Tag: competition

The Falcon 9 first stage almost landing

10:50 pm

I can’t resist. I have to post that video here of the Falcon 9 first stage landing and then falling over from Sunday. You can see it below the fold. It is incredibly impressive, because it shows that the stage actually did succeed in landing, though a failure of some kind afterward caused it to tip over. The company says it was the failure of one landing leg, but if you watch the video you can see that the angle of fall is between two legs, which suggests that the cause was more complicated.

Nonetheless, don’t be surprised if by the end of 2016 SpaceX is successfully landing its first stages on every launch.
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Russia names next manned spaceship “Federation”

7:44 pm

They might not be close to building it, but the Russian government has decided that the name they will use for their next generation manned spaceship to replace Soyuz will be “Federation.”

“Federation is a perfect name for the series of new Russian spacecraft. Russia is a federation of 85 constituent entities and each of them will be able to give its name for one of the spaceships,” the corporation [Energia] said [in a press release].

Don’t bet on this spaceship appearing in the near future. In fact, don’t bet on it having this name either. Remember how in the 2000s they were going to build “Clipper”? That never happened either. With a shrinking economy and the consolidation of their entire aerospace industry into a single government entity I expect Russia’s space industry to have a great deal of problems building anything new in the coming years.

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Falcon 9 launches NASA satellite, first stage landing fails

7:30 pm

The competition heats up: SpaceX successfully put its first NASA/NOAA science satellite in orbit today, though its attempt to land the Falcon 9 first stage on a barge failed when one landing leg broke and the stage tipped over.

The first stage however was still recovered as it fell sideways on the barge. The link above includes a picture, which shows that stage lying on its side. The engines might be recoverable, but certainly they have enough material from the stage to do tests and learn a great deal more about how it tolerates the stresses of launch. Commenter Frank provides a link to a video that shows the stage falling over and exploding, something the images I had seen previously had not shown. They might have more material to test, but hardly as intact as I had first thought.

Nonetheless, they have now successfully test fired the engines from last month’s recovered first stage.

The 156-foot first stage booster that carried out that successful landing was taken to the company’s hangar at Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and partially inspected. It was later taken back to Launch Complex 40 and hoisted upright via a crane. On Jan. 15, a static fire was conducted. “Data looks good overall,” Musk said in a tweet, but noted Engine No. 9—one of the outer engines—showed thrust fluctuations. He said that there may have been some debris ingestion, but the engine data looks OK and that they would borescope later that night. There has been no word on how that inspection went.

That all nine engines functioned is a very good sign, even if one had issues.

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Russia trims its 10-year space plan

10:28 pm

The competition cools: Due to budget pressures, Russia has once more cut what it plans to do in its as yet not finalized 10-year space plan.

Not only do they expect to fly fewer satellites during the plan, they appear to either have dropped or are significantly curtailing their plans for their own space station after they pull out of ISS in 2024.

The corporation has also lost some of the original ambitious projects, including creation of two autonomous modules (transformable and power generating ones, ordered by the Russian Academy of Sciences), meant for the creation of a Russian orbital station. The project is absent from the latest version of the program. A transformable module was to be created in 2020-2025 and its launch was scheduled for 2025. Its service life was estimated at five years and design and manufacturing costs, 12.3 billion rubles.

In addition, it appears they are cutting back their plans for planetary research.

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SpaceX, Orbital ATK, and Sierra Nevada awarded contracts to ISS

3:03 pm

The competition heats up: NASA has decided to award contracts to all three competitors, Orbital ATK, SpaceX, and Sierra Nevada, in the second round of cargo contracts to ISS.

Or as Yogi Berra once said, “When you come to a fork, take it.”

The main winners appear to be Orbital and SpaceX, with Sierra Nevada coming in later. Details at this moment remain vague, so stay tuned.

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Bush, Cruz, Carson, and Sanders on space policy

10:04 am

This article takes a look at the positions on space policy of four candidates for President.

Not surprisingly, there is not much substance to what these candidates have said. They mostly mouth positive platitudes about space, and often indicate by those platitudes a general lack of knowledge about the subject.

What is more important to consider is their overall political philosophies combined with legislative actions they have actually done. Cruz for example is clearly in favor of reducing the cost and size of government. He has also made it clear by his actions in the Senate that he considers space an important national priority. These facts tell me that, should he become president he will likely move to end SLS while shifting resources to private space, since it costs a lot less and the government (and nation) will get more for its money.

Sanders meanwhile has consistently voted for a smaller space program in all his years in the Senate. As a socialist and a liberal who sides with the Democrats routinely, he, like them, has generally opposed spending any money on NASA or space, generally arguing that the money would be better spend solving problems on Earth. While he might mouth support for NASA now, I would expect him to try to kill it once in office.

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Orbital ATK and SpaceX win Air Force contracts

9:42 am

The competition heats up: The Air Force has awarded Orbital ATK and SpaceX contracts to develop new rocket engines to help end the U.S.’s reliance on Russian rocket engines.

The Orbital contract is initially worth $47 million, with the company committed to spend $31 million of its own money., according to the Defense Department’s daily digest of major contract awards. Eventually the government could pay the company $180 million. SpaceX’s contract meanwhile was for $33.6 million initially for the development of its new Raptor upper stage engine, with a total government payment to be $61 million.

And that’s not all. Later today NASA will announce the winners in its second ISS cargo contract. The competitors are SpaceX, Orbital ATK, and Sierra Nevada. I am hoping the latter two win, since that would allow the construction of a fourth American spacecraft, Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser, capable of lifting cargo and crew into space.

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The Falcon has landed

9:07 am

SpaceX has produced a short video that recaps its last launch and the successful landing of its first stage. I have embedded it below, because it is worth seeing again as the company is preparing to do it again this weekend. It is also worth watching again to see the joyous celebration of everyone watching at the moment, all of whom know deep down that they have just witnessed a significant event in the history of the human race.

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Former Virgin Galactic employee battles company in court

9:54 am

A former employee of Virgin Galactic, in a arbitration dispute, has accused the company of lying about its spacecraft’s safety and performance.

Virgin Galactic’s former vice president of propulsion, Thomas Markusic, has accused Richard Branson’s space company of lying about the safety and performance of its SpaceShipTwo suborbital tourism vehicle. “Dr. Markusic was forced to separate from VG [Virgin Galactic] because the company was defrauding the public about the ability of the vehicles to reach space and was utilizing rocket engine technologies that have a high probability of causing catastrophic failure and loss of life,” according to the document. “VG directed Dr. Markusic to lie to customers about the performance and safety of the company’s hybrid rocket technology,” the document continues. “VG asserts that Dr. Markusic secretly plotted to start his own rocket company and exploited his position at VG; whereas, in reality, Dr. Markusic’s conscience forced him to to leave.”

Read the whole thing. It appears Markusic left Virgin Galactic to form his own company, and in doing so might have violated an anti-competition clause in his contract, resulting in the arbitration dispute. At the same time, his accusations ring true, considering these rumors had been flying about at the time and have since been more or less confirmed.

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