Spaceflight in 2023

 2023 is shaping up to be a big year in spaceflight, there are many maiden launches scheduled for this year, and many of them promise to revolutionise the space launch market. Progress for the Starship OFT in south Texas is progressing at the normal breakneck speed and the first Vulcan core is ready to be shipped out. The artemis program storms ahead and the busy work on the ISS continues with the constant stream of visiting spacecraft and EVA's being conducted. With the war in Ukraine entering its second year, its effects on the world of space continue to be felt, with the continuing embargo on russian launches forcing satellite companies to re-evaluate their choices of launch providers, and the tensions between Russian and the US on the ISS continuing to rise.

The Artemis program finished on a high last year with the launch of Artemis 1 which tested the systems involved in the launch of the massive SLS rocket and the Orion spacecraft that sits on top of the stack. More milestones are set to follow this year, with the crew for Artemis 2 planned to be released sometime in the first half of the year. This mission will be the first crewed launch of the program, where 4 astronauts will be sent on a free return trajectory around the moon, in a mission analogous to the Apollo 8 flight in 1968. An interesting aspect to this crew selection is that one of the 4 crew will be Canadian, which will be the first non-US Citizen to travel further than an orbit of the earth. 

This seat was given to the CSA (Canadian Space Agency) due to their cooperation in the artemis program, namely providing a remote manipulator system, called the Canadarm 3, to the lunar gateway station which will orbit the moon. This arm is an evolution of the Canadarm 2 which was installed on the ISS early in its construction and is instrumental in the everyday operations of the orbiting laboratory. This new robotic arm will have an even more important role as the gateway station will be uncrewed the majority of its operational life, due to the planned cadence of the SLS being once a year. 

As covered in other articles, another aspect of the Artemis program is set to go into an operational mission state, the CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) with many missions planned to land on the lunar surface in the. newyear. The Ispace demo mission launched in 2022 will complete its 3 month long ballistic lunar transfer and touch down in April of the new year. Another mission is set to launch in 2023, the Astrobotic Peregrine mission 1, which will take a much faster 3 day direct lunar insertion. This is set to launch on the first launch of ULA's new flagship rocket, the Vulcan launch vehicle. 

 The Vulcan rocket will be the ride to space for many future satellites, as despite not having flown at all, it has already picked up to many launch contracts, such as the 92 launches paid for my Amazon for their new mega constellation, Project Kuiper. Another huge rocket that is set to debut in 2023 is SpaceX's Starship. This 120 meter tall behemoth will be the largest and most powerful rocket ever launched with a 100 tonne payload to orbit. It is also the most ambitious launch vehicle ever built promising to be fully and rapidly reusable. 

With all these huge milestones, 2023 will be a huge year for NASA and private industry. In the next article I will share my predictions for when these milestones will occur.