Happy birthday Linux!
On this date in 1991 Linus Torvalds announced that he had developed a free computer operating system and wanted help from others to improve it. That operating system is what we today call Linux.
Tag: competition
SpaceX delays commercial launch 24 hours
SpaceX has delayed its next commercial launch one day to Wednesday in order to make sure the issues that caused its Falcon 9R test rocket to self-destruct are irrelevant to the full Falcon 9 rocket.
Seems like a prudent decision that is also not overly timid. If this had been the NASA of the past few decades, they would have generally delayed the launch for far longer.
Europe’s continuing problems with Galileo GPS
A look at this week’s failed Soyuz launch and the continuing problems Europe has had building its Galileo GPS satellite constellation.
The program has had a series of problems and failures, which this most recent launch only helps highlight.
Soyuz puts two satellites in wrong orbit
A Russian-made Soyuz rocket launched from French Guiana for Arianespace has placed two European Galileo GPS satellites into the wrong orbit.
Russianspaceweb suggests that the problem was caused by the rocket’s Russian Fregat upper stage. (Scroll down about halfway to read their report on this launch.)
Multiple independent sources analyzing the situation suggested that the Fregat upper stage had fired its engine for the right duration, however the stage’s orientation in space during the second or both maneuvers had probably been wrong. According to Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and a veteran space historian, the Fregat’s angular orientation error during engine firing could reach as much as 145 degrees.
This failure is a triple whammy. It hits both Arianespace and Russia since the Soyuz was part of a partnership between the two. It also hits Europe’s Galileo GPS satellite, which after many years of development was beginning to move towards full operation.
Sea Launch has suspended all operations until 2015
Russian competition cools down: The mostly Russian-owned rocket company Sea Launch has suspended all operations until mid-2015.
I suspect that the Russian government, now in control of almost all Russian aerospace efforts, is not interested in building this company up as the rocket it uses is partly made in Ukraine and is a competitor to Russia’s new Angara rocket. Everything the Russian government has done for the past year has indicated a desire to shut down all cooperative efforts with other countries and focus everything towards all-Russian efforts.
Thus, Sea Launch dies.
Falcon 9R destroyed during failed test flight
In a test flight today of SpaceX’s Falcon 9R vertical take off and landing rocket the rocket was destroyed when ground controllers detected an “anomaly.”
Falcon 9R is a three engine version of the Falcon 9 first stage, designed to test designs for making that first stage capable of landing vertically. It has flown successfully a number of previous times, but this time it appears something was not quite right during the flight and ground controllers had to destroy it for safety reasons.
Is this a set back? Of course. Is it a failure? Not really, as it was a test flight of very cutting edge technology and even failures will teach you something to improve the engineering.
Air Force requests info for new engine
Corporate welfare: The Air Force on Thursday issued a request for information from industry for the replacement of the Russian-made engines used by ULA’s Atlas 5 rocket.
Companies are being asked to respond by Sept. 19 to 35 questions. Among them: “What solution would you recommend to replace the capability currently provided by the RD-180 engine?” Air Force officials have told Congress they only have a broad idea of how to replace the RD-180. Estimates of the investment in money and time necessary to field an American-built alternative vary widely. Congress, meanwhile, is preparing bills that would fund a full-scale engine development program starting next year; the White House is advocating a more deliberate approach that begins with an examination of applicable technologies.
In the request for information, the Air Force says it is open to a variety of options including an RD-180 facsimile, a new design, and alternative configurations featuring multiple engines, and even a brand new rocket. The Air Force is also trying to decide on the best acquisition approach. Options include a traditional acquisition or a shared investment as part of a public-private partnership. [emphasis mine]
The Atlas 5 is built by Lockheed Martin. This is really their problem, not the Air Force or ULA. In addition, the Air Force has other options, both from Boeing’s Delta rocket family as well as SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. For the government to fund this new engine is nothing more than corporate welfare, at a time when the federal government is swimming in debt and is essentially bankrupt.
Arianespace and ESA sign contract for three launches
Arianespace and the European Space Agency (ESA) signed a contract on Thursday for the Ariane 5 rocket to launch 12 more of Europe’s Galileo GPS satellites on three launches.
This contract is a perfect example of European pork. Europe’s Galileo system might provide competition to the U.S. GPS and Russian Glonass systems, but I am not sure what additional capabilities it provides that will convince GPS users to switch to it. Instead, building it provides European jobs, while using the Ariane 5 rocket to launch it gives that increasingly uncompetitive rocket some work to do. In fact, this situation really reminds me of the U.S. launch market in the 1990s, when Boeing and Lockheed Martin decided that, rather than compete with Russia and ESA for the launch market, they instead decided to rely entirely on U.S. government contracts, since those contracts didn’t really demand that they reduce their costs significantly to compete.
Europe now appears to be heading down that same road.
Two additional Russian rocket engines arrive in the U.S.
Despite tensions over the Ukraine, a Russian cargo plane on Wednesday delivered two more Russian rocket engines to Alabama for their refurbishment and use in ULA’s Atlas 5 rocket.
This delivery gives ULA some additional breathing room. It the additional deliveries scheduled for later this year and early in 2015 happen, they will have even more breathing room for more Atlas 5 launches. Even so, their dependence on Russian engines is something that limits the company’s competitiveness in the emerging aggressive launch market.
India delays next GSLV test launch
India has postponed its next GSLV test launch, originally scheduled for late in August.
The article gives no reasons for the delay. This is a new rocket with new engines, and this will only be its second test flight, so a delay is not unreasonable.
Sierra Nevada abandons its own hybrid engine for Dream Chaser
The competition heats up: Sierra Nevada has decided not to use its own hybrid engine on its Dream Chaser manned shuttle.
With the apparent decision by Virgin Galactic to also abandon this engine, it would appear that hybrid rocket technology is not yet ready for prime time, if ever.
Posted from Spokane, Washington, where Diane and I will be visiting my oldest friend Lloyd and his family for the rest of the week.
Orbital plans upgrade to Antares
The competition heats up: On its next cargo mission to ISS Orbital Sciences plans on launching an upgraded Antares rocket.
For its third paid cargo mission to station, slated to launch Oct. 21, Orbital will replace the ATK Castor 30B Antares used for its latest launch with an ATK Castor 30XL. The upgrade will allow Cygnus to carry about 2,290 kilograms of cargo to station — an increase of nearly 40 percent by mass, compared with the second mission, according to Orbital’s Aug. 18 press release.
The Castor 30XL is the latest in the Castor 30 series ATK developed specifically as an Antares upper stage. A pair of Antares demonstration launches in 2013, which did not count toward fulfilling the company’s delivery-and-disposal contract with NASA, used the Castor 30A. ATK has lengthened subsequent versions of the motor, squeezing more power out of it by packing it full of more solid fuel.
Like SpaceX, Orbital Sciences is demonstrating the ability here to do operational missions simultaneously with developmental missions.