NASA & Boeing Finalize Starliner Fixes | TMRO:News

Hello, citizens of Earth, and welcome to Station 204. So glad to have you aboard this week. And for our tomorrow news, we've got Ryan going to be giving you your SpaceX update. I'm going to be talking a little bit about NASA, giving Boeing some corrections. And we've got our weekly space weather with Dr. Tamitha Scope. And of course, we want to remind you before we officially get started to subscribe to us here at Tomorrow. Like our videos, set up notifications, and share Tomorrow News and our other videos everywhere that you can. So let's go ahead and get started with your Tomorrow News for the week of July 15, 2020. Hey, Ryan, break a leg. Starlink-9 still hasn't launched. However, SLC-40 has gotten some action, as the Falcon 9 booster, which will be taking the ANASIS-2 mission into space, has completed its static fire. And it hasn't been quite in Port Canaveral either, as one of B1060's landing legs suffered from the unfortunate forces of gravity when the landing legs were trying to be folded back up by the SpaceX recovery team. I believe that the only thing that was injured during this event was the landing leg, which hit the deck of the drone ship, just read the instructions, with minimal cushioning. And as you can see, these legs are enormous. Next time they are pulling up a leg, it might be just a good idea to just read the instructions. It's starting to look good in Boca Chica, as after months of development, we could be seeing SN5 from anywhere between under 24 hours from now, or whenever they decide to do it. It has been over 320 days since we have last seen something leave the surface of Boca Chica that was actually meant to leave, which was the Starhopper test vehicle. A mass simulator has been installed onto SN5, and although it isn't a cherry-red Tesla Roadster, it should do just the job to give SN5 the proper mass that it needs to perform its hop. The high bay where the super-heavy booster will be constructed is well into its construction now, which could mean that we can see a super-heavy booster in the flesh in not too much time. And of course, as more components are manufactured, more space is needed, so the facility needs to expand. We could see a Starship vehicle fly. That is just, I don't know how to explain the feeling. It feels like it has been such a long journey since 2016, when Musk first announced the original interplanetary transport system design, which then evolved into the BFR, or the Big Falcon Rocket, and is now known as Starship. However, it has only been four years, which is super quick in aerospace terms. I mean, just look at the Space Shuttle. We retired that in 2011. We've only just gotten humans back into space from the US again. But at least the humans on board Station 204 have been keeping us company. So, Jared, it's back over to you. Thanks, Ryan. Very good pun in there. I gotta say, that was very nice, especially with the drums. Now, something else that has also felt like it's been ages since it actually occurred was the Starliner test flight. And NASA and Boeing came together to investigate it and perform a second review of all the things that went wrong. And they have finally reached their conclusions. Just a quick refresher. Back in December of 2019, the first launch of Boeing's Starliner crew vehicle occurred. It was a flawless launch that led to a flawed 48 hours in orbit due to software errors in the mission elapsed timer with additional problems occurring with the communications system that would cause losses of space-to-ground feeds. And on top of that, a last-minute catch and patch of software prevented a potential issue with the service module recontacting Starliner before reentry and causing potential damage to its heat shield. Now, NASA was willing to admit that they may not have caught those software problems because they were very comfortable working with Boeing because they've done a multitude of other projects with them. And Boeing says that they're ready to get rolling again. And they're gonna be working to implement every single one of the 80 recommendations NASA has put forward. And as was announced several months ago, an additional test flight without crew for Starliner will occur sometime before the end of 2020. And Boeing has said that they'll eat the cost, rightfully so. And if all goes well, the first crewed flight for Starliner can currently be expected in 2021. Now, it's important to note that no matter how much the internet demands it, down-selecting to a sole source provider is a very bad idea. If you have a sole source provider of your transportation to low Earth orbit and they have an anomaly, you're gonna be sitting on the ground. And in fact, the current situation is a great example of that. Boeing had an anomaly with Starliner, but SpaceX, they're able to carry astronauts with Crew Dragon. So there you go. That's why you don't want a sole source provider. Switching gears a little bit, the Department of Defense did send out some small sat launch contracts just a couple weeks ago, but then shortly after that, had to rescind those contracts and take them back. And now it's looking like those contracts aren't gonna be happening at all. In mid-June, the United States Department of Defense announced that they were awarding $116 million in contracts to six small satellite launch companies. EVAM, Astra, Expo, Rocket Lab, Space Vector, and VoxSpace. Ordering two rideshare missions from each over the next two years. Then at the start of July, those contracts were rescinded due to being handed out without a competitive process. And now it's looking like those contracts are toast entirely. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to create economic havoc, that $116 million was shifted to a program for small business loans. It's very hard to argue, it's not a good idea, but oh, what a heartbreaker for these companies. And the United States Department of Defense has said that they are working to find funding for this program, but to not hold your breath. But a project that has gotten the United States Department of Defense funding and is moving forward, involves a portion of the Dream Chaser space plane that Sierra Nevada Corporation is developing. That cargo attachment on the back of Dream Chaser is called Shooting Star. And for the NASA Commercial Resupply Services, two missions that Dream Chaser will fly, Shooting Star will be used to carry additional payload and then dispose of trash at the end of the mission. So why is the United States Department of Defense interested in what is essentially a spacefaring pickup truck bed that burns up on re-entry? Well, it's because of a project that they're developing called OO. Yes, U-O-O. Although they're probably not calling it OO, but they are calling it the Uncrewed Orbital Outpost. And that's going to be used as a small autonomous space station for experiments that the United States Department of Defense is interested in performing in space, but maybe not necessarily wanting to have to ride share or take those experiments to the International Space Station. And that's really one way to get into the recycling business. We've got a trifecta of launches to cover this week, so let's go ahead and jump right into space traffic. On July 6th at 0100 Universal Time, a Shavit 2 launcher lifted off from the Palmachin Air Base in Israel, using three stages to reach an unusual 143-degree retrograde orbit. The OFEC-16 satellite was successfully placed into orbit. OFEC-16 is an electro-optical reconnaissance satellite for the Israel Ministry of Defense. The last flight of an orbital-class rocket from Israel was in 2016. And that 143-degree orbit, which is retrograde, meaning it moves in the opposite direction that the Earth rotates, it's used by Israel so rocket stages are safely dropped into the Mediterranean Sea. And special thanks to Yonatan Kanush in tomorrow's Discord server for dropping all of the knowledge about a rocket I admittedly knew nothing about. Heading east to China for a rocket I do know about on July 9th at 1211 Universal Time, the APSTAR-6D communications satellite began its journey to orbit aboard a Long March 3D, departing the Xisheng Satellite Launch Facility. Less than half an hour after liftoff, APSTAR-6D was successfully deployed into a geostationary transfer orbit. APSTAR-6D carries KU and KA band communications payloads and will provide services to airlines, maritime companies, and disaster response for China. Wrapping up our space traffic with a spot of bad luck for China, the debut flight of the all-solid motor Kaizhou-11 rocket lifted off at 0417 Universal Time on July 10th from the Xikon Space Center. Carrying the 17th Geelian-1 Earth Imaging Satellite and a satellite called Centerspace-1S2, whose purpose is classified, the Kaizhou-11 appeared to have a good first stage burn, but at some point the launch failed, with China only noting that the specific cause of failure was under investigation. And this week, the flotilla begins to set sail for Mars. Here are your upcoming launches. And now for this week's space weather, here's Dr. Tammy Fitzgold. Space weather this week is definitely keeping us on our toes. As we switch to our front side sun, we actually had two different solar storm launches, one in the south around the 8th and the 9th, and almost the same time, one in the northwest. And as both of these launched, the one in the west moved off to the west, but the one in the south moved toward Earth. But boy, have we been challenged trying to model these things because they kind of camouflage one another. Meanwhile, we've been looking at the solar storm conditions and it looks like the one from the south is actually hitting us now, and I'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute. Now, also, as we switch to our far-sighted sun, you can take a look at that stereo's view. The stereo's pretty much looking at the sun from the side, and you can see the sun looks pretty bland right now. There's not a lot going on, and that means solar flux has dropped back down into the high 60s, which means poor radio propagation on Earth's day side. But then again, that's good news for both GPS users with GPS reception and for all kinds of space traffic. It looks like easily over the next week, everything's gonna be in the clear. Now, switching to our coronagraph view, this is also the view from stereo A, and Earth is off to the west. The problem is, as stereo continues to orbit towards Earth, things that are even going west of Earth are also off to the west. So when you get multiple solar storms that are kind of going the same direction, they camouflage one another, and you can see that on the eighth and the ninth, you can see all of this junk moving off to the west. Basically, everything going north of the Earth-Sun line, that is going off to the west of Earth, but everything south of it is pretty much going Earth-directed. So it's been a real challenge to get the models to be able to deconvolve all this stuff so that we can get an accurate prediction time. Switching to our solar storm prediction model, Enlil. Now, this is NASA's version of the model, and you're looking down at the Sun from the North Pole with Earth being off to the right here as this yellow circle. Now, you can see that big solar storm being launched to the west of Earth. That's the bigger of the two storms, but you can also see kind of a shadowy blue thing moving off toward Earth, and that's the Earth-directed component. And this thing, it looks like it's gonna hit Earth right at the beginning of the 14th. As a matter of fact, we're already seeing early signs of that solar storm hitting now, and it could be bringing us some aurora to high latitudes over the next couple days and possibly down to mid-latitudes over the next day or so before things begin to settle down. For more details on this week's space weather, including when and where you can see aurora or how this solar storm might affect you, come check out my channel or see me at spaceweatherwoman.com. You know what time it is? Yep, that's right. It's time for another Space Flight Bonanza. NASA and the government of Japan have signed an agreement that helps Japan find roles to contribute in the robotic and human exploration portions of NASA's upcoming Artemis program. The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency has, in the past, proposed developing a pressurized rover capable of supporting two astronauts for up to 14 days on the lunar surface. So we'll see if that's what they end up doing. NASA has also taken recommendations from an independent review board that last year looked over the agency's planetary protection protocols for Moon and Mars missions. The Moon was originally set at Category 2, which means any potential biological contamination of a spacecraft must be documented, but there's no standards as to how much contamination is too much contamination. Adopting the recommendation, NASA has now set the vast majority of the Moon as Category 1, which means that there are zero requirements to follow. Category 2 still exists, though, in the polar regions, areas at 86 degrees north latitude and above, along with areas at 79 degrees south latitude to the lunar south pole. Also set to Category 2, the Apollo landing sites. Please do not disturb the regoliths. NASA did not implement any changes to Mars's current levels of planetary protection, Category 4, but NASA is looking for groups to study on how to handle the planetary protection requirements for Mars, especially once humans land. From the perspectives of astrobiologists and astrogeologists, the moment an airlock opens, that's it, Mars is contaminated. And having been to very remote places in my Jeep and seen litter, I can assure you that's damn true of us humans. One final thing before we wrap up Tomorrow News this week. Comet NEOWISE is remaining bright, and if you're in the Northern Hemisphere, you may actually be able to see it. If you're in the Southern Hemisphere, very, very sorry, you are out of luck. It is on the cusp of naked eye visibility, even from moderately light-polluted skies. So if you'd like to get a chance to try and go see it, highly recommend that you do that, especially now that it's moved into the evening sky. And the way you're gonna wanna observe Comet NEOWISE with your own eyes is a little tricky, and you might have never heard of it, and it's called averted vision. I'll demonstrate by saying that the camera in front of me is Comet NEOWISE, and if I use averted vision, I'm not actually looking directly at Comet NEOWISE, but I'm still getting light from it, and that light is hitting the rods in my eyes, which is very good at picking up low-light levels, and that's what you want with an object like Comet NEOWISE. It's not really particularly bright, but it is still something that you can see properly in moderately light-polluted skies or better with averted vision. Even a cheap pair of binoculars helps, but if you want a really good view, I highly recommend a telescope, and you can even do what I did here if you've got the tech for it, which is to take some nice images. That one is going on Instagram for sure, and we'll include a link in the description for where to check on how to observe Comet NEOWISE from where you live, because it really depends on your latitude, and for those of you in the Southern Hemisphere, very sorry, but it's the Northern Hemisphere's turn to have an actual naked-eye comet since you've been hogging them all since Ale Bopp. And to wrap up this week's Tomorrow News, I just want to thank all of you who helped contribute to the shows here at Tomorrow. I always say that we truly appreciate all of you citizens of Tomorrow, and that sentiment is held by every single one of us who are on this channel. You help make this all possible. Without you, we don't have the ability to take the time to make these shows, 2-0-4, transport to station 2-0-4, so we are forever appreciative that you citizens have contributed to making the shows of Tomorrow possible. And if you're interested in joining in with your fellow citizens of Tomorrow, head on over to youtube.com slash T-M-R-O slash join, and check it all out. See those levels and rewards that you can receive. And that's Seco 10 for this edition of Tomorrow News. Thanks so much for watching, and until the next one, remember, stay safe, stay healthy, and keep exploring. So let's go ahead and get right into them, and let's see, my traction control stopped working. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Whoa, whoa, I'm awake now. Woo, oh, that got the heart going. Woo, that would have been expensive.