Starbridge Weekly Space Update for 4/24/2023

Portfolio News

Axiom

Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS)

Lynk/Orbital Sidekick

Orbital Sidekick

  • Hyperspectral imaging startups bet the best way to observe the ground is from space
    “Instead of three color bands, we have 500 color bands. What that allows us to do is effectively chemically fingerprint each object in our data set because everything reflects and absorbs light in a unique manner,” Dan Katz, CEO and co-founder of Orbital Sidekick, told Tech Brew. “We’re able to see [those] reflectance and absorption features because they have all of that spectral information.”

    Katz said that chemical fingerprinting is helpful when examining things that the human eye and more traditional imagery cannot, like methane and oil leaks. Orbital Sidekick’s Global Hyperspectral Observation Satellite (GHOSt) constellation is designed to provide fresh data every week, and Katz said the company plans to grow the constellation to 14 satellites within the next few years.

SpaceX Starship Launch

SpaceX’s first test flight of the fully stacked Starship and Super Heavy booster on April 20th (yes, that was 4/20 🚬) was the #1 space news event of last week. The response was 'Awesome test flight! Good job!' from those in the space industry vs. clickbait media headlines stating 'SPACEX ROCKET EXPLODES' and 'ROCKET FAILURE'. It was clear that the public did not understand the purpose of test flights and had rarely ever seen what early spacecraft (or even aircraft) development looks like.

SpaceX (and Elon himself) predicted a very low probability that their first Starship rocket would make it to its planned 'near orbit'.  Leading up to the launch, Elon himself gave Starship a 50/50 chance of even making it off of the launch pad. SpaceX's main goal with this initial launch was to gather valuable data on hardware that had never flown and then apply that to future launches. Remember, the Falcon 1 rocket failed 3 times before its first successful launch and to date, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket has had 162 consecutive successful missions which is far more successful than any other rocket in history.

On to the actual test flight itself, the countdown was fairly uneventful with a planned hold at T-40 seconds for final fuel top-off. At T-6 seconds the booster ignited its engines which came up to full thrust. This part of the launch was significantly obscured due to a huge billowing cloud of sand. A subsequent video showed that at this point large chunks of concrete and other debris from the launch pad and tower were coming off and landing in various places around Starbase and the nearby ocean.

In the image here the brown-colored smoke-like clouds are not actually exhaust from the engines but sand and debris kicked up by the force of the engine exhaust. People in Port Isabel near Padre Island reported sand falling from the sky. 

At about T+4 Starship began to rise out of the cloud and while at first glance it looked fairly solid, it became clear that several Raptor engines had been automatically shut down. Things seemed solid until about T+30 when debris began to fall from the outer skirt of the booster. At T+36 the plume became very bright as something, either a hydraulic system or a Raptor experience a catastrophic failure. That began a slow failure that may have prevented stage separation and finally resulted in insufficient control authority to keep the stack oriented correctly. Once it was clear that the system had lost attitude control the self-destruct was initiated.

Here you can see how many engines were out on the 'nominal' part of the assent. 

Details that SpaceX shared showed that the system itself was robust and able to survive significant aerodynamic stress and multiple engine failures. SpaceX’s estimates of the damage to the launch stand and the surrounding infrastructure were significantly lower than reality and that the launch pad itself will require significant repairs.

On Thursday it was reported that the FAA grounded Starship pending an investigation into impacts on public safety, which is a standard FAA response to any significantly off-nominal launch.

SpaceX also shared that the Starships and Super Heavy boosters in the high bays waiting for test flights have significant modifications that would have prevented some of the failures seen during the test flight. Hence the reason why SpaceX staff were very happy with the test flight. The press and public view was that SpaceX employees must be delusional to be so happy about what looked to them like a complete failure. This disconnect will continue until SpaceX can prove to the public and the US Government that, just as with the Falcon 9, the process works.

In the meantime, enjoy these photos taken at the Starship launch by John Kraus Photos. You can see which Raptor engines failed right at launch, and as the flight continues which additional ones failed.  

 

General Space News

Tokyo company aims to be 1st business to put lander on moon

Some may be surprised to hear that there is a good chance that the first commercial company to land on the Moon will be a Japanese company, not an American one. Tokyo’s ispace put its own spacecraft into orbit around the moon a month ago. On Tuesday the Hakuto lander (Japanese for white rabbit) will descend from a 100-kilometer low Lunar orbit and land in Atlas crater which is in the northeast part of the Moon, to the southeast of Mare Frigoris. Ispace is one of the few remaining Google Lunar Xprize teams and, it appears, the only team to actually get to the Moon.

The two-meter lander is carrying the United Arab Emirates’ Rashid lunar rover and a toylike robot from Japan designed to roll around in the moon dust. 

NASA has established a new consortium for developing satellite servicing technologies.

Early last year the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy released two national strategies related to In-space Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing (ISAM): the ISAM National Strategy (April 2022) and the National ISAM Implementation Plan (December 2022). The implementation plan included a directive that NASA “convene a national consortium to improve communication between government, industry, and academia. Assemble stakeholders including Federal agencies, universities, non-profit research institutions, industry groups, existing ISAM organizations, non-traditional providers, and commercial companies – particularly, the space start-up community – to assess ISAM opportunities and needs. Incentivize industry collaboration and encourage adoption of open standards as appropriate”. Your Starbridge team will be participating in the Consortium in order to keep tabs on the growth and development of this segment.

 

Other Space News