Tag: spaceflight

NASA delays first Orion manned flight two more years

4:02 pm

Surprise, surprise! NASA today announced that the first manned flight of the Orion capsule will likely be delayed two more years to 2023.

Orion has been under development since 2006, and is expected to have cost more than $17 billion when that first mission flies in 2023. SLS, once called Constellation but with a different configuration, has been under development since 2011, and has cost about that much through today. All told, I would estimate that by the time that flight occurs in 2023 (assuming it doesn’t get delayed again) NASA will have spent more than $40 billion.

This is a joke, but a very painful one. It is going to take NASA almost two decades to get one capsule off the ground. Compare that with the 1960s space race, where we went from nothing to landing on the Moon in a little more than eleven years.

If NASA had been spending this money on planetary missions, they might actually have been doing something worthwhile with it. Meanwhile, the private companies, SpaceX, Blue Origin, Boeing, Orbital ATK, are building capsules and rockets that are as capable, if not more so, and are getting them built now for less than a quarter that price, in the range of about $6 to $8 billion.

If our elected officials in Congress had any brains, they would shut Orion/SLS down now, and save the taxpayers an awful lot of money.

2 comments

Aerojet Rocketdyne lobbies its rocket engines to Congress and ULA

8:39 am

The competition heats up: Officials at Aerojet Rocketdyne yesterday lobbied hard for Congress and ULA to finance and buy their new AR-1 engine, designed to replace the Russian engines used in the Atlas 5 rocket.

More here, including the threat by those officials that the development of the engine could slip past 2019 if Congress doesn’t give the company more money.

The first comment at the bottom of the page of the first article above I think possibly outlines some of the reasons behind Aerojet Rocketdyne’s bid to buy ULA.

The development of the Blue Origin BE-4 is underway, and a launch vehicle like the proposed Vulcan would certainly be an asset to national security and commercial space development. But, as was stated, such a LNG/LO2 vehicle would need a different infrastructure to support it. ULA’s Atlas V is the most mature and reliable [launch vehicle] we have. The problem with it is a political one, because of its using the Russian RD-180 engine. From what has been published, plugging the BE-4 into an Atlas V is a non-starter; the BE-4 is meant for the Vulcan…if ULA can obtain funding on something more than a per-quarter schedule! Aerojet-Rocketdyne’s AR-1 would be a more logical choice to replace the RD-180, BUT…ULA won’t release the Interface Control Documents (ICD’s) to Aerojet-Rocketdyne. Hence, AR’s attempt to buy ULA.

2 comments

Blue Origin announces it will launch from Florida

9:34 am

The competition heats up: In a press conference today, Jeff Bezos of Blue Origin announced that his company will be making Cape Canaveral, Florida, its launchpad for their planned commercial orbital spacecraft.

Not only will they launch from a former Air Force launch complex, they will be building their production facility there for assembling their reusable ships. Bezos also said that they hope to be flying by the end of the decade.

Leave a comment

Yearlong mission on ISS reaches halfway point

9:25 am

The yearlong manned mission on ISS is now halfway over.

If they complete their planned 341-day mission through March, Mark Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko will have logged the fifth and sixth longest human flights in space. They will not complete a full year in space, (as has been advertised by NASA), something that four Russians did in their Mir space station, including one flight of fourteen and a half months.

I had not realized that this mission was not actually a complete year until I read the story above. In reality, they are actually only spending just over eleven months in space. I find this very disappointing. The whole reason to have ISS is to do these long missions. To cut this short of a year seems silly. If anything, they should take advantage of the situation and try to push to break the longevity mission of 14.5 months.

3 comments

Virgin Galactic announces changes to LauncherOne

9:14 am

Though this BBC news article is really nothing more than a propaganda piece for Virgin Galactic, the announcement it describes does confirm what has been suspected by space experts for months, that the company is reconfiguring LauncherOne to be more powerful and to launch on a bigger airplane, not WhiteKnightTwo.

In reading the quotes in this article from the various Virgin Galactic officials, I come away feeling even less confident of this company’s ability to get this rocket off the ground. To me, they sound like they are improvising wildly as they go, have no clear long term plan, and thus will have significant trouble settling on a final design early enough so that they will be able to build it intelligently.

I hope I am wrong. The report does suggest however that their investment in WhiteKnightTwo is increasingly appearing to be a waste. They won’t use it for LauncherOne, and their effort to launch SpaceShipTwo with it appears to be slowly vanishing.

3 comments

Astronomers find no evidence of nearby alien civilizations

8:33 am

New observations of the best candidate galaxies now suggests that very advanced civilizations are very rare or don’t exist in the local universe.

They looked at several hundred nearby galaxies that emitted a high amount of mid-infrared radiation, which could possibly be produced as the waste heat from civilizations using energy on galactic scales.

Professor Michael Garrett (ASTRON & University of Leiden) has used radio measurements of the very best candidate galaxies and discovered that the vast majority of these systems present emission that is best explained by natural astrophysical processes. In particular, the galaxies as a sample, follow a well-known global relation that holds for almost all galaxies – the so-called “Mid-Infrared Radio correlation”. The presence of radio emission at the levels expected from the correlation, suggests that the mid-IR emission is not heat from alien factories but more likely emission from dust – for example, dust generated and heated by regions of massive star formation.
As Professor Garrett explains: “the original research at Penn State has already told us that such systems are very rare but the new analysis suggests that this is probably an understatement, and that advanced Kardashev Type III civilisations basically don’t exist in the local Universe. In my view, it means we can all sleep safely in our beds tonight – an alien invasion doesn’t seem at all likely!”.

Joking aside, Professor Garrett is still looking at a few candidate galaxies that lie off of the astrophysical correlation: “Some of these systems definitely demand further investigation but those already studied in detail turn out to have a natural astrophysical explanation too. It’s very likely that the remaining systems also fall into this category but of course it’s worth checking just in case!”

Obviously, the uncertainty of these results is quite high. Nonetheless, the results indicate that either humanity really is the only intelligent species in this part of the universe, or advanced civilizations are far more efficient in their use of energy than is reasonable to assume.

2 comments

Two more arrests for embezzlement at Vostochny

5:02 pm

The Russians today arrested two more individuals for the embezzlement of funds during the construction work at the new spaceport in Vostochny.

The Lyublino district court of Moscow has ruled to take into custody director of the VIP Stroi Engineering company Vadim Mitryakov and former head of the Nizhny Novgorod Volga-Vyatka construction company (VVSK) Yevgenia Degtyareva, suspected of embezzling 300 million rubles ($4.42 million) allocated for the construction of roads to the Vostochny cosmodrome, the court said on Monday. “The court granted the investigation’s request on the measure of restraint for Mitryakov and Degtyareva — arrest for 2 months, i.e. until November 7,” the court’s press service told TASS.

This puts five now under arrest in the case.

Leave a comment

New launch contracts for SpaceX and ILS

8:31 am

The competition heats up: Launch competitors SpaceX and ILS announced new contracts today for launching commercial satellites into orbit.

SpaceX announced two new contracts, one from the Spanish communications company Hispasat, who signed them up to use a Falcon 9, and a second from the Saudia Arabian communications company Arabsat for a Falcon Heavy launch.

ILS meanwhile got its own contract from Hispasat to use a Proton to put another Hispasat communcations satellite into orbit.

The two Hispasat contracts show the advantages of competition for satellite makers. They now have more than one company to choose from, and are spreading their business around to give them options while encouraging these companies to compete against each other by lowering prices.

Leave a comment

Whiskey tastes strange after being aged in space

12:08 pm

Whiskey that was aged for three years on ISS was taste-tested this past week in Scotland, and the testers all found the taste “completely unlike anything they have ever tasted before.”

The space whiskey had a much smokier quality, with flavors akin to cherries, prunes, raisins, and cinnamon, he said. He also noted that the whiskey’s aftertaste was “pungent, intense, and long, with hints of wood, antiseptic lozenges, and rubbery smoke.” This was in contrast to the Earth-aged whiskey, which had richer flavors more characteristic of whiskey drinks. The space whiskey still had strong flavor, but they were strange, Lumsden said — and not particularly good. He still has yet to figure out why. “That I haven’t been able to work out yet,” he said.

This is not the same Japanese whiskey that was recently sent up to ISS. That is a second experiment, along the same lines.

8 comments

Petrified sand dunes on Mars

11:09 am

Petrified sand dunes on Mars

Cool image time! A panorama produced from images taken by Curiosity’s Mast camera has revealed the remains of ancient sand dunes, cemented into sandstone and now eroding.

This sandstone outcrop — part of a geological layer that Curiosity’s science team calls the Stimson unit — has a structure called crossbedding on a large scale that the team has interpreted as deposits of sand dunes formed by wind. Similar-looking petrified sand dunes are common in the U.S. Southwest. Geometry and orientation of the crossbedding give information about the directions of the winds that produced the dunes.

The Stimson unit overlies a layer of mudstone that was deposited in a lake environment. Curiosity has been examining successively higher and younger layers of Mount Sharp, starting with the mudstone at the mountain’s base, for evidence about changes in the area’s ancient environment.

The image above is cropped and reduced in resolution. Be sure to look at the original.

This report also suggests that Curiosity is definitely moving up the geological layers on Mount Sharp. With each layer, we learn a little bit more about the complex geological history of Gale Crater.

One comment

A detailed update on the efforts to contact Philae

9:29 am

Link here.

The story is fascinating because the lander’s behavior and response to commands has been quite puzzling. They have had about a half dozen short contacts of varying length, all interspersed with a lot of intermittencies. At the moment they have not entirely given up on Philae, since based on what they know of its location and condition it could remain functional through the end of this year. They also recognize that re-establishing contact is becoming increasingly unlikely. The big hope is that once the comet moves farther away from the sun and becomes less active, they will be able to move Rosetta in closer, when the chances of contact will improve.

One comment

SpaceX releases video showing glimpse of manned Dragon interior

9:04 am

The competition heats up: SpaceX today released a short video showing a very limited glimpse at the interior of the manned version of its Dragon capsule.

I’ve embedded the video below the fold, but I will tell you it is quite disappointing. Lots of tight close-ups of seatbelts and seats and instrument panels without really providing a clear picture of the capsule’s interior.
» Read more

2 comments

Europe’s Galileo GPS constellation reaches 10 satellites

8:58 am

The competition heats up: A Soyus rocket today launched from French Guiana the 9th and 10th satellites in Europe’s competing GPS system.

This launch enhances competition in two ways. First it is a success of the Russian Soyuz rocket, launched from the European spaceport in South America, Second, it establishes a competing GPS system to the American system, which is great for everyone. Expect future GPS units to provide the capability to use both the systems, as well as the Russian Glonass system.

Leave a comment

New Pluto images!

7:27 pm

Chaos region

Cool image time! The first of what will likely be weekly image releases for the next few months from New Horizons was made public today, and shows Pluto’s surface to be incredibly complex and confusing.

New close-up images of Pluto from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft reveal a bewildering variety of surface features that have scientists reeling because of their range and complexity. “Pluto is showing us a diversity of landforms and complexity of processes that rival anything we’ve seen in the solar system,” said New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado. “If an artist had painted this Pluto before our flyby, I probably would have called it over the top — but that’s what is actually there.”

The image above only shows one cropped section. Make sure you look at the full image. In the section I’ve cropped we can see nitrogen ice flowing around chunks of some darker harder material, probably water ice. On the left, near the small crater, is what appears to be a canyon formed by flowing liquid. Other images show what appear to be dunes!

It appears, as is typical of scientific exploration, that we are going to be left with more questions from the New Horizons’ data than we had before the fly-by occurred.

Leave a comment

Engineers propose using SpaceX rocket and capsule to bring samples back from Mars

10:14 am

Engineering by powerpoint! Several NASA engineers have proposed using SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket and an upgrade of its Dragon capsule to bring samples back from Mars.

The researchers have drawn up a plan that uses a modified version of SpaceX’s uncrewed Dragon cargo capsule, which has already flown six resupply missions to the International Space Station for NASA. The Red Dragon variant would include a robotic arm, extra fuel tanks and a central tube that houses a rocket-powered Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) and an Earth Return Vehicle (ERV).

Red Dragon would launch toward Mars atop SpaceX’s huge Falcon Heavy rocket, which is scheduled to fly for the first time next year. After a long deep-space journey, the capsule would touch down near the 2020 Mars rover (whose landing site has not yet been chosen). “Red Dragon can go anywhere the rover can go, as far as landing elevation and terrain,” Gonzales said. “We’re confident we could land in front of the rover and have it drive to us.”

Red Dragon’s robotic arm would then grab a sample from the rover’s onboard cache (assuming the 2020 rover does indeed carry its samples, rather than stash them someplace) and transfer it to a secure containment vessel aboard the ERV, which sits atop the MAV. If something goes wrong during this exchange, Red Dragon can simply scoop up some material from the ground using its arm. The MAV would then blast off from the center of the capsule, like a missile from a silo, sending the ERV on its way back to Earth. The ERV would settle into orbit around our planet; its sample capsule would then be transferred to, and brought down to Earth by, a separate spacecraft — perhaps another Dragon capsule.

I like this concept because it uses available or soon-to-be available resources that are also relatively cheap to adapt for the mission. I also warn everyone that this is, as I note above, engineering by powerpoint. It is a concept, hardly a real proposal. The track record of seeing these kinds of proposals by NASA actually happen is quite poor.

2 comments

Aerojet Rocketdyne makes $2 billion offer to buy ULA

11:11 pm

The competition heats up: Rocket engine-maker Aerojet Rocketdyne has reportedly made a $2 billion offer to buy the rocket company United Launch Alliance (ULA), a partnership of Boeing and Lockheed.

If this deal goes through, it will put the squeeze on Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, which presently has a contract to build rocket engines for ULA. Aerojet Rocketdyne had wanted that contract and had lost out. If they buy ULA, they could then kick Blue Origin out and take on the contract themselves.

I am honestly not sure what to make of this whole thing, however. It could be that Aerojet, having lost a number of contracts and faced with a significant lose in business, has decided it needs to become a rocket company to survive. It could also be that the corporate heads of ULA have decided that the company’s effort to replace its Delta and Atlas rockets with Vulcan is too risky, and they are better off taking the cash and running.

Or it could be any number of other reasons. We shall have to wait and see how this plays out.

Leave a comment

Closing in on Ceres’s bright spots

9:33 am

Ceres's bright spots

Cool image time! The Dawn science team has released a new close-up of Ceres’s Double Bright Spot.

The new up-close view of Occator crater from Dawn’s current vantage point reveals better-defined shapes of the brightest, central spot and features on the crater floor. Because these spots are so much brighter than the rest of Ceres’ surface, the Dawn team combined two different images into a single composite view — one properly exposed for the bright spots, and one for the surrounding surface.

They have also released a detailed topographic map of the crater as well as a fly-around video, which I have posted below the fold. The interesting take-away from this new data is that, while the bright spots look at first glance remarkably like the snow-cap on a mountain-top, they are actually at the low spots in the crater. This suggests that they are instead material that has either bubbled up from below, or flowed downward to the crater bottom.

Be sure you click on the link and look at the full resolution image.
» Read more

Leave a comment

Spaceport head says Lynx to launch in early 2016

9:18 am

The competition heats up: The president of the spaceport in Midland, Texas, said today that XCOR’s Lynx suborbital spacecraft will complete its first test launch in the second quarter of 2016.

My readers know that I have been very skeptical of XCOR. They also know, if they have read closely, that I would be thrilled if they proved me wrong and succeeded. I think we shall find out one way or the other next year.

Leave a comment

Venus probe about to rise from the dead

9:07 am

Five years after it failed to enter Venus orbit as planned, the Japanese probe Akatsuki is about to try again, in December.

The article provides an interesting and detailed explanation of what had gone wrong in 2010, and then describes the amazing things engineers have done to make this second attempt even possible. If they succeed it will be one of the most brilliant achievements in the history of space exploration.

One comment

Boeing names its CST-100 manned capsule Starliner

2:05 pm

The competition heats up: Boeing today unveiled “Starliner” as the new name for its CST-100 manned capsule.

This intensifies the competition because the new name is something the public can grab and identify. As long as Boeing was using the boring acronym they were holding back to stay in the boring do-nothing pork-laden government-funded NASA environment. Grabbing the public means they want the public to buy this product.

Posted from Spokane, Washington.

5 comments

High res radar instrument fails on Earth observation satellite

9:18 am

Only seven months after launch one of the two instruments on NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) Earth observation satellite has failed.

Launched on Jan. 31, the Soil Moisture Active Passive spacecraft’s objective is to map global soil moisture and to detect whether soils are frozen or thawed. It is the first mission where scientists have attempted to collect high-resolution, high-accuracy soil moisture data, said Kent Kellogg, SMAP’s JPL-based project manager.

NASA budgeted $916 million for the mission and has been working on it for the past eight years. “We do a lot of testing on the ground to make sure the designs will be built properly and will last in the environment,” Kellogg said. “But space is a very unforgiving place, and we can have these kinds of problems where despite our best efforts with design and vigorous testing, something surprises us. It’s very uncommon, but these things can happen occasionally.”

SMAP’s two scientific tools are an active radar and a passive radiometer. They complement each other, making up for the other’s measurement limitations. The broken radar collected soil moisture and freeze-thaw measurements at a higher resolution of up to 1.9 miles. The still functioning radiometer generates more accurate measurements but its resolution is lower at about 25 miles. [emphasis mine]

I am not satisfied by the explanation for the failure expressed above. NASA spent a lot of money for this science satellite over almost a decade. In addition, we have been launching instruments like this for almost half a century, and have by now learned quite well the engineering necessary to keep them operating under the conditions in low Earth orbit. I suspect a screw-up somewhere, which we might or might not ever identify.

One comment
1 … 374 375 376 377 378 … 490