Two the Moon in January.

Summary

T-Minus Space Daily: “Two the Moon in January” – Detailed Summary

Release Date: December 19, 2024
Host: Maria Varmazes
Podcast: T-Minus Space Daily by N2K Networks

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Introduction

In the December 19, 2024 episode of T-Minus Space Daily, host Maria Varmazes sets the stage for an exciting start to 2025 with a dual lunar mission launched by SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket. The episode delves into the specifics of these missions, highlights significant updates from the space industry, and features an insightful conversation with Felix Hattwig and Simi Vespi from the ETH Zurich Rocket Team.

Key Lunar Missions: Firefly Aerospace and ISPACE

Maria Varmazes begins by announcing that January will witness a "Moon Twofer" as SpaceX's Falcon 9 transporter carries two lunar lander missions from private companies:

1. Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost Mission ("Ghost Riders in the Sky")

   • Objective: Deliver scientific instruments and technology demonstrations to the lunar surface under NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.
   • Mission Details: The Blue Ghost lander will transit to the Moon over approximately 45 days, allowing for thorough health checks and initial payload science. It aims to land in Mare Crisium, operate payloads throughout a lunar day, capture imagery of lunar sunsets, and analyze the interaction between lunar regolith and solar influences during dusk.
   • Future Prospects: Firefly Aerospace has been awarded nearly $179.6 million by NASA for a 2028 mission to explore the Great Hyzon Domes using the Blue Ghost lander, Elytra Dark orbital vehicle, and an upcoming rover.

2. ISPACE's Resilience Lunar Lander (Mission 2)

   • Objective: Second lunar landing attempt by ISPACE following the unsuccessful Mission 1 in April 2023, which saw the Hakuto R lander crash due to navigational errors.
   • Mission Details: The Resilience lander will enter a low-energy orbit and target a landing four to five months post-launch. It will deploy tenacious operations on the lunar surface, including delivering the Moonhouse payload and collecting lunar regolith under NASA contracts.
   • Strategic Milestones: ISPACE has outlined Mission 2 milestones to ensure success, focusing on gradual transit and precise landing protocols.

Maria Varmazes remarks, “We’re going to be kicking off 2025 with a double moon mission, y’all,” emphasizing the significance of these concurrent missions and the collaborative efforts between Firefly Aerospace and ISPACE.

Guest Segment: ETH Zurich Rocket Team

The episode features Felix Hattwig and Simi Vespi from the ETH Zurich Rocket Team, who provide updates on their innovative projects.

Felix Hattwig on Guided Recovery System

Felix Hattwig shares insights into the team’s recent achievements:

“[...] we were able to conduct it and two launches in two weeks. I think we were the world's first student team that ever did this,” [12:00]

• Project Overview: Development of a sounding rocket equipped with a guided recovery system using parachutes and electric motors, differentiating from companies like SpaceX that utilize thrust vectoring.
• Testing and Success: Initially faced challenges with parachute deployment during the first launch, resulting in an unplanned soft landing aided by snow. However, the second launch achieved precise targeting, landing just six meters from the intended spot.
• Future Plans: Transitioning to a new competition team focused on developing a bi-liquid engine in collaboration with ETH Zurich, aiming for high-altitude launches in 2025 and 2026 under the Hermes program.

Simi Vespi on Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine (RDRE)

Simi Vespi discusses advancements in their RDRE project:

“[...] we were the first students in the world who ever built a rotating detonation rocket engine,” [14:42]

• Project Perseus: Development and successful testing of an RDRE, confirming detonation waves and integrating an aerospike, marking a first in their country.
• Achievements: Conducted RDRE firings synchronized with Felix’s rocket launches, demonstrating operational success and innovation in rocket propulsion.
• Looking Ahead: The next project, Pegasus, aims to integrate the RDRE with the Hermes rocket, targeting the highest flight of an RDRE globally and competing with established entities in the industry.

Maria Varmazes expresses enthusiasm for their accomplishments: “The pride from both of you just radiates through the screen,” highlighting the dedication and success of the student team.

Industry Updates and Highlights

Beyond the guest segment, the episode covers several noteworthy developments in the global space sector:

• NASA’s Lunar Rover Testing:

  • Completion of Human-in-the-Loop testing on three commercially developed Lunar Terrain Vehicles (LTVs) by Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost, and Venturi Astrolabe at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
  • Future plans include demonstration missions to validate LTV performance ahead of Artemis 5 for crewed lunar operations.

• Vast’s Partnership with SpaceX:

  • Contracted for up to two Dragon missions to the International Space Station (ISS), supporting Vast’s Haven 1 private space station and future NASA Private Astronaut Missions (PAM).
  • Preparations underway for competition with NASA’s Commercial Low Earth Orbit Destination Phase 2 program.

• China's Record-Breaking EVA:

  • Crew aboard the Tiangong Space Station completed a nine-hour extravehicular activity (EVA), the longest by Chinese astronauts, including the first EVA by a Chinese astronaut born in 1990.

• Maxar Intelligence Contracts:

  • Awarded $35 million in contracts from Asia Pacific government customers for synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery through partner Umbra, enhancing night and all-weather monitoring capabilities.

• ESA’s 2024 Space Economy Report:

  • Institutional space budgets reached a historic high of €106 billion in 2023, marking an 11% increase from 2022 and maintaining an 8% compound annual growth rate over five years.

• Turian Space and Raytheon Developments:

  • Turian Space secured a $32.6 million contract with the US Air Force for multi-payload satellite demonstrations.
  • Raytheon and Ursa Major completed a solid rocket motor flight test, with plans for further developments and qualifications by 2026.

• Exolaunch’s Transporter 12 Rideshare Mission:

  • Successfully integrated customer satellites for an upcoming SpaceX rideshare launch scheduled for early 2025 from Vandenberg Space Force Base.

Innovative Endeavors: Image Sonification

Maria Varmazes introduces an artistic intersection of science with the sonification of ESA’s Euclid telescope images. Musician Klaus Nielsen converts visual data from the telescope into sound, allowing listeners to "hear" astronomical phenomena such as the young star-forming region Messier 78. This creative approach bridges the gap between scientific data and human perception, offering a unique sensory experience of space imagery.

“Image sonification is a wonderful mix of artistic interpretation and scientific data,” [20:48]

Conclusion and Additional Resources

The episode concludes with reminders for listeners to explore additional resources through the show notes and encourages engagement with the featured projects. Maria Varmazes and the production team acknowledge contributors and outline avenues for businesses to collaborate with T-Minus.

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Notable Quotes:

• Felix Hattwig:
  “We were the world's first student team that ever did this,” [12:00]

• Simi Vespi:
  “We were the first students in the world who ever built a rotating detonation rocket engine,” [14:42]

• Maria Varmazes:
  “We’re going to be kicking off 2025 with a double moon mission, y’all,” [00:47]

• Maria Varmazes:
  “Image sonification is a wonderful mix of artistic interpretation and scientific data,” [20:48]

Further Information

Listeners interested in supporting or learning more about Felix Hattwig and Simi Vespi’s projects are encouraged to visit the ETH Zurich Rocket Team’s website and reach out via email for potential collaborations or partnerships.

For comprehensive details and additional articles mentioned in the episode, refer to the Selected Reading section in the show notes at https://space.n2k.com/.

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This episode of T-Minus Space Daily underscores the vibrant activity within the global space community, highlighting innovative missions, groundbreaking student projects, and significant industry collaborations poised to shape the future of space exploration.

Transcript

[Maria Varmazes]

You're listening to the N2K space network.

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[Maria Varmazes]

January is Going to be a Moon Twofer as it seems like the January SpaceX Falcon 9 transporter will have two lunar lander missions aboard, both from private space companies. One will be the Blue Ghost from Firefly Aerospace, the company's first lunar landing attempt, and the other will be Mission 2, the descriptive name for the second lunar landing attempt by Ispace of Japan with their upgraded Hakuto R lander named Resilience. T minus 20 seconds to Los Speed Res. Today is December 19th, 2024. I'm Maria Var? Azus and this is T minus SpaceX to launch commercial lunar missions in January for Firefly and ispace. Vast taps SpaceX for ISS astronaut flights China holds its longest EVA and our guests today are Felix Hattwig and Simi Vespi from ETH Zurich Rocket Team. Felix and Simi will be bringing us an update on their projects for launch, guided reentry and their rotating detonation rocket engine testing, so stay with us for that. We're going to be kicking off 2025 with a double moon mission, y'all. Japan's I Space has just announced that it will be using the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch that's planning to launch Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost mission for their own Haku to Our Venture Moon mission 2. Firefly's first Blue Ghost mission, named Ghost Riders in the sky, is planning to deliver scientific instruments and technology demos to the lunar surface as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS initiative. Blue Ghost plans to spend approximately 45 days in transit to the moon, allowing ample time to conduct health checks on each subsystem and begin payload science. The spacecraft then plans to land in Mare Criseum and operate payloads for a complete lunar day. Blue Ghost will also be used to capture imagery of the lunar sunset and provide critical data on how lunar regolith reacts to solar influences during lunar dusk conditions. And the I Space Resilience Lunar Lander will be the second to deploy during the mission, and the Resilience lander will take a low energy orbit as it had also done during Mission one. The plan is for its transit to take several months ahead of a targeted landing, four to five months after launch. ISPACE has released a set of criteria known as Mission two milestones between launch and landing and aims to achieve the success criteria established for each of these milestones. Makes sense. In addition, Tenacious will be operated by I Space Europe once deployed on the lunar surface, and will undertake ventures including delivering the Moonhouse payload to the lunar surface, as well as collecting lunar regolith under a contract with NASA. You might remember that ispace's first lunar landing attempt, Mission 1, was back in April 2023 when the Hakuto R crashed above the lunar surface as it was attempting to land as the instrumentation got confused by the rim of a lunar crater, causing the lander to run out of fuel while attempting to perform its control descent. SpaceX's Falcon 9, carrying both missions, will lift off from Florida's Space coast no earlier than mid January 2025. In addition to the first flight in 2025, Firefly Aerospace has been awarded a nearly $179.6 million by NASA to deliver and operate six NASA instruments in the Great Hyzon Domes on the moon's near side in 2028. The mission will use Firefly's Blue Ghost lunar lander, Elytra Dark orbital Vehicle and a rover from an as yet unname to investigate the unique composition of the Great Heisen Domes, a part of the moon that has yet never been explored. And speaking of the rovers, NASA completed the first round of Human in the loop testing on three commercially owned and developed Lunar Terrain Vehicles, or LTVs, from Intuitive Machines Lunar Outpost and Venturi Astrolabe at NASA's Johnson Space center in Houston. Each company delivered a static mockup of their vehicle to Johnson at the end of September, initiated rover testing in October, and completed the first round of testing in December inside the Active Response Gravity Offload System test Facility, also known as argos. Test teams delivered evaluations to understand the interactions between the crew, the spacesuits, and the LTV mockups. NASA plans to issue a Request for Task order proposals in 2025 to any eligible providers for a demonstration mission to continue developing the ltv, deliver it to the surface of the moon, and validate its performance and safety ahead of Artemis 5 when NASA intends to use the LTV for crewed operations. Vast has contracted SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket to launch up to two Dragon missions to the International Space Station in support of Vast's future bid for NASA's private astronaut missions, also known as PAM, while Vast is developing its private space station, the Haven 1 the company plans to leverage additional missions to the ISS in partnership with NASA to draw on the agency's extensive expertise. These missions provide opportunities to collaborate with private individuals and international Space Agency customers through the NASA PAM program and strengthen current partnerships. Vast says this is an important step as the company prepares to compete with its Haven 2 design and NASA's upcoming Commercial Low Earth Orbit Destination Phase 2 program, which is positioned to select a successor to the issuance. The Chinaman Space Agency says the crew onboard the Tiangong Space Station completed a record breaking nine hour spacewalk yesterday. The extravehicular activity was not only the longest by Chinese astronauts, but also included the first spacewalk by a Chinese astronaut born Brace yourself for this in 1990. Talk about making me feel old. Taikonauts Tsai Shuze and Song Ling Dong carried out the EVA installing space debris protection devices with assistance from the station's robotic arm and ground based teams. Maxar Intelligence has been awarded a total of $35 million in new tasking contracts from two government customers in the Asia Pacific region. Both contracts allow the customer's use of synthetic aperture radar imagery from Maxar partner Umbra. According to Maxar, Umbra's SAR imagery enables customers to monitor activity at night and in all weather conditions, serving as a powerful complement to Maxar's high resolution electro optical imagery. The European Space Agency has released its annual Space economy report. The 2024 report covers the space economy's full range of activities and the use of resources that create value and benefits to human beings in the course of exploring, researching, understanding, managing and using space. It focuses on the prior year 2023 and found institutional space budgets, both civil and defense reached a new historic high of 106 billion euros in 2023, which is an 11% increase compared to 2022 and continuing their growth path with an 8% compound annual growth rate over the past five years. You can read the full report by following the link in our show notes. Turian Space has been awarded a $32.6 million firm fixed price contract for multi payload satellites and real time command and control by the US Air Force Space Systems Command. The contract provides for the demonstrations of a rapid build of three satellites with rendezvous proximity operations with high resolution satellite to satellite imagery collection capabilities. Work will be performed in California and is expected to be completed by October 31, 2028. Raytheon and Ursa Major have completed an advanced long range solid rocket motor flight test for the US Army. Raytheon selected Ursa Major's advanced propulsion technology as a key enabler to provide affordable solutions for the US army at extended ranges. During the next phase of the program, Raytheon and Ursa Major will incorporate manufacturing improvements leading toward additional flight tests in 2025 and qualification in 2026. Exolaunch says it has successfully integrated its customer satellites for the upcoming Transporter 12 rideshare mission with SpaceX. The Transporter 12 mission is scheduled to lift off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California in early 2025. And that is it for our intel briefing for today. You'll find two additional articles in the Selected Reading section of our show Notes. One's on viasat's sale of their energy services systems integration business and another's from SES with an update on their Astro one P satellite. Hey T minus crew. If your business is looking to grow your voice in the industry, expand the reach of your thought leadership, or recruit talent, T minus can help. We'd like to hear from you. Just send us an [e-mail] or send us a note through our website so we can connect about building a program to meet your go.

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[Maria Varmazes]

My guests today are Felix Hattwig and Simi Vespi from ETH Zurich's Rocket team. And you know, we first spoke to Felix and Simi six months ago and they wanted to bring us an update on their two projects, one of which is a new guided reentry development and the other is their Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine, or rdre.

[Felix Hattwig]

I'm Felix Heptik, I'm the project manager of Nikoye. We spoke like half a year ago and since then we had a lot of testing going on, a lot of full system tests and we were just preparing to get ready for the launches and have them in October and November. And then we were able to achieve a lot of things. We had all our tests done and we were able to conduct a launch in Switzerland. And yeah, our rocket flew. It didn't really work the way we intended it to. So the guided recovery, the parachute that comes out of the rocket, which is the Core system of our rocket didn't come out the way we wanted it to. There was small mistake there. The rocket however, landed safely, so just touched on very lightly and I think we were a little bit lucky with some snow as well, so that helped. And with this we however decided to find and fix our mistakes and then go again on the 30th and the second time everything worked exactly as intended. We landed just six meters away from the target. So we're really happy about that. And we were able to conduct it and two launches in two weeks. I think we were world's first the student team that ever did this with it. And it's one rocket, so it's not like I have the one and have another one, but we're just able to conclude it and go again. And like even the second time there was no mistake. So we could go again. We won't because we want to leave some space for the next team which is now already going on like the past two, three months, which is Hammers who build a new rocket with a new motor and which still uses our system however for the guided chubby. But yeah, it was some crazy months.

[Maria Varmazes]

I was gonna say your November sounded nuts. All right, so that's incredible. Congratulations, by the way. That's an incredible achievement to you and the team. Honestly, that's really wonderful. And I remember how excited you were when we last spoke about everything that was coming up. So I mean that's huge. Remind us a bit about the goals of what your rocket was you set out to do with the rocket and what you wanted to achieve and all the milestones that you hit.

[Felix Hattwig]

So what we're building is sounding rocket. It's a type of rocket category and we use cots, solid motor. So just we buy a motor. COTS stands for commercial off the shelf. And then this is not really our focus, but the focus we have is making a rocket that is able to recover itself. So similar to SpaceX or other companies which you reuse that, but we have a different approach. So we don't use thrust vectoring to control and land like this, like upright, but we use a parachute based system and use a RAM air that's like the traditional parachute you would use. And we steered using electric motors, use all the wind data, all the telemetry, all of this to fly a certain pattern and then land at a targeted location. And that was our goal. That was the goal for the project to have a launch and recovered safely. And we're able to do that now.

[Maria Varmazes]

That is fantastic. I want to ask you about what's next, but I want to get to see me next because, well, so hold that thought. So, Simi to you now. So for Perseus, what's been going on with Perseus?

[Simi Vespi]

I'm Simi Vespi, I am project manager of Project Perseus. It's funny because actually FedEx's project and mine became kind of synchronous in the sense that they had their first launch on the 16th and the second launch on the 30th, and we happened to have our first firing of the RDRE on the 16th and the second firing on the 30th. So both times we were like waiting for their goal ahead or like, like in the midst of our preparations, we like took a three minute break to watch a live stream. Then we went back and continued on with our firing sequences and our procedures. And it worked. It actually worked. We were able to confirm detonation waves, making us the first students in the world who ever built a rotating detonation rocket engine. And as a cherry on top for the last firing, we also adapted an aerospike to our engine, which means we became the first group ever in our country to fire an aerospike. Still was really exciting and it was really cool. It was also kind of a triumphing moment. In spite of all the doubts and of all the considerations and everything, it was really cool.

[Maria Varmazes]

The pride from both of you just radiates through the screen. You're both so proud. I'm loving that. And I'm just. Congratulations to you both. I mean, this is an unbelievable amount of hard work and how rewarding it is to see that things have turned out the way you hoped. So that's just so wonderful. So let's get into the what's next? Because that is the inevitable question that everybody hates answering because you're like, you just did this. Why do I have to think about what's next? But we do. So Felix, why don't you start with that? Tell me what's going to be next.

[Felix Hattwig]

I think I can give a quite good overview. There's a new competition team which will go over the span of two years and we're lucky to have Focus Project as well, in combination with one of our universities, ETH Zurich, and they develop the first flight ready biliquid engine of ours. So we've done biliquid engines before, but more like with no constraints on size or mass. And now we bring it on to rocket engine and this will be then included into the new team. Hermes, who set out to launch at Yurok in 2025. So the European Rocket Radio Challenge and then go a second time in 2026. They want to include our guided recovery system, which we've now proven to be very successful. They of course want to do more tests on it, so get more data and perfect it, get even closer to the targeted point. But the main part for them now is the engine and including it into a rocket. And right now it's actually looking very promising that even like already in the first year, they will be able to go close to 9k, let's say, so that they will fly in the highest category there is at Yurok and maybe set the new record for the height of Bilique engines in Europe. I'm looking forward to it so much. Super talented guys, every one of them very passionate. And we were able to bring a lot of people from Nikolay over to them which are now in leadership positions. So they have the experience, they've worked in the team, they know what they're doing and this is a huge benefit for them now. And I'm looking forward to that.

[Maria Varmazes]

Yeah, that is what it's all about, is bringing that knowledge forward and that's just amazing. Great to hear all of that. It's going to be very exciting to hear about Hermes Simi. Over to you. So what is next?

[Simi Vespi]

Next project is called Pegasus and the idea is to over two years make an RDRE and make it interfaced with the Hermes rocket at a later point in time. This is after Hermes has accomplished all of their goals. In a way it's separate from them. This is not concerning them right now. But the idea is to build an RDRE for a sounding rocket, I should say, then interface those two and launch it. It's still being worked out, all the details and everything. But we do have some good requirements already. Some weight, some sizes, some fuels and oxidizers, some thrust levels that we want to reach. We got something's in the chamber, but yes, something's cooking. Something's cooking. Yes, we're cooking something. Exactly. And yes, that would in the same vein as becoming the first students in the world to fire an rdre. We want to shoot for the highest flight of an RDRE in the world. This time competing with the big boys in the big leagues. Yeah, that's what we're going for.

[Maria Varmazes]

I love it and I love the ambition here and you all have the capability behind it too, which again, that's the important thing, is that follow through. Congratulations again. I'm thrilled for you all. And please keep us updated on how things are going with Hermes, with Pegasus, I want to know whatever's cooking. I'm really looking forward to learning about what that is when you all are ready to tell everybody. All right, so if people listening want to find out more information, or if they want to support the work that you all are doing, how do they find out more and reach out to you both?

[Simi Vespi]

That's a very good question. I think the easiest way would just be to visit our website. There you can find all the project, you can find all the people, you can find a short description of everything. And if you're just interested in general or you maybe consider partnering up with us, just reach out to us via mail and we'll get back to you and we can figure something out.

[Maria Varmazes]

We'll be right back.

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[Maria Varmazes]

Welcome back. ESA's Euclid telescope on the hunt for clues about the nature of dark matter and dark energy, has been dazzling us with its incredible images since its commissioning in 2023. And now in this festive season, we can say that its images are jingling and twinkling along with the usual dazzle. And that is thanks to an audio podcast best Friend when it comes to astrophotography, image sonification, in other words, interpreting a visual image with sound so you can hear an image of, oh, I don't know, a stellar nursery. This is the sonification of the young star forming region Messier 78. To me, it sounds quite like what childhood me imagined a clear winter night sky might sound like crystalline magic. The pitch of the twinkling rises and falls with the amount of galaxies or stars in the image and how bright it is. A super bright star or galaxy, that's a super bright chime. Image sonification is a wonderful mix of artistic interpretation and scientific data. And this one of Messier 87 was made by musician and sound artist Klaus Nielsen. Beautiful work, Klaus. That's it for T minus for December 19, 2024, brought to you by N2K CyberWire. For additional resources from today's report, check out our show [e-mail] we're privileged that N2K and podcasts like T Minus are part of the Daily Report routine of many of the most influential leaders and operators in the public and private sector, from the Fortune 500 to many of the world's preeminent intelligence and law enforcement agencies. This episode was produced by Alice Carruth. Our associate producer is Liz Stokes. We're mixed by Elliott Peltzman and Trey Hester, with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Ibin. Our executive editor is Brandon Karp. Simone Petrella is our president. He Peter Kilpe is our publisher and I am your host, Maria Varmazes. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.

[Simi Vespi]

T Minus.