The Orbital Index

Artemis I update.

• Artemis I’s launch tower and deluge systems performed as designed. The tower sustained some minor damage, particularly to the elevator (blew the doors off), which will be repaired before the next launch.
• Orion entered its Distant Retrograde Orbit— here’s a great visualization of Orion’s counter-intuitive orbital trajectory. 
• Orion can autonomously return home if it loses contact with Earth.
• OMOTENASHI indeed was unable to be commanded to perform a landing burn— its operators hope that it has a stable spin axis and that enough sunlight will reach it in the spring to establish comms and undertake secondary mission objectives. 
• Last week we reported that LunaH-Map (lunar ice mapping via a hydrogen neutron detector) was working fine. However, on Nov 21 the craft failed to perform a propulsive maneuver during its lunar flyby. The team suspects a partially-stuck valve and will attempt to free it via heating—if this works and they can conduct a maneuver within the next few months, the spacecraft’s scientific mission may still be possible. As always, space is hard. (Related: A review of all the ways lunar spacecraft and landers have broken prematurely.)
• Along with spaceflight enthusiasts everywhere, we’re enjoying this moment— the first human-rated spacecraft to fly by the Moon in 50 years (and the furthest one has ever gone, breaking Apollo 13’s distance record).

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SpaceX hits 52. This week, a Falcon 9 launched an ISS resupply mission—on board what SpaceX says is the final new Cargo Dragon they plan to build were two more iROSA roll-out solar arrays, some CubeSats to be chucked out the station’s airlock, as well as plant growth and astronaut blood analysis experiments. With this CRS-26 launch, SpaceX broke its goal of launching one Falcon 9 per week in 2022—it was the 52nd Falcon 9 to fly in 2022 and, coincidentally, the 52nd mission to launch from the Florida coast this year. Last month, Falcon 9, which is on a streak of 158 successful launches since the Amos-6 RUD, also became the single vehicle with the most launches in a year, beating out the Soyuz-U which launched 47 times (including two failures) in 1979. Falcon Heavy added one additional launch to the tally and, with up to 11 more F9s before the new year, the company could end up as much as doubling its previous record of 31 launches from 2021. A cherry on top would be an orbital launch for Starship—Booster 7, with 8 and 9 waiting in the wings, is scheduled to conduct its long-awaited 33-engine static fire this week—although the likelihood of a launch happening in December seems faint due to the need for an FAA launch license.

News in brief. CAPSTONE has completed its series of maneuvers and is in its target near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) around the Moon, testing out the planned orbit for Gateway ● Russia launched the final GLONASS-M navigation sat ● For only the sixth time, we spotted an asteroid in space before it impacted the Earth—seven minutes later, the 1 meter-wide 2022 WJ1 streaked across the sky over Lake Ontario ● A Falcon 9 launched Eutelsat-10B to GEO, a comms sat which required expending the first stage—SpaceX’s oldest F9, in service since 2018 ● China plans to use its space station’s robotic arm to assemble a space-based solar power test satellite by 2028 ● China launched a Yaogan-36 EO satellite on a Long March 2D ● Terrestrial 3D-printing-for-construction company ICON won a $57M NASA SBIR Phase III award to continue development of their Project Olympus 3D lunar regolith printing system ● German startup Polaris’s 3.5-meter-long spaceplane demonstrator built for the German Armed Forces took its first flight ● An Indian PSLV took nine satellites to SSO—the primary payload was the 1-ton ocean-monitoring Oceansat-2, joined by four Astrocast IoT demonstrators, an EO camera tech demo from startup Pixxel, two amateur radio satellites, and a small EO satellite from Bhutan ● South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol announced plans for a domestic space agency—Korea Aerospace Administration (KASA)—with proposed lunar and Martian missions ● Shenzhou-15 took three Chinese astronauts to Tiangong, its first crew rotation where both crews are onboard the station at once.

Etc.

• Numerical modeling combined with GPS and satellite data shows northeast Greenland losing six times more ice by the end of the century than previously thought (paper).
• Yet another call for action related to satellite constellations and their significant harm to ground-based astronomy. (Missing link added from last week.)
• A 2016 JAXA study on the psychological impact of prolonged stays in space was recently found to have had its data altered. JAXA astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, scheduled for an upcoming long-duration mission to the ISS, was leading the project, although he had no involvement in the data falsification.
• NASA is testing a design for a crumpling high-velocity landing shield that could allow small rovers to simply crash land on Mars and survive. Think of it as a really advanced egg drop challenge (like this one… from space).
• Launched on an Atlas 5 in 2006 (video), New Horizons holds the record for the fastest spacecraft at launch, clocking in at 16.26 km/s. Its launch put it directly on a solar-escape trajectory, passing the Moon in 9 hours—Apollo missions took 3 days and Orion took about 6 for Artemis I. New Horizons spent just 9.5 years reaching Pluto, maxing out at ~23 km/s after a gravity assist from Jupiter that cut its travel time by 3 years compared to an alternate direct flight option. (On the other hand, Parker Solar Probe has by far the fastest heliocentric velocity. It’s all relative, man.)