SpaceX’s static fire test of Falcon 9R that was scrubbed yesterday is about to happen today.
NASA has announced a press conference for later today about the Voyager spacecraft.
The rumors are that all the scientists involved with this data from this spacecraft now finally agree that Voyager has left the solar system. More to come.
The rumors were true: NASA has confirmed that Voyager 1 is out of the solar system and in interstellar space, and has been since last summer.
The competition heats up: Orbital Sciences plans to roll Antares and Cygnus to the launchpad tomorrow for its Tuesday launch.
The competition heats up: Virgin Galactic held a job fair this weekend and almost 600 applicants showed up.
They want to hire a 100 new engineers to help build additional spaceships like SpaceShipTwo.
Update: This report says that more than 1300 people showed up for these 100 jobs.
The Russians have delayed the next Proton launch, scheduled for September 17, for at least a week.
They have not described the problem in any article I can find, but considering their recent failures it doesn’t surprise me if they are being extra careful now.
Wednesday’s static fire test and launch rehearsal of SpaceX’s Falcon 9R rocket was scrubbed.
I hear rumors that there was a fuel leak, but this is not confirmed. Regardless, this scrub could cause another delay of Sunday’s planned launch of the upgraded Falcon 9R with its first commercial payload, as the company wants to do this test prior to launch.
Chicken Little report: Another large satellite is about to fall to Earth.
Current estimates suggest this could occur anytime between the end of this month and the start of November. When it does, the one-tonne GOCE will plunge rapidly through the atmosphere, burning up as it descends. “Some satellites take decades to come back after finishing operations; we will re-enter in no more than three weeks,” says Esa mission manager Dr Rune Floberghagen. Modelling work indicates that perhaps up to 25% of the spacecraft may survive all the way to the surface.
The odds of this debris hitting anything significant is very small. It can happen however.
It appears that Deep Impact is lost.
SpaceX has again delayed the launch of its first Falcon 9 commercial launch.
This delay appears to be only one day, from Saturday to Sunday, September 15. The static fire test of the rocket on the launchpad appears set for today, and I suspect the one day delay was to give them more time to analyze the results of today’s test.
Also, this quote from the article shows the risks involved with this first launch of the upgraded Falcon 9:
The launch would be the first for the next-generation Falcon 9-R, designed not only to be more powerful but to have the potential for re-use — that would be the “R” in “9-R” (which Harris incidentally said is pronounced “niner” according to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk).
Space News’ Irene Klotz talked to Musk late last week and found some nervousness going into the launch. “We’re being, as usual, extremely paranoid about the launch and trying to do everything we possibly can to improve the probability of success, but this is a new version of Falcon 9,” Musk told her. [emphasis mine]
The competition heats up: Orbital Sciences has finished loading its Cygnus capsule and has closed the hatch for next Tuesday’s launch.
After 166 days in orbit, three astronauts safely returned to Earth this evening in a Soyuz capsule.
The first commercial launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 has been pushed back to September 14.
I must apologize to my readers. I completely missed this news item last week. However, in my defense SpaceX has been unusually tight-lipped this time with information.
The launch itself also seems dependent on a hot fire engine test that SpaceX wishes to do first, which means that the September 14 date might still be pushed back again.
NASA engineers have successfully fixed the glitch on the LADEE spacecraft.
Having completed its investigation into its scrubbed launch two weeks ago, Japan’s space agency JAXA has announced a September 14 launch date for its new Epsilon rocket.
The first and second launch of the Space Launch System are likely to be delayed due to budget issues.
“It’s very clear that we could have slips of a year or two,” said [deputy administrator Lori] Garver, referring to both the 2017 launch — which won’t have a crew — and the first planned flight of NASA astronauts aboard the SLS rocket in 2021.
Garver claims that it is insufficient funds for SLS that will cause the delays, despite getting $3 billion per year, or ten times the money the private commercial program is getting.
I’m on a hike today, but so any additional comments about this insanity will have to wait.
NASA’s lunar probe LADEE was successfully launched tonight from Wallops Island.
Update: A computer glitch occurred shortly after reaching orbit, causing the computer to shut down the spacecraft’s reaction wheels.
Engineers seem unworried, and expect to have the problem solved within a couple of days.
The competition heats up: The Russians are including a bathroom in their next generation manned vehicle, something they note Orion will not have.
A new Russian spaceship for trips to the moon or the International Space Station will have at least one crucial advantage over its American rival – a toilet, one of the craft’s developers said Friday. “I don’t think I need to elaborate on how a waste-collection system is much more comfortable than the diapers that astronauts aboard the [US spacecraft] Orion will have to use,” said Vladimir Pirozhkov of the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys, which is involved in the development of the Russian ship. “Besides, the Russian segment of the International Space Station [ISS] has a limited number of toilets, which means a spacecraft with an extra ‘space toilet’ will come in handy,” he added.
As much as I am skeptical of Orion and SLS, I am equally skeptical of the Russian claims of a next generation manned spacecraft. They have been unveiling these proposals now for more than a decade, with nothing ever getting built. With Orion we at least have an existing capsule, even if its bulkhead needed to fixed.
Though I will agree with them on one point: Putting a toilet on a vehicle intended to go beyond Earth orbit, which Orion is supposed to be designed to do, makes common sense. That NASA didn’t include this essential item in Orion reveals to us the unseriousness of the spacecraft.
The competition heats up: Orbital Sciences has now mated the Cygnus capsule to its Antares rocket for its September 17 launch to ISS. With photos.
The competition heats up: While the launch industry eagerly awaits SpaceX’s first commercial Falcon 9 launch on September 10, Arianespace has been signing up customers.
Arianespace Chief Executive Stephane Israel said Aug. 29 after the last Ariane 5 launch that the company has booked around 300 million euros ($400 million) in new orders in recent weeks, bringing this year’s total contract volume to 1 billion euros. Industry officials said the contracts are for government missions in Brazil and Japan, and commercial operators in Brazil, the United States, Mexico and Spain.
The Ariane 5 is incredibly reliable, having successfully completed more than fifty launches in a row. It is also much more expensive that Falcon 9, which is expected to cost a customer about half as much to get a payload into orbit.
Until SpaceX proves Falcon 9, Arianespace will be in a strong position to get customers. Once Falcon 9 starts flying regularly however, Arianespace will begin to lose business to this cheaper alternative. Thus, the new contracts will help tide the company over while they scramble to figure out how to reduce costs in order to compete.
In related news, SpaceX readies the new upgraded Falcon 9 for launch.
A engineering problem during construction of one of the shuttle-derived solid rocket boosters for SLS is causing delays.
[The] original test target of mid-2013 slipped when an issue with the aft segment [of the booster] was found. Inspection of the segment showed it was contained an area where propellant had debonded from the inside of the segment wall. Following analysis – which notably found no voids in the propellant itself – NASA decided to ask ATK to scrap the segment and cast a replacement.
Preparations … continued, with the shipping and integration of forward and center segments at the test site, while ATK went to work to replace the aft segment, following approval – post investigation – from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. After ATK successfully cast the replacement segment in July, technicians carried out routine ultrasound and x-ray tests. Unfortunately, the tests showed this segment had also had similar voids. [emphasis mine.]
The Space Launch System (SLS), was mandated by Congress to use as much shuttle-derived components as possible in order to supposedly save money as well as employ as many of the companies that built those components as possible. In reality, however, every one of those components has required significant redesign to make them work in SLS. In the case of the solid rocket boosters, the four segment shuttle boosters were not powerful enough. They had to be expanded to five segments.
Moreover, it appears from this article it was other technically unnecessary changes to the boosters that are now causing this problem.
» Read more
The competition heats up: NASA has put Orbital Sciences on notice that, assuming its demo cargo mission to ISS in two weeks is a success, the company might have to do it again as soon as December.
SpaceX is supposed to fly its next cargo mission first, but NASA thinks that flight will be delayed because of development issues with the upgraded Falcon 9 rocket.
NASA has lost contact with its Deep Impact probe and is racing against time to save it.
The competition heats up: SpaceShipTwo is expected to make its second powered test flight today.
Update: The flight was a success. More details from Virgin Galactic here.
Video of the flight below the fold.
» Read more
The competition heats up: Orbital Sciences prepares its Cygnus capsule for its first flight to ISS, set for launch on September 17.
Orbital officials said the Cygnus spacecraft was scheduled to be attached to the upper stage of the Antares launcher Wednesday. Final cargo loading into the Cygnus spacecraft’s pressurized module is set for Saturday, followed by its enclosure inside the rocket’s 12.8-foot-diameter payload fairing.
Rollout of the Antares rocket from its horizontal integration facility to the launch pad one mile away is expected Sept. 13.
September will be a busy and important month for private space. We also will have SpaceX’s first commercial launch with its Falcon 9 rocket. If both are successful, the trend away from a big government space programs shall accelerate.
How to view the east coast launch on Septembert 6 of LADEE.
LADEE will attempt to solve the leftover question from the Apollo-era: Does the surface dust on the Moon levitate? The question is real, and the consequences could be significant for future lunar settlements.
Despite the astronauts’ success on ISS in recreating the spacesuit water leak, NASA engineers still do not know its cause.
What is unstated about this problem is that, because we used to have a big space shuttle with lots of cargo capacity, the American spacesuit was designed to be maintained and repaired on the ground. In the past the next space shuttle flight would have brought a new spacesuit to the station while taking this defective suit back to Earth for analysis and repair. Now that we don’t have a big space shuttle, our complex spacesuits are far more difficult to troubleshoot.
The solution? First, keep it simple. The Russians, limited by the capacity of their Progress and Soyuz capsules, made their Orlan spacesuit very simple and easy to use.
Second, get as many redundant replacements of the shuttle operating as soon as possible.
A London university has digitized and placed online a collection of historic space images.
I don’t think the press release’s claim that these images have never been online before is true for all the images. Nonetheless, the online availability especially of the Russian Venus images is very welcome.
A NASA veteran slams the Space Launch System (SLS).
The problem with the SLS is that it’s so big that makes it very expensive. It’s very expensive to design, it’s very expensive to develop. When they actually begin to develop it, the budget is going to go haywire. They’re going to have all kinds of technical and development issues crop up, which will drive the development costs up. Then there are the operating costs of that beast, which will eat NASA alive if they get there. They’re not going to be able to fly it more than once a year, if that, because they don’t have the budget to do it. So what you’ve got is a beast of a rocket, that would give you all of this capability, which you can’t build because you don’t have the money to build it in the first place, and you can’t operate it if you had it.
Q: What do you see as the alternative?
A: In the private sector we’ve got an Atlas and a Delta rocket, and the Europeans have a rocket called the Ariane. The Russians have lots of rockets, which are very reliable, and they get reliable by using them. And that’s something the SLS will never have. Never. Because you can’t afford to launch it that many times.
The Russian way: In an effort to deal with their quality control problems the Russians plan to consolidate their space industries into a single company controlled by the government.
This is not a good sign for the future competitiveness of the Russian aerospace industry. Consolidation will only reduce competition and innovation, while placing the government in control will only increase bureaucracy.
The launch date for India’s GSLV rocket has been pushed off until December in order to thoroughly investigate what caused the fuel leak during the scrubbed launch last week.
