Scientists have developed a bacterium that can brew high energy rocket fuel.
There are issues still that need to be solved before these bugs will be creating fuel for astronauts in space, but the process is promising, especially since it could significantly lower the cost of rocket fuel if they get it to work.
NASA has extended its commercial cargo contracts with SpaceX and Orbital Sciences until 2017.
Since the notice says that “the modifications would be made ‘at no cost’ to the agency, and that they would be “executed one year at a time,” the extension is probably just designed to give the two companies sufficient time to launch all their cargo missions in the present contracts.
Nonetheless, the posting also said that other companies could compete for NASA’s business during this extension, which leaves the door open for more competition.
The competition heats up: SpaceX has test fired its Grasshopper replacement test vehicle.
Unlike Grasshopper, which only had one engine, the Falcon 9R (pronounced “niner”) is the equivalent of a Falcon 9 nine engine first stage. They fired it on the launchpad for 5 seconds in preparation for future vehicle take off and landing tests.
SpaceShipTwo is outside its hanger today, undergoing cockpit pressure tests.
The article also provides some additional information about the rumored engine issues of the spacecraft, suggesting that the company is working hard to replace its nitrous oxide-rubber engine with a nitrous oxide-nylon engine.
The competition heats up: Orbital Sciences has begun construction of the 81satellites that will make up Iridium’s second generation communications satellite constellation.
Not only is this big business for satellite construction — 81 satellites is a big order — someone will have to launch those satellites. Even if they are launched in groups of five, which was how it was done for the first generation, it will still take more than 16 launches to get them all in orbit. That will be a lot of business for some lucky rocket company.
The Air Force’s X-37B mini-shuttle presently in orbit has now set a new record for the spacecraft’s longest flight.
The X-37B space plane currently in orbit in flying the Orbital Test Vehicle 3 (OTV-3) mission, the third long-duration flight of the unmanned Air Force spaceflight program. The miniature space shuttle launched on Dec. 11, 2012 and is surpassed the record for longest X-37B spaceflight on Wednesday (March 26). Until now, the record for the longest X-37B mission is 469 days, set by the program’s OTV-2 mission that was launched in 2011.
The OTV-3 mission in orbit today now uses the first of the Air Force’s two X-37B space plane vehicles. The same spacecraft was used to fly the first-ever X-37B mission (the 225-day OTV-1 flight in 2010), while a second vehicle flew the longer OTV-2 mission a year later.
After a two day delay because of an aborted engine burn, a Soyuz spacecraft docked last night with ISS, bringing its next crew of three to the station.
Rosetta has taken its first picture of its target comet since coming out of hibernation.
The comet, 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, is only a dot now, but will look far more interesting when Rosetta goes into orbit around it in August.
A fire at a radar site used by the Air Force to track rockets lifting off at the Kennedy Space Center has delayed all launches there, including SpaceX’s next Falcon 9 flight.
Initially the Air Force thought they could make repairs relatively quick, but now think it could take as long as 45 days. No new launch date for the Falcon 9/Dragon flight as yet been set.
Though engineers still don’t know why a Soyuz spacecraft carrying three astronauts to ISS was oriented incorrectly — thereby preventing a scheduled engine firing yesterday — they have uploaded new software and have subsequently executed two additional burns successfully.
The engine firings are excellent news, since they demonstrate that the capsule can make the necessary orbital maneuvers to get it to ISS.
An expected engine burn on board the Soyuz capsule taking three astronauts to ISS did not take place as scheduled, forcing at minimum a two day delay in the rendezvous and docking.
[NASA spokesman Rob] Navias said the engine burn was aborted due to a problem with the Soyuz’s attitude control system, but further details were not immediately available. “Right now we don’t understand exactly what happened,” a mission manager at Russian Mission Control told the Soyuz crew late Thursday. Ground controllers planned to download data from the Soyuz and determine whether the glitch was due to a hardware or software problem. [emphasis mine]
Though the astronauts are not in any immediate danger, this is very worrisome. Indications from various other news stories suggest the problem was software related, which in a sense is a good thing. They would still have the option to manually fire their engines to do a manual rendezvous and docking. However, if it isn’t a software issue, and the vagueness of the reports so far makes me wonder about this, they might instead be stranded. Let us hope not.
Update: This report gives a little more information. It appears the capsule itself was not in the right orientation at burn time, and the computer software, sensing this, canceled the burn. If so, the problem might be software (incorrectly gauging the position of the spacecraft) or mechanical (something failing so that the capsule is not oriented correctly). Engineers need to find out which.
Sierra Nevada has subcontracted Lockheed Martin to help build its Dream Chaser spacecraft.
The article is about the beginnings of construction at the Michoud Assembly facility in Louisiana, but to me the significant fact revealed by this article is that Jim Crocker of Lockheed Martin is involved in the effort. Crocker was one of the key engineers who came up with the solutions that helped return focus to the Hubble Space Telescope back in 1993. He is one of the country’s best aerospace engineers, and his participation here is excellent news.
