The competition heats up: Boeing has unveiled a design to put small satellites into orbit for as little as $300,000 per launch.
SpaceX is set to begin the countdown tonight for a 3:44 am (Eastern) May 22nd launch of Falcon 9/Dragon.
An evening pause: Bridge Day 2011: An 800+ foot rappel from the New River Gorge Bridge in West Virginia. The event is held each fall, when they close the bridge to vehicles so pedestrians, base jumpers, and rappellers can enjoy it. I’ve done this rappel four times, twice as part of the safety team.
On the clip below, the rappel itself begins at 3:40. As this was this guy’s first rappel on the bridge, he takes it very slow, which is okay as it gives him time to enjoy the view.
An evening pause: A different kind of bridge, located in Russia and one that I wouldn’t speed across. Built originally as a railroad bridge to cross the Vitim River, it is 1870 feet long and about 50 feet above the water. Note how many of the cross planks are not attached.
In an email update, SpaceX reports that they have found the cause of the Falcon 9 launch abort this morning.
During rigorous inspections of the engine, SpaceX engineers discovered a faulty check valve on the Merlin engine. We are now in the process of replacing the failed valve. Those repairs should be complete tonight. We will continue to review data on Sunday. If things look good, we will be ready to attempt to launch on Tuesday, May 22nd at 3:44 AM Eastern.
If this is true, than this entire exercise is an unqualified success and illustrates a certain robustness to SpaceX’s engineering on Falcon 9. Their control computer during the launch process spotted the problem before it caused a complete loss of the vehicle and payload. They can now locate the problem, fix it, and proceed with launch.
Last night Falcon 9’s computers shut the launch down at T minus zero seconds after sensing a high chamber pressure in one first stage engine.
Two thoughts, one good, one not so good.
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No go: Falcon 9 aborted its launch tonight at 4:55 am (Eastern) at T minus zero seconds.
Just after ignition there was a shutdown. They were able to make the vehicle safe, and are trying to figure out what happened. It appears there was a high pressure reading in one engine.
The next opportunity to launch is three days hence, though whether they will go for it then depends on whether they can figure out what caused the shutdown.
Update: More details here.
The competition heats up: WhiteKnightTwo made its 80th flight yesterday.
Falcon 9 is now upright on launchpad for tomorrow morning’s 4:55 am (Eastern) launch. For continual updates, go here.
The competition heats up: Japan today launched its first commercial satellite.
What might have been: “The Eagle has crashed.”
Building a spaceship engine fueled by antimatter.
Hitching a ride: The Russians last night launched a new crew to ISS.
Next up: the launch of Falcon 9/Dragon on Saturday.
Another Obama tech wonder company dies: LightSquared has filed for bankruptcy.
From the beginning engineers were saying that LightSquared’s system would interfere with GPS. The only reason the company lasted as long as it did was because it had the political backing of the Obama administration. And the reason it had that backing is because the company’s CEO was a big supporter of Obama.
Senator Bill Nelson (D-Florida) on Monday attacked the House version of NASA’s budget that required the agency to make a quick decision on its commercial manned launch company.
Nelson faces a difficult election campaign from the right. Thus, I suspect he has realized that he is better off promoting free enterprise than local pork. It is unfortunate that the Republicans in the House haven’t yet realized this.
Competition wins again: Faced with high prices and a near monopoly by China, the mining of rare Earth metals is once again rising worldwide.
How the predictions for the year 2000 changed throughout the 20th century.
Not surprisingly, Arthur Clarke’s predictions were generally the best.
If you build it they will come: An engineer has proposed using the USS Enterprise from Star Trek as a model for building an interplanetary spaceship for exploring the solar system.
Though similar in scale and appearance to the USS Enterprise (“it ends up that this ship configuration is quite functional,” Dan writes), the “Gen1 Enterprise” would be functionally very different. Firstly, the main nuclear-powered ion engine (boasting 1.5 GW of power) would strictly limit the Enterprise to intra-solar system missions, being incapable of anything approaching faster-than-light speeds. However, Dan claims that the Gen1 would be capable of reaching Mars from Earth within ninety days, and reaching the Moon in three.
The website is Build the Enterprise.
The competition heats up: The assembly of the first test vehicle of XCOR Aerospace’s Lynx suborbital craft has begun.
I will admit to great deal of skepticism about this particular space company. Somehow XCOR always manages to get a great deal of coverage in the space community press, despite what I see as lack of any actual space-related results.
I could be wrong however, and if so, I will be the first to celebrate. This article suggests they might finally start test flights by the end of this year.
SpaceShipTwo to resume flight tests in June after a nine month hiatus.
The long pause in flight tests, as well as the apparent delays in flying the ship with its rocket engine, suggest that there have been engineering issues with the ship and engine that Scaled Composites hasn’t revealed. Hopefully the resumption of testing is an indication that these issues have been overcome.
From the Dawn science team: The battered failed planet Vesta.
The results confirm Vesta as the source of a specific family of asteroids, but more interestingly also identify the actual impact that peeled these asteroids from Vesta’s surface.
Read the whole thing, Dawn has found a lot of interesting stuff.
The competition heats up: Bigelow and SpaceX announced today that they are teaming up to offer manned flights to space.
Republican space socialism update.
Simberg summarizes well the foolishness coming from Congress when it comes to budgeting NASA and commercial space.
The competition heats up: Sierra Nevada outlines its test flight plans for Dream Chaser, its reusable manned mini-shuttle.
Winter on Mars has finally ended, and Opportunity is on the move again.
The competition continues to heat up: ATK today announced that it is building its own manned capsule for its Liberty launch system.
The capsule’s first two flights are scheduled in 2014, both abort tests, followed in 2015 by an orbital flight and, finally, a crewed orbital flight. The spacecraft is designed for ten flights each, and ATK plans to build a minimum of four capsules. All flights will be launched by the Liberty launcher, and ATK is not actively exploring adapting the capsule for other [launch vehicles].
Liberty is based on the upgraded shuttle solid rocket boosters that were developed for the Ares rocket, now cancelled.
