As I write this I am sitting in the back seat of Bob & Brenda Rose’s minivan as we drive down to Florida for Monday’s shuttle launch. We plan to arrive at Space View Park in Titusville around 8 pm Sunday to claim a good location for seating, waiting, and watching the launch. We will be about 11 miles away, but this park is considered one of the better locations for the general public, with a clear view of the launchpad.
Stay tuned for more updates!
The countdown has begun for Monday’s shuttle launch.
If all goes well, I will be there to watch it (albeit from 11 miles away). Right now mission controllers estimate a 70% chance of liftoff, depending on the weather.
Another successful test flight of SpaceShipTwo took place on Tuesday. Via Clark Lindsey.
The first tourist in space was not Dennis Tito, but this woman from Britain.
ISRO, India’s space agency, pushes to get funding for a reusable spacecraft.
Dawn captures its first image of the asteroid Vesta as it closes in on a rendezvous set for July 16.
The first Soyuz launch from the European spaceport in French Guiana is now scheduled for October.
The delays in launching Endeavour has pushed back the last shuttle mission to mid-July.
The FAA: slow to ramp up in its role of regulating human space travel.
This ain’t good. It also is not a surprise. The only real question is whether the government bureaucrats at the FAA will get out of the way of those who are really trying to do the work.
NASA management appears ready to approve combining SpaceX’s next two test flights of the Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket into one test flight. This despite Russian opposition.
Endeavour’s last launch is now set for May 16 at 8:56 am.
A Soviet-era spacesuit has sold for $242,000 in a NY auction.
The last launch of Endeavour has now slipped to at least May 16.
An evening pause: Fifty years ago today, America’s response to Gagarin and the Soviets, Alan Shepard’s suborbital flight.
Or as he said as he lifted off, “The clock has started.”
The flight actually lasted 15 minutes 22 seconds. Though only a fourth the size of Gagarin’s much bigger Vostok capsule, the Mercury capsule was steerable. During the flight Shepard adjusted the capsule’s pitch, roll, and yaw, proving that humans could pilot a spacecraft manually.
Space Adventures and tourists to the Moon.
After consultation with Rocket Space Corporation Energia, modifications to the Soyuz TMA configuration have been agreed upon. The most important of which is the addition of a second habitation module to the Soyuz TMA lunar complex. The additional module would launch with the Block DM propulsion module and rendezvous with the Soyuz spacecraft in low-Earth orbit.
“Space Adventures will once again grace the pages of aerospace history, when the first private circumlunar mission launches. We have sold one of the two seats for this flight and anticipate that the launch will occur in 2015,” said Richard Garriott, Vice-Chairman of Space Adventures. “Having flown on the Soyuz, I can attest to how comfortable the spacecraft is, but the addition of the second habitation module will only make the flight that more enjoyable.”
How shall Europe’s ATV freighter to ISS be upgraded?
The government marches on! The FAA wants your opinion about its future commercial space regulations.
Or to put it another way, how to stifle a newborn in the womb. In 2004 I said the new law allowing this kind of regulation was going to hurt the new space industries. We are about to see, with the FAA’s regulatory effort here, exactly how that will play out.
And I don’t think it will be good.
The last launch of Endeavour could be delayed to as late as May 13.
SpaceShipTwo’s has successfully completed its first “feathered” flight.
After a 45 minute climb to the desired altitude of 51,500 feet, SpaceShip2 (SS2) was released cleanly from VMS Eve [WhiteKnightTwo] and established a stable glide profile before deploying, for the first time, its re-entry or “feathered” configuration by rotating the tail section of the vehicle upwards to a 65 degree angle to the fuselage. It remained in this configuration with the vehicle’s body at a level pitch for approximately 1 minute and 15 seconds whilst descending, almost vertically, at around 15,500 feet per minute, slowed by the powerful shuttlecock-like drag created by the raised tail section. At around 33,500 feet the pilots reconfigured the spaceship to its normal glide mode and executed a smooth runway touch down, approximately 11 minutes and 5 seconds after its release from VMS Eve.
The story behind China’s planned space station begins to emerge.
China first said it would build a space station in 1992. But the need for a manned outpost “has been continually contested by Chinese space professionals who, like their counterparts in the United States, question the scientific utility and expense of human space flight”, says Gregory Kulacki, China project manager at the Union of Concerned Scientists, headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “That battle is effectively over now, however, and the funds for the space station seem to have been allocated, which is why more concrete details are finally beginning to emerge.”
Though I am always skeptical of comments from the Union of Concerned Scientists, in this case Kulacki makes sense. He also illustrates a further example of what I wrote in 2005, “After more than 40 years of debate, the argument is over and the supporters of manned spaceflight have won.”
An amateur astronomer has grabbed some spectacular images of solar sail Nanosail-D.
The very last shuttle launch, scheduled for June 28, may be delayed due to the Endeavour launch delay.
Dawn has begun its final if slow approach to the asteroid Vesta.
New Space: Sierra Nevada plans to drop test its Dream Chaser spaceplane in 2012 using Scaled Composites’ WhiteKnightTwo.
Endeavour’s last launch has slipped to at least May 10, possibly later.
Scaled Composites is ramping up the test rate for SpaceShipTwo.
The launch of space shuttle Endeavour has now been delayed by NASA until May 8 at the earliest.
Technical problems have delayed the last launch of the shuttle Endeavour at least 48 hours.
