Engineers’ dreams: A proposal to use a thousand mile long magnetic track to accelerate passengers into space.
A robotic refueling demo. designed and built by the same people who ran the Hubble Space Telescope repair missions, begins today on ISS, using Dextre.
This demo is designed to prove that a robot, operated from the ground, can refuel a satellite not designed for refueling. The demo satellite on ISS was built to match the design of several climate satellites already in orbit that will end up defunct in a few years if they can’t be refueled.
The rail gun: a cheap solution for getting payloads into orbit quickly.
The delayed launch of Europe’s cargo freighter to ISS is now targeted for March 23.
The X-37B marks one year in orbit.
More importantly, the Air Force has indicated that a third X-37B mission will launch this fall.
Gagarin was first. Here’s why.
Today the second X-37B celebrates the completion of a full year in orbit, with no indication from the Air Force that the mission is to end soon.
The March 9 launch of Europe’s next cargo freighter to ISS has been delayed two weeks so that engineers can climb inside and tighten two straps holding two cargo containers in place.
I suspect the reasons behind this problem are quite embarrassing, which is probably why the press releases are so vague about why the straps were loose and how the Europeans discovered the problem.
NASA successfully completed parachute drop tests of its Orion capsule on Wednesday. With pics.
But can he afford the taxes? A Canadian man filed suit in January claiming ownership of the entire solar system.
Good news: SpaceX’s dress rehearsal countdown and fuel test of the Falcon 9 rocket at Cape Canaveral today was a complete success.
Back from the dead? A commercial project to refuel and repair communication satellites with an unmanned robot, recently killed due to lack of interest from the U.S. government, might get the needed additional funding from DARPA.
At a Congressional hearing on Wednesday, NASA’s inspector general outlined more than five thousand security lapses at the agency in 2010 and 2011, including the theft of a laptop with the control codes for ISS.
Using its Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion capsule, NASA is aiming for an unmanned test flight around the Moon in December 2017.
Two important tidbits revealed by this article: First, the first test flight of Orion will use a Delta 4 Heavy rocket. Two, NASA hopes to have its heavy lift SLS rocket ready for the 2017 mission.
Forgive me for being cynical, but I will believe the second tidbit only when it happens.
Fingers crossed: Falcon 9 is on the launchpad in Florida, being prepared for a countdown and fuel test tomorrow.
What is the International Space Station’s weakest link?
Mark Mulqueen, ISS vehicle director for Boeing Co., said keeping the station’s environmental control and life support systems, or ECLSS, functioning over the next decade will likely be engineers’ toughest challenge. “I don’t think it’s sparing or the structure to get to 2020,” Mulqueen said. “It’s probably continued refinement of how we successfuly operate our ECLSS system on-orbit. There has been a lot of effort going into understanding that.”
The article outlines a number of other areas of concern, none of which appear to be serious, for now, but could be a problem as the years pass.
An update on Stratolaunch.
JPL has issued a press release “reality check” on the impact possibilities of asteroid 2011 AG5 in 2040.
“In September 2013, we have the opportunity to make additional observations of 2011 AG5 when it comes within 91 million miles (147 million kilometers) of Earth,” said Don Yeomans, manager of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “It will be an opportunity to observe this space rock and further refine its orbit. Because of the extreme rarity of an impact by a near-Earth asteroid of this size, I fully expect we will be able to significantly reduce or rule out entirely any impact probability for the foreseeable future.” Even better observations will be possible in late 2015.
In other words, we really will not know anything more about these possibilities until late next year.
ATK prepares for another test firing of its five-segment solid rocket motor.
The qualification campaign, led by rocket-builder ATK, will prove the solid-fueled motor is ready to help propel the Space Launch System from Earth on two test flights in 2017 and 2021.
Though obviously funded out of the Space Launch System program (SLS), there is no guarantee at this moment that ATK’s solid rocket will be used in these test flights. NASA has said that they are considering all options for picking the launch rocket.
In a sense, we are now seeing a side benefit produced by relying on independent and competing private companies to get into space. It has placed pressure on NASA and the companies building SLS to perform. Unlike in the past, when failure to produce a new rocket or spaceship meant that NASA would simply propose a new concept and start again, now failure will mean that someone else might get the work. The result: SLS might actually get built, for less money and faster.
Though I don’t see how NASA can possibly cut the costs down to compete with these private companies, their effort might succeed enough for Congress to keep the money spigots open until the rocket gets built.
Even as I say this I remain skeptical. Considering the federal budget situation, the politics of the upcoming election, and the strong possibility that private companies will successfully provide that launch capability at a tenth the cost, I expect that sometime in the next two or three years Congress will finally balk at SLS’s cost, and eliminate it.
The first industrial railgun has begun firing tests at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Virginia. With video.
Following a series of low-energy test shots, evaluation of the launcher is now underway and will see tests conducted at 20 megajoules to 32 megajoules – one megajoule is equivalent to a 1-ton object being thrust at 100 mph (161 km/h). Test projectiles similar to those previously fired from [the] laboratory’s launcher will be fired at speeds of 4,500 to 5,600 mph (7,242 to 9,012 km/h) using electricity instead of chemical propellants.
These speeds are a only little less than one third escape velocity. Pump this technology up a bit and you could have a cheap way to get simple supplies, such as fuel, water, oxygen, into orbit. In fact, one company is even trying to do it.
Fingers crossed: According to Orbital Sciences’ CEO, problems in launchpad construction have been the primary reason the first launch of Antares rocket/Cygnus capsule has been delayed.
Fingers crossed: “We hope to have the rocket motor in the spaceship later this year and start powered flight testing.”
The state of Orion’s construction, including a scheduled parachute drop test this Wednesday.
Fingers crossed: Orbital Sciences expects to put its Antares rocket on the launchpad for initial checkout in about five weeks.
Asking the important questions: What would happen if you shot a gun in space?
The fundamental design flaw of all of Tesla Motors’ electric cars.
A Tesla Roadster that is simply parked without being plugged in will eventually become a “brick”. The parasitic load from the car’s always-on subsystems continually drains the battery and if the battery’s charge is ever totally depleted, it is essentially destroyed. Complete discharge can happen even when the car is plugged in if it isn’t receiving sufficient current to charge, which can be caused by something as simple as using an extension cord. After battery death, the car is completely inoperable. At least in the case of the Tesla Roadster, it’s not even possible to enable tow mode, meaning the wheels will not turn and the vehicle cannot be pushed nor transported to a repair facility by traditional means.
This problem could destroy the company, which, believe it or not, might actually have a negative effect on the American space program! Elon Musk, the man behind SpaceX and the Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon capsule is also the CEO of Tesla. If Tesla goes down, one wonders if that could have an impact on SpaceX’s effort to get Americans into space.
Orbital Sciences has delayed until late June the first test launch of its Antares rocket, which in turn will delay until late August the first flight of its Cygnus cargo freighter to ISS.
An evening pause: On the fiftieth anniversary of John Glenn’s orbital flight.
After putting a chimpanzee into orbit in November, NASA finally felt ready to send a man into orbit to answer the Soviets and their two manned orbital missions of Gagarin and Titov the previous year.
After Glenn’s mission and for the next few months, it looked like the U.S. was catching up with the Soviets in space. That would change before the year was summer was over.
The video below gives a nice summary of key moments in Glenn’s flight, though the special effects of the “fireflies” is poorly done. And we now know that the “fireflies” were nothing more than frozen particles of condensation coming off the capsule.
