Good news: The stuck solar panel on Intelsat 19, launched June 1, has finally deployed.
The competition heats up: Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister said today that his country needs to expand its commercial space services and grab market share from the United States and Europe.
I wonder if these comments stem from a realization that — because Russia’s Proton rocket, its main commercial space product, is twice as expensive as SpaceX’s Falcon 9 — Russia faces a significant loss of business if it does not adapt.
The cost of launch: Clark Lindsey posted today this interesting cost comparison between the Falcon 9 and the Russian-built Proton rocket.
The essence is this: The Proton rocket costs twice as much as the Falcon 9. If SpaceX can make a profit charging these low numbers, the launch industry is going to see a major shake out in the coming years.
The most powerful rocket presently in service, the Delta-4 Heavy, successfully launched a U.S. surveillance satellite this morning.
The booster features three core rocket boosters and is topped with a second stage to place payloads into orbit. It is 235 feet tall (72 meters) and can carry payloads of up to 24 tons into low-Earth orbit and 11 tons to geosynchronous orbits.
SpaceX’s proposed Falcon Heavy would launch about 50 tons into low Earth orbit, making it twice as powerful, should it be built. The next obvious question, which I can’t answer at the moment, is how do these two rockets compare in terms of cost?
The competition heats up: China’s Shenzhou 9 spacecraft has landed safely, and all three astronauts have exited the capsule in good health. More details here.
A private organization focused on preventing asteroids from impacting the Earth today announced its plans to build and launch an infrared space telescope by 2017.
SpaceShipTwo resumed flight tests yesterday.
China has spent $6 billion since 1992 on its manned space program.
The competition heats up: Boeing has successfully tested the maneuvering thruster it plans to use on its CST-100 crew/cargo capsule.
Using WhiteKnightTwo to launch cargo, including an update on revisions to SpaceShipTwo’s design.
More details on both SpaceX’s Merlin engine test yesterday as well as Orbital Sciences’ test firing of its Antares AJ-26 rocket engine on Monday.
SpaceX has successfully tested an upgraded version of its Merlin rocket engine. Video at the link.
The second phase of NASA’s robotic refueling demo on ISS has successfully proven that a robot can remove a satellite fuel cap not designed for refueling.
The fuel cap design is a duplicate of that used by several climate research satellites presently in orbit. These satellites were not designed to be refueled, but if they could be refueled, their usefulness in orbit could be doubled, even tripled. This test is intended to demonstrate that a robot could refuel them.
The last phase of this robotic demo will take place in August, when the robots will attempt to pump a simulated fuel into the demo satellite.
China’s astronauts successfully undocked, backed away from their space station, and then completed a manual docking early today.
China isn’t only going up: A three man crew took a Chinese submersible to a depth of 22,800 feet in the Mariana Trench earlier this week, the record for that nation.
NASA has delayed the first test flight of Orion’s launch abort system by two years to 2017.
NASA officials have been warning since last year that work on Orion would be slowed to keep pace with the development of SLS and its launch infrastructure. The agency has proposed trimming Orion’s $1.2 billion budget back to $1 billion for 2013. With the high-altitude abort test facing at least a budget-driven delay, the Langley team has proposed conducting one or more less-expensive tests in its place. Ortiz said conducting a hot-fire test in 2015 or 2016 would “keep the [launch abort system] project moving forward and help alleviate risk.”
I predict that Dragon will not only test its launch abort system first, it will have humans flying on it before Orion. And Dragon will do this for a fraction of the total cost that Orion and SLS spend per year. I also predict that when Dragon does this, Congress will finally begin noticing this disparity, and SLS will die unlaunched.
The first complete view of Earth as a globe — looking down from above the north pole.
An asteroid that was discovered only four days before it flew by the Earth on June 14 has turned out to be much bigger than first thought.
This particular asteroid may not have been a danger, but much of the concern was rooted in the late warning of its detection — 2012 LZ1 was spotted only four days before closest approach. One of the reasons for its late discovery is because it was detected in Southern Hemisphere skies, part of the world were we have few asteroid-watching programs. If it had been on a collision course with Earth, a few days notice is no time at all.
So, in the aftermath of the flyby, astronomers at the famous Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico used radar to image the interplanetary interloper (pictured top). What they uncovered was a surprise: Asteroid 2012 LZ1 is actually bigger than thought… in fact, it is quite a lot bigger. 2012 LZ1 is one kilometer wide (0.62 miles), double the initial estimate.
The second phase in the robotic satellite refueling demo on ISS has gotten underway.
The competition heats up: Test firing of SpaceShipTwo’s rocket motor has begun.
The competition heats up: Excalibur Almaz has signed a deal to use Xcor’s Lynx suborbital craft to train its astronauts.
Since Xcor has not yet flown Lynx, and Excalibur Almaz as a lot of work to do to make its Soviet-era modules flyable, I would bet that this news release is mostly public relations hype, centered as much on raising investment funds for both companies as it is about training astronauts.
The competition heats up: SpaceShipTwo was in the air on Friday, as WhiteKnightTwo did a 1.5 hour test flight with the ship attached to its belly.
This was the second flight of WhiteKnightTwo in three days, and is in line with Virgin Galactic’s test flight schedule announced in May. If the test flights go well, expect that first rocket-powered flight of SpaceShipTwo later this year.
The competition heats up: Excalibur Almaz has announced its plans for a privately funded trip to the Moon.
The first manually flown docking by Chinese astronauts is now scheduled for June 24.
The competition heats up: A new company has announced plans to use the Gemini capsule design from the 1960s to provide crew and cargo capability to orbit.
“Since this is an existing and proven design we could begin construction six to eight weeks after funding and complete a flying prototype ten to thirteen months later,” said WestWind President Bill Jolly.
Mars Odyssey is out of safe mode and should be back in full operation by next week.
Want to invest in a spacesuit company? Now you can! (Hat tip Clark Lindsey.)
The FAA and NASA have worked out their differences concerning their regulation of private commercial space.
Essentially, NASA has finally conceded with this agreement that it has no control over a private space launch that is not flying to a NASA facility. That the FAA continues to have as much regulatory control is bad enough, but getting NASA out of the loop will at least ease the bureaucratic burden for private companies.
The competition heats up: China’s Shenzhou-9 capsule successfully docked with Tiengong-1 today and the crew has entered the space module.
