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Net Work Alan Winstanley This month’s Net Work brings a round-up of the latest space program developments, starting with a look at some home-grown projects that are slowly taking shape in Britain and around the world. A s Europe seeks to build up its own independent capacity for launching satellites into lowEarth orbit (LEO), Scotland is in pole position to host some of Britain’s own space port ambitions. Back in the May 2022 issue, I reported that the UK Government was investing in SaxaVord, a new spaceport to be built in Unst, the most northernmost location in the Shetland Islands off the Scottish coast. Launches as early as 2024 were envisaged but they didn’t materialise. The spaceport is open for business as the UK’s first vertical orbital site licensed to offer launch facilities to its clients. The site could handle up to 60% of all of Europe’s LEO satellite launches, they claim, but the rockets themselves are still undergoing development. Successful engine tests have already been held, and the first launch may take place as soon as this year, it is hoped. I also reported in 2022 how a second launch site was taking shape, in the form of Sutherland Spaceport, which aimed to become “Scotland’s Sustainable Spaceport” in the Scottish Highlands. Apart from anything, this project – the first carbon-neutral spaceport in the world – would bring some very welcome, high-tech jobs for young people in an area that is otherwise steeped in the traditions of crofting (a unique historical system of land tenure and smallholding farming). Crofters are very passionate about managing the land handed down to them, but opportunities for employment are very limited, so hopes were high that a space hub could attract new sustainable jobs. Readers can gauge the crofting lifestyle for themselves at https://www.melness.scot/news Sadly, despite its green credentials, the site’s potential environmental impact has drawn much ire and opposition in some quarters. So much so that in December, Orbex, one of the spaceport’s main backers, switched horses mid-race to focus on launching from SaxaVord instead. They may return to Sutherland in the future, they say, but the decision enables Orbex to focus instead on its new, medium-sized launch vehicle called Proxima. The company plans to enhance its manufacturing facilities in Forres to support the production of both its smaller vehicle, known as Prime, and the new Proxima launcher. Skyrora (https://skyrora.com) is a rival currently designing its own satellite space launch vehicles, including complex 3D-printed assemblies, ready to meet the needs of its LEO satellite clients. They forecast flights commencing at the end of 2026. England has had its fair share of excitement in the emerging space program, with Spaceport Cornwall having been the venue of the ill-fated Virgin Orbit mission to fly the Cosmic Girl 747 in January 2023, lifting the Launcher One satellite carrier into low orbit. The plane still flies today as the Spirit of Mojave. While budgets are just a fraction of, say, NASA’s or SpaceX’s, there is no denying the drive and eagerness to build an independent space launching system in the UK. During the next year, we can finally expect to see the first LEO satellites being launched from British soil. Jostling for space Vying for business is Sweden’s Esrange Spaceport, which is home SaxaVord Spaceport is developing a ground station network on the island of Unst, Shetland, the UK’s most northerly location. 4 Practical Electronics | March | 2025 to a thriving and long-established program of scientific and research initiatives. Esrange is the European Union’s first site capable of offering orbital launches. You can learn more at https://sscspace.com/esrange/ Europe’s main spaceport is situated in French Guiana on South America’s northern coast. Its location near to the equator means rockets gain extra performance, thanks to the impetus of a ‘slingshot effect’ due to the earth’s higher rotational speed, as the ESA puts it. The ESA is focusing on two space vehicles that will doubtless become familiar news items in the years ahead: the smaller Vega-C has returned to action after being grounded for two years, and it successfully launched an environmental monitoring satellite last December. The ESA’s much delayed Ariane 6 heavy lifter is scheduled to launch in the first quarter of 2025. Two versions of the space vehicle are offered: the twin-booster Ariane 62 or four-booster Ariane 64, the latter capable of lifting up to 21 tonnes into LEO. The vehicles are manufactured in various plants across Europe, including facilities in France, Germany and Italy, before being shipped to French Guiana on board a new, purpose-built oceangoing vessel: the Canopée. The vessel is equipped with four Oceanwings wind-assisted propulsion ‘sails’ that reduce the fuel consumption by 30% over a normal diesel-powered ship. They say they halve the costs of shipping Ariane 6 parts to the spaceport. Readers can expect to hear more of Ariane 6’s missions in the next few years. NASA’s Artemis lunar program has been beset by delays and setbacks. Artemis is the mythological twin sister of Apollo and represents NASA’s ambition to return humans to the moon and then enable the human exploration of Mars. An unmanned mission in 2022 eventually saw an Orion capsule fly past the moon and return successfully. The Artemis 2 mission will carry astronauts the furthest humans have ever travelled into deep space, but it has been delayed to at least 2026. Sojourn on Starliner Boeing’s Starliner is designed to transport crew to and from the International Space Station. After several false starts, in June 2024, a crewed flight docked with the ISS on supposedly an eight-day mission. Question marks over the capsule’s thrusters meant NASA delayed the astronauts’ return to Earth. Initially, the delay was for a few days, then a few weeks. Eight months later, the two astronauts remain stranded on board the ISS. The Starliner capsule returned to Earth unladen, and the two astronauts are finally expected to come home on a SpaceX Dragon capsule during the early part of this year. Back in 2021, NASA’s Mars Ingenuity helicopter made history after being the first vehicle to make a powered flight on another world. The proof-of-concept machine was expected to manage a handful of flights in the Martian atmosphere, but it proved so successful that the plucky Ingenuity flew more than 70 missions in total. In April 2024, it was finally grounded due to rotor damage, but the electronics The ESA Ariane 6 heavy lifter is set to launch from French Guiana early this year. It has two booster configurations depending on payload requirements. Source: ESA ArianeGroup. The ESA Canopée hybrid transporter vessel carries Ariane 6 from mainland Europe to French Guiana. Special ‘sails’ reduce its fuel consumption. Source: ESA ArianeGroup, Tom van Oossanen. Practical Electronics | March | 2025 5 will continue to capture data on board in the hope that it may be recovered by a future mission. One NASA project that has needed a major rethink is the Mars Sample Return mission. As described in earlier Net Work columns, NASA’s Perseverance rover had gathered an array of small sample tubes of Martian soil, each carefully logged and deposited onto the surface ready to be collected some time in the future. Spiralling costs have put paid to an over-elaborate, multi-national mission that would see the sample tubes fetched into Martian orbit for eventual return to Earth. Lower-cost options are now being sought. China is also thought to be investing in its own sample return mission and may beat NASA to it, albeit in a much more haphazard ‘smash and grab’ sort of way. Solar sailor NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, launched in August 2018, was the first spacecraft to pass through the Sun’s corona. In December, it set another record for passing the closest to the Sun’s surface at 430,000 miles per hour (692,000km/h), faster than any man-made object has ever travelled. It came within 3.8 million miles (6.1 million kilometres) of the Sun’s surface. Remarkably, all instruments and telemetry are working normally after the perilous flight. SpaceX continues to expand its Starlink satellite network in LEO with a further 21 satellites launched in early January. The total number of Starlink satellites in orbit is fast approaching 7000, and astronomers and scientists are increasingly concerned that radio noise is interfering with their highly sensitive instruments. With a can-do spirit, Elon Musk’s SpaceX is also pressing on with developing Starship, the world’s most powerful rocket that is ultimately destined for building a space camp on Mars. The re-usable rocket is powered by 33 Raptor engines and has previously taken off and landed again on the same launchpad. In an astonishing achievement, the returning craft was captured and held aloft by ‘chopsticks’ on the launch tower. The video (https://youtu.be/ b28zbsnk-48) must be seen to be believed. After five data-gathering test missions, you can expect the inaugural flight of Starship this year, followed by several other significant flights. Blue Origin, the space technology firm owned by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, is also close to inaugurating its own heavy lift space vehicle, the New Glenn 6 A Starship super heavy booster with 33 Raptor engines is captured by ‘chopsticks’ after returning to Earth. Source: SpaceX (via YouTube). rocket, named after John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth. Space tourism is also a becoming a reality for the well-heeled, with passengers in the New Shepard capsule able to view the earth and experience weightlessness for a few moments. Amazon’s Kuiper satellite network is also continuing to evolve, and will become a contender for offering space-based broadband. As readers can see, the race to explore space is heating up. Reusable rockets can now be guided back to earth with pinpoint accuracy, even landing vertically on a carrier ship or the original launch tower. Several countries are developing remarkable technologies to explore the far side of the moon, the Sun and to bring samples back to earth. Launching satellites into LEO no longer needs the resources of Cape Canaveral. Tiny cubesats, designed to carry experiments into space, measure just 10×10×10cm (about 4×4×4 inches) and fit in the palm of your hand. It’s now routine to hitch a lift on a ride-sharing space mission where they can be released into a geostationary orbit. At the other extreme, the largest rockets the world has ever seen are being built in preparation for the day when we may finally see humans landing on Mars. eBay sellers beware There was a time, say 20 years ago or more, when eBay was the go-to website to buy or bid for all manner Practical Electronics | March | 2025 1552 hand-held plastic enclosures Learn more: hammondmfg.com/1552 uksales<at>hammondmfg.com • 01256 812812 of merchandise. Mostly they were private sales, but businesses were quick to jump on board and sometimes ‘game’ the system. Online auctions could be a source of much excitement and in the era of slow dial-up internet or ADSL and no Wi-Fi, bidders were often outbid in the closing few seconds due to ‘sniping’ by other bidders. Websites such as Auctionstealer and Bidnapper sprang up to enter last-second bids on your behalf. It was quite an engaging, if sometimes disappointing, process and for much of the time, eBay was fun to use. With ever more choice from other sites chipping away at its core business, eBay has been re-inventing itself, and in January announced a new fee structure. Never before have buyers been forced to pay a fee on top (unlike, say, users of the Vinted website), but by the time you read this, eBay will have introduced its so-called “Buyer Protection” scheme. The idea sounds grand, but, taking a leaf straight out of Vinted’s book, it simply increases the buyer’s costs by adding an enigmatic 4% “Buyer Protection” fee plus £0.75 when they purchase from private sellers. Effectively, buyers are paying for their own insurance policy, but what do they get for their money? As a supposed added-value benefit, a 24×7 phone or chat service is introduced by eBay “to get the quick answers you need”. Far more relevant to private sellers, though, is the fact that they will no longer be paid until the goods have been delivered successfully. This is supposed to “give buyers more confidence”, which they are supposed to be thankful for. As any seller knows, eBay also tries to muscle in on the postage phase as well, by pushing its own shipping options for Royal Mail and courier deliveries. I doubt eBay does this out of charity, and I prefer to make my own arrangements anyway. eBay’s actions are likely to have a chilling effect on small private sale items, which had only recently become free to list. Something that cost £5 will now cost £5.95 from February, as one disgruntled seller pointed out, making it much less viable to sell small items as costs are pushed onto buyers. The onus is also now on the seller to provide tracking and deal with the consequences of deliveries going astray. Should things go wrong, it’s worth remembering that buying through PayPal and Google Pay, instead of directly with your credit card, removes the Section 75 UK consumer protection law. Instead, you’re left to complain and deal with corporates like PayPal or eBay. In my view, these forms of payment are only suitable for low-cost items. eBay’s woolly marketing gets worse: as the fee is already Practical Electronics | March | 2025 included in the item price charged by private sellers, “there are no surprises at checkout”, they say, so “[buyers] only pay what you see”, which is jolly reassuring to know. Since there are no added fees for business sellers as “Buyer Protection” is already included, sales are likely to be skewed in favour of business sellers. The exciting, auctioneering spirit of eBay is being all but snuffed out as it becomes a simple marketplace machine instead. That’s all for this month’s feature. Next month, change is in the air, as the former Editor once put it. The April 2025 issue will sadly mark the last regular Net Work column after an uninterrupted run of nearly 29 years. So join me then for more news, and more Net Work! The author can be reached at alan<at>epemag.net PE 7