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SpaceX F9 : IMAP : CCSFS SLC-40 : ~May 2025
by
gongora
on 25 Sep, 2020 20:52
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IMAP Launch Discussion thread.
NSF Threads for IMAP : DiscussionLaunch 2025 on Falcon 9 (booster 10xx.x) from Florida.Rideshare Payloads:
Lunar Trailblazer Space Weather Follow On L1
GLIDE (Carruthers Geocorona Observatory)
Solar Cruiser
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-awards-launch-services-contract-for-imap-missionSept. 25, 2020
CONTRACT RELEASE C20-026
NASA Awards Launch Services Contract for IMAP MissionNASA has selected Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, California, to provide launch services for the agency’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission, which includes four secondary payloads. IMAP will help researchers better understand the boundary of the heliosphere, a magnetic barrier surrounding our solar system. This region is where the constant flow of particles from our Sun, called the solar wind, collides with winds from other stars. This collision limits the amount of harmful cosmic radiation entering the heliosphere. IMAP will collect and map neutral particles that make it through, as well as investigate the fundamental processes of how particles are accelerated in space, from its vantage point orbiting the Sun at the Lagrange 1 point directly between the Sun and Earth.
The total cost for NASA to launch IMAP and the secondary payloads is approximately $109.4 million, which includes the launch service and other mission related costs.
The secondary payloads to be included with the launch of IMAP are: NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer mission, two additional NASA heliophysics missions of opportunity yet to be named, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Follow On-Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) mission.
The IMAP mission is targeted to launch in October 2024 on a Falcon 9 Full Thrust rocket from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
NASA’s Launch Services Program at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida will manage the SpaceX launch service. The mission is led by Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is responsible for the mission’s overall management, system engineering, integration, and testing and mission operations.
Other SpaceX resources on NASASpaceflight: SpaceX News Articles (Recent) /
SpaceX News Articles from 2006 (Including numerous exclusive Elon interviews) SpaceX Dragon Articles /
SpaceX Missions Section (with Launch Manifest and info on past and future missions) L2 SpaceX Section
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#1
by
gongora
on 25 Sep, 2020 21:46
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A chart of NASA rideshares from a recent rideshare symposium showed this flight with an ESPA Grande ring for the rideshares. The trajectory column said "L1, C3 max <= -0.5, 28deg incl"
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#2
by
vaporcobra
on 25 Sep, 2020 22:25
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A chart of NASA rideshares from a recent rideshare symposium showed this flight with an ESPA Grande ring for the rideshares. The trajectory column said "L1, C3 max <= -0.5, 28deg incl"
Via NASA LSP's Launch Vehicle Performance Website, Falcon 9 FT can launch 1810 kg and 3370 kg to C3 = -0.5 with RTLS or ASDS recovery, respectively.
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#3
by
vaporcobra
on 25 Sep, 2020 22:39
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The secondary payloads to be included with the launch of IMAP are: NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer mission, two additional NASA heliophysics missions of opportunity yet to be named, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Follow On-Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) mission.
An IAC 2019 paper from the PIs says that the Kon-Tiki solar sail demonstrator mission will be one of IMAP's four copassengers.
*Should have added that NASA obviously says it hasn't chosen all the copassengers yet, so Kon-Tiki is probably more a hopeful suitor than a guaranteed passenger. To be clear, though, their phrasing seemed quite confident in October 2019.
"Kon-Tiki will be co-manifested with the NASA Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission in 2024. Carried to space on a secondary payload adapter, Kon-Tiki will separate after the IMAP deployment on an Earth escape trajectory."
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#4
by
gongora
on 25 Sep, 2020 22:43
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The other two rideshare passengers haven't been chosen yet.
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#5
by
gongora
on 30 Nov, 2020 17:40
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https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1333431708637663232A couple notes from this morning’s NASA Planetary Science Advisory Cmte meeting:
• Lunar Trailblazer has passed confirmation review, on track to launch with IMAP in early 2025 (was late 2024)
• Artemis 3 science definition team final report to be released as soon as today.
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#6
by
DreamyPickle
on 30 Nov, 2020 19:40
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The total cost for NASA to launch IMAP and the secondary payloads is approximately $109.4 million, which includes the launch service and other mission related costs.
This is not particularly cheap.
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#7
by
Jansen
on 30 Nov, 2020 19:43
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The total cost for NASA to launch IMAP and the secondary payloads is approximately $109.4 million, which includes the launch service and other mission related costs.
This is not particularly cheap.
That is actually very reasonable, considering all the extras that NASA requires.
Launch priority, booster selection, extra processing workflow, rights to observe and monitor booster reprocessing, etc...
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#8
by
yg1968
on 03 Dec, 2020 21:28
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JUST IN: We’ve selected 2 new small satellite missions that'll expand our research & test new technologies in space. Congratulations to GLIDE & Solar Cruiser!
These missions will share a ride to space in 2025 with the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP). Pairing them with existing missions for launch allows us to provide more avenues for learning about our solar system & to develop innovative technical capabilities.
GLIDE is the 1st mission exclusively dedicated to studying Earth’s outermost atmospheric layer - the exosphere. It'll provide measurements of this vast cloud that extends almost halfway to the Moon. Congrats to Principal Investigator Dr. Lara Waldrop at University of Illinois.
Solar Cruiser will demonstrate a new type of propulsion in space that uses no fuel – a solar sail. It works by reflecting sunlight & that reflected light pushes it through space. Congrats to Principal Investigator Les Johnson at @NASA_Marshall !
https://go.nasa.gov/3mG91gHhttps://twitter.com/Dr_ThomasZ/status/1334609867043078144https://twitter.com/Dr_ThomasZ/status/1334612869296521216
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#9
by
vaporcobra
on 03 Dec, 2020 22:36
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JUST IN: We’ve selected 2 new small satellite missions that'll expand our research & test new technologies in space. Congratulations to GLIDE & Solar Cruiser!
These missions will share a ride to space in 2025 with the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP). Pairing them with existing missions for launch allows us to provide more avenues for learning about our solar system & to develop innovative technical capabilities.
GLIDE is the 1st mission exclusively dedicated to studying Earth’s outermost atmospheric layer - the exosphere. It'll provide measurements of this vast cloud that extends almost halfway to the Moon. Congrats to Principal Investigator Dr. Lara Waldrop at University of Illinois.
Solar Cruiser will demonstrate a new type of propulsion in space that uses no fuel – a solar sail. It works by reflecting sunlight & that reflected light pushes it through space. Congrats to Principal Investigator Les Johnson at @NASA_Marshall !
https://go.nasa.gov/3mG91gH
Cool, Solar Cruiser will be nearly a full magnitude larger than any previous solar sail at ~1700 square meters. NASA's article also quietly mentions plans to potentially include a Spatial/Spectral Imaging of Heliospheric Lyman Alpha (SIHLA) spacecraft and NOAA's Solar Weather Follow-On spacecraft - so at least four or more substantially complex and valuable secondary payloads.
IMAP itself is cost-capped at ~$560M, followed by $75M for GLIDE, $65M for Solar Cruiser, a likely similar cost for SIHLA, and at least ~$120M for SWFO - probably more than $1 billion total excluding launch costs. The relatively high Falcon 9 contract cost makes a bit more sense in that context.
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#10
by
gongora
on 03 Dec, 2020 23:53
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NASA's article also quietly mentions plans to potentially include a Spatial/Spectral Imaging of Heliospheric Lyman Alpha (SIHLA) spacecraft and NOAA's Solar Weather Follow-On spacecraft - so at least four or more substantially complex and valuable secondary payloads.
It does not say SIHLA would be on this flight. The solar weather sat was already known, along with Lunar Trailblazer.
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#11
by
gongora
on 14 Dec, 2020 21:13
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#12
by
Jansen
on 05 Feb, 2021 17:26
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https://spacenews.com/l3harris-swfo-l1-command-and-control/L3Harris will develop, deploy and operate a command and control system for NOAA’s Space Weather Follow On-Lagrange 1 observatory, scheduled to launch in 2025 on NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe. L3Harris also will provide operations support for the space weather observatory for up to two years.
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#13
by
Comga
on 10 Feb, 2021 14:14
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Recursive link to SpaceX
IIUC, GLIDE’s Ball Configurable Platform smallsat bus was demonstrated on the Green Propellant Infusion Mission launched as part of STP-2 on Falcon Heavy.
NEWS PROVIDED BY
Ball Aerospace
Feb 09, 2021, 11:35 ET
BOULDER, Colo., Feb. 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Ball Aerospace was selected to build the spacecraft for NASA's Global Lyman-alpha Imager of the Dynamic Exosphere (GLIDE) heliophysics science Mission of Opportunity. GLIDE will study variability in Earth's exosphere, the upper reaches of Earth's atmosphere where it touches space, by tracking far ultraviolet light emitted from hydrogen.
Dr. Lara Waldrop of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is the principal investigator for GLIDE and University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) is managing the mission implementation.
"We are excited to work alongside NASA, the University of Illinois and UC Berkeley on this new heliophysics science mission," said Dr. Makenzie Lystrup, vice president and general manager, Civil Space, Ball Aerospace. "Combining Ball's flexible spacecraft with UC Berkeley's innovative instrument provides a powerful solution to meet the needs of the scientific community's understanding of our exosphere, enabling science at any scale."
The GLIDE spacecraft design will be based on the Ball Configurable Platform (BCP), which is a customizable and proven spacecraft, designed for flexible, cost-effective applications, using a common spacecraft bus and standard payload interfaces to reduce cost, streamline payload accommodation and minimize delivery time.
Ball Aerospace is also designing and building the spacecraft for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) Space Weather Follow On – L1 (SWFO-L1) mission, an operational heliophysics mission that will collect solar wind data and coronal imagery to meet NOAA's operational requirements to monitor and forecast solar storm activity. SWFO and GLIDE are scheduled to launch together in the same launch vehicle to space.
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#14
by
su27k
on 27 Mar, 2021 02:45
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NASA looking for earlier launch of lunar orbiter smallsat missionThe spacecraft is scheduled to be completed in October 2022. However, it will not launch until at least February 2025, since it is flying as a rideshare payload on the Falcon 9 launch of the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP). That mission’s launch was postponed last year from October 2024 to February 2025 because delays in its development caused by the pandemic, postponing several rideshare payloads like Lunar Trailblazer flying with it.
That delay came up during a discussion of NASA planetary science projects at the March 24 meeting of the Committee on Astrobiology and Planetary Science of the National Academies. Clive Neal, a committee member from the University of Notre Dame, asked if it would be possible to launch Lunar Trailblazer as a co-manifested payload on one of the series of Commercial Lunar Payload Service (CLPS) missions that will be launching to the moon starting late this year.
“We’re looking across the whole directorate, looking for another ride for Lunar Trailblazer; a little sooner, if that’s possible,” responded Lori Glaze, NASA planetary science division director. She said NASA was not taking Lunar Trailblazer off the IMAP launch just yet, “but we are looking and we’re keeping our eyes open” for other opportunities.
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#15
by
gongora
on 21 Jun, 2022 16:30
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https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1539283357892214790NASA’s Lori Glaze says Lunar Trailblazer has been removed from the IMAP rideshare mission and instead will fly on Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 CLPS mission in about a year. IMAP won’t launch until 2025, so this moves it up significantly.
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#16
by
gongora
on 23 Jun, 2022 18:30
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"IMAP entered the implementation phase and established
its cost and schedule baselines in July 2021. NASA set a
baseline life-cycle cost of $781.8 million and a December
2025 launch date."
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#17
by
gongora
on 02 Feb, 2023 01:24
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NASA LAUNCH SERVICES II - SPACE EXPLORATION TECHNOLOGIES. MOD 233: This modification is to de-manifest the Lunar Trailblazer (LTB)and Solar Cruiser (SC) secondary missions from the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) Mission.
NASA LAUNCH SERVICES II - SPACE EXPLORATION TECHNOLOGIES. This modification is to change to preflown hardware for the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) Mission.
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#18
by
Conexion Espacial
on 03 Feb, 2023 12:49
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NASA LAUNCH SERVICES II - SPACE EXPLORATION TECHNOLOGIES. MOD 233: This modification is to de-manifest the Lunar Trailblazer (LTB)and Solar Cruiser (SC) secondary missions from the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) Mission.
NASA LAUNCH SERVICES II - SPACE EXPLORATION TECHNOLOGIES. This modification is to change to preflown hardware for the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) Mission.
Do you have a link to this or more information?
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#19
by
crandles57
on 03 Feb, 2023 14:05
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As a SIMPLEx mission, the spacecraft launches via “rideshare,” a secondary payload on a larger mission’s rocket. Lunar Trailblazer was originally manifested as a rideshare on the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP), launching in 2025. As announced in June, however, NASA amended the mission agreement, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, which manages Lunar Trailblazer for the principal investigator at Caltech, signed a contract in early August for it to fly as a secondary payload on the second lunar lander mission by Intuitive Machines, called IM-2. That IM-2 lunar delivery, carrying NASA’s PRIME-1 subsurface ice drill, is scheduled to launch in mid-2023.
https://blogs.nasa.gov/trailblazer/2022/08/22/nasas-lunar-trailblazer-to-launch-2023-subject-to-cost-review/
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#20
by
crandles57
on 03 Feb, 2023 14:11
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https://www.eoportal.org/satellite-missions/glide#eop-quick-facts-sectionThe Carruthers Geocorona Observatory - formerly GLIDE (Global Lyman-alpha Imagers of the Dynamic Exosphere) is a NASA SmallSat mission to be launched with IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe) as a part of NASA’s RideShare policy in 2025. GLIDE has been selected as the science mission to accompany IMAP, and aims to study variability in the Earth’s exosphere from the inner Lagrangian point.
31 Jan 2023
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#21
by
gongora
on 03 Feb, 2023 15:20
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Do you have a link to this or more information?
That's the extent of the publicly available text in the federal contracting database (I still use FPDS, I hate using SAM)
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#22
by
gongora
on 15 Mar, 2023 23:21
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NASA LAUNCH SERVICES II - SPACE EXPLORATION TECHNOLOGIES. This modification adds Fit Check and Shock Separation Test for the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration probe (IMAP) mission.
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#23
by
waveney
on 26 Sep, 2023 11:33
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#24
by
GWR64
on 29 Oct, 2023 13:55
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https://www.l3harris.com/newsroom/editorial/2023/10/aerojet-rocketdyne-propulsion-integrated-nasas-imap-spacecraft?sf182531454 Aerojet Rocketdyne Propulsion Integrated to NASA’s IMAP Spacecraft
Aerojet Rocketdyne
Oct 12, 2023 | 3 minute Read
The Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP), which will investigate two of the most important issues in space physics today, made an important stop at Aerojet Rocketdyne’s site in Redmond, Washington, before its 2025 launch.
As the sole propulsion provider on IMAP, Aerojet Rocketdyne, an L3Harris Technologies company, recently integrated the propulsion subsystem to the spacecraft for the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, who is building the spacecraft and will operate it after launch. IMAP will investigate the acceleration of energetic particles and interaction of the solar wind with the interstellar medium.
"Aerojet Rocketdyne was in top form for this integration,” said Seth Kijewski, IMAP Propulsion Subsystem Lead at APL. “It’s really an exemplary display of what a hardworking, committed team can accomplish.”
The propulsion subsystem is comprised of three propellant tanks, two service valves, two latch valves, two system filters, and 12 MR-111G monopropellant rocket engines modules. Thermal control features were also integrated to the spacecraft. With the completion of this milestone, NASA is now one-step closer to flying the mission.
“During the four-month integration effort, there was a strong customer presence, which made it a very collaborative effort,” said Jack Deboer, IMAP program manager at Aerojet Rocketdyne. “Aerojet Rocketdyne is critical to this program and our thrusters will play a major role in helping scientists understand the risks posed to astronauts and technological systems that fly in space.”
IMAP will explore our solar neighborhood, helping researchers better understand what happens at the boundary of the heliosphere, where the Sun’s protective magnetic influence ends. With its extensive set of 10 instruments, the spacecraft will observe a vast range of particle energies and types in interplanetary space to simultaneously investigate two of the most important overarching issues in heliophysics – the energization of charged particles from the Sun, and interaction of the solar wind with the winds from other stars and other material that fills our galaxy.
IMAP will explore our solar neighborhood, helping researchers better understand what happens at the boundary of the heliosphere, where the Sun’s protective magnetic influence ends. With its extensive set of 10 instruments, the spacecraft will observe a vast range of particle energies and types in interplanetary space to simultaneously investigate two of the most important overarching issues in heliophysics – the energization of charged particles from the Sun, and interaction of the solar wind with the winds from other stars and other material that fills our galaxy.
“Aerojet Rocketdyne delivered the IMAP spacecraft to the customer ahead of the contract schedule,” added Deboer. “Ahead of schedule is always a bonus for a mission that has such an important job to do in understanding and decoding the messages in particles from the Sun and beyond.”
Princeton University professor and principal investigator David J. McComas leads the mission with an international team of 25 partner institutions. APL is managing the development phase, building the spacecraft, and will operate the mission. IMAP is the fifth mission in NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Probes (STP) Program portfolio. The Explorers and Heliophysics Projects Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the STP Program for the agency’s Heliophysics Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.
attachment:
NASA’s IMAP in the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory’s clean room, where the spacecraft will undergo testing and building over the next year
Image Credit: Johns Hopkins APL
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#25
by
spacenuance
on 04 Dec, 2023 03:35
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https://spacenews.com/nasa-updating-policy-for-rideshare-missions/ [Dec 3]
The launch of NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) spacecraft on a Falcon 9, scheduled for February 2025, will include NOAA’s Space Weather Follow-On spacecraft and NASA’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory, a heliophysics mission originally named GLIDE.
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#26
by
gongora
on 11 Jan, 2024 22:06
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[U of Colorado Boulder] New instrument to capture stardust as part of NASA missionThis week, the team carefully loaded the instrument, known as the Interstellar Dust Experiment (IDEX), onto a delivery truck. The instrument, which is shaped like a large drum and weighs 47 pounds, will travel to the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland. There, engineers will begin the process of installing IDEX onto the IMAP spacecraft.
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#27
by
StraumliBlight
on 18 Mar, 2024 14:21
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Advanced Imager ready for Installation on IMAP Spacecraft
Another of the instruments planned for flight aboard NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) is ready for installation on the spacecraft.
IMAP-Ultra is a particle imager capable of capturing energetic neutral atoms (ENAs), particularly hydrogen atoms and is the third instrument to be delivered for integration. Engineers will now perform a series of tests to ensure Ultra can properly communicate with the spacecraft before it is fully integrated into the IMAP structure and into the onboard electronics system.
IMAP-Ultra is one of three imagers on IMAP that capture ENAs traveling from the boundary of our solar system. When charged particles from the solar wind reach our outer heliosphere, they interact with interstellar neutral particles and transform into ENAs. ENAs still retain information about the original charged particles, but losing their charge allows them to travel through space unbounded by the Sun’s magnetic field and eventually reach IMAP. The three imagers will capture data on ENAs at varying energy levels.
IMAP-Ultra also features unique gold-plated blades that deflect charged particles, allowing only neutral atoms to reach the instrument’s sensor.
Princeton University professor David J. McComas leads the IMAP mission with an international team of 25 partner institutions. The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, builds the spacecraft and operates the mission. IMAP is the fifth mission in NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Probes (STP) program portfolio. The Explorers and Heliophysics Project Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the STP Program for the agency’s Heliophysics Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.
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#28
by
StraumliBlight
on 03 Jun, 2024 23:13
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High-energy Ion Telescope Instrument Ready for Installation on IMAP SpacecraftScientists and engineers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, are poised to deliver the High-energy Ion Telescope (HIT) instrument. HIT was shipped from Goddard to the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. A group of engineers at APL have now begun the process of installing HIT onto NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) spacecraft.
A YouTube livestream shows the cleanroom where the spacecraft will be built and tested over the next year on Princeton University’s IMAP mission website. Viewers can watch the continuous stream to see exactly how the IMAP hardware develops from a bare-bones structure to the complex, fully operational spacecraft.
HIT is the fourth of 10 IMAP instruments to arrive at APL. Over the two-year-long mission, HIT will measure high-energy solar energetic particles expelled from the Sun in the highest-energy processes in our solar system. These solar particles can produce the beautiful aurora, or northern and southern lights, but are also hazardous, posing risks to the health and safety of astronauts as well as presenting a danger to space- and ground-based assets and infrastructure. Understanding the acceleration and transport of this high-energy radiation will help us better understand our Sun and the local space weather to which these particles play a critical role.
“Solar energetic particles have been studied since the start of the space age, yet we still don’t understand their origin well enough to predict when they will be a danger,” said Eric Christian, HIT instrument lead and deputy principal investigator of the IMAP mission at NASA Goddard. “HIT, combined with other instruments on IMAP, will provide an important piece of the puzzle.”
IMAP, which is led by Princeton University, is slated to launch in 2025 and will journey roughly one million miles to a point in space between Earth and the Sun called Lagrange Point 1. During the mission, HIT will measure energetic ions and electrons to help us learn more about the processes that can accelerate these particles to such high energies.
Building on Heritage
HIT builds upon techniques that are decades old but modernizes them with state-of-the-art instrumentation and clever detector design. When charged particles pass through HIT, they deposit some of their energy in layers of detector material until they finally come to rest. By looking at the energy deposited in the different layers through which the particle passed and comparing it with the energy deposited in the stopping layer, HIT can determine the type (proton, electron, or different ions) and energy of the particle.
The arrangement of 10 apertures, or openings, on HIT and the spin of the IMAP spacecraft will allow HIT to measure particles from all directions and study the energetic particles patterns when striking the instrument. HIT also measures energetic electrons, which arrive at Earth quickly and can give us an early warning to upcoming space weather events.
The Work of a Team
HIT would not be possible without its dedicated and diverse group of scientists, engineers, and technicians at NASA Goddard and the California Institute of Technology. The HIT team includes many early career scientists and engineers who got the exciting opportunity to take on leadership roles and rose to the challenge. For many, this will be the first time they will have the unique opportunity to work on something going to space.
“I am so grateful to have the opportunity to play an integral role in such an exciting mission,” said Grant Mitchell, a member of the HIT science team at NASA Goddard. “The chance to learn from world-class scientists and engineers both at Goddard and throughout the IMAP team has been instrumental in preparing me to lead my own missions one day.”
https://twitter.com/NASASun/status/1795485260425130052
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#29
by
StraumliBlight
on 16 Jun, 2024 21:40
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The June 18th
NASA Heliophysics Division Update to HPAC presentation shows IMAP and Carruthers Geocorona Observatory launching
"~May 2025".
The meeting might also confirm if the 6U
EZIE cubesats are on Transporter-12 as they're launching October 2024.
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#30
by
GewoonLukas_
on 20 Jun, 2024 17:48
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Some interesting bits about some issues with the Falcon 9 launch vehicle. The delay to May 2025 also has been confirmed:
GAO: Assessments of Major Projects
June 2024
[...]
Cost and Schedule Status
[...]
The IMAP project entered the system assembly, integration and test, and launch phase—Phase D—in December 2023. It also decided to move the internal launch date from February 2025 to May 2025 due to delays in instrument development. The new date still falls within the project’s schedule baseline.
[...]
Launch Vehicle
[...]
As IMAP approaches integration, the project has concerns regarding the launch vehicle requirements in three areas:
Coupled loads analysis: The coupled loads analysis is necessary to understand the environment that the spacecraft and instruments experience during launch. A project official stated that they received the initial analysis data approximately 10 months later than scheduled. In addition, the data provided did not include the complete launch configuration, meaning that the current estimate will require additional data and refinement. The next data delivery is not until June 2024, but the project is working with NASA and SpaceX to obtain interim data sooner.
Fairing access: The project initially planned to be able to access the fairing, which is the top of the rocket that houses its payload, very close to launch to remove covers meant to prevent contamination to IMAP’s sensitive instruments. Access to the fairing so late in the launch campaign presented challenges to SpaceX's process. The IMAP team reassessed the need for access to the fairing and late removal of instrument covers and determined that they will only need access for contingencies. The project is coordinating additional mitigations to ensure proper cleaning of the fairing with SpaceX and the payload processing facility.
Nutation: The project was concerned about SpaceX’s ability to meet the project’s requirements to limit nutation, which refers to a small disturbance of the wobble caused by the spacecraft spinning on its axis. If the launch vehicle exceeds the nutation requirement, the spacecraft may need to perform additional maneuvers. While SpaceX’s current projections indicate an amount of nutation above what the project required, an IMAP official told us the project can accept those projections if they are accurate. The project may be able to close the nutation issue once NASA Launch Services Program Independent Verification and Validation confirms SpaceX’s nutation analysis.
[...]
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#31
by
Jim
on 20 Jun, 2024 18:35
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Some interesting bits about some issues with the Falcon 9 launch vehicle. The delay to May 2025 also has been confirmed:
[...]
As IMAP approaches integration, the project has concerns regarding the launch vehicle requirements in three areas:
Fairing access: The project initially planned to be able to access the fairing, which is the top of the rocket that houses its payload, very close to launch to remove covers meant to prevent contamination to IMAP’s sensitive instruments. Access to the fairing so late in the launch campaign presented challenges to SpaceX's process. The IMAP team reassessed the need for access to the fairing and late removal of instrument covers and determined that they will only need access for contingencies. The project is coordinating additional mitigations to ensure proper cleaning of the fairing with SpaceX and the payload processing facility.
They were being idiots about this. They were introducing more risk with the late access.
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#32
by
zubenelgenubi
on 20 Jun, 2024 20:42
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Some interesting bits about some issues with the Falcon 9 launch vehicle. The delay to May 2025 also has been confirmed:
[...]
As IMAP approaches integration, the project has concerns regarding the launch vehicle requirements in three areas:
Fairing access: The project initially planned to be able to access the fairing, which is the top of the rocket that houses its payload, very close to launch to remove covers meant to prevent contamination to IMAP’s sensitive instruments. Access to the fairing so late in the launch campaign presented challenges to SpaceX's process. The IMAP team reassessed the need for access to the fairing and late removal of instrument covers and determined that they will only need access for contingencies. The project is coordinating additional mitigations to ensure proper cleaning of the fairing with SpaceX and the payload processing facility.
They were being idiots about this. They were introducing more risk with the late access.
Yes, I was wondering how all the other space science and earth science missions "made do" without such access to instrument covers throughout the Space Age.
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#33
by
ugordan
on 22 Jun, 2024 08:44
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They were being idiots about this. They were introducing more risk with the late access.
By "they" I take it you mean the IMAP team?
On a somewhat related note, how does one shield uncovered optics during fairing sep? I've seen some forward-facing cameras during fairing deploy and it's clear that, when the fairing halves fall into the MVac plume, there's some gas and particulate matter blasted forwards, toward the payload. Isn't that a liability on any F9 launch? A Centaur produces H20, that can be heated-off, but soot from a kerolox engine, not so much?
Maybe I'm making a big fuss about nothing since F9 has launched several optical missions, latest being ESA's Euclid with no adverse effects, but I'm still curious.