SpaceX successfully launched three Falcon 9 rockets in rapid-fire fashion over the weekend, putting 67 Starlink satellites into orbit within three days after receiving approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to resume launches following a rare flight failure on July 11.
SpaceX began its return to flight by launching 23 Starlink internet satellites from the Kennedy Space Center early Saturday, followed by a second Starlink launch from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station early Sunday that put 23 more broadband relay stations into orbit. The third Falcon 9 was launched a few hours later from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
All three flights seemed to go off without a hitch.
NASA is counting on Falcon 9s to launch a Northrop Grumman Cygnus supply ship to the International Space Station on August 3, followed by a SpaceX Crew Dragon flight to carry three agency astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut to the lab around August 18.
The second stage to be used with the pilot flight, called Crew 9, will be tested in the coming days at the SpaceX facility near McGregor, Texas, to verify that the company’s corrective action will not have any unintended consequences.
“It’s going to undergo a second stage hot fire around July 30, and that’s really to check out some of the new modifications that the vehicle will have as a result of the anomaly,” said Steve Stich, Crew Program manager Commercial NASA. Friday.
“We are following step by step with that investigation that is underway by the FAA, SpaceX has been very transparent, our teams have been embedded in the investigation and after all the changes to that booster.”
The space agency has not yet formally cleared those flights for launch, but SpaceX’s successful return to flight this weekend will no doubt play a role in the eventual decision.
Boeing engineers also had a busy weekend, and managed to test 27 maneuvering trucks in the company. The Starliner capsule is now closed at the International Space Station.
The tests verified good performance with the reaction control system — RCS — thrusters that ran into problems earlier and confirmed that known helium leaks in the capsule’s propulsion system remained stable and had not worsened .
The tests indicate that the thrusters will function properly during the ship’s eventual return to Earth.
“The single-pulse firing was designed to confirm the performance of each thruster,” Boeing wrote in an update. “Between each shot, the team reviewed real-time data and all thrusters performed at peak thrust rating values.
“The helium system also remained stable,” the company said. “Also, a previously unseated RCS oxidation isolation valve was cycled several times during testing (Saturday) and is now operating normally.”
Launched on June 5 on the first piloted test flight of the spacecraft, the Starliner crew — commander Barry “Butch” Wilmore and co-pilot Sunita Williams — originally expected to spend about 8 days in space.
The mission is now nearly two months behind due to work to fix thruster problems and five helium leaks, one detected before launch and four that developed during the capsule’s rendezvous with the space station .
NASA is expected to conduct a major review later this week to assess the test data and determine the ship’s readiness to safely return Wilmore and Williams to Earth.
As for SpaceX and the Falcon 9, the company blamed the July 11 failure on a crack in an upper sensor line, caused by a loose bracket and metal fatigue, which led to a liquid oxygen leak.
The leak, in turn, caused very low temperatures in the plumbing of the engine, slowing down the fluid flow necessary to restart the power plant during the second planned “stream.”
Instead, the engine suffered a “hard start” that damaged multiple components, preventing the rocket from achieving its planned orbit. Although the stage remained intact, the Starlinks it carried into space were released into a much lower orbit than intended and subsequently burned up in the atmosphere.
Sarah Walker, a senior manager at SpaceX, said on Friday that the “sense line” was unnecessary and would be removed from rockets downstream. She said the data it provided was available from other telemetry sources on the rocket.
Regarding Crew Dragon pilot flights, she added, the second stage engine only fails once and the leak that derailed the Starlink launch would not be a factor in a crewed flight. In any case, the fitting will be removed to leak.
“I am extremely confident in the team, the integrated approach in which NASA is incorporated in the response,” said Nick Hague, Crew 9 co-pilot and veteran of the aborted Russian Soyuz launch. “And I’m excited to strap on the rocket when the team decides it’s time to go.”
He said the team was training at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California, the day after the Starlink launch anomaly occurred “and from the beginning they engaged us in the conversation and told us everything they knew.”
The Federal Aviation Administration, which is responsible for licensing US launches, agreed with SpaceX’s analysis of the failure, concluding “there were no public safety issues involved.”
“This public safety decision means that the Falcon 9 vehicle can return to flight operations while the full investigation is open, provided all other license requirements are met,” the FAA said in a statement.
In addition to providing an update on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 near-term plans, Walker also addressed an unexpected issue with debris from Crew Dragon’s trunk sections that managed to survive the heat of re-entry to hit the ground.
The trunk section, equipped with solar cells, helps power the Crew Dragon in space and carries external payloads into orbit in an unpressurized environment.
Before re-entering, the stock is released. The crew capsule, equipped with a heat shield, then fires its braking rockets to drop out of orbit for a precisely aimed sea splash. The stock continues in a low orbit and eventually makes an uncontrolled re-entry.
Early in the program, the engineers concluded that the entire trunk would burn up completely during re-entry. But on several occasions, a fairly large, charred chunk of trunk debris has survived to hit the ground.
Return to Crew Dragon astronauts and cargo Dragon supply ships recently launched on a splashdown off the coast of Florida, in the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic Ocean.
Walker said SpaceX now plans to move all Crew Dragon cargo and splashdown to the Pacific Ocean off the West Coast. The trunk sections will now be jettisoned after the deorbit rocket is fired, ensuring that they will fall back into the atmosphere around the same area as the crew and cargo capsules, that is, well offshore.
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