TOKYO — Japan’s space agency intentionally destroyed a new H3 rocket minutes after its launch Tuesday because the ignition failed for the second stage of the country’s first new rocket series in more than two decades.
Coming three weeks after an aborted launch due to a separate glitch, the H3’s failure was a setback for Japan’s space program — and possibly for its missile detection program — and a disappointment for space fans who were rooting for Tuesday’s retrial.
The H3 rocket with a white head blasted off and soared into the blue sky from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan as fans and local residents cheered. It followed its planned trajectory and the second stage separated as designed, but the ignition for it failed, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said.
JAXA officials apologized for the failure, and said it sent a command to destroy the rocket about 14 minutes after liftoff as there was no hope for it to complete its mission.
Yasuhiro Funo, JAXA director for launch implementation, said the second stage and its payload fell into the deep sea off the eastern coast of the Philippines. He said the rocket, which was not going to enter the targeted orbit while carrying a lot of fuel, was unsafe and had to be destroyed.
No damages or injuries were reported from the destruction of the rocket or its falling debris.
The rocket was carrying an Advanced Land Observation Satellite, or ALOS-3, tasked primarily with Earth observation and data collection for disaster response and mapmaking, and an experimental infrared sensor developed by the Defense Ministry that can monitor military activity including missile launches.
There is no plan for an alternative satellite launch to replace the earlier generation of ALOS, said Katsuhiko Hara, Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology minister. He did not say if or how the delay could affect disaster and missile detection capability.
The failure is the second in six months since a smaller Epsilon-series solid-fueled rocket designed to launch scientific satellites failed in October.
The H3 launch had also been held up more than two years because of an engine development delay. During a launch attempt in February, an electrical glitch after the main engine ignition aborted the launch just before its liftoff and narrowly saved the rocket.
Further delay is expected, but JAXA officials said analyzing the malfunction and rebuilding trust comes first.
“Our top priority is to do everything we can to find the cause and regain the trust in our rockets,” said JAXA President Hiroshi Yamakawa at a joint news conference. “We need to figure out what we should do to successfully achieve the next launch.”
Yamakawa said global competitiveness is still important. “Delays and additional costs are both burdens, but we will achieve international overall competitiveness from the perspectives of cost and user friendliness in delivering satellites.”
The H3 rocket — Japan’s first new series in more than 22 years — was developed at a cost of 200 billion yen ($1.47 billion) by JAXA and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries as a successor to Japan’s H-2A rocket, which is due to retire after its upcoming 50th launch.
The H3, about 60 meters (196 feet) long, can carry larger payloads than the 53-meter (174-foot) H-2A. But its launch cost has been slashed approximately in half to about 50 million yen ($368,000) by simplifying its design, manufacturing and operation in an effort to win more commercial launch customers. The hydrogen-fueled main engine is newly developed and uses fewer parts by altering the combustion method.
The space launch business has become increasing competitive, with major players including SpaceX and Arianespace.
In the fervor-filled days leading up to the November 16 launch of the long-awaited Artemis I mission, an uncrewed trip around the moon, some industry insiders admitted to having conflicting emotions about the event.
On one hand, there was the thrill of watching NASA take its first steps toward eventually getting humans back to the lunar surface; on the other, a shadow cast by the long and costly process it took to get there.
“I have mixed feelings, though I hope that we have a successful mission,” former NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao said in an opinion roundtable interview with The New York Times. “It is always exciting to see a new vehicle fly. For perspective, we went from creating NASA to landing humans on the moon in just under 11 years. This program has, in one version or another, been ongoing since 2004.”
There have been numerous delays with the development of the rocket at the center of the Artemis I mission: NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), the most powerful rocket ever flown — and one of the most controversial. The towering launch vehicle was originally expected to take flight in 2016. And the decade-plus that the rocket was in development sparked years of blistering criticism targeted toward the space agency and Boeing, which holds the primary contract for the SLS rocket’s core.
NASA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) repeatedly called out what it referred to as Boeing’s “poor performance,” as a contributing factor in the billions of dollars in cost overruns and schedule delays that plagued SLS.
“Cost increases and schedule delays of Core Stage development can be traced largely to management, technical, and infrastructure issues driven by Boeing’s poor performance,” one 2018 report from NASA’s OIG, the first in a series of audits the OIG completed surrounding NASA’s management of the SLS program, read. And a report in 2020 laid out similar grievances.
For its part, Boeing has pushed back on the criticism, pointing to rigorous testing requirements and the overall success of the program. The OIG report also included correspondence from NASA, which noted in 2018 that it “had already recognized the opportunity to improve contract performance management” and agreed with the report’s recommendations.
Despite all the heated debate that has followed SLS, by all accounts, the rocket is here to stay. And officials at NASA and Boeing said its first launch two months ago was practically flawless.
“I worked over 50 Space Shuttle launches,” Boeing SLS program manager John Shannon told CNN by phone. “And I don’t ever remember a launch that was as clean as that one was, which for a first-time rocket — especially one that had been through as much as this one through all the testing — really put an exclamation point on how reliable and robust this vehicle really is.”
The Artemis program manager at NASA, Mike Sarafin, also said during a post-launch news conference that the rocket “performed spot-on.”
But with its complicated history and its hefty price tag, SLS could still face detractors in the years to come.
Many have questioned why SLS needs to exist at all. With the estimated cost per launch standing at more than $4 billion for the first four Artemis missions, it’s possible commercial rockets, like the massive Mars rocket SpaceX is building, could get the job done more efficiently, as the chief of space policy at the nonprofit exploration advocacy group Planetary Society, Casey Dreier, recently observed in an article laying out both sides of the SLS argument.
(NASA Administrator Bill Nelson noted that the $4 billion per-launch cost estimate includes development costs that the space agency hopes will be amortized over the course of 10 or more missions.)
Boeing was selected in 2012 to build SLS’s “core stage,” which is the hulking orange fuselage that houses most of the massive engines that give the rocket its first burst of power at liftoff.
Though more than 1,000 companies were involved with designing and building SLS, Boeing’s work involved the largest and most expensive portion of the rocket.
That process began over a decade ago, and when the Artemis program was established in 2019, it gave the rocket its purpose: return humans to the moon, establish a permanent lunar outpost, and, eventually, pave the path toward getting humans to Mars.
But the SLS is no longer the only rocket involved in the program. NASA gave SpaceX a significant role in 2021, giving the company a fixed-price contract for use of its Mars rocket as the vehicle that will ferry astronauts to the lunar surface after they leave Earth and travel to the moon’s orbit on SLS. SpaceX’s forthcoming rocket, called Starship, is also intended to be capable of completing a crewed mission to the moon or Mars on its own. (Starship, it should be noted, is still in the development phases and has not yet been tested in orbit.)
Boeing has repeatedly argued that SLS is essential and capable of performing tasks that other rockets cannot.
“The bottom line is there’s nothing else like the SLS because it was built from the ground up to be human rated,” Shannon said. “It is the only vehicle that can take the Orion spacecraft and the service module to the moon. And that’s the purpose-built design — to take large hardware and humans to cislunar space, and nothing else exists that can do that.”
Starship, meanwhile, is not tailored solely to NASA’s specific lunar goals. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has talked for more than a decade about his desire to get humans to Mars. More recently, he has said Starship could also be used to house giant space telescopes.
Yet, another reason critics remain skeptical of SLS is because of its origins. The rocket’s conception can be traced back to NASA’s Constellation program, which was a plan to return to the moon mapped out under former President George W. Bush that was later canceled.
But the SLS has survived. Many observers have suggested a big reason was the desire to maintain space industry jobs in certain Congressional districts and to beef up aerospace supply chains.
Much of the criticism levied against SLS, however, has focused on the actual process of getting the rocket built.
At one point in 2019, former NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine considered sidelining the SLS rocket entirely, citing frustrations with the delays.
“At the end of the day, the contractors had an obligation to deliver what NASA had contracted for them to deliver,” Bridenstine told CNN by phone last month. “And I was frustrated like most of America.”
Still, Bridenstine said, when his office reviewed the matter, it found “there were no options that were going to cost less money or take less time than just finishing the SLS” — and the rocket was never ultimately sidelined. (Bridenstine noted he was also publicly critical of delayed projects led by SpaceX and others.)
The SLS rocket ended up flying its first launch more than six years later than originally intended. NASA had allocated $6.2 billion to the SLS program as of 2018, but that price tag more than tripled to $23 billion as of 2022, according to an analysis by the Planetary Society.
Those escalating costs can be traced back to the type of contracts that NASA signed with Boeing and its other major suppliers for SLS. It’s called cost-plus, which puts the financial burden on NASA when projects face cost overruns while still offering contractors extra payments, or award fees.
In testimony before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Science last year, current NASA Administrator Bill Nelson criticized the cost-plus contracting method, calling it a “plague.”
More in vogue are “fixed-price” contracts, which have a firm price cap, like the kind NASA gave to Boeing and SpaceX for its Commercial Crew Program.
In an interview with CNN in December, however, Nelson stood by cost-plus contracting for SLS and Orion, the vehicle that is designed to carry astronauts and rides atop the rocket to space. He said that without that type of contract, in his view, NASA’s private-sector contractors simply wouldn’t be willing to take on a rocket designed for such a specific purpose and exploring deep space. Building a rocket as specific and technically complex as SLS isn’t a risk many private-sector companies are anxious to take on, he noted.
“You really have difficulty in the development of a new and very exquisite spacecraft … on a fixed-price contract,” he said.
“That industry is just not willing to accept that kind of thing, with the exception of the landers,” he added, referring to two other branches of the Artemis program: robotic landers that will deliver cargo to the moon’s surface and SpaceX’s $2.9 billion lunar lander contract. Both of those will use fixed-price — often referred to as “commercial” — contracts.
“And even there, they’re getting a considerable investment by the federal government,” Nelson said.
Still, government watchdogs have not pulled punches when assessing these cost-plus contracts and Boeing’s role.
“We did notice very poor contractor performance on Boeing’s part. There’s poor planning and poor execution,” NASA Inspector General Paul Martin said during testimony before the House’s Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics last year. “We saw that the cost-plus contracts that NASA had been using…worked to the contractor’s — rather than NASA’s — advantage.”
Shannon, the Boeing executive, acknowledged in an interview that Boeing and SLS have faced loud detractors, but he said that the value of the drawn out development and testing program would become evident as SLS flies.
“I am extremely proud that NASA — even though there were significant schedule pressures — they could set up a test program that was incredibly comprehensive,” he said. “The Boeing team worked through that test process and hit every mark on it. And you see the results. You see a vehicle that is not just visually spectacular, but its performance was spectacular. And it really put us on the road to be able to do lunar exploration again, which is something that’s very important in this country.”
But the rocket is still facing criticism. During a Congressional hearing with the House’s Science, Space, and Technology Committee in March 2022, NASA’s Inspector General said that current cost estimates for SLS were “unsustainable,” gauging that the space agency will have spent $93 billion on the Artemis program from 2012 through September 2025.
Martin, the NASA inspector general, specifically pointed to Boeing as one of the contractors that would need to find “efficiencies” to bring down those costs as the Artemis program moves forward.
In a December 7 statement to CNN, Boeing once again defended SLS and its price point.
“Boeing is and has been committed to improving our processes — both while the program was in its developmental stage and now as it transitions to an operational phase,” the statement read, noting the company already implemented “lessons learned” from building the first rocket to “drive efficiencies from a cost and schedule perspective” for future SLS rockets.
“When adjusted for inflation, NASA has developed SLS for a quarter of the cost of the Saturn V and half the cost of the Space Shuttle,” the statement noted. “These programs have also been essential to investing in the NASA centers, workforce and test facilities that are used by a broad range of civil and commercial partners across NASA and industry.”
The successful launch of SLS was a welcome winning moment for Boeing. Over the past few years, the company has been mired in controversy, including ongoing delays and myriad issues with Starliner, a spacecraft built for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, and scandal after scandal plaguing its airplane division.
Now that the Artemis I mission has returned safely home, NASA and Boeing can turn to preparing more of the gargantuan SLS rockets to launch even loftier missions.
SLS is slated to launch the Artemis II mission, which will take four astronauts on a journey around the moon, in 2024. From there, SLS will be the backbone of the Artemis III mission that will return humans to the lunar surface for the first time in five decades and a series of increasingly complex missions as NASA works to create its permanent lunar outpost.
Shannon, the Boeing SLS program manager, told CNN that construction of the next two SLS rocket cores is well underway, with the booster for Artemis II on track to be finished in April — more than a year before the mission is scheduled to take off. All of the “major components” for a third SLS rocket are also completed, Shannon added.
For the third SLS core and beyond, Boeing is also moving final assembly to new facilities Florida, freeing up space at its manufacturing facilities to increase production, which may help drive down costs.
Shannon declined to share a specific price point for the new rockets or share any internal pricing goals, though NASA is expected to sign new contracts for the rockets that will launch the Artemis V mission and beyond, which could significantly change the price per launch.
Nelson also told CNN in December that NASA “will be making improvements, and we will find cost savings where we can,” such as with the decision to use commercial contracts for other vehicles under the Artemis program umbrella.
How and whether those contracts bear out remain to be seen: SpaceX needs to get its Starship rocket flying, a massive space station called Gateway needs to come to fruition, and at least some of the robotic lunar landers designed to carry cargo to the moon will need to prove their effectiveness. It’s also not yet clear whether those contracts will result in enough cost savings for the critics of SLS, including NASA’s OIG, to consider the Artemis program sustainable.
As for SLS, Nelson also told reporters December 11, just after the conclusion of the Artemis I mission, that he had every reason to expect that lawmakers would continue to fund the rocket and NASA’s broader moon program.
“I’m not worried about the support from the Congress,” Nelson said.
And Bridenstine, Nelson’s predecessor who has been publicly critical SLS, said that he ultimately stands by SLS and points out that, controversies aside, it does have rare bipartisan support from its bankrollers.
“We are in a spot now where this is going to be successful,” Bridenstine said last month, recalling when he first realized the Artemis program had support from the right and left. “All of America is going to be proud of this program. And yes, there are going to be differences. People are gonna say well, you should go all commercial and drop SLS…but at the end of the day, what we have to do is we have to bring together all of the things that are the best programs that we can get for America and use them to go to the moon.”
Walter Cunningham, the last surviving astronaut from the first successful crewed space mission in NASA’s Apollo program, died Tuesday in Houston. He was 90.
NASA confirmed Cunningham’s death in a statement but did not include its cause. His family said through a spokesman, Jeff Carr, that Cunningham died in a hospital “from complications of a fall, after a full and complete life.”
Cunningham was one of three astronauts aboard the 1968 Apollo 7 mission, an 11-day spaceflight that beamed live television broadcasts as they orbited Earth, paving the way for the moon landing less than a year later.
Cunningham, then a civilian, crewed the mission with Navy Capt. Walter M. Schirra and Donn F. Eisele, an Air Force major. Cunningham was the lunar module pilot on the space flight, which launched from Cape Kennedy Air Force Station, Florida, on Oct. 11 and splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean south of Bermuda.
NASA said Cunningham, Eisele and Schirra’ flew a near perfect mission. Their spacecraft performed so well that the agency sent the next crew, Apollo 8, to orbit the moon as a prelude to the Apollo 11 moon landing in July 1969.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said Tuesday that Cunningham was “above all” an explorer whose work also laid the foundation for the agency’s new Artemis moon program.
The Apollo 7 astronauts also won a special Emmy award for their daily television reports from orbit, during which they clowned around, held up humorous signs and educated earthlings about space flight.
It was NASA’s first crewed space mission since the deaths of the three Apollo 1 astronauts in a launch pad fire Jan. 27, 1967.
Cunningham recalled Apollo 7 during a 2017 event at the Kennedy Space Center, saying it “enabled us to overcome all the obstacles we had after the Apollo 1 fire and it became the longest, most successful test flight of any flying machine ever.”
Cunningham was born in Creston, Iowa, and attended high school in California before enlisting with the Navy in 1951 and serving as a Marine Corps. pilot in Korea, according to NASA. He later obtained bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics from the University of California at Los Angeles, where he also did doctoral studies, and worked as scientist for the Rand Corporation before joining NASA.
In an interview the year before his death, Cunningham recalled growing up poor and dreaming of flying airplanes, not spacecraft.
“We never even knew that there were astronauts when I was growing up,” Cunningham told The Spokesman-Review.
After retiring from NASA in 1971, Cunningham worked in engineering, business and investing, and became a public speaker and radio host. He wrote a memoir about his career and time as an astronaut, “The All-American Boys.” He also expressed skepticism in his later years about human activity contributing to climate change, bucking the scientific consensus in writing and public talks, while acknowledging that he was not a climate scientist.
Although Cunningham never crewed another space mission after Apollo 7, he remained a proponent of space exploration. He told the Spokane, Washington, paper last year, “I think that humans need to continue expanding and pushing out the levels at which they’re surviving in space.”
Cunningham is survived by his wife Dot, his sister Cathy Cunningham, and his children Brian and Kimberly. In a statement, Cunningham’s family said, “the world has lost another true hero, and we will miss him dearly.”
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA’s Orion capsule and its test dummies hurtled toward Earth on Sunday to end a 25-day test flight around the moon.
Flight controllers targeted a splashdown in the Pacific just off the coast of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula. A Navy recovery ship was positioned within a few miles (kilometers) of the intended site.
Orion rocketed to the moon from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Nov. 16 and spent nearly a week in a wide, swooping lunar orbit, before heading home. The $4 billion demo should allow astronauts to strap in for the next lunar flyby in a couple of years.
Orion’s super fast and hot return coincided with the 50th anniversary of humanity’s last lunar landing, by Apollo 17’s Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt on Dec. 11, 1972. This was the first capsule to visit the moon since then.
NASA’s Apollo landed 12 astronauts on the moon. Under this new Artemis program, named after Apollo’s twin sister in Greek mythology, astronauts could be back on the lunar surface as early as 2025.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
TOKYO — Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa said Friday that K-Pop star T.O.P. will be among the eight people who will join him on a flyby around the moon on a SpaceX spaceship next year.
The Japanese tycoon launched plans for the lunar voyage in 2018, buying all the seats on the spaceship. He began taking applications from around the world in March 2021 for what will be his second space journey after his 12-day trip to the International Space Station on the Soyuz Russian spaceship last year.
The eight people Maezawa selected for his “dearMoon project” are T.O.P., who debuted as a lead rapper for the K-Pop group Big Bang; American DJ Steve Aoki; filmmaker Brendan Hall and YouTuber Tim Dodd, also of the United States. The other four are British photographer Karim Illiya, Indian actor Dev Joshi, Czech artist Yemi AD and Irish photographer Rhiannon Adam. American Olympic snowboarder Kaitlyn Farrington and Japanese dancer Miyu were chosen as backups.
T.O.P.’s real name is Choi Seung-hyun. The 35-year-old started out as an underground rapper before joining Big Bang, one of the world’s top boy bands, in 2006.
T.O.P. said in a video released by the dearMoon website that he has always fantasized about space and the moon since he was a child and, “I cannot wait.”
“When I finally see the moon closer I look forward to my personal growth and returning to the earth as an artist with an inspiration,” he said.
Maezawa made the announcement on his Twitter and the dearMoon Project website on Friday, after he tweeted last week saying he held an online meeting with Elon Musk and that his “major announcement about space” was underway.
He and the others would be among the first to travel on the SpaceX vehicle. The trip is expected to take about a week. The spaceship will not make a lunar landing but is expected to come within 200 kilometers (120 miles) of the moon’s surface while circling it for three days.
The trip is expected next year, though the exact schedule has not been disclosed.
Last year, Maezawa, 47, and his producer Yozo Hirano became the first self-paying tourists to visit the space station since 2009. He has not disclosed the cost for that mission, though reports said he paid $80 million.
Maezawa made his fortune in retail fashion, launching Japan’s largest online fashion mall, Zozotown. In 2019, he resigned as CEO of the e-commerce company Zozo Inc. to devote his time to space travel. Forbes magazine estimates his wealth at $1.9 billion.
MANILA, Philippines — The Chinese coast guard forcibly seized floating debris the Philippine navy was towing to its island in another confrontation in the disputed South China Sea, a Philippine military commander said Monday. The debris appeared to be from a Chinese rocket launch.
The Chinese vessel twice blocked the Philippine naval boat before seizing the debris it was towing Sunday off Philippine-occupied Thitu Island, Vice Admiral Alberto Carlos said Monday. He said no one was injured in the incident.
It’s the latest flare-up in long-seething territorial disputes in the strategic waterway, involving China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.
Chinese coast guard ships have blocked Philippine supply boats delivering supplies to Filipino forces in the disputed waters in the past, but seizing objects in the possession of another nation’s military constituted a more brazen act.
Carlos said the Filipino sailors, using a long-range camera on Thitu island, spotted the debris drifting in strong waves near a sandbar about 800 yards (540 meters) away. They set out on a boat and retrieved the floating object and started to tow it back to their island using a rope tied to their boat.
As the Filipino sailors were moving back to their island, “they noticed that China coast guard vessel with bow number 5203 was approaching their location and subsequently blocked their pre-plotted course twice,” Carlos said in a statement.
The Chinese coast guard vessel then deployed an inflatable boat with personnel who “forcefully retrieved said floating object by cutting the towing line attached to the” Filipino sailors’ rubber boat. The Filipino sailors decided to return to their island, Carlos said, without detailing what happened.
Maj. Cherryl Tindog, spokesperson of the military’s Western Command, said the floating metal object appeared similar to a number of other pieces of Chinese rocket debris recently found in Philippine waters. She added the Filipino sailors did not fight the seizure.
“We practice maximum tolerance in such a situation,” Tindog told reporters. “Since it involved an unidentified object and not a matter of life and death, our team just decided to return.”
Metal debris from Chinese rocket launches, some showing a part of what appears to be Chinese flag, have been found in Philippine waters in at least three other instances.
Rockets launched from the Wenchang Space Launch Center on China’s Hainan island in recent months have carried construction materials and supplies for China’s crewed space station.
China has been criticized previously for allowing rocket stages to fall to Earth uncontrolled. The Philippine Space Agency earlier this month pressed for the Philippines to ratify U.N. treaties providing a basis for compensation for harm from other nations’ space debris, and NASA accused Beijing last year of “failing to meet responsible standards regarding their space debris” after parts of a Chinese rocket landed in the Indian Ocean.
The Philippine government has filed many diplomatic protests against China over aggressive actions in the South China Sea but it did not immediately say what action it would take following Sunday’s incident. The Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila would usually wait for an official investigation report before lodging a protest.
Thitu island, which Filipinos call Pag-asa, hosts a fishing community and Filipino forces and lies near Subi, one of seven disputed reefs in the offshore region that China has turned into missile-protected islands, including three with runways, which U.S. security officials say now resemble military forward bases.
The Philippines and other smaller claimant nations in the disputed region, backed by the United States and other Western countries, have strongly protested and raised alarm over China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the busy waterway.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, who is visiting Manila, is scheduled to fly to the western province of Palawan, which faces the South China Sea, on Tuesday to underscore American support to the Philippines and renew U.S. commitment to defend its longtime treaty ally if Filipino forces, ships and aircraft come under attack in the disputed waters.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA remained on track for Wednesday’s planned liftoff of its new moon rocket, after determining that hurricane damage provided little extra risk to the test flight.
Hurricane Nicole’s high winds caused a 10-foot (3-meter) section of caulking to peel away near the crew capsule at the top of the rocket last Thursday. The material tore away in small pieces, rather than one big strip, said mission manager Mike Sarafin.
“We’re comfortable flying as is,” based on flight experience with this material, Sarafin told reporters Monday night.
Liftoff is scheduled for the early morning hours of Wednesday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, with test dummies rather than astronauts on board. It’s the first test flight for the 322-foot (98-meter) rocket, the most powerful ever built by NASA, and will attempt to send the capsule into lunar orbit.
The nearly monthlong $4 billion mission has been grounded since August by fuel leaks and Hurricane Ian, which forced the rocket back into its hangar for shelter at the end of September. The rocket remained at the pad for Nicole; managers said there wasn’t enough time to move it once it became clear the storm was going to be stronger than anticipated.
Sarafin acknowledged Monday night that there’s “a small likelihood” that more of the pliable, lightweight caulking might come off during liftoff. The most likely place to be hit would be a particularly large and robust section of the rocket, he noted, resulting in minimal damage.
Engineers never determined what caused the dangerous hydrogen fuel leaks during the two late summer launch attempts. But the launch team is confident that slowing the flow rate will put less pressure on the sensitive fuel line seals and keep any leakage within acceptable limits, said Jeremy Parsons, a deputy program manager.
The space agency plans to send astronauts around the moon in 2024 and land a crew on the lunar surface in 2025.
Astronauts last visited the moon in December 1972, closing out the Apollo program.
A microwave oven-size NASA satellite, meanwhile, arrived Sunday in a special lunar orbit following a summer liftoff from New Zealand. This elongated orbit, stretching as much as tens of thousands of miles (kilometers), is where the space agency plans to build a depot for lunar crews. The way station, known as Gateway, will serve astronauts going to and from the lunar surface.
The satellite, called Capstone, will spend six months testing a navigation system in this orbit.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA’s moon rocket needs only minor repairs after enduring a hurricane at the pad and is on track for its first test flight next week, a top official said Friday.
“Right now, there’s nothing preventing us” from attempting a launch on Wednesday, said NASA’s Jim Free, an associate administrator.
The wind never exceeded the rocket’s design limits as Hurricane Nicole swept through Kennedy Space Center on Thursday, according to Free. But he acknowledged if the launch team had known in advance that a hurricane was going to hit, they likely would have kept the rocket indoors. The rocket was moved out to the pad late last week for its $4.1 billion demo mission.
Gusts reached 100 mph (160 kph) atop the launch tower, but were not nearly as strong farther down at the rocket. Computer models indicate there should be no strength or fatigue issues from the storm, even deep inside the rocket, Free noted.
NASA had been aiming for an early Monday launch, but put it on hold for two days because of the storm.
The 322-foot (98-meter) rocket, known as SLS for Space Launch System, is the most powerful ever built by NASA. A crew capsule atop the rocket, with three test dummies on board, will shoot for the moon — the first such flight in 50 years when Apollo astronauts last visited the moon.
NASA wants to test all the systems before putting astronauts on board in 2024 for a trip around the moon.
Two previous launch attempts, in late summer, were thwarted by fuel leaks. Hurricane Ian also forced a return to the hangar at the end of September.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
LOS ANGELES — A satellite intended to improve weather forecasting and an experimental inflatable heat shield to protect spacecraft entering atmospheres were launched into space from California on Thursday.
A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying the Joint Polar Satellite System-2 satellite and the NASA test payload lifted off at 1:49 a.m. from Vandenberg Space Force Base, northwest of Los Angeles.
Developed for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, JPSS-2 was placed into an orbit that circles the Earth from pole to pole, joining previously launched satellites in a system designed to improve weather forecasting and climate monitoring.
NASA said there was no immediate data confirming deployment of the satellite’s electricity-producing solar array, but late in the day the space agency announced that it was fully extended.
“The operations team will continue to evaluate an earlier solar array deployment issue, but at this time, the satellite is healthy and operating as expected. The team has resumed normal activities for the JPSS-2 mission,” a NASA statement said.
The array has five panels that were collapsed in an accordion fold for launch. The fully deployed array extends 30 feet (9.1 meters).
Mission officials say the satellite represents the latest technology and will increase precision of observations of the atmosphere, oceans and land.
After releasing the satellite, the rocket’s upper stage reignited to position the test payload for re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere and descent into the Pacific Ocean.
Called LOFTID, short for Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator, the device is an “aeroshell” that could be used to slow and protect heavy spacecraft descending into atmospheres, such as those of Mars or Venus, or payloads returning to Earth.
According to NASA, effectively slowing heavy spacecraft will require greater atmospheric drag than can be created by traditional rigid heat shields that fit within the shrouds that surround payloads aboard rockets.
The LOFTID shield inflates to about 20 feet (6 meters) in diameter.
In the thin atmosphere of Mars, for example, having such a large shield would begin slowing the vehicle at higher altitudes and reduce the intensity of heating, according to the space agency.
Video showed the inflated heat shield separate from the rocket and descend toward Earth. A camera aboard a recovery vessel a few hundred miles east of Hawaii showed the it splash down under a parachute.
NASA said the shield was picked up by the boat, which then headed to recover a backup data module that was ejected during the descent.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran’s powerful paramilitary Revolutionary Guard on Saturday launched a new satellite-carrying rocket, state TV reported, seeking to demonstrate the hard-line force’s prowess even as anti-government protests rage across the country.
Iranian state TV said the Guard successfully launched the solid-fueled rocket — what it called a Ghaem-100 satellite carrier — and aired dramatic footage of the rocket blasting off from a desert launch pad into a cloudy sky. The report did not reveal the location, which resembled Iran’s northeastern Shahroud Desert.
The state-run IRNA news agency reported that the carrier would be able to put a satellite weighing 80 kg (176 pounds) into orbit some 500 kilometers (310 miles) from Earth.
Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the Guard’s aerospace division, said he hoped the Guard would soon use the rocket to put a new satellite, named Nahid, into orbit.
Iran says its satellite program, like its nuclear activities, is aimed at scientific research and other civilian applications. The United States and other Western countries have long been suspicious of the program because the same technology can be used to develop long-range missiles. Previous launches have drawn rebukes from the U.S.
The Guard operates its own space program and military infrastructure parallel to Iran’s regular armed forces and answers only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Over the past decade, Iran has sent several short-lived satellites into orbit and in 2013 launched a monkey into space. The program has seen recent troubles, however. There have been five failed launches in a row for the Simorgh program, another satellite-carrying rocket.
A fire at the Imam Khomeini Spaceport in February 2019 killed three researchers, authorities said at the time. A launchpad rocket explosion later that year drew the attention of former President Donald Trump.
The Guard’s announcement came in the seventh week of protests sparked by the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was detained after allegedly violating the country’s strict dress code for women.
The protests embroiling the country first focused on the state-mandated headscarf, or hijab, but swiftly morphed into one of the biggest challenges to the government since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Protesters chant for overthrowing the clerical rule and the death of Khamenei.
Security forces, including paramilitary volunteers with the Revolutionary Guard, have violently cracked down on the demonstrations, killing over 300 people, including 41 children, according to the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights.
On Saturday, student unions in Iran reported protests in at least six major universities across the country. Universities have been hubs for unrest, fueling the protest movement despite the crackdown.
Anger over Iran’s sickly economy, suffocated by U.S. sanctions and years of mismanagement, has also driven people into the streets. Talks to revive Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers, which granted Tehran sanctions relief in exchange for strict curbs on its atomic program, hit a deadlock months ago.
On Saturday, Iran’s currency, the rial, plunged to its lowest value ever against the dollar. Iran’s currency was trading at 360,000 rials to the dollar, compared to 32,000 rials to the dollar at the time of the 2015 nuclear accord.
The southeastern Sistan and Baluchestan province was gripped by unrest on Friday, drawing a lethal response from security forces. Advocacy group HalVash claimed security forces killed at least 16 people.
Iran’s prominent Sunni cleric Mowlavi Abdolhamid Esmailzehi on Saturday condemned the violence in Sistan and Baluchestan as another “bloody disaster,” saying that security forces opened fire on protesters who were only “chanting slogans and throwing stones” outside the governor’s office.
The judiciary of Sistan and Baluchestan announced Saturday that 620 people had been arrested in the province during the unrest, with 45 people sentenced so far on charges of damaging public property and encouraging youth on social media to join protests.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA’s moon rocket is back on the pad for another launch attempt, following more repairs.
The 322-foot (98-meter) rocket departed its hangar in the middle of the night and completed the 4-mile (6.4-kilometer) trip shortly after sunrise Friday.
NASA is aiming for a launch attempt on Nov. 14, sending an empty crew capsule around the moon and back in a dramatic flight test before astronauts climb aboard in a couple years.
Forecasters are keeping their eyes on potential tropical weather that could interfere.
It is NASA’s biggest step yet to get astronauts back on the moon by 2025. The space agency is nearing the 50th anniversary of its last human moon landing: Apollo 17 in December 1972.
Although shorter, this early version of the rocket is even more powerful than the Saturn V that sent Apollo astronauts to the moon.
Fuel leaks have kept the rocket grounded since August. Then Hurricane Ian forced the rocket back to the hangar at Kennedy Space Center at the end of September. NASA used the time to make repairs and replace critical batteries.
NASA still does not know why hydrogen keeps leaking every time the rocket is fueled, but engineers are confident they can manage any future leaks, said Cliff Lanham, a senior manager.
Liftoff would be in the wee hours for the next three launch opportunities. While NASA prefers a daytime launch for test flights to capture as many pictures as possible, it’s not a requirement. Radar and infrared cameras should provide ample coverage, said Jim Free, a NASA associate administrator.
The $4.1 billion mission will last close to a month, culminating with a splashdown in the Pacific. Test dummies are on board to measure radiation and vibrations.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX launched its mega Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time in more than three years Tuesday, hoisting satellites for the military and then nailing side-by-side booster landings back near the pad.
Thick fog shrouded NASA’s Kennedy Space Center as the rocket blasted off at midmorning. The crowd at the launch site couldn’t even see the pad three miles (5 kilometers) away, but heard the roar of the 27 first-stage engines.
Both side boosters peeled away two minutes after liftoff, flew back to Cape Canaveral, and landed alongside one another, just a few seconds apart. The core stage was discarded at sea, its entire energy needed to get the Space Force’s satellites to their intended extra-high orbit.
This was SpaceX’s fourth flight of a Falcon Heavy, currently the most powerful rocket in use. The first, in 2018, launched SpaceX chief Elon Musk’s red Tesla convertible; the next two Heavy launches followed in 2019, lifting satellites.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX launched its mega Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time in more than three years Tuesday, hoisting satellites for the military and then nailing side-by-side booster landings back near the pad.
Thick fog shrouded NASA’s Kennedy Space Center as the rocket blasted off at midmorning. The crowd at the launch site couldn’t even see the pad three miles (5 kilometers) away, but heard the roar of the 27 first-stage engines.
Both side boosters peeled away two minutes after liftoff, flew back to Cape Canaveral, and landed alongside one another, just a few seconds apart. The core stage was discarded at sea, its entire energy needed to get the Space Force’s satellites to their intended extra-high orbit.
This was SpaceX’s fourth flight of a Falcon Heavy, currently the most powerful rocket in use. The first, in 2018, launched SpaceX chief Elon Musk’s red Tesla convertible; the next two Heavy launches followed in 2019, lifting satellites.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
BEIJING — China on Monday launched the third and final module to complete its permanent space station and realize a more than decade-long effort to maintain a constant crewed presence in orbit, as its competition with the U.S. grows increasingly fierce.
Mengtian was blasted into space on Monday afternoon from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on the southern island province of Hainan.
A large crowd of amateur photographers, space enthusiasts and others watched the lift-off from an adjoining beach.
Many waved Chinese flags and wore T-shirts emblazoned with the characters for China, reflecting the deep national pride invested in the space program and the technological progress it represents.
“The space program is a symbol of a major country and a boost to the modernization of China’s national defense,” said Ni Lexiong, a professor at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, underscoring the program’s close military links.
“It is also a boost to the confidence of the Chinese people, igniting patriotism and positive energy,” Ni said.
Mengtian, or “Celestial Dream,” joins Wentian as the second laboratory module for the station, collectively known as Tiangong, or “Celestial Palace.” Both are connected to the Tianhe core module where the crew lives and works.
Like its predecessors, Mengtian was launched aboard a Long March-5B Y4 carrier rocket, a member of China’s most powerful family of launch vehicles.
Mengtian was due to spend 13 hours in flight before reaching Tiangong, which is populated by a crew of two male and one female astronauts, according to the China Manned Space Agency.
Chen Dong, Cai Xuzhe and Liu Yang arrived in early June for a six-month stay on board, during which they will complete the station’s assembly, conduct space walks and carry out additional experiments.
Following Mengtian’s arrival, an additional uncrewed Tianzhou cargo craft is due to dock with the station next month, with another crewed mission scheduled for December, at which time crews may overlap as Tiangong has sufficient room to accommodate six astronauts.
Mengtian weighs in at about 20 tons with a length of 17.9 meters (58.7 feet) and a diameter of 4.2 meters (13.8 feet). It will provide space for science experiments in zero gravity, an airlock for exposure to the vacuum of space, and a small robotic arm to support extravehicular payloads.
The already orbiting 23-ton Wentian laboratory is designed for science and biology experiments and is heavier than any other single-module spacecraft currently in space.
Next year, China plans to launch the Xuntian space telescope, which, while not a part of Tiangong, will orbit in sequence with the station and can dock occasionally with it for maintenance.
No other additions to the space station have been publicly announced.
In all, the station will have about 110 cubic meters (3,880 cubic feet) of pressurized interior space.
China’s crewed space program is officially three decades old this year. But it truly got underway in 2003, when China became only the third country after the U.S. and Russia to put a human into space using its own resources.
The program is run by the ruling Communist Party’s military wing, the People’s Liberation Army, and has proceeded methodically and almost entirely without outside support. The U.S. excluded China from the International Space Station because of its program’s military ties.
Prior to launching the Tianhe module, China’s Manned Space Program launched a pair of single-module stations that it crewed briefly as test platforms.
The permanent Chinese station will weigh about 66 tons — a fraction of the size of the International Space Station, which launched its first module in 1998 and weighs around 465 tons.
With a lifespan of 10-15 years, Tiangong could one day find itself the only space station still running if the ISS adheres to its 30-year operating plan.
China has also chalked up successes with uncrewed missions, and its lunar exploration program generated media buzz last year when its Yutu 2 rover sent back pictures of what was described by some as a “mystery hut” but was most likely only a rock. The rover is the first to be placed on the little-explored far side of the moon.
China’s Chang’e 5 probe returned lunar rocks to Earth for the first time since the 1970s in December 2000 and another Chinese rover is searching for evidence of life on Mars. Officials are also considering a crewed mission to the moon.
The program has also drawn controversy. In October 2021, China’s Foreign Ministry brushed off a report that China had tested a hypersonic missile two months earlier, saying it had merely tested whether a new spacecraft could be reused.
China is also reportedly developing a highly secret space plane.
China’s space program has proceeded cautiously and largely gone off without a hitch.
Complaints, however, have been leveled against China for allowing rocket stages to fall to Earth uncontrolled twice before. NASA accused Beijing last year of “failing to meet responsible standards regarding their space debris” after parts of a Chinese rocket landed in the Indian Ocean.
China’s increasing space capabilities also featured in the latest Pentagon defense strategy released Thursday.
“In addition to expanding its conventional forces, the PLA is rapidly advancing and integrating its space, counterspace, cyber, electronic, and informational warfare capabilities to support its holistic approach to joint warfare,” the strategy said.
The U.S. and China are at odds on a range of issues, especially the self-governing island of Taiwan that Beijing threatens to annex with force. China responded to a September visit to Taiwan by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi by firing missiles over the island, holding wargames and staging a simulated blockade.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A Russian cosmonaut who caught a U.S. lift to the International Space Station arrived at her new home Thursday for a five-month stay, accompanied by a Japanese astronaut and two from NASA, including the first Native American woman in space.
The SpaceX capsule pulled up to the station a day after launching into orbit. The linkup occurred 260 miles (420 kilometers) above the Atlantic, just off the west coast of Africa.
It was the first time in 20 years that a Russian hitched a ride from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, the result of a new agreement reached despite friction over the war in Ukraine.
Cosmonaut Anna Kikina joins two Russians already at the orbiting outpost. She’ll live and work on the Russian side until March, before returning to Earth in the same SpaceX capsule.
Riding along with Kikina: Marine Col. Nicole Mann, a member of the Wailacki of the Round Valley Indian Tribes in California, Navy Capt. Josh Cassada and Japan’s Koichi Wakata, the only experienced space flier of the bunch with five missions.
As the capsule closed in, the space station residents promised the new arrivals that their bunks were ready and the outside light was on.
“You guys are the best,” replied Mann, the capsule’s commander.
Mann and her crew will replace three Americans and one Italian who will return in their own SpaceX capsule next week after almost half a year up there. Until then, 11 people will share the orbiting lab.
NASA astronaut Frank Rubio arrived two weeks ago. He launched on a Soyuz rocket from Kazakhstan, kicking off the cash-free crew swapping between NASA and the Russian Space Agency. They agreed to the plan last summer in order to always have an American and Russian at the station.
Until Elon Musk’s SpaceX started launching astronauts two years ago, NASA was forced to spend tens of millions of dollars every time an astronaut flew up on a Soyuz.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.. — For the first time in 20 years, a Russian cosmonaut rocketed from the U.S. on Wednesday, launching to the International Space Station alongside NASA and Japanese astronauts despite tensions over the war in Ukraine.
“We’re so glad to do it together,” said Anna Kikina, Russia’s lone female cosmonaut, offering thanks in both English and Russian. “Spasibo!”
She was among the three newcomers on the flight, alongside Marine Col. Nicole Mann, the first Native American woman to orbit the world, and Navy Capt. Josh Cassada. They were joined by Japan Space Agency’s Koichi Wakata, who is making his fifth spaceflight.
“Awesome!” radioed Mann. “That was a smooth ride uphill. You’ve got three rookies who are pretty happy to be floating in space right now.”
They’re due to arrive at the space station Thursday, 29 hours after a noon departure from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, and won’t be back on Earth until March. They’re replacing a U.S.-Italian crew that arrived in April.
Their SpaceX flight was delayed by Hurricane Ian, which devastated parts of the state last week.
“I hope with this launch we will brighten up the skies over Florida a little bit for everyone,” Wakata said before the flight.
Kikina is the Russian Space Agency’s exchange for NASA’s Frank Rubio, who launched to the space station two weeks ago from Kazakhstan aboard a Soyuz rocket. He flew up with two cosmonauts.
The space agencies agreed over the summer to swap seats on their flights in order to ensure a continuous U.S. and Russian presence aboard the 260-mile-high (420-kilometer-high) outpost. The barter was authorized even as global hostilities mounted over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February. The next crew exchange is in the spring.
Shortly before liftoff, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said that the key reason for the seat exchange is safety — in case an emergency forces one capsule’s crew home, there would still be an American and Russian on board.
In the meantime, Russia remains committed to the space station through at least 2024, Russia space official Sergei Krikalev assured reporters this week. Russia wants to build its own station in orbit later this decade, “but we know that it’s not going to happen very quick and so probably we will keep flying” with NASA until then, he said.
Beginning with Krikalev in 1994, NASA started flying cosmonauts on its space shuttles, first to Russia’s Mir space station and then to the fledgling space station. The 2003 Columbia reentry disaster put an end to it. But U.S. astronauts continued to hitch rides on Russian rockets for tens of millions of dollars per seat.
Kakina is only the fifth Russian woman to rocket off the planet. She said she was surprised to be selected for the seat swap after encountering “many tests and obstacles” during her decade of training. “But I did it. I’m lucky maybe. I’m strong,” she said.
Mann, a member of the Wailacki of the Round Valley Indian Tribes in California, took along her mother’s dream catcher, a small traditional webbed hoop believed to offer protection. Retired NASA astronaut John Herrington of the Chickasaw Nation became the first Native American in space in 2002.
“I am very proud to represent Native Americans and my heritage,” Mann said before the flight, adding that everyone on her crew has a unique background. “It’s important to celebrate our diversity and also realize how important it is when we collaborate and unite, the incredible accomplishments that we can have.”
As for the war in Ukraine, Mann said all four have put politics and personal beliefs aside, “and it’s really cool how the common mission of the space station just instantly unites us.”
Added Cassada: “We have an opportunity to be an example for society on how to work together and live together and explore together.”
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has now launched eight crews since 2020: six for NASA and two private groups. Boeing, NASA’s other contracted taxi service, plans to make its first astronaut flight early next yea r, after delays to fix software and other issues that cropped up on test flights.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
VANDENBERG SPACE FORCE BASE, Calif. — A new aerospace company reached orbit with its second rocket launch and deployed multiple small satellites on Saturday.
Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, in early morning darkness and arced over the Pacific.
“100% mission success,” Firefly tweeted later.
A day earlier, an attempt to launch abruptly ended when the countdown reached zero. The first-stage engines ignited but the rocket automatically aborted the liftoff.
The rocket’s payload included multiple small satellites designed for a variety of technology experiments and demonstrations, as well as educational purposes.
The mission, dubbed “To The Black,” was the company’s second demonstration flight of its entry into the market for small satellite launchers.
The first Alpha was launched from Vandenberg on Sept. 2, 2021, but did not reach orbit.
One of the four first-stage engines shut down prematurely but the rocket continued upward on three engines into the supersonic realm where it tumbled out of control.
The rocket was then intentionally destroyed by an explosive flight termination system.
Firefly Aerospace said the premature shutdown was traced to an electrical issue, but that the rocket had otherwise performed well and useful data was obtained during the nearly 2 1/2 minutes of flight.
Alpha is designed to carry payloads weighing as much as 2,579 pounds (1,170 kilograms) to low Earth orbit.
Other competitors in the burgeoning small-launch market include Rocket Lab and Virgin Orbit, both headquartered in Long Beach, California.
Firefly Aerospace, based in Cedar Park, Texas, is also planning a larger rocket, a vehicle for in-space operations and a lander for carrying NASA and commercial payloads to the surface of the moon.
VANDENBERG SPACE FORCE BASE, Calif. (AP) — A classified satellite for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office launched into orbit aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta 4 Heavy rocket on Saturday.
The NROL-91 spy satellite lifted off at 3:25 p.m. from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California’s Santa Barbara County.
It was the last launch of a Delta 4 from the West Coast. Additional launches are planned from Florida before the Deltas are replaced by ULA’s next-generation Vulcan Centaur rockets.
The Delta IV Heavy configuration first launched in December 2004. This was the 387th flight of a Delta rocket since 1960 and the 95th and final launch from Vandenberg.
The National Reconnaissance Office is the government agency in charge of developing, building, launching and maintaining U.S. spy satellites that provide intelligence data to policymakers, the intelligence community and Defense Department.
