An ISS built from matchsticks!
The competition heats up? As part of an exhibition in Houston a man has built a scale model version of the International Space Station, made entirely of matchsticks.
Tag: ISS
Orbital ATK announces date of next Antares launch
Orbital ATK announced on Thursday that it plans to make the first launch of its redesigned Antares rocket in March 2016.
It will carry a Cygnus capsule to ISS.
Spacewalk on Saturday will begin ISS reconfiguration for private manned capsules
The first of a series of spacewalks to reconfigure ISS for the future arrival of commercial manned ferries was delayed by one day on Thursday to give engineers extra time to prepare.
The spacewalk is now set for Saturday.
Europe’s last ATV leaves ISS
Europe’s last ATV cargo freighter for ISS left the station and burned up over the Pacific Ocean this past weekend.
Because of a technical problem on the ATV, a camera designed to record what happened inside the freighter as it burned up during re-entry was removed prior to undocking so that it could be used instead during a later re-entry.
Meanwhile, instead of supplying ISS with cargo, Europe has decided to meet its contribution to ISS by building the service module for NASA’s Orion/SLS program, which has no plans to ever go to ISS. Note, however, that Europe has also not committed to building more than two service modules, so how Orion/SLS will go beyond Earth orbit after these two modules have been launched remains a mystery.
If you are scratching your head at all this, you are not alone. To me, this one decision alone illustrates quite neatly the utter stupidity of big government-run programs.
Dragon returns to Earth safely
After 29 days in space, Dragon returned safely to Earth today, splashing down in the Pacific.
Busy day for SpaceX
Today will be a busy day for SpaceX, as the commercial space company will have to handle the return of Dragon, the launch of soalr satellite DSCOVR on a Falcon 9, and the hoped for vertical landing of that rocket’s first stage on a floating barge.
Getting ready for the first Dragon launch abort test
The competition heats up: SpaceX is finishing up its final preparations for the first launch abort test of its Dragon capsule, set to occur soon after it completes to commercial Falcon 9 launches in February.
Threatened water shortage on ISS
The crash of Antares and its Cygnus capsule in October has caused the possibility of a water shortage on ISS.
NASA had planned to certify Cygnus to carry water to the space station in early 2015; there were no plans for certifying SpaceX’s Dragon cargo ship to do the same. Orbital plans to launch its next Cygnus aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, but that flight is not scheduled until Nov. 19.
Meanwhile, ESA has ended flights of its ATV cargo ship, which was certified to carry water. With the ATV program over and Cygnus off-line, the space station was left with two vehicles capable of carrying water, the Russian Progress and Japanese HTV.
HTV flights are now limited to once per year; the next one is planned for August 17, just over two weeks before ISS would run out of water on Sept. 2 unless it was resupplied by other vehicles. The schedule provided very little margin for error, ASAP said.
Essentially, if either a Progress or Dragon capsule does not bring additional water to the station before August, and the HTV flight fails or is delayed by more than two weeks, the station will run out of water in early September, requiring its evacuation.
Sarah Brightman’s first day of astronaut training
The competition heats up: A press conference in Russia highlighted the first day of astronaut training for space tourist Sarah Brightman.
A ten minute video excerpt of the conference is below the fold. The most interesting part of the video, however, has nothing to do with Brightman. Instead, it was what was said by her back-up space tourist, Satoshi Takamatus. Since the age of six he had wanted to be an astronaut. At 22 however Japan’s space agency rejected him because he wore glasses or contacts. He then became an advertising executive who in 2001 arranged to shoot a commercial on ISS using Russian astronauts. While in Russia, he apparently met the right people and, using those contacts, has now come back at 53 as a paying customer. If Brightman has any issues that prevent her from flying, he will step up and replace her. If not, he is tentatively scheduled to fly himself in ’17 or ’18.
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NASA explains why it picked Boeing over Sierra Nevada
In a report released by NASA late last week, the agency outlined the reasons it picked Boeing’s CST-100 manned capsule over Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser mini-shuttle for the second contract to provide manned ferry capabilities to ISS.
Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser spacecraft, which would take off on top of a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket and land on a runway like the space shuttle, is not as far along in development as the competing CST-100 and Crew Dragon capsules proposed by Boeing and SpaceX, according to a source selection statement signed by Bill Gerstenmaier, head of NASA’s human exploration and operations directorate. “A winged spacecraft is a more complex design and thus entails more developmental and certification challenges, and therefore may have more technical and schedule risk than expected,” Gerstenmaier wrote in the selection statement.
NASA wants to have the commercial crew capsules operational by the end of 2017 to end U.S. purchases of astronaut seats on Russia’s Soyuz ferry craft. Before NASA permits its astronauts to fly on the CST-100 and Crew Dragon, each spaceship will go through ground testing and complete unpiloted and crewed test flights.
The reasoning seems quite reasonable. It also suggests that Sierra Nevada might have a better shot at winning a contract during the next round for cargo, as scheduling will not be as critical since NASA has other alternatives to get cargo to ISS.
Head cold delays the start of Sarah Brightman’s space training
Though she is now in Russia, Sarah Brightman has delayed the start of her astronaut training by one week due to the onset of a head cold.
Update: Russian officials now say it was a family illness, not a head cold, that forced this delay.
High Russia space official shoots down idea of new Russian space station
Sergei Savelyev, deputy director of Russian space agency Roscosmos, dismissed the idea that Russia might leave the ISS partnership to build its own independent space station.
“Theoretically it is possible to create a new Russian space station, but neither the current nor future drafts of the federal space program [through 2025] touch on this subject, and any [hypothetical] implementation could be tied in with the continued operation of the ISS,” [he said]…
Savelyev added that he anticipates Russia will continue to use the ISS beyond 2020, but that its focus will shift toward cooperating with China on Beijing’s own space stations — a small station is already in orbit, and a second larger one is set to be operational around 2020 — and aboard the Russian segment of the ISS.
I think the Russians know that it would be foolish to abandon their partnership on ISS, at least not for a few more years. For at least another decade it is going to be the best thing they’ve got in space.