 We have the latest developments out of Starbase, the confirmed implications of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and a whole lot more. This is Tomorrow Space News. We're starting this show down in Texas at a very foggy Starbase, where multiple new methane tanks have been lifted up by the SpaceX-branded LR-11000 crane and placed onto the tank farm. This was the first, which was followed by the second tank, and that was followed by the third, fourth and fifth tanks, adding a lot more storage capacity for liquid methane. The pre-existing tanks can also be seen behind the five new ones. The next Starship Ship 24 has begun stacking in the high bay, with the middle locks tank section and the common dome section being welded together. Some new crane parts have also been arriving with this section, along with many others, being added onto the jib of the Buckner LR-11000. That's the LR crane, which is at the production site. There has been a team at the orbital tank farm working on the wall that surrounds the methane tanks, which is a requirement for these tanks to be legally operable. This is also the reason why SpaceX can't use their in-house manufactured vertical tanks to store methane. The Starship updates are also ramping up on the east coast in the Cape Canaveral area, following Elon's tweet that construction of the new Starship pad at LC-39A had restarted. NASA Space Flight has started a new series, where they send a couple camera operators out on a helicopter, and here are some of the interesting things that they've been spotting. SpaceX's Roberts Road facility has started going through the first stages of construction, which basically means they've spread a bunch of concrete on the ground and they're preparing to drive some piles. The large rectangular shape in the middle of the plot also perfectly matches the plans that were filed for drainage. You can also see the construction on Hangar X at the back of the shot. The progress can also be seen using imagery from Sentinel-2, which is an Earth observation satellite. This sort of timelapse starts at the end of January and finishes last week. This also makes it a lot easier to see the changes made to Hangar X, which is almost doubled in size. The first thing I talked about this week was methane tanks at Starbase and we have some tanks turning up at 39A as well. These four were seen last week at the Turning Basin and they've now been brought up to the launch complex. It isn't known what is going to be filling these tanks, but it'll either be liquid oxygen, liquid methane, or both, as Starship requires both. Let's not forget the third and fourth launch sites, however, that being Phobos and Deimos, the two decommissioned oil rigs which SpaceX are converting to fully-fledged launch pads, which can be taken to, theoretically, any place on the Earth's oceans. The latter, Deimos, has just left the port of Brownsville, which is just a few miles west of Boca Chica, is going to be travelling over the next few weeks to Mississippi through the Gulf of Mexico. I think it was important to start off with the SpaceX stuff and then move on to the Ukraine-related news because this next segment is going to be a lot more depressing than the last. We have a space channel talking about spaceflight, but we still recognise the weight of what's occurring and we're not attempting to minimise or distract from the malicious actions of Russia invading Ukraine. The human costs are horrific and entirely unjustified and spaceflight is just a tiny slither of the situation, but as that is our speciality, that is what we will be talking about. If you didn't catch last week's live show, we had a massive discussion on the implications of the space industry because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. If you want to check that out, the link is in the corner of your screen right now, but now we've had about half a week to reflect on the situation. Here are the biggest and most influential implications and lack of implications in some circumstances of this war. Now, obviously, this is a topic which is evolving by the minute, so some of this data may be outdated within the next few weeks, days or even hours, but at the time of writing, here's what we know. Starting off with rockets and aerospace companies with links to Ukraine and Russia, AE Industrial Partners is purchasing the stake which is owned by Neusphere Venture Partners, a Ukrainian company which is run by Max Polyakov. This follows the request to Polyakov from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States which asked for Neusphere's stake in Firefly to be sold due to fears at the time of a potential invasion of Russia. As we now know, those fears would turn out to be warranted. The purchase from AE Industrial Partners is slightly surprising as on February 16th, Polyakov made a Facebook post saying he was selling his 58% stake for one US dollar to co-founder and current Firefly CEO Tom Marcusek. That post also included a bit of a rant against the US government and its agencies and you can decide for yourself if that is justified. After all, he did help to save Firefly and then he was asked to leave, but there was a real threat of an invasion. Hopefully now that owner of this particular stake has been settled, Firefly can get launching again from Vandenberg. The first stage of the Antares rocket, launched by Northrop Grumman for their commercial resupply missions to the International Space Station is actually manufactured within Ukraine itself. It also uses the RD-181 engines which are Russian. Northrop Grumman has said that they do have the components to create two more Antares 230 plus vehicles which will be enough for NG-18 in August and NG-19 in April next year. But once those components have been used, what will Northrop Grumman do? If Ukraine is still not a safe place to assemble the first stage and they can't get their RD-181 engines from Russia, then Cygnus can fly on another vehicle. Theoretically, they could fly on a Falcon 9 and it has flown on a vehicle that isn't Antares before, the Atlas V. Back in the old days of orbital ATK, OA-4, OA-6 and OA-7 all flew on an Atlas V in the 401 configuration. So there we have it, the solution, but that's not the case. Atlas V only has a set number of missions left in its life and it also uses Russian engines, the RD-180. ULA are not selling any more flights on the Atlas V, so if Cygnus needs a ride and Antares isn't online at the moment, the only viable option would be the Falcon 9, but Vulcan should be up and running by that point, which I think would be the most likely choice as SpaceX already has their own commercial resupply missions with Dragon on the Falcon 9. Also, on the limited number of flights remaining of Atlas V, Tory Bruno, the CEO of United Launch Alliance, has said on Twitter that they do have enough engines for every remaining flight of the vehicle. If Northrop Grumman can't continue with the current way Antares is manufactured in the future for a very long time and they don't want to be reliant on a third-party rocket, then they have studied the idea of building the Antares first stage in-house and using different engines from Aerojet Rocketdyne. So theoretically, Cygnus is okay and we know Atlas V is okay, but there is one rocket which we don't know the status of. Ariane Space's current Vega rocket and upcoming Evolution Vega C both use the RD-843 for their second stages, which is also manufactured in Ukraine and it is also a Russian engine. We don't know how many of these engines already exist and how many missions can be supported, but Ariane Space has designed to fly Vega C for the first time this year, so it would be a big disappointment if they can't fly that vehicle because of the situation in Ukraine. Even if Ariane Space can't fly Vega C, then at least they have Ariane 6 and Soyuz, right? Well, not any more, at least with the latter. Because of the sanctions imposed on Russia from the European Union, French Guyana is not going to be seeing a Soyuz for a suspected very long time. According to the head of Roscosmos, Dimitriy Rogozin. Russia is pulling out all of its engineers from Kuro, which are trained to work on the Soyuz. This is now putting Ariane Space in a pretty sticky situation. They might not have engines for Vega and they definitely won't be able to fly Soyuz, and Ariane 5, same as the Atlas V, is soon heading for the retirement home, so no more flights can be purchased on that vehicle and Ariane 6 is launching for the first time at best in Q2 of this year. As a theoretical scenario, and just to be clear, this has not been officially stated anywhere, let's say Vega C has no second stage engines. This leaves Ariane Space with only the Ariane 6. That is going to be insanely overpowered for some of the payloads intended to fly on Vega C and it will cost a lot more money, but in this scenario it could be their only option. Hopefully we'll receive official wording on the state of Vega C's engines soon, but for now the future is looking a bit bleak. ESA have officially stated, and I quote, we will consequently assess for each European institutional payload under our responsibility the appropriate launch service based notably on launch systems currently in operation and the upcoming Vega C and Ariane 6 launches. In simple terms, that just means that Ariane Space will assign the appropriate vehicle when needed to replace Soyuz. A Soyuz was meant to launch two Galileo satellites, Europe's version of GPS, from the Guyana Space Center on April 6th, but obviously that has now been canned. Vega C isn't powerful enough to lift even just one Galileo satellite to its required orbit, so Ariane 6 is the only option when there is no Soyuz. Galileo isn't the only constellation that Ariane Space launches, however, as they also launch Starlink's main competitor, OneWeb. The next OneWeb launch is scheduled for Friday, and we still don't know what will happen to that launch. We don't know if it will go ahead or what. We've got no word at all. We do know that the satellites have arrived in Kazakhstan, however. Theoretically, OneWeb could launch on a Vega C. Each satellite has a mass of about 150 kilograms, and Vega C can carry 2,300 kilos to low Earth orbit, according to manufacturer Avio. The initial OneWeb constellation orbits around 1,200 kilometers, 800 below the Leo Cut-Off point. If you ignore the payload-faring constraints, 15 satellites can be launched at a time on Vega C, but that is over half of what can be launched on Soyuz. So if OneWeb switches to Vega C, they can only launch less than 50% of what they could on Soyuz at a time. But remember, that is without factoring the payload-faring volume capacity. Vega only has space for less than 40 cubic meters, and I'd love to tell you how many OneWeb satellites can fit into that space, but I can't find solid data on the satellite's dimensions. I am certain, however, that the number is less than 36, but if you remember what I said a few paragraphs ago, Vega C might not even be able to fly, making this lack of Soyuz engineers a rather large problem for Ariane space. There is also ExoMars to think about, which is 20 years old, which means it's a very high priority to ESA. It was meant to fly on a proton in September from Baikonur, and Russia is contributing a descent module that will carry the European Rosalind Franklin rover down to the Martian surface. ESA has officially stated that a launch in 2022 is very unlikely, but beyond that, we have no more data. Political pressure may force ESA to pick a different vehicle, as if they were going to launch in September, they soon need to be sending over engineers to get ExoMars properly integrated onto the proton vehicle. The only problem is, as I've said, what rocket will they pick? A Falcon Heavy could support it, same with Vulcan, but that is just comparing the launch capabilities of both vehicles to proton. If Ariane space's problem is large, then the uncertainty around the International Space Station is absolutely massive. It's the largest ever global scientific collaboration being operated by 15 different nations from all around the world, all of which rely on each other. The leading nations, however, are the United States and Russia, who both play the most vital roles. At the moment, the US provides power via its massive solar arrays, as well as stability with its gyroscopes, and Russia uses its fuel to re-boost the station every so often. The station, in its current configuration, requires the consent and collaboration from all partners in order to keep functioning and to keep the astronauts and cosmonauts on board alive. The sanctions announced by President Biden contained a note specifically mentioning Russia's space program. It'll degrade their aerospace industry, including their space program. But NASA has stated that they are not changing the agency's support for ongoing ground station and on-orbit operations. But if the political pressure gets too tough or Russia just wants to leave, then the US and its partners are going to have to develop ways to stop the ISS from an uncontrolled descent, which is something which Rogozin moaned about on Twitter. Some solutions we came up with on the live show include using a Cygnus, which is already going to perform its first operational re-boost with the NG-17 mission and developing a tank and engine to fit into the trunk of Dragon. This hasn't been confirmed at all, they're just speculative ideas. I don't even know if the Dragon idea is physically possible. We'll get our first glimpse at what the future will look like with the return of Soyuz MS-20. Its planned return date is at the end of March, with Russians Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov, but most notably Mark Vandahy, an American. According to NASA, the plan is for Vandahy to fly back to Earth on that mission. We've had nothing from Roscosmos, so I'd say it's safe to assume he will be flying home on Soyuz unless there is a sudden turn of events. All of this is going to have massive repercussions on Roscosmos. The sanctions will reduce the money they get, worsening the significant budget cuts they've already received and their lack of RD-180 engine sales. And the invasion of Ukraine, with the following comments from Rogozin, will stain their reputation for a little while, which could reduce their number of future customers if the sanctions don't. A lack of money means that Russia can't develop expensive spacecraft such as their own space station to follow the ISS, which could push them to a collaboration with China, but as Jared said on the live show, China will want equal or more out of the collaboration towards Russia would be getting out of China. I think we need some cheering up, so here's a happy story from Japan. This is Dream Chaser. Yep, I know, this isn't a Japanese vehicle, but I'll get there. It won the CRS-2 contract and it has performed landing tests, but it is yet to go to space. That last fact, however, doesn't stop it from looking absolutely drop-dead gorgeous, and it didn't stop Sierra Space from studying a landing location in Asia. If you can remember, all the way back in January, I covered the story of Virgin Orbit confirming they will be launching Launcher 1 from a Japanese airport, Oita Airport. That is the same place where the Kanamatsu Corporation and the Oita Prefecture want Dream Chaser to land, in addition to the former shuttle landing facility and potentially Huntsville International Airport. The announcement didn't come with any date. All we got was the knowledge that this location is being looked into, and if it is successful, then Sierra Space and Kanamatsu will be looking at collaborating on other opportunities in the future around Japan and Asia. Dream Chaser is currently scheduled to launch no earlier than Q3 of this year, but over the past week we've had a few launches, so let's take a look at them in space traffic. For starters, we had another Starlink launch, specifically grouped for Mission 11. Launching at 1712 Coordinated Universal Time on February 25th from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Spaceful Space on board with 50 Starlink satellites, which were delivered to their initial 316 x 306 km 53.22 degree orbits. Booster B1063 successfully landed for the fourth time on Of Course I Still Love You, and it has returned to the port of Long Beach. The next day, the 26th at 2344 UTC, ELSA-1B launched atop a long much 4C from SLS-2 at the Zhiquan Satellite Launch Center in China. With a mass of approximately 3,200 kg, ELSA-1B is joining ELSA-1A, which launched earlier this year, and together they'll be observing Earth for events such as landslides and earthquakes. This launch also wins my award for the prettiest launch of the year so far. Just look at that sky. Just a few hours after that, on the 27th at 0305 UTC, a single core Longmarch 8 launched from LC201 at the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center, and on board with multiple payloads, including Henan-1, 2, 3 and 4. These were headed for a sun-synchronous orbit as a part of the Longmarch 8's second-ever flight. And finally, we have the inaugural launch from a new launchpad, very exciting, being ELSA-1B on the Mejia Peninsula in New Zealand. It was, of course, electron for the mission The Albin's Night Continues. Launching at 2037 UTC on February 28th, which was 9 o'clock in the morning in New Zealand, the payload from Sinspective Incorporated has a mass of about 100kg, and it was launched into a 561km sun-synchronous orbit. This was also the first electron launch which didn't commence at LC1A. This also means that a electron is now officially a multi-launchpad vehicle. Coming up over the next seven days, we have another Starlink launch, maybe 1W14, we're still not sure, and another Starlink launch. Tomorrow is a crowd-funded show, and that means we're funded by the very generous citizens of tomorrow. Every month they donate a little to a large bit of their hard-earned cash, which in turn helps support us and stay on the internet. If you want to join the escape velocity, orbital, sub-orbital, or ground support citizens and experience some of the cool perks for yourself, such as seeing these scripts as they're being written, head over to youtube.com forward slash tmro forward slash join, or just press the drawing button below. You can support us for as little as $1 a month as a system support member, but that does mean you won't get your name in the show. There are other ways you can help the channel which doesn't cost a penny, such as subscribing, liking the videos, turning notifications on, and if you want to, you can join our Discord server, that can be found in the description. There's no live show this week, but keep your eyes peeled just in case there's another special edition of the news, as this situation is one which is developing very fast. And with that, thank you so much for watching and goodbye.