The competition heats up: Virgin Galactic and the FAA on Friday reached agreement allowing the company to fly its suborbital flights from Spaceport America in New Mexico.
I suspect that Virgin Galactic wants to hurry its debut in New Mexico in order to help quell the doubts that have been building about the company’s future.
The competition heats up: On Friday SpaceX unveiled its manned version of its Dragon capsule.
I am on the road this weekend so I won’t be able to comment about this until I get home.
One thing I can say. A quick scan of the news reveals a lot of stories about this particular event, showing once again that there is a lot of interest in the possibility of private development in space. This general interest is further fueled by SpaceX’s track record, which suggests that they will accomplish what they promise to do.
The proposed SpaceX spaceport in Brownsville, Texas, has passed its final federal environmental review.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which had raised concerns about possible impact on habitat for some endangered species, ultimately concluded that “the project is not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of any listed or proposed to be listed species nor adversely modify piping plover critical habitat.”
But wildlife officials don’t expect the project to be harmless: Two individual cats, either from the endangered ocelot or jaguarondi species, could be lost as a result of the project in spite of efforts to avoid just that with measures such as posting warning signs along the road leading to the launch site. And federal wildlife officials also anticipate that more than 7 miles of beachfront used by nesting sea turtles could be disturbed by security patrols, though driving is already permitted on the beach.
I think every American should read these two paragraphs to gain an understanding of how ridiculous these environmental regulations sometimes are. This report appears to be junk and an enormous waste of effort and time.
The bottom line is to consider what has happened in Florida. The government established a wildlife preserve surrounding the Kennedy Space Center and the wildlife has been flourishing there for more than a half century. Because a launchpad is used so infrequently (12 times a year is what SpaceX proposes for Brownsville), it inflicts very little harm on the environment.
A frame-by-frame repair of the video taken during the April soft splashdown of the Falcon 9 first stage now shows the deployment of the landing legs.
Video below the fold.
In a related note, SpaceX will unveil its manned version of the Dragon capsule tomorrow at 7 pm (Pacific) and will live stream the event here.
Update: The links are fixed. Thanks Edward!
» Read more
The competition heats up: The suborbital tourist company XCOR has raised $14.2 million of private investment capital.
It looks increasingly like this tortoise is going to catch up with the Virgin Galactic hare in the race to launch the first suborbital private space tourists.
The competiton heats up: SpaceX has completed qualification tests of the SuperDraco thrusters that will be used by Dragon for launch aborts as well as soft landings on land.
Next comes the capsule’s first launch abort test sometime later this year.
Google introduces its first prototype of a completely driverless vehicle.
The prototype accommodates for two passengers and is missing quite a few of the features you’d expect to see in a standard car. With no need for a steering wheel, mirrors or braking and accelerating pedals, the car comes fully equipped with special software and sensors that feed information into an onboard computer, which then drives the car.
The story and video are very vague about a lot of important details, such as how much programing was necessary for the vehicle to do the specific test drives shown as well as how the passengers tell the vehicle where to go. Nonetheless, as a prototype this vehicle is quite intriguing.
Orbital Sciences has delayed its next Cygnus flight to ISS by at least one week in order to complete its investigation of the failure of a Russian-built rocket engine used by the Antares rocket.
Without doubt, this engine failure highlights the urgent need for American rocket companies to develop their own rocket engines.
The competition heats up: The FAA is inching closer to approving a license to allow SpaceX to conduct tests in Texas of its rocket-powered prototype of its Dragon capsule.
Simply, DragonFly is a propulsive system designed to allow the SpaceX Dragon capsule to perform propulsive landings (both with and without parachute assistance). Overall, DragonFly will use eight SuperDraco hypergolic engines capable of producing up to 16,400 lbf of thrust each. …
In all, SpaceX has proposed, and submitted to the FAA for commercial experimental license, a total of 30 DragonFly tests at its McGregor test facility. Four of the test flights involve DragonFly being dropped from a helicopter at an altitude of 10,000 ft with two propulsive assist landings parachutesand engines) and two propulsive landings (engines only). The remaining 26 of the proposed test flights will launch from a specially-built pad that will take between 1-2 weeks to construct (according to the FAA draft environmental report). These 26 flights will consist of eight parachute-assist landings and 18 full propulsive hops (rocket engines only).
We should all be relieved: The 76-page draft environmental impact statement noted that these tests will not destroy the Earth, and that their effect on global warming will be tiny. If the license is finally approved, testing should begin before the end of 2014.
The competition heats up: In its first launch since a failure early in 2013, Sea Launch successfully put a European communications satellite into orbit on Monday.
Elon Musk and another watchdog group suggested on Friday that there was a quid pro quo in the awarding ULA its bulk buy military launch contract.
Musk, citing an article by the Washington-based National Legal and Policy Center, suggested Thursday night on Twitter that the Pentagon inspector general should investigate the actions of former Air Force civilian Roger “Scott” Correll. Earlier this year, Correll retired from his post as the Air Force’s program executive officer for space launch, where he wielded enormous influence in awarding a multibillion-dollar contract for 36 rocket launches over the next several years, shooting sensitive national security equipment into space.
The contract went to a company called United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of the nation’s two biggest weapons contractors — Chicago-based Boeing and Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin Corp. Earlier this month, Correll took a job as vice president of government acquisition and policy with Aerojet Rocketdyne, the company that supplies the rocket engines used by United Launch Alliance.
Correll’s hiring certainly illustrates the “old boys” network in operation here. Whether there was direct corruption is not clear. Nonetheless, the bulk buy contract is not in the interests of the taxpayer or the Air Force, at least not at the prices announced.
Virgin Galactic finally admitted to its engine troubles on Friday.
They have dumped the original engine, switching to a different engine design that the rumors have said they have been testing for the past year.
The company press release is here, with commentary here.
Though it is a good thing that the company has finally come clean and made the switch, they probably waited far too long to do it, as the problems with the old engine likely caused several years delay in their schedule, allowing other companies to catch up with them and thus losing the significant technological advantage that they once held.
