Tag: commercial

SpaceX scores first in its suit against the Air Force

11:12 pm

A federal judge has denied the motion of the Air Force and ULA to dismiss SpaceX’s suit against their block buy launch contract that excludes competition from any other company.

The judge also required the parties go to mediation to settle their differences. Both rulings give added weight to SpaceX’s main complaint, that the company as well as others should have the right to compete for this Air Force launch work.

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Sierra Nevada signs deal with Japan

9:14 am

The competition heats up: Japan has signed a development agreement with Sierra Nevada in connection with its Dream Chaser manned spacecraft.

I was also tempted to preface this post with the phrase, “Who needs NASA?” Sierra Nevada has a viable product that can get humans into space cheaply. Several countries, Germany, now Japan, want to get their own citizens into space, and have realized what a bargain Dream Chaser is. Sierra Nevada is taking advantage of this demand to sell its product worldwide. If Congress decides to defund them, or NASA decides not to pick them to continue development, they very clearly intend to build the ship anyway. It just won’t be used to put American astronauts into space.

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Falcon 9 soft lands on water

6:55 pm

SpaceX claimed in a press release on Tuesday that it had successfully completed a soft splashdown of the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket in its launch earlier this month.

Video below the fold. The quality is not great because of a buildup of ice on the camera, but it does show they were able to restart the engines twice after separation. It also shows the landing legs deploy just before the stage hovers above the water.
» Read more

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Eddi Reader – Galileo

6:01 pm

An evening pause:

Galileo fell in love as a Galilean boy
And he wondered what in heaven, who’d invented such a joy.
But the question got the better of his scientific mind
And to his blind and dying day
He’d look up high and love and sighed and sometimes cried,
Who puts the rainbows in the sky?
Who lights the stars in the night?
Who dreamt up someone so divine?
Someone like you and made them mine?

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The 707 turns 60

12:11 am

The sixtieth anniversary of Boeing’s 707 passenger jet and how it changed aviation history.

The pictures are cool, but read it for the history. Sixty years ago the ability of ordinary citizens to span the globe quickly and easily suddenly became possible, and that ability has changed the world.

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Rick Wakeman – keyboard solo

6:01 pm

An evening pause: Thanks to Danae again for this.

I am still looking for Evening Pause suggestions. I found late last year that I could no longer keep it up by myself. If you have something you think would be worth posting, make a comment here and I will email you. Don’t post the link, let me check it out first and then schedule it.

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Europe readies its own space plane for test flight

8:06 am

The competition heats up: Europe ‘s Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV) is undergoing its final tests before it does a suborbital test flight in November.

IXV will be launched into a suborbital trajectory on ESA’s small Vega rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, the vehicle will return to Earth as though from a low-orbit mission. For the first time, it will test and qualify European critical reentry technologies in hypersonic flight, descend by parachute and land in the Pacific Ocean to await recovery and analysis. IXV is manoeuvrable and able to make precise landings—it is the ‘intermediate’ element of Europe’s path to future developments with limited risks. …

When IXV splashes down in the Pacific at the end of its mission it will be recovered by ship and returned to Europe for detailed analysis to assess the performance and condition of the internal and external structures. The actual performance will be compared with predictions to improve computer modelling of the materials used and the spaceplane’s design.

Though exciting, Europe will have to pick up the pace from its normally slow pace on these kinds of projects if it expects to be competitive. In the past, they would stretch out the development as long as they could in order to keep the cash flowing. This won’t work in the increasingly robust aerospace market that exists today.

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UrthaCast progress

7:58 am

The competition heats up: UrthaCast has announced the status of the commissioning of its commercial cameras on ISS for viewing the Earth.

The medium resolution camera has been commissioned and is available for commercial imaging. The high resolution camera, however, has a problem with its pointing system which is requiring troubleshooting.

The Bi-axial Pointing Platform (“BPP”), which controls the pointing of the [High Resolution camera (HRC)], is experiencing difficulties in achieving the pointing control precision needed for the HRC to meet image quality specifications. Our engineering team together with RSC Energia believes it has developed a solution to this problem using existing gyroscopes on the HRC to improve the BPP pointing control. This solution has been successfully tested on the ground. The on-orbit implementation of this solution requires software updates and the installation of additional cabling inside the Zvezda module. These new cables need to be delivered to the International Space Station (ISS). As a result, there will be a several month delay in commissioning the HRC.

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Another ISEE-3 update

2:24 pm

The team trying to resurrect ISEE-3 had very mixed results in its attempt today to get the spacecraft’s propulsion system working.

They managed to get “several instances of thrust,” which suggests there is fuel, the system can function, and that their strategy is on the right track. They did not however get full thrust as hoped, and are not quite sure why the spacecraft only partly responded. They are analyzing the data while they apply to NASA for an extension of their license to transmit to the spacecraft.

This last point is merely a formality. What can NASA do if they continue anyway? Nothing. NASA will say yes, partly because it is good public relations and partly because most of the people at NASA are also fans of this effort.

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The UAE wants to go to Mars

9:31 am

The competition heats up: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced today that it is creating a space agency to build and launch an unmanned mission to Mars by 2021.

The announcement included this statement by his Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai:

Despite all the tensions and the conflicts across the Middle East, we have proved today how positive a contribution the Arab people can make to humanity through great achievements, given the right circumstances and ingredients. Our region is a region of civilisation. Our destiny is, once again, to explore, to create, to build and to civilise. We chose the epic challenge of reaching Mars because epic challenges inspire us and motivate us. The moment we stop taking on such challenges is the moment we stop moving forward.

I wish them luck, since building spaceships and exploring the heavens is a far better occupation that trying to kill Jews. I remain skeptical however. They will have to show real achievement before I will believe this is something more than a simple feel-good public relations stunt by the UAE’s leaders.

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Mark Knopfler – Wild Theme

6:03 pm

An evening pause: Hat tip to Danae for sending me this.

As I mentioned yesterday, I am open to suggestions for future Evening Pauses. Music, engineering, wild nature, comedy, anything with a spark of magic that will brighten our day will be gladly viewed and posted.

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DARPA awards contracts for XS-1 spaceplane

9:31 am

The competition heats up: DARPA has announced contract awards to three companies for the construction of its experimental XS-1 spaceplane, designed to take off and land like a airplane.

The contracts go to Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and Masten Space Systems, and have them each respectively partnered with Blue Origin, XCOR, and Virgin Galactic. More details on the Boeing contract can be found here.

The description of the XS program is quite exciting:
» Read more

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Great Britain’s proposed suborbital spaceport locations

9:07 am

The competition heats up: More information was released today describing Great Britain’s suggested spaceport locations.

These spaceports are specifically aimed at the suborbital space tourism market, for American companies like Virgin Galactic or XCOR, or for the developing British company Skylon.

It is interesting that 6 of 8 are located in Scotland, which might very well not be part of the United Kingdom after a vote on separation this fall.

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The next Proton and Angara launches

9:00 am

The competition heats up: Russia has set September 28 as the next launch date for its troubled Proton rocket.

The most interesting detail gleaned from this article however is this:

The Proton-M carrier rocket previously launched on May 16 from Baikonur space center collided with communications satellite Express АМ4R and burned up in the atmosphere above China, leaving Russia without its most powerful telecommunications satellite.

Previous reports had not been very clear about the causes of the May launch failure. All they would say is that “a failed bearing in the steering engine’s turbo pump” had caused the failure about nine minutes into the flight. This report suggests that this failure occurred after separation of the payload and that it then caused the upper stage to collide with the satellite.

Russia is also about to ship its new Angara 5 rocket to the launch site for a planned December launch. This will be the first launch of the Angara configuration that is expected to replace the Proton rocket, and is expected to place a dummy payload into geosynchronous orbit.
» Read more

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John Prine and Iris DeMent – In Spite of Ourselves

6:01 pm

An evening pause: Thanks to Keith for sending me this video. Note that I am open to any recommendations of good videos for posting as an Evening Pause, including music, engineering, comedy, anything quirky or interesting with a spark of originality.

Let me add that if you have something you want to recommend, don’t post the link in the comment. Just say in your comment that you want to recommend something and I will email you direct. I want to view and schedule these posts rather than have them appear in the comments first.

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Falcon 9 launch

8:41 am

The competition heats up: SpaceX’s Falcon 9 has successfully launched six Orbcomm commercial satellites into orbit.

The six satellites still must be deployed. We will know if this is successful sometime in the next hour or so. Also, no news yet on SpaceX’s effort to recover the rocket’s first stage after a soft splashdown in the ocean.

Update: All 6 Orbcomm satellites have successfully deployed.

Update 2: From Elon Musk as to the first stage recovery: “Rocket booster reentry, landing burn & leg deploy were good, but lost hull integrity right after splashdown (aka kaboom).”

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A spaceport for Great Britain?

8:38 am

The competition heats up: The government of the United Kingdom today outlined its intention to build its first spaceport by 2018.

The announcement listed eight potential sites, six of which were in Scotland, which is presently threatening to break away from the United Kingdom. This announcement I suspect is less a call for British space exploration and instead a political effort to encourage Scotland to remain in the UK.

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Cygnus launch

9:23 am

All is go for a 12:52 pm launch of Cygnus’s second operational cargo flight to ISS.

If you live on the east coast of the U.S. you should be able to see some part of this launch when it happens.

Cygnus has lifted off.

The main engine has cut off and the first stage has successfully separated.

The second stage has ignited successfully. It has now completed its burn and has separated from the spacecraft. Cygnus is in orbit.

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Air Force certifies Falcon 9

11:21 pm

The competition heats up: The Air Force today certified that SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket had completed three successful flights.

This certification is a preliminary okay before the official certification. What it means is that the Air Force is agreeing that the Falcon 9 is capable of launching its satellites, which also means that the official certification is almost certain.

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India’s space program gets a huge budget boost

9:16 am

The competition heats up: The new budget of India’s new conservative government under Narendra Modi has given its space program a 50 percent increase.

It appears that there were increases across the board, including a gigantic increase for their GSLV rocket as well as their manned program.

It also appears that Modi is following in the path of George Bush, at least when it comes to space. He might be a conservative, pro private enterprise and anti-big government, but his approach to building a space industry is decidedly Soviet in style, pumping funds into government agencies so that they can build the rockets and spacecraft. For the moment at least, private companies will be the servants to India’s government space program, not the masters.

In the U.S. and Russia this approach worked for the first generation of rockets and spacecraft, but then ended up a lead weight for later generations. I suspect we shall see the same history play out in India.

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