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Rocket Lab Successfully Launches R3D2 Mission for DARPA

posted by martyb on Friday March 29 2019, @06:37PM   
from the waiting-for-someone-to-call-their-launcher:-Neutron dept.

takyon writes:

Rocket Lab launches dedicated DARPA mission on Electron

Rocket Lab is aiming for a rapid launch cadence in 2019, and begun that campaign with the first Electron launch of the year. The window to launch the R3D2 mission for DARPA was to open on Sunday at 22:30 UTC for four hours. However, a scrub was called for at least 48 hours due to a "video transmitter 13dB down with low performance" – while forecasted high winds moved the launch two days to the right, to Thursday. That attempt proved successful with an ontime launch.

The Radio Frequency Risk Reduction Deployment Demonstration satellite is a technology demonstration mission for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the United States government's military technology development agency. The mission was the first Electron launch dedicated to a single satellite on board, lofting the 150 kg spacecraft into a circular orbit, inclined 39.5 degrees, at an altitude of 425 km.

R3D2's mission is to qualify a prototype membrane reflect-array antenna, designed to improve radio communications in small spacecraft. On board is a compacted Kapton membrane antenna built by MMA Design, which deploys to 2.25 meters in diameter once in orbit.

DARPA hopes R3D2 will validate concepts for space-based internet as well as communications capabilities for the United States Department of Defense. Radio systems aboard R3D2 were built by Trident Systems, and the payload is mounted on a spacecraft bus built by Blue Canyon Tech. Northrop Grumman is the mission's prime contractor and integrator.

Also at SpaceFlight Insider and The Verge.

Previously: Rocket Lab Mission for NASA Successfully Launches 13 CubeSats

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Original Submission

• Kapton Membrane? (Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Friday March 29 2019, @10:51PM

  by RandomFactor (3682) on Friday March 29 2019, @10:51PM (#822089) Journal

  From Wikipedia:

  Kapton is a polyimide film developed by DuPont in the late 1960s that remains stable across a wide range of temperatures, from −269 to +400 °C (−452 to 752 °F; 4 to 673 K).[1][2] Kapton is used in, among other things, flexible printed circuits (flexible electronics) and thermal blankets used on spacecraft, satellites, and various space instruments.

  Usage in spacecraft

  The descent stage of the Apollo Lunar Module, and the bottom of the ascent stage surrounding the ascent engine, were covered in blankets of aluminized Kapton foil to provide thermal insulation. During the return journey from the Moon, Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong commented that during the launch of the Lunar Module ascent stage, he could see "Kapton and other parts on the LM staging scattering all around the area for great distances." [7]

  According to a NASA internal report, space shuttle "wires were coated with an insulator known as Kapton that tended to break down over time, causing short circuits and, potentially, fires."[8] The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory has considered Kapton as a good plastic support for solar sails because of its long duration in the space environment.[9]

  NASA's New Horizons spacecraft used Kapton in an innovative "Thermos bottle" insulation design to keep the craft operating between 10–30 °C (50–86 °F) throughout its more than nine-year, 3 billion mile journey to rendezvous with the dwarf planet Pluto on July 14, 2015.[10] The main body is covered in lightweight, gold-colored, multilayered thermal insulation which holds in heat from operating electronics to keep the spacecraft warm. The thermal blanketing–18 layers of Dacron mesh cloth sandwiched between aluminized Mylar and Kapton film–also helped to protect the craft from micrometeorites.[11]

  The sunshield of the James Webb Space Telescope is also made of aluminized Kapton.[12]

  The crew aboard the International Space Station used Kapton tape to temporarily repair a slow leak in a Soyuz spacecraft attached to the Russian segment of the orbital complex in August, 2018.[13]

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