🔥 The ISS has sprung a leak!

The space industry can be a messy place. A mission’s success is often up for debate, no matter what the company behind it says. And timeline pressures can sometimes lead companies to overemphasize their development progress.

This week, Intuitive Machines has officially announced its Odysseus lunar lander IM-1 mission is a success, though the spacecraft landed on its side. US and New Zealand-based company Rocket Lab, meanwhile, might be in hot water due to claims it has deceptively stated its reusable Neutron rocket will launch this year.

What’s more, the ISS has sprung a leak! Let’s get into the juicy details below.

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AEROSPACE ENGINEERING SPOTLIGHT

Rocket Lab announced during an earnings call this week that it is on track to launch its reusable medium-lift Neutron rocket as soon as this year.

The trouble is, others aren’t buying it.

The main reason behind this is that Rocket Lab has not performed a single hot-fire test of its Archimedes engine, which was designed to power Neutron to orbit. Other rocket companies, including SpaceX and the United Launch Alliance, have taken years from their first engine tests to actually seeing the rocket leave the launch pad.

Rocket Lab CFO Adam Spice did stress that the 2024 launch timeline was a “green-light schedule”, meaning it is only possible in a best case scenario.

Still, Rocket Lab seems to have landed in hot water due to the fact it has reportedly mentioned the 2024 launch date in a bid to earn a contract with the US Space Force.

Things escalated on Thursday, February 29, when a congressional memo was released stating that, “in light of public reporting and media pressure, Rocket Lab has escalated their campaign to misrepresent their launch readiness in an effort to gain competitive advantage over incumbents and other new entrants by on-boarding into NSSL Phase 3 Lane 1 at the first opportunity in 2024. Public records and information available to staff confirm that Neutron has no credible path to launch by 12/15/2024.”

The company will hope to prove naysayers wrong by launching Neutron for the first time this year. But an overly ambitious timeline and past claims of “deceptive marketing” mean it is arguably not in a good position to prove those doubters wrong.

It’s also worth noting that SpaceX and Elon Musk have set the bar high when it comes to ambitious claims that may or may not come true. The company once stated Starship would be operational by around 2021, and recent reports suggest Starship will fly up to nine times this year.

Last week we asked “Which country or space agency will fly a reusable rocket next?” here are the results

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Going up in a vertical rocket like Blue Origin’s New Shepard (14%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Flying in a spaceplane like Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity (36%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ Flying in Space Perspective’s Space Balloon (25%)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ I wouldn’t want to go to space at all (25%)

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AERO BULLETIN

During a press briefing to discuss the upcoming Crew-8 astronaut launch to the International Space Station (ISS), NASA ISS Program Manager Joel Montalbano said there is a leak at the aft end of the space station’s Russian module.

Though NASA has stated there is no immediate cause for alarm and that the leak doesn’t impact crew safety, it is keeping an eye on the situation and looking to take the next steps to fix the leak.

It’s certainly not the first time a leak or an alarming incident has taken place aboard the ISS. Here are two other recent close calls for astronauts on the iconic space station.

The ISS tea leaves incident

In 2021, Russia’s Roscosmos space agency reported a leak in the transfer chamber of the Zvezda Service Module. They could detect that air was leaking from that section of the space station, but they couldn’t find exactly where it was happening.

That is, until Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin devised a cunning plan. Ivanishin released a few tea leaves in the module. The crew members then sealed it off and watched as the tea leaves slowly floated towards a tiny crack in the station’s walls.

Russian space debris avoidance

In October 2022, the ISS had to fire its thrusters to avoid debris caused by a Russian weapons test in low Earth orbit.

Though it was only a precautionary measure, the astronauts aboard the station were told to remain in their sleeping quarters for safety reasons. NASA is extremely cautious and it performs an avoidance maneuver even when there is a one in 100,000 chance of a small piece of space debris hitting the ISS.