Tag: engineering

Aerojet Rocketdyne makes $2 billion offer to buy ULA

11:11 pm

The competition heats up: Rocket engine-maker Aerojet Rocketdyne has reportedly made a $2 billion offer to buy the rocket company United Launch Alliance (ULA), a partnership of Boeing and Lockheed.

If this deal goes through, it will put the squeeze on Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, which presently has a contract to build rocket engines for ULA. Aerojet Rocketdyne had wanted that contract and had lost out. If they buy ULA, they could then kick Blue Origin out and take on the contract themselves.

I am honestly not sure what to make of this whole thing, however. It could be that Aerojet, having lost a number of contracts and faced with a significant lose in business, has decided it needs to become a rocket company to survive. It could also be that the corporate heads of ULA have decided that the company’s effort to replace its Delta and Atlas rockets with Vulcan is too risky, and they are better off taking the cash and running.

Or it could be any number of other reasons. We shall have to wait and see how this plays out.

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Closing in on Ceres’s bright spots

9:33 am

Ceres's bright spots

Cool image time! The Dawn science team has released a new close-up of Ceres’s Double Bright Spot.

The new up-close view of Occator crater from Dawn’s current vantage point reveals better-defined shapes of the brightest, central spot and features on the crater floor. Because these spots are so much brighter than the rest of Ceres’ surface, the Dawn team combined two different images into a single composite view — one properly exposed for the bright spots, and one for the surrounding surface.

They have also released a detailed topographic map of the crater as well as a fly-around video, which I have posted below the fold. The interesting take-away from this new data is that, while the bright spots look at first glance remarkably like the snow-cap on a mountain-top, they are actually at the low spots in the crater. This suggests that they are instead material that has either bubbled up from below, or flowed downward to the crater bottom.

Be sure you click on the link and look at the full resolution image.
» Read more

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Spaceport head says Lynx to launch in early 2016

9:18 am

The competition heats up: The president of the spaceport in Midland, Texas, said today that XCOR’s Lynx suborbital spacecraft will complete its first test launch in the second quarter of 2016.

My readers know that I have been very skeptical of XCOR. They also know, if they have read closely, that I would be thrilled if they proved me wrong and succeeded. I think we shall find out one way or the other next year.

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Venus probe about to rise from the dead

9:07 am

Five years after it failed to enter Venus orbit as planned, the Japanese probe Akatsuki is about to try again, in December.

The article provides an interesting and detailed explanation of what had gone wrong in 2010, and then describes the amazing things engineers have done to make this second attempt even possible. If they succeed it will be one of the most brilliant achievements in the history of space exploration.

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Boeing names its CST-100 manned capsule Starliner

2:05 pm

The competition heats up: Boeing today unveiled “Starliner” as the new name for its CST-100 manned capsule.

This intensifies the competition because the new name is something the public can grab and identify. As long as Boeing was using the boring acronym they were holding back to stay in the boring do-nothing pork-laden government-funded NASA environment. Grabbing the public means they want the public to buy this product.

Posted from Spokane, Washington.

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New engineering gives a man paralyzed from the waist down the ability to walk again.

9:45 am

Using a new exoskeleton design combined with non-invasive spinal simulation engineers have made it possible for a man paralyzed from the waist down to walk again.

Leveraging on research where the UCLA team recently used the same non-invasive technique to enable five completely paralyzed men to move their legs, the new work has allowed the latest subject, Mark Pollock, to regain some voluntary movement – even up to two weeks after training with the external electrical stimulation had ended.

Pollock, who had been totally paralyzed from the waist down for four years prior to this study, was given five days of training in the robot exoskeleton, and a further two weeks muscle training with the external stimulation unit. The stimulated and voluntary leg movements have not only shown that regaining mobility through this technique is possible, but that the training itself provides a range of health benefits in itself, especially in enhanced cardiovascular function and improved muscle tone.

The new system has been created as an amalgam of a battery-driven bionic exoskeleton that allows users’ leg movements to propel the unit in a step-by-step way, and a non-invasive external stimulator to trigger nerve signals to create the leg movements. In this way, Pollock made significant progress after being given just a few weeks physical training without spinal stimulation and then five days of spinal stimulation exercise an hour a day over a week-long period. “In the last few weeks of the trial, my heart rate hit 138 beats per minute,” said Pollock. “This is an aerobic training zone, a rate I haven’t even come close to since being paralyzed while walking in the robot alone, without these interventions. That was a very exciting, emotional moment for me, having spent my whole adult life before breaking my back as an athlete.”

His ability to walk is not achieved easily, and without extensive help and preparation fades. However, the results here are very hopeful that future developments will make it possible for paraplegics to once again walk.

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High res radar instrument fails on Earth observation satellite

9:18 am

Only seven months after launch one of the two instruments on NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) Earth observation satellite has failed.

Launched on Jan. 31, the Soil Moisture Active Passive spacecraft’s objective is to map global soil moisture and to detect whether soils are frozen or thawed. It is the first mission where scientists have attempted to collect high-resolution, high-accuracy soil moisture data, said Kent Kellogg, SMAP’s JPL-based project manager.

NASA budgeted $916 million for the mission and has been working on it for the past eight years. “We do a lot of testing on the ground to make sure the designs will be built properly and will last in the environment,” Kellogg said. “But space is a very unforgiving place, and we can have these kinds of problems where despite our best efforts with design and vigorous testing, something surprises us. It’s very uncommon, but these things can happen occasionally.”

SMAP’s two scientific tools are an active radar and a passive radiometer. They complement each other, making up for the other’s measurement limitations. The broken radar collected soil moisture and freeze-thaw measurements at a higher resolution of up to 1.9 miles. The still functioning radiometer generates more accurate measurements but its resolution is lower at about 25 miles. [emphasis mine]

I am not satisfied by the explanation for the failure expressed above. NASA spent a lot of money for this science satellite over almost a decade. In addition, we have been launching instruments like this for almost half a century, and have by now learned quite well the engineering necessary to keep them operating under the conditions in low Earth orbit. I suspect a screw-up somewhere, which we might or might not ever identify.

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Apollo lunar samples crumbling to dust

9:08 am

The uncertainty of science: A comparison between the average particle size of 20 Apollo moon soil samples has discovered that their size has decreased by more than half in the past 40 years.

The differences between the two datasets are stark. For example, the median particle diameter has decreased from 78 microns (0.0031 inches) to 33 microns (0.0013 inches). And in the original sieve data, 44 percent of soil particles were between 90 and 1,000 microns (0.0035 to 0.039 inches) wide; today, just 17 percent of the particles are that large.

The most likely explanation for the degradation is damage caused by water vapor, the scientists say. “Leaching by water vapor causes the specific surface area of a lunar soil sample to multiply, and a system of pores develops,” they wrote in the study, which was published online last week in the journal Nature Geoscience. “These structural changes may be attributed to the opening of existing, but previously unavailable, pore structure or the creation of new surfaces through fracturing of cement or dissolution of amorphous particles.”

I was surprised that in the article above the scientists made no mention of gravity as a factor. These particles were originally formed under lunar gravity, 1/6 that of Earth. I would have thought that their structural strength was partly determined by this, and once brought to Earth’s heavier gravity would have thus slowly deteriorated over time.

Either way, the study illustrates why saving these samples for future researchers was a foolish mistake. Time changes all things, and that change has made these samples no longer a good representation of the Moon. The NASA scientists and managers who decided to store these samples instead of distributing them all for immediate study forgot this basic fact.

The scientists who did this study appear to have not learned this lesson as well. They suggest future samples be stored off-Earth, in a place like ISS. I say, we should instead go to the Moon so often we don’t need to store any samples. When we want a sample, we go and get one.

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Soyuz capsule maneuvers to avoid space junk

8:53 am

The manned Soyuz capsule bringing three astronauts to ISS was forced to make a maneuver this morning to avoid a collision with a fragment from a Japanese rocket launched in 1989.

While space junk is an increasing problem, for a object to threaten a manned capsule making maneuvers in low Earth orbit is extremely rare. It appears from the story however that U.S. and Russian trackers thought there was a very good chance of an actual collision and took action to avoid it.

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First Falcon Heavy launch now scheduled for April/May 2016

11:22 pm

The competition heats up: SpaceX is now aiming for a spring launch of the first Falcon Heavy.

That first launch will be a demonstration mission without a paying customer. That launch will be followed in September by the Space Test Program 2 mission for the Air Force, carrying 37 satellites. Rosen said the company was also planning Falcon Heavy launches of satellites for Inmarsat and ViaSat before the end of 2016, but did not give estimated dates for those missions.

Though no one should bet a lot of money on this launch schedule, if they get even half this accomplished they will be doing quite well. This, combined with the possibility that they will safely land the first stage of the Falcon 9 by then as well, will put SpaceX in an undeniably dominate position in the launch market.

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Shake-ups in the Google Lunar X-Prize competition

10:02 am

One team has withdrawn and two big-name executives have left another team in a shake-up at the Google Lunar X-Prize competition.

This key quote however tells us the real state of the competition, which sadly does not look good:

The competition has repeatedly moved back the deadline to win the prize, which is now set for Dec. 31, 2017. At least one of the 16 remaining teams much announced a launch contract by the end of this year for the competition to continue. The rest of the teams would then have until the end of 2016 to announce launch contracts to stay in the race.

The team that withdrew says it plan to continue its effort but outside the competition. Either way, it looks like someone has to commit to a launch sometime in the next few months or the competition either has to push back its deadlines again or declare no winners. This will be a sad conclusion, as it is entirely possible for private financing to get this done. A failure however would make that appear impossible.

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Technical problems for cosmic ray detector on ISS

9:53 am

The failure of a second of four cooling pumps on the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer on ISS threatens the science instrument’s ability to continue its observations.

The AMS continues to gather science data using the three remaining pumps. They are part of a liquid carbon dioxide cooling system that is meant to dissipate heat as the AMS, which is on the outside of the space station, cycles in and out of sunlight during each 90-minute orbit of Earth Only one pump is needed at any given time. One failed in February 2014 and at least one of the other three is showing possible signs of trouble.

Since the 8.5-tonne AMS began operating in 2011, it has tracked more than 69 billion cosmic rays flying through its detectors. Its goal is to search for antimatter and dark matter. In 2013, AMS scientists reported measuring numbers and energies of positrons that hinted at, but did not confirm, the existence of dark matter.

The news article suggests that the instrument is now working with only one reliable pump. It also is possible that repairs might be done by astronauts on ISS during a spacewalk.

Some background: AMS cost $2 billion and about 20 years to build. It only got launched because Congress ordered NASA to launch one more shuttle mission to ISS to get it there.

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Atlas 5 successfully launches U.S. military satellite

9:45 am

The competition heats up: ULA’s Atlas 5 rocket today successfully launched a U.S. Navy military communications satellite into orbit.

ULA’s big selling point for its very high prices is its very high reliability. This was its 99th consecutive launch success for the company, going back to 2006. It was also the 127th in a row for the Atlas 5.

The problem is that a majority of these launches were government payloads, which up until now has been willing to pay top dollar. For ULA to really compete successfully, it needs private customers, and they appear unwilling to pay that top dollar, going instead to SpaceX. It is for this reason the company is pushing hard to develop a more efficient and less costly rocket.

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Manned Soyuz heads for ISS with new crew

9:38 am

A new crew was successfully launched into orbit last night by a Russian Soyuz rocket.

This is the mission that Sarah Brightman was originally going to fly on as a tourist — before she backed out or was rejected by the Russians as a unqualified. Instead, it carries one Russian who is going to take over as commander of the station for a long term mission, and two short term astronauts, from Kazakhstan and Denmark, who will remain in orbit for only about 10 days.

They are taking the long, two-day rendezvous route to ISS, so they won’t actually dock until Friday.

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Blue Origin wins financial incentives to build in Florida

9:31 am

The competition heats up: Local county officials in Florida have awarded Blue Origins $8 million in grants to encourage it to set up launch operations in Florida.

The money comes from property tax revenue from new commercial and industrial construction in North Brevard, under a process the Brevard County Commission created in 2011 to help spur economic development in North Brevard. Blue Origin plans to build rockets on the Space Coast, and launch them from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The company, founded by Jeff Bezos, the billionaire chief executive officer of Amazon.com, would create 330 jobs with an average wage of $89,000, and plans to make a capital investment of $205 million to $220 million.

The company is being referred to as “Project Panther” in county documents, because Blue Origin has not officially disclosed its plans. Bezos is scheduled to be in Brevard County on Sept. 15 for a major announcement on the commercial space industry.

This news helps indicate what Bezos’s September 15 announcement will be about. They are likely to announce that the company is completed its arrangements for building its spaceport in Florida, and is now going to proceed. Up until now the company, which keeps its plans very close to its vest, has been vague about its future launch plans, especially after it lost its competition with SpaceX for leasing a launchpad at the Kennedy Space Center.

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Blue Origin abandons patent for barge-landing a rocket

9:24 am

The heat of competition: After losing a decision of the U.S. Patent office in a dispute with SpaceX, Blue Origin has withdrawn the patent it was awarded in March 2014 for vertical landing a rocket on an ocean-going barge.

In an order made public today, the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board granted a motion to cancel the remaining 13 of 15 claims in the Blue Origin rocket-landing patent. Blue Origin itself had made the motion to cancel those claims, effectively acknowledging that its case was lost.

Blue Origin, based in Kent, Wash., has separately filed a “reissue” patent application covering the same general area. However, SpaceX has already attempted multiple rocket landings at sea and would likely be grandfathered in, allowing it to continue the practice, even if Blue Origin were to ultimately succeed in securing a valid patent.

The two companies are definitely in a heated competition. This is not the only legal dispute they have had, with SpaceX winning previously as well. Blue Origin had challenged the award of a 20-year lease to SpaceX of its launchpad at Kennedy. It lost.

In this case, it was absurd on its face for the patent office to award this patent to Blue Origin, especially since, at the time it did so, SpaceX was clearly already doing this exact thing.

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Curiosity spots a spoon on Mars!

9:04 am

The spoon on Mars

Very cool image time! In one of Curiosity’s recent images of the Martian surface on the slopes of Mount Sharp appears what looks like a long thin spoon jutting horizontally out of the ground.

The shadow below the feature is strong evidence that that this almost certainly a real object, shaped exactly as we see it. However, it is not an artificially created spoon. If you look at both the full raw image as well as zoom in on the feature itself, you will see that it is something that formed naturally due to Mars’ low gravity and the geology here. The spoon is a thin prong of harder material that has remained intact as the ground below it has been slowly eroded away by the ever-present but very weak Martian wind. If you look close you can see that harder material extend back into the rock behind the spoon.

Some of that erosion might also have been caused by flowing water sometime in the past, but to confirm this will take additional geological research.

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SpaceX delays its next launch

8:41 am

SpaceX has decided to delay its next launch for several additional months as it continues its investigation into the June Falcon 9 launch failure.

The next mission on SpaceX’s launch calendar had been a U.S. government ocean-monitoring satellite called Jason 3, but Shotwell indicated that a commercial communications satellite would move to the front of the line. Luxembourg-based SES SA has a contract to fly on the first Falcon 9 rocket that features an upgraded first-stage engine. The upgrade will allow SpaceX to attempt to land its rockets back at the launch site from high-altitude missions so they can be refurbished and reused.

They had originally hoped to return to flight in September. This is now probably delayed until November. However, that their next flight will include the upgraded Merlin engine and it will be a commercial flight means they will once again likely try for a vertical landing of that first stage. Moreover, SES has already said that if the landing is successful it wants to buy that first stage for a future launch. SES hopes to save money this way, while also encouraging innovation in the launch market which it sees as a long term gain for putting its payloads into orbit.

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Russia accelerating development of Soyuz replacement

8:52 am

The competition heats up: The head of Energia, the Russian company that builds the Soyuz capsule, said this week at a space conference near Moscow that they are going to accelerate construction of a prototype of a next generation replacement, capable of launch four astronauts.

We have agreed with the engineers…. to reduce the time for construction and production of the first copy of this spaceship. Despite the fact that we have voiced and agreed on the first launch in 2021, we have set the task to build the prototype by 2019, and I think that we will succeed, ” Solntsev told reporters at the MAKS.

Take this with a grain of salt. Energia has proposed a number of different Soyuz replacements since 2000, none of which ever saw the light of day. At the same time, the situation in Russia has changed, and the government is now committed to financing a robust space program. Previously, Energia had to find private investment capital, which never arrived because, I think, investors did not trust the legal situation in Russia. They had no way of guaranteeing that they would own their shares. In fact, the recent take-over and consolidation of Russia’s entire aerospace industry by the government has proven those investor doubts entirely right.

At the same time, the increased competition in the launch industry and this government takeover might signal something real is finally going to happen.

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New Horizons team picks its next Kuiper Belt target

3:07 pm

The New Horizons science team has picked its next Kuiper Belt fly-by target beyond Pluto.

New Horizons will perform a series of four maneuvers in late October and early November to set its course toward 2014 MU69 – nicknamed “PT1” (for “Potential Target 1”) – which it expects to reach on January 1, 2019. Any delays from those dates would cost precious fuel and add mission risk. “2014 MU69 is a great choice because it is just the kind of ancient KBO, formed where it orbits now, that the Decadal Survey desired us to fly by,” said New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado. “Moreover, this KBO costs less fuel to reach [than other candidate targets], leaving more fuel for the flyby, for ancillary science, and greater fuel reserves to protect against the unforeseen.”

The press release includes some silly gobbly-gook about how the science team can’t announce this as its official target because they still have to write up a proposal to submit to NASA, which then must ponder their decision and decree it valid. We all know this is ridiculous. Will NASA sit and ponder and make them miss their target? I doubt it.

The fly-by itself will be really exciting, because this object will truly be the most unusual we will have ever gotten a close look at, as it has spent its entire existence far out in the dim reaches of the solar system.

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Comet 67P/C-G goes boom!

7:48 am

Outburst on Comet 67P/C-G

Cool image time! On August 22, just days after its closest approach to the sun, Rosetta caught the outburst, image above, from the larger lobe on Comet 67P/C-G.

The image scale is 28.6 m/pixel and the image measures 29.3 km across. Although the activity is extraordinarily bright even in the original (below), the image above has been lightly enhanced to give a better view of the outline of the nucleus in the lower part of the image, as well as to show the full extent of the activity.

The most interesting images, I think, will actually come later, when the activity dies down and they can bring Rosetta in closer again. We will then be able to compare the nucleus both before and after this outburst, getting a sense of how the comet changes with each close pass to the sun.

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