Tag: engineering

Lockheed plans test flight of Orion capsule

9:34 am

The space war continues. Lockheed is now planning a test flight of Orion capsule in 2013. The flight would occur, not on an Ares rocket, but on a Delta IV Heavy. More here.

Specifics of the proposed test flight haven’t been reported before. But those plans may run into flak as Republican lawmakers take control of House committees and subcommittees that oversee NASA, according to industry officials, including competitors, critical of Lockheed Martin’s efforts.

At least some of the incoming Republican panel chairmen and other senior GOP lawmakers, these officials said, may view the proposed test flight as circumventing congressional language to quickly develop a new heavy-lift NASA rocket able to transport astronauts past low-earth orbit. Congress has adopted language strongly favoring space-shuttle derived rockets for this purpose, rather than a version of the Delta IV. The Delta IV is operated by a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing Co.

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Discovery’s launch delayed until December 17 at the earliest

9:03 pm

Discovery’s launch delayed until December 17 at the earliest. Key quote:

Shannon said that one of the concerns was that another major crack might liberate a piece of insulating foam large enough to damage Discovery, as happened during the January 2003 liftoff of Columbia. A suitcase-sized chunk of foam punched a hole in Columbia’s wing, dooming the ship and her crew of seven astronauts when they reentered the atmosphere.

Shannon said that teams were also examining the possibility that the tanks have been flying with undetected cracks for years.

Cracks became more common after the 1998 debut of “super-lightweight” tanks built with a more brittle aluminum-lithium alloy. Since then, 29 cracks in stringers making up the ribbed “intertank” section that separates liquid hydrogen and oxygen tanks have been found and repaired in 18 tanks, including Discovery’s and a tank scheduled for use by the shuttle Atlantis next summer.

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A snowstorm in space

4:13 pm

Almost literally, the probe Deep Impact flew through a snowstorm when it flew past Comet Hartley 2 on November 4. Below is one of the best pictures from the moment. More images can be found here. Key quote:

[The images] revealed a cometary snow storm created by carbon dioxide jets spewing out tons of golf-ball to basketball-sized fluffy ice particles from the peanut-shaped comet’s rocky ends. At the same time, a different process was causing water vapor to escape from the comet’s smooth mid-section. This information sheds new light on the nature of comets and even planets.

Comet Hartley 2

Note that all the close-up images taken by Deep Impact are going to be slightly out of focus, as the camera was launched with a defect.

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