Comet 67P on July 28
On the left is today’s Rosetta image of Comet 67P. If you compare it with yesterday’s image, it is larger, as the spacecraft has now edged closer, only 1,390 miles away.
Tag: spaceflight
Opportunity breaks Soviet record
With a drive of 157 feet yesterday, the Mars rover Opportunity broke the Soviet record, set by Lunokhod 2 in 1973, for the longest distance traveled by a vehicle on another planet.
Will Russia’s most powerful rocket engine be reborn?
The competition heats up? The original builders of the hydrogen-oxygen engine that launched the Soviet Union’s most powerful rocket, Energia, are pushing to restart production of that engine.
By 2013, the KBKhA design bureau, which developed the original RD-0120 engine, declared its restoration as one of several high-priority projects. According to a schedule developed by KBKhA in coordination with its manufacturing arm — the Voronezh Mechanical Plant — the RD-0120 could be brought back to production in six years, given adequate funding.
The final decision on the restoration of the RD-0120 would depend on the approved architecture of the super-heavy rocket, whose development was included into the latest draft of the Federal Space Program from 2016 to 2025. Plans to restore RD-0120 had its critics, who believed that a new investment into the hydrogen propulsion technology would be too costly and risky for the Russian rocket industry. A recent analysis of prospective super-heavy rocket designs by RKTs Progress, the developer of the Soyuz rocket, favored methane and solid propellants over the liquid hydrogen. At the same time, an alternative proposal from RKK Energia, the Russia’s chief manned space flight contractor, featured the RD-0120 engine on the third stage of the super-heavy Energia-KV rocket, industry sources said.
I’m not sure if it will be economically wise for Russia to focus their energies on this engine, or on a super-heavy rocket. Like NASA’s SLS, such projects look great for politicians and provide a lot of pork, but they generally are too expensive to accomplish very much.
SpaceX launch schedule heats up
A close look at SpaceX’s launch schedule through the rest of 2014 calls for six Falcon 9 launches, including two before the end of August.
If the company is successfully in maintaining this schedule, they will end any doubts about their ability to transform the launch industry. Every other launch company will have to match their prices, or lose their customers.
One paragraph in the article does tell us that there are limits to the re-usability of the Falcon 9 first stage, even if they do succeed in bringing it back safely to a vertical landing on land.
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Commercial communications satellites for Mars?
The competition heats up? NASA is considering a different commercial approach for providing communications to and from its Mars probes.
The purpose of NASA’s request for information, or RFI, released July 23 “is to explore new business models for how NASA might sustain Mars relay infrastructure, consisting of orbiters capable of providing standardized telecommunication services for rovers and landers on the Martian surface, in the Martian atmosphere, or in Mars orbit,” according to a posting on the Federal Business Opportunities website.
According to the post, NASA will use information it receives from respondents to inform its future Mars exploration strategies, but the agency has not decided to pursue a commercial interplanetary telecom initiative. “We are looking to broaden participation in the exploration of Mars to include new models for government and commercial partnerships,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA’s science mission directorate, in a statement. “Depending on the outcome, the new model could be a vital component in future science missions and the path for humans to Mars.” [emphasis mine]
It is important to highlight the fact that NASA has not yet made a decision on this issue. The best thing the agency could do, in my opinion, would be to step back, design nothing, but let private companies bid on providing the service. The expertise at many of the private satellite companies providing communications efficiently and inexpensively to private customers worldwide would easily provide NASA better communications at Mars for less money.
In other words, like manned flight and cargo delivery to ISS, NASA should simply become a customer, and let private companies build and own the products that NASA buys.
Russia regains control of biology satellite
Russian engineers have re-established contact with its Photon-M biology spacecraft carrying fruit flies, mushrooms, and five geckos.
SpaceX scores first in its suit against the Air Force
A federal judge has denied the motion of the Air Force and ULA to dismiss SpaceX’s suit against their block buy launch contract that excludes competition from any other company.
The judge also required the parties go to mediation to settle their differences. Both rulings give added weight to SpaceX’s main complaint, that the company as well as others should have the right to compete for this Air Force launch work.
Protecting the Mars orbiters from comet flyby
Engineers are repositioning the American spacecraft orbiting Mars so that they will be better protected by the planet when Comet Siding Spring flies past on October 19.
The comet’s nucleus will miss Mars by about 82,000 miles (132,000 kilometers), shedding material hurtling at about 35 miles (56 kilometers) per second, relative to Mars and Mars-orbiting spacecraft. At that velocity, even the smallest particle — estimated to be about one-fiftieth of an inch (half a millimeter) across — could cause significant damage to a spacecraft.
NASA currently operates two Mars orbiters, with a third on its way and expected to arrive in Martian orbit just a month before the comet flyby. Teams operating the orbiters plan to have all spacecraft positioned on the opposite side of the Red Planet when the comet is most likely to pass by.
Sierra Nevada signs deal with Japan
The competition heats up: Japan has signed a development agreement with Sierra Nevada in connection with its Dream Chaser manned spacecraft.
I was also tempted to preface this post with the phrase, “Who needs NASA?” Sierra Nevada has a viable product that can get humans into space cheaply. Several countries, Germany, now Japan, want to get their own citizens into space, and have realized what a bargain Dream Chaser is. Sierra Nevada is taking advantage of this demand to sell its product worldwide. If Congress decides to defund them, or NASA decides not to pick them to continue development, they very clearly intend to build the ship anyway. It just won’t be used to put American astronauts into space.
Falcon 9 soft lands on water
SpaceX claimed in a press release on Tuesday that it had successfully completed a soft splashdown of the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket in its launch earlier this month.
Video below the fold. The quality is not great because of a buildup of ice on the camera, but it does show they were able to restart the engines twice after separation. It also shows the landing legs deploy just before the stage hovers above the water.
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Was Yutu stopped by rough ground?
One of the designers of the Chinese lunar rover Yutu said in a news interview today that the rocky nature of the Moon’s surface, far rougher than expected, was what caused it to stall.
The rover was tested in Beijing, Shanghai and the desert in northwestern China before its launch, but the terrain of the landing site proved to be much more rugged than expected, said Zhang Yuhua, deputy chief designer of the lunar probe system for the Chang’e-3 mission. “It is almost like a gravel field.”
Data from foreign researchers projected that there would be four stones, each above 20 cm, on average every 100 square meters, but the quantity and size of the stones that Yutu has encountered has far exceeded this expectation, Zhang said in an exclusive interview with Xinhua. “Experts’ initial judgement for the abnormality of Yutu was that the rover was ‘wounded’ by colliding with stones while moving,” she said. [emphasis mine]
The implication of the highlighted quote is that it isn’t their fault, it was the fault of those evil Americans and Russians who incorrectly estimated the roughness of the ground. This article also doesn’t fit the information released when Yutu first stalled, where they explained that their problem was partly an inability to retract equipment in preparation for lunar night. While this story could be true, it isn’t the whole story.
Looking Forward
In the past week there must have been a hundred stories written celebrating the 45th anniversary of Apollo 11. Here’s just a small sampling:
- Moon landing 45 years ago brought us together
- 45th Anniversary of The Flight of the Eagle
- The excitement of Apollo 11 lingers in Pensacola area
- Apollo 11 anniversary: The day America landed on the moon
- From the Earth to the Moon to the Earth
- ‘ONE GIANT LEAP’ Apollo 11’s historic trip to the moon marks its 45th anniversary
These articles try to cover the topic from all angles. Some looked at the wonders of the achievement. Others extolled the newspaper’s local community and their contribution. Some used the event to demand the U.S. do it again.
None of this interests me much. Though I passionately want humans, preferable Americans, back on the Moon exploring and settling it, this fetish with celebrating Apollo is to me becoming quite tiresome.
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