It has been a bad week for 2nd stages // July 14th, 2024

[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] and welcome to tomorrow my name is Jamie higen Botham uh before we get into the show first thank you to Mitchell and pre-show for becoming a new member of the show that is amazing and um I'll say you remember last month last month was like we were talking about like oh my God epic epic day epic week in Aerospace you had Starliner launching you had Starship launching Virgin Galactic had a moment El electron launch it was like this beautiful beautiful moment in Aerospace and we were like this is amazing well there are two sides to every coin and uh to talk about that other side this week uh I have got Ryan Zach and Jared joining me uh I don't know how much of this particular show I'm going to be able to be on but uh you know this was not a great week Aerospace it just really wasn't um and I do want to point out we I mentioned Starliner I believe it has a 45-day on orbit time and uh based on its launch date I think it has six days left before it's going to need to waiver uh and I have not heard any return dates so I'm just going to leave that we'll start there we'll start there and I'll hand the Baton over to Ryan yeah uh I I I mean part of me is just like if if NASA says it's okay I'll I I'll put my trust in NASA I feel like that might be a bit of a safe bet they they've been doing this for a few years you know they've been do they've been doing this for just a little bit of time I mean I am confident that everything will be okay last I heard in the presser that they did they are yet to replicate the thrust uh like the little hiccups or issues that they've been experiencing they've been trying to replicate them at the test area at White Sands in New Mexico they haven't managed to replicate it yet uh we this might just be a case of waiting trying different profiles or something I really am not sure you know I'm not an expert in this but if NASA says we're fine to leave them there they're happy they're healthy they're confident will come back when we've got data I mean I am happy to agree with that because they I hope know what they're talking about Ryan as a former engineer I can tell you there's nothing more aggravating than an issue that's nonreplicable truly like it it cuz you're just sitting there you're pulling out your hair cuz once you can replicate it you can understand it but if you can't replicate it man man you just you oh it is it is you're you're just sitting there hammering away like why is this happening why is it intermittent non-rec issues are the worst yeah yeah it's yeah I'm sure there'll be I'm sure there'll be people at Boeing right now who are also pulling their hair out trying to figure out like what on Earth is going on because you know we've seen I we've said this many times before but I will just bring it up again you know Boeing's management has been in the media Spotlight a lot recently but Boeing Engineers like they they can they can engineering I I I I think that Boeing Engineers are good at engineering it's just the the the management the leadership that's having the problems at the moment so I'm confident that given the right tools and Facilities that they'll be able to figure out issues uh I don't think that's where the issue the the the the the problems lie with Boeing at the moment um but yeah they'll I know they want to fix this issue you know nobody doesn't want to fix this issue yeah I I'll say like I want to be clear I'm not saying this is an engineering problem I'm just saying that I'm sure their Engineers are annoyed right now they're just sitting there like I just if I could just replicate if I could just replicate I could fix it um or at least understand it right like if you can't replicate maybe they do understand it maybe they've got a really great on orbit data which is part of the reason why it's still on orbit I didn't mean for us to actually start on Starline I just wanted to bring that up as a note because we've been talking about that in the last few shows and like it is we're down to six days now that doesn't mean that they have to like there's any sort of whatever like NASA will issue waivers they've done the exhibit a they have already so they've got another 45 days so they're now going to 90 because they think they haven't burned through as much as they thought they were going to while docked a station so we just have a new ISS habitat it's new module yeah I've also heard that the batteries were one of the issues too and that they're they're looking at the batteries constantly just to make sure there's no degradation from them and so far the batteries are actually exceeding expectations and uh that was mentioned a few times in the pressors they've had that that that's also another limiting factor um but everything's Steady As She Goes at least with the batteries so yeah and it's I think it was Dave a earlier who mentioned like I bet the astronauts aren't complaining right they get extra yeah they get extra on like oh darn I have to be in space longer shoot oh sucks might yeah maybe maybe um so all right what a a little bit and I just want to say too like what a great pair of astronauts to have on board as well right like those like Butch and sunny are both very experienced International Space Station astronauts um especially sunny sunny is like an absolute beast when it comes to space flight so um so honestly it's I'm very happy to see both of them getting extra time and I'm sure NASA's also not complaining about two extra hands being there yeah they might be they might be complaining about a docking port being taken up pretty soon um but also maybe not because of things that have happened this week that docu ports may not be needed soon so we'll I don't know we'll have to see Bye Mom very very quickly I will just also note uh that they uh NASA did a press conference from the ISS with Butch and sunny with the media now unfortunately it was only 20 minutes long last week because of connection issues someone needs to ship them a starink mini it sounds like but yeah that was very nice so thank you NASA anyways moving on I guess we'll whilst we're in this you know nice transition it's time to talk about the big news of the week that Falcon 9 the world's most should is it fair to call it the world's most reliable vehicle it is the world's Workhorse rocket in the current day and age has been grounded by the FAA because its second stage suffered an anomaly during its last flight starlink 9-3 which took off from Vandenburg on Thursday night and the first burn performed in terms of delivering the second stage and the Starling satellites into its initial orbit it looked okay but from the onboard cameras it appeared that a little bit of ice and by a little bit I mean a lot of bit of ice was building up on that second stage Merlin vacuum or around it just kind of stringing out bits of uh liquid and Vapor SpaceX syn since confirmed officially that a liquid oxygen leak was on that second stage which is what was causing that ice and that means that the when they went to do the uh second burn of that of that uh Second Stage Merlin vacuum engine to do the uh uh finalization of that parking orbit um because if you don't know SpaceX launches into a a a small orbit small orbit they then raise the orbit with the second stage staring satellites deploy and they then raise their own orbits up to their final orbit altitude so once they went to do that second second stage burn uh Elon said on Twitter that they suffered a rapid unscheduled disassembly or rud uh of that second stage engine so they were unable to put those Starling satellites into their parking orbit before they would then raise themselves because of this their perige was stuck at something like 130 km which is very draggy English for a starlink satellites which means that even at full thrust space were unable to get those satellites raised into a high enough uh uh orbit and I think they said in their statement that every time they passed through perig which was 130 km they were losing like 5 km off of their apy so you can see it's a it's a it's you know worst case scenario and I would also assume that whilst they're burning the Fiel on these Starling satellites at full thrust when they weren't suspected to be doing so they'd also be shortening the lifespan of these Starling satellites because obviously to do on orbit maneuvering they need to have fuel if they don't have fuel they need to do orbit you know so it would be Shing the G pan so SpaceX have basically bit the buet with this one all of those Starling satellites have been or will be re-entering Earth's atmosphere in the coming days or so depending how long it takes for them to deorbit so yeah we are now kind of in the somewhat unbelievable scenario you know kind of pinch yourself moment at the moment where Falcon 9 legally is not allowed to fly it is dumb for for the time being we have it's it's it's a very strange scenario if you if you look at Port canaval right now like every single SpaceX ship is currently docked at Port canaval which is a really weird thing to see because at the moment if you if you have like two ships and a drone ship there the port's busy and now they have everything there because obviously there's no there's no boosters to catch there's no fairings to catch because because everyone they can't they can't fly so yeah that's uh pretty unbelievable you know I I always thought something would eventually happen but you know it's just it's just weird to see it's it's it's not what we've gotten used to well I think that was something we we all knew this was going to happen at some point we didn't want it to but it Rockets are hard space is hard we knew it was going to I think the fact that it happened with the second stage is probably almost a better thing than it happened with the first because the first goes through so many Dynamic phases where the second stage is brand new every single mission that you know this could have just been oh we've made 350 of them one didn't work and I mean SpaceX we don't know yet SpaceX obviously investigating has to put that out but it could come down to you know Mass manufacturing you've always got flukes that happened and maybe something just slipped through and that's what it is and hopefully they can get flying again um but the fact that it also happened on really an internal Mission we didn't lose you know a customer payload they lost a starling payload um which would have been I think a much more devastating outcome if it had been someone else's uh and much harder to you know how do you start flying again after this it's probably going to be starlings for the first few yeah and uh just just as a a point with the orbits as low as they were um all those all those starlings by this point are toast they've probably all burned up um I I can't imagine them being able to stay um in orbit uh for for much longer than even two days after flight with with as low as it was um so uh yeah you know everybody was always thinking that if there is going to be a anomaly or some sort of uh problem with the Falcon 9 in Flight it's going to happen with stage one um but of course stage two jumping in saying not so fast um with that there and you know it was um thank you Mystic I appreciate that um so um you know uh it was still still surprised obviously because we're all so used to SpaceX doing it right um but if there's one thing that we also know about SpaceX it's that when mishaps happen or things go wrong SpaceX also knows how to do it right if fix it um so looking forward to seeing what's going to come of that um somebody was asking earlier if the uh second stage where was it did the second stage actually explode or rud um and it doesn't appear that it did that it it looks like the fir uh the second stage engine the Merlin vacuum uh had the rud uh yeah for whatever you we could tell that it was not a high energy event um because the stage itself wasn't destroyed there wasn't debris in the area around and uh the starlinks were apparently successfully deployed um as to the degree of how were the starlinks we don't know obviously that kind of information hasn't been released yet um so it just appears that the the engine gave itself up and uh and uh the second stage there might have been maybe a little bit of Integrity loss towards the bottom the stage but then again that's speculation and I'm never particularly comfortable um with offering things like that simply because we just don't have that kind of information and um would rather not spread rumors as opposed to to you know letting them run rapidly um ac across the internet so yeah I my best kind of speculatory total random guess would be that some well I I'll also say this is probably my hope that this specific second stage had some kind of manufacturing defect or maybe some foreign object debris got in there that SpaceX you know they wanted to I'm not sure really but there was clearly clearly an issue with the liquid oxygen side of things so perhaps there is some kind of manufacturing defect or for an object debris that impacted that liquid oxygen side of things that liquid oxygen was leaking and then when they went to do that second relight there was some kind of kerosene Rich combustion maybe which is what made the engine go boom maybe that's what happened but I would be a little surprised if by this point there was some fundamental issue with the design of that second stage of course this is what the investigation is going to find out I would I I'm hoping it was just like a fluke a one-off manufacturing defect it was just a dodgy second stage rather than the design is dodgy it was just that specific unit was dodgy but I mean we'll we'll just have to wait and see it's obviously something which is I were Coulson said earlier maybe they were testing something specific on this second stage but I I don't know I just it doesn't feel to me like SpaceX would risk a mishap investigation and a grounding from the FAA just to test something on their Workhorse rocket without saying something for I don't know it just that just doesn't feel I don't know it just doesn't feel right in my gut for that to be the case you know like they just that's just how it's just I don't know I feel like they would have filed something with the FAA saying we're testing something to not risk it because it's not if they thought it would go pop surely they would have said something yeah we're not in a two week phase of just starlings we were coming into a month-long phase of customers and crew uh and very few starlings so for this to you know it's an unfortunate time for it to happen because we were you know getting into a lot of customer missions versus you know weeks of Starlings but I think if there was something they were planning on doing they would have said something they're decent at at least saying hey something might happen but I think someone also mentioned in the comments the first stage is still successful the first stage you know still is holding its streak it's now the second stage that we're going to have to divide the stats um and see how long the first stage goes for yeah and I think it's very interesting how many Rockets do we know that we could say that about um so I think I believe Falcon would be the only one with something like that um and yeah hearing about the PE hearing the speculation of of the the there was a known issue with stage two and they just let it fly anyhow is is ridiculous that would you that I I can't even comprehend a company like SpaceX with the with the with the quality of their management allowing something like that to happen um to me people who are running around saying that right now are really great to never ever listen to again so on that front so yeah do we know how much these ones are costing I know version one was like a quarter million roughly a satellite no these are V2 minis it was also a split was V2 Minis and the direct to sell which I assume might be a bit more expensive than standard V2s but I don't have a number on that but but I don't know Ryan if you do or not I don't know uh I you know it's obviously not cheap but also for SpaceX there you know they're valued at billions of dollars so you know it's kind of hard to Define cheap when you have so many zeros at the end of your of your valuation $1 Bob [Laughter] $1 that's my bid okay I don't know how successful that bid would be but yeah it's just it's it's just kind of I'm still kind of sitting here in disbelief you know this happened four days ago but it's still you know I'm still sat here and disbelief that we're actually in a scenario where Falcon 9 is grounded um you go to a launch calendar and there's three launches in the next two months that have dates like I was like oh we're back in like 20 you know 12 like this this feels really wrong yeah yeah I I will say that I'm not surprised but not because like I expected SpaceX to have a problem or anything but just like this is standard operating procedure when you have a significant issue with a part of your rocket that's not easily accessible uh for you to have I'm pretty you know SpaceX has all the Telemetry and the data that they need you know this they they were able to get separation of the starlinks that means that there was some sort of recognition of that command so that means you had to have had some sort of ground station locked in and be able to get those kinds of things so so I would imagine they have the data on the ground and they're pouring over that data and it should be able to uh you know check it out and and I don't want to necessarily say Get it quickly um but definitely do it a lot faster than than some companies would be able to um and get themselves to return to flight very quickly and I'll just go ahead and put myself out there and say that I think um first half of September is when they're going to return to flight with falcon I think it's going to I think they probably already have a good idea as to what the a set of root causes may be and then can figure out from there with that as to what it is um but you know it it could take longer I hope it doesn't take longer because as you mentioned Zach there are uh some some things on the books uh coming up uh and one of those is crew nine which is supposed to be the next crew Dragon flight um that was supposed to happen about mid August but you know now uh don't know also Polaris Dawn wanting to carry people as well you know the other the other Jared um as my dog is chiming in on this as she often does um uh yeah you know that's kind of there are there are plenty of reasons for them uh to not uh to not take any of this lightly um and I I can't imagine them taking this as anything less than serious like when mishaps have happened in the past SpaceX has been fantastic at figuring those things out and I you know so uh yeah and I agree dog she she's got a really great point do you think that September for customer missions or do you think for all missions in general because I'm wondering if there's going to be a difference in like the phasing that we see customers come back online and then see crew come back online um Polaris unfortunately I feel like his slipping much because crew 's going to take priority can't see Jared isaacman saying anything but you know hey put NASA in front of me um you know that's kind of you know I someone's someone's paying the bills a little bit more than uh than some other folks are so yeah that's kind of that's kind of how that's working so yeah NASA has said that they are going to be in on this investigation so I'm sure you know they will be they're going to be part of the investigation right so they will know the answer because they will be helping to create the answer so uh they'll never put any crew in danger on a vehicle which they think is unsafe a point that has been brought up is that crew missions only require one burn of the second stage this issue came up during the second burn or the attempted second burn should I say of that second stage so theoretically if this was a dragon mission Dragon would have been delivered to its targeted orbit successfully because there was only over one burn uh required it this this event where there was apparently a rud of the of the of the of the mvac only happened when they need to do the second burn so yeah it's it's certainly going to be interesting to watch though and this also means that technically legally the only us crude vehicle with a launch vehicle which is allowed to fly is Starliner no no we can't say that it'ser so all the people who were on Twitter last week saying oh they need to send up a crew Dragon to save Butch and sunny because starer is is stranded look look at where we are now I think it' be to all the people over the past decade on social media who have said that only needs to be one provider and regardless of whoever you have advocated for there has been there has been a thunderous uh call from from the top of of the of both mountains with everyone professing that that our provider is the best and must be the singular one well you're learning a very hard lesson that the Department of Defense and several other uh groups learned in 1986 which is that when you put all of your eggs in one basket uh kind of doesn't work out all that well when there's a problem right so do we need three now so if one can't launch and one's stuck you know third backup we don't want to call Russia to bring them home might need a job yeah um yeah just again we've been talking about the fact that that um you need more than one you need multiple providers in order to cover your butt when if something goes wrong with one of them uh we were talking about that uh you know with our with our starine episodes which is that even though Starliner is being a problem it still is a problem child that we have to accept into the F into the family if you want to uh simply because uh we got to we got to have it well now guess what we just have a perfect case fall into our lap literal days after we say you need to be comfortable with having more than one provider here your perfect reason for why you need to be comfortable for having more than one provider so it's just that's the way it works you want to have multiple options and this is why um because with SpaceX grounded now crew 9 has to wait and Zach I think you bring up a really great point which is that they're going to probably want to fly some starlinks first um before they put humans back on top of it so when I was looking at the launch schedule crew 9's the only one that I would say like and not dismissing any customer Mission there's none that are priority there's none that I see that have you know a twoe launch window that it's if we've missed this we're waiting two years or anything like that so like it's kind of happened at almost the best time it could happen that at worst one crew staying a little longer and then we'll get the next crew up and they'll either do a shorter crew nine mission to stay on schedule or the whole ISS schedule will just shift to the right I like me not you since uh get India to rescue them since uh isro's ISRO is uh really pushing ahead with their stuff within a year I I think they probably could yeah yeah honestly yeah um and I'm that's I that's I think that's one thing we don't talk about on the show we're not going to talk about it now but boy is India really becoming a great power in space and it's awesome to see them succeeding so much so um but yeah it's uh you know we also have some Supply missions coming up too right cuz I want to point out something right now which is that sickness at the moment is flying on Falcon 9 um which means that all of the United States cargo ships crew or cargo dragon and signis are flying on one rocket which is now grounded so what's a great to deliver cargo is no progress on on soy so what yeah what what's a great reason to not have one provider I trying to think here can you guys think of a reason why it's great to not have one provider H anyways but that's also of course related to the fact that that North G is changing inar so um yeah and 59% of people now according to a poll that was just in chat think that Starship is going to return to flight before Falcon 9 so I mean it be it would be fun to see I mean what a month maybe I don't know we'll just have to wait and see what happens yeah I uh yeah I don't know what a timeline on that would look like so I'm just not even gonna say anything so yeah oh ISRO did announce that they want to do a cargo Mission that's awesome so yeah fantastic and I know that there we're we're talk I know Nas is talking with them uh to carry uh is astronaut um up to the space station as well at some point so that's a that's another point which means that because speaking of crew Dragon you have parar Dawn which is now going to be shifted right crew nine which could potentially be shifted right this is going to have knock on effects because Axion 4 which was coming up which was going to have that Israel astronaut on board uh everything's just going to the the whole schedule is going to be kind of put into into a bit of a a bit of a spotlight here because they can't do these crew missions without without a vehicle to launch them on so uh yeah it's it's certainly going to be fascinating to see how quickly this investigation is completed how quickly they can return to flight and whether as Zach was saying earlier if these return to flights will be a I don't know let's do let's try this out with some starlinks first then we'll put customer uh cargo car not cargo payloads on board and then we'll do crew uh so yeah we'll just have to wait and see what happens really uh there is one Mission actually that would be more time thing and luckily it's still further down which would be either Europe a Clipper because they would have to convert 39a to Falcon heavy luckily 40 can now do dragons they haven't flown people yet but they have done the cargo from there so you know L luckily they've got two pads to launch crew now because at some point they're going to have to say no that pad's getting converted because Europa is on a tight timeline um that's if europa's chips are approved by NASA to fly that's another story yeah Europa definitely is in a um is in a situation where now NASA isn't sure if Europa Clipper is fit to fly and SpaceX might not have the vehicle to fly Europa Clipper in time so we now have two Europa Clipper you know is a whole kind of game within itself because it has two things which are very uncertain at the moment all leading to one point and if that one point isn't on the day in the window when it needs to launch there's going to be some delays with that mission as well which is you know there could be some there could be some big missions which end up having to slip here eura Clipper because planetary physics that could be for a lot longer than the than the cre missions as an example yeah just and you know that's I'm really disappointed to hear about the radiation hardening issue uh with Europa Clipper at the moment um like again these are H man these are things that should be caught very early on and and was not and geez come on guys like wasn't it supposed to fly a few years ago to Euro Clipper originally uh I don't think so uh I know that they had basically were essentially waiting on the budget and figuring out the budget for it um and then there was the whole is it going to go on SLS space launch system or or should we put it on something else and then they said okay put it on something else and there was some redesign work that had to happen because of that so yeah yeah so and also in Industry that is called schedule chicken really who's gonna who's gonna Flinch first yeah all right um yeah I I did want to say one more thing yeah I'm sorry um if I can which is that uh there's been of course plenty of people upset at the FAA for uh wanting to go forward with a mishap investigation on something like this um but also I just want to remind folks that's standard operating procedure and if you don't like it sorry um so speaking of return to flight Aron 6 it's not really return to flight but I guess you know Issa is going back with their own rocket Return of the Arion family Return of the Arion family right uh and then speaking of stage two issues Aron 6 see I'm seing a theme Here Yeah there's a theme not a great week for space flight not a great week for space flight uh Ryan actually think you have a good chunk of this story as well uh it was really first off congratulations to ISA for actually launching um their nextg rocket right like uh that's a that's a massive feat getting a Next Generation rocket off the ground so MH straight up that congrats so you want to walk us through uh maybe kind of what happened there next Generation you say h okay okay let we can talk about what it competes against cuz that's an interesting story too but let's let's start with what happened let's let's start off with the actual ignor girl Flight of the Aron 6 so liftoff looked you know the weather beautiful lighting conditions beautiful it's kind of getting to the evening in Kuru and French Gana and South America just look at that the two srbs there's this is the uh the so uh unlike Aron 5 Aron 6 has a 2 SRB and a 4 SRB configuration the inaugural flight was in the 2 SRB configuration they're about half the height I think of the AR 5 SB so you go uh some one of the upgrades for this next Generation rocket uh so the single vcan engine on the first stage ignited 6 seconds before flight t0 came both srbs lit up and that thing launched off the pad I think this is uh Ela 4 which stands for like Ariana launch pad 4 in French but I don't speak French so look it up yourself uh uh but yeah just a beautiful launch even if the stickers offset by 45° to those srbs which I'm still a little bit angry about anyways everything looked good second St there was stage separation the second stage ignited performed the first burn I think it did uh it either did one or two Burns successfully delivering some small sets into uh low earth orbit obviously this vehicle is designed to be able to launch much more but in noral flight they didn't want to put anything too risky on there you know you're not going to launch the James web Space Telescope on your anoral mission so they decided to stick with some small sets from Europe I think there's also a NASA mission that was involved there with NASA's Sun Helio something program I believe I can't exactly remember and then it got to the part where there was a another burn scheduled to come up in order to change the trajectory of that second stage because also on board was a meant to be a demonstration that the second stage could deorbit itself and enter the Earth's atmosphere re-enter also on board were two extra payloads which were re-entry capsules one of which was from the exploration company who is developing a commercial uh cargo delivery capsule called NYX from Europe in order to resupply Cargo to space stations unfortunately these two items did not separate to re-enter because the second stage did not ignite its engine in order to perform that burn to deorbit itself the new part of this Next Generation launch vehicle is the Apu which doesn't stand for the auxiliary power unit it stands for the auxiliary propulsion unit which is designed to allow this second stage engine to restart to reignite and burn however this part failed and did not allow this second stage engine to burn for the duration which was desired the second stage entered its kind of ignition sequence to perform this burn computers went hold up something isn't right they stopped that ignition which left the second stage in orbit Isa Arion space Arion group whoever made the decision then decided that we will not separate those two re-entry captures because it would just create more space debris so at the moment Arion 6 is second stage is going to be just space junk flying around the earth at thousands of miles an hour so we are now in the position where Europe's Next Generation heavy launch vehicle the pretty much the only new part on the second stage failed to do its job properly so in one way Issa and Aron group Arion space are very happy because the the the act the first stage the SBS they all did their job right this was a successful launch a successful deployment of those Cube SATs if this was an Aron 5 Mission this would have been 100% successful however this new part the the orbit which didn't work for Arion 6 then leads this to being a partial failure Isa fair play to them they I can understand why they're saying this but they're saying this is a complete success a great day for Europe yada yada y you know all the all all the things that they want to say to the media I can is saying that hang on hang on in broadcast they went to a slate where like we've had an anomaly standby and and then when they went to the press conference like an hour later they were like this is a great day for Europe so once they've scripted something up you know everything's you know happy dancing everyone's happy um yeah quick call the PR department yeah um but yeah you know as I live in a country which contributes funding to the European Space Agency which contributes funding to Arian space to develop this rocket you know it's a little bit annoying that the agency is saying great success when the you know Jon mcdal from the orbital police himself rated this Mission 085 out of one so he's calling it a partial failure so I'm believing this is a partial failure I'll I'll trust him on this it's just a little bit you know a little bit annoying that it just feels feel like they could be being a little bit dishonest with themselves and I hope that you know they did acknowledge this issue in the press conference afterwards but they started with kind of just felt a bit like everyone's happy everything's fine let's all smile for the cameras you know great success for Europe all of that you know just it just kind of sounded like sound bites they were just spitting out in the press conference to begin with which was a little bit annoying uh so yeah that's that's essentially what happened with Europe's Next Generation launch vehicle I do have a couple notes one was I seem to remember um you know historically Issa or Arian SP space when they um do their broadcasts the graphics some of them are pre-rendered right and so things go sideways like the graphics shows everything's working great but you can see the look on the mission controller's face where they're like this is bad this time it did look like that was real Telemetry on the screen cuz they were not meeting you could see they were not meeting their targets they weren't yeah fed and you're like that doesn't look good that that seems wrong so that like kudos to them for at least using real Telemetry on the screen I appreciate that like that's nice to see that it's not pre-rendered not not everything's hunky dory um and then I I guess being that you Ryan you pay for this rocket out of your pocket what does this rocket compete with like why did they build the Aron 6 the I think the reason the Aran 6 is the design that it is is because European governments that contribute and are part of Isa want a way to launch their government satellites and government payloads into space on a European launch vehicle Arian 6's design is meant to allow that for example the next mission is going to be a French Ministry of Defense Mission they are going to launch those satellites for the French government on a European government rocket I we've also seen Clips in the past of uh European Executives Aran Executives being uh they just they essentially think reusability is not for them basically and in a sense I don't say anything about reusability I just yeah I I I will I will get to that point but we kind of have to we have to kind of understand how we get there so keeping these things in mind European governments will kind of pay anything which is Aran 6's primary customer European governments they will pay pretty much anything to make sure their payloads are on their rocket therefore cost savings and reductions do not really matter as much which is why reusability at least initially if future renderings to be believed is not really part of the program so we now get to the point of what will it compete with I think it probably most closely competes you again kind of using the word compete I don't really think it does compete because European governments will put it on aran6 no matter what anyways I think it probably closely relates to Vulcan which is kind of designed to launch US Government payloads on a US rocket and the US government will pay pretty much no matter what to make sure their pay loads are on their rocket so exactly what Aral is saying there it's optimized to get basically spy satellites or other government satellites into space into the orbits they need whilst being their rocket with not many other factors kind of kind of considered for that back in the day Arian space used to be a pretty good company that you could just get commercial launches off of right like they were a big Contender for the worldwide commercial launch market and they've seemingly correct me if I'm wrong like group right that was that was the thing maybe a decade ago right yeah they were pretty much I would I would describe them as the leader like that they were launching the most out of anybody um they have no desire to get that back I not in a rush I honestly don't know yeah they're not in a rush too I think well SpaceX we all know this SpaceX has hoovered up the market and the uh it it just seems now Arion Arion space has a vehicle that is designed to put government payloads into the orbits that they want on their own rocket and that's the market which they'll go after because that's that's you know they'll they'll pay them no matter what really so that just kind of seems to be the route they've gone down they've also had difficulties with their other launch Vehicles you know if we think if we think to just a few years a they had Aran 5 they had Vega and they had soyuz three different launch vehicles from French Gana they lost soyuz because of the war in Ukraine they lost Vega and Vega C because they're having difficulties in launching it they had failures on their missions they lost iron five because it was retired and it's now been replaced with the Aran 6 so they're now down to just one operational launch vehicle which you know maybe I'm not sure if this is the the thing here but it just maybe seem like people are not going to pay all of that money to have to launch an Aran 6 because maybe companies don't trust Vega maybe companies they can't launch on soos because of sanctions you know so they're now as it stands they're stuck to the Aran 6 which isn't the rocket that can you know if you if you want to launch something small into Leo Arian 6 isn't the rocket for that but here's what I don't understand go ahead Jared I just want to point out that a couple days before the launch Aron space actually had a contract canceled with with them and then the uh group that was going to fly on them uh announced that they got a contract on F with SpaceX to fly it on Falcon 9 instead um they said that that was partially schedule related but also I would imagine that it was sign there was I'm sure cost considerations both in terms of a a cheaper launch and a uh we'll be making money quicker uh because we'll be up in space sooner kind of with it well Aron 6 is about 75 million EUR per flight which is about 81 almost 82 million us uh a Vulcan is landing at 110 million uh and if you need the more robust Aron 6 you're landing at 115 million Euros so when you know if it's not a government Mission why would you pick it it's it's so expensive compared to other options on the market that can get it there but here's here's what I go ahead because we funded it okay okay okay that's my question I guess I don't understand and maybe this is just my ignorance what is Aron 6 doing that Aron 5 couldn't do why do they need to build a whole new rocket like what does this new rocket actually get them leave a second stage in orbit for many years after after trying to be after speaking about good stewardship of of space debris in lower orbit whoops Isa basically now has I forgot what they officially called it but Issa has basically pledged we won't litter in space so Aron 6 is designed to be a launch vehicle that can deorbit it second stage and not litter in space unfortunately the new component that Aron 5 didn't have that Aron 6 does have in order to deorbit that second stage failed on this flight also one of the things that Aron space has said is that they are looking at Aron 6 to increase the Cadence as well and I'm this is Aron space's words the Cadence they but they're not a commercial provider anymore not commercially this is Aron space's words not mine because no it's not just increases the Cadence they said that it's going to increase the Cadence from Seven Aron fives a year to 11 Aron sixes a year that's what they said that is I'm not making that up that is literally what they they only have four missions on contract all the way to 2035 But ultimately I think to it comes comes down to the fact that that Europe wants a wants its own rocket and it will do anything that it can and IR regardless of what anyone else thinks um in order to have its own capability because that's ultimately if you're going to be a if you are going to have the power of space on your side uh that's what you want and let's face it that's what everybody wants now all right r does have a good point it's supposedly a lot cheaper and it's customizable with a number of solid rocket boosters unlike Aron 5 which was aome often so oversized it had to fly two payloads at a time okay fair yeah fair but I mean again to the points that everyone's making if these are mostly for government launches and not commercial launches because it sounds like they're not going to be able to compete commercially then like who cares oversiz the rocket um but okay whatever we've spent a lot of time here I think this this might be a fun topic for another show of like why is Ryan paying for the Aron 6 and so I think that will be the title of the show be the title of the show by the way I do want to say uh I did Zach hang on Canada no no is Canada a contributor to Issa Zach's paying for it too Zach and Ryan the top box is right up here right up here wait wait I go which way right here these two guys y somehow somehow Canada is part of the European Space Agency there's a big ocean in between but somehow I I don't get it I don't get I not my rocket not my rocket nothing but respect for my rocket um so uh I just can't I did not know that and I am flabbergasted it hear read that oh my gosh it's so funny good night Canada um so uh also I did want to point out that Aron space has also said that you get an 11 if you are a member State who has provided funds for the Aron 5 you get Aron 6 sorry I get them both they're so um you get an 11% discount on your launch so nice that's pretty good that'll that should cover tax do we have financing options there a monthly payment plan uh GTH 042 does bring up a good question which was how much was the space launch system and you that say we don't talk about that it's fine yeah we're not we're not going to fine some zeros all right uh we do have one last story I know we're running a little bit uh long but uh we'll turn it back to Ryan again hey hey talk to me about another second stage uh well this time we can call it an upper stage because it wasn't technically it wasn't the second stage it was the fourth stage but hyperb one launched from Jen the other day in China and uh as you might already be able to guess by now I'll give you all a minute just to get your answers in chat um uh the upper stage failed uh so the satellites inside of that Pang were unable to be delivered into their desired orbits the initial launch from the first three stages looked good you know you got like cell phone footage from someone standing at the pad gate or whatever as usually happens in China it went up it looked like the previous hyperbola one launches uh and uh yeah it was unable to deliver those payloads into orbit again this is China we are talking about so some information is kind of difficult to get officially um this launch vehicle is a private launch vehicle it's had uh issues in the past so this is kind it's kind of difficult to make a conclusion about this um but it's it just kind of adds on top of the cake that has become upper stages not working this week you know Cherry it's the Cherry this is the cherry on top of the cake that we didn't want to have to make exactly this is a horrible horrible cake no one wanted yep I can feel I feel like it's a certain kind of sandwich and we all having to take a bite out of it yeah all right uh I think we'll certain kind of a ew um I think we'll we'll start the close out the show there um I unless unless Zach or Jared had anything else you wanted to contribute at the very very end here I think talking about funds uh and bringing up SLS into it of how much it costs it is absolutely ridiculous um NASA is now being mandated under their new NASA reauthorization act from Congress to do a report on assessment for non- NASA demand of the SLS so Congress is now asking does anyone actually want to use it which it's obviously zero so what about oh wait no that's NASA yeah yeah so we'll see if does anyone raise their hand saying we want to fly SLS I don't maybe they have a big discount code but here's what we'll do we'll get a Kickstarter going we'll we'll team up we'll get some funds going and then tomorrow we'll send a payload to space on SLS that'll be the smallest tiniest payload in what de the larg largest Kickstarter ever oh man yeah all right so I'm still going to give you guys [ __ ] about Aron 6 but you can you can give me [ __ ] about SLS I think that's that's the trade that's the trade yeah that's the fair we don't need another comma we'll give you a 12% discount as less is Trace coma oh my God the payload is jobs oh my God oh my gosh wow what a what a what a truth I've ever seen send that to NASA PR they're going to use that oh God all right that's our show thank you all so much for watching hopefully we don't have another one of these weeks anytime soon like this was not a fun week let's have more of the Starliner launches Starship launches uh Virgin Galactic launches and everyone else launches weeks those we don't need another one of these thanks what was that STS 93 little sts3 call back absolutely oh man but electrons oh don't put that in the universe Zach what are you doing what are you doing why would you do that firef Alpha well okay all different stories also I want to thank all of the members of Tomorrow who have helped to make this specific episode happen uh these people with a name on the screen you can go to youtube.com/ tm/ jooin to become a member of tomorrow we're going to go and do a post show in a in a couple moments which is available to all members including the members that are at the $1 per month level and with today's uh uh current rates of uh inflation and whatnot $1 is like one half of one cup of coffee with no cream and sugar in it so like we every dollar helps we appreciate it um because you know I got to buy those uh those little animated videos for the new intro I hope you guys like the new intro that was uh I think that one's better than the weird astronauts were uh the weird mushroom astronaut I liked the funky astronauts they were fun but like uh oh and closing out the show thank you Dave Dave they've contributed five memberships at the very end of the show uh to uh five people so uh Joe Stacy John Matthew and Paul all got membership so if you guys are watching live and you did not have membership before you're now eligible to watch the membership show the description for how to get into the membership show is right down below or wherever the description box is for your particular player so just click on that link you can watch it live or On Demand on that note I'd like to thank everyone so much for joining us let's not have another one of these weeks and we'll see you next week