, if we don’t achieve that final goal—the soft landing and all of our payloads being activated—there’ll be huge disappointment across the team and our partners and suppliers, who worked tirelessly and tremendously to get to this point,” Andrew Jones, director of landers and spacecraft for Astrobotic, told FLYING before Peregrine took flight. “But we’ve learned so much up to here, and I think we’ve played a huge part in paving the way for our ambitions of making space accessible.”

Landing on the moon is an essential piece of Astrobotic’s mission. The company envisions a democratized space, one where private firms and individuals could easily—and cheaply—move people and goods to the lunar surface and back using Peregrine and its variants. Manifesting that will require proof of concept in the form of a moon landing.

Jones and his team began developing the lander in 2019, using a combination of built-in-house components and parts manufactured by hundreds of suppliers across the U.S. The project was bolstered by $108 million in funding from NASA, which awarded Peregrine the first CLPS contract to put a lander on the moon as a service.

Jones told FLYING Astrobotic conducted “thousands of hours” of analysis on the lander and its mission profile prior to Monday’s launch. These included hundreds of tests of its components, materials, avionics, propulsion, communications, power system, and other features. A full-size structural test model and thousands of lines of code helped prepare the team for potential failure scenarios.

Despite this, the mission did not quite go as planned. Astrobotic is one of 14 vendors eligible to carry NASA payloads to the moon through the CLPS, and it had hoped to be the first to do so.

“To be the first commercial company to land on the moon, it shows that anything’s possible,” Jones told FLYING. “Up until now, it’s always been the purview of governments and large entities to do this. To be able to say that a commercial company like us—that’s not huge, that’s not got millions in the bank—that we can actually do it says a lot for the industry.”

But while Peregrine stopped short of its goal, Jones balked at calling that outcome a failure.

“No matter the outcome of this mission, it’s important that we continue to strive for regular, routine access to the lunar surface,” he said. “There’s always going to be roadblocks. There’s always going to be hiccups along the way. But I think every mission that we do, every lesson that we learn, makes the objective closer and easier to achieve.”

Fortunately for Jones, Astrobotic will have another shot at that objective later this year. The company was also picked by NASA to launch the space agency’s 1-ton VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) to the lunar south pole aboard its Griffin lander. The mission, which will search for water, will cost NASA an estimated $500 million—far more than it invested in the Peregrine mission.

Beyond that, Astrobotic will send a lander tethered to a lunar rover to the moon as early as 2026 to demonstrate LunaGrid-Lite, a proprietary power transmission system. The mission is part of a $35 million NASA tipping point partnership. It will also provide a cargo accommodation system to the Blue Origin National Team, which is developing a lunar lander for humans and large cargo to be used on the Artemis missions.

“I think we’ll have to [establish a presence on the moon], partly because of what we want to do beyond the moon…I think there’s going to be a larger presence on the moon from a scientific [standpoint], as well as just commercial people wanting to experience and live there,” Jones said.

‘Shots on Goal’

NASA researchers were well aware of the risks going into Monday’s launch, the first in its manifest of CLPS missions. CLPS aims to establish a commercial marketplace for science, exploration, and “technology development investigations” on the moon’s surface and in lunar orbit, as well as to expand the lunar economy to support crewed Artemis moon missions.

The CLPS marked a shift in emphasis for the space agency, looping private companies into an industry historically dominated by government agencies and programs. Thomas Zurbuchen, a former associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate and key architect of the program, characterized the CLPS strategy as “taking shots on goal.”

But as the saying goes, you miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take. Zurbuchen and NASA Administrator Bill Nelson were among those who applauded Peregrine Mission One, despite it not quite reaching its goal.

Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration for the Science Mission Directorate, added: “Each success and setback are opportunities to learn and grow. We will use this lesson to propel our efforts to advance science, exploration, and commercial development of the moon.”

To Kearns’ point, the success rate for lunar landings is estimated to be at or below 50 percent, and Astrobotic’s attempt was America’s first in half a century. India in 2019 smashed its Vikram rover into the lunar surface before successfully landing the spacecraft in August, while Russia had a failed moonshot—its first in 47 years—that same month.

NASA researchers had hoped Peregrine’s findings would help them understand how solar radiation affects the lunar surface, as well as provide data to its Lunar-VISE (Lunar Vulkan Imaging and Spectroscopy Explorer), which is expected to arrive at Peregrine’s planned lunar landing site in 2026. Those goals will go unmet, but the agency has plenty more opportunities to learn.

Astrobotic isn’t the only private U.S. company shooting for the moon. In fact, Monday’s launch kicked off one of six planned CLPS missions to the moon in 2024. 

Three of the remaining five journeys will use the Nova-C private lander from Houston-based Intuitive Machines, which could achieve the first commercial soft landing in March should Astrobotic fall short. A fourth will be flown by another Texas-based startup, Firefly Aerospace. Rounding out the manifest is Astrobotic’s VIPER mission. Two additional CLPS missions are scheduled for 2025 and 2026.

NASA officials have tempered expectations for the first batch of landers, given that no private firm has soft landed on the moon. But if delays—which plagued Monday’s launch and others—and unmet expectations become the norm, the future of the Artemis program could be murky.

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Former NASA Astronaut Frank Borman Dead at 95 https://www.flyingmag.com/former-nasa-astronaut-frank-borman-dead-at-95/ Fri, 10 Nov 2023 17:41:47 +0000 https://www.flyingmag.com/?p=187641 NASA astronaut Frank Borman is best remembered for commanding the Apollo 8 lunar orbital mission.

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NASA is mourning the passing of former NASA astronaut Frank Borman, who died in Billings, Montana, on Tuesday at the age of 95.

Borman, a retired Air Force colonel, enjoyed a long career with NASA and is perhaps best remembered as the commander of the Apollo 8 mission, the first lunar orbital mission in 1968.

Frank Frederick Borman II was born March 14, 1928, in Gary, Indiana, and raised in Tucson, Arizona.

Borman developed an interest in aviation as a teenager. He wanted to attend a college that had an aeronautical engineering program but was concerned about the financial strain it would put on his parents. So he made plans to join the Army and use the GI Bill to finance his education.

When he graduated from high school in 1946, there were many former soldiers taking advantage of the bill. A friend of the family knew a local congressman and suggested that Borman try to obtain an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy. Always one to hedge his bets, Borman took both the Army physical and the entrance exam to West Point. He passed both and opted for the academy, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree. Upon graduation in 1950, he entered the U.S. Air Force.

Borman enjoyed a diverse military career with several flying assignments. He was a fighter pilot, flight instructor, experimental test pilot, and later assistant professor of thermodynamics and fluid mechanics at West Point. The Space Race had begun, and NASA was looking for men with technical education and advanced college degrees, so Borman returned to school, obtaining a Master of Science degree in aeronautical engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 1957.

He was instructing at the Aerospace Research Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, California, when NASA selected him for the second class of astronauts in 1962.

Borman’s first trip into space in December 1965 came as a member of the Gemini 7 crew with Jim Lovell. They spent 14 days in space during America’s fourth crewed mission.

The mission, which extended over Christmas Eve, included the three astronauts reading from the first 10 verses of the Bible’s Book of Genesis. Borman ended the message with “and from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you—all of you on the good Earth.”

In 1967 he served as a member of the Apollo 204 Fire Investigation Board, which sought to determine the cause of the blaze aboard the command and service module. The mission never launched as the cabin fire during a rehearsal test on January 27 killed all three astronauts, including command pilot Gus Grissom, senior pilot Ed White, and pilot Roger Chaffee. They were unable to open the door from the inside and escape the flames.

In his testimony before Congress and the investigative committee, Borman stated the command module was safe. He also pressed for the door to be redesigned so that it could be opened from the inside. The redesign was time consuming, expensive, and added weight to the spacecraft, but Borman got his way, and as the Apollo program resident manager led the team that performed the redesign. He also served as field director of NASA’s Space Station Task Force.

“Astronaut Frank Borman was a true American hero,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said. “His lifelong love for aviation and exploration was only surpassed by his love for his wife, Susan. In addition to his critical role as commander of the Apollo 8 mission, he is a veteran of Gemini 7, spending 14 days in low-Earth orbit and conducting the first rendezvous in space, coming within a few feet of the Gemini 6 spacecraft.”

Borman retired from NASA in 1970 and joined Eastern Airlines as a special adviser, becoming senior vice president of the operations group. In May 1974 he was elected president and chief operating officer. He was named CEO in December 1975 and became chairman of the board in 1976. As the airline industry convulsed following deregulation, Borman instituted a program at Eastern that included profit sharing and wages tied to company profitability. He retired from Eastern Airlines in June 1986.

Borman’s Honors 

Borman received the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, the Harmon International Aviation Trophy, the Robert J. Collier Trophy, the Tony Jannus Award, and the National Geographic Society’s Hubbard Medal. In 1990 Borman, Lovell, and fellow astronaut William Anders were inducted into the International Aerospace Hall of Fame.

Borman was preceded in death in 2021 by his wife, Susan Bugbee Borman, who he met in high school and married shortly after college graduation. Their two sons, Frederick and Edwin, also survive him, along with four grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

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Check Out Six of Our Favorite Permission-Only Private Airports https://www.flyingmag.com/six-private-airports-worth-seeking-permission-to-land/ Fri, 04 Feb 2022 21:39:14 +0000 https://www.flyingmag.com/?p=116625 Pilots should not be intimidated by private strips—just ask.

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Pilots know what private airstrips look like on sectional charts, but we might never have seen one up close. That’s because we tend to skip over those magenta circles with Rs in the middle while looking for more familiar, welcoming public airports.

Having to call ahead for permission before landing is enough to keep many pilots away. Picking up the phone can be much like calling air traffic control for people who are shy about talking to the tower. What if the owner or manager of the private strip says we cannot land there? Rejection is hard to take.

What if the owner or manager of the private strip says we cannot land there? Rejection is hard to take.

Still, those seemingly forbidding fields are attractive because they often offer access to interesting places we’d like to visit. It may be a 1,500-foot grass strip on a lake or river with good fishing or a former Air Force base with a grooved, 12,000-foot asphalt runway that is 300 feet wide. Some of these places have great names, too, like Starbase, Pickles, Hideaway, and Flying M Ranch. Spending hours perusing charts might convince you that Flying M is the most popular name for private airports, but Eagle’s Nest is certainly in the running.

Several years ago, a visit to Greig Farm (9NK4), a private strip in Red Hook, New York, changed my mind about private airports. The farm includes a café where we had driven to meet friends for breakfast. Across the road, I spotted a rare Meyers 200 and a turf runway cutting through the field. Our friends told me the farmer flew in and out regularly. I later looked up the airport, called the manager, and got permission to fly in for lunch. It was easy, and I have been back several times for the wonderful sandwiches and engaging talk about the Meyers.

Don’t be afraid to tap out the phone numbers in the private airport listings to see if the runway is open and if the folks in charge will let you land. They probably will. But if they don’t, just try the next one, as there are thousands of private strips across the U.S.

Here are six that I would like to visit this year:

Vinalhaven (ME55), Vinalhaven, Maine

Located about halfway up the Maine coast in the middle of Penobscot Bay, Vinalhaven is the largest of the state’s many offshore Islands at 23 square miles. For a time it was a leading producer of granite, and the pinkish stone quarried there can be found in famous structures like the Brooklyn Bridge and Washington Monument. Today, it is known for its large fishing fleet (and short gravel runway—1,510 feet). Walking is a good way to get around, but a folding bike in the baggage compartment would be just right.

Starbase (VG09), Cape Charles, Virginia

You might want to bring your golf clubs because Cape Charles is known for its courses. The town is a planned community from the Victorian era, located on Virginia’s eastern shore near the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. The town was part of an 1882 plan to extend the Pennsylvania Railroad to the bay and ultimately ship goods to Richmond. Cape Charles essentially rose and fell with the popularity of railroads, but it has staged a comeback in the last several years, driven by an influx of new residents and businesses.

Ivy Bend (9MO6), Stover, Missouri

The approach to this forest-lined 1,800-foot turf strip is over water for a little more scenic drama and excitement, especially if you haven’t practiced your short-field technique lately. Seriously, be sure to practice first. Sitting on one of many bends of the serpentine Lake of the Ozarks, the airport is a gateway to the area’s camping and fishing sites. The lake, actually a reservoir formed by a hydroelectric project in 1931, was once the largest man-made lake in the U.S.

Sky Meadows Airpark (WN92), Spokane, Washington

A fly-in residential community, Sky Meadows is close to downtown Spokane and less than 20 nautical miles from Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho. Spokane is home to the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture and Riverfront Park, which was the site of the 1974 World’s Fair. Other attractions include rides, tours, a skate park, and Spokane Falls, a waterfall and dam in the central business district.

Hangars One, Two, and Three at Moffett Federal Airfield, which housed naval airships, still dominate the site and are among the world’s largest freestanding structures. [Courtesy: NASA]

Moffett Federal Airfield (KNUQ), Mountain View, California

Originally named NAS Sunnyvale, this former U.S. Navy air station dates to the days when airships looked like the wave of the future and was home base to the huge airship USS Macon. Hangars One, Two, and Three, which housed naval airships, still dominate the site and are among the world’s largest freestanding structures. Today, the property is a joint civil and military complex that includes NASA’s Ames Research Center and 1,000 acres that NASA leased to tech company Google in 2014. 

Loring International (ME16), Limestone, Maine

While many of Maine’s private strips might be too short for comfort, the 12,101-foot long, 300-foot wide runway at this former Strategic Air Command base should be easy even for pilots who tend to come in high and fast on the approach. While used as a business development zone today, Loring still has a Cold War feel, especially from the tarmac near the base of the control tower, where you can imagine swarms of B-36 Peacemaker bombers scrambling into the air. The base later was home to B-52 squadrons. It closed in 1994.

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Astronauts Face Toilet Challenges on Return Flight https://www.flyingmag.com/nasa-leaky-toilet/ Wed, 03 Nov 2021 01:54:47 +0000 https://flying.media/?p=87688 NASA and SpaceX’s combined Crew-3 mission to the International Space Station has seen a few hiccups prior to liftoff, including bad weather, minor medical issues, and one leaky toilet.

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NASA is sending four astronauts up to the ISS in SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule. Once docked, those four will begin their six-month mission on board while the four Crew-2 astronauts will head back to Earth—without a usable toilet.

“Our intent is to not use the system at all, right, for the return leg home,” said NASA commercial crew program manager Steve Stich. “Because of what we’ve seen with fluid … so we don’t intend to use that system at all. And we have other means to allow the crew to, um, perform the functions they need to.”

The Endeavour spacecraft has been experiencing an adhesive issue, where urine is leaking out of a tube connected to the storage tank, causing quite the mess underneath the capsule floor.

The Crew-2 astronauts will have to go in their suits, using “undergarments” as their backup. The last Crew Dragon capsule took about six hours to return to Earth from the ISS. Hopefully, the astronauts will remember to go before they leave the station.

Fortunately for the Crew-3 astronauts, the problem has already been solved for their upcoming trip.

“We did work together with NASA to limit the system’s use during the Crew-2 return downhill portion of the mission,” said Sarah Walker, Dragon mission management director. “And as mentioned, we went ahead and rolled in a design improvement that’s been fully qualified and reviewed by NASA for the Crew-3 mission, launching hopefully this weekend, to make the system even more robust.”

Returning home this month are Crew-2 astronauts Shane Kimbrough, Megan McArthur, Akihiko Hoshide, and Thomas Pesquet.

NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn, and Kayla Barron are joined by European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer for the Crew-3 mission. The team is currently in quarantine following a minor medical issue of one of the crew members. NASA reported that it is not COVID-19 related and expects to launch as early as Saturday at 11:36 p.m.

Pilots are familiar with the challenges faced by the crews, with their own ways of dealing with the … issue.

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NASA Getting Set to Launch Mars’ Moon Mission Sim https://www.flyingmag.com/nasa-mars-sim/ Fri, 01 Oct 2021 01:59:43 +0000 http://159.65.238.119/nasa-mars-sim/ The post NASA Getting Set to Launch Mars’ Moon Mission Sim appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

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A group of six volunteers is embarking on a 45-day journey to Mars’ moon Phobos on Friday, though they won’t be going far.

The research subjects are taking part in a simulation of the journey to the largest of Mars’ pair of moons, all while living in a ground-based habitat based at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The simulated mission is the first experiment in a campaign performing more than a dozen studies in preparation for future missions to the moon and Mars, and it comes as NASA issued a request for proposal for a commercially designed spacesuit able to hold up to the rigors of exploration of the lunar South Pole.

The Mission

On Friday, members of a four-member crew along with two back-up crew members will enter the habitat—called a Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA)—and won’t emerge until November 15, NASA said. The HERA is designed to simulate the isolation, confinement, and remote conditions of the journey to Phobos, the oddly shaped, pock-marked moon that closely orbits Mars.

“As the simulated journey takes crew members closer to Phobos, those inside will experience increasing delays in communicating with the outside world,” NASA said in a statement. “When the simulation successfully brings the crew to Phobos, this delay will last up to five minutes each way.

“Such delays will force the crew—and those coordinating their journey—to practice communicating in ways that minimize impacts to mission operations, and allow the crew sufficient autonomy to accomplish the mission.”

The experimental mission is the first of a four-part campaign of missions, called HERA Campaign 6, which will wrap up in September 2022.

“The data collected as part of these missions will continue to help prepare humans for Artemis exploration missions to the moon, trips to the planned lunar Gateway, and long-duration missions to Mars,” NASA said.

The basic criteria for the volunteer crew participating in the simulations that delve into behavioral and team performance on long duration missions is fairly simple. Volunteers must be non-smokers, healthy, between the ages of 30 and 55 years of age and pass a physical and psychological assessments, according to NASA.

Members of the four-member crew of volunteer researchers include:

  • Lauren Cornell, a U.S. Air Force researcher and co-founder of biotech company, NovoThelium.
  • Monique Garcia, a human factors engineer and systems administrator for The MITRE Corporation, whose development experience includes work for U.S. Space Force and NASA’s Deep Space Network.
  • Christopher Roberts, who is a project engineer with NASA’s Cold Stowage team that supports the International Space Station program.
  • Madelyne Willis, who is a microbial ecologist with extensive field experience in the Arctic and Antarctic.

Members of the two-member backup crew are:

  • Justin Lawrence, who is a fellow with the Future Investigator in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology program.
  • Pu Wang, who is an engineering team manager at The Boeing Company with experience in aircraft engine development, as well as numerous commercial and military programs.

The Artemis mission, which aims to set up a space station on the moon in preparation for Mars mission, also took a step forward this week as NASA released an RFP seeking a public-private partnership for spacesuit design and support.

In addition to the Artemis lunar surface missions, the spacesuits will be used for spacewalks on the International Space Station, as well as on the Gateway outpost orbiting the moon.

“Our undertakings in low-Earth orbit, at the Moon and beyond have evolved and are calling for innovative technology.” NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy said Thursday. “The next astronauts on the moon—including the first woman—will be kept safe in revolutionary spacesuits that fit better and enable greater human exploration than ever before.”

NASA said it intends to conduct a spacewalk demonstration of the new spacesuit in 2023.

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