Launch Roundup: Vulcan ready for second flight; Hera mission set to study asteroid

Date:
Mon, 30 Sep 2024 21:22:09 +0000

Description:
The United Launch Alliance (ULA) is preparing for the second flight of its Vulcan Centaur The post Launch Roundup: Vulcan ready for second flight; Hera mission set to study asteroid appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com .

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The United Launch Alliance (ULA) is preparing for the second flight of its Vulcan Centaur rocket this week. The mission will see Vulcan carry an inert payload to orbit alongside some experiments and demonstrations and will complete its certification process with the U.S. Space Force (USSF).

SpaceX has delayed missions this week following an off-nominal deorbit burn
of a Falcon 9 second stage following the Crew-9 mission. The stage landed in the South Pacific Ocean but outside of the defined reentry corridor. While
the team investigates, the company has rescheduled Mondays planned launch of its OneWeb mission out of Vandenberg to next week, while a Starlink mission will now fly from the Cape this week on Saturday, Oct. 5.



Another Falcon 9 is being prepared to launch the Hera mission for the
European Space Agency (ESA) from Florida. With two cubesats onboard, Hera
will study the results of NASAs Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) asteroid deflection test, which impacted the Dimorphos asteroid two years
ago. The pad at Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) remains configured for the upcoming Europa Clipper mission, which will fly on a Falcon Heavy next week. Both of these interplanetary missions have launch windows that extend to the end of the month in case of any further delays. Vulcan Centaur begins its rollout to the pad at SLC-41 from the Vertical Integration Facility-G. (Credit: ULA)

Vulcan Centaur VC2S | Certification Flight 2

This second flight of ULAs Vulcan Centaur, named Certification Flight 2 (or Cert-2), will complete Vulcans certification process with the USSF. The USSF requires two flight tests before the vehicle can carry a number of national security payloads that are already booked on its manifest. Liftoff is scheduled for Friday, Oct. 4, from Space Launch Complex 41 (SLC-41) at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) in Florida at 6:00 AM EDT (10:00 UTC). The mission has a three-hour launch window available.

Sierra Spaces Dreamchaser Tenacity was originally planned to take its maiden voyage onboard this certification mission. However, when Sierra Space announced earlier this year that more time was needed for further testing and flight preparations, Tenacity was removed from the mission as a payload. Tenacity will now likely be riding on Vulcans sixth mission in March 2025. In its place on Cert-2 is a mass simulator, also referred to as an inert
payload, which is likely the mass simulator that was prepared ahead of the Vulcans first flight in the event that the Peregrine lander had not been
ready in time. Also onboard are experiments and technology demonstrations
that may be incorporated into future missions. ICYMI // United Launch
Alliance successfully completes stacking the #VulcanRocket for the #Cert2 flight test!

Blog: https://t.co/FBCI9MimQP Photos: https://t.co/NQSis8zOVH Mission info: https://t.co/eWLyIiIUE6 pic.twitter.com/NTsgdBeLfZ

ULA (@ulalaunch) September 23, 2024



Vulcan Centaur is a two-stage heavy-lift rocket specifically designed to meet the requirements of the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program. It evolves technologies developed for ULAs heritage Atlas V and Delta IV rockets with a modular design around a common booster core. The wider 5.4 m core has an internal orthogrid aluminum construction and, unlike its predecessors, burns liquid methane and oxygen via two BE-4 engines.

Two Graphite Epoxy Motor (GEM) 63XL solid rocket boosters (SRBs) assist these engines in propelling the vehicle on its initial ascent. The SRBs burn
through their solid propellant after approximately 90 seconds of flight,
after which they are jettisoned. Following stage separation, dual RL10C-1-1A engines propel the Centaur V upper stage onwards before shutting down for a coast phase. These engines will later reignite to propel the vehicle into a hyperbolic injection orbit around the Sun.

Two missions for the USSF are planned to fly on Vulcan before the end of the year, assuming Cert-2 flies successfully and certification is granted. The USSF-106 mission will be the first Vulcan flight to use the VC4S
configuration with four GEM 63XL SRBs. This same configuration is also
planned for use on the USSF-87 Mission, which will carry GSSAP-7 and 8 directly into a geosynchronous orbit. This identical pair of Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness satellites will form part of the USSFs planned Space Base Situational Awareness (SBSS) constellation, which will track space traffic and debris in orbit. Additional missions are planned for 2025, including several launches of Block III satellites for the Global Positioning System (GPS) constellation and Vulcans first launches from SLC-3E in Vandenburg.



Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 10-10

Another batch of 23 Starlink v2-Mini satellites will be launched atop a
Falcon 9 on a northeasterly trajectory from SLC-40 at the CCSFS in Floria. Liftoff is currently scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 5, at 3:43 AM EDT (07:43 UTC). The booster supporting this mission has not yet been confirmed but will land downrange on an autonomous droneship approximately eight minutes into
the mission.

Starlink launched its public beta service four years ago this month. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell announced that Starlink would pass four million subscriptions last week and is now predicted to exceed $6 billion in revenue by the end of this year. At the start of the week, SpaceX had sent a total of 7,062 Starlink satellites into orbit, of which 636 have reentered, and 6,138 have reached their operational orbit. Render of the Hera spacecraft with its solar wings deployed. (Credit: ESA)

Falcon 9 Block 5 | Hera

Two years after NASAs DART mission purposely crashed a spacecraft into the Dimorphos moonlet asteroid at 6.1 km/s, the Hera mission is heading back to the binary asteroid system to study the results of DARTs impact in more detail. The planetary defense experiment sought to prove that spacecraft
could defend Earth from an incoming asteroid by deflecting its trajectory as
a result of striking it with a spacecraft. DART successfully altered
Dimorphos orbit around the larger asteroid Didymos, sending a plume of debris across space.

Hera is scheduled to liftoff from SLC-40 at the CCSFS on Monday, Oct. 7, at 10:52 AM EDT (14:52 UTC). The booster supporting this mission is not yet
known but will be expended on this flight.

ESA developed the Hera mission, which will provide crucial data to inform the international Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA). Following launch, the Hera spacecraft will travel through space for two years before reaching Dimorphos, performing a Mars flyby during its coast phase to the binary system. Hera is powered by twin three-panelled solar arrays, each measuring five meters long.

Hera will orbit Dimorphos to investigate it in great detail, including characterizing its mass and composition, DARTs crater size, and the momentum transfer efficiency from DARTs impact. To communicate, the spacecraft has a 1.3 m high-gain antenna and two omnidirectional low-gain antennas, in
addition to deep space transponders. Render of the Milani and Juventus cubesats which are carried onboard the Hera spacecraft. (Credit: ESA)

Navigating through a cloud of debris from the original impact, Hera will autonomously approach the asteroid using onboard framing cameras and image processing. These are assisted by a PALT laser range finder, which measures distances through the reflection and receiving of laser pulses. A thermal infrared imager will enable mapping of the asteroids surface while the Hypercount H hyperspectral imager will allow the craft to survey and prospect the asteroid.

Two 6U cubesats are being carried by Hera, and will be released once in the vicinity of Dimorphos. Milani will map the surface and characterize the composition of the asteroid and the dust clouds around it. Juventus will unfurl a radar antenna and descend to land on Dimorphos, measuring its
gravity field, surface properties, and interior geophysical structure. It is expected that Dimorphos will have become the most studied asteroid in the solar system by the end of Heras mission.

(Lead image: Vulcan Centaur rolls out to SLC-41 ahead of the Cert-2 mission. Credit: NSF)



The post Launch Roundup: Vulcan ready for second flight; Hera mission set to study asteroid appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com .



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Link to news story: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2024/09/launch-roundup-093024/


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