There are 7 exciting rocket launches scheduled for departure in this week, 3 on Monday/Tuesday and 3 on Friday. To top it all, we will have the arrival of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on Monday at the asteroid Bennu after a two year journey.
Here is some info about the missions and info on how to watch the launches. NASA will be hosting several events for its missions, which can all be viewed online.
|
Launch Vehicle |
MISSION |
LAUNCH SITE |
DATE/TIME (EST) |
1 |
Soyuz Progress |
ISS Expedition 58 |
Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan |
Mon Dec 3, 6:31 a.m. |
2 |
- |
OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft arrival at the asteroid Bennu |
- |
Mon Dec 3, 11:45 a.m. |
3 |
SpaceX Falcon 9 |
Spaceflight SSO-A SmallSat Express Mission; 64 small satellites |
Vandenberg Air Force Base, California
|
Mon Dec 3, 1:32 p.m.
|
4 |
Ariane 5 |
GSAT-11 and GEO-KOMPSAT-2A satellites for Indian and Korean space agencies |
ELA 3, Kourou, French Guiana |
Tue Dec 4, 3:37 p.m. |
5 |
SpaceX Falcon 9 |
CRS-16 ISS cargo resupply |
Launch Complex 40, Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Florida |
Tue, Dec 4, 1:38 p.m.
Wed, Dec 5, 1:16 p.m.
|
6 |
China Long March 2D |
SaudiSat-5A and 5B satellites |
Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the Gobi Desert |
Thu Dec 7, 11:10 p.m. |
7 |
Long March 3B |
Chang'e-4 lunar mission |
Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in southwest China |
Fri Dec 7, 1:15 p.m. |
8 |
ULA Delta IV-Heavy |
NROL-71 military satellite |
SLC-6, Vandenberg Air Force Base, California |
Fri, Dec 7, 11:19 p.m.
Sat, Dec 8, 11:15 p.m.
|
1. Soyuz Progress ISS Expedition 58 Mission (Mon, Dec 3, 6:31 a.m. EST)
NASA astronaut Anne McClain, Canadian Space Agency astronaut David Saint-Jacques and Oleg Kononenko of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, launched today at 6:31 a.m. EST aboard a Russian Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft to the International Space Station. This is the first manned flight after the aborted Soyuz rocket launch on Oct 11, in which all 3 astronauts managed to land safely.
Status: It was a short 6 hour flight to the ISS. The astronauts are now safely ensconced in their new home for the next few months.
2. OSIRIS-Rex Arrival at Bennu (Mon, Dec 3, 11:45 a.m. EST)
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer) was launched on September 8, 2016 and has traveled to the near-Earth asteroid Bennu, to harvest a sample of surface material and return it to Earth for study. It officially arrived at Bennu on Monday and will spend the two years orbiting and studying the asteroid before swooping down in July 2020 to scoop up some dirt from the surface.
Live coverage at www.nasa.gov/…
Status: Successful orbital insertion around Bennu.
See this earlier diary “OSIRIS-REx - Asteroid Sampler” at www.dailykos.com/… for details about the OSIRIS-REx mission.
3. SpaceX Falcon 9 Spaceflight SSO-A SmallSat Express Mission (Mon Dec 3, 10:30 a.m. EST)
This is the SpaceX launch delayed from a week ago, now scheduled for Monday Dec 3, at 1:32 p.m. ET. The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch, from SLC-4E, Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, with Spaceflight’s SSO-A (Sun Synchronous Orbit A) rideshare mission.
The Falcon 9 rocket's first stage booster, which has been used twice before, is expected to land on SpaceX's drone ship “Just Read the Instructions”. The fairing catcher ship Mr. Stevens is also out prowling in the Pacific ocean.
The rocket will carry a stack of 64 small satellites which will be deployed into sun-synchronous polar orbit. The satellites were built for/by nearly 50 government and commercial organizations from 16 countries, including the United States, India, Finland, Germany, Jordan, Singapore and Thailand.
Status: Successful launch and booster landing. Mr. Stevens once again failed to catch the fairings. All satellites deployed and are calling in to their base stations on Earth.
The SpaceX launch and booster landing video -
The 64 small satellites include a variety of new and novel applications, most at a fraction of the cost of previous similar missions. Many are targeted at Earth, atmosphere and Solar observation applications. Most of them are experimental prototypes, with plans for full scale constellations in the future. See directory.eoportal.org/… for a comprehensive list of payloads.
Here are a few interesting payloads —
- Eu:CROPIS (Euglena and Combined Regenerative Organic-Food Production in Space), a minisatellite (250 kg) of DLR, Germany. The objective is to study food production in space in support of future long-duration manned space missions (life sciences). The main payloads are two greenhouses, each maintained as a pressurized closed loop system, simulating the environmental conditions of the Moon or of Mars and a number of seeds.
- Hawk, a formation-flying cluster of three microsatellites (13.4 kg each) of HawkEye 360, Herndon, VA, USA. The goal is to demonstrate high-precision RFI (Radio Frequency Interference) geo-location technology monitoring. Apps include monitoring position and movement of maritime vessels, including “dark” pirate ships. Uses novel water-based propulsion.
- MinXSS-2 (Miniature X-ray Solar Spectrometer-2), a 3U CubeSat(4 kg) of LASP (Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics) at the University of Colorado at Boulder,CO, USA. The objective is to study the energy distribution of solar flare SXR (Soft X-ray) emissions and its impact on the Earth's ITM (Ionosphere, Thermosphere, and Mesosphere) layers.
- JY1-Sat, a 1U CubeSat of Jordan developed by students of various universities. The satellite will carry a UHF/VHF amateur radio.
- eXCITe (eXperiment for Cellular Integration Technology), a DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) mission to demonstrate the 'satlets' technology. Satlets are a new low-cost, modular satellite architecture that can scale almost infinitely. Satlets are small modules that incorporate multiple essential satellite functions and share data, power and thermal management capabilities. Satlets physically aggregate in different combinations that would provide capabilities to accomplish diverse missions.
And a few crazy/silly satellites —
- Orbital Reflector, a 3U CubeSat project (4 kg) of the Nevada Museum of Art and artist Trevor Paylon. The Orbital Reflector is a 30 m sculpture constructed of a lightweight material similar to Mylar. On deployment, the sculpture self-inflates like a balloon. Sunlight reflects onto the sculpture making it visible from Earth with the naked eye — like a slowly moving artificial star as bright as a star in the Big Dipper.
- Elysium Star-2, a 1U CubeSat of Elysium Space providing space burial services. The company plans to transport ashes of cremated remains to space and to the moon.
- Sculpture in space ?!
4. Arianespace GSAT-11 and GEO-KOMPSAT-2A satellites (Tue Dec 4, 3:37 p.m. EST)
An Ariane 5 rocket launched India’s GSAT-11 and Korea’s GEO-KOMPSAT-2A satellites from ELA 3, Kourou, French Guiana on Tue Dec 4.
5. SpaceX CRS-16 ISS Resupply Mission (Wed Dec 5 1:16 p.m., EST)
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will deliver the next shipment of cargo and science investigations in a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft to the International Space station. The launch will take place from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. The Falcon 9’s first stage is expected to land at Landing Zone1 (LZ-1) at Cape Canaveral. The Dragon spacecraft will dock with the ISS on Fri Dec 7 with the help of the ISS robotic arm Canadarm2.
The launch window is very small; the weather forecast predicts a 60% chance of launch on Tue. There is also a holdup caused by some moldy bars of mouse food that need to be replaced before launch time. The launch has been moved to Wednesday due to the rodent food issue.
Coverage at www.nasa.gov/… and at the SpaceX site.
Science equipment on this flight includes —
- The Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI), an instrument to measure and map Earth’s tropical and temperate forests in 3D.
- The Robotic Refueling Mission 3 (RRM3) will demonstrate technologies to store and transfer liquid methane, a type of cryogenic liquid, in space for the first time.
- The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Molecular Muscle investigation examines the molecular causes of muscle abnormalities from spaceflight in C. elgans, a roundworm and model organism.
- Experiments by student winners of the MARVEL ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ Space Station Challenge. Team Rocket’s experiment Staying Healthy in Space will investigate how well a dental glue activated by ultraviolet light would work in microgravity. Team Groot’s experiment Aeroponic Farming in Microgravity will explore an alternative method for watering plants in the absence of gravity using a misting device to deliver water to the plant roots and an air pump to blow excess water away.
- Research by the LambdaVision company in developing a retinal implant that has the capacity to treat retinal degenerative blindness.
Watch the video in the tweet below for an overview of the experiments. See www.iss-casis.org/… for a more comprehensive list.
6. China SaudiSat-5A and 5B satellite mission (Thu Dec 7, 11:10 p.m.)
The Chinese space agency has scheduled the launch of a Long March 2D rocket carrying the SaudiSat-5A and 5B satellites from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the Gobi Desert on Thu Dec 6, 11:10 p.m. EST.
7. China Chang'e-4 lunar mission (Fri Dec 7, 1:15 p.m.)
The Chang'e-4 lunar mission is scheduled for launch from Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in southwest China on Fri Dec 7, 1:15 p.m. EST.
The Chang'e-4 lander and rover will land on the far side of the moon. The relay satellite is named Queqiao - or magpie bridge - from a Chinese myth.
8. ULA NROL-71 Satellite Mission (Fri, Dec 7, 11:19 p.m., EST)
This is a mission to carry a heavy military satellite into low earth orbit, from SLC-6 Vandenberg AFB. The late evening launch should make for a spectacular show on the West coast.
Note that there is always a small probability that the rocket launches will be postponed due to weather or other technical reasons.
Bon Voyage and happy viewing! And cheers to Science and scientists, young and old.