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In today's newsletter:👨‍🚀 Spacesuit woes🚀 Skyrora test fire📝 The contract report

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Spacewalk Terminated

All is not well with the spacesuits aboard the ISS.

Yesterday, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev was instructed by Roscosmos ground control to “drop everything and go back” to the ISS when he was three hours into a spacewalk. The issue: a flaw in the Orlan EVA suit’s electrical system that caused an unexpected drop in the suit’s battery levels.

• Artemyev was able to return safely to the airlock and connect with station power. “I think we need some solar panels on the Orlans,” he said after returning.

• After the spacewalk was safely terminated and both Artemyev and fellow crew member Denis Matveev were back aboard the station, NASA wrote in a blog post that Artemyev “was never in any danger.”

Suits are made for walking: The two cosmonauts had ventured out to make upgrades to the European Robotic Arm, which has been aboard the station. They successfully installed two cameras and removed thermal insulation and a launch restraint. After Artemyev was instructed to return to the station, cosmonaut Sergey Korsakov returned the arm to its correct position from inside the station, and Matveev ended his spacewalk early.

Getting up in age: The Russian Orlan suit isn’t the only one that’s had issues recently. On a spacewalk in March, ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer came back from a spacewalk with water in his helmet, and in May, NASA paused all its spacewalks off the ISS.

• Russia uses its own spacesuits on the ISS and didn’t pause spacewalks when NASA did.

On NASA’s end, new in-house and commercial EVA suits are in the works. NASA is building its own through the Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit (xEMU) program, and recently contracted Axiom and Collins to build their own versions.

The upshot: Though Roscosmos has announced its intentions to leave the ISS to build its own space station after 2024, NASA is still set on extending the outpost’s operations through 2030. One way or another, the partner agencies are going to need the EVA suits in working order to maintain the station in the coming years.

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Skyrora Goes Mobile

Skyrora has test fired the second stage of its three-stage Skyrora XL rocket. The successful test comes on the heels of the UK-based launch startup opening its new 55,000-square-foot production facility in Cumbernauld, Scotland.

Skyrora XL 101:

• 22.7m tall and 2.2m wide

• Capable of launching 315kg payloads

• Third stage can be swapped out for a space tug for added mission flexibility

• Powered by Ecosene, which is made from recycled plastic waste

In preparation for its maiden flight in 2023, Skyrora conducted a second-stage hot fire test at the Machrihanish Airbase in Scotland. The company used a containerized test platform that enabled teams to construct a mobile test stand and complete the test within a few days.

“This hugely successful test was a definitive demonstration of our mobility and flexibility,” said Skyrora COO Lee Rosen. “Our Skyrora team went from clean tarmac to a full static fire test in just 2.5 days, bringing all the necessary equipment from our factory in Cumbernauld and test site near Gorebridge.”

During the test, the 70 kN Skyforce rocket engine was fired for 20 seconds and, according to Skyrora, performed “within design margins and achieved the expected thrust.”

What's next? The first stage of the Skyrora XL rocket is currently under construction. A hot fire test of the stage is expected to take place in mid-2023, setting up a maiden flight later that year from the SaxaVord Spaceport in northern Scotland.

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It's Time For Another Marketing Webinar with Ari

The Payload team is excited to be hosting a webinar on "Picking a PR Agency for Space Companies." In this conversation, we will be talking about how to choose and best interact with a PR agency for optimal success.

Topics will include:

• PR overview in the space industry

• How to shop around for and choose the best PR agency for your strategic needs

• How to work with the agency to maximize your ROI

• Best practices on releasing press releases and working with journalists

In Other News

• HawkEye 360 announced that its Cluster 4 and 5 satellites have completed commissioning and begun commercial operations. These clusters double the company’s data collection capacity.

• NASA’s Lucy mission team found a moonlet orbiting the asteroid Polymele, which travels alongside Jupiter around the Sun.

• AST SpaceMobile will launch the first satellites for its cell phone-compatible broadband constellation about six months later than planned due to supply chain issues. The company now hopes to launch aboard a Falcon 9 in late 2023.

• Privateer cofounder Alex Fielding wrote about why access to space matters (and what he’s planning to do about it).

The View from Space

NASA’s SLS rocket, in all its 321-foot-tall glory, has settled down at the launch pad at Launch Complex 39B. The agency’s Artemis Moon-to-Mars program could see its first flight in as few as 11 days.