US starts sniffing around UK spaceports – though none capable of vertical launches actually exist right now
- Reference: 1592913607
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/06/23/space_in_brief/
- Source link:
UK science minister Amanda Solloway talked up the potential benefits to companies from Newquay and Scotland before declaring the "US-UK Technology Safeguards Agreement" a "key moment for our commercial space industry".
The UK has already spanked the best part of £40m on a domestic horizontal and vertical small satellite launch capability, and the likes of Edinburgh-based Skyrora looks set go at least sub-orbital in the near future with its homegrown vertical rocket boffinry.
California's Virgin Orbit has also been eyeing Spaceport Cornwall with a view to conducting "the first ever flights to space from British soil".
SLS boosters arrive in Florida
The boosters for NASA's SLS monster rocket have [1]arrived at Kennedy Space Center for processing.
The 10 segments, each weighing 180 tons filled with propellant and outfitted with instrumentation for the long dreamed-of flight, spent 10 days travelling by train from Promontory, Utah.
The boosters will be assembled into a pair of rockets to be strapped to the side of the SLS for the Artemis I mission. Together with the four repurposed Space Shuttle engines of the SLS core stage (currently undergoing testing at NASA's Stennis Space Center) the power plants will give the Moon rocket 8.8 million pounds of thrust during launch.
Artemis I is intended to launch an uncrewed mission. Artemis II, for which the next batch of 10 segments has already been cast, will send a crew up in the Orion capsule. The boosters for Artemis III, which is planned to plonk the first humans on the Moon since the Apollo days, are in progress.
Unlike in the Shuttle era, the boosters (as well as the engines) will not be recovered and reused.
Rocket Lab signs up NRO for back-to-back launches
Still revelling in its recent "Don't Stop Me Now" mission, Rocket Lab has signed up the US National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) for two back-to-back missions in 2021, RASR-3 and RASR-4. The satellites are due to launch within weeks of each other from the company's New Zealand Launch Complex 1 (LC-1).
As well as Pad A, the launches will make the first use of the under-construction (and imaginatively named) Pad B at LC-1, permitting a rapid-fire launch with mere days between lift-offs. The company boasted that launches could even occur "hours apart".
As well as the company's Pad A at LC-1, it also has a launch facility at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Virginia, LC-2, which is expected to see action later this year.
Rocket fans looking forward to seeing the company attempt to snatch a descending Electron might have a bit longer to wait. The 17th launch (due this year) will include an attempt to return a booster via parachute, but there are no firm plans for grabbing it mid-air until the results of that test are in. ®
Sponsored: [2]Security Features of Connect for Anthos
[1] https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/rocket-motors-for-first-nasa-artemis-moon-mission-arrive-at-spaceport
[2] https://go.theregister.com/tl/1956/-8474/security-features-of-connect-for-anthos?td=wptl1956
launch from a British spaceport
we can build one in Cyprus, given it's well-known piece of British soil since the times of Saddam H, who "threatened" to unleash its WMD in 45 min. Alternatively, British Virgin Islands could go well with Mr T, given his fondness for pussy-grabbing, etc.
Re: launch from a British spaceport
Ascension would be a better choice, nearer the equator and absolutely British. It's south of the equator (~5 I think) which might be useful too. Already got an RAF base with a long runway, an ESA space tracking station, the BBC world service transmitters and some no name agency listening posts (proximity to undersea cables just a coincidence). Oh, and lots of albatrosses.
Re: launch from a British spaceport
Runway (10,000ft?) built by the Americans during WW2, and I think I read somewhere it was a designated emergency landing strip for the shuttle.
Re: launch from a British spaceport
And its already got the USAF's 45th Space Wing there.... they use it in conjunction with stuff lobbed from KSC...
Oil Rigs
And if Branson does it, we've got a bone fide Bond Villan :-)
If they'd met the British government
They would have specified the launch sites need to be capable of launching vertically _up_.
Re: If they'd met the British government
I came here to make a similar comment.
[1]Pointy end up , [2]flamey end down , or you [3]will not go to space today.
(gravity turn for orbit insertion notwithstanding)
[1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6uKrU_WqJ1R2HMTY3LIx5Q
[2] https://twitter.com/Erdayastronaut/status/1115978548681019392
[3] https://xkcd.com/1133/
China issues
Its gonna have a bigger issue if it continues to divert water and start scrapes in the Himalayas with India.
We could see satellite/Satellite action over this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Shakti
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_missile_test
Black Arrow doesn't count?
I thought that the rocket which launched the Prospero satellite into space was launched from the Isle of Wight. It's tenuous, I'll admit, but surely that would count as a "flight to space from British soil"?
Re: Black Arrow doesn't count?
Black Arrow was tested at the High Down Test Site on the Isle of Wight, but launched from Woomera in Australia. High Down is well worth a visit though.
Re: Black Arrow doesn't count?
We already have a perfectly good spaceport at 62 West Wallaby Street, Wigan. Really don't see we need another.
Film
Wasn't there a mild Peter Sellers film where at the end, he as a priest, goes up in a British rocket from Ultima Thule, here a Scottish island ?
.
We had more confidence in British technology back then.
Re: Film
I recall a famous documentary following the exploits of a Mr N Wisdom. I believe it was called "A bulldog breed".
Re: Film
There's also "Rockets Galore", based on Compton MacKenzie's follow up to "Whisky Galore".
Why here?
OK - I get the 'look at us, we are so cool we even have a spaceport' reason to build one, but isn't there a basic flaw - you generally want to launch with the spin of the earth rather than against it, so normally you launch to the east? You also generally want a nice uninhabited and sparsely occupied space (like an ocean or a desert) in the direction of your launch for a few hundred miles, so that inadvertent unscheduled disassembly events don't drop a few tons of scrap metal on anyones head. Last time I looked Europe was pretty close in an Easterly direction. So we will either have to launch south west from Cornwall or north from Scotland which essentially means polar orbits - maybe we are going to do a lot of weather observation!
Re: Why here?
There's always the good reason.
And then there's the real reason. Which is
Re: Why here?
There is a benefit of being close to the equator, that's why [1] the European Spaceport in Kourou is so well-positioned at just 500 KM (or 5 degrees) north of the equator.
That is mainly useful for geostationary orbits, though. For a polar orbit, for instance, you don't need to be close to the equator and if your goal is just to fly some rich tourists 100 KM up so they can say they've been to space any place will do. In those cases having many days of good weather is more important than distance from the equator.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guiana_Space_Centre
Sniffing around?
I'd watch that.
They'll be lifting the leg and urinating on it next.
* No doggy icon, Paris looks like she might be a poodle owner.
I'm not sure about the wisdom of Newquay but for polar orbit launches NW Scotland has the advantage that you can drop old boosters etc.(including an entire failed rocket) a long way down range without risk of hitting anything expensive.
Tunisia
What about the wretched hive of scum and villainy in Tunisia?
That's got to be a lot cheaper than the UK although Trump had better first pay Jabba back first.