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A “Community Letter” regarding NASA’s Lunar Discovery and Exploration Program has been sent on August 9 to key leaders on Senate committees.

The letter has been signed by 76 lunar and planetary scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs from 22 states.

The communiqué notes in part:

“As we celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 human lunar landing this summer, it was painfully apparent to many Americans that the United States has not built upon the historical successes of the 1960s and early 1970s. Subsequently we have learned much in low-Earth orbit over the past two and a half decades with a continuously tended space station; however, exploration of the Moon continued only with orbital robotic missions until China landed a robotic rover on the Moon’s nearside in 2013.”

“Earlier this year, China became the first nation to successfully land a rove[r] on the Moon’s farside. It is now evident that other nations consider the Moon as an important destination not only for robotic exploration, but also for human explorers. As scientists and exploration experts in the broad and growing lunar and planetary science community, we write today to voice our strong support for the FY2020 Budget Request for NASA’s Lunar Discovery and Exploration Program and moving humans forward to the Moon sustainably, this time with long-term objectives for developing a sustained human presence.”

“A sustained American human presence on the Moon is vital to our continued leadership in space and our prestige with our international partners. A new sustained human presence will expand on the legacy of Apollo’s history- changing first forays 50 years ago to explore another world, by continuing our quest for knowledge and its promise to benefit all humanity back on Earth.”

 

To read the full letter, go to:

http://spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=52771

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now in Sol 2505.

In her report today, Michelle Minitti, a planetary geologist at Framework in Silver Spring, Maryland, said that “today was the final opportunity to actively command Curiosity before the Sun comes between us and Mars.”

Minitti noted that most of the instruments are safely stored for the solar conjunction break, but intrepid Navcam was available for some last-minute science observations.

The rover’s Navcam will measure the amount of dust in the atmosphere, look for dust devils, and look for clouds in a series of images and movies on Sol 2506.

Fully loaded

“After that, the remote sensing mast will turn its gaze down toward the workspace to guard against dust accumulation on the mast instruments,” Minitti noted.

While Curiosity will not receive commands from Earth during solar conjunction, the robot has already been loaded with a series of commands to keep it systematically gathering data for the next two weeks, Minitti explains.

Curiosity’s Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) and Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) will acquire multiple measurements each sol.

The Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) will acquire one long passive measurement each sol, and Navcam and the front and rear Hazcams will each acquire one image per day.

Drill hole cuttings

“The mast’s downward-looking view includes the ‘Glen Etive’ drill hole, allowing Navcam to monitor any changes in the cuttings around the drill hole. DAN will also acquire active measurements twice during solar conjunction to exercise its neutron generator. The data gathered will be stored up for return once we regain reliable communications with Mars,” Minitti pointed out.

Minitti added: “Just as solar conjunction is not time off for Curiosity, it is not time off for the science team! Without the responsibilities of commanding the rover, the team has more time to pore over the spectacular data Curiosity has gathered for us. It takes time to translate each image, mosaic, and spectrum into a better understanding of what happened in Gale crater, and conjunction affords us more of this time to think deeply and carefully. Ultimately, the time dedicated to science turns into papers, which are one of the many ways the science team communicates what it has learned with our colleagues and the wider public.”

Lastly, Minitti emphasized that if you miss Curiosity while the robot is out of contact, enjoy your own personal tour through all of the collected images. “We promise there is enough to see there to get you through two weeks!”

 

India’s Moonshot is set to perform its next lunar bound orbit maneuver on August 28, 2019 between 0530 – 0630 hrs IST.

Orbit maneuvers will be performed on Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft to enable it to enter its final orbit passing over the lunar poles at a distance of about 62 miles (100 kilometers) from the Moon’s surface.

Subsequently, the lander – Vikram — will separate from the orbiter and enter into a 62 x 19 mile (100 km X 30 km) orbit around the Moon.

 

 

 

 

 

Vikram will then perform a series of complex braking maneuvers to soft land in the South polar region of the Moon on September 7, 2019, dispatching the Pragyan rover.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The landing spot is a high plain between two craters, Manzinus C and Simpelius N, at a latitude of about 70° south.

 

 

The classified U.S. Air Force X-37B space plane is winging its way to set a new milestone in its hush-hush current mission. It is set to establish a new long-duration record of the vehicle in circling the Earth.

Also tagged as the Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV) – 5 mission, this currently orbiting space plane was lofted into low Earth orbit back on September 7, 2017.

In just a few days the robot plane will achieve a programmatic high point.

The last and longest Air Force’s X-37B mission, OTV-4 — after 718 days of flight — touched down at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility May 7, 2017 – a tarmac landing that was a first for the program. All prior missions had ended with a landing strip touchdown at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

The now-orbiting OTV-5 spacecraft was lofted skyward atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

 

 

Record setting

Each X-37B/OTV mission has set a new flight-duration record for the program:

OTV-1 began April 22, 2010, and concluded on Dec. 3, 2010, after 224 days in orbit.

OTV-2 began March 5, 2011, and concluded on June 16, 2012, after 468 days on orbit.

OTV-3 chalked up nearly 675 days in orbit before finally coming down on Oct. 17, 2014.

OTV-4 flew for 718 days during its mission, extending the total number of days spent in space for the OTV program at that point to 2,085 days. It was launched in May 2015 and landed in May 2017.

Touchdown when?

Bottom line: Exactly when the OTV-5 space plane will land is unknown. Boeing told Inside Outer Space that it will not issue a statement on the record-setting flight, referring this reporter to the U.S. Air Force. Repeat emails to the Pentagon have not been answered to date.

What is know is that the last Air Force’s X-37B mission, OTV-4 — after 718 days of flight — glided into NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility on May 7, 2017 – a first for the program. 

Meanwhile, a tantalizing thought: Could the program shoot for two X-37B vehicles in Earth orbit at the same time?

According to some launch websites, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket will rocket the AFSPC 7 mission for the U.S. Air Force this December. The mission’s primary payload is the X-37B, with liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station – SLC-41.

Prior to launch of OTV-5, Randy Walden, the director of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office said there were many firsts on this mission, making it a milestone for the program. “It is our goal to continue advancing the X-37B OTV so it can more fully support the growing space community.”

The Air Force also noted that the fifth OTV mission was launched into, and will be landed from, a higher inclination orbit than prior missions to further expand the X-37B’s orbital envelope.

Space-based demonstrations

The missions of the X-37B space planes are carried out under the auspices of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, and mission control for OTV flights are handled by the 3rd Space Experimentation Squadron at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado. This squadron oversees operations of the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle.

This Schriever Air Force Base unit is tagged as the Air Force Space Command’s premier organization for space-based demonstrations, pathfinders and experiment testing, gathering information on objects high above Earth and carrying out other intelligence-gathering duties.

And that may be a signal as to what the robotic craft is doing — both looking down at Earth and upward.

Pushing the boundaries

In the personal view of Joan Johnson-Freese, a professor in the National Security Affairs Department at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island:

“With each flight the Air Force appears to be pushing the boundaries of what the OTV can do – or what they hope it can do. What the eventual plans for the vehicle are remain unknown – maybe even by the Air Force,” Johnson-Freese told Inside Outer Space.

“But, as a test vehicle, the Air Force and Boeing are trying to determine its flexibility, capabilities, and duration. These test flights began going on 10 years ago so they’ve clearly gathered a considerable amount of information,” Johnson-Freese adds. In addressing the classified nature of the project, understandably it raises concerns in some other countries, she notes.

“When there is mystery there is speculation, and often of a worst-case basis when militaries are involved. Certainly if China were conducting these kinds of tests, there would be lots of worst-case speculation from the Pentagon,” Johnson-Freese concludes.

 

On-orbit testing

On this latest clandestine mission of the space plane, all that’s known according to Air Force officials is that one payload flying on OTV-5 is the Advanced Structurally Embedded Thermal Spreader, or ASETS-II.

Developed by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), this cargo is testing experimental electronics and oscillating heat pipes for long duration stints in the space environment.

According to AFRL, the payload’s three primary science objectives are to measure the initial on-orbit thermal performance, to measure long duration thermal performance, and to assess any lifetime degradation.

Boeing fleet

The classified X-37B program “fleet” consists of two known reusable vehicles, both of which were built by Boeing.

The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle was fabricated at several Boeing locations in Southern California, including Huntington Beach, Seal Beach and El Segundo. The program transitioned to the U.S. Air Force in 2004 after earlier funded research efforts by Boeing, NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Looking like a miniature version of NASA’s now-retired space shuttle orbiter, the military space plane is 29 feet (8.8 meters) long and 9.6 feet (2.9 m) tall, with a wingspan of nearly 15 feet (4.6 m).

The X-37B space plane has a payload bay of 7 feet (2.1 meters) by 4 feet (1.2 meters), a bay that can be outfitted with a robotic arm. X-37B has a launch weight of 11,000 lbs. (4,990 kilograms) and is powered on orbit by gallium-arsenide solar cells with lithium-ion batteries.

Derivative plan

Curiously, back in late 2011, a technical paper popped up at a major aerospace conference. It outlined new plans for the spacecraft and a scaled-up version to support space station cargo deliveries or even haul astronauts into orbit.

An X-37B OTV and derivatives plan assessment sketched out a variety of scaled-up versions of the X-37B space plane.

What is not known, however, is whether such a plan advanced within Boeing or the Air Force.

For more information on this derivative plan from 2011, go to:

https://www.space.com/13230-secretive-37b-space-plane-future-astronauts.html

 

That troubled heat probe on NASA’s InSight Mars lander continues to be an issue!

The instruments locomotion system, a self impelling nail nicknamed “the mole” was designed to hammer itself down into the surface of Mars.

Called the Heat and Physical Properties Package (HP3), the German-provided mole hasn’t been able to dig deeper than about 12 inches (30 centimeters) below the Martian surface since Feb. 28, 2019.

Arm work

Spacecraft engineers have interacted with device, working the mole’s immediate surroundings utilizing InSight’s robotic arm.

 

“What we saw was somewhat surprising,” reports Tilman Spohn of the German Aerospace Center’s (DLR) Institute of Planetary Research in Berlin. “We had had indications before that the mole might have dug a hole or a pit but we had not expected it to be that large.”

Tilman adds that the diameter of the “mole hole” is a good two times the mole diameter or about 6 centimeters. “Thus, the mole must have precessed (like a spinning top) while it was digging. Moreover, the twist in the tether shows that the mole must have rotated clockwise about its long axis by about 135 degrees.”

Multiple footmarks

InSight imagery also showed that the feet of the Support Structure Assembly (the SSA) had left clear footmarks that had remained stable, indicative of at least some regolith cohesion, Tilman says. “The multiple footmarks are proof of the SSA having been lifted and bouncing with the mole during hammering.”

Imagery also suggested that there was a layer of cohesion with clumps and concretions and maybe caverns, possibly overlying cohesionsless sand.

The interpretation is that about 5-10 centimeters of a thick layer of duricrust was exposed. “On Mars, the term duricrust is used to indicate a mechanically strong layer of regolith, somewhat differently than in terrestrial geology. It is thought by geologists to consist of cemented sand,” Tilman reports.

Loading the surface

In July it was believed that the duricrust around the pit might be easily crushable.

Thus, it was decided to go ahead with the plan of loading the surface using InSight’s scoop to increase pressure and thus friction on the mole hull, but, the pit would have to be collapsed first.

Multiple rounds of pushing on the surface with the scoop have been done. However, Tilman explains, none of these could fully collapse the pit – although a partial collapse can be observed on the right-hand side of the pit.

Six weeks of work

The mission is pausing now until September 10^th, Tilman adds, because Mars is entering solar conjunction and communication with spacecraft on Mars becomes impossible.

It has taken the almost 6 weeks “to get to where we are right now,” Tilman points out. “While we have learned a lot about the properties and the layering of the regolith we still have a long way until we can fill the pit.”

Science friction

Lastly, Tilman says that what may be in order is returning to an earlier suggestion of “pinning” the mole with the scoop such that the pinning and the pressing of the mole against the wall of the pit would increase friction.

“We would then hammer and see if we penetrate further. This will be more risky than the previous strategy but with the unexpectedly stiff duricrust, it is thought to be a more promising strategy,” Tilman adds.

The downside could be that the mole may be helped to penetrate but once the backcap gets level with the surface, there is little chance of pinning further,” Tilman reports. “The friction from the regolith would have to have increased enough (by penetrating deeper than now) so that it would finally suffice. If not, one could continue with trying to fill the pit, of course.”

Tilman concludes: “That is it for now. Stay tuned until we come back from conjunction with a report on what the project finally decided to do.”

In testimony before the National Space Council on August 20, Clive Neal, Professor of Lunar Geology at the University of Notre Dame, presented his views regarding innovative space initiatives and focused on the resources of the Moon.

Neal’s written statement offers an expansive look at lunar resource utilization – and issues that need addressing to create a sustained presence on the Moon and bring Earth’s celestial partner into our economic sphere of influence:

Vice-President Pence, Administrator Bridenstine, Members of the Space Council, ladies and gentlemen.

I am deeply honored to be talking to you today about Lunar In Situ Resource Utilization or ISRU. There has been much speculation about this subject since the return of the Apollo samples.

However, little progress has been made toward actually having ISRU involved in getting humans beyond low Earth orbit. The time is now right to take a giant leap by using the Moon to learn how to live off the land, thus enabling sustained human presence off-Earth, while stimulating a new sector of our economy.

Apollo’s history lessen

As we look forward to the Moon, we need to learn from history.

Apollo was a monumental achievement and last month we celebrated the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11. However, Apollo showed us how not to conduct human space exploration, because such a program, based upon international competition, is not sustainable. This is demonstrated by the fact that 2019 also marks 47 years since the last human walked on the Moon.

Therefore, in order to have an enduring, sustainable, multi-decadal human space exploration program, two things are required:

First – we should choose to go to the Moon with our international and commercial partners in a spirit of cooperation. This will allow the build-up of assets on the lunar surface so we can learn how to live and work productively off planet in preparation for the exploration of Mars.

Second – space exploration must deliver a return on the tax-payer investment, such that the budget of our space agency is viewed as an investment in the future of this country.

Lunar resource products

Nevertheless, the Moon in the Moon-to-Mars program has been interpreted, at least by some, to be a “stepping-stone” or a “box-to-check” on the way to Mars. But lunar resources can be enabling by maintaining human life, growing a base of operations, stimulating a cislunar economy through job growth, and making journeys to destinations beyond affordable and sustainable. This requires a permanent human presence on the Moon that will create a demand for lunar resource products.

But what are the lunar resources?

They can be subdivided into those that can be used in situ and those for export. In situ resources include: Polar water ice and other water-yielding lunar resources; bulk regolith can be used for 3D printing of lunar habitats, and refining regolith for Oxygen, Titanium, Silicon, etc. Resources that are potential off-Moon exports include rocket fuel from lunar water, beaming of solar power back to Earth, platinum group & rare earth metals, Helium-3, which is a potential fuel for nuclear fusion yielding no toxic by-products. China is very interested in this.

Resource, reserve

In the ISRU discussion, the term “resource” has been used when “reserve” is what is meant. A resource is a geologic commodity that exists but its extent is a best estimate. A reserve is a subgroup of a resource that has a known size, composition, and can be extracted economically.

Therefore, the most immediate and vital issue for lunar ISRU is defining if resources are actually reserves, and so are economically viable. Mobile surface assets are critically needed to map out the area, vertical extent, concentration, and composition of any resource. Note that prospecting is not done at just one location – it is conducted at several in order to find the best places for infrastructure investment.

Thus, geologic prospecting on the Moon needs to be a campaign.

Return on investment

Prospecting data will inform commercial entities of the Moon’s potential, further stimulating the return on investment that NASA has started with space transportation and payload service providers. The same data will also be critical for scientific discovery regarding the origins of such deposits.

Therefore, any prospecting campaign cross-cuts through NASA’s mission directorates and should not be stove-piped into one. This is seen with NASA’s cross-cutting Lunar Discovery & Exploration Program, where the VIPER project is developing a rover to explore water ice & other lunar deposits.

I hope this class of rover will form the basis of a lunar prospecting campaign, and a similar campaign at Mars.

Beyond camping trips

The Artemis program of record goes beyond the camping trips of Apollo, focusing on increasingly longer human stays at one location, leading to the establishment of a permanent lunar surface base of operations.

A field station at the South Pole by 2028 is a goal of this program, so having the capability of resource extraction before then will be vital. The field station will require local resources to sustainably develop, expand, and maintain it, so development of local resources will allow humanity to survive and thrive on the Moon and beyond.

However, based on the initial findings from the Lunar ISRU workshop in July, not knowing if the resources are reserves, coupled with the lack of markets for products from such resources, are preventing any commercial mining involvement. NASA can provide these much-needed data and create markets for resource products.

Oil of the solar system

Water is a resource at many localities throughout the Solar System. In fact, Water is the oil of the Solar System in terms of fuel for interplanetary spacecraft using liquid oxygen-hydrogen engines.

Therefore, development of destination agnostic water ISRU capabilities means no new systems are required when we go to Mars and beyond. Also needed are high-density power solutions in order to extract the commodities, refine them, and store/transfer the products.

We are hearing at this meeting about some new power innovations that could make off-world resource prospecting and mining a reality.

In summary, bringing the Moon into our economic sphere of influence will benefit society on Earth, create a new sector of our economy, and reinforce United States leadership in space exploration.

 

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2502 duties.

The Mars machinery is headed for a conjunction, a few-week period when Mars goes behind the Sun and ground controllers stop communicating with spacecraft that are there.

“Our last planning day before conjunction will be next Friday and thinking about that fast approaching day feels very similar to thinking about getting ready to leave for vacation,” reports Abigail Fraeman, a planetary geologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

“The Curiosity science team has many things we want to wrap up before conjunction,” Fraeman adds, “so we’re trying to work extra hard to do as much as we can before setting up Curiosity’s (figurative) auto-reply ‘I’m behind the sun’ email.”

Analyses of drill sample

The recent weekend plan was all about running additional Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) Instrument Suite analyses on the Glen Etive drill sample.

The plan called for delivery of a portion of the drill sample to SAM on lucky sol 2500, Fraeman notes, and SAM was to analyze its composition using the gas chromatograph and mass spectrometer (GC-MS) on sol 2501.

“This SAM activity is preceded by an activity to clean the GC column on sol 2499, and the combined observations use so much power, there’s not a lot left for other activities,” Fraeman explains.

Some remote sensing

Mars researchers did manage to fit in a little bit of remote sensing, taking two Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) targets of “Sutherland” and “Risk” with their associated Mastcam images, along with some images to monitor dust in the atmosphere.

Fraeman concludes by pointing out that scientists are looking forward to seeing the results from the SAM run.

 

India is celebrating the Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI) of the country’s Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft.

“The LOI maneuver was performed successfully today morning using the onboard propulsion system for a firing duration of about 29 minutes,” said Dr. K Sivan, Chairman, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), in an August 20 press briefing.

“This maneuver precisely injected Chandrayaan-2 into an orbit around the Moon,” Sivan added. He emphasized the unique requirement of 90 degree orbital inclination of Chandrayaan-2 and said that it was achieved by the precise execution of both the Trans Lunar Injection (performed on August 14, 2019) and today’s LOI maneuver.

Next milestones

India’s Moon mission – an orbiter, lander and rover — is now located in a lunar orbit with a distance of about 70 miles (114 kilometers) at perilune (nearest point to the Moon) and 11,300 miles (18,072 kilometers) at apolune (farthest point to the Moon.

Early next month, a series of four orbit maneuvers will be performed on Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft to enable it to enter its final orbit passing over the lunar poles at a distance of about 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the Moon’s surface.

Lander release

Subsequently, on September 02, 2019 the Vikram lander will separate from the Moon-circling orbiter. 

Following this, orbit maneuvers will be performed on Vikram to place it in a 60 x 19 mile (100 x 30 kilometer) orbit around the Moon. 

The Vikram lander will then perform a series of complex braking maneuvers to soft land in the South polar region of the Moon between two craters, Manzinus C and Simpelius N on September 7, 2019.

All systems healthy

A few hours following touchdown, the Pragyaan rover will roll down from Vikram and will perform on-the-spot exploration of the surrounding lunar surface.

The health of the spacecraft is being continuously monitored from the Mission Operations Complex (MOX) at ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bengaluru with support from Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) antennas at Bylalu, near Bengaluru.

All the systems of Chandrayaan-2 are healthy, reports ISRO.

Go to ISRO press event on the occasion of Lunar Orbit Insertion of Chandrayaan-2 Mission:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZX0-j5lpqQ

 

It is called Great Lunar Expedition for Everyone (GLEE) – hundreds of tiny circuit boards to carry out local and distributed science missions on the Moon.

The concept stems from team work at Cornell University that developed a tiny spacecraft called ChipSat, a way to radically reduce the costs of spaceflight and exploration in low Earth orbit.

LunaSats are based on the ChipSat design. The leaf-sized LunaSats are the brainchild of Mason Peck, a professor at Cornell University.

Each LunaSat – weighing approximately 5 grams — will work as a fully-capable spacecraft, an electronic board outfitted with a small solar panel, several environmental sensors, and a radio for communicating with other LunaSats and relaying data gathered back to Earth.

LunaSats, for example, can gather temperature, GPS, magnetometer, humidity and accelerometer measurements. Their mission on the Moon will last two lunar days or approximately 56 Earth days.

GLEE goal

The GLEE goal: By December 14, 2022, 500 LunaSats, built by students from every nation on Earth, will land on the Moon to conduct multiple distributed science and technology missions.

The GLEE space mission is led by NASA’s New York and Colorado Space Grant Consortium. Peck is director of the New York Space Grant Consortium. More than 20 other space grant organizations have also signed onto GLEE.

The space grant consortium is funded by NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement under the National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program.

Moon dispersal plan

Each LunaSat is projected to cost less than $200, explains Chris Koehler, director of the Colorado Space Grant Consortium, which is based at CU Boulder.

Groups of high school and college students can apply to get involved in GLEE starting early December of this year. Participation will be free for all teams. Koehler and other “GLEEmers” are seeking out supporters from universities and private companies around the world.

Koehler told Inside Outer Space that there is no confirmed launcher as yet. “We hope to share a ride to the surface. We understand that we likely will have to pay for the ride,” he explained.

As now envisioned, the plan is to deploy the LunaSats from a lander firmly planted on the lunar terrain. “Using a simple device, the LunaSats would be spread out roughly 65 to 130 feet (20-40 meters) around the landing site,” Koehler notes.

Team building

Individual LunaSats carry an integrated sensor suite that can be programmed by teams of students, from every member country of the United Nations, to a mission of their own design.

These teams will be mentored by GLEE program staff through the entire design, build, test, launch, and data gathering process.

Koehler underscores part of the GLEE mission statement: “From hands-on activities to a global citizen science network, GLEE is the next step in inspiring and engaging the world in a truly global mission to the Moon.”

For more information, go to:

https://www.glee2023.org/home

Also, go to this informative video at:

https://youtu.be/24ujpW5nN5Q

Lastly, visit this personal message from Chris Koehler, founder of GLEE, at:

https://youtu.be/VzzRsrbILu4

 

China Central Television (CCTV) reports:

China’s new carrier rocket Smart Dragon-1 (SD-1), designed for commercial use, made its maiden flight on Saturday, sending three satellites into the orbit.

The rocket, developed by the China Rocket Co. Ltd. affiliated to the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALVT), blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China at 12:11 (Beijing Time).

Vital internal organs

It is the smallest and lightest among China’s solid rockets. It is 19.5 meters long with a diameter of 1.2 meters and a takeoff weight of 23.1 tons.

“The rocket is small, but it has all the vital internal organs and a carrying capacity not small at all. It can carry 200 kilograms to the Sun-synchronous orbit 500 kilometers away from the Earth. So in terms of carrying efficiency, it is the highest in our solid carrier rockets,” said Gong Min, technical manager of the SD-1 project.

Short launch preparation

Another advantage of the rocket is the short launch preparation. According to the company, it can be turned in [made available] six months after a contract is signed, and launched within 24 hours after it is transported to the launch center.

“We plan to make another launch at the end of this year in the Jiuquan center. Next year, we are going to make perhaps five launches. All the six launches have been booked by clients,” said Tang Yagang, President of the China Rocket Co. Ltd.

This time the rocket carried three commercial satellites which are to do remote sensing, telecommunication and navigation.

For video of launch, go to:

https://youtu.be/hr6k0lTMpWI?list=PLpGTA7wMEDFjz0Zx93ifOsi92FwylSAS3