Tag: spaceflight

Private Japanese weather company to launch satellite to track Arctic Ice

9:14 am

A private Japanese weather company plans to launch a satellite to track Arctic ice for use by shipping.

The satellite will transmit images and information about sea ice in the Arctic Ocean. Weathernews will combine the information with available data on sea currents, weather and wave height to provide consumers with a finished product enabling safe navigation along the northern route.

Though I know most people are skeptical of this idea, I think that all weather information should be gathered and sold by private companies, as Weathernews is doing above. For example, the Weather Channel makes its money providing weather information to the public. If they didn’t get the satellite data free from NOAA weather satellites, they would have every reason to launch their own satellites.

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NASA to unveil its heavy-lift rocket design

9:35 am

Two stories, one from AP and the other from Florida Today, say that NASA will announce today the design of its heavy-lift rocket, mandated by Congress and estimated to cost around $35 billion. Here is NASA’s press release. To me, this is the key quote (from AP):

NASA figures it will be building and launching about one rocket a year for about 15 years or more in the 2020s and 2030s, according to senior administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the announcement was not yet made. The idea is to launch its first unmanned test flight in 2017 with the first crew flying in 2021 and astronauts heading to a nearby asteroid in 2025, the officials said. From there, NASA hopes to send the rocket and astronauts to Mars — at first just to circle, but then later landing on the Red Planet — in the 2030s. [emphasis mine]

In other words, after spending $1.7 on the National Space Plane, $1.2 billion on the X-33, $1 billion on the X-34, $800 million on the Space Launch Initiative, and finally, almost $10 billion on Constellation, none of which ever flew, NASA is now going to spend another $35 billion on a new rocket that won’t fly for at least another decade.

To be really blunt, this new rocket, like all its predecessors, will never fly either. It costs too much, will take too long to build, and will certainly be canceled by a future administration before it is finished. It is therefore a complete waste of money, and any Congress that approves it will demonstrate how utterly insincere they are about controlling spending.

A clarification: Some of the $35 billion mentioned above has already been spent for the Orion capsule. This however still does not change any of my conclusions.

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NASA and ATK sign new launch development agreement

3:52 pm

At a press conference today, NASA and ATK announced a new launch development agreement, running through March 2012, to help develop ATK’s Liberty solid rocket into a launch vehicle that could bring both cargo and crews to ISS.

The agreement provides ATK no funds, but is designed to give ATK as much support from NASA as possible in developing Liberty, tested fired last week for only the third time. If this initial agreement goes well, it will position ATK to compete for the next round of development subsidizes.

According to ATK, they think they could launch by 2015, and are hoping to provide a rocket capable of flying the spacecraft and freighters of Boeing, Sierra Nevada, Blue Origin, and even SpaceX (should Falcon 9 have problems and they need a rocket to launch Dragon).
» Read more

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Speculation on what the ATK/NASA announcement later today will be about

8:58 am

More speculation here and here on what the ATK/NASA announcement later today will be about. As Jeff Foust notes,

Last Friday NASA announced that the space agency and ATK would announce an agreement this Tuesday “that could accelerate the availability of U.S. commercial crew transportation capabilities”. (The announcement was originally going to be only available to media calling into a telecon line, but NASA said Monday the announcement will be on NASA TV at 3 pm EDT.) The announcement has generated various degrees of glee or despair, depending on one’s opinions about ATK’s work on solid rocket motors it has proposed for its Liberty rocket and is seeking to have incorporated into NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) heavy-lift rocket.

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House proposes trimming budget of FAA’s commercial space office

2:36 pm

A House subcommittee has proposed trimming the budget of the FAA’s commercial space office from the $15.2 million it received in 2010 and 2011 to $13 million for 2012.

This is good, to my mind. Cutting their budget will pull the teeth from their regulatory efforts. As the commercial space industry ramps up, the political pressure on this office to approve permits will increase, and if they are short of cash they will have no choice but to keep things simple and say yes.

Update: Thanks to Joe2 for noting my error: the budget numbers above have been corrected to millions, not billions.

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Senators lambast Administration for SLS budget numbers

9:12 am

The space war heats up: Two senators have issued a statement lambasting the Obama Administration for its budget numbers for building the program-formerly-called-Constellation.

All of this is fantasy and foolishness. These senators might succeed in forcing NASA to spend money on the heavy-lift rocket that Congress has mandated, but there is no way the space agency will ever get enough funding or time to finish it. Even if the lower estimates are right, the cost is exorbitant, many times that of what the private companies have spent for their rockets and ships. And if construction does begin in earnest, it cannot be finished before the arrival of a new President in 2016 (at the latest), who, like all new Presidents, will have his own plans and will not want to build something started by the previous administration.

Much better to end this farce and save the money, especially considering the debt of federal government.

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More Progress freighter crash investigation results

7:31 pm

More Progress freighter crash investigation results: it appears there was something that blocked the fuel supply.

“The exposed production defect was accidental,” [the investigation] said, adding the reason may be qualified as an isolated case only after checking all available engines.

This suggests that the problem was an isolated error and that, once they have cleared the available engines, they can start flying relatively quickly.

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Virgin Galactic hosts an industry day at New Mexico spaceport

10:43 pm

Virgin Galactic announced today that it will co-host an industry day at Spaceport America in New Mexico on October 18 in order to locate suppliers for its space tourism business.

“This is a fantastic opportunity for companies ranging from local New Mexico firms to national corporations to understand our unique needs for goods and services, including our requirements in building and servicing multiple commercial spaceships as the market further develops,” said Virgin Galactic’s President and CEO George Whitesides. “Our intention is to establish these relationships and emphasize our desire to hire locally as much as possible.”

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The dangerous environment of space

11:01 am

A just released report from the National Academies, Preparing for the High Frontier: the role and training of NASA astronauts in the post-space shuttle era, describes the challenges that NASA faces in staffing its astronaut corps in the coming years. More important, however, is some new information buried in the report about the hazards of long term exposure to weightlessness.

For example, it seems a significant number of astronauts have come back from spending months at ISS with serious vision problems, caused by a newly discovered condition dubbed papilledema, the swelling of the optic disk.
» Read more

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Sticker shock over Congressionally designed rocket

9:30 am

The Obama administration has discovered that the cost to build the program-formerly-called-Constellation, required by Congress, is going to be far more than they can stomach.

White House budget officials increasingly are concerned that some of NASA’s manned-exploration plans may be unaffordable, especially as the space agency weighs options that would raise the cost by billions of dollars by speeding up the development of rockets and spacecraft, according to people familiar with the issue.

The cost concerns are coming to a head, these people said, as the White House Office of Management and Budget ratchets up questions about NASA’s proposed program in light of the current emphasis on deficit reduction.

None of this surprises me.
» Read more

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New images of Apollo landing sites on the Moon

12:45 pm

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter team have released new images of the Apollo 12, 14, and 17 landing sites on the Moon. Below is a cropped image of the Apollo 12 site, showing the trails left by astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean when they walked from their lunar module to Surveyor 3, an unmanned lunar lander that had soft landed there two years earlier. The full image shows some incredible detail.

Apollo 12 landing site

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Some suggestions for keeping ISS occupied

9:06 am

Some suggestions for keeping ISS occupied.

I especially like Harman’s suggestion that the Russians consider landing in the U.S. during the winter, thereby allowing them to extend one crew’s occupancy of ISS into December, January, or even February. Also, he proposes the Russians send an unmanned Soyuz to ISS during testing of the rocket, thereby providing the crews onboard a fresh lifeboat. This is something they have done in the past on their previous space station Mir.

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The space shuttle program officially ended on Wednesday

9:23 am

The space shuttle program officially ended on Wednesday. Note however:

Closeout of the shuttle program is an enormous effort expected to take two years. The program occupied 640 facilities and used more than 900,000 pieces of equipment with a value exceeding $12 billion, according to NASA. Much of the work will take place at Kennedy Space Center, where orbiters have been maintained and prepared for launch. NASA requested $89 million for shuttle transition and retirement work in the 2012 fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, but Congress has not yet approved a budget.

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Orbital Sciences gets its launch license for first test of Taurus 2 rocket

2:32 pm

Orbital Sciences has gotten its launch license from the FAA for the first test launch of the Taurus 2 rocket, scheduled for later this year.

This rocket is Orbital’s version of the Falcon 9. It is a new rocket, never before flown, yet after this test it is scheduled to fly the Cygnus capsule on its first flight only two months later. Talk about cutting things close!

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Ground controllers replace a failed circuit box on ISS, using the robot Dextre

6:31 pm

Ground controllers successfully replaced a failed circuit box on ISS this weekend, using the two-armed Dextre robot.

Up to now, exchanging the boxes was done by spacewalkers, which always carries a certain level of risk. Dextre was designed to reduce the need for astronauts to conduct spacewalks for routine maintenance, therefore freeing up the crew’s time for more important activities, like conducting science.

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Progress freighter launch fails

2:31 pm

The launch of a Progress freighter to ISS today has failed, with the freighter ending up crashing into Siberia.

This is very bad news for the station. Everyone in the space industry knows that with the shuttle gone, it will be a challenge to maintain supplies to the station’s the six-person crew. Losing just one supply ship will strain the station’s supplies, if not now in the long run for sure.

Worse, this is the first launch failure of the Soyuz rocket that puts both Progress and manned Soyuz capsule into orbit in more than eleven years. The next manned crew is scheduled for launch on September 21. Whether this failure will delay that launch remains unknown.

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Bigelow in negotiations to supply privately-built modules to ISS

12:59 pm

Bigelow Aerospace is in negotiations with both NASA and Japan to supply ISS with privately-built modules

The module could be rented out as an ISS storage unit, making the station less dependent on frequent resupply flights, says Hiroshi Kikuchi of JAMSS. To show that the modules are capable of safe, crewed operation, Bigelow is also negotiating with NASA to attach one to a US-owned ISS module.

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NASA announces awards for three technology demonstration space missions

2:47 pm

NASA has announced three awards for technology demonstration space missions, all set to fly within four years. More details here.

The three missions are:

  • A solar sail demonstration mission, flying a sail 38 by 38 meter sail.
  • A demonstration of in-space laser/optical communications technologies.
  • The use of a high-precision atomic clock in space.

I especially like the solar sail mission because of its long range possibilities, though the other technologies would probably be put to practical use more quickly.

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