Space fans can now rest easily: the Federal Aviation Administration has formally approved the third Starship test launch from the company’s facilities in Boca Chica, Texas. Shortly before 5 PM EDT, they issued a launch license (pictured above).
That flight could take place as soon as tomorrow morning, Thursday, March 14, 2024. The launch window extends from 8:00 AM – 9:50 AM EDT.
The Crew-7 mission to the ISS ended this morning with a splashdown at 5:50 AM EDT this morning in the Gulf of Mexico. The splashdown near Pensacola, Florida marked the end of a six and one half month mission aboard the International Space Station for the crew of four.
By 6:13 AM EDT, the Crew Dragon Spacecraft Endurance was hoisted safely aboard the SpaceX recovery ship Megan, with the crew exiting Endurance around 6:36 AM.
NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli, European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov launched on August 26, 2023 from the Kennedy Space Center. Their mission extended for 199 days, logging a 84,434,094 mile journey consisting of 3,184 orbits around Earth.
While in orbit, the crew conducted over 200 science experiments, one of which was a critical study on the impact of spaceflight on immune function. Additionally, the crew engaged in testing innovative membranes intended for the removal of contaminants from wastewater—a critical advancement for future deep space expeditions where water recycling is essential.
The mission set a new record for the Crew Dragon spacecraft, Endurance. This mission marked Endurance’s third flight and took its total days in space to 534, more than any other crew-rated vehicle in history. Space X’s Crew Dragon capsules are currently rated for reuse on five missions, but the success rate has been so high across SpaceX’s fleet of four Crew Dragons, the company plans to pursue flight certifications to substantially increase that rating to around fifteen.
The return of Crew-7 paves the way for future missions, including the forthcoming cargo Dragon Resupply Mission, CRS-30 next week, as well as Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner capsule’s scheduled test mission in May. While Crew 7 was docked at the ISS, there were a total of six docking ports being used for various crew and cargo modules, creating enough congestion that the Boeing Starliner flight test was pushed from April to May.
Note: this article was originally published by Florida Media Now and was authored by Mark Stone.
Famed fine-arts photographer Clyde Butcher once said of Florida, “Out west they have their mountains. We have our clouds.” Butcher’s observation was spot-on, the Sunshine State is home to some incredible sights in our skies — be it the setting sun illuminating a far away thunderstorm, a wall cloud from an approaching tropical storm, or even just a regular day where the clouds take on shapes where they appear to be animals or something else familiar.
Every in once in a while, we see something incredible that looks other-worldly: “holes in the sky,” or cavum clouds — something that some folks have claimed were caused by extraterrestrial spaceships, or by “weather control” experiments by some anonymous and nefarious government agency. Apparently, alien life-forms have nothing better to do after travelling trillions of miles to Earth than make donut holes in the clouds.
The truth is far simpler than that, cavum clouds are a natural phenomenon that is caused by “mid-level clouds are composed of liquid water droplets that are supercooled,” according to NASA’s Adam Voiland at the agency’s Earth Observatory website.
Supercooling is relatively common in our atmosphere — altocumulus clouds, for example, are supercooled and they cover at least eight percent of the Earth on the average. In simple terms, that’s when water droplets in the sky — the things clouds are made of — remain liquid even when they are below their normal freezing point.
Voiland goes on the explain further how that relates to cavum clouds, “Supercooled clouds have their limits. As air moves around the wings and past the propellers of airplanes, a process known as adiabatic expansion cools the water by an additional 20°C or more and can push liquid water droplets to the point of freezing without the help of airborne particles. Ice crystals beget more ice crystals as the liquid droplets continue to freeze. The ice crystals eventually grow heavy enough that they begin to fall out of the sky, leaving a void in the cloud layer.”
So, basically, a cavum cloud is usually created by a common airplane flying through a typical cloud structure and setting off a cascade of ice formation inside that creates this “hole in the sky.”
No aliens or super-secret government agencies needed, but a cool thing to see if a cavum cloud passes overhead.
It’s often said that the third time is the charm. For Crew 8 commander Matthew Dominick, co-pilot Michael Barratt, Jeanette Epps, and cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, the third launch attempt was the one that lifted them off of Pad LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center late Sunday evening.
Twice in previous days, adverse weather had forced mission managers to call off a launch attempt: first, on Friday due to high winds and rough seas beneath the planned ascent corridor. On Saturday, conditions hadn’t improved for a launch attempt, but by late Sunday they were acceptable and the Crew-8 liftoff and journey to the International Space Station was cleared to proceed. The reason for the weather aborts was simple, if a little counterintuitive to the average person: in the case of a launch abort, the crew would have into seas as high as 20 feet in the Atlantic.
After a seemingly uneventful countdown that allowed the astronauts and ground crew to get ahead of schedule, late concerns were raised about a crack in the hatch seal of Crew Dragon Endeavour that was discovered after it was sealed. According to SpaceX and NASA commentators, there were concerns that the crack could cause an atmospheric leak during re-entry, which of course would be unacceptable and potentially cause a scrub to facilitate repairs.
With Falcon 9 being loaded with propellants and the countdown clock inexorably ticking down to zero, engineers responsible for this aspect of the spacecraft were consulted, and with ten minutes left in the count, the astronauts were informed by ground control that the crack was too small to pose a threat. Engineers also stated that the crack would seal itself during re-entry heating, was on the “side” of Crew Dragon as it was re-entering, and would not be a problem. The countdown was cleared to continue.
A brand-new booster to the Falcon 9 fleet, B1083, fired up at 10:53 PM EST, sending the crew to orbit and ultimately to the International Space Station. Endeavour will dock autonomously to the forward port of the station’s Harmony module about 3 a.m. Tuesday, March 5.
After staging, the return booster put on an incredible display over the Florida coastline, first, as it began its RTLS (Return To Launch Site) maneuvers then later during its re-entry burn — all of which was visible to spectators from near the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center. Some eight and a half minutes after liftoff, Booster B1083 concluded its first mission with a pair of sonic booms after it touched down, followed by the roar of the landing burn.
Crew-8 will now catch up with the International Space Station, and autonomous dock is planned for the forward port of the station’s Harmony module about 3 a.m. Tuesday, March 5. After settling in to ISS, Crew-8 will begin a six month assignment on Station to begin a slate of more than 200 science experiments and technology demonstrations that will take place during their mission.
The American Space Museum in Titusville along with the National Space Society has announced “321 Day” on March 21st to celebrate the life and legacy of local legend Robert “Ozzy” Osband — self-proclaimed “Rocket Hobo” and “Father of the 3-2-1 Area Code.”
Osband was a familar and welcome sight to local and tourists alike in Space View Park, where he gave launch updates, countdowns, and the occasional “SCRUB!” to people gathered in Space View Park to watch launch attempts at the Cape. Always the friendly sort, Ozzy was well known for coloring in the details of what was happening, giving the public a much better understanding of what they were watching.
He created the “Rocket Hobos” — someone one “who never misses a rocket launch. They have encyclopedic knowledge of the space program. They possess minutiae on the history of NASA. Their minds are like webs wherein every statistic of space trivia is forever snared. Rocket Hobos set their alarms for 3:11 am Atlas blast-offs.” Remaining Rocket Hobos patches will be for sale at Space View Park on the day of the celebration.
Osband also had the idea for the Space Coast to have its famous “321” area code. The old “407” area code was running out of numbers, and new code was going to be established for the area. Ozzy did some research, found out that “321” was available and started a campaign for its assignment to the Space Coast region.
On Nov. 1, 1999, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush placed the first official “321” phone call from Tallahassee to Kennedy Space Center, with Ozzy sitting beside the deputy director receiving the call.
“We are excited to honor our wonderful friend Ozzy in this celebration,” said Karan Conklin, ASM executive director. “We are happy the National Space Society has helped our museum create a community event to honor Ozzy’s legacy on our Space Coast. “People like Robert Osband carry the torch for the Space Age in the community and help inspire all generations to explore outer space,” said Gabriel Rothblatt, a Director of the National Space Society and Space Coast resident. “This is a special celebration for an extraordinary man, and we welcome the community to join us.”
Ozzy Osband died Aug. 6, 2023 of natural causes at age 72. He was born in New York, and lived much of his life in the Titusville area. Ozzy had his own computer software company, and was well known in the ham radio community (N4SCY). As an Army veteran, he was interred at the Cape Canaveral National Cemetery in Mims, Florida.
While honoring and recognizing all of America’s space programs and their workers, the foundation agrees with astronaut Alan Shepard, when on May 13, 1996, he said, “We need to remember the people who made it possible; so little is said of them.” The intent of the American Space Museum and US Space Walk of Fame is to honor and place emphasis on American space workers and others who made the space programs possible.
Mark your calendars and plan to attend. This will surely be a great time to remember one of Titusville’s most colorful and iconic characters, a man who reflected the city and its other residents perfectly.
Related: Ozzie Osband, Originator of “3-2-1” Telephone Area Code and “Rocket Hobo,” Passes Away at 72
Editors note: this article contains quotes and text from a press release by the American Space Museum
While Crew-8’s Falcon 9 sits on Pad LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center this morning waiting for weather to improve along its launch corridor, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 carrying 23 more Starlink Version 2 Mini satellites to low-Earth orbit from its other launch pad on the Eastern Range at SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
Liftoff at 10:30 AM EST under almost-overcast skies, with the rocket completely disappearing 10-15 seconds after liftoff when it entered the cloud deck and rose towards orbit. About 8.5 minutes later, Booster B1076 completed its 11th mission and landed safely offshore on the company’s autonomous spaceport drone ship (ASDS) Just Read The Instructions.
JRTI will now head back to Port Canaveral and should arrive several days from now to offload the booster so it can be inspected and refurbished for another flight.
Today’s launch was the 13th of the year so far as February comes to a close. That’s a launch rate of one every 4.6-odd days on the average.
SpaceX and NASA hope to launch Crew-8 from pad LC-39A on Saturday, March 2nd from Pad LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center. This launch was rescheduled from 12:04 AM EST March 1st, due to weather concerns along its flight path as it heads towards the International Space Station.
NASA announced this morning that “due to unfavorable weather conditions forecast in offshore areas along the flight track, NASA and SpaceX now are targeting Saturday, March 2 at 11:15 p.m. EST for Crew-8 launch.”
Weather here on the Space Coast appears to be acceptable for a launch, and it appears that forecasters have scaled back their rain estimates for the area — down from 40% chances of precipitation overnight to as little as 15%. Unfortunately, the forecasts aren’t as good along the launch corridor, and in the unlikely case of a launch abort, the crew would be descending into unacceptable conditions.
NASA’s Manager of Commercial Crew, Steve Stich, outlined this in a press conference at Kennedy Space Center yesterday. “It’s one of the more complicated times during ascent relative to how we do abort weather,” he said. “We basically have a number of points all across the ascent ground track from the launch pad all the way to orbit insertion. And for each one of those points, we look at a weighted risk.”
Stich also said that “At staging, we look at that location because if you think about all the events that have to happen at staging, when the first stage, the nine Merlin engines shut down, there’s separation and the MVAC engine has to start.”
Should that second stage engine fail to ignite properly, the crew would be in an abort mode and down into weather that NASA and SpaceX officials have deemed too risky to attempt a launch at the original planned liftoff time. Conditions are expected over to improve over the next couple of days as the frontal boundary pushes south.
Saturday may well end up as a repeat of today: weather will likely still be a concern, and a scrub may be necessitated according to today’s forecast by the US Space Force’s 45th Weather Squadron:
While weather here on the Space Coast looks as though it will have a 90% chance of acceptable launch conditions early Friday morning for a 12:04 AM EST launch of astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, and Jeanette Epps and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin to the International Space Station, NASA officials raised concerns that weather along the watch corridor may not be acceptable.
In a pre-flight press conference this morning at the Kennedy Space Center Press Site, Steve Stich, NASA’s Manager for the Commercial Crew Program said, “Launch weather looks really favorable for Friday morning’s early launch. I would say the abort weather is what we’re watching very carefully.”
The 45th Weather Squadron released their first launch forecast for Crew-8 at 12:00 PM EST today:
“We have to have weather along the east coast ground track to be acceptable for launch,” Stich added. “That weather right now is not looking as favorable as we’d like. We’ll do another weather briefing tonight and then we’ll take a look at the weather again.”
He added later that the weather forecast is in the marginal column, but not yet in the zone that would necessitate a scrub out of an abundance of caution. “I would say it’s marginal right now based on the forecast,” Stich said. “We’ll go look at the weather tonight and make a decision. Do we push the launch 24 hours at that point, or do we take it down further? And that’s really going to be based on the weather models and the prediction of this trough. And then sometimes we’ll take it all the way down to the day of launch, and we just have to look at the data a little bit more.”
In the relatively unlikely event of a launch abort, NASA and SpaceX want to ensure that conditions for an unplanned splashdown of the crew at sea are safe.
Stich illustrated this with some in-depth comments: “At staging, we look at that location because if you think about all the events that have to happen at staging, when the first stage, the nine Merlin engines shut down, there’s separation and the MVAC engine has to start.”
“It’s one of the more complicated times during ascent relative to how we do abort weather, we basically have a number of points all across the ascent ground track from the launch pad all the way to orbit insertion. And for each one of those points, we look at a weighted risk,” Stich said.
Should that second-stage engine ignition fail to occur, an abort would be necessary. Again, this unlikely, but bad weather is an unacceptable risk for astronauts descending from a far-from-nominal state in their spaceflight.
To be clear, at the time of this writing, 1:00 PM EST on Wednesday, the mission has not been delayed. That decision will be made later, so stay tuned.
Due to its final position on the lunar surface, Intuitive Machine’s IM-1 Nova-C “Odysseus” lander will cease operations within 24 hours. That will be two days earlier than planned. Still, IM said in an update this morning that they continue receiving data from the first American lunar lander to successfully touch down on the moon’s surface in over fifty years.
In a post on the company’s website and also on the X platform, Intuitive Machines said this morning that
Flight Controllers continue to communicate with Odysseus. This morning, Odysseus efficiently sent payload science data and imagery in furtherance of the Company’s mission objectives. Flight controllers are working on final determination of battery life on the lander, which may continue up to an additional 10-20 hours.
The images included here are the closest observations of any spaceflight mission to the south pole region of the Moon. Odysseus is quite the photographer, capturing this image approximately 30 meters above the lunar surface while his main engine throttled down more than 24,000 mph. Another day of exploration on the south pole region of the Moon. (27FEB2024 0835 CST)
After the lander is in the darkness of lunar night and its batteries are exhausted, the mission will end. That endpoint was originally scheduled for sometime Thursday, February 29th, but will occur early due to the angle and final resting position of Odysseus. Because it is on its side, rather than standing vertically, the amount and strength the lander receives to provide power through its solar panels is less than optimal.
As for the final results of the experiments aboard Odysseus, we will have to wait for them to be released by NASA and Intuitive Machines.
While IM-1 is near its end, NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program is really just getting started with planned lunar landings in support of both the Artemis program to return humans to the moon and also lunar science in general.
Blue Ghost M1, by Firefly Aerospace, is set to launch in the third quarter of this year aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9. “Firefly is excited and ready for our Blue Ghost Mission 1,” Trina Patterson, VP of Marketing and Communications told Talk of Titusville. “We got next!”
The 2 x 3.5 meter spacecraft’s landing target is Mare Crisium (Latin for “Sea of Crises”) a spot that is barely visible to observers with the naked eye. It will, according to Firefly, carry “ten NASA-sponsored payloads” and is designed to last “for an entire lunar day (about 14 Earth days), and well into the freezing lunar night.”
In the fourth quarter of this year, Intuitive Machines will try again with IM-2, its second Nova-C lander. It will land in the southern polar region of the moon, this time carrying a drill (PRIME-1) combined with a mass spectrometer, to attempt harvesting ice from below the surface among other experiments. Like IM-1 and Firefly’s Blue Ghost M1, IM-2 is planned to fly aboard a Falcon 9 rocket on its initial journey to space.
Astrobotics, the Pennsylvania company that built the Peregrine lander that failed to reach the moon earlier this year, has its VIPER lander slated to head towards the lunar South Pole region later this year as well.
2025 will also see multiple CLPS missions to the lunar surface. Intuitive Machines, Firefly and Draper Laboratories all have missions penciled in for next year.
On Friday at 12:04 AM EST, NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, and Jeanette Epps, along with one Roscosmos cosmonaut, Alexander Grebenkin, are scheduled to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 with Crew Dragon and head towards the International Space Station. The crew arrived at Kennedy Space Center yesterday to begin their final preparations for the launch on March 1st.
Later in the day, mission managers and engineers conducted a Flight Readiness Review for the mission, where they assessed the rocket’s readiness, the crew and several other critical factors to approve the mission start.
Early in the afternoon, the crew arrived at the Launch and Landing Facility (LLF) at Kennedy Space Center, where they gave brief remarks to the press before leaving for other duties.
Dominick, a former US Navy test pilot and a NASA astronaut since 2017 remarked that it is an “incredible time for spaceflight,” where launch activities at Kennedy Space Center and the Eastern Range happen so often that Crew-8 was slightly delayed to accommodate other missions:
Dr. Barratt is an experienced and well-seasoned astronaut, having flown twice on Soyuz, and once on the Space Shuttle before he became a member of Crew-8. He has been extensively involved in medical and human factors applications for new space vehicles in the Commercial Crew and Artemis Programs, space medical risks, and research efforts. He began working at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in May 1991.
Barratt remarked that Kennedy Space Center has rebounded greatly since the end of the Shuttle program, and that today it is an incredibly busy place:
Dr. Epps, who has been with NASA since 2009, remarked on the long road to the launch pad and how she was trained on Russian, Boeing, and SpaceX flight systems. She holds a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Maryland and is a well-respected and oft-cited researcher in her field and an astronaut.
In her remarks, she thanked everyone who participated in getting the mission to launch readiness.
Grebenken, has served in the technical and operational units of the Air Force of the Aerospace Forces of the Russian Armed Forces and has been a member of the Russian cosmonaut corps since 2018, first as a cosmonaut candidate, and in 2020 he was awarded the qualification of a test cosmonaut. He spoke through an interpreter during his brief remarks.
Also yesterday, a Flight Readiness Review for Crew-8 was conducted by mission managers at NASA and SpaceX to assess whether the mission was ready to proceed with the launch as planned on Friday.
Ken Bowersox, Associate Administrator of the Space Operations Mission Directorate at NASA said, “We talked about some of the technical items, on the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft, the readiness of the crew, and the Space Station and even some of the science the crew will conduct.”
Bowersox said results were positive: “At the end of the review, everybody polled ‘Go’ and we’re on track for a launch at 12:04 EST on Friday March 1st from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center.”
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