Tag: spaceflight

NASA safety panel questions safety of SLS

10:47 am

NASA’s safety panel has issued a report questioning the safety of the early launches of the Space Launch System (SLS), partly due to the very low launch rate and the lack of any planned unmanned test flights for the rocket’s upper stage engine.

“The ASAP and the Agency remain concerned about risks introduced in the currently scheduled frequency of SLS/Orion launches, ” according to ASAP’s 2014 Annual Report. “The plan indicates a launch about every 2 to 4 years. This would challenge ground crew competency. The skills, procedures, and knowledge of conducting the launch, mission, and recovery are perish-able. The ASAP believes that an extended interval requires the relearning of many lessons and skills, in contrast to Apollo and Shuttle, which had a relatively steady cadence.”

No space project can accomplish anything with launch rate this slow. Not only does this increase the risk that inexperience will cause errors, the long time gaps make it difficult for the project to get anything done.

And then there is NASA’s idea that it can put humans on this rocket without any previous launch testing of the rocket’s upper stage or the capsule’s life support systems. Why should NASA’s rocket get a pass on this kind of testing when the agency is demanding that the private companies do it?

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Rocket tank lands on Brazil farm

10:26 am

Chicken Little report: A propellent tank from an as-yet unidentified rocket landed near a house on a Brazilian farm on December 28.

The pictures at the link are neat, especially since the man in the selfie showing the farmer’s family and the tank in the background looks so much like New Jersey governor Chris Christie.

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OSIRIS-REx to get more fuel for its asteroid mission

10:17 am

In what might be a first for the planetary science/engineering community, an unmanned probe, being built to bring samples back from the asteroid Bennu, is turning out to be lighter than expected, thus allowing engineers to stuff its tanks with extra fuel to extend its mission.

The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, being built at a Lockheed Martin facility in Denver, is coming in lighter than the lift capability of the Atlas 5 rocket, which will lift off in its “411” configuration with a four-meter payload fairing, a single-engine Centaur upper stage, and one strap-on solid rocket booster.

The proposal — described as a “heavy launch option” — would add an extra 341 pounds of fuel to the spacecraft’s fuel tank.

Planetary probes never end up lighter than planned, at least until now. During construction scientists have always found it impossible to resist adding more instruments or capabilities, and thus engineers always struggle to get the spacecraft built within its weight budget. For OSIRIS-REx to have this wonderful problem is surely astonishing.

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Five years later a second attempt to put a Japanese spacecraft into Venus orbit

9:55 am

If at first: After failing to place its Akatsuki spacecraft into orbit around Venus in 2010 because of a cracked engine nozzle, Japan has announced its plans for a new attempt later this year.

The attempt will be made on December 7. If successful, the spacecraft will begin studying Venus’s climate and atmosphere only a short time after the end of Europe’s very success Venus Express mission.

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The Russian spaceport construction still behind schedule

9:31 am

In a detailed update on the status of Russia’s new Vostochny spaceport, russianspaceweb reports that the construction continues to be behind schedule.

Whether they can meet the government imposed deadline of first Soyuz rocket launch by the end of 2015 seems very doubtful. More significant is this interesting quote:

In the meantime, various sensitive systems, which arrived to Vostochny for installation into unfinished facilities, were rusting inside their containers along railway sidings.

Obviously, without enough qualified personnel at the remote construction site, Spetsstroi had little choice but to focus on facilities with the highest profile for visiting Moscow officials. Moreover, the work had to be done in a great haste, increasing the chances for mistakes and leading to a low quality of construction.

Boy, does that sound like the Soviet Union all over again. It also reminds me of how most government agencies operate in the U.S.

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The rockets of the world

4:36 pm

Link here.

Inspired by a book and poster from 1995, titled “Rockets of the World,” graphic artist Tyler Skrabek has provided a new and updated “clean” look for his latest work. “The ‘Rockets of the World’ poster emulates a 1960 style of drawing,” he said, “employing a consistent pallet across all rockets allowing for a distraction-free look at the size and power of the world’s greatest machines.”

A link to the poster itself can be found here. It is fascinating to compare rockets that no longer exist with those flying today.

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New Pluto images from New Horizons

4:02 pm

Pluto from 126 million miles

The New Horizons science team has finally released the navigation image of Pluto and Charon that the spacecraft took on January 25.

A cropped version is on the right. The image shows Pluto and its biggest moon Charon, with both appearing somewhat elongated in shape. Why this is so is not explained by the press release, but I suspect it is because the goal of the image was not sharpness but to locate the planet for navigation purposes.

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Roscomos puts the squeeze on Ukraine

8:40 am

Two more stories this week provide additional evidence that Roscosmos, the new Russian government-run space corporation that controls Russia’s entire space industry, intends to eliminate its dependence on any foreign contributions, even if that contribution comes from the former Soviet province of Ukraine.

In the first story, Roscosmos ends the commercial use of the Dnepr anti-ballistic missile, built originally in the Ukraine. In the second story Roscosmos makes it very clear that it will focus on using its Russia-made Angara rocket rather than depend on the Ukrainian Zenit, even though Zenit is what the Roscosmos-owned Sea Launch platform was designed to use and Angara is far from operational.

The main result of these decisions will be the bankrupt many Ukrainian space companies. Whether it will bring more business to Angara, however, remains to be seen. Angara has only had one orbital launch, and has hardly tested its many different configurations. At this stage it is highly unlikely that the commercial customers who have depended on Dnepr and Zenit will flock to it, especially since they now have other competitive options available in the west.

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The Obama administration’s 2016 NASA budget proposal

8:32 pm

Eric Berger takes a look at the key budget items in today’s proposed budget. More details here.

As has happened in the last few years, Obama has tried to boost commercial space at the expense of SLS/Orion, one of the few positions of the Obama administration to which I heartily agree. Unfortunately, I expect Congress to also do as it has also done in the last few years, boost SLS/Orion at the expense of commercial space.

As I’ve noted before, I don’t mind that Congress trims commercial space, as giving them too much government money will make them lazy and prone to waste. What I do mind is all the money Congress spends on SLS/Orion, which is a complete waste and could be cut entirely and help reduce our debt.

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The Hubble Space Telescope lives on!

8:18 pm

At a press conference at the January meeting of the American Astronomical Society scientists and engineers of the Space Telescope Science Institute that operates the Hubble Space Telescope reported that it is functioning far better than expected and is likely to continue to function until 2020 or beyond.

This is good news, since there is nothing being planned to replace Hubble. The article implies that the James Webb Space Telescope has that job, but Webb is an infrared telescope, not optical, and thus observes the universe in wavelengths not visible to the human eye.

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Proton launches successfully

10:02 am

The competition heats up: Russia’s Proton successfully launched an Inmarsat commercial satellite into orbit today.

Considering the problems the Proton has had in recent years, this launch success is significant. It suggests that they are back in business.

In related news, a Russian space expert was fired from his job at a hi-tech operation outside Moscow after he publicly criticized the Putin government’s consolidation of Russia’s entire space industry into a single government-run corporation.

Vadim Lukashevich worked at the Skolkovo Innovation Center, a high-tech business park outside Moscow intended as Russia’s answer to Silicon Valley that has partnerships with Western research universities such as MIT. “As I understand it, they [fired me] for a series of interviews in which I criticize the recent decision to liquidate the Federal Space Agency and create a new state corporation called Roscosmos,” Lukashevich told The Moscow Times on Friday.

…Lukashevich, a prominent voice in the Russian space scene, told the BBC the reform would remove any industry accountability and would foster corruption — all while failing to provide Russia with a long-term direction in space.

On Wednesday, a day after the interview was published, he said someone at Skolkovo’s Space Cluster called him to say he had been fired. The caller “apologized several times, saying the decision was imposed on them from above — by a phone call from URSC in the middle of the night,” Lukashevich said

I think that Lukashevich is right, that creating a single government-run corporation will encourage corruption and in the long run will be a disaster for Russia’s space industry. We will see a rebirth of the same problems that destroyed the Soviet Union. In fact, Lukashevich’s firing is illustrative of this.

I also think that in the short term it will likely energize their space program. But only for a short period of time. After they achieve some Soviet-style stunts that appear impressive, the weight of corruption and the lack of competition will cause the industry to collapse in bankruptcy again.

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Iran orbits a satellite

9:48 am

The competition, and other things, heats up: Iran state media announced today that the country had successfully launched its fourth satellite into orbit.

The reports were very lacking in information, but if true, this launch is significant in that it once again demonstrates that Iran has the capability of placing a nuclear warhead anyone on Earth. That, combined with its nuclear program that the Obama administration is allowing Iran to complete means that no one on Earth is safe from attack from this country, which only recently was ruled by a man who thought it okay to wipe whole countries he didn’t like off the map.

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Air Force to open bidding on launches

9:00 pm

The competition heats up? An unnamed Air Force official has said that they intend to open up competitive bidding on as many as 10 military launches through 2017.

This might be part of the agreement between SpaceX and the Air Force that included SpaceX dropping its lawsuit and the Air Force giving a spy satellite launch that SpaceX wanted to bid on to ULA. In exchange, the Air Force will allow SpaceX to bid on a number of GPS satellite launches.

Then again, this is not an official announcement. Until it actually happens officially, I would not trust the Air Force to do what it should or promised.

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New Mexico wants out of the spaceport business

9:52 am

A state law-maker in New Mexico has introduced a bill to sell off the state’s spaceport, Spaceport America.

New Mexico spent $220 million to build it and Senator Munoz now says the state has come up short. “It’s not a revenue stream and they don’t know how to get that revenue stream and that’s what needs to change,” he said. He said a private company would do a better job behind the controls and believes there is a buyer out there.

The heart of the problem here is the long delayed first flight by Virgin Galactic. Spaceport America essentially has this one customer, and Virgin Galactic has simply failed to get off the ground with its commercial flights.

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Threatened water shortage on ISS

9:42 am

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.

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Privately-built weather satellite constellation to be built

9:25 am

The competition heats up: A private company, dubbed Spire, has announced its intention to launch a 20-satellite constellation of weather satellites, all cubesats, by the end of 2015.

Spire raised $25 million in Series A funding during the summer of 2014, bringing its total amount to $29 million. The company already has customers in a variety of verticals, but Platzer said weather was planned to be a focus from the company’s inception.

…With the U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) facing an impending weather data gap, an increasing amount of focus has been placed on leveraging commercial options as well. Last year NOAA issued a Request for Information (RFI) on RO that piqued interest from the commercial sector. Congress has also urged the agency to leverage private sector capabilities.

For years I argued that there is no justification for the federal government to provide free weather satellite data to private companies like the Weather Channel. There is more than enough profit to be made tracking and predicting the weather for these companies to launch their own orbiting networks, just as the television and communications industries do. Thus, it is good to see a new start-up take advantage of this need and to push to make a business out of it.

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Boeing’s commercial manned space effort

9:15 am

In reading this review of Boeing’s commercial manned space effort, this particular quote from Boeing Vice President John Elbon stood out:

“This year Boeing is celebrating its 100th year as a company. Bill (William) Boeing founded the company with a focus on flying air mail and establishing commercial air transportation through United Airlines. If you look at the company today, the commercial airline division of the company is a 70 billion dollar per year business.

“I believe firmly that when the company celebrates its second hundred years, there will be a division of Boeing building commercial space vehicles that will be of that magnitude.” [emphasis mine]

I see no reason not to agree with Mr. Elbon. If Boeing and SpaceX both get their manned vehicles working, and SpaceX and ULA begin to really compete for the launch market, the possibilities are as endless as they were 100 years ago during the early days of the aviation industry.

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Update on Philae on Comet 67P/C-G

9:01 am

The Rosetta team has provided a detailed update describing their so far unsuccessful search for Philae on the surface of Comet 67P/C-G.

In addition, the update also looks into the possibility that Philae might wake up in the late spring when the comet’s orbit and rotation changes enough so its solar panels are more exposed to the Sun.

Bottom line: Don’t expect them to find the lander from images. Right now it is a mere three pixels in size. And whether it will come back to life as well also remains unknown.

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Air Force gives more launches to ULA

9:30 am

The heat of competition? The Air Force has added three launches to its $4 billion bulk-buy contract with ULA, including one that SpaceX had hoped to bid on.

The timing of this contract award, worth $383 million, is most intriguing, coming as it does mere days after SpaceX had dropped its lawsuit with the Air Force. It is almost as if the Air Force was waiting for that lawsuit to go away before it gave more contracts to ULA. Note also the launch cost for these three launches: $383 million for 3 launches, or about $127 million per launch. That’s more than twice what SpaceX charges for a Falcon 9 launch.

It sure looks to me like the Air Force does not have the taxpayers’ interests at heart, and instead is working an inside deal to help its buddies at ULA.

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SpaceX animation of Falcon Heavy launch

8:56 am

The competition heats up: SpaceX has released a short animation showing the launch of its Falcon Heavy rocket, with all three of its Falcon 9 first stage boosters returning to the launchpad and landing vertically.

I have posted this animation below the fold. When NASA makes these kinds of animations, which the agency has been doing for more than forty years now, I pay little heed. They don’t signal any achievement, merely the dreams of the engineers there. In the case of SpaceX, however, I pay close attention, because the company’s track record is that they are likely to make this animation quite real in a surprisingly short period of time.

Enjoy!
» Read more

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SpaceX moving forward on manned flight

11:10 pm

At a briefing today SpaceX outlined its plans for testing its manned Dragon capsule as well as the rough schedule for the two launch abort tests it must first fly before putting humans on Dragon.

The first test, a launchpad abort test, is expected to take place in about a month. The second, an abort test from an in-flight Falcon 9, is also expected to occur this year.

If all goes well, NASA hopes to have both SpaceX and Boeing flying American astronauts to ISS by 2017.

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Comet 67P/C-G’s water output has increased

9:20 am

Data from a U.S. instrument on Rosetta has shown that the water venting off of Comet 67P has increased significantly since the spacecraft arrived.

“In observations over a period of three months [June through August, 2014], the amount of water in vapor form that the comet was dumping into space grew about tenfold,” said Sam Gulkis, principal investigator of the MIRO instrument at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and lead author of a paper appearing in the special issue [of Science].

The amount of water at the maximum level averages about 40 ounces every second.

In related Rosetta news today, data from the comet is showing that the dust leaving its surface is dust that had settled back down after the comet’s last close pass to the Sun.

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SpaceX drops Air Force lawsuit in new deal

10:19 pm

The competition heats up: SpaceX has dropped its lawsuit against the Air Force in exchange for the opportunity to bid on more military launch contracts.

“Under the agreement, the Air Force will work collaboratively with SpaceX to complete the certification process in an efficient and expedient manner,” the statement from the two parties said. “The Air Force also has expanded the number of competitive opportunities for launch services under the EELV program while honoring existing contractual obligations.” The statement did not make clear how many competitive launch opportunities would be available or when. The Air Force has committed to seven launch awards by late 2017, but has said that number could grow to at least eight.

Each additional launch contract the Air Force puts out for competition gives SpaceX or ULA another opportunity to win about $100 million or more in business.

This is a big win for SpaceX. It is also not a surprise. As much as some Air Force officials have wanted to maintain the ULA monopoloy, their position has been weak, for both political and economic reasons. SpaceX’s costs are just too much lower, and the company continues to demonstrate its reliability and competence in launch after launch. Thus, it was practically impossible for Air Force officials to justify maintaining the block buy non-competitive contract award to ULA.

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