More Rockets for Wallops

Rocket Lab’s two-stage Electron vehicle has not been covered here at Aerospace Perceptions before now, largely because to date the company’s launches have taken place on the opposite side of the globe from a complex in New Zealand. But in the relatively near future, that may change.

Last week Rocket Lab announced the first three scheduled launches from increasingly-busy Wallops Island, Virginia. The company’s Launch Complex 2 was built at Wallops’ Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport and has been awaiting its first Electron launch for three years, a delay largely generated by stringent safety initiatives in NASA software covering flight termination systems. But as soon as later this year an Electron will soar on a dedicated mission for Virginia satellite company HawkEye 360.

 

A Rocket Lab Electron heads uphill from the company’s first launch complex, located in New Zealand. Image: Rocket Lab USA

 

The payload for this initial mission launching from Virginia will be six radio-frequency-monitoring satellites, with nine more to be included in subsequent launches. As noted in a press release announcing these three missions, “HawkEye 360 provides commercial and government customers with insights that have helped to detect illegal fishing, poachers in national parks, GPS radio frequency interference along international borders, and emergency beacons in crisis situations.”

 

An artist conception of Rocket Lab’s Neutron, planned as a significant upgrade in launch capabilities. Image: Rocket Lab USA

 

Standing half as high as a space shuttle orbiter’s length, the Electron is unique in that it utilizes an electric pump configuration that feeds its Rutherford liquid propellant engines, built by Rocket Lab in Long Beach, California. By 2024 Rocket Lab hopes to implement launches of its under-development Neutron rocket from a second location on Wallops Island. This new vehicle will stand twice as tall as Electron.

Rocket Lab is also working toward enhancing its ability to recover and reuse rocket stages. One thing the company has already perfected is a certain comedic levity in naming its missions. The first three Electron launch attempts in New Zealand were christened “It’s a Test,” “Still Testing,” and “It’s Business Time.” Those were followed by missions including “Pics or It Didn’t Happen,” “Return to Sender,” and the upcoming “There and Back Again.”

For more on Rocket Lab visit: https://www.rocketlabusa.com/

For more on HawkEye 360 visit: https://www.he360.com/

The Cult of Personality

Elon Musk has been in the news a lot lately, which really isn’t news – or surprising. Whether it’s helping enable internet access to a besieged Ukrainian citizenry through his Starlink constellation system, or less altruistic activities like his hostile takeover attempt of Twitter, the richest man in the world injects his sphere of influence into many realms.

Perhaps Musk’s most high-profile endeavor, of course, is SpaceX. Currently – and successfully – cementing the idea of commercial space business activities in Earth orbit, SpaceX is also looking long-long-range at the colonization of Mars and eventual human exploration far beyond our Solar System neighbor. And from the beginning, SpaceX has proudly reflected its own spaceflight culture. Witness the decidedly different attitude on display during SpaceX launches, with lots of cheering and waving in a party-like atmosphere, compared to the staid liftoff proceedings witnessed within Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Control Center throughout the Apollo and Shuttle eras.

A featured image representing the content of a YouTube video.

Aside from such surface reflections, I’ve always been of a mind that when one space effort succeeds, they all succeed – if for no other reason than the illumination of success shines across the realm of space ventures as a whole. But it’s increasingly difficult to ignore a somewhat manic subset of SpaceX followers who eschew such a “one for all, all for one” philosophy.

This attitude was fully on display during NASA’s recent attempt to stage a full-dress rehearsal of its Space Launch System on Pad 39-B at Kennedy Space Center, complete with full system fueling. As might be expected with an entirely new assembly, numerous issues arose, to the extent that a roll-back to the Vehicle Assembly Building for problem resolution will delay launch plans until much later in the year. Each complication was derided by dozens of Twitter-based proponents of Musk’s Starship program – a program nowhere near as close to flight as NASA’s SLS. No matter – to them it’s Starship or nothing.

This fascination has led to seemingly-full-time social media “reporters” who plant themselves outside the SpaceX Starbase in Texas while trying to monetize hours-long web streams that usually show nothing more exciting than a pickup truck entering or exiting the Musk kingdom.

That’s just one symptom. I’ve seen SpaceX followers openly mocking the development efforts of other aerospace entities, with some even outright rooting for mission failures of rockets not bearing the correct logo. There’s nothing like holding aerospace programs to the standards of juvenile popularity contests.

Elon Musk and his partner in an on-again, off-again relationship, Grimes. A snapshot from the unavoidably glamorous life of the richest man in the world. Photo: thecut.com

Much of this frenzy is a strangely cult-like obsession with Elon Musk himself – which Musk certainly cultivates, consciously or not. It’s the aerospace edition of celebrity status circa 2022: how well known are you? In the increasingly weird global culture circling endlessly around influencers and personalities, being a celebrity is the very best thing you can do.

As a writer focused on the realm of aerospace, I will always be interested in Elon Musk and how he directs SpaceX. The interest in Elon as a person? Not so much. Like Apple’s own technical revolutionary, Steve Jobs, Musk may be brilliant - but I don’t think I’d want to spend much time around him.

Aviation Transformation Through imaginAviation

NASA operations, as of this writing, are struggling to deal with the inevitable new system problems that have arisen with the Space Launch System “wet test” - basically all aspects of launch pad operations (including fueling) save the launch itself.

A few weeks ago, though, much of the NASA community was embracing a much broader perspective through a program cleverly titled imaginAviation, under the auspices of NARI – the NASA Aeronautics Research Institute.

 

This three-day virtual event, which included the participation of many universities and other educational organizations, was based on imagination and how resulting visions can lead to the future transformation of aviation. Through more than 30 presentations, imaginAviation delved into topics and concepts ranging from environmental and emissions concerns to more esoteric topics such as Hyper-Spectral Communications for more robust and reliable air-to-ground communications.

 

NASA is continually involved in developing technical innovations in aircraft systems, a process that includes the utilization of this modified F/A-18. Photo: NASA

The tone for imaginAviation was set from the event’s keynote address, given by Dr. Kathryn Jablokow, a Program Director at National Science Foundation and Professor of Engineering Design and Mechanical Engineering at Penn State University. Dr. Jablokow stressed the idea of embracing multiple leading edges, noting, “Innovation makes people uncomfortable, but that’s not always a bad thing. It just means that people have this sense, this capacity to know when they’re getting close to an edge.”

You can learn much more about ideas for the future of aviation and aeronautics as every presentation given across all three days of imaginAviation is available to watch by simply accessing the following link:

imaginAviation 2022 Presentations