Gaelynn Lea – Someday we’ll linger in the sun
An evening pause: This starts slow, but stick with it. The music and song are haunting and quite beautiful, as is the performance.
Hat tip Elbo Altins.
Tag: commercial
Computer beats human in Go
In the first game of a best of five for a $1 million prize, the computer has beaten professional Go player Lee Sodel.
Jeff Bezos gives a tour of Blue Origin
The competition heats up: Jeff Bezos gave his first tour of Blue Origin’s facilities for eleven journalists on Tuesday.
The article is chock full of interesting details about the company’s plans. To me these details about their New Shepard test program are the most interesting:
“We’re going to fly it until we lose it,” he said. The plan is to test the spaceship many, many times without humans aboard. At some point, Blue Origin will run a test in which the crew capsule will have to blast itself clear from the propulsion module at maximum dynamic pressure – a scenario during which the propulsion module will almost certainly be destroyed.
Not to worry, though: More crew capsules and propulsion modules are already under construction at the factory. “By the time anybody gets on, I think you should be willing to bring your mom,” Bezos said.
They also hope that this test program will proceed to launching humans by 2017.
Second solo Ariane 5 launch in 2016
The competition heats up: In successfully placing a commercial communications satellite in orbit last night, Arianespace also did its second consecutive single satellite launch.
The Ariane 5 rocket is designed to carry two satellites, and normally does so in order to maximize its profit per launch. That they have done two straight commercial launches without a second satellite suggests to me that the competition from SpaceX is taking customers from them. The scheduling of the secondary payload usually suffers because priority is given to the primary satellite. Those customers thus might be switching to SpaceX in the hope they can gain better control over their own launch schedule, while also paying far less for their launch.
Then again, considering how unreliable SpaceX’s own launch schedule has been, it is unlikely these customers will have yet gained any scheduling advantages.
The Kingsmen – Louie Louie
An evening pause: Normally I don’t post videos with no visuals, but for this I will make an exception. It is probably the first time anyone has ever done the hard work necessary to translate the mumblings of the singer to find out the lyrics of this pop tune. Before now, who knew?
Hat tip Phil Berardelli.
King Crabbing on Bering Sea Ice
An evening pause: To start the week, here’s an interesting way to make a living. Hat tip Rocco.
Victor Borge – Getting ready
An evening pause: Hat tip Edward Thelen.
Successful SpaceX launch
The competition heats up: Though there is no word yet on their attempt to land the first stage on a barge, SpaceX today has successfully launched a commercial communications satellite.
Update: The barge landing did not succeed.
Free government money for Aerojet Rocketdyne!
Crony capitalism: Even though ULA prefers Blue Origin’s engine for its Atlas 5, the Air Force continues to fund Aerojet Rocketdyne’s new engine.
The U.S. Air Force announced Feb. 29 it was investing $115 million this year, and with options, as much as $536 million over the next five years, in [Aerojet Rocketdyne’s] AR1, a new liquid oxygen- and kerosene-fueled main-stage engine. The contract award is part of an Air Force initiative to end reliance on the Russian-built RD-180 engine that powers ULA’s Atlas 5 workhorse rocket.
Aerojet says it has two potential other customers to use the engine, but will not name them. In reviewing the field, the only customer I can think of that might be interested would be Orbital ATK (for its Antares rocket), and even there I have doubts. Thus, it appears to me that these funds are really being distributed to prop up a company that is failing, not to build anything useful the government needs.
India’s space agency ISRO gets a budget boost
In its new budget approved by India’s government the country’s space agency ISRO was the only science agency to get a significant budget increase, approximately 7.3%.
In the short run this is good, as ISRO has been using its funds wisely and accomplishing a lot for a little, while trying to encourage private development in India’s aerospace industry. In the long run, however, this will not be good, as government agencies always grow more than they should while sucking the innovation and creativity from the private sector. This is what NASA did in the U.S.
Hopefully, India will see how things are changing in America with private enterprise reasserting itself after a half century of government stagnation in space development and copy what we are doing.
Wally Eastwood – Piano Juggler
An evening pause: Hat tip both Edward Thelens.
Al Bowlly – Melancholy Baby
An evening pause: Even though it is more seven decades since this was recorded, it remains as fresh and as vibrant as anything sung today. Almost more so because of its simplicity. Bowlly was a big name singer in the 1930s, and he shows why here.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
Falcon 9 launch scrubbed again
In the heat of competition: SpaceX has once again scrubbed the Falcon 9 launch of a commercial communications satellite, this time due to high altitude winds.
They say they are now aiming for Friday.
Georgia House passes space act
The competition heats up: In an effort to lure space tourism companies to Georgia, the state’s House has passed a law that would ban lawsuits by space tourists against the space companies that flew them.
The bill still needs approval from the state Senate.
Air Force awards contracts for American rocket engine
The competition heats up: The Air Force today awarded developmental contracts worth $160 million total to both Aerojet Rocketdyne and the partnership of ULA/Blue Origin for the development of an American-built rocket engine to replace the Russian engines in the Atlas 5 rocket.
Here is the ULA press release.
SpaceX aims for Tuesday launch
In the heat of competition: SpaceX has set Tuesday, 6:35 pm (Eastern) for its fourth attempt to launch a commercial communications satellite.
Falcon 9 launch scrubbed again
This time the launch abort occurred at T-0, when computers detected that the rocket’s fuel was not cold enough and would not produce the thrust required.
I was caving all day today and only returned late tonight.
Falcon 9 launch rescheduled for Sunday
SpaceX has scheduled their next Falcon 9 launch attempt for 6:47 pm (eastern) on Sunday, February 28.
Iridium dumps Russia for SpaceX
In the heat of competition: Because of Russian red tape Iridium has switched from a Russian rocket to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 for placing its first 10 next generation communications satellites in orbit this year.
I thought the Putin government’s consolidation of its entire aerospace industry into a single corporation was going to speed things up? Not. Then again, SpaceX might not be any better, considering the problems it continues to have meeting its launch schedule.
SpaceX scrubs Falcon 9 launch again
Update: It appears that they called the launch because of winds, though it also appears that the lower oxidizer temperatures have also reduced their weather margins.
In the heat of competition: For the second day in a row SpaceX has canceled a commercial launch of its Falcon 9 rocket because they were unable to get the oxygen in its tanks as cold as required.
The denser propellant gives the rocket added thrust, contributing to what SpaceX says is a 33 percent overall increase in its performance compared to the previous version.
But during countdowns Wednesday and Thursday, SpaceX reported trouble keeping the “deeply cryogenic” propellant cold enough. Although Thursday’s launch window lasted 96 minutes, it turned out SpaceX really only had one opportunity during that window. If any problem arose, SpaceX said the liquid oxygen would have to be drained and re-loaded, a process that would take too long.
This problem is troubling, suggesting that there might be a more fundamental issue here than they are saying. First, there was the significant delay since the last launch of this upgraded fueling system in December, implying that the data from that launch required some reworking. Now, they have scrubbed two launches in a row because they couldn’t get the oxygen cold enough to properly fuel the rocket. I also wonder if they need to reach a colder temperature in order to get enough fuel loaded to get the satellite to its proper orbit.
I generally trust SpaceX’s engineers to address a problem and fix it. Right now, however, they are under the gun. They need to get this working and begin launching rockets on a more reliable schedule. They have a lot of customers waiting in line.