China’s next manned mission is now scheduled for launch tomorrow, Tuesday, June 11.
The spacecraft will travel in the space for 15 days and go through two docking tests with the orbiting space lab module Tiangong-1, one automatic and the other manual.
Astronauts on ISS this week initiated a four year study of the vision problems that scientists have discovered occur to some individuals after long exposure to weightlessness.
The competition heats up: Sierra Nevada has begun the testing program of Dream Chaser’s engines.
These tests were to verify that the engine test stand will function properly when they begin testing the engines themselves. Note also that Sierra Nevada provided the engines for SpaceShipTwo, and that Dream Chaser’s engines appear to be some variant of that hybrid engine design.
I’m so glad: The repairs to the cracks in the first Orion capsule have withstood static stress tests.
In addition to the various loads it sustained, the Orion crew module also was pressurized to simulate the effect of the vacuum in space. This simulation allowed engineers to confirm it would hold its pressurization in a vacuum and verify repairs made to superficial cracks in the vehicle’s rear bulkhead caused by previous pressure testing in November.
The November test revealed insufficient margin in an area of the bulkhead that was unable to withstand the stress of pressurization. Armed with data from that test, engineers were able to reinforce the design to ensure structural integrity and validate the fix during this week’s test. [emphasis mine]
I love how this NASA press release describes the cracking of the capsule bulkhead during the November testing, indicated in bold. “Insufficient margin”, eh?
Normally I am very forgiving when things fail during engineering tests, but for the bulkhead of this capsule to crack during these tests was actually pretty shameful, considering the decades of engineering work previously done in the building of space capsules and submarines. Things can certainly go wrong when you build something new, but I don’t see anything particularly revolutionary about Orion’s design. Lots of things might fail, but making sure the bulkhead could withstand the normal and well known stresses of spaceflight should not have been one of those things. The bulkhead failure suggests to me some sloppy engineering work took place in Orion’s initial design.
The scientists operating Curiosity have decided it is time to begin the trek up Mt. Sharp.
Europe successfully launched its heaviest unmanned cargo freighter to ISS today.
The docking of the ATV freighter, dubbed Albert Einstein, will take place after ten days of checkout in orbit.
German scientists have outlined a technique for using pulsars as an interplanetary and interstellar GPS system.
A look at Dream Chaser’s upcoming glide tests.
Researchers have developed a technology which permits a toy helicopter to be steered through an obstacle course — by thought alone.
The technology is quite primitive, requires many hours of training, and can only move the helicopter up, down, left, or right. Nonetheless, it is one step closer to magic.
The competition heats up: The communications satellite launched by Russia’s Proton rocket has successfully reached its target orbit.
The competition heats up: Stratolaunch officially announced today that Orbital Sciences will build the system’s second stage rocket.
The rocket that Orbital will build for Stratolaunch will launch from the air, the first stage being a giant airplane which will carry that rocket aloft, much like Virgin Galactic’s WhiteKnightTwo and Orbital’s Pegasus rocket. Clark Lindsey at the same website also notes that the efforts of SpaceX (and to my mind Stratolaunch) to make the first stage reusable will likely revolutionize the rocket industry.
A U.S. company is planning on building a commercial jet capable of traveling routinely just under the speed of sound.
It is only a two-seater, and the design is based on a military fighter jets.
