Bigger, badder beasts (3/7/23)

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Today’s newsletter: 💭 Ukraine responds to Vega C findings 💥 H3 launch ends in failure🚀 Ursa Major, Vector, and Pathfinder🔁 People on the move

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Ukraine Contests Findings of Vega C Independent Inquiry

Ukraine’s space agency has questioned the findings of an independent inquiry formed to investigate the failure of a Vega C launch vehicle last December. The failure resulted in the loss of two Airbus Pléiades Neo Earth observation satellites.

The independent inquiry’s findings

Following a successful first stage separation and second stage ignition, a progressive decrease in the chamber pressure of the stage was observed 151 seconds into Vega C flight VV22 on December 20, 2022. The mission failed shortly thereafter. 

After reviewing flight data, an independent panel set up by Arianespace and the European Space Agency (ESA) concluded that the Zefiro 40 second stage had suffered an unexpected thermo-mechanical over-erosion of a throat insert.

The statement: In its response to the findings of the independent inquiry, the State Space Agency of Ukraine stated that all products delivered by its space industry “were completely compliant with the requirements imposed.” This may very well have been the case.

Speaking at a March 3 media briefing, inquiry co-chair Giovanni Colangelo stated that the carbon-carbon material used for the Vega C qualification testing and the inaugural flight was better than required. The material aboard the failed V22 flight was exactly to spec, indicating an issue with the specifications rather than the material. 

According to Giulio Ranzo, CEO of Avio, which is the industrial prime contractor for the Vega and Vega C launchers, the company had already been working on sourcing an alternative for the Yuzhnoye-supplied carbon-carbon material in an effort to mitigate supply chain uncertainties prompted by the war in Ukraine.

A failure to communicate

Despite indicating that the quality control of Yuzhnoye wasn’t the root cause during the media briefing, the ESA press release that accompanied the briefing appears to indicate the opposite.

“Additional investigations led to the conclusion that this was likely due to a flaw in the homogeneity of the material,” states the release. “The Commission has therefore concluded that this specific C-C material can no longer be used for flight.”

Considering the fact that a superior version of the material performed well during Vega C testing and its maiden mission, Yuzhnoye has demonstrated that it is capable of producing a flight-ready throat. The press release also does not once mention the fact that Avio had been sourcing alternatives even prior to the failure of flight VV22. 

H3 Fails on Second Debut Attempt

Last night, JAXA’s H3 rocket debut ended in failure. The Japanese space agency was forced to send termination commands to the launcher a few minutes into the flight, when the engine on the second stage failed to ignite.

The road so far: JAXA has been building the H3 rocket, intended as a less expensive successor to the H2-A, since 2013. The expendable rocket has similar lift capabilities to its predecessor and to the Falcon 9, and the agency originally targeted a price point of $51M per launch. H3 is intended to work for both commercial and government missions.

Since the H3 program began a decade ago, JAXA and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the rocket’s prime contractor, have sunk $1.5B into development.

Kaboom: JAXA launched H3 last night at 8:37pm ET from Tanegashima Space Center. The rocket appeared to fly nominally at first, but about seven minutes after launch, commentators on the livestream reported that the rocket was losing velocity. 

The second stage engine had failed to ignite. 

Fourteen minutes into the flight, JAXA sent a destroy command. The second stage and its payload, the ALOS-3 EO satellite, fell into the ocean off the coast of the Philippines.

Looking forward: We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again—space is hard. 

“Our top priority is to do everything we can to find the cause and regain the trust in our rockets,” JAXA President Hiroshi Yamakawa said at a post-mission press conference. “We need to figure out what we should do to successfully achieve the next launch.”

A Space Scooplet and Pathfinder #0038 with Joe Laurienti

Ursa Major has struck a deal to supply Vector Launch with “several” propulsion systems, the company tells Payload. Ursa’s Hadley engines will power the main stage of the Vector-R launch vehicle in future national security demonstration missions. 

A word on Vector: The seven-year-old startup, which has raised more than $180M, declared bankruptcy in 2019. The thought-to-be-dead rocket developer is in fact not dead, and last October, tweeted a photo of Vector-R, with strong “rumors of my demise were greatly exaggerated” vibes: 

That first mission, according to Vector, will demonstrate its liquid-fueled rocket technology…and a responsive mobile Transporter Erector Launcher (TEL), a remotely controlled command subsystem, and reusable launch hardware.

Where Ursa Major comes in: The pure-play propulsion provider will supply Vector with Hadley, its 5,000-pound thrust, oxygen-rich staged combustion engine. 

A deep dive on Ursa Major

For today’s Pathfinder podcast, we speak with Ursa Major CEO Joe Laurienti. Joe cut his teeth at SpaceX and Blue Origin before setting out on his own and starting Ursa Major in 2015. The Colorado company raised $85M in December 2021 and started ramping engine production last year. It has two bigger, badder beasts in the works: Ripley, Hadley’s bigger sister, is 10X more powerful. Arroway, which is further out, is a 200,000-pound thrust, liquid oxygen and methane staged combustion engine. 

Joe and Ryan talk about the startup’s primary products; its origin story; and how big of a market Ursa Major believes it’s going after. We also discuss: 

• Where headcount, production, and sales currently stand

• Ursa Major’s propulsion tech and production processes

• Reverse engineering the startup’s strategy 

• Flipping the playbook of vertical integration on its head 

• Ursa Major’s partnership with Vector, Phantom, Stratolaunch, and others

• Our Max Q questions: How many launch companies will really make it? Is small launch viable? Is the $4.7B sticker price of Aerojet Rocketdyne a valuation ceiling for companies building engines? How could Ursa Major become more valuable?

Pathfinder #0038 is live now…

…check it out on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or desktop. And let us know what you think!

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Heading to Satellite 2023 in Washington? Join MDA’s CEO Mike Greenley at the Monday Luncheon on March 13 for his thoughts on the growing and evolving space and satellite market.

In Other News

• Innospace announced its HANBIT-TLV rocket will launch between March 7 and March 21. 

• Iran and Russia will cooperate to launch Kowsar, an imaging satellite, according to a report in Iranian media. 

• Fast Co named its ten most innovative space companies of 2023: NASA, Axiom, Capella, Terran Orbital, Ursa Major, Firefly, Benchmark, Pixxel, Epsilon3, and SpinLaunch.

• Chinese arms of top Silicon Valley VCs have backed startups in China that are working in launch, EO, and satellite manufacturing, according to a recent TechCrunch report.

• Firehawk completed the first firing of its hybrid rocket engine in Midland, TX. 

• Correction: In yesterday’s Payload, we incorrectly stated that Vega C had experienced three failures in eight launch attempts. What we meant to say is that there have been three failures in eight flights of the Vega/Vega C launch vehicles, not just the Vega C rocket. We apologize for the error.

On the Move

• Japan announced two new astronaut candidates, Makoto Suwa and Ayu Yoneda. Suwa is a disaster risk management specialist at the World Bank and Yoneda is a surgeon at the Japanese Red Cross Medical Center (via Payload).

• UNIO Enterprise, a German LEO broadband satellite developer, named Katrin Bacic as its CEO. Bacic previously served as chief strategy officer of Wayra.

• Karman formed an advisory board, which includes retired NASA astronaut Anthony Antonelli, retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel Rich Choppa, and government affairs professional Jack Czerwinski.

• AIAA elected Daniel Hastings president. Hastings is currently an aeronautics professor at MIT, a post he has held for the last 37 years. 

• NorthStar brought on David Saint-Germain, former CTO at Hilo, as its new COO. 

• OffWorld tapped Kyle Acierno to helm its new European HQ in Luxembourg. Acierno was formerly chief executive of ispace. 

The View from the Space Coast

Astranis’ Arcturus satellite completed a cross-country journey from SF to Cape Canaveral, arriving at its destination on Monday morning. In a month, a Falcon Heavy will deploy the ridesharing MicroGEO satellite in a direct-inject GEO launch.