SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, with the Dragon spacecraft atop, soars into the sky from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 2:20 p.m. EST Nov. 26, 2022, for the 26th commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station . Credit: NASA
Several thousand pounds of important research, crew supplies and hardware are on their way to the crew members aboard the International Space Station following the 2:20 p.m. EST launch of NASA’s SpaceX 26th commercial resupply services mission from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Saturday, Nov. 26, 2022.
SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft reached its preliminary orbit and its solar arrays have been deployed. A series of thruster firings are scheduled to allow Dragon to rendezvous with the space station on Sunday, Nov. 27, at 7:30 a.m. EST. Live coverage of the docking will begin at 6 a.m. EST at https://www.nasa.gov/live.
NASA astronauts Josh Cassada and Nicole Mann will capture the Dragon using the space station’s robotic arm and then install it on the station’s Harmony module. Dragon will spend about one month attached to the space station.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft stand ready for liftoff Saturday, Nov. 26, at Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A for NASA’s SpaceX 26th commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station. Credit: NASA
Hello and happy Sunday afternoon from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The weather is looking much better today as NASA and SpaceX makes a second attempt at launching the 26th commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station. Poor weather along the Space Coast forced a scrub of the planned 3:54 p.m. EST launch on Tuesday, Nov. 22, from Kennedy.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft stand ready for liftoff at Launch Complex 39A. Launch is scheduled for 2:20 p.m. EST during an instantaneous opportunity. Dragon’s internal countdown is running and propellant loading is underway. Fueling of the Falcon 9 first stage began at T-35 minutes.
Today’s launch is a cross-country effort. Launch controllers at the Florida spaceport are working in concert with teams at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and SpaceX’s control center in Hawthorne, California. The launch blog originates from the NASA News Center here at Kennedy, a few miles west of the launch complex.
Stay right here for more coverage of today’s launch!
NASA has awarded Phantom Space Corp. four task orders to launch four CubeSat Launch Initiative missions as part of the agency’s Venture-class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare (VADR) launch services contract. The CubeSats will launch no earlier than 2024 on Phantom’s Daytona rocket.
Building on NASA’s previous procurement efforts to foster development of new launch vehicles for NASA payloads, VADR provides Federal Aviation Administration-licensed commercial launch services for payloads that can tolerate higher risk. By using a lower level of mission assurance, and commercial best practices for launching rockets, these highly flexible contracts help broaden access to space through lower launch costs.
Phantom is one of 13 companies NASA selected for VADR contracts in 2022. NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, manages the VADR contracts.
A group of students at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology work on their CubeSat, TJREVERB (Thomas Jefferson Research and Education Vehicle for Evaluating Radio Broadcasts). Photo credit: Thomas Jefferson High School
Four small, shoebox-sized satellites are being prepared to launch to the International Space Station as part of NASA’s Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) 49 mission. The small satellites, called CubeSats, will study a range of topics – from satellite communication methods to space weather to testing technology for robotic assembly of large telescopes.
The CubeSats will hitch a ride on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft set to deliver additional science, crew supplies, and hardware to the station during the company’s 26th commercial resupply services mission for NASA. Launch is targeted at 4:19 p.m. EST from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Satellite Communications
Seen here is an up-close view of the University of Michigan’s Measurement of Actuator Response In Orbit (MARIO) CubeSat. Photo credit: University of Michigan
The first U.S. high school to send a CubeSat to space back in 2013, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology’s Research and Education Vehicle for Evaluating Radio Broadcasts satellite aims to study the use of iridium as a primary radio communication method. Additionally, the satellite will demonstrate using a passive magnet onboard and the Earth’s magnetic field for stabilization rather than using an attitude determination and control system for pointing accuracy and stabilization for iridium. What makes this satellite even more notable is that it was a system’s engineering project. The students selected space-grade parts, wired the electronics for the satellite, wrote the drivers to control the different systems, and coded the flight software.
“What’s special about TJREVERB isn’t necessarily the mission, it’s what we did. These kids literally built a satellite the way the industry would build a satellite; we selected parts from vendors and got those parts to work together,” said Kristen Kucko, robotics lab director and the school’s space faculty advisor. “This is an engineering feat.”
Structure Testing
The University of Michigan’s Measurement of Actuator Response In Orbit (MARIO) is a technology demonstration that will show how test structures made of a piezoelectric material – a type of material that bends when electricity is applied and can also generate electricity when bent – perform in low-Earth orbit. This will allow the spacecraft to bend or move without any rotating parts and could one day be used to point and adjust telescope mirrors more accurately.
Space Weather
Seen here is an up-close view of NASA Marshall Space Flight Center’s Scintillation Prediction Observations Research Task (SPORT) CubeSat. Photo credit: NASA
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Plasma Enhancement in The Ionosphere-Thermosphere Satellite (petitSat) will study density irregularities in the Earth’s ionosphere – a tiny fraction of the atmosphere made of plasma, or ionized gas. During long distance radio communication, the ionosphere reflects radio waves back to Earth. Disturbances in the upper atmosphere can change the shape of the ionosphere, creating a funhouse mirror effect and distorting these radio waves. The mission will use two instruments to measure the structure and motion of plasma in the ionosphere resulting from these changes in the upper atmosphere to better understand how these affect satellite communications.
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center’s Scintillation Prediction Observations Research Task (SPORT) will also look to the ionosphere to study space weather. The joint mission between the U.S. and Brazil will examine the formation of plasma bubbles, which sometimes scatter radio signals. Understanding how these bubbles are formed and how their evolution impacts communication signals can help scientists improve the reliability of communication and navigation systems.
“The more we learn about space weather – and how to predict it – the better we can protect our astronauts, spacecraft, and technology,” said Shelia Nash-Stevenson, SPORT project manager.
All of these were selected through NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative (CSLI), which provides U.S. educational institutions, nonprofits with an education/outreach component, informal educational institutions (museums and science centers), and NASA centers with access to space at a low cost. Once the CubeSat selections are made, NASA’s Launch Services Program works to pair them with a launch that is best suited to carry them as auxiliary payloads, taking into account the planned orbit and any constraints the CubeSat missions may have.
A view of Earth as seen from the Artemis I Orion capsule about 9 hours into flight on Nov. 16, 2022. (Image credit: NASA TV)
Following a successful launch on Wednesday, Nov. 16, NASA’s uncrewed Orion spacecraft is heading toward the Moon on a 25.5-day mission beyond the lunar surface. Orion lifted off atop the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket at 1:47 a.m. EST from Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Engineers intend to learn as much as possible about Orion’s performance during the flight test and are focused on the primary objectives for the mission: demonstrating Orion’s heat shield at lunar return re-entry conditions, demonstrating operations and facilities during all mission phases, and retrieving the spacecraft after splashdown.
A view inside the Artemis I Orion capsule with a view of the manikin ‘passenger’ recording data on conditions for the future crew members. (Image credit: NASA TV)
Flight controllers in the Mission Control Center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston successfully completed the first outbound trajectory correction burn by the European-built service module’s main engine as planned at 9:32 a.m. The burn tested Orion’s main engine for the first time and adjusted the spacecraft’s course toward the Moon. Several additional course correction burns are planned on journey.
While Orion began its trek toward the lunar environment, 10 CubeSats deployed by timer from an adapter still attached to the SLS’s upper stage. Each CubeSat has different timelines for acquiring a signal with its mission operators.
Flight controllers performed a modal survey, a test to verify that the models and simulations used to design Orion’s solar array wings accurately reflect the motion that is occurring in flight. This was accomplished by firing Orion’s reaction control system thrusters and observing how the solar array wings react to that specific firing sequence. Engineers also calibrated the optical navigation system and gathered imagery using the spacecraft’s cameras. Orion is outfitted with multiple cameras used for various functions such as engineering as well as sharing the progress of the mission with the public.
Scheduled for Thursday is the second outbound trajectory burn using the auxiliary thrusters, which will be used for most trajectory correction burns.
The interim cryogenic propulsion stage (ICPS) completed its approximately 18-minute trans-lunar injection (TLI) burn and the spacecraft has separated from the stage. Orion fired its auxiliary thrusters to move a safe distance away from the expended stage and the spacecraft is on its way to the Moon.
NASA will hold a postlaunch news conference at 5 a.m. EST today from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Participants are:
Bill Nelson, NASA administrator
Mike Sarafin, Artemis mission manager, NASA Headquarters
Mike Bolger, Exploration Ground Systems Program manager, Kennedy
John Honeycutt, Space Launch System Program manager, Marshall
Howard Hu, Orion Program manager, NASA’s Johnson Space Center
NASA’s Space Launch System rocket, carrying the uncrewed Orion spacecraft lifted off from Launch Complex 39B in Florida at 1:47 a.m. EST.
The primary goal of Artemis I is to thoroughly test the integrated systems before crewed missions by operating the spacecraft in a deep space environment, testing Orion’s heat shield, and recovering the crew module after reentry, descent, and splashdown.
Below are the ascent milestones that will occur over the next two hours. Times may vary by several seconds.
Solid rocket booster separation (Mission Elapsed Time 00:02:12)
Service module fairing jettison (MET 00:03:11)
Launch abort system jettison (MET 00:03:16)
Core stage main engine cutoff commanded (MET 00:08:03)
Core stage/ICPS separation (MET 00:08:15)
Orion solar array wing deploy begins (MET 00:18:09) – approx. 12 min duration
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon cargo capsule lifts off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on the company’s 22nd Commercial Resupply Services mission to the International Space Station. Credits: NASA/Kennedy Space Center
NASA and SpaceX are targeting 4:19 p.m. EST Monday, Nov. 21, to launch the company’s 26th commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station.
Liftoff will be from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. SpaceX’s Dragon cargo spacecraft will deliver new science investigations, supplies, and equipment for the international crew.
Live launch coverage will air on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website, with prelaunch events starting Friday, Nov. 18. Follow all events at: https://www.nasa.gov/live.
