The competition heats up: SpaceX has signed a deal to have its new Raptor engine tested at NASA’s Stennis Space Center.
This is a good use of these government facilities, providing a service and also making money for the government.
Surprise, surprise! Russia has noticed literally no change in cooperation with NASA since the U.S. government announced two weeks ago that all such cooperation, excluding ISS, was being cut off.
Russia’s Roscosmos space agency has yet received no official notifications from NASA on curtailing cooperation, and working contacts continue, Roscosmos chief Oleg Ostapenko said in an interview with Vedomosti newspaper Wednesday. “Roscosmos has received no official notifications on suspending cooperation, we continue working contacts with NASA and other space agencies,” Ostapenko told Vedomosti adding: “Recently I held talks with the NASA leadership and European colleagues.”
More info here.
I had said that so-called NASA cut-off was all show and aimed not at Russia but at Congressional budget negotiations over NASA’s commercial crew program. This story only proves it.
Arianespace struggles to schedule its customers for launch.
The editorial describes the juggling act the company is often forced to perform organizing the duel payloads required by the Ariane 5, with the launch of some customers’ satellites delayed because of the late arrival of other customers. From this information it is clear that the competition coming from SpaceX is not limited only to price. Arianespace’s requirement on Ariane 5 that there be two satellites means that sometimes they have to do harm to one of their customers by delaying their launch, even if that customer delivered on time. I can imagine some of those customers quite willing to go elsewhere should this happen too often.
The uncertainty of science: A new study claims that biofuels made from corn produce more greenhouse gases than ordinary gasoline.
The EPA disagrees. If you read the article you will see that the EPA might be right, but either way it appears to be a case of scientists arguing about statistical details. The bottom line is that the corn biofuels aren’t significantly different than ordinary gasoline, and in fact this whole debate forgets the original reason for backing biofuels, which had nothing to do with global warming. Biofuels can be harvested here in the U.S., and were thought an excellent way to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Whether that is true, however, also remains very much uncertain.
One quote in the article, however, demonstrated to me once again the foolishness of using legislation to mandate sales in a market.
Last year, for the fifth time, the EPA proposed reducing the amount [being produced as] required by law. It set a target of 17 million gallons for 2014. The law envisioned 1.75 billion gallons being produced this year.
The law demanded that manufacturers ramp up production to billions, regardless of economics or demand. Such mandates are the stuff of fantasy, and never work.
Posted from Tucson, Arizona.
The competition heats up: Data now suggests that SpaceX successfully achieved a controlled landing of its Falcon 9 first stage on Friday.
The stage itself has not yet been recovered due to heavy seas, but all evidence points to a soft splashdown in the ocean. While I expect them to continue to do this over the ocean, until they get good footage of the landing as well as recover the stage, the next real step is to land the thing over land. The link above also has video of the vertical take-off/landing of Falcon 9R on Friday, which proves they are beginning to prove this capability as well.
In related news, Dragon was successfully berthed to ISS today.
Posted from Boulder, Colorado.
Some additional details about SpaceX’s effort Friday to bring the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket back to Earth gently.
They have not yet released a full report, but it appears that the company has made progress. They were able to control the stage’s spinning as it descended, and it apparently was still functioning after it hit the water.
Orbital Sciences is considering three different bids to provide the company new engines for its Antares rocket.
The engine presently used is from a stock of refurbished Russian engines first built in the late 1960s for the Soviet Union’s N1 rocket, designed to send humans to the Moon.
Dragon has successfully reached orbit.
No word on the attempt to bring the first stage down to the water under controlled conditions. One announcement during launch said the video was good and that the stage’s first burn was successful.
The competition heats up: SpaceX has successfully completed the first vertical flight of the Falcon 9R landing test rocket.
Reports have been confirmed that SpaceX’s Falcon 9-R development vehicle made its first free flight today at McGregor — taking off, hovering, moving sideways and landing.
Falcon 9R is the successor to Grasshopper, carrying more engines to more accurately simulate a Falcon 9 first stage.
Meanwhile, today’s launch of Dragon and the second attempt to bring the first stage back to Earth in a controlled manner remains iffy because of weather.
The competition heats up: Russia is accelerating construction of its new spaceport in Vostochny.
The schedule doesn’t appear to have been pushed up, with the first launch still set for 2015, but they are going to initiate a second shift, and will have monthly meeting with the government to monitor progress. Under the top-down Russian way of doing things, this is how they make sure their high priority projects get finished on time and successfully.
The competition heats up: Sierra Nevada is planning additional glide tests in the fall. using its Dream Chaser engineering test vehicle.
This is the same test vehicle that crashed last October during its first glide test when one landing gear failed to deploy properly. The glide test itself was a success however, as the vehicle did a controlled unmanned glide perfectly to the runway, and the failed landing gear was one that the spacecraft will not use once completed.
Note also that these announced flight tests will occur after NASA eliminates one of the companies competing for the final crew ferrying contract to ISS. This suggests that Sierra Nevada plans to continue development of Dream Chaser, regardless of whether they get the contract or not.
