Category: Space Flight

A team of researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara has proposed a new method to propel probes into deep space using a beam of pellets. The technique involves firing a beam of small pellets, each about the size of a grain of sand, at a probe to create a burst of energy that would propel it forward.

According to the team, the method could potentially solve one of the biggest challenges in deep space exploration: how to efficiently and cost-effectively send probes beyond our solar system.

“We wanted to find a way to get a spacecraft up to a very high speed using a method that doesn’t require a lot of propellant,” said Philip Lubin, a professor of physics at UCSB and one of the authors of the study. “And that’s what led us to the idea of using a beam of pellets.”

Continue reading… “How a Beam of Pellets Could Blast a Probe Into Deep Space”

An artist’s conception shows an Otter servicing vehicle docked to a larger satellite. (Starfish Space Illustration)

Starfish Space, a startup based in the Seattle area and founded by two former employees of Blue Origin, has raised $14 million in Series A funding to develop spacecraft for satellite servicing. The company plans to use the funds to complete the Otter Pup, a prototype satellite servicing vehicle, and the full-size Otter spacecraft. Otter Pup is set to launch this summer as a rideshare payload on SpaceX’s Transporter-8 mission. If successful, the Otter Pup will use electrostatic-based capture to latch onto a docking target on the space tug.

Starfish Space has raised a total of $21 million in investment, including pre-seed and seed funding rounds, and has received technology development grants from NASA and the US Space Force’s SpaceWERX program.

According to Austin Link, one of the company’s founders, “The technology that [Otter Pup] can demonstrate around satellite rendezvous, proximity operations and docking” is a major focus for the company. The successful launch of Otter Pup will boost confidence in the development of the full-size Otter, which aims to do satellite life extension at scale and less expensively.

Continue reading… “Starfish Space raises $14M to advance development of satellite servicing vehicles”

An article on ExecutiveBiz reports that Intuitive Machines, a Texas-based aerospace and defense company, is moving the landing site for its IM-1 spacecraft to the south pole region of the moon. The author quotes Steve Altemus, president and CEO of Intuitive Machines, who explains that the new landing site will enable the company to collect data and conduct experiments in an area that has not been explored before.

Altemus adds that “the south pole region of the moon is an exciting and important area to explore, and we believe that our mission will provide valuable insights into the moon’s geology and potential resources.”

The article also mentions that the IM-1 mission is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which aims to enable the delivery of scientific instruments and payloads to the moon. Intuitive Machines is one of several private companies that have been selected by NASA to participate in the program.

Continue reading… “Intuitive Machines to Shift IM-1 Mission’s Landing Site to Moon’s South Pole Region”

By MICAH HANKS

NASA has announced the initial development and testing of its first full-scale rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE) is complete, heralding technology that could aid in carrying humans to the moon in the near term, and may potentially also help facilitate deep space travel in the decades ahead.

The RDRE, a novel rocket engine design that could pave the way for new kinds of spacecraft propulsion, relies on detonation produced by supersonic combustion to create the thrust that moves it through space. The design is both more powerful and more efficient than current rocket engine spacecraft, making it ideal for crewed deep space missions to planets like Mars.

The development of the promising new system of propulsion was verified in recent days by engineering teams with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, with assistance from Indiana-based IN Space LLC, who collaborated with the space agency to develop the engine and conduct more than a dozen “hot fire” tests last year.

The collaboration has relied on 3D printing and other efficient production methods to develop and test hardware used in the construction of the RDRE, which is capable of extended periods of operation and maintaining optimum performance, despite extremely hot and highly pressurized environments produced by detonation rocket propulsion.

NASA says the RDRE is able to achieve this by using its proprietary copper-alloy GRCop-42 paired with a process involving powder bed fusion additive manufacturing, which allows its continued operation under such extreme conditions.

Continue reading… “
“REVOLUTIONARY” DETONATION PROPULSION SYSTEM MAY PROPEL FUTURE CREWED MISSIONS INTO DEEP SPACE“

Graphic depiction of Pellet-Beam Propulsion for Breakthrough Space Exploration.

Today, multiple space agencies are investigating cutting-edge propulsion ideas that will allow for rapid transits to other bodies in the Solar System. These include NASA’s Nuclear-Thermal or Nuclear-Electric Propulsion (NTP/NEP) concepts that could enable transit times to Mars in 100 days (or even 45) and a nuclear-powered Chinese spacecraft that could explore Neptune and its largest moon, Triton. While these and other ideas could allow for interplanetary exploration, getting beyond the Solar System presents some major challenges. 

As we explored in a previous article, it would take spacecraft using conventional propulsion anywhere from 19,000 to 81,000 years to reach even the nearest star, Proxima Centauri (4.25 light-years from Earth). To this end, engineers have been researching proposals for uncrewed spacecraft that rely on beams of directed energy (lasers) to accelerate light sails to a fraction of the speed of light. A new idea proposed by researchers from UCLA envisions a twist on the beam-sail idea: a pellet-beam concept that could accelerate a 1-ton spacecraft to the edge of the Solar System in less than 20 years. 

The concept, titled “Pellet-Beam Propulsion for Breakthrough Space Exploration,” was proposed by Artur Davoyan, an Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The proposal was one of fourteen proposals chosen by the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program as part of their 2023 selections, which awarded a total of $175,000 in grants to develop the technologies further. Davoyan’s proposal builds on recent work with directed-energy propulsion (DEP) and light sail technology to realize a Solar Gravitational Lens.

Continue reading… “A Novel Propulsion System Would Hurl Hypervelocity Pellets at a Spacecraft to Speed it up”

Rocket Lab is scheduled to launch its Virginia Is For Launches mission later this evening. It will be the company’s first launch from Launch Complex 2 at Virginia Space’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport within NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility.

by Tim Sweezy 

While this will not be the first launch of Rocket Lab’s Electron booster, it will be the first time it will launch in the United States. Previously, the company launched 32 Electron missions from Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand. The company touts the fact that Electron is “the most frequently launched small orbital rocket globally, and now with two launch complexes combined, Rocket Lab can support more than 130 launch opportunities every year.”

Launch Complex 2 was designed to support up to 12 missions per year. Rocket Lab operates an Integration and Control Facility within NASA’s Wallops Research Park, which includes state-of-the-art payload integration cleanrooms, vehicle processing facilities, and a mission control center. The upcoming launch pad and production complex for the company’s large reusable Neutron launch vehicle will also be located at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport.

The rocket will reach supersonic speed within a minute of launch, with its main engine cutting off on the first stage around the two-and-a-half-minute mark. A few seconds later Stage 1 will separate from Stage 2, with Electron’s Stage 2 Rutherford engines igniting shortly after. The fairing will separate approximately three minutes post-launch, with the payload being deployed near the one-hour mark.

Continue reading… “Rocket Lab’s Electron Booster Makes Its First US Liftoff And You Can Watch Live Here”

Concept art of the Bimodal Nuclear Thermal Rocket.

By MATT WILLIAMS

We live in an era of renewed space exploration, where multiple agencies are planning to send astronauts to the Moon in the coming years. This will be followed in the next decade with crewed missions to Mars by NASA and China, who may be joined by other nations before long.

These and other missions that will take astronauts beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and the Earth-Moon system require new technologies, ranging from life support and radiation shielding to power and propulsion.

And when it comes to the latter, Nuclear Thermal and Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NTP/NEP) is a top contender!

NASA and the Soviet space program spent decades researching nuclear propulsion during the Space Race.

A few years ago, NASA reignited its nuclear program for the purpose of developing bimodal nuclear propulsion – a two-part system consisting of an NTP and NEP element – that could enable transits to Mars in 100 days.

Continue reading… “New NASA Nuclear Rocket Plan Aims to Get to Mars in Just 45 Days”