University students have successfully test fired a 3D printed rocket engine.
University students have successfully test fired a 3D printed rocket engine.
Tag: engineering
Juno has exited safe mode and is now functioning normally.
Juno has exited safe mode and is now functioning normally.
SpaceX has revised the schedule for its next three launches, pushing back two weeks so engineers can review issues with the Falcon 9 upper stage engine.
The competition heats up: SpaceX has revised the schedule for its next three launches, pushing back two weeks so engineers can review issues with the Falcon 9 upper stage engine.
The debut launch of the upgraded Falcon 9 successfully deployed Canada’s Cassiope spacecraft into orbit on September 29. However, after safely deploying its payloads, the upper stage was then set to restart its Merlin VacD engine for a second burn related to SpaceX’s ambitions to create a fully reusable launch system. An anomaly with the restart held no mission impact, but the company’s CEO and chief designer, Elon Musk, did note they expected to implement corrective actions ahead of the next launch. “In the case of the upper stage relight, we initiated relight and the system encountered an anomaly and did not complete the relight. We believe understand what that issue is and should have it addressed in time for the next flight of Falcon 9,” he noted. “We essentially saw the engine initiate ignition. get up to about 400 psi and then it encountered a condition that it didn’t like. We have all of the data from the restart, so I am confident that we will be able to sort it out and address it before the next flight. We just have to iron out some slight differences of it operating in vacuum.”
I find Musk’s vague terminology about the engine issue to be interesting. I wonder if the “condition” the engine “didn’t like” was when the engine exploded, as some have suggested. (I personally am skeptical the engine exploded, however, as such a failure would probably require a much longer delay to deal with.)
Either way, the next few months should be a busy time for commercial space. Not only does SpaceX have two major commercial launches and a Dragon mission to ISS, Orbital Sciences has its next Cygnus cargo mission and Virgin Galactic claims it will be ready to fly SpaceShipTwo with passengers.
Posted on the road heading into the empty wilds of west Texas.
Jeff Bezos reveals some details about the goals of his space company, Blue Origin.
The competition heats up: Jeff Bezos reveals some details about the goals of his space company, Blue Origin.
Blue Origin is now working on its third version of the New Shepard, which is designed to take everyday people on suborbital journeys. Bezos said that he’s hopeful that this will be the last iteration, and he wants to see the next vehicle ready for commercial operation. “I’m very optimistic about that,” he said. Bezos didn’t give any specific timetables. However, he did say that Blue Origin’s orbital vehicle, designed to send astronauts to the International Space Station and elsewhere, will be tested by 2018. Eventually, the goal is to let anyone fly up into space safely at reasonable prices.
Not a lot of details, but previously we knew practically nothing. That the present ship is being designed for suborbital tourist flights makes it a direct competitor of Virgin Galactic and XCOR. And considering the problems that Virgin Galactic has with SpaceShipTwo, and that XCOR doesn’t have the big bucks of Bezos, Blue Origin might actually be in the lead in the race to put the first tourists in space.
Two days after its flyby of Earth, Jupiter probe Juno remains in safe mode.
Two days after its flyby of Earth, Jupiter probe Juno remains in safe mode.
The Juno spacecraft is in a healthy and stable state, with its tractor-trailer-size solar panels pointed toward the sun. The mission team is in communication with Juno and has seen no sign of any failures in the probe’s subsystems or components, said project manager Rick Nybakken of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. So Juno’s handlers plan to take their time and do a thorough investigation before attempting to bring all of the spacecraft’s systems back online.
In other words, there is no rush to take the spacecraft out of safe mode. It is far better to figure out exactly what is going on first.
One hundred days to wake-up for Europe’s Rosetta comet probe.
One hundred days to wake-up for Europe’s Rosetta comet probe.
Rosetta was launched on 2 March 2004, and through a complex series of flybys – three times past Earth and once past Mars – set course to its destination: comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. It also flew by and imaged two asteroids, Steins on 5 September 2008 and Lutetia on 10 July 2010. In July 2011 Rosetta was put into deep-space hibernation for the coldest, most distant leg of the journey as it travelled some 800 million kilometres from the Sun, close to the orbit of Jupiter. The spacecraft was oriented so that its solar wings faced the Sun to receive as much sunlight as possible, and it was placed into a slow spin to maintain stability.
Now, as both the comet and the spacecraft are on the return journey back into the inner Solar System, the Rosetta team is preparing for the spacecraft to wake up.
Rosetta mission milestones 2014-2015 Rosetta’s internal alarm clock is set for 10:00 GMT on 20 January 2014.
The first images are expected back in May 2014.
Posted as we approach the Arkansas-Texas border.
Except for a troublesome fan, the first Cygnus cargo capsule to dock with ISS is performing perfectly.
Except for a troublesome fan, the first Cygnus cargo capsule to dock with ISS is performing perfectly.
The fan has been a minor issue. The astronauts have simply turned it off periodically when it started to act up. What is really important is this:
The next Cygnus – along with its Antares launch vehicle – is already being processed at Orbital’s Wallops facility, with a target launch date of December 15, with an available launch window through to December 21.
A new survey shows that one out of every three persons wants to travel in space.
A new survey shows that one out of every three persons wants to travel in space.
The number rises to one out of two once the technology has become reliable.
Posted as we drive through Forest City, Arkansas, following our master, the GPS, which suggested a detour to avoid construction delays on I-40. We have crossed the Mississippi!
An eleven year old’s experiment in brewing beer in space will fly to ISS on the next Cygnus cargo flight in December.
An eleven year old’s experiment in brewing beer in space will fly to ISS on the next Cygnus cargo flight in December.
The tiny brewery is set up inside a 6-inch-long (15 centimeters) tube, filled with separated hops, water, yeast and malted barley — all of the key ingredients used to make beer — and will be delivered to the station by the commercial firm NanoRacks. An astronaut aboard the station will shake up the mixture to see how the yeast interacts with the other ingredients in the beer. “I really didn’t expect this from the start,” Bodzianowski told KDVR, a Fox affiliate in Denver. “I really just designed my experiment to get a good grade in my class.”
The Russian government today replaced the head of its space agency.
The Russian government today replaced the head of its space agency.
This is part of the continuing shake-up of the Russian space industry following a series of launch failures over the past three years.
Engineers hope Juno’s Earth flyby yesterday will help solve a mystery seen in previous flybys by unmanned probes.
The uncertainty of science: Engineers hope Juno’s Earth flyby yesterday will help solve a mystery seen in previous flybys by unmanned probes.
Since 1990, mission controllers at ESA and NASA have noticed that their spacecraft sometimes experience a strange variation in the amount of orbital energy they pick up from Earth during flybys, a technique routinely used to fling satellites deep into our Solar System. The unexplained variation is noticed as a tiny difference in the expected speed gained (or lost) during the passage.
The variations are extremely small: NASA’s Jupiter probe ended up just 3.9 mm/s faster than expected when it swung past Earth in December 1990. The largest variation– a boost of 13.0 mm/s – was seen with NASA’s NEAR asteroid craft in January 1998. Conversely, the differences during swingbys of NASA’s Cassini in 1999 and Messenger in 2005 were so small that they could not be confirmed.
The experts are stumped.
It is likely that these small variations are related in some way with simple engineering and not some unknown feature of gravity. Nonetheless, it remains a mystery.
Former NASA shuttle head outlines a pessimistic future for NASA expensive Space Launch System.
Former NASA shuttle head outlines a pessimistic future for NASA expensive Space Launch System.
Continuing to develop programs in the same old ways, from my observations, will certainly lead to cancellation as government budgets are stretched thin.”