Tag: Virgin Galactic

Smallsat rocket launchers get NASA contracts

9:21 am

The competition heats up: NASA this week awarded contracts ranging from $4.7 to $6.9 million to three different smallsat launch companies.

The companies are Firefly Space Systems, Rocket Lab USA, and Virgin Galactic. The second is the company that just won the contract to put a privately-built lunar rover on the moon (part of the Google Lunar X-Prize).

In the past, cubesats and other small satellites could only afford to be secondary payloads on much larger rockets. Thus, they were at the mercy of the needs of the primary payload, often resulting in significant unplanned delays before launch. This in turn acted to discourage the development of smallsats. Now, with these private launch companies designed to service them exclusively the smallsat industry should start to boom.

Note also the low cost of these contracts. The small size of cubesats and the launchers designed for them means everything about them costs much less. Putting an unmanned probe into space is thus much more affordable.

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Next New Shepard test flight expected before December

9:21 am

The competition heats up: Blue Origins has revealed that the next test flight of its suborbital New Shepard capsule and launch rocket will take place before the end of 2015.

They also noted that they will not be selling any tickets for suborbital flights for at least two more years, until they are satisfied that the test flights have proven the system. This is a far cry from other suborbital companies like Virgin Galactic and XCOR, who have made big promises to garner ticket sales, and have yet to deliver. Jeff Bezos’s company has instead decided to deliver first, and then sell tickets.

In the end, we shall see who wins the race to put the first tourists into space. What is certain in all this however is that Virgin Galactic has squandered the ten-year headstart it had when it started out in 2004.

In related news, Virgin Galactic says that construction of its second SpaceShipTwo ship is progressing well.

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Virgin Galactic tests new rocket engine

10:04 pm

The competition heats up? Virgin Galactic has released video of a test burn of a new engine designed to work with its LauncherOne rocket.

I put a question mark above because I have become very skeptical of any press announcements out of Virgin Galactic. They might have made progress on this new engine, and it also appears that they are doing engine work first for developing LauncherOne, a wise plan. However, their track record with SpaceShipTwo makes me doubtful about their ability to follow through. They need to produce to make me a believer once again.

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Virgin Galactic announces changes to LauncherOne

9:14 am

Though this BBC news article is really nothing more than a propaganda piece for Virgin Galactic, the announcement it describes does confirm what has been suspected by space experts for months, that the company is reconfiguring LauncherOne to be more powerful and to launch on a bigger airplane, not WhiteKnightTwo.

In reading the quotes in this article from the various Virgin Galactic officials, I come away feeling even less confident of this company’s ability to get this rocket off the ground. To me, they sound like they are improvising wildly as they go, have no clear long term plan, and thus will have significant trouble settling on a final design early enough so that they will be able to build it intelligently.

I hope I am wrong. The report does suggest however that their investment in WhiteKnightTwo is increasingly appearing to be a waste. They won’t use it for LauncherOne, and their effort to launch SpaceShipTwo with it appears to be slowly vanishing.

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SpaceShipTwo accident report released

12:16 pm

The National Transportation Safety Board today released the results of its investigation into last year’s SpaceShipTwo crash, concluding that the accident was caused by pilot error combined with the failure of the ship’s designers to include systems that could have prevented that error.

The National Transportation Safety Board concluded Tuesday that the developer of a commercial spacecraft that broke apart over the Mojave Desert last year failed to protect against the possibility of human error, specifically the co-pilot’s premature unlocking of a braking system that triggered the in-flight breakup of the vehicle.

In its recommendation, the board took pains to make clear that Scaled Composites, an aerospace company that has partnered with Virgin Galactic to develop the spacecraft, should have had systems in place to overcome the co-pilot’s mistake. NTSB Chairman Christopher Hart said he didn’t believe the company took shortcuts that compromised the spacecraft’s safety. Rather, he said, it didn’t consider that the crew would make such a mistake. “The assumption was these highly trained test pilots would not make mistakes in those areas, but truth be told, humans are humans,” Hart said after the hearing’s conclusion. “And even the best-trained human on their best day can make mistakes.”

This really isn’t news. This was the conclusion reached only weeks after the accident. It also does little to ease the problems at Virgin Galactic.

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More problems at Virgin Galactic?

10:02 am

The story outlines what appear to significant problems at Virgin Galactic:

  • Some sources say the company has shelved LauncherOne in favor of a bigger launcher that would be deployed from the bottom of a 747, not WhiteKnightTwo.
  • The company however says LauncherOne is still under development.
  • The company admits that they recently had a LauncherOne test rocket engine explode during testing.

It appears that they have discovered that LauncherOne is not cost effective for meeting their contract with OneWeb to launch 39 satellites. It would only be able put up one satellite at a time. A more powerful launcher however would be too heavy for WhiteKnightTwo.

Thus, after 10 years of development, nothing they have built to date is useful for a profitable operation, and they apparently have to start over.

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OneWeb awards major launch contracts

9:51 am

The competition heats up: OneWeb today announced it had raised a half billion dollars in investment capital, and has also awarded two major launch contracts, one to the Arianespace/Russian Soyuz partnership and the other to Virgin Galactic’s LauncherOne.

The Soyuz gets 21 launches while LauncherOne gets 39. For Virgin Galactic this contract might save the company, as their effort to fly tourists on SpaceShipOne has badly stalled. The effort to build LauncherOne, however, seems to be gaining steam.

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New flights from SpaceShipTwo will likely not happen for years

10:09 am

In the heat of competition: A variety of unnamed sources are saying that Virgin Galactic’s new SpaceShipTwo will will likely not fly for years.

This quote is especially telling:

As to when that commercial service might actually be ready, one former Virgin Galactic employee told Newsnight: “I can’t say whether it will be two years or whether it will be five… They have a huge, huge, way to go.”

So is this quote from Doug Messier, quoted in the article:

“This program’s claimed four lives already and it’s had four powered flights and they haven’t gotten anywhere near space in 10 years.”

When summed up, as Messier does, Virgin Galactic’s effort sure sounds disappointing, doesn’t it?

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Indecision at Virgin Galactic over engine design

9:53 am

In the heat of competition: Sources at Virgin Galactic suggest that the company has still not made up its mind on the type of engine it will use on SpaceShipTwo.

Messier sums up the situation perfectly:

The lack of clarity about SpaceShipTwo’s main propulsion system is highly unusual. It’s difficult if not impossible to think of another space project that was uncertain about its primary propulsion system after nearly a decade of development.

Increasingly I do not see this spaceship ever flying, which saddens me. They had a ten year head start over everyone else, and have squandered it.

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Test flight of rail-guided launcher delayed to October

9:14 am

The competition heats up: The first test flight of a rail-guided military small satellite launcher has been delayed until October 2015.

“Launch delays of the new launch system were driven primarily by technical development challenges on the first stage motor including design and delivery of the rocket motor case and the integrated rocket motor,” Anttonen said in a response to written questions from Spaceflight Now. “This motor is now complete along with the rest of the launch vehicle, and the launch is on hold pending an opening in the range schedule,” Anttonen said.

The launch system is designed to provide launch capability for small satellites like cubesats, with a launch cost of $12 to $15 million. If successful, it will be a direct competitor to Virgin Galactic’s LauncherOne, except that it appears it might be operational first.

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Virgin Galactic says LauncherOne will make its first flight in 2016

9:35 pm

The competition heats up: The CEO of Virgin Galactic, George Whitesides, revealed at a satellite conference that they are on schedule for LauncherOne to make its first flight before the end of 2016.

The company recently started hot-fire tests of an engine called Newton 3 developed by Virgin Galactic for the first stage of LauncherOne, Whitesides said. That engine, capable of generating 265,000 to 335,000 newtons of thrust, uses liquid oxygen and kerosene propellants. “We’re now to the point where we’re very confident that we can build a very affordable rocket,” Whitesides said. After his speech, he said the company was on schedule to begin flights by the end of 2016, with even initial test flights likely carrying some satellites.

That it is Whitesides and not Richard Branson saying this makes me more confident that it is true, though I remain very skeptical of any promise made by anyone these days at Virgin Galactic. However, the impression from this article confirms an earlier impression I have had, that the company is beginning to shift its resources away from suborbital tourism with SpaceShipTwo and towards orbital launch services with LauncherOne. Branson had announced LauncherOne as a concept in 2012, but only recently have we begin to hear of any actual work on it.

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Virgin Galactic test flights to resume in 2015?

9:25 am

I’ll believe it when I see it: The executive director of the New Mexico Spaceport Authority, which runs Spaceport America, said Tuesday that she hopes Virgin Galactic will resume test flights of a SpaceShipTwo suborbital ship sometime in 2015, with commercial flights beginning in 2016.

She claimed that work on the new ship is about 80% completed, with construction of another ship also underway.

Forgive me if I have my doubts. Virgin Galactic has spent more than a decade making these promises, with no results.

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New Mexico legislature advances spaceport sale bill

9:11 am

A state bill to sell Spaceport America, New Mexico’s spaceport built to service Virgin Galactic’s oft-delayed space tourism business, has advanced out of its first committee.

The bill still needs to clear two more committees before it gets a floor vote, but considering the lack of progress at Virgin Galactic, I would not be surprised if it passes. The high hopes that created this spaceport a decade ago have now faded into a boondoggle that New Mexico probably can no longer afford.

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Virgin Galactic opens facility for developing LauncherOne

10:20 pm

The competition heats up: Virgin Galactic announced today the establishment of a new facility to design and build the company’s LauncherOne rocket, aimed at putting into orbit very small cubesats at a very low price.

LauncherOne is an air-launch system for satellites weighing up to 225 kilograms. The system will use the same aircraft, WhiteKnightTwo, as the company’s SpaceShipTwo suborbital vehicle, but replaces SpaceShipTwo with a two-stage launch vehicle using engines fueled by liquid oxygen and kerosene.

At the Federal Aviation Administration Commercial Space Transportation Conference Feb. 4, William Pomerantz, vice president of special projects for Virgin Galactic, said the company has already tested engines and other “core infrastructure” of LauncherOne. “We are a fairly vertically-integrated team,” he said. “We really do control a lot of the production in house.”

As the article notes, Virgin Galactic is investing in OneWeb, which hopes to launch a constellation of 650 cubesats to provide broadband communications worldwide. It is likely that a partnership between the two companies exists to put many of those cubesats into orbit with LauncherOne.

This announcement also suggests to me that Virgin Galactic is beginning to shift its gaze from suborbital space tourism to orbital launch services, and in doing so is looking for new ways to make its investment in WhiteKnightTwo pay off.

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New Mexico wants out of the spaceport business

9:52 am

A state law-maker in New Mexico has introduced a bill to sell off the state’s spaceport, Spaceport America.

New Mexico spent $220 million to build it and Senator Munoz now says the state has come up short. “It’s not a revenue stream and they don’t know how to get that revenue stream and that’s what needs to change,” he said. He said a private company would do a better job behind the controls and believes there is a buyer out there.

The heart of the problem here is the long delayed first flight by Virgin Galactic. Spaceport America essentially has this one customer, and Virgin Galactic has simply failed to get off the ground with its commercial flights.

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Virgin Galactic vows to fly again by April

8:34 am

The heat of competition: During a press tour of its Mojave facilities this week Virgin Galactic’s CEO revealed that the company expects to begin flying its replacement to SpaceShipTwo by April.

George Whitesides, the company’s chief executive, said construction of the second spaceship is already 65 per cent complete. Like its doomed predecessor, Enterprise, the new spaceship’s name is a tribute to both Nasa and Star Trek. It will be called SS Voyager, the Sunday Times reports.

Whitesides also said that LauncherOne, designed to put very small payloads into orbit, is 18 months away from its first flight.

I hope this predictions are true, but coming from Virgin Galactic I think I can be forgiven if I am very skeptical. Nonetheless, in referring to the new ship I will make it a policy to call it Voyager from here on out to distinguish it from the first ship.

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A pause in investment commitment to Virgin Galactic

9:19 am

The heat of competition: Virgin Galactic’s Arab investors have decided to hold off further commitment to the project until the investigation of the SpaceShipTwo crash is completed.

The backing of deep-pocketed Aabar Investments, run by the Abu Dhabi government, may be crucial to Virgin Galactic as it struggles to recover from the accident, which killed one test pilot and left another seriously injured. “As an investor, Aabar is concerned of course. It is a challenge – nothing can be decided until investigations are over,” the source said, declining to be named because of the sensitivity of the subject. “For now, it is a wait-and-watch situation.” Asked if Aabar was still committed to Virgin Galactic, the source said only: “There is time to make an assessment of the future strategy.”

This is hardly a surprise. Nor does it guarantee an end to Richard Branson’s company. What it signals is a recognition that Virgin Galactic has had a serious problem and must demonstrate that it can fix that problem before it will regain the trust of its investors.

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Second SpaceShipTwo almost ready for flight

8:32 am

The heat of competition: Virgin Galactic today released hanger photos of the almost finished second SpaceShipTwo.

Even as the investigation into the fatal breakup of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo rocket plane continues in Mojave, California, the next SpaceShipTwo is more than halfway complete in a Mojave hangar — and is expected to start going through tests on the ground and in the air next year.

Virgin Galactic’s manufacturing subsidiary, The Spaceship Company, has been working on the plane for two and a half years. It’s variously known as SpaceShipTwo Tail No. 2 or N202VG, and it’s part of Virgin Galactic plan to have a fleet of five SpaceShipTwo rocket planes and two WhiteKnightTwo carrier planes.

This story is a great example of the public relations genius of Richard Branson. Even with the pieces of SpaceShipTwo still being picked up on the ground he finds a way to sell his company positively to the world. They not only intend to continue their effort, they have the ship to prove it!

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Update on SpaceShipTwo investigation

8:20 am

Additional details about the investigation into the crash of SpaceShipTwo have now been released.

The investigators are focusing on the telemetry that the pilots were receiving, as well as the system for activating the ship’s braking feathering system.

As I have noted in the comments, we must try not to speculate on this subject, especially because this issue could do harm to innocent people. For example, some reports have incorrectly attributed the crash to pilot error. To say this now is false. All the investigation has noted is that the co-pilot took the first step to activating the feathering system, as he was supposed to do, though slightly early. The feathering system then deployed on its own, without the second command being given.

We do not yet know the finer details that make his action significant, or not. This is why the investigation is checking into the telemetry the pilots were getting, which might have affected when they did what they did.

We need to wait for more data.

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Some Virgin Galactic customers demand money back

5:22 pm

News reports suggest that — following last week’s SpaceShipTwo crash — more than thirty of the seven hundred people who placed deposits with Virgin Galactic to fly on SpaceshipTwo have pulled out, demanding their money back.

In response to the claim that more than 30 customers are considering their position in the aftermath of the crash, a spokesperson for Virgin Galactic admitted a number of people have asked for their money back. “We can confirm that less than three per cent of people have requested refunds,” the spokesman said.

This is not a surprise, nor should it be. A company can only survive a crisis like this by responding honestly, quickly, and directly. If Virgin Galactic does this, finding the cause of the crash and fixing it, they will likely hold onto most of their customers. If they don’t, those remaining customers will leave. This week’s cancellations are the first immediate response to the crash. The future of the company, however, will be determined by what happens in the next six months.

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SpaceShipTwo’s engine did not cause failure

8:39 am

The investigation into the failure of SpaceShipTwo last week during a powered flight test has determined that the accident was not caused by the spaceship’s engine and that the spaceship’s feathering system for return to Earth began deploying early during powered flight.

The ship’s fuel tanks and its engine were recovered intact, indicating there was no explosion. “They showed no signs of burn-through, no signs of being breached,” Christopher Hart, acting chairman of the National Transportation and Safety Board, told reporters at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, Calif

Instead, data and video relayed from the ship show its hallmark safety feature — a foldable tail section designed for easy re-entry into the atmosphere from space — was deployed early.

More here. Deployment required two commands, activation and then deployment. Data shows that the co-pilot Michael Alsbury activated the system slightly early. The second command, however, was not given, but the feathering system began to deploy nonetheless, during powered flight when the ship was accelerating upward. That is when the ship broke up.

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SpaceShipTwo accident pilots identified

9:36 pm

As the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) begins its investigation into the SpaceShipTwo test flight failure, the identities of the two pilots have finally been released.

The Kern County Coroner’s Office announced Nov. 1 that Michael Alsbury, a 39-year-old test pilot employed by Scaled Composites, was the person killed in the crash of the vehicle north of Mojave, California. Scaled Composites confirmed that identification in a press release issued late Nov. 1, which also stated that the pilot injured in the crash was the company’s director of flight operations, Peter Siebold. Alsbury was the co-pilot of SpaceShipTwo on its first powered flight, in April 2013. According to public flight logs maintained by Scaled Composites, he most recently flew SpaceShipTwo as co-pilot on an unpowered test flight on Aug. 28, a “cold flow” test where nitrous oxide was vented through the engine but not ignited.

Siebold was the pilot or co-pilot of SpaceShipTwo on its previous four flights, including the Aug. 28 flight with Alsbury. Siebold was also a pilot on several test flights of SpaceShipOne, an earlier suborbital spaceplane developed by Scaled Composites that won the $10-million Ansari X Prize in 2004. In the statement, Scaled Composites said that Siebold was “alert and talking with his family and doctors,” but provided no other details about his condition.

Alsbury should receive the same honor given to all other astronauts and pilots who have sacrificed their lives so that humans will someday leave the surface of the Earth.

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“The sky is crying.”

9:19 am

Words from Mohave.

Friday began bright and sunny, a day full of promise that quickly brought tragedy. As I write this early on Saturday, a cold hard rain is lashing at my windows. That’s a good thing. We need it.

And it feels right. The sky is crying, adding to an ocean of tears shed here today.

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Virgin Galactic outlines near term test flight schedule

10:06 am

The competition heats up: In a newspaper interview, the CEO of Virgin Galactic has outlined the company’s flight plans for SpaceShipTwo in the coming months, leading hopefully to its first commercial flights.

“We expect to get to space altitude in a short number of flights, assuming the rocket performs as expected,” Whitesides told the Journal. “Scaled made it to space in four flights with SpaceShipOne. I believe it will be a little more than that for us, but not dramatically so.”

Once SpaceShipTwo successfully reaches space, Scaled Composites will turn over the rocket to Virgin Galactic for its commercial operations based in New Mexico. Virgin has already taken control of the mothership, which it flew to Spaceport America for some initial test operations in September. “Once we take control of SpaceShipTwo, we expect to do some more testing here in New Mexico, but that will primarily be efficiency testing rather than technology testing,” Whitesides said. “It will give pilots an opportunity to train at this airfield after Mojave to practice things like coming in on final approach.”

As much as I have expressed strong skepticism in recent months of Virgin Galactic’s promises, I truly hope this happens, and soon.

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