At a Congressional hearing on Wednesday, NASA’s inspector general outlined more than five thousand security lapses at the agency in 2010 and 2011, including the theft of a laptop with the control codes for ISS.
Using its Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion capsule, NASA is aiming for an unmanned test flight around the Moon in December 2017.
Two important tidbits revealed by this article: First, the first test flight of Orion will use a Delta 4 Heavy rocket. Two, NASA hopes to have its heavy lift SLS rocket ready for the 2017 mission.
Forgive me for being cynical, but I will believe the second tidbit only when it happens.
Fingers crossed: Falcon 9 is on the launchpad in Florida, being prepared for a countdown and fuel test tomorrow.
What is the International Space Station’s weakest link?
Mark Mulqueen, ISS vehicle director for Boeing Co., said keeping the station’s environmental control and life support systems, or ECLSS, functioning over the next decade will likely be engineers’ toughest challenge. “I don’t think it’s sparing or the structure to get to 2020,” Mulqueen said. “It’s probably continued refinement of how we successfuly operate our ECLSS system on-orbit. There has been a lot of effort going into understanding that.”
The article outlines a number of other areas of concern, none of which appear to be serious, for now, but could be a problem as the years pass.
An update on Stratolaunch.
ATK prepares for another test firing of its five-segment solid rocket motor.
The qualification campaign, led by rocket-builder ATK, will prove the solid-fueled motor is ready to help propel the Space Launch System from Earth on two test flights in 2017 and 2021.
Though obviously funded out of the Space Launch System program (SLS), there is no guarantee at this moment that ATK’s solid rocket will be used in these test flights. NASA has said that they are considering all options for picking the launch rocket.
In a sense, we are now seeing a side benefit produced by relying on independent and competing private companies to get into space. It has placed pressure on NASA and the companies building SLS to perform. Unlike in the past, when failure to produce a new rocket or spaceship meant that NASA would simply propose a new concept and start again, now failure will mean that someone else might get the work. The result: SLS might actually get built, for less money and faster.
Though I don’t see how NASA can possibly cut the costs down to compete with these private companies, their effort might succeed enough for Congress to keep the money spigots open until the rocket gets built.
Even as I say this I remain skeptical. Considering the federal budget situation, the politics of the upcoming election, and the strong possibility that private companies will successfully provide that launch capability at a tenth the cost, I expect that sometime in the next two or three years Congress will finally balk at SLS’s cost, and eliminate it.
The first industrial railgun has begun firing tests at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Virginia. With video.
Following a series of low-energy test shots, evaluation of the launcher is now underway and will see tests conducted at 20 megajoules to 32 megajoules – one megajoule is equivalent to a 1-ton object being thrust at 100 mph (161 km/h). Test projectiles similar to those previously fired from [the] laboratory’s launcher will be fired at speeds of 4,500 to 5,600 mph (7,242 to 9,012 km/h) using electricity instead of chemical propellants.
These speeds are a only little less than one third escape velocity. Pump this technology up a bit and you could have a cheap way to get simple supplies, such as fuel, water, oxygen, into orbit. In fact, one company is even trying to do it.
Coming soon to your neighborhood: A surveillance camera that can fly to heights of almost 200 feet.
Fingers crossed: According to Orbital Sciences’ CEO, problems in launchpad construction have been the primary reason the first launch of Antares rocket/Cygnus capsule has been delayed.
