Tag: spaceflight

The proposed SpaceX spaceport in Brownsville, Texas, has passed its final federal environmental review.

4:42 pm

The proposed SpaceX spaceport in Brownsville, Texas, has passed its final federal environmental review.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which had raised concerns about possible impact on habitat for some endangered species, ultimately concluded that “the project is not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of any listed or proposed to be listed species nor adversely modify piping plover critical habitat.”

But wildlife officials don’t expect the project to be harmless: Two individual cats, either from the endangered ocelot or jaguarondi species, could be lost as a result of the project in spite of efforts to avoid just that with measures such as posting warning signs along the road leading to the launch site. And federal wildlife officials also anticipate that more than 7 miles of beachfront used by nesting sea turtles could be disturbed by security patrols, though driving is already permitted on the beach.

I think every American should read these two paragraphs to gain an understanding of how ridiculous these environmental regulations sometimes are. This report appears to be junk and an enormous waste of effort and time.

The bottom line is to consider what has happened in Florida. The government established a wildlife preserve surrounding the Kennedy Space Center and the wildlife has been flourishing there for more than a half century. Because a launchpad is used so infrequently (12 times a year is what SpaceX proposes for Brownsville), it inflicts very little harm on the environment.

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The private effort to reactivate the 1970s ISEE-3 space probe has successfully re-established two way communications with the spacecraft.

2:34 pm

The private effort to reactivate the 1970s ISEE-3 space probe has successfully re-established two way communications with the spacecraft.

They will spend the next few days assessing ISEE-3’s overall health in order to plan the engine burns necessary to get it back to its original location orbiting the Sun near Earth.

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A frame-by-frame repair of the video taken during the April soft splashdown of the Falcon 9 first stage now shows the deployment of the landing legs.

9:32 am

A frame-by-frame repair of the video taken during the April soft splashdown of the Falcon 9 first stage now shows the deployment of the landing legs.

Video below the fold.

In a related note, SpaceX will unveil its manned version of the Dragon capsule tomorrow at 7 pm (Pacific) and will live stream the event here.

Update: The links are fixed. Thanks Edward!
» Read more

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The Russian investigation into the most recent Proton launch failure has not yet ruled out sabotage as the cause.

9:18 am

The Russian investigation into the most recent Proton launch failure has not yet ruled out sabotage as the cause.

I think sabotage is highly unlikely, and their hint at it is mostly an effort to include all possibilities in their investigation.

Update: This report confirms my analysis. It appears the news story above was a bit overheated for the powers-that-be in Russia, and thus Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin felt strongly compelled to correct the record immediately.

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China claimed today that its lunar rover Yutu is still alive on the Moon.

7:33 pm

China claimed today that its lunar rover Yutu is still alive on the Moon.

The rover is still able to send data back to Earth using the Chang’e 3 probe that delivered it, the official Xinhua news agency said, citing Li Bengzheng, deputy commander-in-chief of China’s lunar program. But the buggy’s wheels and the solar panel designed for thermal insulation during the frozen lunar nights no longer work, Li said. The craft’s functionality is progressively deteriorating “with each lunar night,” Li said.

What is significant here is that though the rover’s ability to rove failed much sooner than planned, its longevity now means that much of their engineering for future missions will work.

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Orbital Sciences has delayed its next Cygnus flight to ISS by at least one week in order to complete its investigation of the failure of a Russian-built rocket engine used by the Antares rocket.

10:05 am

Orbital Sciences has delayed its next Cygnus flight to ISS by at least one week in order to complete its investigation of the failure of a Russian-built rocket engine used by the Antares rocket.

Without doubt, this engine failure highlights the urgent need for American rocket companies to develop their own rocket engines.

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A place on Mars that was possibly habitable only 200 million years ago.

9:43 pm

A place on Mars that was possibly habitable only 200 million years ago.

This article discusses the possibility of liquid water from the melting of the glaciers that scientists think once covered the western slopes of the giant volcano Arsia Mons. I have also written about this area in an article I wrote for Sky & Telescope last year on exploring caves in space. It is thought that there might be caves here in which some of that water from those glaciers might still be found.

As one scientist is quoted as saying in this article, “Arsia Mons would be the next place I would want to go.” Like the south pole of the Moon, it likely has all the ingredients for establishing a habitable colony.

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The FAA is inching closer to approving a license to allow SpaceX to conduct tests in Texas of its rocket-powered prototype of its Dragon capsule.

9:45 am

The competition heats up: The FAA is inching closer to approving a license to allow SpaceX to conduct tests in Texas of its rocket-powered prototype of its Dragon capsule.

Simply, DragonFly is a propulsive system designed to allow the SpaceX Dragon capsule to perform propulsive landings (both with and without parachute assistance). Overall, DragonFly will use eight SuperDraco hypergolic engines capable of producing up to 16,400 lbf of thrust each. …

In all, SpaceX has proposed, and submitted to the FAA for commercial experimental license, a total of 30 DragonFly tests at its McGregor test facility. Four of the test flights involve DragonFly being dropped from a helicopter at an altitude of 10,000 ft with two propulsive assist landings parachutesand engines) and two propulsive landings (engines only). The remaining 26 of the proposed test flights will launch from a specially-built pad that will take between 1-2 weeks to construct (according to the FAA draft environmental report). These 26 flights will consist of eight parachute-assist landings and 18 full propulsive hops (rocket engines only).

We should all be relieved: The 76-page draft environmental impact statement noted that these tests will not destroy the Earth, and that their effect on global warming will be tiny. If the license is finally approved, testing should begin before the end of 2014.

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An summary of the past week’s private effort at Aceibo to reactivate ISEE-3.

9:59 am

A summary of the past week’s private effort at Aceibo to reactivate ISEE-3.

They have discovered that the spacecraft is approximately 150,000 miles away from its expected position. This complicates the rescue effort significantly, as all their course corrections have to be recalculated based on this new position and they don’t yet have it refined enough to do those recalculations.

This has become extremely important as there is a solid statistical chance that the spacecraft could impact the moon or even be off course enough to threaten other spacecraft in Earth orbit. We are working with Mike Loucks of Space Exploration Engineering (SEE) our trajectory guy on this issue. An east coast company, Applied Defense (ADS) has also offered their help and engineering support to derive a new ephemeris from our new position reports. ADS and SEE did the trajectories for NASA’s just completed LADEE mission.

Hopefully by the end of this weekend they will have more to report.

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Elon Musk and another watchdog group suggested on Friday that there was a quid pro quo in the awarding ULA its bulk buy military launch contract.

9:42 am

Elon Musk and another watchdog group suggested on Friday that there was a quid pro quo in the awarding ULA its bulk buy military launch contract.

Musk, citing an article by the Washington-based National Legal and Policy Center, suggested Thursday night on Twitter that the Pentagon inspector general should investigate the actions of former Air Force civilian Roger “Scott” Correll. Earlier this year, Correll retired from his post as the Air Force’s program executive officer for space launch, where he wielded enormous influence in awarding a multibillion-dollar contract for 36 rocket launches over the next several years, shooting sensitive national security equipment into space.

The contract went to a company called United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of the nation’s two biggest weapons contractors — Chicago-based Boeing and Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin Corp. Earlier this month, Correll took a job as vice president of government acquisition and policy with Aerojet Rocketdyne, the company that supplies the rocket engines used by United Launch Alliance.

Correll’s hiring certainly illustrates the “old boys” network in operation here. Whether there was direct corruption is not clear. Nonetheless, the bulk buy contract is not in the interests of the taxpayer or the Air Force, at least not at the prices announced.

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Virgin Galactic finally admitted to its engine troubles on Friday.

9:34 am

Virgin Galactic finally admitted to its engine troubles on Friday.

They have dumped the original engine, switching to a different engine design that the rumors have said they have been testing for the past year.

The company press release is here, with commentary here.

Though it is a good thing that the company has finally come clean and made the switch, they probably waited far too long to do it, as the problems with the old engine likely caused several years delay in their schedule, allowing other companies to catch up with them and thus losing the significant technological advantage that they once held.

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Short of money for astrophysics because of the overruns on the James Webb Space Telescope as well as federal budget woes, NASA has decided to shut down the Spitzer Space Telescope.

9:11 am

Short of money for astrophysics because of the overruns on the James Webb Space Telescope as well as federal budget woes, NASA has decided to shut down the Spitzer Space Telescope.

Other missions, such as Kepler, Chandra, Hubble, NuStar, and Swift got extensions, however.

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While SpaceShipTwo continues to sit on the ground, European space tourism competitor Swiss Space Systems (S3) has initiated zero g flights for its customers.

1:10 pm

The competition heats up: While SpaceShipTwo continues to sit on the ground, European space tourism competitor Swiss Space Systems (S3) is going to initiate zero g flights for its customers.

These are not suborbital flights, but they will provide customers with the experience of weightlessness in a flight similar to that provided by the vomit comet that Zero-G flies. Eventually this company plans its own suborbital spaceship, but this way they get their customers in the air as soon as next year, rather waiting for more than a decade for development to get completed.

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The European partnership building the new Ariane 6 rocket struggles to keep its costs down to compete with SpaceX.

1:01 pm

The competition heats up: The European partnership building the new Ariane 6 rocket struggles to keep its costs down to compete with SpaceX.

Ariane 5 has been a huge triumph, orbiting half of the world’s communications satellites and claiming 60% of the 2012 world market for geostationary launches. But while the rocket is extremely precise and reliable it is also hugely expensive, with a single-payload flight costing €150-200 million. However, even at that price Ariane 5 launches are understood to be loss-making for ESA’s launch operator, Arianespace. Its high cost in in large part blamed on its industrial organisation; while private-sector SpaceX has tailored the Falcon programme for low cost production, the Ariane 5 project is organised in part to satisfy the demands of European multi-national politics.

Speaking exclusively to Flight Daily News, ESA’s Stefano Bianchi, who heads the Vega programme and now spends much of his time dedicated to Ariane 6 development, stresses that the programme is on course as set out by ESA’s member states, and any major change of configuration would require ministerial agreement.

But, he says, he and his colleagues are confident they can bring Ariane 6 to fruition at the target launch cost of €70 million – a level that would match or even undercut SpaceX. [emphasis mine]

This story is in connection with the conflict between France and Germany about how to build Ariane 6. I have specifically highlighted the cost figures to illustrate once again the reality that everyone in the industry knows (except for one commenter on my webpage), that the cost of a SpaceX launch runs in the neighborhood of $60 to $100 million, one third to half the cost of Arianespace and significantly less than the cost of practically every other launch company.

Any company that realistically wants to compete with SpaceX has to be totally honest about these facts. Their customers are honest about them, for certain.

Update: The CEO of ULA admits that the real cost of its military launches averages about $225 million per launch.

He claims they can get the cost down to $100 million per launch, but only if the military makes a bulk buy of 50 launches from them, but even that barely competes with SpaceX’s accepted launch fees ranging from $75 to $100 million, per launch. No need to buy 50 rockets from SpaceX to get these prices.

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NASA reveals that the second flight of SLS in 20210 might not be manned.

12:52 pm

Pigs in space: NASA reveals that the second flight of SLS in 20210 might not be manned.

This project officially started in 2010, which means this second flight will come more than a decade later. They will have spent more than $20 billion by that time, not counting the money spent on Orion. They will have also spent billions developing one engine for the upper stage, only to shelve it to develop another which they will need to test. Hence, the possibility that the second flight will be unmanned. NASA has also admitted that the third flight of SLS won’t come until 2024 at the earliest.

What kind of crap is this? This isn’t a space program or a project to explore the solar system. It is pure pork, a boondoggle designed to spend as much taxpayer dollars as possible for as long as possible. It is time to shut it down.

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SpaceX discovered a lot of water inside their Dragon capsule after splashdown.

12:44 pm

SpaceX discovered a lot of water inside their Dragon capsule after splashdown.

This has got to be fixed. Though it does not appear that any cargo inside was damaged, this is the second time this has happened. More important, it suggests that the capsule integrity cannot yet be trusted in the vacuum of space. If water can seep in, it is just as possible for atmosphere to leak out.

Keep this in mind when you read reports about SpaceX’s unveiling of their manned version of this capsule on May 29. As much as I am supportive of this company, the worst thing anyone can do is be blind to problems such as this.

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In order to lower costs, Lockheed Martin wants to get more American parts into the European-built service module for the Orion capsule.

9:39 am

In order to lower costs, Lockheed Martin wants to get more American parts into the European-built service module for the Orion capsule.

And why do they want to lower costs? It ain’t for the normal free market reasons you’d expect. Instead, the Frankenstein project that is SLS/Orion has the U.S. building the capsule while Europe builds the service module. However, Europe doesn’t want to spend the money to build two service modules. Instead,

for financial reasons, ESA prime contractor Airbus Defense and Space may provide only “one and a half” service modules, Larry Price, Lockheed’s Orion deputy program manager, said in an interview here.

“They may not complete both of them, depending on funding,” Price said. But “we think we can drive Europe’s cost down so they can deliver two complete service modules” by steering the European company toward American suppliers already working on the Orion crew module. “If we use common parts, they can be lower price,” Price said. He added that ESA is set to deliver a full service module for the 2017 flight.

Read the article. It better than anything I can say will make it clear how much of a dead end project SLS/Orion really is. The rocket costs more than $14 billion per launch, has no clear mission, and the contractor (Europe) for the capsule’s service module only intends to build one and a half. What will NASA do after that? No one has any idea, nor does anyone at NASA have any plans to figure this out.

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Designed and funded on the premise that it would fly past a Kuiper belt asteroid after it flew past Pluto, the New Horizons team has so far failed to find such an asteroid and is running out of time.

9:29 am

Designed and funded on the premise that it would fly past a Kuiper belt object (KBO) after it flew past Pluto, the New Horizons team has so far failed to find such an asteroid and is running out of time.

In theory, project scientists should have identified a suitable KBO long ago. But they postponed their main search until 2011, waiting for all the possible KBO targets to begin converging on a narrow cone of space that New Horizons should be able to reach after its Pluto encounter. Starting to look for them before 2011 would have been impossible, says Grundy, because they would have been spread over too much of the sky.

Now that the hunt for KBOs is on, the New Horizons researchers have mainly been using the 8.2-metre Subaru Telescope in Hawaii and the 6.5-metre Magellan Telescopes in Chile. They have found about 50 new KBOs; none is close enough for New Horizons to reach.

I always thought it unlikely that they would be able to, on the fly, find a suitable candidate that New Horizons could reach in the very empty vastness beyond Pluto. In fact, it seemed absurd and to me seemed instead a transparent public relations ploy to get the funding for the fly-by mission to Pluto. Sadly, my cynical perspective here appears to be turning out to be true.

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The battle between France and Germany on how to replace the Ariane 5 rocket continues.

9:13 am

The battle between France and Germany on how to replace the Ariane 5 rocket continues.

To save money and lower cost, France wants to build a rocket that mostly uses solid rocket motors. Germany however has a problem with this.

German government officials have said they will have difficulty supporting the current Ariane 6 design, which features four identical solid-fueled stages — two as strap-on boosters, and two as the vehicle’s first and second stages — topped by the cryogenic upper stage powered by the same restartable Vinci engine that is the main element of the proposed Ariane 5 upgrade. Germany, through its space agency, the German Aerospace Center, DLR, has said it would prefer a liquid-fueled first stage for Ariane 6 as such a stage could be built in Germany and thus assure a large German industrial role in the program. Without such a role, DLR has said, German support for Ariane 6 might not be forthcoming.

The story above says that France is willing to negotiate with Germany over this, but if they do, they guarantee that Ariane 6 will be a costly rocket to build, making it very unattractive to satellite customers.

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Replacing the Russian-made rocket engines used by the Atlas 5 and Antares rockets would take about four years, according to a industry analysis.

9:03 am

Replacing the Russian-made rocket engines used by the Atlas 5 and Antares rockets would take about four years, according to Aerojet Rocketdyne.

The company presently refurbishes the Russian engines used by Antares, and is building a host of other engines for other rockets.

In related news, ULA has begun considering shifting some of its military launches from the Atlas 5 to the Delta family of rockets. The company has also released previously undisclosed pricing information for its bulk buy military launches.

Michael Gass, chief executive of Denver-based ULA, said the company’s average per-launch price to the U.S. government is $225 million, a figure that includes the block buy contract as well as pre-existing launch backlog. That figure represents the combined value of the contracts divided by the number of missions.

That $225 million figure, though far less than previously believed, is a little more than twice what SpaceX says it would charge for a comparable launch.

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