 Hello and welcome to Tomorrow News, your weekly guide of everything happening within the space industry. This episode, the original winner of the Inspiration for Generosity seat has revealed themselves all the latest from SpaceX's Boca Chica site, a new NASA small-sat contract, uncertainty around the UK's first launch space traffic and a whole lot more. Stay tuned as this is your episode of Tomorrow News, which is the week of February 1st 2022. Kicking off the SpaceX update, I'm starting off with a story which we discussed a little bit in last week's live show, available at the card in the corner about a Falcon 9 second stage we're just going to crash into the moon. The second stage in question assisted the Discover mission or the Deep Space Climate Observatory which launched on the 11th of February 2015 from Cape Canaveral on a Falcon 9 v 1.1. The destination of the payload was glugrange 0.1 or L1, the opposite side of the Earth of L2 where the James Webb Space Telescope now resides. And as we have just lived through the journey of that mission, hopefully you'll get a good scale of how far away Discover actually had to be pushed. The 1.1 of the Falcon 9 wasn't as powerful as the current Block 5 variant of the rocket, only being able to carry about 4,850 kilograms of payload up to a geostationary transfer orbit compared to Block 5's 5,443. Because the second stage had to be pushed really far in order to get Discover on its way to L1, it didn't have enough margin to deorbit instead leaving itself in a high Earth orbit. This orbit is now going to be intersecting the orbit of the moon, I just realised I've been saying orbit a lot, as at about 1226 UTC on March the 4th at a latitude of 5.18 degrees, longitude 233.55 degrees plus or minus a few kilometers, the second stage is going to unintentionally impact the far side of the lunar surface, so we won't be able to see anything from Earth, but this animation I made does show the rough location of the impact zone. The time of the impact also means that we won't be able to see the moon as the sun will be shining on the far side. This can be seen as something that is quite surprising considering the SpaceX deorbit's second stages, but obviously that option was not available for this mission. Other rocket stages have hit the moon before, most notably the third stages of the Saturn V of a few Apollo missions, and the reason the moon looks how it looks today is because it has been bombarded with millions of asteroids over billions of years, so this isn't new, and it isn't really that bad, it's just a bit of a surprising story. Something else surprising is that the real winner of the Inspiration 4 generosity seat has come forward after giving the prize to Chris Sembroski. We knew Chris wasn't the original winner, but we just didn't know who had recommended him to the people selecting the winner. Kyle Hipchin, a Florida-based captain for Delta's regional carrier, Endeavour Air, originally only told a few members of his family and friends that he had won the seat and lost his ride due to being over SpaceX's weight limits for the Dragon spacecraft. Hipchin said that he was trying to figure out ways of dropping the weight in the time span set out, but that it also wasn't the most healthy thing to do. Because of this, Jared Isaacman allowed him to pick someone to go on the flight in his place, and that person, as we all know, was Sembroski. During the 1990s, the pair were roommates whilst attending Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida. They'd often make the hour drive down to the Cape in order to catch the shuttle launches, and they also belonged to a space advocacy group, even going to Washington, D.C. to support commercial space travel. He still hasn't watched the Netflix series that followed the crew around during training and the flight, and to be honest, if I was in his situation, I wouldn't be able to bring myself to do that either, but I do think it's called that he has shared his story, because it was a big act of generosity to give the seat generosity to somebody else. Sembroski still brought up some personal items for him, but the experience of flying into space is one of the most unbelievable things a human can experience, or so I'm told, and missing out on it must have hurt a lot. Moving down to Starbase to have a look at all the action that has been happening there, and the first high-rise is the B2.1 test tank being lifted off the structure test stand after being hooked up to the crane earlier that day. A strange tank has been seen in one of the tents, and we don't know exactly what this is for, but what we do know is that the shape of the tank is unlike anything we have seen before at Starbase. This new booster forward dome has been sleeved, which will be placed on top of one of the future super heavy boosters currently in production. The quick disconnect arm, or QD arm through the actual Starship ship, has had some more crews working on it following on from its movement test the other week, and speaking of movement tests, the water bags were loaded back up onto the chopsticks last Sunday before being filled up, allowing the catch arms to be moved up and down the tower several times. If you aren't already aware, these big orange bags are able to be filled with all different volumes of water, simulating the different masses of super heavy and Starship configurations, as well as pushing the arms beyond the maximum expected limits, just to make sure they are as robust as can be. The wide bay has had a bit more of a gross spurt this week. Yes, there were new beams, but we also had the lifting of another prefabricated part, bringing the current shell of the building to about the same height as the high bay. That's not all, however, as a second piece was lifted up from the inside, aiding the completion of that side of the structure. Now the wide bay is matching the height of the high bay, I think it's safe to assume that a lot of people, including myself, are getting a much better scale of the immense size of this structure. The new smooth style nose cone, suspected to be for Ship 24, has been spotted inside Run of the Tents, and Ship 22 has been getting its own nose cone action, as the forward flap mounting jig has been attached. I'm leaving off the segment with this wonderful shot from Boca Chica Gal, who caught the Texan Sun falling under the horizon in the background of the orbital launch pad. On January 26th, NASA announced that they have selected 12 companies to provide launch services for their venture class acquisition of dedicated and rideshare missions, otherwise known as VEDA. Those 12 companies are in alphabetical order, ABL space systems, Astra, Blue Origin, L2 solutions, Northrop Grumman, Phantom Space, Relativity Space, Rocket Lab, Spaceflight, SpaceX, QLA, and Virgin Orbit. The VEDA contract will provide a range of services for delivering a range of CubeSats to class D small sat missions to a variety of orbits. The range of launch providers being used is quite vast, with the big names of SpaceX, QLA, and Northrop Grumman. Some companies which have reached orbit a number of times, such as Rocket Lab, those who have only done single digits of orbital launch attempts under their belts, such as Astro and Virgin Orbit, and those who are only in the development phases of their rockets, such as Phantom, Relativity, and Blue Origin. 50% of the awardees have made it into orbit at least once, with a third more planning to launch within the next few years. The remaining two companies, Spaceflight and L2 Solutions, are launch brokers, with the former arranging launches on a variety of different vehicles from all around the world, and the latter providing ride share services through its subsidiary, Seops. VEDA is going to be building on top of the previous venture class launch services, or VCLS demonstrations, which was awarded in 2015, and VCLS demo 2, which was awarded in 2020, which saw funding go to Rocket Lab, Virgin Galactic, which has now been transferred to Virgin Orbit, Astra, Relativity, and Firefly, a company which is not listed on the VEDA contract. Now, unlike Phantom, Relativity, and Blue Origin, Firefly has actually attempted to launch a rocket and deliver a payload to Orbit, although it did fail to do so because of a faulty engine, so why have they not been selected? It has been a bit of a turbulent time for Firefly, with them pausing preparations for their next launch attempt, originally slated for last December, as the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US requested that the largest shareholder in the company, Noosphere Venture Partners, based out of Ukraine, sold all of its shares. Because of this, NASA could have not selected them, or they could have not placed a bid for the VEDA program, with both of these scenarios yet to be confirmed or denied by both parties. Carrying on the conversation about small sat launches, Virgin Orbit has two planned launches out of the UK this year, originating from New Key Airport, otherwise known as Spaceport Cornwall. CEO of Virgin Orbit, Dan Hart, has said that the launches are targeted around the middle of the year, but three key licenses are still required in order to make that happen. Firstly, Spaceport Cornwall would need a license from the Civil Aviation Authority, aka the CAA. The head of the Spaceport, Melissa Thorpe, has said that they are working with the regulators on their Spaceport license, and that they're working towards a launch in the less than six months time, and that they're currently working through feedback from the CAA. Virgin Orbit will also need to acquire a license from the CAA, but as they are an American company, they will also need a license from the FAA. Now even though the companies are confident in the launches happening this year, CAA officials are acting a bit more uncertain. At a hearing of the Signs and Technology Select Committee, the CAA's Director of Strategy and Policy, Tim Johnson, declined to say if the agency were expecting the first UK launch this year several times. Greg Clark, the chair of the committee, asked, the government have said that they want to see a satellite launch in the UK in 2022. You are the regulatory authority and have had sight of these things. Are we on track for that? And in response, Tim Johnson said, there is a lot of work to do and we are working hard in assessing the applications that we are getting, working with the operators and providing them with feedback, and we will exercise our duties in the most timely way possible. Clark then followed that by asking if they expect a launch from one of the proposed sites this year, which was followed by Johnson saying that we will be doing everything we can. Later in the hearing, however, we did get some numbers with Colin McLeod, the head of space regulation at the CAA, saying that for the spaceport, we are expecting it, the license to be filed, to be between six and 12 months because it is slightly more straightforward than launching. And that space is cutting edge and innovative. Every application is different. Lots of American companies will take many years, therefore in the UK, we think that nine to 18 months is a very competitive timeline for what we are trying to do compared with everyone else. So there isn't really a clear answer on whether or not Virgin Orbit will be launching from the UK this year, with Virgin Orbit and spaceport Cornwall saying yes, and the authorities saying that they are doing everything they can do, whatever that means. With the minimum timelines that McLeod put out, Virgin Orbit's launch license should be ready around July or August, and spaceport Cornwall's license should be ready around April slash May time, but those timelines also had a range that was double those figures. So we'll just have to wait and see how the entire thing pans out. The news this week seems to be pretty full of small-site launch news, and that trend will continue as last week I covered the anomaly that ABL space systems had suffered whilst testing their second stage, and now we've received confirmation that their first launch attempt will be delayed because of it. ABL CEO Harry O'Hanley has said that the E2 vacuum engine being used suffered a hard start, which is when the flow of propellant and ignition fluid doesn't allow for a gradual increase in energy, but an explosive rise instead in the hot gas circuit of the turbopump. This resulted in a substantial fire at the aft end of the stage, which then resulted in a complete failure approximately 20 seconds later. ABL President Dan Piemont has said the company had seen some small hard starters previously during other engine tests resulting in minor damage, but that this failure was much larger and more complex. The company had set a realistic date of February for their first test flight at the RS-1 rocket from Kodiak, Alaska, but now with this failure that schedule is being pushed by three months to May. The second stage is now the only piece of the puzzle to get working, with the first stage already in Kodiak, the interstage being shipped to Kodiak, and the payload fairing having completed its acceptance testing with it being shipped to Kodiak soon. The Chinese commercial rocket manufacturer and launch Atlantic Energy has announced that they have raised US$200 million in two funding rounds during the second half of last year between July and December. That money is going to be put into the development of this, their proposed Paras-1 medium lift reusable vehicle designed to take five metric tonnes to Leo, placing it alongside India's GSLV Mark II, which isn't reusable, and just over half the performance of Rocket Lab's upcoming Neutron rocket which will be reusable. They're planning a launch in early 2023 using kerosene for the propellant and liquid oxygen as the oxidiser. You may remember that back in December, Atlantic Energy reached orbit twice with their Cerys-1 solid propellant rocket, becoming the first Chinese private launch provider to do so, and hopefully this money will be able to advance to the next chapter of the company's story. The next chapter of this episode is space traffic, so let's stay with China for the first launch. The first launch to cover is Elsar-1A, which launched to top a long march for C at 2344 UTC on January 25th from SLS-2 at the G-1 satellite launch centre. Heading for a 600km sun-synchronous orbit, Elsar-1A is an Earth observation satellite which will be used to survey the environment after geological events such as landslides and earthquakes. It is part of a satellite group, and as soon it will be joined by Elsar-1B. SpaceX's fourth launch of the year finally commenced at 2311 UTC on January 31st after a total of four scrubs with the Falcon 9 booster B1052 lifting the 2,230kg CSG-2 payload, otherwise known as the Cosmos SkyMed 2nd Generation 2 off Slick 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station near Florida for a fantastic sunset launch. After releasing the second stage and the payload, which is now on its way to a 619km 97.86 degree sun-synchronous orbit, yes the Falcon really is powerful enough to send a spacecraft the opposite way around the Earth. B1052 slowly descended upon Landing Zone 1 to give us the second RTLS recovery of the year, and the third consecutive RTLS recovery of a single booster as B1052 was previously used as a Falcon Heavy side booster, also making it the only Falcon 9 booster to land at both Landing Zone 1 and Landing Zone 2. Coming up over the next seven days, we have NRL-87 on a Falcon 9, Starry Group 4, Mission 7 on another Falcon 9, a Soyuz 2.1A launch, and Elena-41 on Astra's Rocket 3. And here is your face weather with Dr. Tana Fascoe. Our sun definitely brings on the eye candy this week. As we take a look at our Earth-facing disc, it may not look like all that much, but do you see this region up here? This is region 2936, and as it begins to rotate into the Earth Strike Zone, it becomes an X-flare player. In fact, on the 29th, WHAM right there, do you see that? It fires off an M1 class flare, and along with it, it also launches an Earth-directed solar storm. You can see the blast wave rippling across the disc like that. That solar storm is not super fast, but it is on its way to Earth, and I'll talk about that more in a minute. Meanwhile, we also have a coronal hole that has been rotating in through the Earth Strike Zone, and we're dealing with the waning fast solar wind from that region. But since then, not too much has been going on, unless you look at the east limb of the sun. We have a couple regions that are going to be rotating into Earth View here in the next couple days, and they are definitely solar storm players, so that's going to continue to boost that solar flux up even higher into the triple digits than we already are, and that's great news for amateur radio operators and emergency responders. For more details on this week's Space Weather, including how that Earth-directed solar storm may affect you, come check out my channel or see me at spaceweatherwoman.com. If you like what you see and you want to support the show financially, then you can join our YouTube members, the citizens of tomorrow. The escape velocity, orbital suborbital and ground support citizens receive call perks, such as access to exclusive Discord channels, space news scripts as they're being written, and the pre and post shows of the Tomorrow Live broadcasts. 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