Tag: spaceflight

Test flight of European space plane delayed

9:33 am

The November suborbital test flight of Europe’s Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV) has been delayed to allow additional preparation.

For this mission, instead of heading north into a polar orbit, as on previous flights, Vega will head eastwards to release the spaceplane into a suborbital path reaching all the way to the Pacific Ocean to test new technologies for future autonomous controlled reentry for return missions. This trajectory is unprecedented for Vega and therefore more information is being generated on the performance of the launch vehicle, should an anomaly occur after liftoff.

ESA will not only be testing the flight characteristics of the space plane, they will be testing their new Vega rocket, which has only been launched a handful of times.

Leave a comment

First chemical results from Rosetta

9:24 am

Spectroscopy from Rosetta has identified the make-up of a single dust grain captured by the spacecraft.

For the convenience of communications the science team had dubbed this single grain “Boris.”

[T]hese first results show that among the grain’s components are magnesium and sodium. Since 95 percent of the known observed minerals in comets resemble olivine and pyroxenes – containing a lot of magnesium – the detection of this element is not a big surprise. But, finding sodium in the dust grain, in a refractory mineral phase, has sparked our interest considerably.

The coma and tails of other comets are already known to contain sodium; it was observed in the dust samples returned from Comet Wild 2 by NASA’s Stardust mission, and a prominent example was also the sodium tail of Comet Hale-Bopp that flew past the Sun in April 1997 and which could be seen in the night sky for many weeks. However, by contrast, neither sodium nor magnesium were observed in Comet 67P/C-G dust grains before sampling the inner coma dust. But our dust grain Boris has showed off with clear sodium and magnesium mass peaks in the secondary ion mass spectra that we obtained.

Their next goal is to identify where on the surface of Comet 67P/C-G this sodium came from.

Leave a comment

LADEE impact site located

8:47 am

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has spotted the impact crater formed when engineers sent the probe LADEE crashing into the lunar surface in April 2014.

Compared with asteroid and meteoroid impacts on the moon, LADEE was actually traveling pretty slow, ‘only’ 3,800 miles per hour (1,700 meters per second). That combined with the relatively low mass and density of the spacecraft, a fairly neat crater of only 10 feet (3 meters) across was created. The crater barely registered in LROC’s image resolution, making it a very difficult task to identify the fresh man-made divot.

Leave a comment

Antares launch failure

3:35 pm

Immediately after lifting off from the launchpad this evening, Orbital Sciences’ Antares rocket exploded, falling back onto the launchpad.

We will have to wait for more details, but regardless this is bad news for Orbital Sciences. The bidding for the second round of cargo contracts to ISS is about to begin, and they will have competition from Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser. This accident will hurt them.

I’ve embedded footage of the launch failure below. The damage to the launchpad itself could be the worst aspect of this, as it will cost Orbital Sciences a great deal of money and time to get the pad rebuilt.

17 comments

NASA treats Congress like a doormat, again

9:34 am

Stupid: More than a month after publicly awarding commercial crew contracts to SpaceX and Boeing, NASA has yet to brief Congress on the reasons for its decision.

“To date, the Committee has not been briefed on the source selection, nor has it received the source selection statement, despite the fact that the offerors have been briefed, details were released to the press, the [Government Accountability Office] is now involved; and NASA has decided to proceed with the contracts,” Reps. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and Steven Palazzo (R-Miss.) wrote in a letter to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden dated Oct. 21. Smith and Palazzo chair the House Science Committee and House Science space subcommittee, respectively.

“We hope that NASA will not expect taxpayers to blindly fund billion-dollar programs absent any information related to the procurement or contract,” wrote Smith and Palazzo, who are ardent supporters of the Space Launch System, major contractual details of which were only finalized this year and have not yet been made public.

These elected officials are not NASA’s allies when it comes to commercial space, so giving them too much information is probably dangerous. At the same time, the choice of Boeing was certainly done to ease their concerns, and keeping them out of the loop is only going to turn them against the commercial space contracts. It serves no purpose. NASA should instead be trying to show them why picking SpaceX and Boeing made sense, and how these two multi-billion dollar contracts will bring many jobs to their districts.

If NASA doesn’t do this basic political massaging, these guys are simply going to try to cut commercial space out when it comes time to negotiate the budget, as they have already tried to do several times in the past.

But then, when it comes to politics this behavior by the Obama administration is par for the course. They might have the right idea, farming out space exploration to the private sector, but their political implementation has often left much to be desired.

Leave a comment

Third launch for China in a week

9:17 am

The competition heats up: China today launched its third spacecraft in a week with the launch Monday of a military satellite.

Monday’s mission was the third Chinese space launch in a week, coming after the Oct. 20 liftoff of the Chinese military’s Yaogan 22 reconnaissance satellite and the Oct. 23 launch of a demonstrator probe on a looping flight around the moon and back to Earth to verify technologies for use on a planned mission to retrieve and return lunar samples. Overall, the launch of Shijian 11-08 marked the ninth Chinese space launch of 2014.

Leave a comment

Vulnerable Senate Democrats are all Obama rubber-stamps

4:03 pm

A vote for Obama: Every single one of the most vulnerable Democrats running for the Senate voted with Obama more than 96 percent of the time.

As senior writer Shawn Zeller writes in this week’s CQ Weekly cover story, Democrats … have been distancing themselves from Obama on the campaign trail not in votes on the Senate floor — whether it be Mark Udall of Colorado, Mark Pryor of Arkansas or Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana: “Udall disagreed just once, on a Pennsylvania state judge’s nomination to a federal district court. Pryor parted with Obama three times, and Landrieu four, but only one of those votes was on a policy matter. In July, Landrieu voted against Obama’s request for $2.7 billion to deal with the surge of Latin American children entering the U.S. illegally.” Indeed, all of the most vulnerable Democrats voted with President Obama at least 96 percent of the time on the 120 votes on which Obama has urged a “yes” or “no” vote.

There are many take-aways you could get from this story, but I want to emphasis one: These Democratic candidates are all liars and consider the voters stupid. By claiming in their campaigns and debates that they are independent of Obama they are telling us that they think you are too stupid to see through their lies and will vote for them anyway.

Bottom line: a vote for a Democrat this election is a vote for the policies that Barack Obama has foisted on this country the past six years. Is that what we really want?

Note: Sorry for the lack of posts today, but up until now I have honestly not seen anything in the news that I consider worth posting.

2 comments

ISS data lowers radiation risk for humans in space

7:28 pm

Good news: Data collected on ISS for the past decade now suggests that the human body does a better job of shielding its internal organs from space radiation than previously believed.

For an astronaut working inside the space station, the overestimate was about 15 percent — a fairly close correlation given that the station’s exterior shell provides much of the protection needed.

But for astronauts working outside the station, the radiation absorption measured was substantially less than what had been registered by the personal dosimeters worn by astronauts. “Measurements of a personal dosimeter dramatically overstate the exposure of an astronaut, in the worst case by a factor of three,” according to a summary of the results by a Euro-Russian team. “[I]n an outside exposure the self-shielding of the human body is very effective. … [T]he effective dose equivalent is less than 30 percent higher than in an inside exposure.”

In other words, humans could fly 30 percent longer in space with the present shielding and suffer far less exposure than expected. Though this data is for operations in low Earth orbit, it still provides a strong counter to the bad news recently released about the high amounts of dangerous radiation expected in interplanetary space due to the Sun’s recent low sunspot activity. Even if radiation levels are higher, the human body is more resilient than expected. Interplanetary space travel is still possible.

One comment

Lawsuit could delay Cygnus cargo flight in April

7:20 pm

A lawsuit between Orbital Sciences and one of its subcontractors threatens to delay the planned April launch of Antares/Cygnus to ISS.

The lawsuit, filed Oct. 21 with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, centers around a roughly $2 million contract Orbital Sciences awarded in 2013 to defendants Integrated Systems and Machinery of Smithtown, New York, and its owner, Kevin Huber. The contract called for Huber’s company to build new gimbals and cylinders for the hydraulic system used by the slow-moving, truck-like Transporter Erector vehicle that hauls Orbital’s Antares cargo rocket and Cygnus space freighter out of their Wallops Island, Virginia, hangar and raises them vertical at their Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport launch pad over a kilometer away.

Orbital’s third cargo run to the ISS — which at press time was still slated to launch Oct. 27 — can proceed without the withheld hardware. However, Orbital is obligated under an agreement with the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport’s host state to upgrade the Transporter Erector before launching its fourth contracted cargo run, the debut of a bigger, heavier Cygnus cargo tug.

I don’t really expect this dispute to delay the April launch. What we have here is a case of hardball negotiations, with the subcontractor using the situation to try to squeeze more money out of Orbital Sciences. In the end they will come to an agreement and the upgrade will be installed.

Leave a comment

Falcon 9 first stage to land on floating platform

7:11 pm

The competition heats up: During an event at MIT on Friday Elon Musk revealed that SpaceX will to try to land first stage of the next Falcon 9 launch on a floating platform.

“We actually have a huge platform that’s being constructed in a shipyard in Louisiana right now,” Musk said in the interview, which was webcast live. He described the platform as about 90 meters long by 50 meters wide. “We’re going to try and land on that on the next flight.”

If the stage successfully lands on the platform, Musk said, it could potentially fly again. He put the odds of success at no greater than 50 percent for this particular attempt, but was more optimistic about the company’s chances of landing on the platform on a future mission. “There’s at least a dozen launches that will occur over the next 12 months,” Musk said. “I think it’s quite likely — probably 80 to 90 percent likely — that one of those flights will be able to land and refly.”

Based on everything this company has promised and later actually delivered, I would be willing to bet that they will do exactly as Musk says, and that sometime in the next year they will successfully recover the first stage of their rocket, an achievement that will shake the entire launch industry to its foundations.

5 comments

New sky-diving record by Google executive

3:28 pm

The competition heats up: A Google executive successfully set a new sky-diving record on Friday, diving from 135 thousand feet as part of an engineering effort to build “a self-contained commercial spacesuit that would allow people to explore some 20 miles above the Earth’s surface.”

After nearly three years of intense planning, development and training, Eustace began his ascent via a high-altitude, helium-filled balloon just as the sun was rising. It took more than two hours to hit a record altitude of 135,908 feet, from which he separated himself from the balloon and started plummeting back to Earth.

Wearing his specially designed spacesuit, Eustace hit a top velocity of 822 mph during a freefall that lasted 4 1/2 minutes. Jim Hayhurst, director of competition at the United States Parachute Association, was the jump’s official observer. He said Eustace deployed a drogue parachute that gave him incredible stability and control despite the massive Mach 1.23 speed reached during the freefall. Eustace didn’t feel it when he broke the sound barrier, but the ground crew certainly heard the resulting sonic boom, Hayhurst said.

This flight suggests that the technology for doing these kinds of sky-dives from the very edge of space is beginning to mature, and might even be available soon for passengers on tourist flights.

Leave a comment

Sierra Nevada announces an X-37B version of Dream Chaser

9:29 am

The competition heats up: In a press release today, Sierra Nevada has announced plans to build a version of Dream Chaser optimized for science research.

The Dream Chaser for Science, or DC4Science, spacecraft is designed to fly independently for short and extended durations to provide customers in such fields as biotech and pharmaceuticals, biology and life science, and material and fluid science with a flexible and evolvable vehicle easily suited for individual mission requirements.

More details here.

I call this version of Dream Chaser a variation of the X-37B because that is essentially what it would be, an unmanned reusable robot vehicle capable of taking experiments into space for periods of time and then bringing them safely back to Earth on a runway.

What Sierra Nevada is doing by announcing this now, shortly after the landing of the X-37B, is selling the concept in an effort to drum up customers who will then invest in the vehicle and thus help fund its construction.

One comment

India’s manned space program

9:20 am

This short article gives us a short but detailed look at India’s plans for manned space, describing both the first test flight of a engineering version of their manned capsule in a little more than a month and the program’s overall goals.

The test flight:

“The first test trial, that of the crew module, will be undertaken in November last week or December first week on the GSLV MK-III,” [Isro chairman K Radhakrishnan told Deccan Herald.] The crew module will be injected into orbit by the GSLV at a height of 110-120 km in space from where it will fall towards the earth and be recovered from sea. Isro will examine how the crew module and thermal shield around it handle the heat and temperatures during re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere.

Their eventual goal is to put two astronauts in orbit for seven days. To do that they will first have to complete at least four to six test launches of their new GSLV MK-III rocket, which has only completed one successful launch after literally two decades of failures. If successful, the test flight described above will be GSLV’s second successful launch.

Note that because of poor writing the article gives the improper impression that the test flight will be manned. It will not. Also, the article states incorrectly that the space shuttle Columbia broke up during re-entry because “the thermal heat shields could not withstand the heat.” This is false. The heat shield would have worked fine, as it had done on numerous previous launches, except that there were gaping holes in it that were put there by pieces of foam during launch.

One comment

Chinese lunar mission launches

5:36 pm

The competition heats up: The Chinese have launched their next lunar mission, a fly-by around the Moon to test their return-to-Earth engineering in anticipation of a future sample return mission.

Chang’e 5-T1, one of the test models for Chang’e-5, was developed using a Chang’e 2 type spacecraft (acting like a service module) featuring the Chang’e-5 return capsule. This return capsule is very similar to the Shenzhou manned return technology, so it is assumed that it was developed using the Shenzhou as a baseline model. The service module will be used for trajectory corrections, power supply using two solar panels and batteries, along with telemetry and commands transmission to and from the control center.

Following launch, Chang’e 5-T1 will be injected into a lunar free-return orbit, loop behind the Moon once and return to Earth to test the high speed atmospheric reentry of a capsule returning from the translunar voyage at 11.2 km/s.

This launch marks the start of this nine day mission. Stay tuned for updates.

Leave a comment

Problems at the National Weather Service?

9:29 am

According to this news report, since Tuesday the National Weather Service has lost access to some of its satellite data.

The story is very unclear and might not be accurate. For example, it does not state where the problem is. Has a specific satellite failed? Or is the problem on the ground, preventing the NWS from processing data from any of its satellites? It also seems puzzling for such a significant failure to occur on Tuesday and only now on Thursday does anyone notice. I have seen no other news stories about this outage.

One comment

Next Angara test flight in December

9:23 am

The competition heats up: According to one Russian official, the next test flight of Russia’s new Angara rocket will take place before the end of December.

Another Russian news story says that the Angara test program will involve ten flights and that the target cost for the rocket’s most powerful configuration will be around $100 million. Depending on how much payload this configuration can put in orbit, this price makes it very competitive with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy.

One comment

Orion ready for launchpad!

9:15 am

Be still my heart! NASA has completed the assembly of the Orion capsule stack, prior to installing it on its rocket on the launchpad.

I remain decidedly unexcited by this upcoming test flight, which will send Orion up to 3,600 miles and then bring it back to Earth at about 20,000 miles per hour to test the spacecraft’s heat shield.

For example, the exaggerations and overstatements in this one short article tell you a great deal about how oversold the SLS/Orion program is.
» Read more

One comment

Another failure for Russia’s Proton rocket?

5:10 pm

Unconfirmed sources today are suggesting that Tuesday’s Proton launch of a Russian communications satellite placed the satellite in the wrong orbit.

A report appearing on NASASpaceFlight (NSF) has indicated that while the initial phase of the launch of the Russian Ekspress AM-6 telecommunications satellite might have gone off as planned – the later stages of the mission were less than perfect. NSF’s Chris Bergin reported via Twitter that, although the spacecraft had been placed into the wrong orbit – it should be able to be placed into the correct orbit over time. How much time and what the exact cause as to why the satellite may have been placed into an improper orbit – have yet to emerge. In fact, officials within the Russian space industry have stated that the spacecraft is, in actuality, in the correct orbit.

If these sources are correct it will be a very bad problem for Russia’s aerospace industry, now consolidated into a single giant corporation run by the central government. Proton has had numerous failures in the past three years, all caused by serious quality control problems in Russia’s entire space industry. Another failure here will only add weight to this conclusion.

One comment

India begins tests of larger rocket engine

8:45 am

The competition heats up: Indian engineers have successfully completed their first tests of a new more powerful upper stage engine for their biggest launch rocket.

Taking a big step forward in the development of bigger and more powerful locally-built rocket engines, the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC) on Monday successfully conducted the first ‘cold flow test’ on the CE-20 cryogenic engine, which will power the upper stage of the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle-Mk III (GSLV-Mk III). “It’s a milestone,” LPSC director Dr K Sivan told ‘Express’ here on Tuesday, confirming that the test had gone as planned at the LPSC facility in Mahendragiri, Tamil Nadu. The first ‘hot test’ – where the engine will be fired for a few seconds- will be performed in three weeks’ time, Sivan said.

In a cold test, the propellants are not ignited. On Monday, the fuel, Liquid Hydrogen (LH2), and the oxidiser, Liquid Oxygen (LOX), were injected into the chambers for the checking of various parameters.

In related news, Mangalyaan has taken another global view of Mars.

Leave a comment
1 … 405 406 407 408 409 … 499