Weekly Space Report: SpaceX, Intuitive Machines, Jaxa, RocketLab, Varda Space

SCANALYZER The Happening World
, , , ,
1

Highlights:

  • Starship and its booster both destacked and move off the launch pad. No public reasons given, and new windscreen on the Boca Chica megabay is reducing opportunities to see what’s happening. ):

  • Tower #2 components arrive at Boca Chica by barge. Ground preparations proceeding.

  • Intuitive Machines Odysseus Lander report. Turns out to be on its side after all, but with good solar cell exposure.

  • Falcon 9 launches a geosynchronous satellite for Telkomsat, and another batch of Starlinks. The latter mission was the 19th flight of booster 1061, and SpaceX mentioned that one of its engines was its 22nd flight.

  • Jaxa’s second attempt to launch its new H3 rocket was a complete success, through deployment of multiple payloads.

  • RocketLab successfully launched the ADRAS-J space debris removal research mission.

  • Varda Space successfully returned its pharma samples after gaining approval last week.

2 Likes
2

Maybe it is an obvious no to everyone else, but I was wondering if there is any chance the lander can “fix” itself?

1 Like
3

If it had any “self-righting” capabilities, I’m sure IM would have been expounding on it. (“bragging”)

3 Likes
4

With two recent cases of falling over, I am surprised that self-righting mechanisms ae not standard. Given the low gravity, there would not be a huge weight penalty to right something with a mass of 1000Kg

3 Likes
5

Yeah, pretty sure the cocky bastards who designed both of them didn’t expect their baby to gently keel over. Creating an impact crater was a more plausible outcome.

I would expect new projects to consider it.

5 Likes
6

The recent ones that went splat never had the chance to tip over.

5 Likes