Tag: engineering

After the unmanned probe Juno zipped past the Earth on its way to Jupiter today, it unexpectedly went into safe mode.

9:28 pm

After the unmanned probe Juno zipped past the Earth on its way to Jupiter today, it unexpectedly went into safe mode.

Engineers continued to diagnose the issue, which occurred after Juno whipped around Earth in a momentum-gathering flyby. Up until Wednesday, Juno had been in excellent health. While in safe mode, it can communicate with ground controllers, but its activities are limited.

It is unclear at the moment why this happened.

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In a newspaper interview Richard Branson today claimed that Virgin Galactic is “just three months away from having a fully-functioning rocket that is capable of taking passengers into orbit.”

5:46 am

In a newspaper interview Richard Branson today claimed that Virgin Galactic is “just three months away from having a fully-functioning rocket that is capable of taking passengers into orbit.”

At this moment I am sadly very skeptical. The company has only done two powered flights of SpaceShipTwo, and the highest it has gone is about 70,000 feet. To make it fully-functioning, they need to fly it 70 miles high. And the rumors about their engine problems suggest they won’t be able to do this until next year, at the soonest.

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A drone that can fly continuously for five years at 65,000 feet.

6:34 pm

A drone that can fly continuously for five years at 65,000 feet.

The Solara series are designed to be a fraction of the cost of a satellite, but operate many similar tasks, such as surveillance, crop-monitoring, weather and disaster oversight, or any other monitoring that low-altitude satellites track. The Solara aircraft could cost less than $2 million, according to Forbes, which quotes Dustin Sanders, Titan’s chief electrical engineer, as saying, “We’re trying to do a single-million-dollar-per-aircraft platform. And the operation cost is almost nothing — you’re paying some dude to watch the payload and make sure the aircraft doesn’t do anything stupid.”

As with any new invention, the use of this drone carries with it both good and bad possibilities.

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Because India depends on the American Deep Space communications network — mostly unavailable due to the government shutdown — the launch of its first Mars probe, set for October 28, might have to be delayed for two years.

11:00 pm

Because India depends on the American Deep Space communications network — mostly unavailable due to the government shutdown — the launch of its first Mars probe, set for October 28, might have to be delayed for two years.

This is unfortunate news indeed. However, if I was India (as well as other countries) I would consider this a call to develop their own deep space network.

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Stratolaunch has now released some preliminary details about its commercial rocket, including images.

11:00 pm

Stratolaunch has now released some preliminary details about its commercial rocket, including images.

Work has also begun on assembling the giant carrier airplane that will be used to take the rocket aloft.

Posted from lovely Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Tomorrow I will be busy visiting old friends as well as poking around an old Pennsylvania ghost town, so posting should be light.

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Virgin Galactic has signed a television deal for a reality show where the winner would get a flight into space on SpaceShipTwo.

7:52 am

Virgin Galactic has signed a television deal for a reality show where the winner would get a flight into space on SpaceShipTwo.

This sounds great, but the company first has to solve the very serious engineering problems it has with SpaceShipTwo’s engine, which apparently is going to cause a delay of at least one year in the ship’s development. Thus, this announcement is really nothing more than a publicity stunt designed to distract the public from those problems.

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Orbital Sciences is suing the government agency that operates the Wallops Island spaceport, saying it is refusing to pay a $16.5 million bill.

7:43 am

Orbital Sciences is suing the government agency that operates the Wallops Island spaceport, saying it is refusing to pay a $16.5 million bill.

I am not surprised. One of the prime reasons the launch of Antares and Cygnus was delayed by more than a year was because this same government agency had failed to upgrade the launchpad as promised, and Orbital Sciences was eventually forced to step in, take over, and spend millions to do the work itself.

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After developing the J-2X engine for the upper stage of its SLS heavy-lift rocket, NASA now plans to mothball it.

7:18 am

NASA marches on! After developing the J-2X engine for the upper stage of its SLS heavy-lift rocket, NASA now plans to mothball it.

While the agency is actively seeking other missions for the heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS) in the planetary science and military arenas, most of the human flights it has in sight for the big new rocket probably can be accomplished with an upper stage powered by the RL-10 engine instead of the J-2X. “The J-2X for certain [design reference missions] is somewhat overpowered,” said Todd May, NASA’s SLS program manager.

The main cause of this absurd situation is Congress, which has micro-managed the development of SLS from day one.

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The failure of the Falcon 9 upper stage prior to a final engine test on Sunday’s launch may delay the rocket’s next commercial launch.

6:52 pm

The failure of the Falcon 9 upper stage prior to a final engine test on Sunday’s launch may delay the rocket’s next commercial launch.

SpaceX officials said after the Sept. 29 launch that the nonignition of the upper stage did not appear to be of a sort to delay the SES flight for very long. Feltes said SES is will hoping for a launch as soon as October, but added that if it slipped to November the company was willing to wait. The fact that SES will be awaiting details from SpaceX “does not mean that we reject the flight as a qualification flight,” Feltes said. “We still plan to be on the next Falcon flight, once SpaceX has solved the problem. But we need a technical explanation. We do need reignition of the stage for our satellite.”

The government shutdown also means that the Florida spaceport is presently unavailable for this launch (which is hardly a way to run a commercial operation). This fact makes it even more likely that SpaceX will eventually move all its commercial launches to its own spaceport, probably in Texas.

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