Astronaut internet (7/21/22)

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In today's newsletter:🌐 Moon Wi-Fi🗓️ Artemis I dates🚀 Horizontal launch📝 The contract report

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Wi-Fi for Artemis Crews?

While government-operated orbital outposts may not have the amenities of future private stations, in-space internet, it would appear, will be table stakes.

Driving the news: NASA’s Lunar Gateway module, set to begin launching in a few years, will serve as a comms hub, a research lab, short-term living quarters for astronauts, and a holding bay for rovers and other Moon-bound machines.

• Northrop Grumman is the prime contractor for Gateway’s HALO module.

• HALO = the Habitation and Logistics Outpost. It will be the first crewed module for Artemis-era astronauts from the US, Europe, Japan, and Canada.

Earlier this week, Northrop announced that it had subcontracted Solstar Space, a five-year-old startup, to provide two-way internet services for HALO and the lunar orbiting space station. Solstar’s bread and butter = developing “Wi-Fi Access Points” that could eventually be put to use on satellites, orbital outposts, and space vehicles.

We had a chance to catch up with Brian Barnett, Solstar’s founder and CEO, to hear a bit more about in-space internet, tweeting from LEO, and the complexities of extending wireless access points to a lunar orbit. We’re including a few snippets below, but head here to read the full Q+A.

How would you describe your product? We are developing the first Wi-Fi Access Point designed for use in human-rated capsules in Earth and lunar orbit. We are also developing a line of “space communicators” that would allow persistent communication with space-based assets from any internet-connected device.

Beyond the demands of the day job, do you have any ideas for how astronauts in the HALO module may use your Wi-Fi? Netflix? Twitter? FaceTime? The main use of our Wi-Fi will be for official NASA business to provide critical communications between the astronauts and mission control at JSC and payload support from Huntsville. Having said that, we expect there will be a fair amount of social media use, as well as the occasional FaceTime with family members, as we know how important this is for the astronauts’ state of mind.

Do you intend to bring Wi-Fi to the surface of the Moon? Yes we do! We’re developing a product specifically designed to be radiation hardened. With this added capability, our Wi-Fi Access Points could conceivably be used on the Moon, on Mars, and beyond.

Read the full Q+A here.

A Launch Date for Artemis I

The wait is almost over.

Yesterday NASA finally announced a target launch date for the debut flight of SLS, aka Artemis I. The agency’s giant moon rocket is set to roll out to the pad on Aug. 18 and could launch on either Aug. 29, Sep. 2, or Sep. 5.

The story so far: It’s been a long time coming for the first flight of SLS. The rocket is launching behind schedule and over budget, but it is finally launching. NASA ended the final wet dress rehearsal for SLS at T-29 seconds, declaring the test successful and saying it had enough data to fix any outstanding problems before launch.

The agency is planning a Flight Readiness Review on August 22, at which point it will determine whether it will launch the rocket on one of the newly announced target dates. If it’s not declared ready or if launch is scrubbed on those dates due to weather, the next window opens in November. We’ve got our fingers crossed for the first attempt.

Artemis I: The first mission in the Artemis program will be an uncrewed demo flight, lasting 38-42 days and sending the Orion capsule on a trajectory around the Moon before splashing back down in the Pacific.

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Astraius Looks to US for Rocket Engines

UK-based horizontal launch startup Astraius has selected Northrop Grumman and Exquadrum to supply three rocket motors for its vehicle.

• Northrop will supply the first and second-stage rocket motors.

• California-based Exquadrum will supply the upper-stage rocket motor.

Buy vs. build: "From Day 1, we decided the best way to reduce risk, lower cost, and quickly deliver results for our customers was to partner wherever possible with companies who have a clear history of success,” Astraius VP of engineering and program execution Shane Clark told Payload. “Astraius will deliver an industry-leading capability by combining proven technologies and minimizing the need for new development.”

Northrop is no solid rocket motor stranger. The company supplies boosters for NASA's big orange rocket (SLS) and the Orion spacecraft, along with commercial vehicles like Pegasus, Antares, Delta IV, Atlas V, and ULA’s next-gen Vulcan launch vehicle.

The company will supply Astraius with Orion solid rocket motors originally developed for the Pegasus launch vehicle. Variants of the motors have since been put to use on the Pegasus XL, Taurus, Minotaur, Hyper-X, Taurus Lite, and Taurus XL vehicles.

Exquadrum, although not as well known, is also an experienced propulsion provider, having built a roster of customers that includes the US Air Force, DARPA, and NASA.

The company will supply a motor based on its TopFuel technology, which utilizes "liquid monopropellant to augment and control a solid rocket motor enabling a wide range of throttleabilty and energy management capability."

• Exquadrum developed TopFuel as part of a $15.1M DARPA contract. The technology was initially intended to be used with hypersonic boost glide weapons, but was later proposed as an integrated lunar transfer stage for NASA.

Next steps: Astraius plans to launch its three-stage rocket from an “unmodified” C-17 cargo plane. The smallsat launcher will be capable of delivering 800kg to orbit. Astraius is targeting a first flight in 2024 from the Prestwick Spaceport in Scotland.

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Explore the MP42 Microsatellite Bus from NanoAvionics

NanoAvionics recently took the first ever 4K resolution full satellite selfie in space with an immersive view of Earth using a GoPro Hero 7 mounted on a selfie stick. The selfie shows the company’s MP42 microsatellite.

NanoAvionics offers end-to-end services starting at custom satellite bus build for all your mission needs.

MP42 microsatellite buses are available in three different configurations:

• MP42 – standard microsatellite bus

• MP42H – the smallest and lightest configuration

• MP42D – the biggest microsatellite bus

MP42 buses are highly versatile – their performance capabilities are optimized for remote sensing, high data throughput & complex communications missions, emergency communications, and fundamental research missions. All requiring minimal reconfiguration.

In Other News

• Boeing’s ($BA) Millennium Space was able to control the orbital spacing of three satellites using only atmospheric drag techniques over a two-year, DARPA-funded experiment.

• Stoke Space shared a few updates on its quest to develop a fully reusable rocket. We spoke with Stoke CEO Andy Lapsa in December when the startup announced a $65M seed round.

• A majority of the American public thinks the $10B JWST was a somewhat or very good investment, according to polling from YouGov.

• RFA shared raw footage of its 40-second Helix hot 🔥 test.

The View from the Moon

Here’s one of the ‘grams posted by the Apollo 11 crew back in 1969. iPhone cameras were so bad back then! And yes, International Moon Day came and went yesterday, but we’re still basking in the lunar glory. Sorry not sorry.