Humanity Star: inspirational disco ball satellite or space graffiti?

Over the past several years we have seen the business of rocket launching transforming from being the exclusive domain of large government agencies, such as NASA and the European Space Agency, to successful launches by the private sector.

There’s no denying that the most high profile member of the private sector rocket launchers is SpaceX and its peripatetic leader Elon Musk. For Musk, space is just one of many areas in which he is active.

Think electric vehicles (Tesla), solar powered roofing (PowerWall), tunnels under cities (The Boring Company), a transportation system involving evacuated tubes (Hyperloop) and more. It’s a full-time job just keeping up with the man.

However the object of this article isn’t Elon Musk and his SpaceX venture. No, there is another individual who has focused on space and who hasn’t yet developed the rock star status of Musk but who was recently successful in putting a payload into orbit with the very first test of his rocket.

Furthermore, he didn’t launch his rocket from one of the long established launch locations, such as Cape Canaveral in Florida (NASA, SpaceX), French Guyana (ESA) or Kazakhstan (Russia).

No, he launched his rocket from a remote spot in eastern New Zealand, from a spaceport he built himself. Rocket Lab is the end-product of visionary New Zealander Peter Beck, who at a young age went to work in the U.S. space industry.

With no formal training, Beck found himself working with rocket scientists with whom he’d corresponded for years. He formed a vision of building lightweight rockets that could launch payloads into near-earth orbit at a much lower cost than any of the other players in the satellite business.

Key to his vision was producing engines, the most expensive and complex part of rocketry, through 3-D printing technology.  Yes, 3D-printed rocket motors. By 2016, with investors taking note of the potential for his vision, Beck was named New Zealand Entrepreneur of the Year.

Beck’s key goal was to place satellites in earth orbit for around $5 million a launch, far below the tens of millions typically spent to get a payload into space.

To finance his vision, Beck did R&D work for various U.S. space contractors, particularly in the military sector, all the while nurturing a vision of low-cost rockets that could make space far more accessible.

In January 2018 Beck launched his unique Electron rocket, with battery-powered pump motors, and on just its second flight put three so-called CubeSats into orbit for fee-paying customers.

The Electron rocket is a two-stage liquid-fueled vehicle with the aforementioned 3D-printed engines produced by deposition of layers of metal powder melted by high-powered electron beams.

What drew the world’s attention to this launch was Beck’s previously unannounced additional payload of a reflective dome, about a metre in diameter. This polyhedral dome is made of 65 highly polished panels designed to reflect sunlight to viewers on Earth.

Beck named his additional payload Humanity Star. Others somewhat derisively named it the disco ball satellite because its rotation as it moved around the world would produce reflecting flashes of sunlight. Some professional astronomers denounced the move as a stunt that would potentially interfere with their work, a form of space graffiti if you will.

However, as has been noted in this column over the years, there are many far more reflective and bright objects in earth orbit. Most prominent are the Iridium satellites that can produce such bright flashes that some are daylight visible.

With a fair dose of hyperbole Beck claimed his Humanity Star would be the “brightest object in the night sky.” That simply won’t be the case. In fact, it will be quite difficult to see Beck’s disco ball satellite.

I’ve tried and so far not been able to see it. Its potential brightness has been calculated by others, notably by the people at popular satellite observation web site heavens-above.com, to range from a low of Magnitude 7 (basically not observable by the naked eye) to a high of around 4. Compare that to the International Space Station for instance,  which is many thousands of times brighter.

Nonetheless, Humanity Star has drawn attention to the burgeoning field of small satellite launches. This small satellite will only be in orbit for around nine months, in a slowly decaying orbit. As this column is written, Humanity Star is entering a period of visibility from Vancouver.

Perhaps it will inspire someone to become fascinated with space, as did the appearance of the giant reflecting balloon Echo 1 in 1960 for me when my father took me outside and pointed skyward at the first satellite visible over the entire planet.

If you are interested in possibly spotting this fascinating satellite, you can track it at thehumanitystar.com. And if you have a satellite launch in mind, head over to www.rocketlabusa.com/book-my-launch.

Update: it seems Humanity Star’s orbit has begun to decay much more quickly than anticipated and destructive re-entry into the atmosphere is imminent.

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