A Russian rocket successfully lifted off today from Kazakhstan with the next crew for ISS.
A Russian rocket successfully lifted off today from Kazakhstan with the next crew for ISS.
Tag: spaceflight
DARPA picks Boeing to build a test design of an air-launched satellite launcher.
The competition heats up: DARPA has chosen Boeing to build a test design of an air-launched satellite launcher.
This engineering research is in parallel with the airborne launcher research of Scaled Composites (on SpaceShipTwo) and Stratolauncher. When you add SpaceX’s effort to make its first stage reusable, you get a real sense where the future of rocket design is heading: rockets in which the first stage is entirely reusable, returning safely to Earth either by a horizontal or vertical landing.
Curiosity has reached another area of interesting terrain: rows of layered curvy rocks.
Curiosity has reached another area of interesting terrain: rows of layered curvy rocks.
The science team has been hunting for tasty rock outcrops suitable for the first drilling campaign since she departed the dried out lakebed at Yellowknife Bay in July 2013 and began her epic trek across the floor of Gale Crater towards the base of Mount Sharp. With each passing Sol, or Martian day, Mount Sharp looms larger and larger and the historical layers with deposits of hydrated minerals potentially indicative of an alien habitable zone come ever clearer into focus.
The panoramas are quite spectacular as the rover continues its journey toward Mt Sharp.
On Saturday Arianespace’s Ariane 5 rocket has successfully launched two commercial satellites, its 59th straight successful launch.
The competition heats up: On Saturday Arianespace’s Ariane 5 rocket has successfully launched two commercial satellites, its 59th straight successful launch.
A reporter takes a close look at Virgin Galactic and Spaceport America in New Mexico and comes away very skeptical.
Failure to launch? A reporter takes a close look at Virgin Galactic and Spaceport America in New Mexico and comes away very skeptical.
Read it all. The view might be pessimistic, but it is important to keep an open mind. Richard Branson’s effort, as sincere as I think it is, might not succeed.
The contamination that has delayed SpaceX’s next Dragon cargo mission to ISS was caused by oil from a sewing machine.
The contamination that has delayed SpaceX’s next Dragon cargo mission to ISS was caused by oil from a sewing machine.
The machine sewed the cloth blankets that protect payloads in Dragon’s unpressurized trunk section.
China’s Yutu rover is still functioning but cannot move.
China’s Yutu rover is still functioning but cannot move.
Last week Yutu and its companion spacecraft, the Chang’e 3 Moon lander, awoke from a period of dormancy after the frigid, two-week lunar night — the third awakening since landing on 14 December, Chinese scientists said this week at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas. The probes continue to gather data and send it back to Earth.
But Yutu may never move more than the 100–110 metres it has already travelled from its landing site — in the Mare Imbrium. Mission officials had hoped that Yutu would travel to the rim of a nearby crater and explore it, but a mechanical failure in Yutu’s drive system has stilled the rover since late January.
I wish they would get their story straight. This article suggests that the problem wasn’t in the circuit that controls the storage of equipment during the long lunar night, as reported previously, but in the system that actually moves the rover.
It also appears from the story above that scientists were disappointed by the amount of information released at the Texas conference.
Orbital Sciences has set May 6 as the launch date for its next Cygnus cargo mission to ISS.
Orbital Sciences has set May 6 as the launch date for its next Cygnus cargo mission to ISS.
According to the former CEO of Arianespace, now head of the French space agency, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 costs significantly less to launch than the Ariane 5
According to the former CEO of Arianespace, now head of the French space agency, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 costs significantly less to launch than the Ariane 5.
How big is the difference? Jean-Yves Le Gall, who until mid-2013 was chief executive of Evry, France-based Arianespace and is now president of the French space agency, CNES, addressed the point in Feb. 25 testimony to the French Senate. According to Le Gall, launching a satellite on an Ariane 5 costs around 100 million euros ($137 million). After subtracting the amount of European Space Agency subsidies to Arianespace, the per-satellite cost drops to about $100 million, he said.
Hawthorne, Calif.-based SpaceX, he said, would charge $60 million to $70 million to launch the same satellite aboard the Falcon 9. In fact SpaceX has charged even less than that to its first few commercial customers.
It is for this reason that Arianespace is struggling to decide how to build its next generation rocket. They have find a way to do it cheaper, something that is very difficult for this multi-headed European conglomerate to do.
Want to explore the Moon’s north pole? You now can, from your home, using an interactive mosaic of images taken by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Want to explore the Moon’s north pole? You now can, from your home, using an interactive mosaic of images taken by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Putting a spacecraft back in the orbit it was intended, thirty-one years later.
Putting a spacecraft back in the orbit it was intended, thirty-one years later.
The spacecraft, ISEE-3, was intended to study the solar wind and the connection between the Sun and the Earth. In 1986 it was diverted instead to take a look at Halley’s Comet. Now there is an opportunity to return it to its original task, assuming engineers can wake it up after three decades.
Arianespace and the Russian-owned Sea Launch are seeking to get the restrictions against them removed so that they can sell their services to more customers.
The competition heats up: Arianespace and the Russian-owned Sea Launch are seeking to get the restrictions against them removed so that they can sell their services to more customers.
Arianespace wants to sell its launch services to the U.S. government, something it is not allowed to do right now because of U.S. restrictions. These are the same kinds of restrictions that has prevented SpaceX from launching military satellites and which that company is now contesting.
Russia meanwhile wants to use Sea Launch for its own payloads, but because Sea Launch’s platform is based in California, the Russian government won’t allow their payloads on it because of security reasons. They want the platform moved to Russia so that they can use their own company to launch their own satellites.
The article also describes how Japan is trying to reduce the cost of its H-2A rocket by 50% so that it can become more competitive.
All in all, I would say that the arrival of SpaceX has done exactly what was predicted, shaken the industry out of its doldrums. How else to explain this sudden interest in open competition and lowering costs? These companies could have done this decades ago. They did not. Suddenly a new player arrives on the scene, offering to beat them at their own game. It is not surprising that they are fighting back.