Crystal Gayle – Cry Me A River
An evening pause: Hat tip Danae.
Tag: commercial
Another 5 month slip of first Falcon Heavy launch
In the heat of competition: Amid a slew of SpaceX launch delays in the past month due to the introduction of an upgraded Falcon 9, Elon Musk noted at a student event in Texas on Sunday that the first demo launch of the Falcon Heavy is likely to happen in September, not April as previously announced.
The article is mostly focused on the launch delays of the Falcon 9, which for some of SpaceX’s customers are becoming a financial problem. The company is obviously trying to make sure that further Falcon 9 launches are a success, but the unreliability of its schedule is clearly a reason satellite companies like Eutelsat have signed new contracts with Russia’s ILS or Arianespace. Even with the problems Russia has had with its Proton they have managed a more reliable launch schedule.
Then again, the Proton and Ariane 5 have been around for decades. Their companies aren’t trying to improve them in any way. The delays in SpaceX’s schedule are somewhat understandable in this context. Better to launch slowly with new designs then to have a failure that entirely stops things for months.
Nonetheless, it might be wise for SpaceX to settle on the present Falcon 9 design for awhile, so that they can catch up and make their customers happy. Moreover, the further delay of the Falcon Heavy launch is definitely disappointing.
Russian Proton rocket successfully launches commercial satellite
The competition heats up: The Russians successfully put a European commercial communications satellite into orbit today their Proton rocket.
It was the sixth successful Proton launch since their May failure. The key quote from the article however was this:
ILS owner Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center of Moscow has said it would give ILS leeway to reduce prices to work its way back into the regular commercial-launch rotation alongside SpaceX and Europe’s Arianespace. The decline of the Russian ruble against the U.S. dollar has made that task easier as most commercial launch contracts are priced in dollars.
In other words they are going to cut prices to compete, and the falling ruble has given them more leeway to do it.
Maksim Mrvica – Bohemian Rhapsody
An evening pause: Hat tip Danae.
Europe settles on Ariane 6 design
The competition heats up? Airbus Safran and the European Space Agency have settled on the design of their next generation rocket, Ariane 6.
It will not be re-usable, and though they say it will be 40-50% cheaper to produce than Ariane 5, it is very clear from the quotes in the article that they are instead depending on trade restrictions to maintain their European customers, even if it costs them a lot more to put satellites in orbit.
For its part, Airbus Safran does not envisage making Ariane 6 recoverable, not in the short term. Mr Charmeau [the company’s CEO] believes that different market conditions apply in Europe and the US, which means there will not be a single, winner-takes-all approach. He cites, for example, the restricted procurement that exists in all major political blocs, which essentially bars foreign rockets from launching home institutional and government satellites. Nowhere is this more true than in the US, but in Europe too there is an “unwritten rule” that European states should use European rockets.
From an American perspective this lazy attitude is fine with me. Let American companies compete aggressively. They will then leave the Europeans and everyone else in the dust.
Arianespace completes its first commercial launch in 2016
The competion heats up: Arianespace successfully placed a commercial communications satellite into geosynchronous orbit yesterday, its first launch of 2016.
Private company proposes commercial airlock for ISS
The competion heats up: The private company NanoRacks has proposed building a large airlock for ISS which could be used to launch private cubesates while also allowing NASA to eliminate spacewalks by bringing faulty equipment inside for repairs.
For commercial opportunities, NanoRacks has a small satellite launcher, and it is also designing a “haybale” system to launch as many as 192 cubesats at a time. After the airlock is configured, it would be depressurized and sealed. Then a station robotic arm could grab it, move it away from the vehicle, and deploy its payloads.
NASA is also interested in the opportunity to potentially fix large, external components of the space station. Before the space shuttle’s retirement, NASA used the sizable delivery vehicle to stash dozens of replacement pumps, storage tanks, controller boxes, batteries, and other equipment on the station, known as ORUs. When one of these components broke, astronauts would conduct a spacewalk to install a replacement unit.
However sometimes the problem with a broken unit is relatively minor, such as a problematic circuit card. With a larger airlock, damaged components could be brought inside the station, assessed, and possibly fixed, saving NASA the expense of building and delivering a new unit to the station—or losing a valuable spare. Finally, the space agency could use the airlock to dispose of trash that accumulates on station and can be difficult to get rid of.
It is exactly this kind of technology, spurred by the lure of profits, that interplanetary spaceships need if they are going to be maintainable far from home.
Computer program learns and then wins at Go
A computer program, dubbed AlphaGo, has successfully beaten a professional player of Go for the first time.
What is significant however is the method used by that computer program to win:
The IBM chess computer Deep Blue, which famously beat grandmaster Garry Kasparov in 1997, was explicitly programmed to win at the game. But AlphaGo was not preprogrammed to play Go: rather, it learned using a general-purpose algorithm that allowed it to interpret the game’s patterns, in a similar way to how a DeepMind program learned to play 49 different arcade games2.
This means that similar techniques could be applied to other AI domains that require recognition of complex patterns, long-term planning and decision-making, says Hassabis. “A lot of the things we’re trying to do in the world come under that rubric.” Examples are using medical images to make diagnoses or treatment plans, and improving climate-change models.
If computer programs are now successfully able to learn and adapt it means that it will become increasingly difficult to distinguish between those programs and actual humans.
SpaceX successfully tests parachutes for manned Dragon
The competition heats up: SpaceX and NASA on Wednesday released footage of a test of the parachutes for the company’s manned Dragon capsule.
The footage and accompanying story revealed very little about the test, including when it actually happened, so it isn’t that much of a story.
Bing Crosby & Grace Kelly – True Love
An evening pause: From the 1956 film High Society. And for my wife Diane today.
Hat tip Edward Theen.
Air Force certifies Falcon 9 upgrade for military launches
The competition heats up: The Air Force has approved use of SpaceX’s upgraded Falcon 9 rocket for use in military launches.
What this means is that SpaceX is increasingly considered an acceptable bidder for future military launch contracts. Moreover, it means that SpaceX will be able to use the Falcon 9 first stage that they are landing vertically, giving them more recoverable first stages for future flights.
Blue Origin to increase New Shepard launch rate
The competition heats up: Blue Origin expects to increase the rate of test flights for its New Shepard reusable rocket in 2016.
“We expect to shorten that turnaround time over time this year, and fly this vehicle again and again,” [Blue Origin President Rob Meyerson] said. Those upcoming tests will use the same New Shepard vehicle that flew the previous two flights, with hardware and software modifications as needed between flights. Meyerson said the company still plans to perform “dozens” of test flights of New Shepard over the next couple of years before the company is ready to carry people on the vehicle. “It really depends on how the flight test program goes,” he said. “It could be a little faster than that, or it could be a little longer than that, depending on what we learn.”
I expect that by the end of 2016, the U.S. will have two proven reusable first stage rockets and two operational orbital cargo spacecraft. And that doesn’t count the likely first demo flight of Falcon Heavy.
Gordo – street drummer
An evening pause: Hat tip Rocco.
Blue Origin reflies and lands New Shepard again
The competition heats up: Blue Origin yesterday successfully re-flew its New Shepard booster, vertically landing it for the second time.
Data from the November mission matched our preflight predictions closely, which made preparations for today’s re-flight relatively straightforward. The team replaced the crew capsule parachutes, replaced the pyro igniters, conducted functional and avionics checkouts, and made several software improvements, including a noteworthy one. Rather than the vehicle translating to land at the exact center of the pad, it now initially targets the center, but then sets down at a position of convenience on the pad, prioritizing vehicle attitude ahead of precise lateral positioning. It’s like a pilot lining up a plane with the centerline of the runway. If the plane is a few feet off center as you get close, you don’t swerve at the last minute to ensure hitting the exact mid-point. You just land a few feet left or right of the centerline. Our Monte Carlo sims of New Shepard landings show this new strategy increases margins, improving the vehicle’s ability to reject disturbances created by low-altitude winds.
They are not clear whether the capsule was re-flown as well. They do say they intend to re-fly New Shepard many times in 2016, probably at an increasing rate. If so, I would say that the race to be the first to sell suborbital tickets to tourists is won by Blue Origin, and that Virgin Galactic and XCOR have been left in the dust.
I have embedded the company’s video below the fold of yesterday’s flight.
» Read more
Billy Joel – Travelin’ Prayer
An evening pause: Stick with it, as they finish slightly early and need to improvise a bit at the end to fill time.
Hat tip Kyle Kooy.
Europe kicks in money for Dream Chaser
The competition heats up: NASA’s decision to award Sierra Nevada a cargo contract has triggered a $36 million investment by the European Space Agency (ESA) to build a new docking unit for Dream Chaser at ISS.
Sierra Nevada Corp.’s win of a NASA contract to ferry cargo to the International Space Station will trigger a $36 million investment by the 22-nation European Space Agency following a cooperation agreement to be signed in the coming weeks, ESA said. Once the agreement is signed, ESA will begin work building the first flight model of the International Berthing and Docking Mechanism (IBDM), which Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser Cargo System will use to attach itself to the space station.
ESA said it would spend 33 million euros ($36 million) to complete the design of the IBDM and build a flight model for Dream Chaser’s first cargo run. Future IBDMs will be financed by Sierra Nevada, ESA said.
Video of Dragon/SuperDraco engine test
The competition heats up: SpaceX today released a video of a five second test they did in November of the SuperDraco thrusters attached to their Dragon capsule.
I have embedded the video below the fold. This test, which took place on a test stand with the capsule hanging from a crane cable, was part of their work to develop a launch abort capability for the manned version of Dragon. The thrusters will also be used eventually to make possible vertical land landings of the capsule.
» Read more
FAA flight restrictions suggest upcoming New Shepard flight
The competition heats up: New temporary FAA flight restrictions scheduled for January 22 and 23 in the area where Blue Origin does its test flights suggest that the company is about to do another New Shepard test.
It is likely that they will re-fly the booster that they successfully landed in their November 23 flight.
Howard Shore – The Shire (Concerning Hobbits)
An evening pause: I am not a big fan of the movie adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. I find them heavy and over-wrought, focused too much on special effects and what I call “cool adolescent stuff”, none of which has anything to do with the very real and human story that Tolkien created about the battle between good and evil.
This short piece from the music score, however, evokes everything about hobbits that Tolkien intended. As he has Gandalf say, in describing hobbits, “Soft as butter they can be, but sometimes as tough as old tree roots.”
And since hobbits and the Shire are nothing more than Tolkien’s metaphor for England and the British culture he knew from before World War II, this song also evokes the quiet majesty and humbleness of that now lost world, “a nation of shop-keepers” who, like the hobbits in the Lord of the Rings, were in the end able to stand firm and beat back the evil of the Third Reich despite overwhelming odds.
Hat tip Rocco.
AirPano – Panoramas taken throughout the world
An evening pause: As they state on their webpaye, AirPano is a not-for-profit project created by a team of Russian photo enthusiasts focused on taking high-resolution aerial panoramic photographs. These are not videos, but stills. Quite amazing.
Hat tip George Petricko.