Tag: spaceflight

Why NASA picked Boeing over Sierra Nevada

9:43 am

A NASA internal document obtained by Aviation Week outlines the agency’s reasons for rejecting Sierra Nevada and its Dream Chaser spacecraft in its commercial manned space program.

Although the document praises Sierra’s “strong management approach to ensure the technical work and schedule are accomplished,” it cautions that the company’s Dream Chaser had “the longest schedule for completing certification.” The letter also states that “it also has the most work to accomplish which is likely to further extend its schedule beyond 2017, and is most likely to reach certification and begin service missions later than the other ‘Offerors’.”

Discussing costs, Gerstenmaier says that “although SNC’s [Sierra Nevada] price is lower than Boeing’s price, its technical and management approaches and its past performance are not as high and I see considerably more schedule risk with its proposal. Both SNC and SpaceX had high past performance, and very good technical and management approaches, but SNC’s price is significantly higher than SpaceX’s price.”

The document essentially was written, and probably leaked to the press now, to justify the political decision to give the contracts to Boeing and SpaceX. Thus, it waxes very enthusiastic about Boeing, since giving Boeing the contract, with the highest price and the least metal cut, needs some justification.

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Orbiting X-37B to land on Tuesday

9:08 am

After twenty-two months in orbit, on its second space mission, the Air Force plans to bring the X-37B back to Earth this coming Tuesday.

The exact time and date will depend on weather and technical factors, the Air Force said in a statement released on Friday. The X-37B space plane, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle, blasted off for its second mission aboard an unmanned Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Dec. 11, 2012. The 29-foot-long (9-meter) robotic spaceship, which resembles a miniature space shuttle, is an experimental vehicle that first flew in April 2010. It returned after eight months. A second vehicle blasted off in March 2011 and stayed in orbit for 15 months.

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Giant boulders on Comet 67P/C-G

9:42 am

Giant boulders on Comet 67P/C-G

As Rosetta has moved in on Comet 67P/C-G, engineers have focused in on its most interesting surface features, such as the nucleus’s neck as well as a collection of very large boulders on a relatively smooth area on the nucleus’s larger lobe. The biggest boulder, seen as the middlemost rock in the photo above, they have named Cheops. It is estimated to be 150 feet across with a height of about 80 feet.

It should be emphasized that calling these features boulders might actually be premature at this time.
» Read more

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Yutu is slowly dying

4:00 pm

China’s lunar rover Yutu, unable to move since its first few weeks on the moon, is slowly dying.

The rover is currently in good condition and works normally, but its control problem persists, said Yu Dengyun, deputy chief designer of China’s lunar probe mission. “Yutu has gone through freezing lunar nights under abnormal status, and its functions are gradually degrading,” Yu told Xinhua at an exclusive interview. He said that the moon rover and the lander of the Chang’e-3 lunar mission have completed their tasks very well. The rover’s designed lifetime is just three months, but it has survived for over nine.

As China’s first planetary rover mission, the limited roving success of Yutu is well balanced by its ability to continue functioning on the lunar survey for so long. The engineering data obtained from this mission will serve Chinese engineers well as they plan future missions.

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SpaceShipTwo poised for powered test flights

3:51 pm

Virgin Galactic officials outline the status of SpaceShipTwo, suggesting that powered flight tests are finally about to begin.

Providing a rare glimpse of progress on a second spacecraft under assembly at sister organization, The Spaceship Co., Virgin Galactic Vice President of Operations Mike Moses says, “we are ready for space.” A former NASA launch integration manager for the space shuttle, Moses adds that SS2 “has been in modification, getting retrofitted ready to resume powered flights.” He notes that “those are going to start imminently—literally very imminently.”

Commenting on the extensive gap between now and the last rocket flight in January, Moses says, “It might seem a long time since our last powered flight-testing and that maybe nothing has been happening, but [ground testing] has been happening.” Tests have largely focused on ground-firings of a hybrid rocket motor fueled with polyamide-based plastic in place of the hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene, a form of rubber used for the first series of powered tests. Although this fuel had been used successfully in SpaceShipOne, the vehicle developer Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic encountered fuel-burn stability and power issues as they tried to scale the Sierra Nevada Corp.-provided hybrid motor up to the size required by the larger SS2.

It appears my guess was right and that the last two glide tests were to retrofit SpaceShipTwo for the new fuel and engine. This has now been accomplished, and they are preparing to begin powered flight tests.

The article also describes work on a second SpaceShipTwo, which when completed will give Virgin Galactic the beginnings of a fleet of ships.

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Construction of Angara launchpad at Vostochny delayed

9:23 am

In order to complete construction of the Soyuz rocket launchpad at Russia’s new spaceport in Vostochny as quickly as possible, Russian managers have decided to delay completion by one year of the launchpad for the new Angara rocket.

I would not conclude from this decision that the construction at Vostochny is lagging. Instead, it appears that the Russian government continues to give it a high priority, and is merely beginning to structure that priority as effectively as possible. The Soyuz rocket is already in operation and will be ready to fly as soon as Vostochny is operational. Angara meanwhile is still under development. I suspect a delay in getting its launchpad ready will have no effect in the overall schedule of that rocket, as they need to do several additional test flights before it will be ready to be declared operational.

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Launch abort system installed on Orion for December test flight

9:14 am

Engineers have installed a test version of the launch abort system (LAS) for the first test flight of the Orion capsule in December.

The LAS will not be active during the uncrewed EFT-1 mission, but during future missions it will be equipped to act within milliseconds to pull the spacecraft and its crew away from its rocket so that Orion could parachute safely back to Earth.  While the abort motors  are inert and not filled with solid fuel, the LAS will have an active jettison motor so that it can pull itself and the nose fairing away from the spacecraft shortly before Orion goes into orbit. The flight test will provide data on the abort system’s performance during Orion’s trip to space.

Based on what I know of the Orion/SLS launch schedule, I don’t think NASA ever intends to test it during a full launch of the SLS rocket. For one thing, the rocket is too expensive and NASA can’t afford to waste a launch just to test this one component. For another, the rocket’s development is too slow as it is, with the first launch not scheduled until 2018 and the first manned flight not until 2021, at the earliest. If they add a launch test of the abort system, NASA might not fly an SLS manned mission until late in the 2020s.

Meanwhile, NASA is sure insisting that SpaceX do such tests. And they will, since their capsule and rocket is affordable and quick to launch. What does that tell us about the two systems? Which would you buy if you were the paying customer?

Oh wait, you are the paying customer! Too bad you your managers in Congress don’t seem interested in managing your money very wisely.

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Air Force to take over two former shuttle hangers in Florida for its X-37B program

8:47 am

In an effort to find tenants for its facilities, the Kennedy Space Center is going to rent two former shuttle processing hangers to Boeing for the Air Force’s X-37B program.

NASA built three Orbiter Processing Facilities, or OPFs, to service its space shuttle fleet between missions. All three are located next to the iconic Vehicle Assembly Building at the Florida spaceport where Apollo Saturn 5 moon rockets and space shuttles were “stacked” for launch. Under an agreement with NASA, Boeing will modify OPF bays 1 and 2 for the X-37B program, completing upgrades by the end of the year.

The company already has an agreement with NASA to use OPF-3 and the shuttle engine shop in the VAB to assemble its CST-100 commercial crew craft being built to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station. The company says up to six capsules can be processed in the facility at the same time.

The most important take-away from this news is that it strongly suggests the Air Force now intends to expand the X-37B program. They will not only be flying both X37B’s again, they might even planning to increase the fleet’s size from two ships.

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Independent Arianespace investigation cites design error as cause of Russian launch failure

8:36 am

A just released independent investigation by Arianespace of the Soyuz rocket launch failure that put two European Galileo GPS satellites in the wrong orbits has concluded that the design of the Fregat upper stage, not an assembly error, was at fault for the failure.

The upper stage was not oriented correctly because fuel lines to thrusters had become frozen.

The freezing resulted from the proximity of hydrazine and cold helium feed lines, these lines being connected by the same support structure, which acted as a thermal bridge. Ambiguities in the design documents allowed the installation of this type of thermal “bridge” between the two lines. In fact, such bridges have also been seen on other Fregat stages now under production at NPO Lavochkin. The design ambiguity is the result of not taking into account the relevant thermal transfers during the thermal analyses of the stage system design.

That the Russian investigation found that this arrangement of feed lines happened once in every four stages that were assembled still suggests sloppiness, if not in assembly then in design. The Arianespace investigation, though thorough, thus appears to me to be trying to provide cover for thier Russian partners here.

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XCOR sells its Lynx suborbital spaceplane

10:19 pm

This NBC story tries very hard to help XCOR sell its Lynx suborbital space plane, but I found myself very unimpressed. To me the images suggested instead that little progress has occurred in recent months, and that the project has stalled.

I hope I am wrong, but this whole story reminded me strongly of many of Richard Branson’s efforts to sell Virgin Galactic, which have so far proven to be vastly overstated.

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The next wave of Obamacare insurance cancellations begin arriving

4:20 pm

Finding out what’s in it: Walmart is dropping health insurance for its part time workers because of Obamacare.

Starting Jan. 1, Wal-Mart told The Associated Press that it will no longer offer health insurance to employees who work less than an average of 30 hours a week. The move, which would affect 30,000 employees, follows similar decisions by Target, Home Depot and others to eliminate health insurance benefits for part-time employees.

This is only a sampling of what is beginning to happen throughout private industry. If companies aren’t cutting hours to less than 30 for many employees so they don’t have to provide Obamacare, they are cutting their total staff to less than 50 to exempt themselves from the law. And they are doing it not because they want to but because they have to. If they don’t, the cost of Obamacare will bankrupt them.

Of course, it is also bankrupting the individuals who now have to find their own insurance and quickly find they can’t afford health insurance as offered by Obamacare.

But remember, the Democrats and Obama care! So what they are idiots and wrote a law that does nothing but harm. We must vote for them anyway because they care!

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SpaceX wins safety design award

4:52 pm

I post this story about SpaceX winning an award for its safety-in-design work mostly to illustrate again that, except for one lone commenter on my webpage, most of the aerospace industry recognizes the generally good work that SpaceX has been doing. Not only do their recognize it, they have found themselves struggling to meet the competitive challenge that SpaceX now represents, an effort that has been all to the good for everyone in the space industry.

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Delta 4 Heavy moved to launchpad for Orion flight

10:09 am

In preparation for a December test flight of the first Orion capsule, the Delta 4 Heavy rocket has been positioned on the launchpad.

The unmanned Dec. 4 mission, known as Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1), is designed to test out Orion’s critical crew-safety systems, such as its thermal-protection gear. During the four-hour flight, the Orion capsule will fly 3,600 miles (5,800 kilometers) from Earth, then come speeding back into the planet’s atmosphere at about 20,000 mph (32,190 km/h) before splashing down softly in the Pacific Ocean, NASA officials said.

Forgive me if I remain decidedly unexcited. I still believe SLS to be an enormous waste of resources that would be better spent onother things.

Posted on the road south of Phoenix.

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Fixing the space junk problem of the new Japanese Epsilon rocket.

9:47 am

The Japanese space agency has now promised to make sure that future launches of its new low cost Epsilon rocket will not leave its upper stages in orbit as space junk.

Epsilon’s first flight, which was a success, left two large objects — the rocket’s upper stage and a smaller post-boost stage — in an orbit with a perigee of some 800 kilometers, meaning neither will fall into the atmosphere for a century or longer. In the meantime, they will add to the population of orbiting garbage that poses a threat to active satellites traversing this orbit.

Japan has signed international agreements requiring them to not create space junk, so on future launches they are promising to make sure the upper stages are released in low enough orbits that they will quickly decay and burn up in the atmosphere.

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A decision in November on Orbital’s reliance on Russian engines in Antares

9:38 am

The competition heats up: Orbital Sciences has announced that it will make a decision in November on replacing the Russian rocket engine that it uses in its Antares commercial rocket.

In a presentation at the 65th International Astronautical Congress here, Orbital Executive Vice President Frank Culbertson said the engine decision is linked to the company’s proposal for NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS)2 competition. NASA issued the request for proposals for CRS2 on Sept. 26, with responses due Nov. 14. “We’ll make sure we’ll have a decision on that before we submit the proposal,” Culbertson said when asked about the status of the engine decision.

Orbital has been weighing for several months a replacement for the AJ-26 engines that Antares currently uses. Those engines, provided by Aerojet Rocketdyne, are refurbished versions of Soviet-era NK-33 engines originally designed for the N-1 lunar rocket developed in the 1960s.

The company is considering several proposals, including one from ATK, which is in the process of merging with Orbital at this very moment.

The article also notes that Orbital recognizes that the use of Russian engines will likely work against them in the competition to win the next ISS cargo contract, and that if they don’t have a plan to replace those engines it is quite possible that NASA will go with a different company, such as Sierra Nevada, when it awards that contract.

As I said already, oh how I love competition.

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More quality control problems in Russia

9:29 am

The investigation into the failure of a Russian Soyuz rocket to place two European Galileo GPS satellites into the correct orbit has found that it was caused by the faulty installation of fuel lines on the Fregat upper stage.

The failure was as simple as clamping together a cold helium line with the hydrazine fuel line, causing the hydrazine to freeze long enough to upset the Fregat stage’s orientation and cause the two satellites’ release into an orbit that is both too low and in the wrong inclination, officials said. One official said the Euro-Russian board of inquiry into the failure discovered that one in four Fregat upper stages at prime contractor Moscow-based NPO Lavochkin had the same faulty installation. ,,,,

Government and officials said the commission is debating how to proceed now that it knows that, as expected, the Fregat failure was not one of design, but of assembly and quality control. [emphasis mine]

In other words, 1 in 4 Fregat upper stations were routinely assembled improperly and no one noticed. The investigation also found that this assembly problem had existed on several past launches but because of the orbital requirements it had fortunately not caused any problems.

I want to emphasize that these kind of sloppy assembly issues have been occurring at a number of different Russian factories and different Russian companies. It seems to be systemic to the entire Russian aerospace industry, and it also appears to be getting worse.

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Stratolaunch and Sierra Nevada team up

9:14 am

The competition heats up: Sierra Nevada and Stratolaunch have signed an agreement to use a 3/4 scale version of Dream Chaser as the manned vehicle launched by Stratolaunch’s giant first stage airplane.

The Dream Chaser is a reusable, lifting-body spacecraft capable of crewed or autonomous flight. Dream Chaser is the only lifting-body spacecraft capable of a runway landing, anywhere in the world. Stratolaunch Systems is a Paul G. Allen project dedicated to developing an air-launch system that will revolutionize space transportation by providing orbital access to space at lower costs, with greater safety and more flexibility.

As designed, the Dream Chaser-Stratolauncher human spaceflight system can carry a crew of three astronauts to LEO destinations. This versatile system can also be tailored for un-crewed space missions, including science missions, light cargo transportation or suborbital point-to-point transportation. The scaled crewed spacecraft design is based on SNC’s full-scale Dream Chaser vehicle which, for the past four years, has undergone development and flight tests as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.

More information is expected to be released about this partnership at the International Astronautical Congress taking place in Toronto this week.

Summing up, however, this partnership is a blatant challenge to NASA’s Orion/SLS system as well as its its commercial crew capsules built by Boeing and SpaceX. Sierra Nevada and Stratolaunch are essentially telling the world that they are going to build their own manned reusable vehicle, and that it is going to be better than anyone else’s.

Oh how I love competition. It sure makes things happen quickly.

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Dream Chaser still alive!

9:22 am

The competition heats up: Sierra Nevada (SNC) has announced a new effort to gain international customers for its Dream Chaser manned spacecraft.

From the press release:

SNC’s Global Project offers clients across the globe access to low Earth orbit (LEO) without the time, resources and financial burden of developing the necessary capabilities or infrastructure to support a mature human spaceflight program. The Global Project utilizes the Dream Chaser spacecraft as a baseline vehicle which, in turn, can be customized by the client for an array of missions to support government, commercial, academic and international goals. The individual mission customization of the Global Project can be applied to both crewed and uncrewed variants for a single dedicated mission or suite of missions.

This is excellent news, as it tells us that the company is not giving up on the spacecraft, and intends to push hard to finish it. Not only are they working make it a viable product to many customers and thus obtain the construction financing to build it outside of NASA’s manned program, they also appear ready to bid on NASA’s second round of cargo launches, using Dream Chaser as an unmanned cargo freighter to ISS.

In fact, I would not be surprised if NASA chooses Dream Chaser over Dragon for that second round of cargo deliveries. Dragon is slated for the manned flights, so the agency will need another vehicle to replace it. Why not give the contract to Sierra Nevada, thus providing NASA with two manned vehicles and three cargo vehicles, all capable of accessing the station.

All in all, this increasingly looks like a win-win situation for everyone.

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Congress demands American rocket engines for military launches

9:11 am

In a letter written by a bi-partisan group of California legislators, Congress is pressuring the Air Force to replace the Russian engines on its Atlas rocket, and do to it competitively.

“While it is important that we invest in new technology, the problem of Russian reliance calls for an immediate solution,” states the Sept. 22 letter, which was signed by 32 of California’s 53 members of the U.S. House of Representatives. … In the letter, the House members said they are “troubled by the Department’s willingness to continue sourcing this engine from the Russian government, apparently in the hope that the situation with Russia does not deteriorate further, and that Russia chooses to continue supporting U.S. military launches — while it ignores American sources of engine technology. “We strongly encourage you to recognize that the United States — and specifically, California — today produces technology that exceeds any capability offered by Russian systems,” the letter said. “It is time for the Department to look to these existing U.S. engine manufacturers and launch vehicle providers.”

This letter suggests to me that SpaceX has won its battle with the Air Force and is going to get some launch contracts. It also suggests that ULA and Blue Origin will likely be able to get the funding from Congress to finance the design and construction of the replacement engine they have jointly proposed.

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Washcloth delays SLS engine tests

8:59 am

The testing of an engine for the giant SLS rocket will be delayed because engineers have found the remains of a washcloth in the ducts of the test stand at Stennis Space Center.

The investigation found the fibers belong to a cotton shop rag from a weld shop that had been involved with working on the LOX duct ID surface during manufacture. The roughened surface (of the duct) was where the fibers were observed to be hanging up on.

The investigation team reported that, under microscope inspection, a piece of the run duct stock showed metallic particles loosely adhered to the ID surface and embedded in the ‘machining’ groves. Several were easily dislodged and identified as ID surface material. “A tape sample was pulled from the same stock (after an identical cleaning process) and produced a rather large quantity of particles. This is an unacceptable condition and it was agreed that the entire run duct will need to be replaced or reworked (~30-ft of pipe),” added the investigation notes.

Replacing the duct will cause a several month delay in the test program. Fortunately for NASA, they have some wiggle room (for the moment), since the entire SLS schedule has already slipped a year to 2018.

Nonetheless, do not be surprised if this is only the first of many further delays.

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Mangalyaan’s first global images of Mars

8:49 am

Indian engineers have released the first global images taken by Mangalyaan.

As MOM’s orbit is highly elliptical, reaching from 262 miles (periareon — closest approach) to 47,841 miles (apoareon — farthest extent), we can expect a lot more global views from Mars’ newest satellite, providing us with a beautiful global perspective of a planet that currently has seven robotic missions (from three different space agencies) exploring it.

These images suggest that a dust storm is beginning to stir on the Martian surface.

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Something keeps coming and going in a sea on Titan

11:14 am

Cassini images taken in 2007, 2013, and 2014 of one of Titan’s largest hydrocarbon seas find that a mysterious feature there keeps appearing and disappearing.

The mysterious feature, which appears bright in radar images against the dark background of the liquid sea, was first spotted during Cassini’s July 2013 Titan flyby. Previous observations showed no sign of bright features in that part of Ligeia Mare. Scientists were perplexed to find the feature had vanished when they looked again, over several months, with low-resolution radar and Cassini’s infrared imager. This led some team members to suggest it might have been a transient feature. But during Cassini’s flyby on August 21, 2014, the feature was again visible, and its appearance had changed during the 11 months since it was last seen.

Scientists on the radar team are confident that the feature is not an artifact, or flaw, in their data, which would have been one of the simplest explanations. They also do not see evidence that its appearance results from evaporation in the sea, as the overall shoreline of Ligeia Mare has not changed noticeably. The team has suggested the feature could be surface waves, rising bubbles, floating solids, solids suspended just below the surface, or perhaps something more exotic.

That the seasons are slowly changing on Titan is probably contributing to the transient nature of this feature.

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