Tag: engineering

Vostochny’s past and future

10:22 am

Link here. The article provides an excellent overview of the problems at Vostochny as well as it future, even as the new Russian spaceport prepares for its first launch. Two key quotes:

During 2016, reports about mismanagement, non-payment of salaries and corruption persisted despite all the political scandals in 2015 and the Kremlin’s promises to resolve problems. In January, the Izvestiya daily reported the arrest of three leading engineers of the technical oversight directorate in Vostochny in a massive bribery investigation. Around the same time, the total amount of stolen federal funds from Spetsstroi was estimated at nearly 1.4 billion rubles, according to the Izvestiya.

However in February, a Moscow court ordered the release of former head of the Far-Eastern division of Spetsstroi, (known as Dalspetsstroi) Yuri Khrizman from prison to house arrest, apparently after prosecutors had failed to substantiate charges of unlawful spending of more than five billion rubles against him. Khrizman led construction at Vostochny until 2013 and, reportedly, had a reputation for excellence and integrity among his associates and subordinates. Since his arrest, at least one independent publication described the case against Khrizman as a misguided attempt to find a scapegoat in the hopelessly corrupt construction business. [emphasis mine]

And this:

[G]iven likely delays faced by new projects, Vostochny could see little use until the introduction of the launch pad for the Angara rockets, which was not expected until at least 2021.

Why does this all remind me so much of SLS and Orion? Both seem to be gigantic overpriced projects initiated by the government that are so expensive the government itself can’t afford to do much with them? At least in the U.S., we have one saving grace: the amount of corruption is significantly less.

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Falcon 9 first stage hoisted from barge

10:04 am

The competition heats up: The recovered first stage from last week’s Falcon 9 launch has been hoisted from the barge where it landed and is being prepared for testing prior to reuse.

The crane maneuvered the first stage on to a cradle, where ground crews were expected to complete procedures to “safe” the rocket — a process which includes draining the vehicle of its toxic igniter fluid, disarming of its pyrotechnic destruct system, and removal of propellants and high-pressure gases. Some of the safing procedures were accomplished at sea before the rocket booster, which also includes the “interstage” adapter to connect with the Falcon 9’s upper stage, arrived back on Florida’s Space Coast.

The rocket’s four landing legs will be removed or retracted, and then the booster will be rotated horizontal and loaded on a trailer for transport to a nearby SpaceX facility for inspections and a series of “static fire” engine tests.

The link has some good pictures of the operation and the stage.

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North Korea might have mobile ICBM capability

10:52 am

Does this make you feel safer? Satellite data suggests that North Korea might be preparing to test launch a mobile ICBM.

North Korea could launch either its Kn-08 or Kn-14 mobile ballistic missiles which would have a longer range and could potentially hit the Pacific Northwest of the United States. The Kn-14 is thought to be a more precise version of the Kn-08, and it is believed the regime showed it for the first time at a military parade in 2015, officials say.

…if the North were, for the first time, to launch a mobile missile with these types of ranges, it would be a significant military advance and a change in the North Korean calculus for the U.S., military officials say. In a conflict, mobile launchers can quickly shoot and move to a new position making it very difficult for satellites or spy planes to track them. It would also be a violation of U.N. resolutions banning North Korea from ballistic missile tests.

Well, why worry? Those U.N. resolutions will obviously prevent North Korea from doing anything. So will harsh words from Obama and his diplomats. Hasn’t that always worked?

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NOAA plans use of private weather data

9:56 am

The competition heats up: Mandated by Congress to use commercial weather data obtained from privately launched weather satellites, NOAA has announced its first plan for doing so.

The first Commercial Weather Data Pilot, or CWDP, will kick off this summer with a solicitation for GPS radio occultation data of the sort NOAA and Eumetsat have been using for years to improve weather forecasts. GPS radio occultation receivers that have flown on a handful of research satellites and the U.S.-Taiwanese COSMIC constellation obtain highly detailed temperature and humidity soundings by observing tiny distortions of U.S. Air Force GPS signals as they pass through the atmosphere. While the U.S. and Taiwan are preparing to replace the six original COSMIC satellites with the first six of 12 planned satellites slated to launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy perhaps late this year, meteorologists would like to see scores of additional GPS radio occultation satellites in orbit.

Several companies, including GeoOptics, PlanetiQ and Spire, have announced plans to address that demand by deploying constellations of dozens to hundreds of small satellites equipped with GPS radio occultation receivers. Spire launched its first four operational satellites last September.

If this goes as I hope, private companies will launch enough satellites to provide the data, at a far lower cost than NOAA spends to build and launch its own satellites, so that eventually it will not pay for the government to do it anymore. Just as private space is replacing NASA in supplying crew and cargo to ISS, private space can do the same for NOAA.

And like NASA initially, NOAA’s managers have been very reluctant to allow this to happen, as it will eventually take the business from them and give it to others. Since they, like NASA, can’t do it very efficiently, however, they can’t really argue their case very well, which is why Congress has been forcing their hand.

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Japanese Venus probe sends back first science data

9:26 am

In a triumph of engineering, the salvaged Japanese Venus probe Akatsuki has beamed back to Earth its first science data.

After an unplanned five-year detour, Japan’s Venus probe, Akatsuki, has come back to life with a bang. On 4–8 April, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) presented the first scientific results from the spacecraft since it was rescued from an errant orbit around the Sun and rerouted to circle Venus, four months ago. These include a detailed shot of streaked, acidic clouds and a mysterious moving ‘bow’ shape in the planet’s atmosphere.

Despite the probe’s tumble around the Solar System, its instruments are working “almost perfectly”, Akatsuki project manager Masato Nakamura, a planetary scientist at JAXA’s Institute of Space and Astronautical Science in Sagamihara, Japan, announced at the Inter­national Venus Conference in Oxford, UK. And if another small manoeuvre in two years’ time is successful, he said, the spacecraft might avoid Venus’s solar-power-draining shadow, and so be able to orbit the planet for five years, rather than the two it was initially assigned.

The timing is also good, since Akatsuki is now the only probe circling Venus, and will be for a number of years, until someone else approves, builds, and launches a mission.

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Orbital ATK to launch robotic servicing mission

9:22 am

The competition heats up: Orbital ATK has signed Intelsat to the first contract for a private robotic servicing mission to defunct commercial communications satellites.

Orbital ATK is offering the Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV), a spacecraft designed to rendezvous with a commercial satellite and dock to the nozzle of its apogee kick motor and surrounding adapter ring. The MEV would then take over propulsion and attitude control for the satellite, offering up to five years of extended life.

Intelsat has agreed to be the customer for the first MEV mission, named MEV-1 and scheduled for launch in 2018. MEV-1 will first dock with a retired satellite in a graveyard orbit above stationary orbit to test its systems, then dock with an active Intelsat satellite to extend its life for five years.

I like the concept. Unlike other much more complicated proposals, which propose to actually refuel the satellite’s original tank, this is simple, quick, and quite doable for relatively little developmental cost. Orbital ATK already as the technology to do the rendezvous, from its Cygnus freighter. All they need to refine is the specific technology to attach to the specific satellites.

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Aerojet Rocketdyne pitches its AR1 rocket engine to reporters

9:15 am

The competition heats up: At a space conference this week Aerojet Rocketdyne pitched its AR1 rocket engine, still under development, as the ideal replacement for the Russian engine in the Atlas 5.

The U.S. Air Force awarded Aerojet Rocketdyne a contract in February worth up to $534 million over five years to certify and start delivering flight-ready AR1 engines in 2019. Aerojet Rocketdyne says it already has kicked in $70 million, with its total investment expected to exceed $250 million over the life of the contract.

Van Kleeck, vice president of Aerojet Rocketdyne’s advanced space and launch business unit, said the Air Force contract — the largest of several propulsion-related awards the service has made in recent months — is a sign of the Air Force’s confidence in the AR1’s ability to provide an expedient replacement for the RD-180 engine the Defense Department is under pressure from Congress to stop using.

United Launch Alliance, however, has anointed Blue Origin’s methane-fueled BE-4 engine as the front runner to replace the RD-180 by serving as the main engine for the Denver company’s next-generation rocket Vulcan.

“The AR1 engine can fly both on an Atlas and Vulcan and it’s the only engine that can do so,” Van Kleeck said.

Aerojet has been losing business to the newer commercial space companies like Blue Origin, and desperately needs to find a customer for the AR1. In the long run the Air Force contract won’t suffice, as it really is no more than government corporate welfare and cannot sustain them as a company. This press conference was part of that effort.

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Swiss company buys jet for vomit-comet

9:06 am

The competition heats up: A Swiss company has purchased an Airbus wide-body jet for use as a commercial zero gravity vomit comet.

What makes this different than previous zero-g companies is that they plan to fly a lot of people for a reasonable amount of money.

Prices range from 2,700 Swiss francs ($2,826) for a seat in the “party zone” with up to 40 passengers to as high as 65,000 francs for the VIP Room, which will hold up to 12 passengers, who will also get a luxury watch and can keep their flight suit.

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Russian billionaire backs interstellar project

9:00 am

The competition heats up: A Russian billionaire has announced a $100 million investment in an effort to use lasers to propel cellphone-sized spacecraft on an interstellar voyage to Alpha Centauri.

Called Breakthrough Starshot, the programme is based on an idea that has been around for decades: the solar sail. The theory is that a lightweight space sail could harness the momentum carried by photons in order to travel without fuel.

The Breakthrough Starshot team is betting that a burst of concentrated lasers, fired from the ground, could rapidly accelerate a mobile-phone-sized device equipped with microelectronics and a tiny sail — providing much more energy than could be harnessed from the Sun. Whereas NASA’s plutonium-powered New Horizons spacecraft took nine years to reach Pluto, the “nanocraft” envisioned by Breakthrough Starshot would pass by the dwarf planet and exit the Solar System in three days.

The project’s initial US$100-million budget covers only research and development of such a spacecraft. But Breakthrough Starshot’s ultimate goal is to demonstrate proof of concept for an international programme that would send a fleet of nanocraft into space. Doing so would require the group to surmount enormous scientific and engineering challenges in developing the necessary laser technology, materials and communications systems.

This technology is related though not identical to an earlier story about using lasers to power spacecraft.

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April 12, 2016 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast

11:25 pm

Twenty minutes of fun, talking first about the new American space industry, about to burst out to settle the solar system, then followed with a segment on the increasingly sad state of the Russian space program, run by top-down centralized rule from Moscow, with a failing economy that is very strapped for cash. The embed of the podcast is below the fold.

» Read more

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Falcon 9 first stage returns to port

8:34 am

The competition heats up: The recovered first stage of last week’s Falcon 9 launch has returned to port, and is being prepared for tests and eventual reflight.

The Falcon 9’s destination is unconfirmed, but SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk said Friday the rocket’s first stage will likely go to launch pad 39A — a former shuttle launch facility now leased by SpaceX — for a series of engine firings to verify its flight readiness.

The objective: Fly the first stage booster again, perhaps as soon as June. “We’re going to do a series of test fires,” Musk told reporters after Friday’s launch. “We’re hoping to do that at the Cape, rather than transport it to Texas (SpaceX’s rocket test facility), and then bring it back. Our plan is to basically fire it 10 times in a row on the ground. If things look good at that point, then it’s qualified for reuse and launch. We’re hoping to re-launch on an orbital mission in … June.”

SpaceX already has one customer, satellite-maker SES, quite eager to pay the discounted price to fly one of its satellites on this booster.

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ULA to launch two Bigelow space station modules

8:22 am

The competition heats up: ULA and Bigelow Aerospace have announced a partnership to launch two of Bigelow’s largest space station modules, each with about as much interior space as both Skylab and Mir.

Both will be ready for launch by 2020. Neither company has made clear if they have any outside investment, though they left open the option of working with NASA and having the modules attached to ISS.

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Dragon arrives at ISS

9:06 am

The competition heats up: SpaceX’s Dragon capsule has been berthed with ISS, bringing with it Bigelow’s privately built inflatable test module.

This berthing also makes it the first time the two American cargo freighters, Dragon and Cygnus, are docked at ISS at the same time.

In a related non-news story, the head of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, which now controls that country’s entire aerospace industry, claimed in a television interview today that Russia is the world’s “undisputed leader … in launch vehicles and launch services,” noting that they launch about 40% of all launches worldwide.

That’s nice for him to say, but just because you say it doesn’t make it so. I expect that 40% number (which includes all Russian government launches and is thus inflated from their actual market share) to shrink considerably in the coming years, as the Russian space industry has shown a complete inability to innovate in the last twenty years. With the consolidation of that industry into a single corporation all run by the government, I do not expect that inability to go away anytime soon.

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Video of Falcon 9 first stage barge landing

10:57 am

This is so incredible to watch that I must post it on the webpage. I think I’ve already seen it a dozen times, and still cannot get over how the rocket, coming in fast and on an angle, rights itself, lands, bounces slightly, and then settles upright into place.

The future here is rushing up on us, fast, in the best way possible.

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Next Atlas 5 launch delayed indefinitely

9:33 am

In the heat of competition: Because of the continuing investigation into the launch issue during its last launch, ULA has now extended the delay of the next launch of its Atlas 5 from one week to an indefinite delay.

The report at the link is very brief, and it also does not give a source. I was not able to find any other reports of this story after doing a web search as well as a search of ULA’s website, so it remains unconfirmed. Nonetheless, I suspect it is real, suggesting the company has uncovered some unexpected issue with the Atlas 5 that now requires more serious action that is going to take time. Stay tuned.

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