Tag: commercial

A Texas-based company has printed the first 3D-printed metal pistol, a 45 caliber Model 1911.

8:57 am

A Texas-based company has printed the first 3D-printed metal pistol, a 45 caliber Model 1911.

Video below the fold. The gun clearly functions, though I noticed that in the video they never loaded more three rounds in a magazine, and that the gun seems to cycle weakly. I suspect that they had some feeding problems when they tried to fire a full loaded five round magazine.

Nonetheless, this achievement further illustrates that 3D printing is about to become a major method of manufacture.
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Successfully growing crops in the desert using salt water and solar power.

8:48 am

Successfully growing crops in the desert using salt water and solar power.

The heart of the SFP concept is a specially designed greenhouse. At one end, salt water is trickled over a gridlike curtain so that the prevailing wind blows the resulting cool, moist air over the plants inside. This cooling effect allowed the Qatar facility to grow three crops per year, even in the scorching summer. At the other end of the greenhouse is a network of pipes with cold seawater running through them. Some of the moisture in the air condenses on the pipes and is collected, providing a source of fresh water.

One of the surprising side effects of such a seawater greenhouse, seen during early experiments, is that cool moist air leaking out of it encourages other plants to grow spontaneously outside. The Qatar plant took advantage of that effect to grow crops around the greenhouse, including barley and salad rocket (arugula), as well as useful desert plants. The pilot plant accentuated this exterior cooling with more “evaporative hedges” that reduced air temperatures by up to 10°C. “It was surprising how little encouragement the external crops needed,” says SFP chief Joakim Hauge.

The technology development here is wonderful, but it is unclear from the article whether these crops would be competitive on the open market with ordinary farm crops. The cost for this operation is not outlined.

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India has begun the countdown for the November 5 launch of its first Mars orbiter.

9:04 am

India has begun the countdown for the November 5 launch of its first Mars orbiter.

Just today, spacetoday.com lists fourteen different stories in the Indian press about this mission, all enthusiastic, thus indicating the excitement in that country over space exploration and this mission in particular. Nor is this event unusual. I’ve noted before how space happy India is. They not only want to catch up and pass their neighbor China, they want to catch up with the United States and Russia. Should be fun to watch.

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Bras in space: How a bra company made the spacesuits the astronauts wore on the Moon.

11:39 am

Bras in space: How a bra company made the spacesuits the astronauts wore on the Moon.

Fascinating interview, though I find it humorous how it is considered absurd and unlikely for a private company that makes bras to make these spacesuits. In truth, when the Apollo missions happened, Americans had no doubt that ordinary private businesses were the best places to go to get something novel and creative done.

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Sierra Nevada reveals that its Dream Chaser engineering test vehicle survived its bad landing in weekend in reasonably good shape.

5:06 pm

Sierra Nevada reveals that its Dream Chaser engineering test vehicle survived its bad landing this weekend in reasonably good shape.

After lining up on the runway, the spacecraft’s nose landing skid and right main landing gear deployed normally about 200 feet off the ground. But the left main gear hung up for some reason. Sirangelo said the software issued the proper commands, leading engineers to suspect a mechanical problem of some sort.

The landing gear in the test vehicle were taken from an F-5 training jet and will not be used on operational versions of the Dream Chaser.

In any case, the Dream Chaser’s flight software responded to the unbalanced load at touchdown, keeping the spacecraft’s left wing off the ground as long as possible. But it eventually came down and the craft skidded off the runway in a cloud of dust. [emphasis mine]

They should release the video. If the vehicle’s software was able to keep the vehicle stable, even as it was speeding down a runway short one wheel, this would impress people. Not releasing video of this only feeds the doubts people have.

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Sierra Nevada today released a video of the test flight this past weekend of its Dream Chaser engineering test vehicle.

9:07 am

Sierra Nevada today released a video of the test flight this past weekend of its Dream Chaser engineering test vehicle.

Don’t get too excited. They very cleverly have edited the tape so that we do not see what happened after touchdown. You can see how the left landing gear does not completely deploy, but then they cut away. Nonetheless, the video is posted below the fold.
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Sierra Nevada provides an update on the condition of its Dream Chaser test vehicle after this weekend’s glide flight and bad landing.

7:06 pm

Sierra Nevada provides an update on the condition of its Dream Chaser test vehicle after this weekend’s glide flight and bad landing.

SNC has not yet decided whether to repair the Dream Chaser test craft, which does not use the same landing gear the orbital vehicle would use. Investigating what went wrong will take “a couple of weeks,” Sirangelo estimated. He said the vehicle, which is now in a hangar in Mojave, Calif., was “fully intact” after the crash.

“The pressure vessel was completely pristine, the computers are still working, there was no damage to the crew cabin or flight systems,” Sirangelo said. “I went inside it myself and it was perfectly fine. There was some damage from skidding.

“We learned everything we wanted to on this test, and learned more than we expected to learn,” Sirangelo said. “We believe we’ve got most of the data we need [but] I can’t honestly say, I just don’t know yet. It’s not going to affect our schedule in the long term [but] It might affect whether we do another free flight test this year or next year. We’re still assessing that.”

The company also claims that the flight met the requirements of a $15 million NASA milestone payment, since the goals of the flight were to test the vehicle’s flight capabilities, not its landing gear. (The failed landing gear used will not be the gear used on the final flight vehicle.)

They have scheduled a press conference for tomorrow. Stay tuned.

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Why governments can’t do it

10:46 am

A government official today unwittingly revealed a fundamental and unpleasant truth about how governments: operate. In an interview today, the head of India’s space agency denied that his country is in a space race with anyone.

Mr. Radhakrishnan, Secretary in the Department of Space and Chairman of Space Commission, said each country — whether it’s India, the US, Russia or China — had their own priorities.

“There is no race with anybody. If you look at anybody, they have their own direction. So, I don’t find a place for race with somebody. But I would say we are always on race with ourselves to excel in areas that we have chalked out for ourselves,” he told PTI here in an interview.

How typical. By denying the reality of the competition that India is part of Mr. Radhakrishnan illustrates for me and everyone once again the basic reason all government efforts eventually fail.
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In its first free flying glide test, the Dream Chaser engineering test vehicle had a perfect flight and approach to landing but flipped over on the runway when its left land gear failed to deploy.

3:43 pm

In its first free flying glide test, the Dream Chaser engineering test vehicle had a perfect flight and approach to landing but flipped over on the runway when its left land gear failed to deploy.

I haven’t yet found any post landing images, nor any information about damage to the test vehicle. This is the kind of tragic failure that sometimes kills a project. The vehicle, operating unmanned, performed quite well actually, flying freely and gliding to the runway as planned. The failure of the one landing gear to deploy is a relatively easy engineering fix. However, the failure could cost a fortune, money the company might not have, if it requires the construction of an entire new test vehicle.

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Russian owned International Launch Services today successfully used its Proton rocket to launch a commercial satellite.

4:55 pm

The competition heats up: Russian owned International Launch Services (ILS) today successfully used its Proton rocket to launch a commercial satellite.

This is the second successfully Proton launch since July’s spectacular failure. The company seems to be recovering, which of course means that the competition for launch services will get hotter in 2014.

Which is excellent news. The competition will keep these companies on their toes, and force them to innovate in order to stay in business. In the long run this will lower the cost to orbit and make space more accessible to everyone.

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Some new details about SpaceX’s new Raptor rocket engine are revealed.

9:19 am

The competition heats up: A key new detail about SpaceX’s new Raptor rocket engine is revealed.

The only detail about the engine in the release noted it will be capable of generating nearly 300 tons of thrust in vacuum, around four times more powerful than the Merlin 1D. However, it is possible a Raptor engine set could become the baseline for a huge future rocket to be used by SpaceX for missions to Mars, along with a potential role with a Mars ascent stage. [emphasis mine]

It appears that the engine might be intended to replace the Merlin engine entirely, thus giving the Falcon 9 (and other future SpaceX rockets) significantly more power, both for putting payload into orbit as well as returning to the ground.

Meanwhile, it also appears the Chinese, who are SpaceX’s biggest competitor in terms of price, are developing their own methane-oxygen engine with likely similar capabilities.

Ain’t competition wonderful?

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Planning the first launch abort test of the Dragon capsule.

2:12 pm

Planning the first launch abort test of the Dragon capsule.

The in-flight abort test will take place along Florida’s space coast. During the test, a Dragon spacecraft will launch on a standard Falcon 9 rocket and an abort command will be issued approximately 73 seconds into the flight. At that point, the spacecraft will be flying through the area of maximum dynamic pressure, or Max Q, where the combination of air pressure and speed will cause maximal strain on the spacecraft.

Dragon will be outfitted with about 270 special sensors to measure a wide variety of stresses and acceleration effects on the spacecraft. An instrumented mannequin, similar to a crash test dummy, also will be inside. The spacecraft’s parachutes will deploy for a splashdown in the Atlantic, where a ship will be pre-positioned for simulated rescue operations. The test spacecraft will be returned to Port Canaveral by barge so data can be retrieved and incorporated into the system’s design.

The test is presently scheduled for the summer of 2014.

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The next Dragon flight has now been scheduled for no earlier than February 11.

8:13 am

The next Dragon flight has now been scheduled for no earlier than February 11.

The next flight of SpaceX’s Dragon has been realigned to a February 11, 2014 NET (No Earlier Than) launch date. The launch will mark Dragon’s first ride on the upgraded Falcon 9 v.1.1 rocket, potentially sporting landing legs, as Elon Musk plans his next attempt at proving the rocket’s ability to return its stages back to Earth for reuse.

SpaceX must first launch two commercial satellites with the upgraded Falcon 9 before its NASA flight. Also, 2014 will be a very business year for the rocket, as it is scheduled to send three cargo missions to ISS plus launch eight commercial satellites.

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A new company is now offering balloon flights to the edge of space for one third the price of a suborbital flight.

9:15 am

The competition heats up: A new company is now offering balloon flights to the edge of space for one third the price of a suborbital flight.

World View passengers will soar to an altitude of about 30 kilometers (about 100,000 feet) — far short of SpaceShipTwo’s intended 110-kilometer (68-mile) high peak. Inside the capsule there will be little sensation of microgravity. Rather, the whole point of the ride is the view. “You can be sitting up there having your beverage of choice watching this extraordinary spectacle of the Earth below you and the blackness of space,” project co-founder and Paragon president Jane Poynter told Discovery News. “It really is very gentle. You can be up at altitude for hours, for days for research if you need to be… I think we have the opportunity to give a really, really incredible experience to people — and for a lot less than most of what’s out on the market right now,” she said.

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