Spaceport Report: SpaceX Fuels Starship, Oman to Build Launch Center, Australia Facility Eyes First Orbital Launch, Canadian Govt to Support Launches

Down at Starbase in Texas, SpaceX completed a "flight-like wet dress rehearsal" by filling Starship and its Super Heavy Booster with propellants for the first time.

"Starship completed its first full flight-like wet dress rehearsal at Starbase today. This was the first time an integrated Ship and Booster were fully loaded with more than 10 million pounds of propellant," the company tweeted. "Today's test will help verify a full launch countdown sequence, as well as the performance of Starship and the orbital pad for flight-like operations."

CEO Elon Musk has estimated that the first launch could be conducted in late February or March. Starship will land in the ocean off the coast of Hawaii after completing a partial orbit of the Earth.

Move Over Djibouti, Here Comes Spaceport Oman

Oman has announced plans to build a spaceport to accommodate flights by commercial and education suborbital and orbital launches in the port town of Duqm. The Etlaq Space Launch Complex will be built by the National Aerospace Services Company. Officials said the spaceport will take three years to complete, but could see its first launch in early 2024.

The announcement comes after Hong Kong Aerospace Technology Group (HKATG) and a Shanghai-based Touchroad International Holdings Group announced they had signed a memorandum of understanding with the Djibouti government to build a $1 billion spaceport in that African nation. Djibouti and Oman are located not far from each other in the Middle East region.

The Djiboutian Spaceport, which would be built in the Obock Region of Djibouti, would have seven launch pads and three rocket engine test facilities. Construction is set to begin in March after the signing of a formal agreement. The spaceport is expected to take five years to complete.

Equatorial Launch Australia Eyes First Orbital Launch

Equatorial Launch Australia is eyeing the first orbital launch from the Arnhem Space Centre that it runs in the Northern Territory before the end of the year. The Australian Broadcasting Corp. reports that exactly who would conduct the launch is still uncertain.

ELA has revealed its ambitious hope to launch another rocket from the site in the second half of 2023, "dependent on the launch vehicle customer and the application permit process".

Executive chairman Michael Jones said the company was "in discussions with many parties from around the world" to try to secure the spaceport's next launch.

"At this stage an orbital launch in the second half of 2023 is still our goal," he said in a statement.

NASA launched three suborbital sounding rockets carrying scientific instruments from Arnhem last year.

Meanwhile in Old Virginny…

The Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) in Virginia is preparing for the first launch of a Rocket Lab Electron booster on Tuesday. The window for the launch three signal collection satellites for HawkEye 360 runs from 6-8 pm EST (23:00-01:00 UTC). The company will webcast the launch on YouTube.

MARS is run by the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority, a state agency commonly known as Virginia Space. The spaceport is part of NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island.

Northrop Grumman launches Antares and Minotaur orbital rockets from Wallops. NASA also conducts suborbital sounding rocket flights from the facility.

Canada to Support Commercial Launches

The Canadian government announced its intention to support commercial space launch activities on Friday. The measures announced include:

"Commercial space launches are a natural evolution of space applications and exploration, and Canada is poised to bring its long history and world-leading reputation to this quickly growing field. Developing a commercial space launch regime for Canada will help make our space sector more competitive and will allow Canadian industry a greater market share of the global space economy," said Minister of Transport Omar Alghabra.

Spaceflight Inc., Maritime Launch Services Deal

Spaceflight Inc. has signed an agreement with Maritime Launch Services to launch up to five of its Sherpa Orbital Transfer Vehicles (OTVs) beginning in 2025. The launches aboard Cyclone-4M rockets will take place from Spaceport Nova Scotia in Canada. Sherpa OTVs can accommodate CubeSats, small satellites and large-factor customer vehicles.

Cyclone-4M rockets are built in Ukraine, which was invaded by Russia last February. It's unclear if Ukraine will be able to export rockets to Canada to meet the 2025 goal.

Good luck to Rocket Lab on proving out their new pad. I haven't seen mention of a recovery attempt on this launch. Snaging a rocket falling on a parachute hasn't proved to be as easy as expected as it scales up. I’m sure they’ll work their way to success. It will be an even more impressive challenge if ULA ever decides to move forward on Vulcan engine recovery.

ULA has dropped MAR from the SMART recovery. They’re good with letting it parachute into the ocean since the HIAD acts as a perfect raft.

They still need the ship, so eliminating the helicopter and or relegating it to a chase craft function evens things out. And if SpaceX can operate Bob and Doug as well as a fleet of drone ships, then ULA can add one modest sized ship to their small fleet.

Because of where the engine module and its decelerator will wind up relative to the nearest shoreline, and the module alone will probably be at or near the the weight limit, and then there's the matter of getting a helicopter that can do in-air refueling, much less the infrastructure to support that.

In other words, this is not a military operation, it's ULA, a company, doing this on their own dime, and they have to make do with what's practical from an economical standpoint.

WDR, woot woot! Such a long time coming.

Go SpaceX SS/SH team! Best of luck and success in Q1 2023. Prove me wrong, I’d love it. I have to admit, those frost lines were wonderful.

Go RocketLab. It's important to try to live up to your lie that you’re an American company. 🙂 We have a long history of importing our rocket talent. I won't tell anyone you’re really Kiwis.

Hey! We’re a nation of immigrants! So are the Kiwis for that matter!

Won't argue with that!

I got some closeup pictures today of the starship launch complex…wow RUST is all over the upper and lower stages, even the top coat of the stainless is rustinjg…but the welds are horrible

according to the person who took them…the motors on the "chopsticks" have started making large grinding sounds…like no maintenance

zounds

That's what a bad rotor bearing sounds like. I doubt Baldor has a large stock of replacements.

I would not let my water tower get like that. I bet that they do zero maintenance

And you have water towers I’ll bet. Well a lack of professional maintainers will cause issues and delays. I wonder if the decision was made not to have a maintenance team because it was obvious that launch operations would commence within weeks of the completion of the launch pad? Maintenance would come after it was better understood how much refurb was needed after a flight. Then it turned into an extra year. I used to vacation at S Padre Island in the early 80's at the public pavilion just north along the inter coastal water way, and the salt and sand get into EVERYTHING. I lived in Hurst Tx at the time, but after family summer vacation our Chrysler K car based station wagon was filled with sand for weeks and you could watch the rust spots move from week to week. It's a rough environment.

we have three 50 foot water towers all dating from the 1950's but all three have been substantially rebuilt/furbished by the same local company that put them up in the 50's…as well as the support structure. we have them painted about every 5 years…most of it is just touchup…

what you said is I think true. it is one misplanning after another…and there is probably no real maintenance…so much for "hardware rich"

Didn't matter where you lived. All K cars did that lol.

Ha! You know, I’ve lived in Tucson Az so long I have gotten the idea that rust on a car is rare problem.

I remember visiting the UofA campus in the early ’80s. The physical plant folks were still using pickups from the early ’60s. And they were (as far as any corrosion goes) still in perfect condition. Are they still using those same pickups? LOL.

No! But I know what you’re talking about. That was also the old motor pool until the late 90s. The physical plant you’re talking about is probably the one near the Physics and Math buildings. Rest assured that their vehicles are now firmly rooted in late 20th cen modern models. They might even have FM radios. 🙂

LOL. We finally got FM radios here, too, but only once you couldn't buy a vehicle without one. Much to the dismay of state apparatchiks.

I grew up in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The salt up there doesn't blow in on the breeze, it's deliberately spread on the roads to control icing. Cars would rust badly enough to develop holes in body panels in just two or three years if not garaged and washed.

That's interesting to hear. It implies a LOT. The Soviets would build things then not maintain them. Sobering.

Capt. Bob, in case you hadn't noticed, has a tendency to make stuff up. NASASpaceFlight has hundreds of videos of activity at Starbase. There's a lot of maintenance going on everywhere, all the time, especially on the orbital launch infrastructure.

I call BS. There are no motors on the chopsticks so far as I know, just a few hydraulic actuators. The chopsticks are winched up and down with cables by a prime mover motor that is behind the tower. I’ve seen plenty of recent close-ups of S24 and B7 too and I’ve seen no rust.

Um…okay.

So you actively seek conflict. Sorry, don't have time.

Finally, some progress! It's been a while. Looking forward to the static fire; hopefully the pad survives okay(wouldn't be surprised at some damage though)

Is there a word on that massive CH4 dump? That was …. risky. Anyone know why it happened? I’ll show my ignorance here. maybe someone who is better informed. … I thought that methane like hydrogen had to be flared off, and that a dump into the atmosphere like this would be only in an emergency? Or was this test done with LN2?

the rust in the welds is horrible

yeap

rusted welds, 304 SS and cooked welds…fly me to the moon LOL https://uploads.disquscdn.c…

https://uploads.disquscdn.c…

Boeing To Pay $2.5 Billion Settlement Over Deadly 737 Max Crashes.

https://www.npr.org/2022/09…

Laugh that off.

You have no excuse to think that discoloration is not trivial.

lol pilot error. read the US NTSB report.

SpaceX…the rust wagon "wow Bill we have just landed on the Moon in a lander with rust" RAH

A Pilot error created by a company that did not inform the pilots of the change in the software.

Boeing engineering in — on purpose — a vulnerability without telling anyone . . .

The survivors should own the company and fire all current senior staff.

https://uploads.disquscdn.c…

Gary, again, pity and contempt are neither one hate.

Neither one is any hobby rocket, and most such aerospace companies are not managed for the purpose of improving access to space, but to improving legiscritters access to election.

That looks more like Texas dust than rust.

its rust

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