On today's episode, we are getting into the latest space news, including SpaceX
and Blue Origin moon landing updates. The star Base water deluge system is under
investigation, and the ULA announces a Christmas launch date for Vulcan. This is
the Space Race. October twenty fifth saw the start of the twenty twenty three
Von Braun Space Exploration Symposium and with it a conversation with NASA program managers about
the planning and execution of the Artemis Moon missions. Every aspect of the mission
structure was touched on, with the focus being on how the teams involved were
approaching the execution of their individual parts, and at the very end, doctor
Lisa Watson Morgan spoke about the human Landing System program. Watson Morgan is NASA's
program manager for the crude landing sections of the Artemis missions, which means that
she and her team are responsible for organizing and liaising with both SpaceX and Blue
Origin as both companies ready their vehicles for the Artemis three and five missions,
respectively. Her section of the Artemis panel was devoted mostly to the nuts and
bolts of procedure, the things NASA is doing to help SpaceX and Blue Origin
develop their hardware, but more importantly, develop them on time, because with
an expected launch date of twenty twenty five for Artemis three, SpaceX at least
doesn't have much time left to complete the mountain of testing needed before NASA will
clear them to take a crew to the lunar surface. Obviously, the concern
here is that SpaceX will have a more difficult time than anticipated with starships testing.
Sure they are more than ready for the second test flight, which is
currently waiting on FAA approval to launch. More on that later, but proving
Starship can fly is just one checkbox to tick out of hundreds. The HLS
team is hoping for around fifteen to seventeen launches of Starship before the twenty twenty
five Artomis three launch date even happens, and that's because of the way NASA
and its partners develop rockets. NASA has learned from working with SpaceX and other
commercial partners that data is much more accurate if the team focuses on a smaller
series of objectives per launch and just performs a lot of test launches. We've
seen this with SpaceX for pretty much its entire history. Test fly, learn,
repeat must be tattooed on every one of their engineers by now. But
while this sort of testing seems to be the safest way to develop the HLS
hardware, it does present a problem for the overall schedule. Before twenty twenty
five, SpaceX has to prove flight capability, recovery operations, orbital insertion,
zero G refueling, docking with NASA's O'Ryan capsule, long duration flight, flammability
test, cabin pressure stability, radiation shielding, landing stability, lunar takeoff,
and probably a lot more we can't think of off the top of our heads.
And this is where Watson Morgan gives us a little insight into NASA's take
on this whole situation, because they don't seem particularly worried that Artemis three could
be delayed. She was careful to say that NASA is concerned that the SpaceX
testing could lag a bit because the rest of the Artemis program really can't continue
without success on Artemis three. But we know that NASA has planned for delays
in the overall program agenda, so it makes sense that Watson Morgan doesn't seem
too nervous about potential delays, especially considering that NASA seems way more interested in
the learning part of this exercise. Watson Morgan says that in addition to the
highly visible flight tests that gets a lot of attention, the development of tech
procedures and supporting hardware that is being completed in the background will ensure that even
if the worst should happen and Artemis three has to be canceled or changed due
to some unforeseen problem with Starship, the program will have gained so much valuable
information and technology during the process that it would never be a total loss.
And this includes Blue Origin, of course. On October twenty seventh, Jeff
Bezos's Space Launch Company unveiled their own Blue Moon Mark one Lander, the second
commercial human landing system picked for the Artemis missions, specifically Artemis five, which
is due to launch in September of twenty twenty nine. The three story tall,
white and gold Lander has been in development since about twenty sixteen and was
a part of the original NASA contest that ended up awarding the first HLS contract
to SpaceX, but since NASA likes using different providers to ensure redundancy, Blue
Origin was picked for their second commercial lander mission, and as usual, the
unveiling of their new Lander came as a total surprise because Blue Origin doesn't keep
the public up to date on their development cycles, for better or for worse.
The vehicle itself certainly looks like it's ready to fly, and the company
says that it will be ready as soon as their new lug Glenn is in
twenty twenty four. This means that Blue Origin has about five years of extra
testing that SpaceX won't have, which is likely why Watson Morgan didn't mention them
much in her lecture. She did point out that Blue Origin is using these
same methods of testing as SpaceX is, though taking all the help they can
get from both NASA and Lockheed Martin, who have helped design their hardware.
Blue Origin have said explicitly that their Mark one is a testing platform and will
be helping the team test for Artemis five and design supporting technologies for that mission.
It's a pretty clever method of designing, and it's a good thing NASA
is adept at learning from their partners. Starship could still make their deadline for
the current launch date of Artemis three, but the team at NASA and SpaceX
have made sure that it's not such a big deal if they don't and of
course anything that makes Starship stumble will be fixed in time for Blue Origin's turn.
On October twenty second, SpaceX conducted a series of fuel and launch pad
tests their Bokachika test center, and then again on the twenty fourth. Each
test performed using a fully stacked Starship super heavy rocket to demonstrate full flight readiness.
SpaceX has been diligently working towards re certifying their massive rocket for flight since
their first test on April twentieth went awry, but as repairs to the launch
site have been completed and upgrades to the vehicle itself have been finished, the
company seems very confident that they are ready to fly again. Both days of
testing involved pumping cryogenic fuel into the stacked vehicle, with the operation on the
twenty fourth using over ten million pounds of liquid oxygen and methane propellant to prove
that Starship, with its new hot stage and collar, could handle the procedure.
But strangely, the more important test came at the end of testing on
the twenty second, as the team fired up Starbase's newly completed water deluge system,
cranking it to full power with the aid of freshly installed high pressure canisters
and a final water tank. The eruption of water, which will both cool
the steel plate that sits directly under the booster's engines and protect from pressure and
noise damage, was much more powerful than the original tests back in July.
But why would this be more important than fuel testing. Well, the answer
to that came on October twenty fifth, when survey teams from the Fish and
Wildlife Service were spotted on the grounds of Starbase. As we said earlier,
SpaceX has been working closely with local and federal regulatory bodies to get their license
for flight testing re certified. The biggest of these bodies is the Federal Aviation
Administration, of course, but they formally closed the mishap investigation into the April
twentieth Starship explosion on September eighth, so their part seems to have been close
to finishing. But the FAA wasn't the only regulatory body that SpaceX had to
satisfy, So while all of the mechanical requirements had been satisfied in September,
the environmental concerns remained. This is where both the Fish and Wildlife Service comes
in, because the deluge system needs to be checked There are a lot of
environmental concerns with Starship that have already been accounted for and deemed safe. The
pollution from its methane fuel, the potential followed from an explosion, the debris
from normal use, all that sort of thing. But when the deluge system
pumps thousands of gallons of water into the coast of Bocachica, water that has
been shipped in and has a slightly different chemical and biological makeup to the local
ecosystem, it's not likely to be an issue, but fish and wildlife still
need to check it out or they're not doing their jobs. The FAA says
this part of the process could take up to one hundred and thirty five more
days, though they were also quick to say that they don't believe it will
take that long. And this sort of regulatory hang up has been very frustrating
for SpaceX lately, but also for the commercial space in general. Recent discussions
going as far up the chain as Congress, have centered around the need to
update the regulatory system to account for the fact that the landscape of the space
industry has changed dramatically in the last decade. We need a faster response time
from these organizations. Now. Of course, the companies themselves would like to
see looser regulations in general, which would certainly speed up the process at the
cost of potentially making spaceflight less safe. But other suggestions have centered around a
need for more funding so that these bodies can more quickly do their work,
or a single new regulatory body that can handle all aspects of licensing spaceflight operations
without having to work between so many agencies like the FAA currently has to do.
NASA is also on the side of regulatory reforms, throwing their weight behind
creating a whole new regulatory framework that would cut through a lot of the unnecessary
testing that currently bogs down the process. Whatever the decision eventually ends up being,
it looks like the external pressure to get Starship flying again is getting the
environ mental testing teams out in the field a little faster, and with any
luck, this sort of visibility will lead to Starship getting its license renewed before
the end of this year, just in time for Christmas. The United Launch
Alliance has announced that their Vulcan rocket will have its very first launch on December
twenty fourth, Originally slated for a launch back in summer of this year,
the ULA was plagued by mechanical issues with both their Centaur upper stage vehicle,
the delayed development of the B four engines made by Blue Origin for Vulcan's first
stage booster, and the Peregrine Lunar lander made by Astrobotic, and delayed more
than once by the COVID pandemic. Needless to say, the ULA has had
a pretty rough time getting their new rocket to the test stand, which is
a real shame because on paper the thing is very impressive. Vulcan's first stage
is powered by a pair of B E four engines, which use a liquid
methane and liquid oxygen fuel mix. Just like SpaceX's Starship. The booster can
produce four nine hundred kit Newton's of maximum force, allowing the Vulcan to put
up to seven thousand kilograms into geostationary orbit. That puts the Vulcan in competition
with most other heavy lift rockets, not Starship, but that's not a fair
comparison really, considering that Starship outmasses Vulcan by a little under ten times.
Still, it's more than strong enough to allow the ULA's older workhorses, the
Atlas five and Delta four, to finally retire. The first flight won't just
be a test of the Vulcan either, with astrobotics Peregrine Moonlander finally getting a
chance to do what it was designed for and head to the lunar surface with
a payload of NASA experiments. It certainly looks like the next several months are
going to be very busy for the space Race. Starship could get their launch
license within the next three months. Blue Origins, New Shepherd, and New
Glen are looking at perhaps launching within the next several months two and Vulcan of
course has its Christmas launch, all while NASA prepares for a November twenty twenty four launch