Tag: spaceport

Russian government takes over Vostochny construction

8:38 am

The Russian government has once again increased its supervision of the construction of the Vostochny spaceport, now 120 days behind schedule.

They want to launch the first rocket from the spaceport by December of this year. The story also describes how contractors have been ordered, by Russia’s deputy prime minister himself, to stop leaving delicate new equipment in unprotected environments, as the equipment has been delivered before the buildings they are supposed be stored in have been finished.

Where the equipment will be put is not said. The boss has ordered it, however, so it better happen!

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A photo tour of Vandenberg Air Force Base

3:15 pm

Yesterday, as part of my visit to Vandenberg Air Force Base to give a space history lecture to the local section of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, I was given a short tour of these west coast launch facilities. While Kennedy is used for launches that circle the equator, Vandenberg, with its southern-facing coast, launches rockets that head south over the ocean for a polar orbit.

We only had time to go inside one launchpad, where unfortunately I was not permitted to take pictures. However, the images I did get will give you a reasonable sense of the layout for this spaceport, which is increasingly becoming a spaceport for private launch companies like ULA and SpaceX. Though the bulk of business for both companies here might be military and government payloads, the future is still going to include a lot of private payloads. The images also help to highlight the differences between these two companies, as well as some past history, as one of these launchpads was once intended for the space shuttle, though never used for that purpose.
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A photo tour of Vostochny

9:56 am

The Siberian Times has posted a very interesting photo tour of Russia’s new spaceport, Vostochny, presently under construction.

The article is very much a propaganda piece pushed by the Russian government (some photos were actually taken by Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin himself), but it still gives you a sense of the scale and size of the project.

It is quite instructive to compare how the Russians do things, with a giant public works project costing $5 billion and taking more than a decade to build, with how the Americans do things, with a small privately-built space port being constructed by SpaceX in Brownsville for mere millions and in only a few years.

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Britain narrows its competition for spaceport

9:17 am

The competition heats up: The British government has down-selected its choices for a future spaceport in Great Britain to six airports, two of which have already said they are not interested in taking on the job.

The remaining four sites include two in Scotland, and one each in Wales and southwestern England. If I had to choose just based on orbital mechanics, the English site would win, as it is farther south thereby capable of putting more payload in orbit for the same fuel. However, politics and pork will certainly be a factor in any final decision, as this spaceport location is being decided not by private companies but by the British government.

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The Russian spaceport construction still behind schedule

9:31 am

In a detailed update on the status of Russia’s new Vostochny spaceport, russianspaceweb reports that the construction continues to be behind schedule.

Whether they can meet the government imposed deadline of first Soyuz rocket launch by the end of 2015 seems very doubtful. More significant is this interesting quote:

In the meantime, various sensitive systems, which arrived to Vostochny for installation into unfinished facilities, were rusting inside their containers along railway sidings.

Obviously, without enough qualified personnel at the remote construction site, Spetsstroi had little choice but to focus on facilities with the highest profile for visiting Moscow officials. Moreover, the work had to be done in a great haste, increasing the chances for mistakes and leading to a low quality of construction.

Boy, does that sound like the Soviet Union all over again. It also reminds me of how most government agencies operate in the U.S.

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Ex-construction boss at Vostochny arrested

9:31 am

The man formerly in charge of construction at Russia’s new spaceport in Vostochny has been arrested and charged with stealing $43 million dollars from the project.

The corruption might be true, as this kind of thing is culturally typical for the centralized government-run operations that are generally favored in Russia. It is also possible that Putin’s government wanted a scapegoat to blame for the construction delays and cost overruns in building Vostochny.

Either way, Putin gets what he wants. This prosecution will make it very clear to everyone involved in building Vostochny that the government wants it built fast and without further theft, and it is watching what people do there very closely.

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Russia to conduct its very first cosmonaut rescue drills at sea

6:30 pm

The Eastern division of the Russian Air Force, Pacific fleet, and space agency Roscosmos will hold joint exercises the first week in August to practice for the first time ever the water rescue of Russian cosmonauts and a Soyuz capsule.

It is obvious these exercises are in conjunction with the construction of the Vostochny spaceport in Eastern Russia. Any aborted manned launch from this site will end up landing in the Pacific, not on land as has happened twice from Baikonur. And since the Russians have never had a manned capsule splashdown in the ocean, they better practice this stuff now.

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Great Britain’s proposed suborbital spaceport locations

9:07 am

The competition heats up: More information was released today describing Great Britain’s suggested spaceport locations.

These spaceports are specifically aimed at the suborbital space tourism market, for American companies like Virgin Galactic or XCOR, or for the developing British company Skylon.

It is interesting that 6 of 8 are located in Scotland, which might very well not be part of the United Kingdom after a vote on separation this fall.

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A spaceport for Great Britain?

8:38 am

The competition heats up: The government of the United Kingdom today outlined its intention to build its first spaceport by 2018.

The announcement listed eight potential sites, six of which were in Scotland, which is presently threatening to break away from the United Kingdom. This announcement I suspect is less a call for British space exploration and instead a political effort to encourage Scotland to remain in the UK.

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The proposed SpaceX spaceport in Brownsville, Texas, has passed its final federal environmental review.

4:42 pm

The proposed SpaceX spaceport in Brownsville, Texas, has passed its final federal environmental review.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which had raised concerns about possible impact on habitat for some endangered species, ultimately concluded that “the project is not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of any listed or proposed to be listed species nor adversely modify piping plover critical habitat.”

But wildlife officials don’t expect the project to be harmless: Two individual cats, either from the endangered ocelot or jaguarondi species, could be lost as a result of the project in spite of efforts to avoid just that with measures such as posting warning signs along the road leading to the launch site. And federal wildlife officials also anticipate that more than 7 miles of beachfront used by nesting sea turtles could be disturbed by security patrols, though driving is already permitted on the beach.

I think every American should read these two paragraphs to gain an understanding of how ridiculous these environmental regulations sometimes are. This report appears to be junk and an enormous waste of effort and time.

The bottom line is to consider what has happened in Florida. The government established a wildlife preserve surrounding the Kennedy Space Center and the wildlife has been flourishing there for more than a half century. Because a launchpad is used so infrequently (12 times a year is what SpaceX proposes for Brownsville), it inflicts very little harm on the environment.

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SpaceX continues to acquire land in Texas for its planned spaceport in Brownsville.

8:40 am

The competition heats up: SpaceX continues to acquire land in Texas for its planned spaceport in Brownsville.

Elon Musk’s Dogleg Park LLC picked up an additional five lots in late April, bringing the total number of lots it has acquired in Cameron County to 95. The total land area that SpaceX now owns is roughly 38 acres of land, public records show. This is in addition to 56.5 acres that SpaceX has under lease at the site of what would be the world’s first private and commercial vertical launch site.

Compared to the acquisitions made by the federal government when it established its space centers in Florida and Wallops Island, these purchases are small. Nonetheless, they are likely sufficient for what the company plans to do.

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According to an audit, the former chief financial officer of the Mojave Air and Space Port provided 24 straight months of inaccurate accounting reports.

8:53 am

According to an audit, the former chief financial officer of the Mojave Air and Space Port provided 24 straight months of inaccurate accounting reports.

That officer also resigned abruptly the morning this audit began, and had “cleared out her apartment” just beforehand. Still, there is no hint yet of any theft or loss of funds, only incompetence.

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Orbital Sciences is suing the government agency that operates the Wallops Island spaceport, saying it is refusing to pay a $16.5 million bill.

7:43 am

Orbital Sciences is suing the government agency that operates the Wallops Island spaceport, saying it is refusing to pay a $16.5 million bill.

I am not surprised. One of the prime reasons the launch of Antares and Cygnus was delayed by more than a year was because this same government agency had failed to upgrade the launchpad as promised, and Orbital Sciences was eventually forced to step in, take over, and spend millions to do the work itself.

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The Russian deputy prime minister told students at the Moscow Aviation Institute on Thursday that they expect their first launch from their new spaceport in Vostochny to occur in November 2015.

8:00 am

The competition heats up: The Russian deputy prime minister told students at the Moscow Aviation Institute on Thursday that they expect their first launch from their new spaceport in Vostochny to occur in November 2015.

He also said that they want to name the new town they are building at the site after Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.

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The leaders of Russia and Kazakhstan have announced that an agreement has been reached regarding Russia’s lease for the Baikonur spaceport.

10:56 pm

The leaders of Russia and Kazakhstan have announced that an agreement has been reached regarding Russia’s lease for the Baikonur spaceport.

No details were released but I suspect that Kazakhstan has probably backed down from some of its demands, fearful of losing the Russians when the new Russian spaceport in Vostochny opens in 2015.

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Russia is now threatening to abandon its Baikonur launch site due to restrictions demanded by the Kazakhstan government.

8:57 am

Russia is now threatening to abandon its Baikonur launch site due to restrictions demanded by the Kazakhstan government.

The restrictions include a limitation in the number of Proton launches, which Russia claims will cost them half a million dollars in sales. The problem is that the new Russia launch site in Vostochny will not be ready until 2015. If Russia pulls out of Baikonur before then, there will be no way to launch humans to ISS for at least the next two years.

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