Embedded below the fold. I spent a large portion of the podcast talking about the medical problems caused by long-term weightlessness, and how it might limit our ability to send humans to other planets. We also touched on the possible consequences to space policy should Donald Trump pick Newt Gingrich as his VP.
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The competition heats up: Rocket Lab has signed a three launch contract with the smallsat Earth resources satellite company Planet (formerly Planet Labs).
The contract covers three dedicated launches of Dove satellites built by San Francisco-based Planet, formerly known as Planet Labs, on Electron vehicles. The companies did not announce terms of the deal, although Rocket Lab quotes a list price of $4.9 million per Electron launch on its website.
Mike Safyan, director of launch and regulatory affairs for Planet, said in an interview during the International Space Station Research and Development Conference here that the number of satellites that each launch will carry is still being determined, but will likely be between 20 and 25. Each Dove is a three-unit cubesat with a mass of about five kilograms.
If this report as well as previous ones are correct, the first Electron rocket launch will happen before the end of this year.
According to this report, the American-built toilet on the U.S. part of ISS has broken down.
The story has few details, and is based on anonymous sources. Nonetheless, I suspect it is true, as the American toilet has had problems in the past, was originally designed for easy transport up and down from ISS on the space shuttle, and is thus difficult to repair in space.
New research might have discovered engineering that could significantly increase the efficiency of the batteries we use.
This is where Mya Le Thaiโs magic gel comes in. Typically, a Lithium Ion battery can go through between 5000 and 7000 recharge cycles before it dies and will also gradually lose its energy storage capacity over time. When researchers applied Thaiโs plexiglass-like gel to gold nanowires in a manganese dioxiode shell, it increased that number to over 200,000 and the battery didnโt lose any of its power or storage capacity over a period of three months.
The Juno science team have released the first image since the spacecraft entered orbit around Jupiter. I have posted a cropped version on the right, showing only the moon Io. The full image shows Europa and Ganymede as well.
The image was taken from almost 3 million miles away, which accounts for its fuzziness. Expect much better pictures when the spacecraft dips down close in late August.
The competition heats up: China today launched the seventh in its fleet of ground-to-space communication ships.
The growth in this fleet is another signal that China intends to ramp up its manned space program.
The competition heats up: Even as it prepares to complete the last milestone in its NASA contract for developing a manned version of Dream Chaser, Sierra Nevada has just completed the first milestone on its contract to build a cargo version of the reusable lifting body spaceplane.
Though Sierra Nevada did not win a contract to build the manned Dream Chaser, it did have a development contract with NASA that called for one more glide flight test, a test the company had until now decided not to fly because the cost would exceed the milestone payment. This changed however after they won a cargo contract, as the flight will provide important test data for building the cargo version.
Meanwhile, the company’s plan for building the cargo vehicle has been approved by NASA, thus rewarding them their first milestone on that contract, with the following schedule:
Per current schedule goals, Mr. Olson added the inaugural Dream Chaser cargo flight to ISS is aiming for a launch โ on the United Launch Alliance Atlas V โ as early as October 2019, or as late as April 2020. The company is aiming to build two Dream Chasers, able to fly a total of 30 times over a 10 year lifetime.
Once built and successfully flying, they also plan to move forward on developing the manned version, both for NASA and for others.
A little more than a week after it went into safe mode Curiosity today resumed full operations.
This article provides an excellent review of the vision problems caused by long term exposure to weightlessness, including the efforts to study the problem on Earth.
Bottom line:
Before a human trip to Mars โ a journey of six-to-nine months that NASA says it wants to achieve by the 2030s โ researchers agree that VIIP [the name given to this problem] must be understood much better. VIIP could be the first sign of greater dangers to the human body from microgravity. โWeโre seeing the visual and neural, ophthalmic manifestations of it,โ Barratt said. โIโm fairly certain this is a bit more global than that.โ
Richard Williams, the chief health and medical officer at NASA, agrees that what we do not know about VIIP still poses the biggest threat. Ironically, one of the only ways to get more knowledge is spend more time in microgravity. โThe longer we stay in space, the more weโre going to learn,โ Williams said.
After completing ground tests and captured flight tests this year, Virgin Galactic now plans to begin flight tests of its new SpaceShipTwo, dubbed Unity, in 2017.
I’ll believe it when I see it.
The upgraded Soyuz-MS capsule successfully docked to ISS last night, bring a new crew to the station.
by James Stephens
Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) is intended to be a modern alternative to BIOS. Ideally UEFI-(Secure Boot) blocks malware from being loaded when the computer is booted by using digital keys which software must possess in order to be booted onto the computer. UEFI supplants the traditional BIOS and it’s post screen, appreciably shortening boot times but sometimes adding a few more steps to set up a computer to boot into Linux. If necessary UEFI-(Secure Boot) may be disabled to allow access to the BIOS and the booting of non-UEFI complaint operating systems, such as 32 bit Linux or legacy Windows, and set up the computer to boot into Linux as I described in the previous post. But I recommend using UEFI if at all possible.
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A Navy communications satellite launched two weeks ago by a ULA Atlas 5 rocket is having trouble reaching its planned geosynchronous orbit.
From that highly elliptical preliminary orbit, the Lockheed Martin-built satellite would perform 7 firings of its Liquid Apogee Engine to raise the low point to circularize the orbit and reduce its orbital tilt closer to the equator.
But after an unspecified number of burns were completed, the trip to geosynchronous orbit was stopped, the Navy said in response to questions submitted by Spaceflight Now. โThe satellite experienced an anomaly that required the transfer maneuver to be temporarily halted,โ the Navy says. โThe Navyโs Program Executive Office for Space Systems has reconfigured the satellite from orbital transfer into a stabilized, safe intermediate orbit to allow the MUOS team to evaluate the situation and determine options for proceeding.โ
This article provides a detailed look at the planned 2018 first launch of SLS, describing step-by-step the launch process that will send an unmanned Orion capsule toward the Moon.
As my readers know, I am not a fan of SLS. I consider it an incredible waste of money that will never accomplish anything. Nonetheless, that first launch will be a cool thing to watch, as the rocket will generate comparable energy as the Saturn 5.
The Juno engineering team has begun turning the spacecraft’s instruments back on following its Jupiter orbital insertion.
Everything looks fine. The next important engine burn on October 19 will shrink the orbit from 53 days to 14 days. In the meantime the present orbit will dip down close to Jupiter on August 27. Expect some news on September 1.
The competition heats up: A new report estimates the market for small satellites will exceed $22 billion in the next decade.
According to Euroconsultโs latest report, Prospects for the Small Satellite Market, we are on the cusp of a major revolution for the space sector and overall space ecosystem, as more than 3,600 smallsats are expected to be launched over the next ten years, a significant increase from the previous decade. The total market value of these satellites is anticipated to be $22 billion (manufacture and launch), a 76% increase over that of 2006-2015. This rate of growth is unprecedented for the space sector and will bring about fundamental changes as both new and established industry players attempt to increase their capabilities in order to gain market share.
What I expect is a splitting of the space industry, with unmanned smallsats launched by smaller rockets on one hand and big spaceships and payloads launched by big rockets on the other hand. In both cases, the competition will likely force prices down, so that more customers will find space affordable.
An evening pause: The robots shown in this video are almost frighteningly good at what they do, which might be one of the many reasons Google is apparently trying to sell the company.
Hat tip Tim Vogel.
Cool image time! Prior to going into safe mode Curiosity’s mast camera took a series of images of its surroundings, as is routine as the rover travels. Among those images was the image above, though I have cropped it and reduced its resolution to show here. It reveals a balanced rock on the horizon. It also shows, as do the other survey images, how increasingly rough the terrain is becoming that Curiosity is traveling through.
The Curiosity science team has no intention of getting too close to this rough terrain, but they do hope to get better views of this rock as they continue the rover’s journey uphill.
The competition heats up: An upgraded manned capsule, dubbed Soyuz-MS, successfully reached orbit today, carrying a new three person crew to ISS.
As part of the vehicle’s checkout during its first manned flight they have decided to fly it on the older two-day rendezvous approach rather than the fast six hour route.
For the first time in three years, Curiosity has entered safe mode.
On July 2, Mars rover Curiosity ceased science operations on the slopes of Mount Sharp after a fail safe was tripped, forcing the nuclear-powered robot into a low-power “safe mode.” According to a NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory report, preliminary information communicated by Curiosity suggests an “unexpected mismatch between camera software and data-processing software in the main computer” may have been the culprit and the rover’s automated systems took over, preventing any permanent damage from being caused.
They are in communications with the rover, and expect a full recovery.
