Orbital Sciences has released an updated launch schedule for its Antares rocket and Cygnus capsule.
The significance?
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The death of the double click.
The story includes some nice history behind the invention of the GUI.
Interestingly, I could probably count on one hand the times I have double-clicked on a computer, since I rarely use the mouse at all. Instead, I have found it is far faster to use the keyboard to access commands, files, programs, etc.
Is asteroid mining about to begin?
Considering some of the major players who are either investors or advisers for this company, this story could get very exciting when the company’s full plans are revealed on April 24.
NASA budget battles: House panel proposes giving commercial space $500 million.
The Obama administration proposed giving commercial space $830 million, the Senate appropriations subpanel earlier this week proposed $525 million. All in all, this looks good for commercial space.
One other thing: that the House did not propose taking from NOAA the job of launching weather satellites and giving it to NASA is more proof to me that the proposal was merely an attempt by Barbara Mikulski (D-Maryland) to shift federal dollars to the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
There are really only two important stories today concerning space exploration. The story that is getting the most coverage is the big news that the space shuttle Discovery is making its last flight, flying over Washington, DC, as it is delivered to the Smithsonian for permanent display.
Of these stories, only Irene Klotz of Discovery News seems to really get it. This is not an event to celebrate or get excited about. It is the end of an American achievement, brought to a close probably three to five years prematurely so that the United States now cannot even send its own astronauts to its own space station.
The other news, actually far more important, has gotten far less coverage, and includes three different stories all really about the same thing.
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Some wisdom from Pravda: “Humans explore space only for profit.”
And then there’s this, from the U.N., not surprisingly published at MSNBC: “Private property in outer space: The other side of the argument.” To quote the U.N. expert: “More rules are needed, but I am also of the opinion that you do not need to create property rights [in space].”
It is a sad world when support for capitalism, private property rights, and competition comes from Pravda, while in the U.S. such ideas get slapped down.
Want to own a cave? Now you can buy one, and even move it and install it wherever you want!
ISS’s robot arm has now been moved into position in preparation for the Dragon berthing flight, scheduled for April 30.
The article also gives a nice outline of the entire Falcon 9/Dragon test flight.
European subsidies have put Arianespace in the black for 2011 and 2012.
The key quote however is this:
But ESA governments have made clear they are not happy having to cover losses, especially since the workhorse Ariane 5 rocket, introduced in the mid-1990s, is well past its teething stage and has conducted 47 consecutive launch successes. Its last failure was in late 2002.
Arianespace has dominated the commercial launch market in recent years, yet can’t make a profit. In this case, however, I suspect that if the company lost its subsides it would somehow find a way to finally reduce its budget.
More commercial space news: Orbital Sciences has rolled the first stage of its commercial Antares rocket to the launchpad for tests.
Good news: Virgin Galactic has been cleared by the State Department to fly foreign tourists without obtaining an export license.
[Mark Sundahl, an associate professor of law at Cleveland State University in Ohio], said that without this determination from State, allowing a non-U.S. citizen to ride in a Virgin spacecraft — or even training a non-U.S. citizen to do so — would legally have been an export activity that required federal approval. The time it takes to obtain an export license varies, but several months is a reasonable estimate, said Sundahl, who specializes in international commerce and space law. “Under ITAR, any disclosure of controlled technical data to a foreign national, even if the disclosure takes place in the U.S., is treated as an ‘export’ of the technical data — which would require a license from the Department of State in addition to imposing other regulatory burdens on the exporter,” Sundahl said.
Freed from this regulatory requirement will make it easier for Virgin Galactic, as well as others, to sell tickets.
SpaceX is planning its own spaceport about three miles north of Mexico at the southern tip of Texas.
SpaceX had been looking at sites at various potential sites, including ones in Florida, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Company officials have said they plan to operate out of Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg Air Force Base as well. A third, commercial launch site frees them from range restrictions that exist at the other two locations.
The collapse of traditional journalism and why that is good news.
And the good news is probably not what you think.
In writing this short post on the efforts of Lockheed Martin and Orbital Sciences to launch rockets for the small satellite market, Clark Lindsey made this comment:
It costs around $50 million to launch a Orbital Sciences Minotaur 4, which can put 1,730 kg into LEO while the Lockheed’s Athena 2 will cost around $65 million to put 1,712 kg into LEO. SpaceX currently posts charges $54M – $59.5M for launching to LEO 10,450 kg (equatorial) and 8,560 kg (polar). If SpaceX is able to sustain these prices in routine operation, it will obviously result in some disturbance to the launch industry.
Let’s deconstruct these numbers again, this time listing them by the cost per kilogram:
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Right on! A new study calls for the U.S. to create a framework for recognizing private property claims in space.
Boeing today successfully completed an 11,000 foot parachute drop test of its CST-100 reusable manned capsule.
Another success for commercial space, which based on the opinions of our elected officials means they must cut this program’s budget.
Is this good or bad news? Europe has shut down the production line producing their ATV cargo craft for ISS.
Confronted by parts obsolescence and waning political support, the European Space Agency has shut down subsystem production lines for the Automated Transfer Vehicle as member states debate how they will contribute to future international space exploration efforts, according to top spaceflight officials.
ESA has launched three of the five ATVs it agreed to launch, with the remaining two scheduled in 2013 and 2014. What happens after that remains unclear. It seems from the article the European partners don’t seem interested in upgrading the ATV, and instead seem willing to let the as-yet untried U.S. commercial companies carry the load.
Commercial flights by U.S. spacecraft will make up the rest of the lost capacity with the end of the ATV program.
The pressure continues to build on a successful Falcon 9/Dragon flight on April 30.
Swiss engineers have designed a tiny ion motor that nano-satellites could use as a thruster to adjust their orbits.
The motor weighs only seven ounces, and could work on satellites as small as four inches cubed.
Up to now, it wasn’t possible to reduce the size of maneuverable satellites below a certain point because of the size of their large thruster engines. If it is now possible to provide nano satellites with thrusters, it will be possible to significantly reduce the cost, and more importantly, the payload weight, of satellites. And with a lower payload weight, it will be possible to create a market for smaller rockets, which are much easier to build and far cheaper.
This kind of news makes me more confident that the new commercial space industry truly has a future.
The story describes how Boeing is considering upgrading the X-37B to become a manned ferry to ISS, thus putting it in direct competition with the company’s other manned capsule, the CST-100.
At the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’s Space 2011 conference in November, Boeing’s Arthur Grantz revealed that the company is studying a new derivative of the Boeing/USAF X-37B. The new X-37C would be 65-80% larger than the current B version. Launched by an Atlas V rocket, X-37C could carry pressurized or unpressurized cargo or 5-6 astronauts. Grantz is chief engineer in charge of X-37 at the Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems Experimental Systems Group .
Hat tip to Clark Lindsey.
In hearings Wednesday, several members of Congress suggested that NASA force the new competing commercial space companies to combine their efforts in order to save money.
Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) asked NASA Administrator Charles Bolden during a March 21 hearing on the agency’s 2013 budget the same question he asked of the White House’s chief science adviser last month: would NASA’s partnership with commercial companies to develop astronaut transports be cheaper if the companies competing for NASA funds combined their efforts into a single “all for one and one for all” project?
Similarly, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) made the same stupid argument in her continuing effort to keep the funding of the Space Launch System, the rocket-formerly-called-Constellation, as high as possible, at the cost of cutting everything else in NASA if necessary.
If you needed any evidence that members of Congress are ignorant idiots, you only need read the comments of these elected officials at these hearings to get your proof. Wolf or Hutchison as well as several others from both parties very clearly haven’t the slightest idea what these various space companies are building. Nor do they have the faintest notion of the difficulties entailed in building these manned space vessels.
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This bodes well: Private space station builder Bigelow is hiring again.
One interesting tidbit from this article is the description of the company’s negotiations with NASA to attach a Bigelow module to ISS.
The company has been negotiating with NASA for about two years on the potential deal, and that Bigelow has completed various planning and development milestones for NASA. “We’ve been in a series of discussions with NASA over the past two years, with regard to the BEAM project,” Gold told Space News. “They were initiated as part of a proposal in 2010, and we’re hopeful an announcement will be made in the not-too-distant future.”
NASA gave no sign that a deal with Bigelow was imminent. “We do have a no-cost contract with Bigelow to cover early requirements development [for BEAM] but it is not for the flight article,” NASA spokesman Josh Buck said in a March 20 email. “The Agency has not made a decision to go to a flight system yet.” [emphasis mine]
Two years to discuss “planning and development,” and still no decision. My guess is that NASA management doesn’t want to buy a Bigelow module, as it would be relatively cheap and therefore wouldn’t spread much money to NASA centers. They just can’t say no for political reasons.
And if they do want to do it, the slow pace of their decision-making process demonstrates clearly why they shouldn’t be entrusted to build anything in the future.
The official in charge of the FAA’s commercial space office told Congress today that he expects the first space tourism flights to occur within two years.
Sooner I hope.
A private company has proposed a way to salvage a stranded communications satellite and use it to provide communications to Antarctica.
Now stranded in an elliptical orbit at an inclination of 51 deg., the spacecraft lacks enough fuel to reach its planned geostationary slot at 80 deg. E. Long. But there is enough fuel on board for it to function for as long as 10 years in a new orbit designed to keep it in sight of Antarctica for 14-16 hr./day, according to William Readdy, a co-founder of Polar Broadband Systems Ltd. Set up on the Isle of Man for the “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” of salvaging the satellite, Polar Broadband has worked out a way to maneuver Express-AM4 into a 24-hr. elliptical orbit that will remain clear of the crowded geostationary belt for safety.
Aviation Week looks at the launch challenges facing SpaceX over the next two years.
Though it is very clear SpaceX has a tough schedule of launches coming up, with much of the future of American aerospace riding on their success, this article is strangely hostile to the company. There is no doubt the company has fallen behind schedule, but the list of customers who have been willing to commit to the company is quite impressive, especially considering that SpaceX literally didn’t exist six years ago.
I’ll make several predictions:
SpaceX has now set April 30 as the target launch date for its Falcon 9/Dragon capsule test flight to ISS.
Competition rules! Russia’s space agency has proposed a space exploration plan through 2030, including missions to the Moon and Mars, in an effort to catch up with the U.S.
Good news for commercial space: SpaceX has gotten another launch contract, this time to put up four satellites for an Asian/Central American communications partnership.
An evening pause: From the late 1950s, Alastair Cooke introduces Les Paul and Mary Ford, who then demonstrate some advanced music technology (and some smokin’ music) that would only become commonplace in the coming decades.
The director of Russia’s manned program told the press today that the Russians do not have that a signed contract with NASA to fly astronauts to ISS after 2015, despite NASA’s announcement that such an agreement exists.
If true, NASA’s management has committed a very serious error which will cost the U.S. a great deal of money in the coming years, especially if there are significant delays in getting the new commercial companies online to provide the U.S. an American capability for ferrying humans to orbit.
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