NASA science bound for Moon after successful Vulcan Centaur launch

The relief was palpable as United Launch Alliance (ULA) successfully launched the first of its next-generation Vulcan rockets. The Vulcan Centaur is intended to replace the workhorse Atlas V rocket and the Delta IV Heavy. But it has been plagued by development problems and delays, not least the late delivery of the Blue Origin …

[Anonymous Coward]

How the mighty are fallen

..if the world's largest economy has to rely on rocket engines developed essentially as a vanity project by a billionaire bookseller.

[Gene Cash]

Re: How the mighty are fallen

Don't forget, SpaceX started with engines tossed in the trash by Congress & NASA, and the chief engineer kept a couple examples in his garage.

And at least we are no longer launching our spy satellites with Russian made engines.

[Pascal Monett]

Re: How the mighty are fallen

Well what do you expect ? Congress is done giving NASA a blank check, Soviet Russia is gone. Now NASA is being nickel-and-dimed to death, and billionnaires with a penchant for erecting great big, uh, rockets, are the only thing still giving us access to orbit.

Remember the theory of trickle-down economics ? This may be the one valid example.

[Flocke Kroes]

Re: NASA funding

It is more of a mixture. There is now a regular argument over congress's budget that extends past the deadline for keeping existing projects funded on time. Leaving that on one side, different projects get (or do not get) funded depending on who gets the money.

The deep space tracking network is oversubscribed and long overdue essential maintenance to the point where deep space missions cannot send back all their data. Getting funding for space suits suitable for the Moon took so long that they may not be ready of the current Artemis 3 launch date - which will certainly slip for multiple other reasons as well. NASA could only afford one human landing system for Artemis and because they picked SpaceX money promptly appeared for a second HLS. There has never been any problem funding SLS despite its astronomical cost.

[BartyFartsLast]

Re: How the mighty are fallen

More and more it seems William Gibson was predicting the future and Musk, Bezos etc are becoming the Tessier Ashpools

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: How the mighty are fallen

I hope never to come to the attention of Wintermute...

[druck]

Re: How the mighty are fallen

Soviet Russia may no longer be in the space race, but China is, and has a space station and lunar missions.

The question you have to ask is how many dashes will they draw around the moon and the asteroid belt, if left unchecked.

[zuckzuckgo]

Re: How the mighty are fallen

As opposed to being dependant on chip and processor technology developed so we can watch cat videos all day without having to bother with a recharge?

[Sceptic Tank]

Re: How the mighty are fallen

The last moon mission had to rely on rocket engines developed by Nazi's.

[Wellyboot]

...We have a problem!

Seems that the attitude control system is borked.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67915696

[kneedragon]

Re: ...We have a problem!

Ah, I see we've noticed...

I hear they had problem with orientation control, something was tumbling it. The solar cells wouldn't point at the sun and stay pointed. Then they figured out it was leaking propellant ...

The prime concern was United Launch. As far as I can see, ULA did their job fine. That's not what went wrong.

[Vulch]

Problem after separation

Astrobotic are reporting a problem with the Peregrine lander following separation and systems activation.

[BartyFartsLast]

"Suffered a critical loss of propellant"

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/jan/08/nasa-peregrine-1-vulcan-rocket-carrying-nasa-moon-lander-lifts-off-in-florida?ref=upstract.com

Whoever let the crypto wanker put a Bitcoin onboard so they could say 'to the moon' obviously jinxed the mission because everyone knows crypto only ever crashes