Bayourat Aerospace and Rocketry

Next Manned Soyuz Mission To The ISS Postponed One Month. Phobos-Grunt Failure Blammed On Space Radiation.

2012-02-01T06:55:00.000-08:00

Source: Reuters
By Alissa de Carbonnel
MOSCOW
Tue Jan 31, 2012 7:09pm GMT

(Reuters) - Russia blamed radiation on Tuesday for a computer glitch that doomed its Mars moon mission, but space industry experts cast doubt on the findings of an investigation into the crash of what was to be Moscow's first deep space mission in two decades.

The Phobos-Grunt spacecraft was stranded in Earth orbit after launch in November and crashed into the Pacific Ocean this month, one of five recent botched Russian launches.

Now Space agency chief Vladimir Popovkin also said Moscow would postpone the next U.S.-Russian manned mission to the International Space Station by one month from March over technical problems during testing of the Soyuz spacecraft.

The delay, which officials said was due to glitches with the Soyuz descent capsule, is likely to fuel concerns over relying solely on Russia to take astronauts into orbit.

"The most likely reason, in the opinion of the commission, was the local impact of heavily charged space particles that led to a failure in the memory of the main onboard computer in the second stage of flight," Popovkin told Russian news agencies in Voronezh, a town 450 km (280 miles) south of Moscow.

A burst of space radiation caused the onboard computers to reboot and go into standby mode, he said.

Popovkin said foreign-made counterfeit or defective microchips were partly to blame for the failure of the $165-million spacecraft, designed to retrieve soil samples from the Martian moon Phobos.

The budget for Russia's space program, he said, would be 150-200 billion roubles ($5-6.6 billion) a year until 2030.

EXPERTS CAST DOUBT

Popovkin had earlier hinted that foreign sabotage might be behind the failure, in an apparent attempt to deflect blame.

Experts said Moscow was blaming external factors for the loss of its ambitious Mars mission to distract from chronic failings with its once-pioneering industry.

"You can fantasize about everything. This is one of a number of possible reasons but one that is convenient for many people," Alexander Zakharov, the mission's lead scientist, told Reuters.

"Even if this was the true reason, which we can't completely rule out because it does happen, then there is some kind of problem with the flight system or the programming, which were not designed to guard against this (space radiation)."

State RIA news agency cited an industry source as saying it was "simply absurd" that Phobos-Grunt had not been made to withstand cosmic rays on its two-year interplanetary mission.

"They did not make a vacuum cleaner but a spacecraft that is intended to fly in the aggressive environment of outer space. They couldn't have failed to take this into account," the source said.

Another space industry source said potentially damaging bursts of radiation were highly unlikely in low-Earth orbit, where hundreds of satellites circle within the protective bubble of the planet's magnetic field.

"This usually happens with interplanetary satellites around Mars or Venus, in other words, in deep space," the source told RIA. "This phenomenon occurs every one or two years on average, but it is very unlikely to see it in low-Earth orbit."

Earlier Tuesday, the head of Russia's manned space program, Alexei Krasnov, said flaws with the hermetic sealing on the Soyuz TMA-04M re-entry were found during testing.

The mission, which was due to launch on March 30, will be delayed to allow time for a new capsule to be readied, likely delaying other missions as well.

(Reporting By Alissa de Carbonnel; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

SpaceX Dragon Capsule Is Capable Of Long Duration Space Flight

2012-01-19T10:50:00.000-08:00

Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX was selected by NASA to resupply the International Space Station after the agency ended its Space Shuttle program last year. SpaceX received an initial $1.6 billion contract for a minimum of 12 flights, with an option to order additional missions. However, in order to begin the actual missions, SpaceX first has to meet the stringent performance standards set by NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS). SpaceX has already passed the first COTS test and NASA recently announced that SpaceX will be allowed to complete the objectives of COTS 2 and COTS 3 in a single mission, lifting off February 7.

This means that after separating from the Falcon 9 two-stage, liquid-oxygen and rocket-grade-kerosene (RP-1) powered launch vehicle, SpaceX’s manned Dragon craft will perform all of the COTS 2 mission objectives, which include numerous operations in the vicinity of the ISS, and will then perform the COTS 3 objectives. These include approach, berthing with the ISS, astronauts opening Dragon and unloading cargo, and finally astronauts closing the spacecraft and sending it back to Earth for recovery from the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California. If the Dragon is able to complete these tasks successfully, NASA plans to begin regular SpaceX flights to the Space Station later this year. NASA hopes for two flights in 2013 and three flights in 2014.

The Dragon is a free-flying, reusable spacecraft made up of a pressurized capsule and unpressurized trunk used for Earth to low-Earth-orbit transport of pressurized cargo, unpressurized cargo and/or crew members. The Dragon spacecraft comprises three main elements: the nose cone, which protects the vessel and the docking adaptor during ascent; the spacecraft, which houses the crew and/or pressurized cargo as well as the service section containing avionics, parachutes, and other support infrastructure; and the trunk, which provides for the stowage of unpressurized cargo.

This being an Elon Musk company, there must be some some element of cutting edge renewable technology. And for this mission it’s the Dragon spacecraft’s use of deployable solar arrays stored in its trunk area as its primary power source for running sensors, driving heating and cooling systems, and communicating with SpaceX’s Mission Control Center and the Space Station. Dragon’s solar arrays generate up to 5,000 watts of power — enough to power over 80 standard light bulbs.

The solar arrays, shielded by protective covers during launch, deploy just minutes after Dragon separates from the Falcon 9 second stage, as it heads towards its rendezvous with the Space Station. While many commercial satellites and NASA missions such as the Hubble Space Telescope use solar arrays, Dragon will be the first American commercial transport vehicle to do so.

Past American spacecraft like Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and Shuttle used fuel cells or battery packs. Fuel cells are limited by the amount of chemical reactants (typically oxygen and hydrogen) that the vehicle can carry. Batteries alone are limiting due to their mass and the amount of power they can carry.

Solar energy provides a key benefit — long-term power. Combining Dragon’s solar arrays with a compact and efficient battery pack provides a reliable and renewable source of power. When in the sun, Dragon’s solar arrays recharge the battery pack, and the charged batteries provide power while Dragon passes through the Earth’s shadow. With solar panels, Dragon will have the power it needs for longer trips, whether to the Space Station or future missions to Mars.

Source: http://www.earthtechling.com/
By: Steve Duda

China Launches Second Satellite Within One Week!

2012-01-13T10:12:00.000-08:00

China successfully launched meteorological satellite Fengyun-II 07 at 8:56 a.m. Friday from its southwestern Xichang Satellite Launch Center.

Capable of providing continuous meteorological monitoring and sending maritime and water resource data, the satellite is expected to play an important role in weather forecasting and disaster reduction.

Developed and produced by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology, a subsidiary of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), the orbiter will collect data for the China Meteorological Administration.

The Long March 3A rocket that was used to carry the satellite into space is a product of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, another CASC subsidiary. Friday's launch marked the 157th Long March rocket launch.

What’s a Soyuz Launch Like?

2012-01-12T12:41:00.000-08:00

Andre (top), Oleg (bottom) and I prepare to depart.

By: Don Pettit — Soyuz
From: http://blogs.airspacemag.com/pettit/
As a newly arrived astronaut candidate in 1996, I was sitting in my first Space Shuttle mission debrief, listening to a crew report to the astronaut office on their just-completed flight. This is a special rite of passage for freshman astronauts, who learn from their more experienced elders. I was anxiously waiting to hear how the launch went. I wanted to know what it was really like. I was all ears when the commander began, “The launch was nominal.” And that was it.

My mind was reeling with questions. How was strap-in orchestrated in the cockpit? What was it like being on the launch pad for six seconds with the main engines running, but the shuttle not going anywhere? What did you feel before, during, and after solid rocket booster separation? What could you see out the windows? What was it like to be in space for the first time?
All I got was: “Launch was nominal.” Deflated, I left not knowing what a launch was really like. I wouldn’t find out until my own first launch six years later. Maybe that was the real rite of passage.

Since then I’ve had the great fortune to launch into space on three occasions. My first two times were on Space Shuttle Endeavour, and this most recent one, in December, was on the Soyuz TMA-M03 “Antares.” The most notable difference between the two when strapping in your seat is cockpit volume. Soyuz is tiny compared to the Shuttle, which has pluses and minuses. From the engineering perspective, smaller is better, and cheaper to launch. From a crew comfort viewpoint, the Soyuz is cramped (I might even say cramped-squared). Once strapped in, my heels are nearly in contact with my butt. I am tied down at eight points to a form-fitting couch, making it difficult to move anything other than my arms. I can also swivel my head and wiggle my toes.

This may seem more like a medieval torture chamber than a rocket cockpit, but the tight enclosure is essential to protect your body from flailing around during the hard landings on the steppes of Kazakhstan. The danger comes from more than just flailing appendages—internal organs can move around, with undesirable results. High G-shocks can cause the heart to break loose from its mounts, rupturing the attached plumbing. The liver can slide down to where the kidneys used to be. Being tightly strapped into a form-fitting washtub helps keep all your internal organs in place. Because rockets can go bad without warning, the crew has to be ready for an abort and subsequent (hard) landing even during launch, so we assume this position whenever there is dynamic flight. For spaceships, there is no business class.

The closeout crew members are your friends, both at Cape Canaveral and at Baikonur. Dressed in white bunny suits, these highly trained specialists help you strap in and make sure everything is properly set in the cockpit. Then they close the hatch. Only then does it occur to you that these are the last persons on Earth that you will see until you return. Not your family, not your colleagues, but your closeout crew. I do not even know all of their names, but for that brief, emotion-packed strap-in moment, they became my family.

On the flight deck of the Shuttle, there are many windows. During launch there are moments, stolen from your relentless gaze at the computer screen, when you glance outside. I still have an image in my mind of a near-full moon out the pilot’s window during the launch of STS-126. It looked like our destination. In the Soyuz there are two windows that stay covered by a protective shroud for the first two and a half minutes after launch. Then abruptly, there is light. In our case, though, we launched on a moonless night, so there was nothing we could see.

We strapped in about two hours before launch. This confined position is not too bad for the first hour and a half. After that, my knees started to talk to me, and of course so did my bladder. Good thing I was wearing a diaper; thank God for rocket science.

Soyuz is powered by kerosene-oxygen rocket engines, which are relatively smooth and vibration-free compared to the Shuttle’s solid rocket boosters. (If you want to experience a shakedown, ride on a rocket powered by solids.) At engine ignition, Soyuz is slow to come out of the blocks—it just sits there for eight seconds or so. I could feel something was happening. There was vibration and a muffled, rattling noise. Something very powerful was stirring below, perhaps a sleeping dragon waking up in a bad mood. After a few seconds that seemed more like minutes, I could feel the acceleration as we lifted off. It started off low and slowly built up. The vibrations and noise actually decreased as we climbed away from the ground. The three of us, crammed in with our heels against our butts, were focused on the computer displays.

Rockets have stages; their engines and tanks are cast off when it’s time for the next stage to take over. During staging, there is a brief period between one set of engines shutting down and the next set igniting. Like an awkward pause in a conversation, you anxiously wait for something to happen. During that pause the acceleration or “G-forces” drop to zero, so the pressure of your spine against the seat disappears, only to be slammed back when the next stage lights. For our Soyuz, we were closely monitoring the third stage. Two launches before, on a cargo version of Soyuz called Progress, the third stage shut down shortly after staging, causing the cargo to be dumped somewhere in Siberia. We had abort options for the manned version, and were spooled up to react immediately if needed.

No matter what kind of rocket is launched, put a human on it and the seriousness of the event takes on a different cast. For mission control, launch teams, and spectators alike, emotions are on display that are normally reserved for events such as weddings. Joyful smiles, cheering, flushed faces, and teary eyes abound. For eight and a half minutes, a rocket lights up the night sky and a new star is born.

Stairway to the Sky

We climb the stairway
that leads beyond the clouds.
The sky is not the limit,
at least anymore.
Atop the launch pad,
a passage into cramped quarters.
Is this the way to Heaven,
or possibly the other place?
Most definitely not business class.
We are perched on a large bottle of gasoline,
a personified Molotov.
Waiting;
more angst in front of news cameras than sitting here.
And finally,
fires hotter than hell.
That transforms us into a point of light in the sky,
thus a new star is born.
Blasted into space,
or blasted into bits,
In either case you are no longer on this planet.

Next: Two days in a diaper

ISS gets hardware and software upgrades to support inaugural Dragon visit

2012-01-11T11:23:00.000-08:00

The six-member crew of the International Space Station (ISS) have been hard at work over the past few weeks, performing multiple hardware and software upgrades in order to ready the station to support the new fleet of commercial resupply vehicles, ahead of next month’s inaugural visit of SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft to the orbital outpost.

The first upgrades needed to support the Dragon spacecraft, scheduled to visit the station for the first time on the combined COTS-2/3 (C2/C3) mission in February, were to the COTS UHF Communication Unit (CUCU) and its associated Crew Command Panel (CCP).

The CUCU, delivered to the ISS on STS-129 in November 2009, is an avionics box that plugs into the ISS in order to allow communication between the station, through its antennas, and the SpaceX Dragon, by converting and relaying signals between the two spacecraft.

The CCP allows the ISS crew to interact with Dragon, by issuing commands to Dragon via the CUCU in response to crew inputs to the panel, such as rendezvous abort, Dragon strobe light on/off, and other commands.

Having been aboard the ISS for over two years, during which time the Dragon spacecraft software has changed from its original version, both the CUCU and CCP needed software updates in order to support Dragon’s inaugural arrival at the station in February.

Beginning in late November 2011, a new software version, called R3.2, was loaded into the CUCU. The updates were to the Remote Input/Output (RIO) control modules, the radio, and the 1553 card on both of the CUCU’s two redundant strings of electronics, called 1a and 1b.

Following the CUCU update, a remote checkout of the CUCU was performed, with tests involving performing transmit and receive tests between Earth and both of the CUCU’s redundant strings. Only a minor command line issue was discovered, which was resolved after cycling the circuit breaker for the RIO-A, which verified CUCU command capability.

The subsequent CCP update, which was firmware of version R3.2 for both of the two CCPs aboard the ISS – Primary and Backup – was originally scheduled to be performed soon after the CUCU update, however was delayed due to issues with test communication links between the ISS and NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center (DFRC) in California.

The firmware upgrade was eventually performed on 4th January 2012, which was followed by successful testing by SpaceX Mission Control (MCC-X) in Hawthorne, California. As such, both the CUCU and the CCP are now ready to support the Dragon flight in February.

The next ISS upgrade in support of Dragon’s visit was to the station’s Multiplexer/Demultiplexer (MDM) computers. MDMs are part of the ISS Command & Data Handling (CDH) system that controls all aspects of the ISS and its sub-systems.

As their name implies, MDMs perform multiplexing and demultiplexing functions, which essentially means that they send and receive multiple signals and data streams between the ground and the ISS, or ISS laptops and ISS systems, or ISS systems and other systems.

This essentially allows all the ISS systems to talk to each other and be commanded by both the ground and the ISS crew. While it’s commonly referred to that the ISS crew use laptops to control the station, in fact the laptops control the MDMs, which in turn control the station.

The MDMs consist of processor cards which allow them to perform their various functions, and it is one type of these cards which were the subject of the upgrades. Specifically, the new cards were called Enhanced Processor & Integrated Communications (EPIC) cards, which feature faster processors, increased memory, and an Ethernet port for data output.

The EPIC upgrades are needed to support the new commercial resupply vehicles, since the cards control communications between the ISS and Visiting Vehicles (VVs), the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS), which is used to capture VVs, and Common Berthing Mechanism (CBM) ports, to which VVs berth.

Additionally, the EPIC upgrades will allow the ISS to support the operation of more experiments at any given time, thus increasing station utilisation in the post-Shuttle era. Under non-EPIC cards the ISS could support 12 simultaneous experiments, bit with the new EPIC cards the ISS is able to support over 25 simultaneous experiments.

The EPIC cards also updated the station’s software, since the cards were pre-loaded with new versions of software to replace the station’s old version of X2_R9. Specifically, six EPIC cards launched aboard Progress M-11M/43P in October were loaded with CCS R10 and GNC R9 software, and four cards delivered aboard Soyuz TMA-03M/29S in December were loaded with CCS R10 and PEP R10 software.

Overall, the EPIC card transition updated the ISS software from X2_R9 to X2_R10, which is essentially the same as the previous version, but upgraded to run on the faster EPIC card – no new functionality will be added.

The EPIC transition was originally scheduled to occur in August 2011, but was delayed when problems were discovered with several EPIC cards, which L2 information shows was that “some of the cards are more susceptible to noise than the others which could result in a power supply shut down”. As a result, additional testing was needed.

At the same time, the launch failure of the Progress M-12M/44P spacecraft on 24th August and subsequent knock-on effect of reduced ISS crew, which meant that less time was available for EPIC transition work due to research commitments, pushed the EPIC transition into late December/early January.

In total, five MDMs were upgraded – three Command & Control (C&C) MDMs, and two Guidance, Navigation & Control (GNC) MDMs. The EPIC upgrades were performed in such an order as to allow for certain MDMs to be transitioned to EPIC cards while others remained on non-EPIC cards for a few days, in order to allow for full testing and problem resolution before transitioning all five MDMs to EPIC cards.

The transition was a two-man job, with US astronaut Don Pettit performing full tests of the EPIC cards to verify their functionality, prior to handing them to ISS Commander Dan Burbank for installation into the MDMs, located within the Avionics racks in the US Destiny laboratory.

The complex operations began on 28th December, with the old non-EPIC card being removed from the C&C-1 MDM and replaced with the new EPIC card, thus transitioning C&C-1 to EPIC. Following verification of correct operation, the 29th December saw the C&C-2 MDM transitioned to EPIC using the same process.

On the 30th December, the upgraded C&C-1 EPIC MDM was switched to Primary C&C MDM, and the C&C-2 EPIC MDM became Backup C&C MDM. The only remaining non-EPIC C&C MDM, C&C-3, was put into Standby mode, available as a “back-out” option should problems have arisen in the new EPIC Primary & Backup C&C MDMs.

Next, on 3rd January, an EPIC card was installed in the GNC-2 MDM, following which it was transitioned to Primary GNC MDM, while the non-EPIC GNC-1 MDM became Backup. Finally, on 5th January, after two “dwell days” to iron out any issues, the last of the three C&C MDMs, C&C-3, was transitioned to EPIC, as was the last of the two GNC MDMs, GNC-1.

An EPIC software patch for the station’s Portable Computer System (PCS) laptops was then uploaded, marking the successful completion of the transition of the three C&C and two GNC MDMs to EPIC cards, and the updating of ISS software from X2_R9 to X2_R10.

Although, as detailed above, the EPIC cards will enable support for commercial cargo vehicles and additional payloads, the actual support will come from additional hardware and software upgrades over the coming weeks.

In order to be able to support the commercial cargo vehicles, the ISS must yet undergo another software upgrade, this time from its current X2_R10 to the new X2_R11, which will, amongst other things, update the ISS Mobile Servicing System (MSS) software to version 7.1, which will give the SSRMS software the updates required to support robotics activities associated with commercial cargo vehicles.

Source information shows that the X2_R11 transition will occur in two parts, the first part from 15th to 17th January, and the second part from 29th January to 1st February, a schedule which should give the ISS the software required to support the inaugural Dragon visit six days prior its currently planned launch on 7th February.

Although not a requirement for support of commercial cargo vehicles, a further hardware and software upgrade will be needed in order to allow the ISS to support additional payloads. This will consist of upgrading two payload MDMs with EPIC cards, and then performing another ISS software update, called X2_PEP_R10.

This upgrade, which also includes a software update for the Permanent Multipurpose Module (PMM), will add Ethernet support for the C&C and Payload MDMs, which will provide a faster path for data being downlinked from the ISS to Earth. Source information shows that this transition will occur No Earlier Than (NET) February.

Source: http://nasaspaceflight.com/
January 10th, 2012 by: Pete Harding

Dr. Goddard's Last Surviving Team Member Passes Away At Age 96

2012-01-06T21:23:00.000-08:00

LAS CRUCES - Lowell Randall, described by his friend and biographer Joe Gold of Las Cruces, as "the last surviving member of a team of great pioneer rocket scientists who launched the U.S. space program," died Tuesday at Good Samaritan Las Cruces Village, Home Health Center. He was 96.

A contemporary and New Mexico colleague of legendary rocketry pioneer Robert Goddard and Pluto's discoverer Clyde Tombaugh, Randall's career as a rocket engineer stretched from the 1930s through World War II and late 20th century space program research, and included duty as chief test engineer with the U.S. Naval Research Station at Annapolis, Md., and work with corporate and governmental programs throughout the U.S. to develop and test cutting-edge technology for a series of rockets, aircraft and intercontinental ballistic missiles, before his 1978 retirement from White Sands Missile Range.

"I first met him in 1950 and admired him so much, I wrote a biography of him," said Gold, an engineer and author of "Lowell Randall: Rocket Pioneer."

Randall and Goddard

In 1930, Randall was a student at Roswell High School when Dr. Robert Goddard moved his rocket development and testing activities from Massachusetts to the Mescalero Ranch near Roswell.

In the depths of the Great Depression, Randall couldn't afford any education beyond his high school diploma and a spot on Goddard's rocket research dream seemed unlikely, if not impossible. He supported his wife, Helen, and their
first child by delivering newspapers and working for a furniture store. He met Goddard while installing carpets and drapes in the famed scientist's Roswell home. Randall shared his aspirations for a rocketry research job and got Goddard's attention with a prototype of a gyroscope that could sense an aircraft's speed.

Randall's dream job finally materialized when Goddard received contracts from the U.S. Navy Bureau of Aeronautics and the Army Air Corps to develop liquid Jet Assist Take Off (JATO) rocket engines, which laid the foundation for spaceflights to the moon. Lowell became the Goddard team's chief test engineer at the Naval Research Station at Annapolis.

In a 2004 interview with Deseret News, Randall called Goodard "a wonderful boss. He was in good spirits all the time, amazingly good spirits - but extremely secretive," about his work, outside of his small research team.

"We all worked as a team and exchanged ideas. There were no secrets among any of us. But we had an understanding, and Mrs. Goddard made that clear to me my first day, 'You do not talk to the outsiders, you don't say a word to the outsiders,'" Randall said.

Rocketry milestones

After Goddard's death in 1945, Randall moved with the team to work with Curtiss Wright Corporation at Caldwell, N.J.

There, he helped "develop the rocket engine for the Bell X-2 aircraft, which achieved a maximum speed of Mach 3.2 during a test flight at Edwards Air Force Base in California," according to www.thespaceshow.com. "Lowell moved to the White Sands Proving Ground, later named the White Sands Missile Range (WSMR), in New Mexico in 1952 to test Redstone rocket engines, and he later took over a 600-man team at Martin Marietta Corporation near Denver, Colo., to test the first 10 rocket engines for the Air Force's Titan I intercontinental ballistic missile," the first true multi-stage intercontinental ballistic missile and one that could also serve for space flights.

"In a modified form, the Redstone Missile sent the first American astronauts into space," according to information provided by the Randall family.

In 1967, Randall returned to Las Cruces to head up environmental missile testing at WSMR, retiring in 1978, but continued part-time engineering work until the mid-1990's, primarily with Wendell Hull in Las Cruces.

"Those heady days with Goddard catapulted Randall into a career that brought him to the top of the American space program. He helped design systems on the Redstone rocket that took astronauts on suborbital hops. He wrangled with Werner von Braun and won. And he headed teams working on vital military space projects," journalist Joe Bauman of Deseret News said.

In his later years, Gold said, Randall continued consulting work, focusing on improvements for the specific impulse of rocket motors and often spoke at New Mexico State University and other educational institutions.

"He was generous in letting many of us pick his brain," Gold said.

Randall, born in Roswell in 1916 to Orlando and Maude Randall, was also known for his hobbies, flying radio-controlled model airplanes and gliders.

Randall is preceded in death by his first wife and mother of their children Helen W. Randall, his second wife Anna M. Randall, daughter Janet D. Randall, son-in-law Thomas L. Brown, brother Ernest Randall and sister Elaine R. Bailey.

He is survived by daughters Martha Randall Brown of Las Cruces and Linda L. Randall and husband Gerald Hazelbauer of Columbia, Mo., by step-daughter Carol Miner Garber and husband John of Denver, Colo., and by caregiver Mary Grimes of Las Cruces.

Visitation

Visitation will be from 5 to 7 p.m. today at La Paz-Graham's Funeral Home Chapel, 555 W. Amador Ave., with graveside services at 10 a.m. Saturday at Hillcrest Memorial Gardens Cemetery.

Donations can be made to maintain the replica of the Goddard Workshop at the Roswell Museum and Art Center. Send donations to:

RMAC Foundation, Goddard Workshop, Cindy Torrez, Executive Director, 400 N. Pennsylvania Ave., Suite 220, Roswell, NM 88201.

Is That Santa? No, Just Soyuz Rockets Falling From The Sky!

2011-12-25T11:53:00.000-08:00

The mysterious fireball observed above Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and France on Christmas Eve was the re-entry of the third stage of a Soyuz rocket that transported three astronauts to space, the Royal Observatory of Belgium said Sunday.

A Russian Soyuz rocket carrying the astronauts – Oleg Kononenko of Russia, Andre Kuipers of the Netherlands and Don Pettit of the United States – to the International Space Station, lifted off on Wednesday from Kazakhstan’s Baikonour space center.

On Saturday, a trail of bright light moving rapidly across the sky was observed by many people in Germany and was initially thought to be a meteorite, according to a German aerospace official.

“It is a close assumption that it could have been a meteorite, but that remains unconfirmed,” Andreas Schuetz, the spokesman of German aerospace center DLR, told dpa.

He did not exclude the fact that it could also have been space debris – about 60-70 tons of space junk reach Earth each year.

On Christmas Eve, listeners called in to the radio station Antenne Thueringen to report the puzzling streak of light in the sky.

Some witnesses said that at about 1630 GMT they saw three glowing dots with a long tail, which then split up into several parts. According to Scheutz, many witnesses said it was a shining red light, while others claimed to have seen a white-hot streak.

One listener told the radio station: “Very nice, it was very impressive.”

Another said: “We saw the light spectacle on the way home from church. Our daughter thought it was Santa Claus’ coach with a moose.”

In a seperate space debris incident. The Meridian communications satellite that failed to reach orbit on Friday.

Parts crashed into the Novosibirsk region of central Siberia and were found in the Ordynsk district around 100km (60 miles) south of the regional capital, Novosibirsk.

Residents of Vagaitsevo village said a piece had landed on a house there.

The owner of the house, Andrei Krivoruchenko, said that he heard a huge noise and a crash as the satellite hit the roof.

"I climbed up onto the roof and could not work out what had happened. Then I saw a huge hole in the roof and the metal object," he told Russian state television.

The head of the Ordynsk district, Pavel Ivarovksy, told Russia's Interfax news agency that the damage was being examined by specialists and that the home's owner would be compensated.

The loss of the Meridian satellite ends a disastrous 12 months for Russian space activity with the loss of three navigation satellites, an advanced military satellite, a telecommunications satellite, a probe for Mars and as an unmanned Progress supply ship.

Earlier this month, Russia also failed to launch a Soyuz rocket.

The next Soyuz launch is scheduled for 26 December from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

Another Soyuz-2.1b Rocket Launch Failure Friday Dec. 23, 2011 May Delay Next Progress Launch

2011-12-24T11:29:00.000-08:00

The Russian space program suffered yet another setback on Friday after a Soyuz-2 vehicle failed to put a communications satellite into orbit, resulting in debris from the probe crashing back to Earth in a Siberian town located roughly 1,400 miles from Moscow.

According to BBC News Science Correspondent Jonathan Amos, the Soyuz 2.1b (described by Amos as the most modern form of the venerable Russian spaceship) launched at 16:08 Moscow time from the Plesetsk spaceport in northern Russia.

It was carrying a Meridian-5 satellite designed to provide communications between aircraft, ships and ground stations near the coast. Debris from the satellite is believed to have fallen back to earth near the town of Tobolsk, which is located in western Siberia.

Sources told Reuters that the accident was blamed on the carrier rocket’s failure. The unspecified failure occurred roughly seven minutes after takeoff, Russian media sources including RIA Novosti reportedly told the BBC. According to Reuters, industry sources are claiming that the incident could delay the launch of the Progress cargo craft, currently set for next month.

Russian Aerospace Forces spokesman Col. Alexei Zolotukhin told Xinhua news agency reporters that the malfunction is believed to have occurred “in the off-normal work of the propulsion unit of the third stage of the launch vehicle,” and that an investigation into the accident had already begun. No casualties or damages had been reported, sources told the Chinese media organization.

Friday’s incident was the latest in a line of setbacks suffered by the Russian space program during the past year. In December 2010, three Glonass navigation system satellites veered off course and wound up crashing into the Pacific Ocean, cause delays in the nation’s attempts to built a GPS rival and costing the space agency approximately $160 million, according to Reuters.

In August, the failure of a Soyuz rocket set to deliver supplies to the International Space Station (ISS) resulted in Roscosmos official temporarily suspending space flights.

About a week before that, a Proton vehicle failed to place another communication satellite into orbit, and a third-such incident occurred back in February, and last month, officials lost contact with a probe that had been scheduled to fly to Phobos in order to study the Mars moon.

The loss of the Meridian Friday “confirms that the (space) sector is in crisis,” Roscosmos head of the Vladimir Popofkin told the ITAR-TASS news agency, according to the AFP’s Stuart Williams.

“We must resolve this situation and give way to the youth,” he added in comments quotes by the Xinhua news agency. “Perhaps it’s time for reshuffle.”

Russian military communications satellite Meridian-5 deorbiting over the city of Novosibirsk after a failed launch attempt. The satellite was launched at 4.11 p.m. MSK, December 23, 2011 from Plesetsk spaceport. The engine of the 3d stage of the Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket failed at T+421 seconds.

A Russian military launch of a fresh satellite for a latest communications network fails. A Soyuz-2.1b rocket with the Fregat upper stage lifted off from Pad 4 at Site 43 in Plesetsk on Dec. 23, 2011, at 16:08 Moscow Time. The launch vehicle carried a Meridian No. 5 communications satellite for the Russian military. The Titov Test Space Center started tracking the mission at 16:11 Moscow Time, a representative of Air and Space Defense Forces, VKO, told the official Russian media. According to the flight program, the satellite was expected to establish contact with Russian ground stations at 18:28 Moscow Time. However during the firing of the launch vehicle's third stage, 421 seconds after the liftoff, an emergency command shut down the engine, a VKO representative said. According to other sources, data showing the loss of thrust in the third stage engine was received 427 seconds into the flight. According to initial reports, the remnants of the spacecraft were expected to crash near Tobolsk in the Tyumen Region of Russia. However within three hours after the accident, Interfax news agency reported that fragments of the spacecraft were found near Ordynsk in Novosibirsk Region. It was the fifth launch failure for the Russian space industry in 2011, and the first for the Soyuz-2 rocket, which uses a latest RD-0124 engine on the third stage. According to the Interfax AVN news agency, the financial loss from the accident could reach two billion rubles.

NASA Dependent On Russian Soyuz Space Taxi For At Least Five More Years

2011-12-18T06:51:00.000-08:00

(Reuters) - Budget cuts in a program to spur commercial space taxis will likely keep the United States dependent on Russia to fly astronauts to the International Space Station until 2017, NASA's head of space operations said.

But the newly revamped program, intended to provide a commercial alternative following the recent retirement of NASA's space shuttles, comes with a silver lining: NASA is abandoning plans for traditional fixed-price contracts and instead will use less expensive and more flexible partnering agreements.

"It's one small step for Commercial Crew," said Bigelow Aerospace attorney Michael Gold, referring to NASA's space taxi development program. "And one giant leap for common sense."

The switch was spurred by the halving of NASA's $850 million Commercial Crew program budget request for the year that began October 1 and by NASA's determination to keep at least two space taxi designs in the running for the agency's future business.

"We would like to carry two providers at a minimum, actually more," NASA associate administrator Bill Gerstenmaier said during a conference call with reporters. "We think competition is a key piece."

Currently the agency is funding work at four firms: Boeing, Space Exploration Technologies, Sierra Nevada Corp., and Blue Origin, a start-up owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Other aspiring space transportation companies, including Stratolaunch Systems, the recently announced start-up backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, are not seeking or have not been awarded NASA funds to assist with spaceship development.

"Our investment helps to ensure that this capability gets done in as timely a manner as we can actually make it occur," Gerstenmaier said.

A solicitation for the next phase of the program was due to be released on Monday, but will be delayed until the first quarter of 2012, Gerstenmaier said. The selection of companies, however, should remain on schedule for next summer.

NASA, which has $406 million to spend on the program this year, is uncertain how much money it will receive to see the development effort through the planned 21-month period.

"We want to get enough work behind us that we've got a very solid design that we can then start taking into a certification," Gerstenmaier said.

The agency had hoped to have an alternative by 2016 to sending its astronauts into space aboard the Russian Soyuz capsule, which costs more than $60 million per person per ride.

"We got an increase in the budget in fiscal year '12, which was a good thing, but it wasn't quite the funding level that we anticipated. That moved the potential service capability at least into 2017," Gerstenmaier said.

More Launches, Less Lawyering

The alternative contracting arrangement, called Space Act Agreements, has been used in a related program to develop commercial U.S. cargo ships to fly to the space station, a $100 billion research laboratory built in partnership with Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada that flies about 240 miles above Earth.

Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, is preparing for its trial cargo run to the station in February, launching a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon cargo capsule. A second company, Orbital Sciences Corp. is expected to follow suit with its cargo craft later in 2012.

"Space Act Agreements yield amazing results, we need only look at the Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket," SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell, wrote in an email to Reuters.

"We applaud NASA's decision to use Space Act Agreements for the next round of Commercial Crew and look forward to the competition," she said.

The difference between traditional government contracting and Space Act Agreements is night and day, added Gold, who oversees business growth for Bigelow Aerospace, which is developing commercial orbital habitats for research, government and business lease.

"It's the difference between a 30-page contract and one that could involve 3,000 pages of regulations," Gold said. "Even understanding what you're up against can take months of review by lawyers. If you want to spend more money on lawyers and less on launches, FAR (Federal Acquisition Regulation) is a terrific way to proceed."

Gerstenmaier said the alternative partnering arrangement would not allow NASA to get as involved technically in the space taxis' design, but "essentially we can enable them."

The New ESA "Vega" Rocket Will Launch An Experimental Earth Return Vehicle

2011-12-16T16:15:00.000-08:00

Europe’s ambition for a spacecraft to return autonomously from low orbit is a cornerstone for a wide range of space applications, including space transportation, exploration and robotic servicing of space infrastructure.
Part of this goal will be achieved with IXV Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle, planned for launch in 2014. Launched into a suborbital trajectory on ESA’s Vega rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, IXV will return to Earth as if from a low-orbit mission, to test and qualify new European critical reentry technologies such as advanced ceramic and ablative thermal protection.

The 2 t IXV lifting body is about 5 m long, 2.2 m wide and 1.5 m high. Its hypersonic lift-to-drag ratio of 0.7 guarantees the required aerodynamic performance.

ESA and the Arianespace launch provider signed a contract on 14 December to study the launch of ESA’s IXV Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle on Europe’s new Vega rocket, as part of the VERTA – Vega Research and Technology Accompaniment – programme.

For several years, significant importance has been accorded to the development of critical reentry technologies through several basic research and technology preparatory programmes. Today, the flight verification of such technologies is an important aspect of European programmatic objectives, to be pursued within ESA’s short-term undertakings.

Several technologies contribute to the consolidation of the European knowledge base for future reentry missions. Among the most important ones:
Aerothermodynamics – validation of design tools and improvement of design performance, since the current lack of precise knowledge about phenomena occurring during re-entry induces the need for additional design margins. In fact, when re-entering from low Earth orbit (LEO) the oxygen and nitrogen molecules in the air break apart to dissipate the high energies involved. When this happens, the ideal-gas laws normally used for simulations are replaced by complex, real-gas laws that are governed by phenomena that are difficult to predict.
Guidance Navigation and Control (GNC) – improvement of the guidance algorithms, coupling of inertial measurement units with GPS for navigation, exploration of the combination of flaps and thrusters for flight control, addressing complex GNC issues related to the hypersonic phase of a reentry from LEO.
Thermal Protection and Hot Structures – validation of the flight performance of thermal protection materials and complex design solutions (for example, thermal expansion, junctions between materials, seals, gaps, steps and singularities), addressing the complexities introduced by the severe thermo-mechanical environment for LEO reentry applications.
The Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV) project objectives tackle the basic European needs for reentry from LEO, consolidating the knowledge necessary for the development of any future European reentry system while allowing risk limitation. Its end-to-end European mission on the Vega launcher is planned for 2013.

From: ESA

ESA's Vega Rocket On Track For Launch In January

2011-12-14T06:58:00.000-08:00

The European Space Agency will finish its so-called "year of launchers" a few weeks short of realising the maiden flight of its third vehicle, but the Vega light rocket remains on course for a January 2012 launch from ESA's Kourou, French Guiana spaceport.

Vega, designed to launch satellites of up to 1.5 tonnes into 700km (380nm) polar orbits, will complement the medium-lift Soyuz - which made its first Kourou flight in October, with Europe's first two Galileo navigation satellites as payloads - and ESA's venerable heavy lifter, Ariane 5.

Ariane 5 is capable of lifting the ATV at more than 20 tonnes fully laden to the International Space Station, or up to 10 tonnes to much higher geostationary transfer orbits.

Jean-Yves Le Gall, chief executive of ESA launch operator Arianespace, said a payload enhancement programme is on track to increase the mass of a dual payload to 9.25 tonnes in 2012. The enhanced configuration is intended to provide greater flexibility, to simultaneously launch the largest satellites and smaller spacecraft.

A further improvement, the Ariane 5 Midlife Evolution, has just passed its preliminary design review and awaits funding approval by the ESA member governments, who next meet in November 2012.

The cornerstone of the ME push to increase GTO capability by a fifth, to 12 tonnes, is a new Vinci reignitable cryogenic upper stage, which has been under development since the mid-2000s. The rocket will also get a revised fairing to house larger satellites, and could fly as early as 2017.

Le Gall stresses that the three launchers together will allow Arianespace to orbit all types of payload, creating "synergies with the industrial teams that work with the three launch systems, thereby offering cost reductions for the benefit of our clients".

By:Dan Thisdell London 22 hours ago Source:Flight

Armadillo Aerospace Stiga Rocket Launched To 137,500 ft. / 41.91km

2011-12-07T07:41:00.000-08:00

The launch of Armadillo Aerospace's reusable suborbital sounding rocket Stiga. Fueled by liquid oxygen and denatured ethanol, the rocket reached 137,500 feet above sea level.

The rocket was launched from Spaceport America on December 4 2011 at around 11:30AM. There were some dents on landing, but the rocket can be refurbished for a second flight.

It appears that there is no exo-atmospheric attitude control system or any other guidance system for that mater. Unlike the other Armadillo rockets that had guidance and lander capabilities. Also I distinctly see that the parachute got tangled on deployment. It looks like a steerable chute. I also could hear servos whizzing. Maybe it was an attempt at steering the chute back to a landing zone. Hopefully more details on the flight will be released soon.

The rocket was launched from Spaceport America on December 4 2011 at around 11:30AM. There were some dents on landing, but the rocket can be refurbished for a second flight.

"Stiga" is Swedish for ascend or soar.

Qian Xuesen, America's cast-off scientist becomes China's father of rocketry

2011-12-06T17:01:00.000-08:00

One of the most important contributors to technological advancement during the Mao era, revered father of Chinese rocketry Qian Xuesen (also known as Tsien Hsue-Shen), might never have built China’s first missile launchers had the US not forced him out in a fit of red paranoia.

Born in Hangzhou in 1911, Qian came from a family of intellectuals. In 1934, he graduated from Jiaotong University and was awarded a scholarship to MIT, where he studied aeronautical engineering. He completed graduate work at Caltech and received a PhD studying under famed aerodynamicist Theodore von Kármán.

When World War II broke out, Qian made vital contributions to the US war effort, including counter-German rocket research and developing the first successful American solid-propellant missile. After the Nazis fell, he was made a colonel temporarily and entered Germany with American troops to gather secret documents from the German aircraft and rocketry programs.

With all his contributions you’d think that when Qian applied for US citizenship in 1949 he’d be a shoo-in. But the Second Red Scare and McCarthyism instead put this top-level Chinese scientist under scrutiny and, on June 6, 1950, he was accused of having Communist sympathies and spying. Qian and his American colleagues protested; the most damning evidence against him, a list of ‘security codes,’ turned out to be a table of logarithms written in Chinese. The charges are debated to this day. Despite weak evidence, Tsien’s security clearances were revoked. He had to cease research and was under constant surveillance.

Unable to pursue his career, Qian decided to return to China, but instead was detained on Terminal Island near Los Angeles. After five years under virtual house arrest, Qian was finally allowed back to China (without any of his scientific papers or books) in 1955, in exchange for the repatriation of American pilots captured during the Korean War.

The Communist government welcomed him with open arms. Their scientists were years behind the Americans and needed a leader. He was given a position of authority and oversaw the development of electronics, machinery and metallurgical industries in an otherwise largely agrarian society. Over 20 years, he helped develop three missiles. In 1968, he also established China’s Space Flight Medical Research Center and two years later put China’s first satellite into orbit.

Qian never returned to the US, not even to receive his distinguished alumnus award from Caltech in 1979. He was seeking an official pardon that never came. Despite having made no substantial contributions to science in years, he was even named Person of the Year in 2007 by influential American Aviation Weekmagazine as a way of acknowledging China’s rapidly developing aerospace program. He died in 2009 in Beijing, still a pariah in America, but beloved as a figurehead of Chinese innovation. ML

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Orion, Our Future Spacecraft Undergoes Simulated Space Testing

2011-12-02T19:14:00.000-08:00

It's not every day that America designs an entirely new spacecraft. Rarer still is the creation of a vehicle that can carry man, not just machine, beyond the earth's gravitational pull. In the history of the world, there have been only eight such human transports: the Vostok, Voskhod, and Soyuz capsules from Russia, the American-made Mercury, Gemini and Apollo capsules, plus the Space Shuttle, and China's Shenzhou spacecraft. That list is going to get a new member soon, as NASA (with a big assist from Lockheed Martin) is building the most technologically advanced spaceship the Earth has ever seen; the aptly-named Orion.

In ancient Greek mythology, Orion was a hunter born of the earth who was eventually placed among the heavens by Zeus. NASA's Orion is a multipurpose crew vehicle (MPCV) that looks similar to the Apollo capsules and is here to replace the venerable Space Shuttle. It's capable of taking us further into the cosmos to than we've ever been -- to asteroids, the moon, and even Mars. This mission flexibility and interplanetary reach is what sets Orion apart from previous manned spacecraft, but that adaptability requires some heavy duty engineering and extensive testing to guarantee its ability to handle any NASA mission with aplomb. Head on past to break to learn more about how Lockheed Martin's getting the MPCV ready for deep space.

Recently, Orion went through an acoustic test at Lockheed Martin's Waterton facility just outside of Denver, Colorado, to simulate the noise conditions of a launch. We were on-hand to witness the test and check out some of the amazing gear being used to design and build this next-level spacecraft.

To perform the acoustic test, Orion got gussied up in its full launch garb, meaning the five-story tall crew module and launch abort system were swathed in alabaster heat shielding. It was ensconced inside the sizable test chamber at Lockheed's Reverberant Acoustic Laboratory, surrounded by instrumentation to record how it would respond to the sound of rockets running at full bore, and then the chamber was filled with nitrogen to ensure accurate readings. The test itself sounded like an airliner passing close overhead. It was certainly loud, but there was a two-foot thick steel door filled with sand between us and the 150dB white noise bombarding Orion. We were told by Lockheed that the test was limited to 150dB -- despite the fact that launch noises exceed 170dB -- because that increase in volume would reduce their laboratory to rubble without some serious structural additions. The good news is, enough info is gathered from a 150dB test to extrapolate how the capsule will react come liftoff.

After seeing Orion in person, we got to tour the Space Operations Simulation Center (SOSC); a massive 41,000 square foot facility meant to emulate the inky void beyond our atmosphere. The SOSC was built upon a unique geologic rock formation 1700 feet thick and surrounded by sand. Constructing the center on top of that rock keeps it as seismically isolated as possible, which allows Lockheed to accurately simulate the stillness of space. Inside, the main attraction is a cavernous room painted matte black that houses powerful lights used to mimic the sun's unfiltered rays. There's also a huge six-degree-of-freedom motion base carriage with a robotic arm capable of maneuvering 1,000 kg of spaceship, sensors or other gear with extreme precision.

Currently, the room houses a full-scale mock up of the International Space Station's docking port, and while we were there, we witnessed a simulation of the Sensor Test for Orion Relative Navigation Risk Mitigation (STORRM). The simulation replicated the STORRM test performed of the second to last Shuttle mission (STS-134), and confirmed the SOSC's ability to accurately replicate the conditions of space operations. The STORRM package is an amalgam of cameras and sensors that will allow Orion to dock with the ISS or land on a foreign world on its own -- no human input required, though an astronaut will have his hands on the control stick, you know, just in case.

The STORRM package is an amalgam of cameras and sensors that will allow Orion to dock with the ISS or land on a foreign world on its own
After the SOSC, we toured Lockheed's Collaborative Human Immersive Lab, or CHIL, for short (defense contractors do love their catchy acronyms, don't they). CHIL is a virtual reality lab that allows engineers to design and modify Orion's parts for testing and validation without going through the expense of fabricating them in the real world. Using motion tracking and VR headsets, the folks building Orion can optimize assembly processes, so that those installing the various systems on the capsule don't get in each other's way. At its core, CHIL is an assembly ergonomics optimization tool. It makes sure that the mechanical elements of Orion will work well with the people who are putting them together. We donned the CHIL gear ourselves, and while we couldn't explore Orion's inner workings (state secrets and national security prevented us from doing so), we did get to poke around a simulated tank. The experience was somewhat disorienting, as the graphics are akin to what was cutting edge in the early 90s. But, as we examined the tank's tracks and weaponry virtually, we could definitely understand its usefulness in designing systems as complex as those found in Orion.

After seeing some of the facilities being used to build our nation's next-generation spacecraft, we were awed by the sheer scope and complexity of the Orion project. Orion itself is an amazing machine, but the gear being used to design, build and test it is equally impressive. It's an astonishingly difficult task to develop a ship capable of taking man into deep space and returning him safely, which is why so much effort is being put into Orion's planning and construction.

Once upon a time, Apollo allowed us to venture far beyond our terrestrial existence, and the time is rapidly approaching when Orion will take us further into the vastness of space than ever. The final frontier is calling... and with Orion's help, we'll be answering it soon enough.

Source:engadget
By Michael Gorman

X-37B Will Remain In Orbit Longer Then 270 Days

2011-12-01T14:57:00.000-08:00

The US Air Force’s secretive X-37B space plane, launched on March 5, 2011, was designed to fly for 270 days. Day 270 came yesterday, but the military branch has decided to prolong its mission, with no sign of landing the craft any time soon.

“It’s still up there,” Major Tracy Bunko, a Secretary of the Air Force spokesperson, told MSNBC. “On-orbit experimentation is continuing.”

“Though we cannot predict when that will be complete, we are learning new things about the vehicle every day, which makes the mission a very dynamic process,” he added.

Exactly what the space plane is doing is top secret. The Air Force insists the X-37B, built by Boeing at its Huntington Beach facility, was developed to conduct orbital science experiments, but analysts say the craft is capable of much more than that.

Analysts believe X-37B could be an orbital spy plane or for tampering with enemy satellites. The spacecraft is also capable of hauling supplies to the International Space Station.

Boeing program manager Art Grantz in October proposed to build a bigger X-37C model that could ferry astronauts to the ISS, lessening NASA’s reliance on Russian Soyuz rockets to do the job at $50 million per seat.

Whatever X-37B is up to, it will be doing it for longer than the intended 270 days. The Air Force said last year that the X-37B could remain in orbit for nine months before its power and fuel ran out.

Circling 210 miles above us at 17,000 mph, the spaceship is designed to glide back to Earth guided precisely by GPS navigation signals and touchdown on a runway at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. But when that will happen is anybody’s guess.

“We initially planned for a 9-month mission, but will continue to extend it as circumstances allow,” Bunko said in a statement released to Spaceflight Now. “This will provide us with additional experimentation opportunities and allow us to extract the maximum value out of the mission.”

Lt. Col. Tom McIntyre said in October that an extension might be possible for the X-37B when it goes up. Now that the scheduled timeline has passed, the Air Force will take it day by day, carefully monitoring the space plane.

“It’s working so well that they [the Air Force] are thumbing their noses at everyone else as they break their own records, and rightly so,” a source for the Air Force told David Axed of Wired.com.

The Air Force “gets greedy on X missions,” the insider added, using shorthand for “experimental” missions. In other words, the Air Force will want to squeeze every ounce of utility out of a unique spacecraft.

It’s not clear how long the X-37B might hold out. Once in space, the space plane unfurled solar panels to soak up the sun’s energy, increasing the craft’s power supply. Careful planning by Air Force engineers could extend the mission to up to a year, in theory. “It could be on station into April for all I know,” the source told Axe.

The X-37B resembles a space shuttle orbiter, but it is only about 25 percent its size. The X-37B has a wingspan of about 14 feet and is 29 feet long. Its payload bay is the size of a pickup truck bed, suggesting that it can deploy and retrieve satellites.

Its thermal blankets and heat shield tiles give the craft a checkered black, gray and white color. The tiles are tougher than the shuttle’s. Its electromechanical flight control system replaces the orbiter’s hydraulic actuators, and the X-37B is powered by a deployable solar panel instead of cryogenic fuel cells.

The upgrades allow the X-37B to stay in orbit far longer than the space shuttle, which was limited to about 18-day missions, according to Air Force officials.

The Air Force said it will not announce the return date of the X-37B until the time is near. When engineers do decide to end the mission, the X-37B will fire a thruster to drop from orbit and plunge back to the atmosphere, guided by GPS.

The X-37 space plane started off as a NASA project, but was taken over in 2004 by the Defense Department. The X-37 ended up becoming the Air Force’s responsibility in late 2006. The inaugural X-37 mission ended December 3, 2010 after 224 days in space.

Last year’s space flight demonstrated that the X-37 craft could operate in space successfully and also successfully return.

The Air Force plans to maintain its secretive stance on the progress of its current mission. “We won’t have anything else to say until we announce a landing date, which has not yet been determined,” Bunko told MSNBC.

Managed by the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, headquartered in the Pentagon, the Orbital Test Vehicle program tentatively plans a third flight in the future. But the Air Force will not release a date for the next mission.

Lt. Col. Tom McIntyre, the X-37 program director, said more information on another flight could be released by the end of the year.

Source: redOrbit

BayouRat Rocketry Releases New Mid-Power Rail System

2011-11-12T19:58:00.000-08:00

http://bayouratrocketry.com

WE ARE PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THE RELEASE OF ANOTHER NEW PRODUCT! OUR MID-POWER RAIL SYSTEM!
Are you tired of 1/4" rods wiping your mid power rockets all over the sky. With today's high thrust motors you need somthing more sturdy. We have the answer. The Mid-Power Rail System. Fit's any launch pad that will take a 1/4" rod.

This 4' long rail hold's up to 3.3lb rockets and will handle up to any G motor on the market today. All for only $35.

Here is our rail system in action with a LOC Weasel flying on an Aerotech F20W Econoline motor. Notice there is no movment from the rail at all. The rocket goes straight up despite the windy conditions.

NASA Proposes (A Not Very Ambitious) Orion Spacecraft Test Flight In 2014

2011-11-09T03:08:00.000-08:00

From: NASA

As some see it. To little to late. The sad tale of a space program without a spacecraft!

NASA plans to add an unmanned flight test of the Orion spacecraft in early 2014 to its contract with Lockheed Martin Space Systems for the multi-purpose crew vehicle’s design, development, test and evaluation. This test supports the new Space Launch System (SLS) that will take astronauts farther into space than ever before, create U.S. jobs, and provide the cornerstone for America’s future human spaceflight efforts.

“President Obama and Congress have laid out an ambitious space exploration plan, and NASA is moving out quickly to implement it,” NASA Associate Administrator for Communications David Weaver said. “This flight test will provide invaluable data to support the deep space exploration missions this nation is embarking upon.”

This Exploration Flight Test, or EFT-1, will fly two orbits to a high-apogee, with a high-energy re-entry through Earth’s atmosphere. Orion will make a water landing and be recovered using operations planned for future human exploration missions. The test mission will be launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., to acquire critical re-entry flight performance data and demonstrate early integration capabilities that benefit the Orion, SLS, and 21st Century Ground Systems programs. The agency has posted a synopsis explaining its intention on NASA’s procurement website.

“The entry part of the test will produce data needed to develop a spacecraft capable of surviving speeds greater than 20,000 mph and safely return astronauts from beyond Earth orbit,” Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations William Gerstenmaier said. “This test is very important to the detailed design process in terms of the data we expect to receive.”

NASA also intends to release several competitive solicitations to industry in the near future. One solicitation will request proposals for the design, development, test and evaluation of a new advanced liquid or solid booster capability for the SLS. Another future contract NASA intends to compete will be for the development of spacecraft, and payload adaptors and fairings for crew and cargo missions. The competition and award dates for these will be determined as missions are identified.

NASA is developing the Orion spacecraft to launch astronauts to asteroids, the moon, Mars and other destinations atop SLS, the agency’s new heavy launch vehicle. An early orbital flight test such as EFT-1 will provide data needed to influence design decisions and serve as a pathfinder to validate innovative new approaches to space systems development. The goal is to reduce the cost and schedule risks of exploration missions.

An Editorial Summary Of The LDRS Show

2011-11-02T20:03:00.000-07:00

An Editorial By: Ken Good

"For five days, more than 2,000 rockets burst into the sky with a billow of smoke, racing thousands of feet straight up in a matter of seconds. In fact, the FAA has no choice but to divert all air traffic around the entire event!"

Hmmm.. OK, right. That blurb is from the Disc Channel's web page covering LDRS. We all know the facts around the second statement are a bit different.

Orwell once said, "Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever
correctly reported in a newspaper." No doubt even he would be amazed at how much this tendency is amplified by modern media. All one has to do is watch what passes for "history" on the History Channel, or "news" on almost every major news channel/network out there. Once you know just a bit of the real facts, what passes for factual information out there can be pretty scary.

I saw only part of this current show, because I was immersed in an actual rocket project and sort of forgot it was on. Much of what I saw made me wince, like it did so many of us. Yes, the show's premise is fiction, but the people on it are not. The enthusiam isn't ficititious, and even some of the rocket science portrayed isn't either. I've skimmed through our debates and yea/nay verdicts on this topic. But in the end, it's the mixed-bag, fact/fiction outcome that I knew it would be when I got a call on my cell phone from the DiscChan producer about three years ago, asking if we would be interested in a new show about high power rocketry. I answered affirmatively, the BoD agreed, and I got to hand off the heavy lifting to Dick, Bruce, Pat and many others.

So feel free to curse or credit me with getting the ball rolling on this effort, and yes I feel a bit like Dr. Frankenstein after the monster got loose and started to rough up the locals. But the product has to be taken in the context of what's being offered as educational material on the fast-food edu-networks these day, and the positives we accrue accepted despite the noise of some silliness and utter fiction.

Orwell was right.

Ken Good

"Large And Dangerous Rocket Ships" Hosted By: Kari Byron

2011-10-28T17:43:00.000-07:00

Come see us fly some very large and odd rockets. In the wildest, fastest, most exciting hobby on the planet! As a member of the "Cajun Coalition" team from South Louisiana. We built a full size Tiki Bar Rocket for the "Odd Rocket" competition. So tune in and cheer us on as we reach for the sky. See you there. Sunday Oct. 30th, 2011 9:00PM CDT.

Liftoff! First Ever Soyuz Launch From South America

2011-10-21T08:34:00.000-07:00

The first Soyuz has lifted off from French Guiana, initiating a 3-hour 49-minute inaugural flight for Arianespace’s medium-lift launcher that will orbit the initial two spacecraft in Europe’s Galileo satellite navigation system.

Soyuz departed the Spaceport’s new ELS launch complex at 07:30:26 a.m. local time in French Guiana – a precise liftoff time that enables the pair of Galileo satellites to be injected into their proper orbital plane.

With a total payload performance of 1,580 kg. – including 700 kg. for each of the Galileo platforms – the Soyuz is to deliver its passengers into a 23,222-km. circular medium-Earth orbit, inclined 54.7 degrees.

This maiden flight marks Soyuz’ introduction into the company’s growing launcher family, joining its heavy-lift Ariane 5 in operations from the Spaceport. The two launchers are to be complemented by the lightweight Vega in 2012.

Soyuz is one of the world’s most utilized launchers, having ushered in the space age and logging more than 1,770 missions to date from its two other launch bases: Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, and Russia’s Plesetsk Cosmodrome.

Satellite Broadband Just Got Infinitely Better Thanks To The Launch Of ViaSat - 1

2011-10-20T08:51:00.000-07:00

A Proton M rocket roared of the pad last night at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. It carried an amazing commercial satellite. The ViaSat-1. The ViaSat-1 is capable of providing up to 40MB download speeds and 10MB uploads to the North American continent. Including Alaska and Hawaii. It is going to revolutionize satellite internet broadband access overnight.

Carlsbad, Calif. – October 20, 2011 – ViaSat Inc. (NASDAQ: VSAT) has announced that International Launch Services has successfully launched ViaSat-1, the highest capacity satellite in the world. The Proton M launch vehicle lifted off from pad 39 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, at 11:48 am (PDT) October 19, followed by spacecraft separation from the launch vehicle at 9:12 pm PDT, signal acquisition shortly thereafter, and finally deployment of both the north and south solar arrays.

ViaSat-1 is designed to transform the economics and quality of service that satellite broadband can provide. The technology is expected to elevate satellite into a much more competitive position in the broadband service marketplace, with the capacity to serve the accelerating growth in bandwidth demand for multimedia Internet access over the next decade. The complete system also includes the ViaSat SurfBeam® 2 ground system, already delivering high-speed broadband to Europe via Eutelsat’s KA-SAT.

“The launch of ViaSat-1 is the result of a fantastic team effort by all of the 2,000-plus people at ViaSat. We’ve come a long, long way, and we believe this satellite, combined with the skills and resources we’ve assembled throughout the company, will give a big boost to the satellite industry and our customers,” said Mark Dankberg, chairman and CEO of ViaSat. “We really appreciate the support of our launch team – ILS, Krunichev, Loral, and Telesat – in bringing it to fruition.

“The ViaSat-1 launch is a big step in fulfilling our vision for advanced Ka-band networks. We aim to begin consumer service by the end of 2011, and in-flight WiFi service on JetBlue next year, along with several other new, exciting applications.”

ILS President, Frank McKenna said, “It is always an honor to be entrusted to launch any of our customers’ satellites on ILS Proton. With ViaSat-1, it is especially so, as we support ViaSat’s innovative business plan for expanded high-speed broadband services with the launch of the most powerful all Ka-band satellite ever built. On behalf of ILS and Khrunichev, we congratulate ViaSat on achieving this milestone in enhancing the availability and quality of high-speed broadband across North America and Hawaii.”

The next steps to commercial service (all times approximate):

Raise the satellite to geosynchronous orbit – 10 days after launch
Deploy the antenna reflectors – immediately following arrival in geo orbit
Complete in-orbit testing (IOT) – 60 days after launch
Handover of satellite from SS/L to ViaSat – upon completion of IOT
Arrive on station at 115° W – one week following final IOT
Once on station, the ViaSat-1 high-capacity Ka-band spot beam satellite will include coverage over North America and Hawaii, enabling a variety of new, high-speed broadband services for WildBlue in the U.S. and Xplornet through Telesat in Canada. ViaSat-1 joins WildBlue-1, Anik F2, and AMC-15 as capacity available for provision of WildBlue high-speed Internet access across America.

About ViaSat

ViaSat delivers fast, secure communications, Internet, and remote network access to fixed sites or on-the-move. The company provides networking products and managed network services for enterprise IP applications; is a key supplier of network-centric military communications and encryption technologies and products to the U.S. and allied governments; is the primary technology partner for gateway and customer-premises equipment for consumer and mobile satellite broadband services; and offers high-speed Ka-band satellite broadband services under the WildBlue brand. ViaSat also offers design capabilities and a number of complementary products including monolithic microwave integrated circuits and modules, DVB-S2 satellite communication components, video data link systems, data acceleration and compression, and mobile satellite antenna systems. Based in Carlsbad, Calif., ViaSat has established a number of worldwide locations for customer service, network operations, and technology development.

Have You Ever Wondered What The X-37b Has Been Doing On Orbit?

2011-10-14T06:29:00.000-07:00

It’s called NanoEye and it’s basically a prototype for a tiny class of spy satellite that the Army hopes to develop.

The 20 kilogram NanoEye is meant to be cheap, maneuverable and able to take high-resolution pictures for small ground units in combat — kind of like the micro UAVs that are used by infantry units to provide near instant overhead ISR for troops in the field.

In theory, ground troops will control NanoEyes and receive images from the satellites on laptops or radios within ten minutes of asking one of the tiny satellites to take a picture, according to an Army fact sheet that was being given out next to the display.

The intent is to demonstrate a tactical space-based imagery microsat that, due to its low production cost, could be proliferated in large numbers to provide a persistent capability to ground forces –particularly to the dismounted
Warfighter. The primary objective of the demonstration will be to show the on-orbit maneuverability and tasking of the satellite to take a picture of a designated ground object of interest and have that image relayed back to the ground
Warfighter during the same satellite pass (i.e., less than a10-minute tasking-to-product cycle).

Pretty cool. It could be very useful in environments where weather or the need to remain completely hidden from the enemy prevent ground troops from launching a small drone. Imagine clouds of these things waiting above warzones, ready to take satellite pictures on demand. The big question is, how do you get them into orbit cheaply, the X-37B?

http://defensetech.org/2011/10/12/the-armys-tiny-future-spy-satellite/

BALLS 20 - Carmack Prize Attempt - High Altitude 120,000ft. Rocket On-board Video

2011-10-07T09:05:00.000-07:00

On September 30, 2011 at 11:08am, Derek Deville's Qu8k (pronounced "Quake") launched from the Black Rock Desert in Nevada to an altitude of 121,000' before returning safely to earth. Above 99% of the atmosphere the sky turns black in the middle of the day and the curvature of the earth is clearly visible.

More on the project here: http://ddeville.com/derek/Qu8k.html

NASA Has Chosen The Michoud Assembly Facility To Construct Major Components Of Its New Heavy-Lift Rocket

2011-10-06T09:11:00.000-07:00

Sen. David Vitter PR – Washington, D.C. – U.S. Sen. David Vitter made the following statement congratulating NASA for choosing the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans East to construct components of its new heavy-lift rocket. Earlier this month, NASA unveiled the design of the rocket, and Vitter immediately urged NASA to choose Michoud for construction.

“NASA’s selection of Michoud is big, big news for southeast Louisiana,” Vitter said. “Michoud is the only NASA facility that is currently ready to do the large manufacturing that will be required for the heavy-lift rocket. I’ve been working for years with the Louisiana delegation to ensure Michoud remains well positioned for this kind of work, and with local companies in the high-tech Stennis-Michoud corridor to ensure the area remains a vital part of the space program.”

NASA says they will be building several components at MAF, including manufacturing core stage and upper stage, the instrument ring and integrating engines with core and upper stages.

As the ranking member of the NASA space subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Vitter secured key provisions in the bipartisan 2010 NASA Reauthorization that ensured Michoud Assembly Facility’s continued viability and will help keep Louisiana as an integral part of human space flight for years to come.

In August, Vitter helped lead a meeting in Slidell of the Stennis-Michoud Aerospace Corridor Alliance, a group he founded to promote regional development in connection with the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans and the Stennis Space Center near the Mississippi-Louisiana border.

China Takes A Big Leap Forward In Manned Space Technology As There First Space Station Module Rolls To The Launch Pad

2011-09-26T18:00:00.000-07:00

China’s human spaceflight program is gearing up to take a highly significant “Leap forward in Space” after their “Tiangong 1” prototype space station was rolled out to the remote Gobi desert launch pad at the countries Jiuquan Satellite Launching Center in Gansu Province in anticipation of blastoff sometime this week.

Space officials from the Chinese Manned Space Engineering Office have now confirmed that liftoff of the 8.5 ton Tiangong 1 human rated module atop a Long March CZ-IIF booster rocket is slated to take place during a launch window that extends from Sept. 27 to Sept. 30. The launch was delayed a few days after the recent launch failure of a similar Chinese rocket, the Long March IIC.

China’s burgeoning space efforts come directly on the heels of the voluntary US shutdown of the Space Shuttle program, thereby dismantling all US capability to launch humans into space from American soil for several years until about 2014 at a minimum.

The US manned spaceflight capability gap will be stretched out even further if NASA’s budget for commercial space taxis and the newly proposed SLS launch system is cut by political leaders in Washington, DC.

The integrated Tiangong 1 spacecraft and CZ-2F launch vehicle combination is slowly rolling out of the VAB facility
On Sept. 20, the integrated Long March rocket and Tiangong module were wheeled out of China’s VAB while sitting on top of the Mobile Launch Platform and transferred to the launch gantry at Jiuguan.

The goal of the Tiangong 1 mission is to carry out China’s first human spaceflight related rendezvous and docking mission and to demonstrate that Chinese space engineers have mastered the complicated technology required for a successful outcome.

These skills are akin in complexity to NASA’s Gemini manned program of the 1960’s which paved the way for NASA’s Apollo missions and led directly to the first manned landing on the moon in 1969 by Apollo 11.

Chinas stated goal is to construct a 60 ton Skylab sized space station in earth orbit by 2020.

Check out this CCTV video for further details and imagery of the Chinese space hardware which shows the how China will expand the reach and influence of their space program.

The 40 foot long Tiangong 1 space platform is unmanned and will serve as the docking target for China’s manned Shenzhou capsules in a series of stepping stone learning flights. It is solar powered and equipped to operate in a man-tended mode for short duration missions and in an unmanned mode over the long term.

The initial rendezvous and docking mission will be conducted by the Shenzhou 8 spacecraft, which will fly in an unmanned configuration for the first docking test. Shenzhou 8 is scheduled to soar to space before the end of 2011.

If successful, China plans to quickly follow up with the launch of two manned Shenzhou flights to dock at Tiangong 1 during 2012 – namely Shenzhou 9 & Shenzhou 10.

The multi astronaut chinese crews would float into Tiangong 1 and remain on board for a short duration period of a few days or weeks. The crew would conduct medical, space science and technology tests and experiments.

China’s first female astronaut may be selected to fly as a crew member on one of the two Shenzhou flights in 2012.

Meanwhile, all American astronauts will be completely dependent on the Russian Soyuz capsule for trips to the International Space Station. Russia is still working to correct the third stage malfunction which doomed the recent Progress cargo resupply launch and put a halt to Soyuz launches.

Engineers and technicians are in the process of checking out all Tiangong 1 systems and preliminary weather reports from Chinese media appear favorable for launch.

Shenzhou 8 has also been delivered to the Jinquan launch complex for check out of all systems
by Ken Kremer on September 26, 2011

http://www.universetoday.com/

NASA's Current Program Called An "Embarrasment" By Neil Armstrong! "The Space Program To No Where"

2011-09-22T20:38:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON — Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, told lawmakers Thursday that the end of the space shuttle era has left the American human spaceflight program in an "embarrassing" state.

"We will have no American access to, and return from, low Earth orbit and the International Space Station for an unpredictable length of time in the future," Armstrong told the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.

"For a country that has invested so much for so long to achieve a leadership position in space exploration and exploitation, this condition is viewed by many as lamentably embarrassing and unacceptable."

Armstrong was part of a four-member panel of space experts who told lawmakers that NASA needs a stronger vision for the future and should focus on returning humans to the Moon and to the International Space Station.

"A lead, however earnestly and expensively won, once lost, is nearly impossible to regain," said the US astronaut, now 81, who was commander of Apollo 11 and walked on the Moon in 1969.

President Barack Obama canceled the Constellation program that would have returned humans to the Moon and called on NASA to instead focus on new, deep-space capabilities to carry people to an asteroid by 2025 and Mars by 2030.

The retirement in July of the three-decade-old space shuttle program brought an end to the US capability to send humans to space until private industry can come up with a new commercial space capsule to the ISS, maybe by 2015.

In the meantime, Russia's Soyuz capsules are the only taxis for the world's astronauts heading to low-Earth orbit, and a ticket to the ISS costs global space agencies between 50 and 60 million dollars each.

"Get the shuttle out of the garage down there at Kennedy (Space Center), crank up the motors and put it back in service," said Eugene Cernan, who commanded the Apollo 17 flight and was the last man to walk on the Moon in 1972.

"You want a launch vehicle today that will service the ISS? We've got it sitting down there. So before we put it in a museum, let's make use of it. It's in the prime of its life, how could we just put it away?"

Cernan hailed the vision of John F. Kennedy, "a bold and courageous president who started us on a journey to the stars," and said thousands of Americans have been inspired by the space race with the Soviet Union.

"Today, we are on a path of decay. We are seeing the book close on five decades of accomplishment as the leader in human space exploration," Cernan said.

Cernan said Constellation has been replaced by a "mission to nowhere" and called on NASA to make plans to return to the Moon.

"As unimaginable as it seems, we have now come full circle and ceded our leadership role in space back to the same country -- albeit by a different name -- that spurred our challenge five decades ago."

He added: "I take no solace in the failure of the last Soyuz booster."

Due to technical problem with a Soyuz rocket in August, a Russian cargo ship failed to reach orbit and crashed back to Earth, prompting Russia to temporarily ground a part of its Soyuz program to do emergency checks.

Armstrong and others on the panel appeared to favor the unveiling earlier this month of a massive new launcher capable of powering manned space flights well beyond low-Earth orbit, the Space Launch System, which NASA called the most powerful rocket since the Saturn V rocket put US astronauts on the moon.

Maria Zuber, principal investigator on NASA's unmanned GRAIL (Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory) mission that launched earlier this month to orbit the Moon, said lunar study is valuable, but noted that her students are inspired by the notion of exploring Mars.

"The goal of human exploration of Mars is also the consensus opinion of the next generation who will carry out this challenge," she said.

"Unfortunately Congress is cutting back NASA's advanced technology work and it is not clear how the agency will be able to unfold new advanced missions without a more concentrated effort to develop new technologies.

Michael Griffin, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, raised concerns about a new space race and called China, which wants to put a robot on the Moon in 2013 and build its own space station for 2015, "a near-peer competitor."

"When the Chinese can reach the Moon and we cannot, I do not see why any other nation would regard us as a world leader," he said.

Out Of Control Satellite Will Probably Miss The United States

2011-09-22T11:05:00.000-07:00

UARS RE-ENTRY UPDATE: NASA's massive UARS satellite remains on track to re-enter Earth's atmosphere during the late hours of Sept. 23rd. The fireball will probably miss North America, according to latest estimates of UARS orbital elements, but almost every other continent falls under a possible re-entry ground track. Better estimates are expected in the next 24 hours. As it makes its last orbits, the tumbling satellite is flashing brightly in the night sky, attracting the attention of stargazers and photographers. Check SpaceWeather's satellite tracker for last-chance sightings over your location: http://spaceweather.com/flybys .

Out Of Control Satellite The Size Of A School Bus Is Going To Re-Enter Earth's Atmosphere And Crash!

2011-09-20T13:02:00.000-07:00

UARS, a NASA satellite the size of a small bus, will re-enter Earth's atmosphere later this week producing a brilliant fireball somewhere over our planet. Best estimates place the re-entry time during the late hours of Sept. 23rd over a still-unknown region of Earth. Observers of the rapidly-decaying satellite say it is tumbling and flashing, sometimes almost as brightly as Venus. Video images featured on today's edition ofhttp://spaceweather.com show how the doomed satellite looks through a backyard telescope.

Readers who would like to catch a last glimpse of UARS streaking across the night sky should check SpaceWeather's Satellite Tracker for flyby times:http://spaceweather.com/flybys . You can also turn your smartphone into a UARS tracker by downloading our Simple Flybys app: http://simpleflybys.com

Russia Denies SpaceX Plans To Dock Dragon Capsule To The ISS In November

2011-09-19T08:15:00.000-07:00

MISSION CONTROL (Moscow region), September 16 (RIA Novosti)
The U.S. private space capsule Dragon will conduct a flight near the International Space Station (ISS), but docking between them is not planned, Vladimir Solovyov, head of the Russian segment of the ISS mission control center said on Friday.

The California-based Space Exploration Technologies company, better known as SpaceX, has earlier announced plans to launch its Dragon capsule toward the orbiting lab on November 30, with a historic docking slated for nine days later.

"Over the last several months, SpaceX has been hard at work preparing for our next flight - a mission designed to demonstrate that a privately-developed space transportation system can deliver cargo to and from the International Space Station (ISS)," the company said.

"A flight by the Dragon to the ISS, but without berthing, has tentatively been scheduled for the end of this year. Though, I do not know, whether it'll fly or not," Solovyov said.

SpaceX and other companies have been given funds out of NASA's special commercial package to provide cargo resupply and human spaceflight capabilities. SpaceX, widely considered to be the front runner in this endeavor, has already sent its Dragon capsule into orbit, proving that its space launch infrastructure is viable.

Earlier Russia said it will not allow the SpaceX vehicle to dock with the ISS unless its safety is fully tested.

"We will not issue docking permission unless the necessary level of reliability and safety is proven," said Alexei Krasov, head of the human spaceflight department of Roscosmos. "So far we have no proof that this spacecraft duly comply with the accepted norms of spaceflight safety."

When Things Go Terribly Wrong. Spectacular Rocket Motor Failure Video

2011-09-15T20:57:00.000-07:00

During my recent trip to Argonia, KS and the LDRS rocket launch. I witnessed the failure of a large amateur rocket motor. The motor case ruptured at the thread grooves that were cut to deep and the motor over pressurized showering the area with burning propellant. The rocket was named affectionately "The Safety Cone Rocket" after the large orange cone used for a nose cone. Enjoy the carnage.

The NASA Kepler mission will announce a new discovery today at 2 p.m. EDT.

2011-09-15T10:15:00.000-07:00

The NASA Kepler mission will announce a new discovery today at 2 p.m. EDT. Watch the press briefing live at http://t.co/m7wMdIce!

Streaming video by Ustream

Chinese Successfully Test There Space Plane To Mach 15 Speeds From 60 Miles Altitude

2011-09-12T07:35:00.000-07:00

By Craig Covault

Cape Canaveral, Fla.- Details emerging from China indicate the Chinese have likely flight tested for the first time a secret 4 ton winged spaceplane that was rocketed into a 60 mi. high suborbital trajectory for test of reentry systems starting at Mach 15.

Continued successful development of the spaceplane could give the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) an operational military spaceplane comparable to the U. S. Air Force X-37B currently flying its second orbital mission.

Along with evidence for a reentry flight test, there is even stronger evidence that the Chinese have demonstrated low altitude flying qualities of the vehicle with one or more 75% scale Shenlong models dropped from the belly of Chinese H-6 bombers that are versions of the Russian TU-16 Badger. There are both Chinese photographic and computer graphic images showing such tests have been conducted possibly as early a 2007-2008.“If the main mission for China’s space plane was simply to service China’s future Space Station there would be little cause for concern,” says researcher Richard Fisher who is a Senior Fellow with the International Assessment and Strategy Center, a Washington Think Tank that aids Congress, the Pentagon and the National Security community.

“But this is not the case. Chinese sources indicate that from its inception China’s space plane program has been intended to perform military missions, to include space combat missions,” says Fisher.

The Spaceplane and Station programs were both formed at about the same time under PLA leadership. The launch of the first docking test module for the station program has been delayed a month to late September, after engineers found commonality between the module’s 2nd stage booster and another second stage vernier that caused loss of a mission earlier this summer.

New evidence for the Chinese hypersonic test comes from a display at Northwestern Polytechnic University (NPU) in Xian., one of China’s top aeronautics and astronautics research centers. The display has a large image showing the spaceplane under fabrication with its reentry thermal protection features annotated as part of a large poster board headlined “China’s Successful Trans-Atmospheric Vehicle Test Flight.” The message says flatly they had a successful spaceplane flight test above the atmosphere that continued through a reentry begun a Mach 15.

Continuing spaceplane weapons options, the China Strategy Institute recently proposed doctrine that the Chinese Air Force is to focus on developing assassin satellites, and laser interceptor satellites. This report further states “that China’s air force is currently also working hard to develop a new model orbital bomber. PLA interest in a space bomber is also indicated in Chinese engineering literature, according to Fisher.

The suborbital Shenzhou test may begin to lay ground work for future Chinese development of a heavier winged space vehicle similar to the U. S. space shuttle .

If flown as planned, the spaceplane was launched atop a Long March 2C says Fisher, who is also an internationally recognized authority on the PLA who has just published new research on the secret spaceplane program.

This news about the Shenlong reentry test “is huge” says Dr. Andrew S. Erickson, an Associate Professor in the Strategic Research Department at the U.S. Naval War College, Newport, R.I.. He is also an expert on the Chinese military.

“This looks like a very thorough study by Fisher”, says Erickson. He added that it is hard to verify all the data “but Fisher has done a good job of laying out potentially relevant information.”

Such tests would validate the vehicle’s thermal protection system and prove that its guidance, navigation and control design was performing at the level necessary for controlled descents from space.

A Chinese picture of the spaceplane made during its assembly shows a vehicle that, like the U. S. space shuttle, has a double delta wing with advanced ceramic nose and wing leading edges to protect against 2,500 F deg. reentry heating .

With an estimated dry mass of 4 tons, a wingspan of 14 ft , fuselage length of 30 ft, and tail height of 9 ft. the Shenlong vehicle closely matches the U. S. Air Force X-37B now nearing the end of its second mission carrying U. S. military sensors that will be returned to Earth.

China will sometimes turn loose what might be described as “teaser” information on its secret programs, but often the data is affiliated with other events to send a broader message. With the spaceplane’s release of information there are messages of success for the communist party leadership in Shaanxi province and also messages for the U. S. Secretary of Defense who was visiting Beijing that day.

Fisher notes while there were no additional details mentioned, for many Chinese, this revelation on the eve of the 9-12 January 2011 visit to Beijing by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates served to accentuate another show of force – the 11 January 2011 official first flight of the Chengdu Aviation Corporation’s (CAC) J-20 5th generation jet fighter. The Shenlong success message may have been to prove new space plane and hypersonic technologies, and the possibility of a successful test means that China is making progress toward its goal of building space planes. It is likely that U. S. intelligence would have picked that up.

During their visit to Northwestern Polytechnical University (NPU) School of Materials and Science Engineering, Shaanxi’s top party officials were briefed by one of China’s top experts on advanced ceramic matrix composite (CMC) materials, Professor Zhang Litong , who explained NPU’s contributions to the Shenlong.

The “Shenlong” spaceplane project is headed by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The vehicle benefits heavily from NPU development programs, but was manufactured by the Chengdu Aircraft Plant and the Chinese Academy of Launcher Technology.

Along with the flight test evidence, there is also evidence that the program has benefited from technology transfer between the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland , Ohio and a top Chinese ceramic scientist, Proff. Zhang Litong, says Fisher

Fisher notes that Zhang was assigned by the Chinese government to develop advanced ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) to enhance jet engine development and advance Chinese work on reentry protection materials which later benefited the Shenlong program. At the request of China she was granted research privileges at Glenn in 1989—1991 even after The Tiananmen Square massacre in the spring of 1989. Her research at Glenn was on advanced aerospace materials, information and new techniques she returned to China where she received major awards. Fisher believes NASA Glenn research work has found its way into the PLA’s Shenlong space plane, especially its critical thermal protection system.

http://www.americaspace.org/?p=9076

The BayouRat Has Returned From LDRS Where We Launched A Full Size Tiki Bar On Rocket Motors

2011-09-09T06:59:00.000-07:00

I just got back from Argonia, Kansas and the Large And Dangerous Rocket Ship Launch where the Tripoli Louisiana Club. Now known as the "Cajun Coalition". Launched a rocket powered Tiki Bar Hut. It was a most impressive flight to an altitude of 1,000ft. The launch was a success as all 4 M motors lit simultaneously and the Tiki Bar flew straight and stable. Unfortunately one of the 16ft. Parachutes was sucked out of it's tube prematurely while the rocket was still moving approx. 200mph. and it removed itself from the attachment point. The second chute deployed successfully but the rocket was not designed to withstand the impact of recovery under one chute. So there was substantial damage to the base structure. The roof however remained mostly intact and will fly again one day.

I am happy to announce that the "Cajun Coalition" took home first place in the Discovery Channels odd rockets competition. The show is set to air soon on the Science Channel. Stay tuned for air dates and times.

The BayouRat Is On His Way To LDRS (Large and Dangerous Rocket Ships) Join Us Live

2011-08-30T21:51:00.000-07:00

I am headed to Argonia, KS for a week of high flying rockets. Join me as I video blog my experiences. Lots of great stuff. Karie Byron of Myth Busters fame will be there taping a show for the Science/Discovery channel. I'll try and go live from the event but with limited cellular access it may be recorded and uploaded nightly. Hope to see you all there.

My UStream channel is up and running:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/bayourat-aerospace-rocketry

Live video from your Android device on Ustream

Siberians To Sue Over Toxic Space Debris From Failed Launches

2011-08-30T08:50:00.000-07:00

Leaders of an indigenous Siberian ethnic group on Tuesday announced plans to sue over a recent failed Russian space shot that, they claim, scattered toxic rocket debris over their tribal homeland.
"Our representatives have met with Moscow attorneys and we will definitely sue," said Maria Sakova, Tubalar tribal chief. "People call us crazy but we live here ... and toxic debris is falling on us."

A Russian Soyuz rocket launched on August 24 from Kazakhstan failed to place a satellite in orbit, leaving the satellite's transport module to break up and fall to Earth.

Russian mission controllers have said most of the debris likely landed down range in forested territory of the Altai Republic, a Russian province close to Kyrgyzstan and western Mongolia.

The Tubalar tribe is a Turkic ethnic group living primarily in the Altai's rugged Choiska region, where most of the space vehicle remnants are thought to have crashed.

Sakova, in comments to Interfax, said members of her tribe have recently experienced sicknesses, possibly caused by toxic rocket fuel entering area water sources.

Some two dozen residents of Choiska and adjacent districts reported headaches, nausea, and dizziness in the wake of the Soyuz accident. Local media was quick to link their complaints to pollution caused by the space debris.

Moscow health officials on Monday repeated statements that environmental checks throughout the Altai region have shown no increases in pollution.

Much of the territory in Choiska region has religious significance to the Tubalar tribe and it would, according to tribal belief, be sacrilegious if Russian government space debris struck it, Sakova said.

Russia's national space agency is conducting a wide-reaching investigation into its normally reliable booster rockets, which saw missions go bad on August 18 and August 24.

Investigators have linked both failures, the first with a Proton booster and the second with a Soyuz booster, to linking between the booster and its final stage, and subsequent final stage engine misfirings.

Remains from the transport module thought to be in the Altai mountains could help explain why it happened, mission controllers have said.

The International Space Station May Have To Be Abandoned!

2011-08-29T14:34:00.000-07:00

We have had a manned presence in space for the last 15 years straight. But all good things must come to an end.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The International Space Station may have to be abandoned -- just temporarily -- later this year.

A NASA official says it's because of last week's Russian launch accident, in which a space station supply ship was destroyed. The official says if Russian Soyuz rockets remain grounded after mid-November, there won't be a way to send any more astronauts to the station before the current crew members are supposed to leave.

NASA's Mike Suffredini says controllers can keep a deserted space station operating indefinitely, as long as all major systems are working properly. But there's always an increased risk to the station if nobody's there to fix potential equipment breakdowns.

Astronauts have been living continuously aboard the space station since the first crew was launched in 2000.

Even if the space shuttle program hadn't come to an end last month, space station crews would still need capsules launched by Soyuz rockets to serve as lifeboats.

The station is supplied through next summer. The shuttle Atlantis dropped off a year's supply of goods just last month.

©2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

ISS Crew May Be Cut From 6 To 3 Due To Grounding Of All Soyuz Flights

2011-08-25T08:27:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK, August 25 (Itar-Tass) — The crew of the International Space Station (ISS) may be cut from six to three members if the situation with the launch of Russia’s Progress cargo spacecraft is not clarified for a long time, head of the NASA ISS programme Michael Suffredini said on Wednesday at a special press conference at the Mission Control Centre in Houston (Texas) that focused on the Progress crash.

On Wednesday, during the flight of the Progress cargo spaceship to the ISS the Soyuz-U launch vehicle’s propulsion system had a failure that resulted in its automatic shutdown, as a result of which the ship was not placed on the target orbit.

Experts of the ISS programme at NASA immediately began to assess the possible consequences of this incident to the station and its crew. According to Suffredini, the Progress disaster can potentially affect the launching of the Soyuz manned spacecraft that use the same type of propulsion system and, accordingly, the ISS crew rotation.

Usually, the working cycle in orbit is planned for 180 days. The current crew can stay in orbit for another 40-50 days. If launches of the Progress spacecraft are not resume by this time, the ISS will be able to function with a team of three people, but it will affect the opportunities to conduct research, Suffredini noted.

He did not rule out that the scheduled for September 8 return to Earth of NASA astronaut Ronald Garan and Russian cosmonauts Andrei Borisenko and Alexander Samokutyayev who arrived at the ISS in April may be delayed until the investigation of the crash causes is completed. In deciding whether to extend their stay in space their health status will also be taken into consideration. The descent module in which Garan, Borisenko and Samokutyayev are to return to Earth can be docked to the station in safe conditions for another seven months.

In addition, according to Suffredini, a decision may be made to postpone the launch of the next Soyuz manned spacecraft scheduled for September 22.

According to the NASA official, the Progress crash will not affect the work of the ISS and its crew in the short run. The station has sufficient food and water supplies for its normal operation at least until spring when the launch to the ISS of the European ATV spacecraft is expected. Logistically, the situation on the ISS is still good enough. The only thing that could theoretically cause concern are the elements of the toilet, which periodically require replacement, Suffredini said.

According to NASA, the ISS Progress 44 spacecraft and nearly 3 tonnes of supplies for the International Space Station were lost Wednesday when the launch vehicle experienced a failure during the climb to orbit. The launch took place as scheduled at 9 a.m. EDT Wednesday from Baikonur Cosmodrome (7 p.m. Baikonur time). However, Mission Control Moscow reported communication with the Progress 44 was lost 5 minutes, 50 seconds after its launch.

“At 13:00 (GMT), we lifted off, following 320 seconds of flight there was a failure in the upper stage of the launch vehicle. We lost (communications) after a while with the launch vehicle and we did not report stage separation,” the Russian Mission Control Centre reported.

ISS Programme Manager Michael Suffredini held a news conference at the Johnson Space Centre discussing the loss of the resupply vehicle and the impact it may have on the program and the crew. There are plenty of supplies to support the crew, and the station is in a good configuration. However, a Russian commission will be formed to investigate the root cause of the vehicle loss which may affect upcoming Russian spacecraft launches. The Expedition 28 crew continued to prepare for the planned departure of three crew members, although the exact date of that upcoming departure is being reviewed following today’s Progress loss, and continued with science activities.

Commander Andrei Borisenko and Flight Engineers Alexander Samokutyayev and Ron Garan prepared for their scheduled departure on September 7. They stowed gear on the Soyuz vehicle in which they will return to Earth. Mission managers are discussing the possibility of extending their stay on orbit to maintain six-person crew operations on the station as options for the launch of the next three crewmembers, including NASA’s Dan Burbank, are considered, NASA reported.

Borisenko and Samokutyayev also donned lower body negative pressure suits that draw body fluids towards the feet. This is standard protocol for cosmonauts preparing to return to Earth after long duration missions in space. Garan gathered personal items and clothing for stowage and disposal. Flight Engineer Mike Fossum stowed hardware from SHERE, or the Shear History Extensional Rheology Experiment, after the completion of last week’s experiment runs. SHERE investigates the stress and strain response of a polymer fluid being stretched in microgravity. Fossum also cleaned up storage containers which hold experiment samples inside a science freezer, according to NASA.

Flight Engineer Sergei Volkov set up hardware for the RUSALKA experiment. Utilizing a camera and spectrum analyser RUSALKA is testing procedures that will measure levels of carbon dioxide and methane in the Earth’s atmosphere, the report says. Flight Engineer and Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa collected water samples from the Potable Water Dispenser for in-flight processing and analysis. The water will be tested for microbe and coliform detection using tools from the Environmental Health System.

Article source: http://www.itar-tass.com/c154/211506.html

Russian Progress ISS Resupply Ship Disintegrates Over Siberia

2011-08-24T09:32:00.000-07:00

A Russian freighter bound for the International Space Station (ISS) disintegrated over Siberia after failing to separate from the third stage of its Soyuz-U carrier rocket.

  The failure apparently occurred approximately 325 seconds into the flight after the Soyuz-U launched from the Baikonur Space Center in Kazakhstan.

A Russian official told RIA Novosti that pieces of the Progress M-12M freighter fell in South Siberia's Altai Republic.

"At 5:25 p.m. Moscow time [13:25 GMT] we received information about falling wreckage from the M-12M space freighter," the official confirmed.

Meanwhile, the head of the South Siberian republic's Choya District said a "powerful blast" was heard within a 100-km radius.  

Although the freighter failed to make its rendezvous with the International Space Station, the BBC reports the crew has plenty of supplies on board, as last month's shuttle flight delivered enough stores to maintain a six-person crew for a year.

It should be noted that the Progress M-12M is the second spacecraft loss for Russia within a single week. On August 18, the Express AM-4 telecommunications satellite failed to separate from its Proton-M carrier rocket.

With no American space program to backup the Soyuz rockets. In the event Soyuz is grounded the entire ISS program is in jeopardy.

The N.R.L. Is Set To Launch A Miotaur IV Sept. 27, 2011 From Kodiak Launch Complex

2011-08-23T04:34:00.000-07:00

Published: August 22, 2011. Naval Research Laboratory

WASHINGTON--The Naval Research Laboratory's Tactical Satellite IV (TacSat-4) is scheduled to launch from the Alaska Aerospace Corporation's Kodiak Launch Complex, Tuesday, September 27, 2011, aboard an Orbital Sciences Corporation Minotaur-IV+ launch vehicle. The Office of Naval Research (ONR) sponsored the development of the payload and the first year of operations. The Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) Office funded the launch which is managed by the Space Development and Test Directorate (SD), a directorate of the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC).

Shortly after launch, the TacSat-4 spacecraft will be deployed into a unique, highly elliptical orbit with an apogee of 12,050 kilometers. This orbit helps augment current geosynchronous satellite communication by including high latitudes.

TacSat-4 is a Navy-led joint mission which provides 10 Ultra High Frequency (UHF) channels and allows troops using existing radios to communicate on-the-move (COTM) from obscured regions without the need for dangerous antenna positioning and pointing.

"Communication is a critical warfighting requirement. TacSat-4 will support forward deployed forces at sea and Marines on the ground," said Dr. Larry Schuette, ONR's director of innovation.

"We've developed a technology more rapidly and at lower cost that will supplement traditional satellites, giving multiple combatant commanders around the globe another outlet for data transmission and communications on the move."

TacSat-4 provides flexible up and down channel assignments, which increase the ability to operate in busy radio-frequency environments and will cover the high latitudes and mountainous areas where users currently cannot access UHF satellite communications (SATCOMs). The NRL Blossom Point Ground Station provides the command and control for TacSat-4. The Virtual Mission Operations Center (VMOC) mission planning system allows dynamic reallocation to different theaters worldwide that enables rapid SATCOM augmentation when unexpected operations or natural events occur.

Marking the 100th launching of an NRL built satellite into orbit, TacSat-4 is an experimental spacecraft that will test advances in several technologies and SATCOM techniques. Ultimately, TacSat-4 will augment the existing fleet by giving the SATCOM Support Centers (SSC) an additional space asset to provide communications to otherwise under-served users and areas that either do not have high enough priority or do not have satellite visibility. The project helps define future options for launching one or more smaller, highly elliptical orbit (HEO) satellites allowing the military to achieve the benefits of a combined HEO and geosynchronous orbit constellation.

The spacecraft bus was built by NRL and Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) to mature ORS bus standards. It was developed by an Integrated (government and industry) System Engineering Team, the "ISET Team," with active representation from AeroAstro, Air Force Research Laboratory, Johns Hopkins Laboratory APL, ATK Space, Ball Aerospace and Technologies, Boeing, Design Net Engineering, General Dynamics AIS, Microcosm, Microsat Systems Inc., Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory, Orbital Sciences, NRL, SMC, Space System Loral, and Raytheon. The Office of the Director of Defense Research and Engineering (DDR&E) funded the standardized spacecraft bus.

TacSat-4 is managed by the Naval Research Laboratory Naval Center for Space Technology.

@Astro_Ron Captures This Meteor From The ISS

2011-08-19T05:14:00.000-07:00

This photo of a Meteor entering the Earths atmosphere was taken by astronaut Ron Garin. I met Ron or @Astro_Ron as he is known on Twitter. He came out and spoke to us at the STS-133 launch and #NASAtweetup. What a site this must of been from the orbiting outpost. One of those things that makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck knowing that millions of tiny projectiles are hurling around your spacecraft. Just another reminder of how much of a hostile environment outer space really is.

HTV-2 Collects Only Nine Minutes Of Data Before Communications Are Lost

2011-08-12T07:07:00.000-07:00

Source: DARPA

We don't know what happen but the HTV-2 collected unique data during several phases of the flight.

DARPA attempted to fly the fastest aircraft ever built. The Agency’s Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2) is designed to fly anywhere in the world in less than 60 minutes. This capability requires an aircraft that can fly at 13,000 mph, while experiencing temperatures in excess of 3500F. The second test flight began with launch at 0745 Pacific Time. The Minotaur IV vehicle successfully inserted the aircraft into the desired trajectory. Separation of the vehicle was confirmed by rocket cam and the aircraft transitioned to Mach 20 aerodynamic flight. This transition represents a critical knowledge and control point in maneuvering atmospheric hypersonic flight. More than nine minutes of data was collected before an anomaly caused loss of signal. Initial indications are that the aircraft impacted the Pacific Ocean along the planned flight path.

“Here’s what we know,” said Air Force Maj. Chris Schulz, DARPA HTV-2 program manager and PhD in aerospace engineering. “We know how to boost the aircraft to near space. We know how to insert the aircraft into atmospheric hypersonic flight. We do not yet know how to achieve the desired control during the aerodynamic phase of flight. It’s vexing; I’m confident there is a solution. We have to find it.”

“Prior to flight, the technical team completed the most sophisticated simulations and extensive wind tunnel tests possible. But these ground tests have not yielded the necessary knowledge. Filling the gaps in our understanding of hypersonic flight in this demanding regime requires that we be willing to fly,” said DARPA Director Regina Dugan. “In the April 2010 test, we obtained four times the amount of data previously available at these speeds. Today more than 20 air, land, sea and space data collection systems were operational. We’ll learn. We’ll try again. That’s what it takes.”

According to Schulz, three technical challenges exist within this HTV-2 flight regime. They are categorized as aerodynamic; aerothermal; and guidance, navigation and control. And each phase of flight introduces unique obstacles within these areas.

“To address these obstacles, DARPA has assembled a team of experts that will analyze the flight data collected during today’s test flight, expanding our technical understanding of this incredibly harsh flight regime,” explained Schulz. “As today’s flight indicates, high-Mach flight in the atmosphere is virtually uncharted territory. ”

In the coming weeks, the assembled independent Engineering Review Board will review and analyze the data collected. This data will inform policy, acquisition and operational decisions for future Conventional Prompt Global Strike programs—the goal of which, ultimately, is to have the capability to reach anywhere in the world in less than one hour.

USAF Set To Test MACH 20 Aircraft Wednesday August 10, 2011

2011-08-10T06:24:00.000-07:00

If every little thing goes right on Wednesday with the test flight of an experimental aircraft, The Pentagon will be gifted with a vehicle that can fly at an amazing speed of 13,000 mph, or 20 times the speed of sound (Mach 20).

The arrowhead-shaped unmanned Falcon Hypersonic Technological innovation Car 2 (FHTV2) is scheduled to be launched by an eight-story Minotaur IV rocket from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 7 a.m. PDT on Wednesday.

Soon after currently being separated from the rocket in the upper reaches of the Earth’s atmosphere, the aircraft will glide over the Pacific Ocean at Mach 20. The flight will final for half-an-hour and following that the FHTV2 will splash down and sink near Kwajalein Atoll, about 4,100 miles from Vandenberg Air Force Base, reports mentioned.

The FHTV2 aircraft, which can cover the distance in between Los Angeles and New York in less than 12 minutes, is capable of delivering military strike anywhere in the world inside an hour, Los Angeles Times reported.

The initial test flight of FHTV took spot in April 2010. But right after 9 minutes of flight, it disappeared over the Pacific. Engineers suspected that a flaw in its style was the trigger of the malfunction.

Described as “information truck” by the U.S. Defense Advanced Study Projects Agency (DARPA), the Falcon functions several sensors that can collect information in an uncertain operating envelope. The alterations that engineers have brought in to the second test flight include adjusting the FHTV2′s center of gravity, decreasing the angle of attack flown and inclusion of the onboard reaction control method to supplement the car flaps to preserve stability throughout flight operations, DARPA stated.

Both the FHTVs had been funded by DARPA and had been constructed by Lockheed Martin Corp. If the government does not provide more funding, the scheduled second flight of the Falcon Hypersonic Technology Car 2 will be its last test.

The arrowhead-shaped unmanned Falcon Hypersonic Engineering Car 2 (FHTV2)

Source: www.darpa.mil

Orion Capsule Gets Worst Case Scenario Hydro Impact Drop Test

2011-08-09T08:07:00.000-07:00

I don't think I would want to land upside down in the water on my way home from space.

This is the third Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) water landing test conducted at the Hydro Impact Basin at NASA Langley Research Center. This test represented the worst-case scenario for landing. The prediction had a 50-percent chance of the test article getting inverted. The Orion Project Team collects valuable data regarding Crew Module stability. The team also obtained invaluable experience in righting the test article.

From: NASA Langley

India's New Drone Space Plane

2011-08-04T07:44:00.000-07:00

Seems as though space plane drones are all the rage these days. With the US's X-37B. Russia, China and now India have entered the space plane drone business.

India's IDRW blog posted an intriguing image (above) earlier this week of what appears to be India's answer to the Boeing X-37B (picture below).

The spacecraft pictured is just a model, but according to IDRW India plans a vehicle to test reusable unmanned spacecraft technologies. The Russian's are also working on a reusable unmanned system.

Though the X-37B program is shrouded in secrecy, its possible applications boggle the mind. Such spacecraft could be sent up quickly to replace satellites shot down early in a war, and theoretically take evasive action if attacked. They could also have a role in guiding UAVs and UCAVs over enemy territory, and even carry weapons into space, either for attacking targets on earth or for disrupting enemy satellites.

Russia Awards Contract For New Spaceship

2011-08-01T06:51:00.001-07:00

According to the Russian Space Agency, the Energia Corporation has won a tender to develop a manned spaceship to replace the Soviet-era Soyuz system.

There will be versions for Earth orbit and for travel to the Moon and Mars.

The launches will be from a new spaceport near Russia’s Far Eastern border with China.

Russia Declares Victory In Space Race As U.S. Retires Shuttle And Sidelines It's Manned Space Program

2011-07-24T05:27:00.000-07:00

With the end of the Shuttle program and the sidelining of Americas manned space program. The Russians move ahead towards space dominance.

Russia is working on two large-scale space projects simultaneously, including the next generation of the “Soyuz” spaceships and a principally new space system with the Rus-M carrier rocket. The launching pad for it will be built in the Far East. In the future it will be possible to carry out manned flights to the Moon from there.

The decision to create a new industrial-transport space system was taken in 2006. In 20 years’ time Russia’s spaceships will be able not only to fly in low orbit but also to fly to the Moon and even to Mars. Today the Russian rocket builders are designing not only a multi-function heavy spaceships of the new generation, weighing more than 20 tons, but also light spacecraft for flights to the International Space Station (ISS), the Deputy Head of the Federal Space Agency Alexander Lopatin said in an interview with the Voice of Russia.

"The carrier rockets “Soyuz-2” with improved characteristics are currently being tested. The carrier rockets “Soyuz-2” are equipped only with Russian parts and systems. Besides, they have more powerful propulsion installations and a digital control system. Preparations are currently being made to test the carrier rocket light-class “Soyuz-2”."

And as regards the heavy lift vehicle, a new rocket will be built for it. Russia already has Zenit rockets with a large carrying capacity, which will serve as a prototype for the Rus-M carrier rockets, an observer of the “Cosmonautics News” magazine, Igor Lisov, says.

"We need a new rocket because it is planned that the new spaceship will weigh more than the “Soyuz” spaceships. Besides, it will be able to carry more people and more cargoes, and it will be more comfortable. We also need a new launching pad. For this purpose, the Vostochny spaceport will be built. To make a spaceship with a starting mass of 12 or 15 tons is no problem. And a rocket for it can be built easily too. The more so as it will be modeled on a Zenit rocket, with the use of up-to-date solutions."

The construction of the Vostochny spaceport in the Amur Region will start later this summer. It will be located not far from the Svobodny Spaceport, which went out of action in 2007. The new launch complex is located at the same latitude as the Baikonur Cosmodrome, which will make it possible to fly on the ISS from Russia, not from Kazakhstan, while making such flights from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome is impossible. Thus, Russia will ensure itself an independent access to all types of orbits, the Deputy Head of the Federal Space Agency said.

The new spaceship concept, which will replace the legendary “Soyuz” spaceships, was approved last year. The first unmanned tests are set for 2015 while manned tests – for 2018. And in less than one month’s time, the model of the piloted spaceship with the Rus-M carrier rocket will be presented to the world public at the 10th International Air-Space Salon MAKS-2011.

Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne's Next Generation J-2X Upper-Stage Engine

2011-07-21T10:43:00.001-07:00

CANOGA PARK, Calif., July 20, 2011 – Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne has successfully completed a chill test and 1.9 second ignition test of NASA’s J-2X engine at John C. Stennis Space Center, Miss. The J-2X upper-stage engine is in development to power NASA’s next era of human spaceflight. Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne is a United Technologies Corp. (NYSE:UTX) company.

“The successful start of J-2X engine testing demonstrates Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne is ready to be a part of the next generation of future space solutions, including a heavy-lift launch vehicle as well as commercial space options,” said Walt Janowski, director and program manager, J-2X Engine Program, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne. “Having a plan now for future space needs is paramount to our national security, our industrial base and our nation’s ability to continue accessing and exploring space without being dependent on foreign providers.”

The J-2X is based on a proven design that could provide a safe and reliable solution for NASA’s future heavy-lift launch vehicles. The engine also leverages the investment taxpayers have already made in the Constellation program and other programs such as the space shuttle.

Fueled by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, the J-2X engine will generate 294,000 pounds of thrust to lift a spacecraft into low-Earth orbit. The engine will continue testing over the next several months, ahead of Congressional deliberations on additional funding for NASA.

Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, a part of Pratt & Whitney, is a preferred provider of high-value propulsion, power, energy and innovative system solutions used in a wide variety of government and commercial applications, including the main engines for the space shuttle, Atlas and Delta launch vehicles, missile defense systems and advanced hypersonic engines. Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne is headquartered in Canoga Park, Calif., and has facilities in Huntsville, Ala.; Kennedy Space Center, Fla.; West Palm Beach, Fla.; Stennis Space Center, Miss; and Carlstadt, N.J. For more information about Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, go to www.prattwhitneyrocketdyne.com.

Pratt & Whitney is a world leader in the design, manufacture and service of aircraft engines, space propulsion systems and industrial gas turbines. United Technologies, based in Hartford, Conn., is a diversified company providing high technology products and services to the global aerospace and commercial building industries.

Launch Of A Delta IV Rocket With A GPS Block 2F Satellite

2011-07-18T08:31:00.000-07:00

Here is a highlight video of the launch of a Delta IV rocket carrying a USAF GPS Block 2F satellite. Saturday July 16, 2011

Russian News Video Of The Soyuz Launch With 6 GlobalStar-2 Satellites

2011-07-16T11:19:00.000-07:00

Following successful injection of 6 Globalstar-2 satellites into the targeted orbit by Russian Fregat upper stage, the control of the spacecraft was taken over by the customer. Soyuz-2-1a with Globalstars lifted off at 06.27 MSK from Baikonur. Injection of the Globalstar satellites completed at 08.07. Flight qualified in 2000, Fregat is an autonomous and flexible upper stage that is designed by Lavochkin R&D to operate as an orbital vehicle. It extends the capability of the lower three stages of the Soyuz vehicle to provide access to a full range of orbits (MEO, SSO, GTO, escape).

Soyuz Delivers 6 Satellites for Globalstar's Constellation

2011-07-13T22:00:00.000-07:00

Soyuz Flight ST23 - Arianespace successfully orbited another batch of six spacecraft for Globalstar's second-generation satellite network this morning on a mission performed with the medium-lift Soyuz launcher from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The flight was carried out on Arianespace's behalf by its Starsem affiliate, lifting off at 8:27 a.m. local time. Soyuz' Fregat upper stage then performed two successive firings, followed by the orbital injection of the six satellites 1 hour and 38 minutes after liftoff.

"We are happy to have successfully launched the 10th Soyuz for Globalstar and we are ready to get right to work for the 11th launch," stated Arianespace Chairman & CEO Jean-Yves Le Gall. "We are also proud to know that today's six satellites will join the Globalstar constellation, thus improving its ability to serve the customers - and we look forward to our continued participation in the Globalstar success."

Today's flight was the 23rd for Starsem and utilized the Soyuz 2 evolved version of Russia's venerable medium-lift workhorse launcher. Incorporating the enlarged ST payload fairing and an updated digital flight control system, the Soyuz 2 also will be used by Arianespace at the Spaceport in French Guiana - operating side-by-side with its heavyweight Ariane 5 vehicle and the future Vega lightweight launcher.

For the Globalstar missions, Soyuz 2 is equipped with a 6.7-meter-high conical-shaped dispenser, on which the six trapezoidal satellites are installed. These second-generation spacecraft were built by Thales Alenia Space and weighed approximately 700 kg. each at liftoff. They are to handle Globalstar's voice, Duplex and Simplex data products and services - including its lineup of SPOT retail consumer products.

Globalstar was the very first customer for Starsem, which was created to perform commercial Soyuz missions from Baikonur Cosmodrome. Using six Soyuz launchers from February and November 1999, it orbited 24 first-generation satellites for Globalstar - representing one-half of the company's original constellation.

From May 2007 to October 2010, two follow-on Soyuz missions lofted eight additional satellites to join the Globalstar constellation, followed last October by the first of four additional missions contracted with Arianespace to orbit a total 24 of Globalstar's second-generation spacecraft.

Source : Arianespace

What's Next NASA?

2011-07-12T06:38:00.000-07:00

It is clear that NASA has missed the mark of being able to grab the momentum of the Shuttle Program. As the Obama administration and the rest of his politically appointed cronies scramble for excuses on why we don't have a firm direction. The United States Manned Space Program continues to spiral out of control like a fighter during a spin test. First George Bush sealed the fate of the Shuttle but promised the moon. Then Obama took it away. We are no closer to going to an asteroid now then we were 50 years ago. If we are to stay in the game of human space flight we need to get back in the business of building rockets. The politicians need to keep there hands off and let the scientist and engineers run the program. For the first time in history the Chinese will have more manned space flight capability then we do. We have capsules being designed with no rockets. We have the COTS program. (Big waste of money and resources.) If manned space flight was such a good commercial investment. Then companies would have been lining up to build man rated rockets years ago. With the government as the only customer. The whole idea is a political feel good campaign. Pay no attention to the 1,000 lb. elephant in the room. That we have no heavy lift or man rated lift capability. Just look over here we have a cute little rocket the can fly cheese into orbit. Please!

So what do we do from here? First we have to pull our heads out of the sand and realize the truth of the matter. Then some sort of common ground needs to be reached. But while that is going on we need to immediately stop the brain drain. Once the skilled people who build rockets are gone we will have an even larger startup gap. So wake up Washington! Let's get back in the game. It's time to roll up our sleeves and get to work. I'd like to see a man land on Mars before I die and I'd like for him to be an American!

By: Whitney Richard
Commments Welcome!

Post Flight Data Analysis From The X-104 Morganza Project.

2011-07-05T08:22:00.000-07:00

Upon my return from the Southern Thunder Rocket Launch and the successful flight of my X-104 Morganza project. I have been pouring over the data returned from the Raven flight computer. The Raven has a dual axis accelerometer, barometric altimeter, and temperature sensor all in a small circuit board the size of a postage stamp.

I have transcended the transonic region with small rockets frequently. Both successfully and spectacularly unsuccessfully. It was one day after one of those unsuccessful flights that I decided to study the forces involved a little more before attempting to fly again in this region of the envelope. It was then that I conceived my century series of research test vehicles. It was during testing of the X-101 through X-103 that I learned through RAS Aero flight simulations that there is aprox. 30lbs of aerodynamic force pushing down on the nose cone starting at .85 Mach through Mach 1.2. on a 29mm diameter rocket. Combine this with the 40 G's provided by the rocket motor and you can see why rockets fail when entering and exiting the transonic region. You will see in the following charts from the flight computer of the X-104 the proof that these forces exist.

This first graph represents the first 18 seconds of flight from Lift Off to Apogee at 8,465' It also shows max. velocity of 885mph. at approx. 1.02 seconds into the flight. It is also the area of maximum dynamic pressure or Max. Q. This happens at 778' mark. This is also MECO or Main Engine Cut Off. So you can see this is the most critical part of the flight. There is alot happening in the first two seconds. The next 16 seconds is all coast phase. The next graph is a zoomed in shot of the transonic region of flight.

This is two seconds of flight time. From .8 seconds to 2.8 seconds. It shows the effects of the shock waves on the barometric sampling ports. It also shows the additional aerodynamic forces entering and exiting the transonic region. It also show MECO. Where the G loading goes from 40+ G's to 11- G's. As you can see these forces are huge and must be accounted for when building high performance rockets.

This third graph is a representation of the thrust curve of the motor. The motor I chose for this flight is an H268 Aerotech Redline. This motor has pretty much a square thrust curve when fired on a test stand. The reduction in acceleration at the tail end of the burn can be attributed to aerodynamic forces acting on the rocket as it enters the transonic region.

You can compare that to the manufactures thrust curve compiled from test stand data seen in the graph above as the magenta colored line of the H268 motor.

In conclusion I now have a first hand understanding of the forces involved and can engineer and build my high performance rockets to survive the stresses involved. I can also employ drag reducing technologies such as those derived by Theodore Von Karmen and Wolfgang Haack to enhance performance in the transonic region. Knowledge concerning motor choice was also gained. It's much easier to choose a motor with a thrust curve to avoid transcending the transonic region at low altitude where the air is dense and the aerodynamic forces are greatest or to avoid this region all together.

This is a video of my first three century series test vehicles that preceded the X-104 Morganza. They were all identical except for fin designs. Each rocket was constructed of cardboard tubing with balsa fins utilizing fiberglass tip to tip reenforcement. From the failures it was evident that much stronger building material was going to be needed in future testing. All data gathered from these rockets was acquired from ground video and computer simulations. It was also evident that on-board data acquisition was going to be necessary to gain accurate flight data.

The X-104 Morganza was built entirely out of carbon fiber except for the nose cone that was fiberglass.

Here is a video of the flight. Enjoy.

Stay tuned for more incredible projects from BayouRat Aerospace!

Have A Safe And Happy Fourth Of July!!

2011-07-01T15:35:00.000-07:00

Here are some fireworks to celebrate with!

Let the BBQ begin!

Chat With Deputy Administrator Lori Garver About NASA's Future

2011-06-27T19:15:00.000-07:00

Want to learn more about NASA's future? Ask NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver on Tuesday, June 28 from 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. EDT during a live video chat broadcast on NASA's UStream TV. Astronaut Mike Massimino will pose questions from the public, submitted on Twitter using the hashtag #askNASA.

Garver will discuss the future of NASA's human spaceflight, science and aeronautics programs as the Agency prepares for the final space shuttle mission and opens a new chapter in human spaceflight, space exploration, science, and technology innovation.

Garver and Massimino post on Twitter as @Lori_Garver and @Astro_Mike, and NASA updates are available via @NASA.

Submit questions via Twitter using #askNASA starting at 1 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, June 28. To watch the chat, visit http://www.ustream.tv/nasatelevision at 1:30 p.m. EDT on Tuesday.

Provided By: http://www.nasa.gov/

Second X-51A hypersonic flight ends prematurely, As Scramjet Engine Fails To Ignite

2011-06-16T02:58:00.000-07:00

by 95th Air Base Wing Public Affairs

6/15/2011 - EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- A second test of the X-51A Waverider flew Monday in the Point Mugu Naval Air Test Range over the Pacific Ocean, bringing significant hypersonic research data in a less than successful flight test.

The hypersonic aircraft was successfully boosted to just over Mach 5 and the scramjet engine lit, but failed to transition to full power.

Air Force Flight Test Center officials said after a flawless flight from Edwards Air Force Base a U.S. Air Force B-52H Stratofortress released the experimental vehicle from an altitude of approximately 50,000 feet. After release the X-51A was initially accelerated by a solid rocket booster to a speed just over Mach 5.

The experimental aircraft's air breathing scramjet engine lit on ethylene and attempted to transition to JP7 fuel operation when the vehicle experienced an inlet un-start.

The hypersonic vehicle attempted to restart and oriented itself to optimize engine start conditions, but was unsuccessful. The vehicle continued in a controlled flight orientation until it flew into the ocean within the test range.

According to Charlie Brink, the Air Force Research Laboratory's X-51A program manager, AFRL, Boeing and Pratt-Whitney Rocketdyne engineers are reviewing the large amount of telemetry data collected during the test flight to identify the cause of the anomaly.

"Obviously we're disappointed and expected better results," said Brink, "but we are very pleased with the data collected on this flight."

"I am extremely pleased with the AFFTC and Point Mugu's support and execution of this complex flight test mission as they provided us every opportunity for success in this endeavor," said Brink. "We have attempted two scramjet experiments now where one successfully lit, and one did not."

"We will continue to examine the data to learn even more about this new technology," he said. "Every time we test this new and exciting technology we get that much closer to success."

Boeing and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne built four X-51A flight test vehicles with the program goal of reaching Mach 6 in hypersonic flight. The next flight is tentatively scheduled for fall 2011.

J-2X Development Engine E10001 Makes The Trip To Test Stand A-2

2011-06-14T07:30:00.000-07:00

Source: http://www.nasa.gov

It wasn't too many years ago that there was this thing about asking sports heroes after winning the big game, "So, what's next?" They would always dutifully answer "I'm going to Disney World!" I guess that that whole thing is passé since I've not heard it in awhile, so I am going offer an alternative. Maybe it'll catch on and be the BIG THING this summer…

…or, well, maybe not.

But that is what happens next. Our little engine is pulled out of the air-conditioned confines of its assembly area and trucked across the NASA Stennis Space Center to its test stand. No more pleasantly cool and dry air for you, E10001. This is Mississippi in June. Thus, in order to make this trip out in the open like this on the back of the truck (don't try this at home!), the engine has to be sealed up tight against the humidity (and bugs) hanging in the air. Anywhere where there is an opening, there is a cover, a closure, or a plug. From the lot at the assembly building in picture (1) below, down the road towards the engine testing area in pictures (2) and (3), and finally arriving at the lot behind test stand A-2 in picture (4). In picture (5), you can see that the truck backs in alongside the test stand for the next operation.

The next operation is to get the engine up into the test stand. Years ago, this test stand was built for testing the Apollo Program S-II stage (the second stage of the Saturn V vehicle that was powered by five J-2 engines). Back then, they basically picked up the whole stage (from a canal barge, not a flatbed truck) high into the air and lowered it down from above into the stand. When it was converted to be an engine-only test stand for Space Shuttle Main Engine testing in the early 1970's, propellant tanks were added on top of the stand. So you can no longer lower the test article in from way up above. Rather, you lift it up about four or five stories and then pull it in laterally. This is the "engine deck," the level where the engine will be installed into the stand. In the pictures below you can see the operation of pulling the engine off the transport truck and up to the engine deck level of test stand A-2.

After the engine is lifted to the correct height, it is brought laterally into the stand and set down on the "porch." That's what the folks on the test stand call it: the porch. The other day somebody (obviously from out of town) mistakenly referred to it as the "veranda." We'll have none of that fancy talk around here! The thing onto which the engine is set is the Engine Vertical Installer (EVI). This is a hydraulic lift table that will be used to raise the engine into place when it is to be bolted to the test stand. So, here is the sequence: you lift the engine up to the engine deck level, you pull it into the stand and set the engine down on the EVI sitting on the porch, then you slide the EVI horizontally into the heart of the test stand (the EVI is on rails for this purpose), you then raise the engine into the test position, bolt it in place, and then you slide the EVI back out of the way. Ta-da! Now you've installed an engine for test!

In the pictures below you can see the technicians positioning the engine onto the EVI on the porch. In the bottom picture of the set, you can see in the background to the left test stand A-3 still under construction and, to the right, test stand A-1 where, early next year, J-2X powerpack testing will be conducted.

So, our little baby engine is all grown up and ready to see the great big world from high up in the test stand. The next phase of our development program is now begun: the testing phase. After the engine is installed and the test stand is readied for hot fire, J-2X development engine E10001 will be used to demonstrate basic operations such as start, mainstage, and shutdown, to verify main chamber combustion stability, and to provide initial validation of numerous systems-level simulations and models.

Okay, somebody go carefully poke the Datadogs because soon we're going to have genuine, full-up rocket engine test data from J-2X. And, as a final note, I offer an extra special tip of the hat to all of the folks at SSC (NASA, Pratt & Whitney, and support contractors) for doing an amazing job in terms of engine assembly and test stand readiness preparations. Don't ever think that your extraordinary efforts go unrecognized or unappreciated. Bravo!

Rollout Of Soyuz TMA-02M

2011-06-06T09:08:00.000-07:00

The Soyuz TMA-02M spacecraft is raised into vertical position at the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Sunday, June 5, 2011. The rocket is being prepared for launch June 8 to carry the crew of Expedition 28 to the International Space Station. Photo Credit: (NASA/Carla Cioffi)

NASA Outlines Asteroid Sample Return Mission, OSIRIS-REx

2011-05-27T07:02:00.000-07:00

NASA will launch a spacecraft to an asteroid in 2016 and use a robotic arm to pluck samples that could better explain our solar system's formation and how life began. The mission, called Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer, or OSIRIS-REx, will be the first U.S. mission to carry samples from an asteroid back to Earth.

"This is a critical step in meeting the objectives outlined by President Obama to extend our reach beyond low-Earth orbit and explore into deep space," said NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden. "It’s robotic missions like these that will pave the way for future human space missions to an asteroid and other deep space destinations."

NASA selected OSIRIS-REx after reviewing three concept study reports for new scientific missions, which also included a sample return mission from the far side of the Moon and a mission to the surface of Venus.

Asteroids are leftovers formed from the cloud of gas and dust -- the solar nebula -- that collapsed to form our sun and the planets about 4.5 billion years ago. As such, they contain the original material from the solar nebula, which can tell us about the conditions of our solar system's birth.

After traveling four years, OSIRIS-REx will approach the primitive, near Earth asteroid designated 1999 RQ36 in 2020. Once within three miles of the asteroid, the spacecraft will begin six months of comprehensive surface mapping. The science team then will pick a location from where the spacecraft's arm will take a sample. The spacecraft gradually will move closer to the site, and the arm will extend to collect more than two ounces of material for return to Earth in 2023. The mission, excluding the launch vehicle, is expected to cost approximately $800 million.

The sample will be stored in a capsule that will land at Utah's Test and Training Range in 2023. The capsule's design will be similar to that used by NASA's Stardust spacecraft, which returned the world's first comet particles from comet Wild 2 in 2006. The OSIRIS-REx sample capsule will be taken to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. The material will be removed and delivered to a dedicated research facility following stringent planetary protection protocol. Precise analysis will be performed that cannot be duplicated by spacecraft-based instruments.

RQ36 is approximately 1,900 feet in diameter or roughly the size of five football fields. The asteroid, little altered over time, is likely to represent a snapshot of our solar system's infancy. The asteroid also is likely rich in carbon, a key element in the organic molecules necessary for life. Organic molecules have been found in meteorite and comet samples, indicating some of life's ingredients can be created in space. Scientists want to see if they also are present on RQ36.

"This asteroid is a time capsule from the birth of our solar system and ushers in a new era of planetary exploration," said Jim Green, director, NASA's Planetary Science Division in Washington. "The knowledge from the mission also will help us to develop methods to better track the orbits of asteroids."

The mission will accurately measure the "Yarkovsky effect" for the first time. The effect is a small push caused by the sun on an asteroid, as it absorbs sunlight and re-emits that energy as heat. The small push adds up over time, but it is uneven due to an asteroid's shape, wobble, surface composition and rotation. For scientists to predict an Earth-approaching asteroid's path, they must understand how the effect will change its orbit. OSIRIS-REx will help refine RQ36's orbit to ascertain its trajectory and devise future strategies to mitigate possible Earth impacts from celestial objects.

Michael Drake of the University of Arizona in Tucson is the mission's principal investigator. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., will provide overall mission management, systems engineering, and safety and mission assurance. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver will build the spacecraft. The OSIRIS-REx payload includes instruments from the University of Arizona, Goddard, Arizona State University in Tempe and the Canadian Space Agency. NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., the Langley Research Center in Hampton Va., and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., also are involved. The science team is composed of numerous researchers from universities, private and government agencies.

This is the third mission in NASA's New Frontiers Program. The first, New Horizons, was launched in 2006. It will fly by the Pluto-Charon system in July 2015, then target another Kuiper Belt object for study. The second mission, Juno, will launch in August to become the first spacecraft to orbit Jupiter from pole to pole and study the giant planet's atmosphere and interior. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages New Frontiers for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

Credit: NASA

Soyuz Fly Around Will Happen Today

2011-05-23T10:52:00.000-07:00

The long awaited fly around of a Soyuz capsule to photographically capture the completed ISS with a shuttle docked will happen today. With the undocking of the TMA-20 spacecraft. Returning the Expedition 27 crew to earth. The Soyuz spacecraft will undock and back away from the station. Then the whole station will initiate a 90 degree turning maneuver while a crew member in the Soyuz photographs the entire station stack from the optically correct window in the Soyuz crew module. Once completed the Soyuz will do a reentry burn and return to earth normally. While this does not seem like a big deal. Months and months of training and simulations has gone into getting these shots. Here is a computer generated simulation of how it will happen.

You can also watch the whole maneuver live in HD here on NASA TV.

Stream videos at Ustream

Arianespace - Ariane V Flight VA202 Live Web Cast

2011-05-20T13:18:00.000-07:00

The 58th Ariane 5 to be launched from the Spaceport has rolled out for Arianespace’s dual-payload flight tomorrow from French Guiana, carrying satellites for Asia and India.

For this third Arianespace mission of 2011, the heavy-lift Ariane 5 was transferred from its Final Assembly Building to the Spaceport’s ELA-3 launch zone today – enabling the countdown to begin for a Friday evening liftoff with the GSAT-8 and ST-2 spacecraft.

ST-2 will be deployed first during the 31-minute flight sequence of Ariane 5. Built by Japan’s Mitsubishi Electric Company, the satellite will be operated by the ST-2 Satellite Ventures joint company of Singapore Telecommunications Ltd (SingTel) and Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom Company Ltd.

With an estimated liftoff mass of 5,090 kg., ST-2 will provide Ku- and C-band relay services for the delivery of IP-based fixed and mobile, voice and data transmission satellite services to businesses – especially direct broadcast TV operators and maritime companies in Asia and the Middle East.

The other passenger in Ariane 5’s dual-payload “stack” is GSAT-8, which was built by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). This spacecraft weighs approximately 3,100 kg. for liftoff, and carries 24 transponders to augment India’s Ku-band relay capabilities – primarily for direct-to-home TV broadcast services – with a coverage zone including the entire Indian subcontinent. Additionally, GSAT-8 carries the two-channel GAGAN system for aircraft navigation assistance over Indian airspace and adjoining areas.

View the live webcast of the launch
Arianespace - VideoCorner

ESA Assumes Control Of The New Soyuz launch complex at the French Guiana Space Center

2011-05-15T09:58:00.000-07:00

A ceremony was held on Saturday, May 7 at the Soyuz launch complex (ELS) at the Guiana Space Center (CSG) in French Guiana, as Jean-Yves Le Gall, Chairman and CEO of Arianespace, received the “keys” to the launch complex from Jean-Jacques Dordain, Director-General of the European Space Agency (ESA). Also attending the ceremony were Yannick d’Escatha, President of French space agency CNES and Vladimir Popovkin, head of Russian space agency Roscosmos.

This major milestone was the culmination of the operational qualification procedure over the last few days. A Soyuz launcher was transported horizontally to the Launch Zone, then erected, with the upper composite being raised and mated to the lower three stages on April 30.

Two simulated launch countdowns were carried out, validating ELS facilities with the launcher present. Both facilities and personnel are now ready for the first launch campaign. Slated for this coming October, the first Soyuz at CSG will launch, on behalf of ESA, the first two satellites in the Galileo satellite positioning system.

Operated alongside the Ariane 5 heavy launcher and Vega light launcher at the Guiana Space Center, Soyuz will round out ESA’s family of launch vehicles, operated by Arianespace, which can now offer launch solutions for all types of missions.

After the handover ceremony, Jean-Yves Le Gall said: “This is a great day for Europe, Russia and Arianespace. I would like to express my thanks to ESA, CNES and Roscosmos for their remarkable work. Soyuz at the Guiana Space Center gives us an extraordinary tool, enabling Arianespace, more than ever, to meet the full range of requirements for all of our customers.”

About Soyuz at the Guiana Space Centre (CSG: Centre Spatial Guyanais)

Soyuz at CSG is a programme of the European Space Agency (ESA). The programme, strongly supported by the French Space Agency, CNES, is opening a new chapter for European launchers and consolidating European access to space for medium-sized satellites.

About Arianespace

Arianespace is the world’s leading launch service & solutions company, providing innovation to its customers since 1980. Backed by 21 shareholders and the European Space Agency, Arianespace offers an unrivalled family of launchers, comprising Ariane 5, Soyuz and Vega, and an international workforce renowned for a culture of commitment and excellence. As of 25 April 2011, Arianespace had launched with Ariane launchers a total of 292 payloads, including more than half of all the commercial satellites now in service worldwide. It has a backlog of 19 Ariane 5 and 18 Soyuz launches, equal to more than three years of business.

Estes To Release New PRO SERIES II Rockets and Motors

2011-05-10T12:59:00.000-07:00

At the NRHSA hobby show in Las Vegas. Estes showed off there repackaged Aerotech motors and a new line of PRO SERIES II rockets. Estes was the only rocketry company in attendance. Here are pics and info for their new PRO SERIES II rockets and accessories:

45th Space Wing Successfully Launches First SBIRS GEO-1 Satellite

2011-05-07T21:26:00.000-07:00

May 7, 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CAPE CANAVERAL AIR FORCE STATION, Fla. - The U.S. Air Force's 45th Space Wing successfully launched a United Launch Alliance-built Atlas V Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle at 2:10 p.m. today from Space Complex 41.

The Atlas V rocket carried into orbit the Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) GEO-1 satellite. This SBIRS GEO launch begins the replacement of the Defense Support Program (DSP) constellation, which has been in operations since 1960.
SBIRS will provide critical functions for protecting the United States and its allies by supporting four mission areas: Missile Warning (MW), Missile Defense (MD), Battlespace Awareness (BA), and Technical Intelligence (TI).

Gen. William Shelton, Air Force Space Command commander, highlighted this launch was the culmination of many years of hard work and a tremendous team effort.

"Last year, we celebrated the 40th anniversary of DSP. Today, we launched the next generation missile warning capability. It's taken a lot of hard work by the government-industry team and we couldn't be more proud. We look forward to this satellite providing superb capabilities for many years to come," said General Shelton.

Brig. Gen. Ed Wilson, commander, 45th Space Wing, said the entire 45th Space Wing team was also pleased to be a part of this milestone launch.

"The teamwork across the Ai Force Space Command made this launch a success and is another example of how our Air Force delivers assured space launch, range and combat capabilities for the nation," General Wilson said. "On a personal note, it is tremendously gratifying to be involved in the fielding of this next-generation SBIRS capability since my father was involved in the operational standup of the original DSP capability in the early 1970s while he was on active duty."

Contact: For more information and updates, see http://www.patrick.af.mil/

SBIRS GEO 1 To Launch May 6, 2011 On An Atlas V Rocket From Canaveral Air Force Station

2011-05-01T14:59:00.000-07:00

The first space-based infrared geosynchronous surveillance satellite SBIRS GEO-1, will launch atop an Atlas V rocket. It will provide the U.S. military with missile warning, military defense, and battlefield awareness capabilities.

The first Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] - built Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) geosynchronous (GEO-1) spacecraft was encapsulated into its payload fairing April 20 in preparation for an early May liftoff aboard an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.

SBIRS GEO-1 will enhance the nation’s missile warning capabilities and improve other critical mission areas simultaneously including missile defense, technical intelligence and battle-space awareness.

The GEO-1 satellite includes highly sophisticated scanning and staring sensors that will deliver enhanced infrared sensitivity and a reduction in area revisit times over the current constellation. The scanning sensor will provide a wide area surveillance of missile launches and natural phenomena across the earth, while the staring sensor will be used to observe smaller areas of interest with enhanced sensitivity. When GEO-1 is launched, declared operational and its data is fused into the current constellation, SBIRS will deliver unprecedented, global, persistent, taskable infrared surveillance capabilities to the warfighter, nation and allies for decades to come.

The SBIRS team is led by the Infrared Space Systems Directorate at the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center. Lockheed Martin is the SBIRS prime contractor, with Northrop Grumman, as the payload integrator. Air Force Space Command operates the SBIRS system.

Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin is a global security company that employs about 126,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. The Corporation's 2010 sales from continuing operations were $45.8 billion.

About SBIRS

SBIRS, considered one of the nation’s highest priority space programs, is designed to provide global, persistent, infrared surveillance capabilities to meet 21st century demands in four national security mission areas:

Missile Warning
SBIRS will provide reliable, unambiguous, timely and accurate warning for theater and strategic missile launches to the President of the United States, the Secretary of Defense, Combatant Commanders, and other users.
Missile Defense
The system will deliver critical information supporting the effective operation of missile defense systems against national and theater threats.
Technical Intelligence
SBIRS will provide the ability to characterize infrared (IR) event signatures, phenomenology, and threat performance data for strategic and operational combatant commanders, the intelligence community, and others.
Battlespace Awareness
The SBIRS constellation will deliver comprehensive infrared data to Combatant Commanders, Joint Task Force Commanders and other users to help characterize battlespace conditions supporting force protection, strike planning and other missions.
The SBIRS architecture consists of hosted sensor payloads in Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO), dedicated Geosynchronous Earth Orbiting (GEO) satellites, and the associated ground infrastructure to receive, process, and deliver the infrared information to key decision makers.

The SBIRS team is led by the Infrared Space Systems Directorate at the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center. Lockheed Martin is the SBIRS prime contractor, with Northrop Grumman, as the payload integrator. Air Force Space Command operates the SBIRS system.

Lockheed Martin's original SBIRS contract includes HEO payloads, two geosynchronous orbit (GEO) satellites, as well as ground-based assets to receive and process the infrared data. The team is also under a follow-on production contract to deliver additional HEO payloads, the third and fourth GEO satellites, and associated ground modifications.

Source: Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company

HD Video Of The Roll Out Of Progress 42 Before It's Successful Launch To Orbit

2011-04-28T07:05:00.000-07:00

The ISS Progress 42 resupply craft launched Wednesday morning to replenish the International Space Station. Launch was at 9:05 a.m. EDT (7:05 p.m. Kazakhstan time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The Russian cargo craft will dock to the Pirs docking compartment at 10:29 a.m. Friday.

The new cargo ship will dock to the same port vacated by the ISS Progress 41 cargo craft, which undocked last week and was deorbited Tuesday morning, disposing of station trash, after engineering tests. The new Progress is loaded with 1,940 pounds of propellant, 110 pounds of oxygen and air, 926 pounds of water and 2,976 pounds of maintenance hardware, experiment equipment and resupply items.

Here is the launch video.

Before Endeavour Can Launch To The ISS on STS-134 A Russian Progress Craft Must Launch And Dock First

2011-04-26T07:38:00.000-07:00

A Soyuz-U rocket is rolled out today with the Progress M-10M supply ship loaded with supplies and experiments bound for the ISS. Much like the launch of Discovery on STS-133 depended on the successful launch and docking of the HTV cargo ship. The same scenario is getting played out again for STS-134. This time it's Progress M-10M that has to launch and dock before the launch of Endeavour. So far it's all systems go for the April 27th 8:05AM CDT launch. You can view the launch live in streaming HD on NASA TV. http://www.ustream.tv/nasahdtv

Picture Credit: Yuzhny Space Center

There Are Five Vehicles Competing To Succeed The Space Shuttle

2011-04-23T19:32:00.000-07:00

By Frank Morring, Jr.

Washington U.S. spacecraft engineers with federal funding will pursue at least five different ways to replace the space shuttle in the next few years, from capsules that harken back to the 1960s to a spaceplane and a vertical-takeoff-and-landing craft that flies to orbit on a reusable booster.

Breakup of the year-long political logjam over funding for NASA this month cleared the way for the agency to announce the next phase of its Commercial Crew Development effort (CCDev-2) and gave Lockheed Martin a clear path to shift its old Orion crew exploration vehicle prime contract over to the new Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle effort ordained in the three-year NASA authorization bill President Barack Obama signed last year.

“We’re committed to safely transporting U.S. astronauts on American-made spacecraft and ending the outsourcing of this work to foreign governments,” states NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. “These agreements are significant milestones in NASA’s plans to take advantage of American ingenuity to get to low Earth orbit, so we can concentrate our resources on deep space exploration.”

Bolden’s statement refers to the CCDev-2 awards, which went to Blue Origin, Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corp. and Space Exploration Technologies Inc. (SpaceX).

Lockheed Martin began work on Orion in 2006, when it beat out a Northrop Grumman/Boeing team for the prime contract (AW&ST Sept. 4, 2006, p. 22).

Procurement documents released with the CCDev-2 announcement give a first look at the work that has been underway at Blue Origin, a secretive start-up company based in Kent, Wash., that operates a remote test site in West Texas. The company plans to develop a reusable launch vehicle to carry its biconic seven-seat capsule to low Earth orbit, following an interim stage when it will offer suborbital tourist and scientific flights in a three-seat version.

Blue Origin received $22.005 million in CCDev-2 funding, exactly the amount it requested to hasten its development work, according to the procurement documents. Although it was the smallest award of the four granted, the agency apparently made it in the hope that the deep pockets of Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos, who also founded Amazon.com, may open up an alternative to the approaches under development by Boeing, Sierra Nevada and SpaceX.

In its CCDev-2 proposal, Blue Origin says it will mature its seven-seat “Space Vehicle” through system requirements review, ground- and flight-test the pusher escape system it started under CCDev-1, and begin testing the 100,000-lb.-thrust liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen engine for its “Reusable Booster System” (RBS).

“Each one-time use of current expendable booster technology represents a prime opportunity for cost reduction,” the company states. “Blue Origin’s RBS employs deep-throttling, restartable engines to perform vertical-takeoff, vertical-landing [VTVL] maneuvers for booster recovery and reuse.”

The company plans to launch its Space Vehicle initially on a human-rated Atlas V and transition later to the reusable booster. The vehicle apparently will use VTVL technology tested on an unpiloted vehicle dubbed New Shepard, which traces its heritage to the Air Force and NASA DC-X and -XA testbeds flown in the 1990s. It will return to Earth on dry land “to minimize the costs of recovery and reuse.”

According to its proposal, Blue Origin is conducting integrated testing of a “suborbital booster” that will carry a three-seat “suborbital capsule”—now in final assembly—to the edge of space.

“The suborbital vehicle will be fully reusable and capable of flying three or more astronauts to an altitude of over 328,000 ft. (above 100 km) for science research and adventure,” the Blue Origin proposal states.

Blue Origin plans to use its CCDev-2 funds to accelerate its work toward a full-up end-to-end space transportation system, including advancing the design of the Space Vehicle by completing “key system trades,” designing the thermal protection system in partnership with NASA’s Ames Research Center, defining the capsule’s biconic shape, and conducting the reviews necessary to generate “a baseline definition architecture and system requirements.”

In addition to Ames, Blue Origin has partnered with NASA’s Stennis Space Center to test engine thrust chambers; United Launch Alliance to integrate the Space Vehicle on the Atlas V; Aerojet for solid rocket motors and test facilities; Lockheed Martin Missiles & Fire Control High Speed Wind Tunnel in Grand Prairie, Texas, for Space Vehicle testing; and the Air Force High Speed Test Track near Alamogordo, N.M., to test the pusher escape system.

More is known about the other three CCDev-2 winners. Boeing has a pressure test article for its CST-100 capsule, which was on display at the National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs in mid-April. Machined from two pieces of aluminum for strength, the article is a pathfinder for a second version that will be built of lighter-weight 7075 aluminum alloy under the CCDev-2 phase.

Boeing received $92.3 million in CCDev-2 funding, the largest among the four recipients. Other tasks that will be carried out with the funding include evaluation of a lighter-weight engine for its pusher-type launch abort system, evaluation of the parachute and airbag-inflation systems for water landings, and full-scale tests of the pyrotechnics that will separate the CST-100 capsule from the service module prior to reentry.

The service module uses batteries instead of solar arrays for power, so the Boeing vehicle’s nominal flight profile calls for docking at the International Space Station (ISS) on the day of launch. However, it will have enough battery life to accomplish a second-day docking, if necessary. After that, it is designed to remain at the station for as long as seven months in a lifeboat role, drawing power from the ISS grid.

The company is still in the process of selecting a launch vehicle for its test flights and early missions and is designing the CST-100 to be able to handle loads on several candidate launchers.

“We’ve got four test flights scheduled,” says John Elbon, Boeing’s commercial crew development program manager at Boeing. “There’s a pad abort test in ’13, and in ’14 we have three tests that require launch vehicles: an uncrewed orbital flight test, so we’d fly in an automated way and spend a couple of days in orbit testing out the systems; an ascent abort test which would exercise the abort system at maximum dynamic pressure—Max-Q—and then finally a crewed flight test where we put a couple of test pilots in there and launch it, and then we’d be ready for operations.”

Sierra Nevada, like Boeing, was one of the big winners in the $50 million CCDev-1 competition, drawing $20 million to begin work on its Dream Chaser spaceplane, which would be launched on an Atlas V. It is essentially a composite version of NASA’s HL-20 lifting body that in turn was derived from the Russian BOR-4 test vehicle which flew in orbit four times, according to the Sierra Nevada CCDev-2 proposal.

Power is provided by the same hybrid propulsion technology used on the Scaled Composites SpaceShipOne and SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplanes, with a runway landing under the control of a pilot or autopilot. The company plans to use its $80 million in CCDev-2 funding to reach preliminary design review for the orbital vehicle and atmospheric drop tests of the engineering test article that has undergone structural testing.

Last year, SpaceX tested its Dragon capsule to orbit and recovery at sea in the cargo configuration it developed under NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation System (COTS) effort (AW&ST Dec. 13, 2010, p. 22). With its $75 million CCDev-2 award, the company plans to speed development of its side-mounted pusher-type launch abort system, including static testing, and prepare its initial design for crew accommodation in the Dragon for NASA astronauts to evaluate.

Phil McAlister, acting director of commercial spaceflight development at NASA headquarters and the selecting authority for CCDev-2, says the goal of the CCDev effort is to seed a commercial industry that can fly crews to the ISS by “approximately the mid part of this decade.” The second round is designed to mature designs that have a chance of growing into a full-scale system, which will be addressed in a third round of awards to be covered under an $850 million request for fiscal 2012.

For now, he says, the idea is to use the federal funds—plus the 10-20% the companies are required to post toward the development—to support “significant progress on maturing the design and development of elements of the system” or systems that ultimately will fly, with a conscious effort to back different approaches in a competitive approach.

“I would say at this stage of the game, competition is a very important part of our strategy,” says McAlister. “It incentivizes performance. It incentivizes cost effectiveness. We also believe that having skin in the game is also important.”

McAlister was executive director of the panel headed by former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine that found the old Constellation program of human exploration vehicles “unsustainable.” But one of those Constellation spacecraft, the Orion crew exploration vehicle, will continue in development as the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) Congress ordered as a backup to the commercial crew vehicles for space station trips, and as a NASA-owned deep-space vehicle for exploration crews.

To simplify and save money in the tricky transition, Lockheed Martin has cut out an entire test article for the MPCV effort, doubling up test objectives for the remaining articles to try to keep the vehicle within the tight schedule set by Congress.

By combining trials with particular test articles, the company plans to send an Orion capsule into orbit on its first test flight in 2013, says Cleon Lacefield, the company’s program manager. The first capsule produced is now being prepared for ground tests at company facilities near Denver, and once those are over that test capsule will be reinstrumented to fly on the first ascent abort test in 2014. Using the same test article in two trials will enable the company to start work on the test capsule that will fly to space for the first time.

“With the funding changes, the program realignments . . . we’ve been able to preserve the core of this test program and . . . make it more than it would have been by combining a bunch of tests into single articles,” says Jim Kemp, director of assembly, test and launch operations for the new spacecraft.

During the debate over NASA’s future direction Lockheed Martin kept working on the Orion capsule using Constellation funding available under appropriations language that prohibited NASA from terminating the program. The initial test article was built at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, where it underwent pressure testing before being sent here for a more rigorous workout.

New instrumentation is being installed to test how it will hold pressure with a lot of its internal systems installed, including an instrumented window to measure how the glass flexes under pressure. Acoustic testing will follow, using generic acoustic loads that should cover any of the potential launch vehicles NASA chooses for the vehicle’s flight-test program. Kemp points out that the Orion was designed to launch on the Ares I rocket, which was under development by Constellation before the program was terminated.

That launch vehicle used a five-segment space shuttle solid-fuel booster rocket as its first stage, which would have generated acoustic loading beyond that produced by the liquid-fueled candidates for a test-flight launch vehicle.

If all goes according to schedule, piloted operations of the Orion could begin as early as 2016, Lockheed Martin says.

“[Last year,] we redefined the program to focus on a couple of things,” Lacefield says. “One of them is the first vehicle development for the flight test. It’s an orbital flight test where we really try to wring out 11 of the top 13 risk items on the vehicle. One of those we look at is the thermal protection system, so we’re doing high-velocity reentry to prove out its capabilities early in the vehicle development cycle.”

Testing of some MPCV systems could begin as early as May 1, when the space shuttle Endeavour is tentatively scheduled to dock with the ISS for the last time before its retirement. Nestled in next to the orbiter’s docking system will be the Sensor Test for Orion Relative Navigation Risk Mitigation payload, which will gather data on how the Orion navigation sensors will perform in an approach to the station.

Photo Credit: Blue Origin Concept

Incredible Launch Photos Of The April 14, 2011 Atlas V Launch From Vandenberg AFB, CA

2011-04-17T11:16:00.000-07:00

Photo credit: Pat Corkery/United Launch Alliance

Louisiana TARC Team Makes It To The Finals!

2011-04-14T08:40:00.000-07:00

The list has been published! It's official! The team from Centerville, LA is in the finals and will be competing on the National level in the Team America Rocketry Challenge.

The Team America Rocketry Challenge (TARC) is the world's largest rocket contest, sponsored by the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) and the National Association of Rocketry (NAR). It was created in the fall of 2002 as a one-time celebration of the Centennial of Flight, but the enthusiasm about the event was so great that AIA and NAR were asked to hold the contest annually.

Approximately 7,000 students from across the nation compete in TARC each year. Teams design, build and fly a model rocket that reaches a specific altitude and duration determined by a set of rules developed each year. The contest is designed to encourage students to study math and science and pursue careers in aerospace.

The top 100 teams, based on local qualification flights, are invited to Washington, DC in May for the national finals. Prizes include $60,000 in cash and scholarships split between the top 10 finishers. NASA invites top teams to participate in their Student Launch Initiative, an advanced rocketry program. AIA member companies, such as Lockheed Martin and Raytheon have sponsored additional prizes such as scholarship money and a trip to an international air show.

TARC is becoming bigger and better every year with the attendees and prizes growing annually. Register now to be a part of the excitement!

April 12th Marks the 50th Anniversary Of The First Human To Orbit The Earth

2011-04-11T19:22:00.000-07:00

Yuri Gagarin's space flight was 108 minutes that changed the world. It was the first time a human looked down upon the earth from orbit. So take some time out and celebrate the moment. http://yurisnight.net

"Circling the Earth in my orbital spaceship I marveled at the beauty of our planet. People of the world, let us safeguard and enhance this beauty - not destroy it!"

Yuri Gagarin,

If your in the New Orleans area April 12th. Join us at the world famous Pat O'Brien's Patio Bar at 8:00PM. Then we will walk to the Moon Walk for some star gazing.

If your not out and about join the gang at http://spacevidcast.com for an online extravaganza.

Long Government Shutdown Could Delay Space Shuttle Launch

2011-04-09T13:19:00.000-07:00

Tariq Malik, SPACE.com Managing Editor,
Space.com Tariq Malik, Space.com Managing Editor,
space.com – Fri Apr 8, 4:45 pm ET

If Congress fails to settle on a national budget by midnight tonight (April 8), forcing a partial shutdown of the United States government, the impact on NASA will reverberate all the way into space. A lengthy shutdown could even delay the next space shuttle launch, which NASA has pegged for April 29.

NASA has posted a detailed plan on how it will respond to any government shutdown, should one occur, on its website, with one clear message: While the agency's nonessential government workers would be on forced furlough, all efforts will made to protect life and property on Earth and in space.

But the workers preparing NASA's space shuttle Endeavour for its final launch on April 29 are not on the list of essential personnel.

"If we have a government shutdown, essentially all shuttle launch processing grinds to a halt," NASA spokesman Allard Beutel told SPACE.com from the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Space shuttle snag?

NASA is hoping a shutdown doesn't occur, but the agency does have about nine days of cushion time in its schedule for Endeavour's launch, Beutel said. [What Happens During a Government Shutdown?]

That means that if a government shutdown occurs, but is less than nine days long, NASA could still have Endeavour ready to launch on its final mission to the International Space Station.

"We would essentially be running through contingency days," said Stephanie Schierholz, a NASA spokeswoman at the agency's Washington headquarters.

If the shutdown is longer than NASA's schedule cushion, a delay is possible but the space agency would have to re-evaluate its work schedule to see if weekend work could make up for lost time.

A delay may also be prompted by astronaut training needs, since the crew that will fly Endeavour may not be able to practice some tasks as planned during a government shutdown, NASA officials said.

Endeavour's upcoming mission, STS-134, is a 14-day flight to deliver a $2 billion astrophysics experiment to the space station. Four spacewalks are planned. [Photos: Endeavour's Final Mission in Pictures]

The mission is commanded by veteran astronaut Mark Kelly, the husband of wounded Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, and will mark the final flight of Endeavour before NASA retires its shuttle fleet later this year. Only Endeavour's flight and one other shuttle mission (aboard Atlantis) are planned before the fleet is retired for good.

Some space work would go on

There are, however, some exceptions at NASA to the forced government worker furloughs, should they be required.

The American astronauts on the International Space Station will continue working normally, and will have flight controllers available for support at NASA's Mission Control center in Houston. NASA's modules on the space station will also remain open for business.

"They're considered essential to operations," Schierholz said.

It also means that ongoing robotic missions, like the Mars rover Opportunity on the Red Planet and Cassini probe orbiting Saturn, won't simply shut down. The mission managers for NASA's active science probes across the solar system have been meeting all week to identify essential personnel to keep their spacecraft running.

The senior mission managers are deciding how "to keep the spacecraft or assets safe and make sure they are monitored," NASA spokesman Dwayne Brown told SPACE.com. "And if they are sending data, any data that comes down would just be stored."

You can follow SPACE.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik on Twitter @tariqjmalik. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Eyes on the skies: Eastern Range tracks every launch.

2011-04-03T08:31:00.000-07:00

The Jonathan Dickinson Missile Tracking Annex, north of West Palm Beach, is operated by Computer Services Raytheon. (William Laakkonen, Martin County Amateur Radio Association)

During the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery on STS-133. The launch countdown was put on hold and then realeased at the last possible second. The hold was caused by a computer outage from the Eastern Range. I never new what the Eastern Range did or what it was until today when I found this article on Florida Today. The Eastern Range tracks every launch from KSC and CAFS. I'm sure they can't talk about everything they do there but here is a glimps into the Estern Range. Enjoy

Eyes on the skies: Eastern Range

ESA Hands Over Kourou Soyuz Launch Pad To Ariane Space

2011-04-02T11:23:00.000-07:00

The Kourou Spaceport, in French Guyana, South America now has a new, fully-operational launch pad, that is capable of supporting the take off of Russian-built Soyuz rockets. Yesterday, March 31, the complex was officially handed over to Arianespace.

This marked an important milestone towards the first flight ever to be conducted by a Soyuz rocket outside the territory of the former Soviet Union. The European Space Agency (ESA) constructed that pad, under a contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency (RosCosmos).

The collaboration agreement calls for Russia to sell several Soyuz rockets to Europe. The launches will be operated and managed by Arianespace, one of the first commercial spaceflight companies in the world, and the constructor of the successful Ariane 5 heavy-lift delivery systems.

In a ceremony that took place Thursday, ESA officials handed over the newly-completed launch pad to Arianespace, which will be in charge of operations here from now on. Preparations will soon begin at the facility, in anticipation of a launch scheduled for later this year.

While initial excavation and ground infrastructure work began at Kourou in 2005 and 2006, respectively, it wasn't until February 2007 that the construction of the actual launch pad started.

By mid-2008, Russian engineering teams were already on site, installing a mobile gantry, test benches, fueling systems, and the launch table. In late 2009, the first two Soyuz rockets made their way to South America, for integration and preparation.

Over the past few months, European and Russian partners, in collaboration with CNES (the French space agency) worked towards certifying the launch site, called Ensemble de Lancement Soyuz (ELS).

CNES was the primary contractor ESA selected for the construction work. The organization also handled the tests the launch pad was subjected to. Issues covered included all mechanical, fluid and electrical elements at the installation.

After the acceptance review was passed, CNES handed over control of the new facilities to ESA, which then transferred responsibilities further to Arianespace. The latter will soon begin the necessary procedures to qualify its launch operations.

When Soyuz flights begin from Kourou, ESA will have two of the most reliable rockets in the world at its disposal, as will Arianespace. It is expected that the new launch pad will increase the yearly number of take-offs from French Guyana by a significant margin.

Stenis Test Stand Passes Review for Next-Generation Rocket Engine Testing

2011-03-31T10:09:00.000-07:00

Forty-five years after its first Saturn V rocket stage test and 35 years after its first space shuttle main engine test, the A-2 Test Stand at NASA’s John C. Stennis Space Center achieved a milestone in preparation for its third major rocket engine test project.

A facility readiness review in mid-March indicated all major modifications have been completed on the historic A-2 stand to begin testing the next-generation J-2X rocket engine this summer.

The new test project comes as Stennis celebrates its 50th anniversary year. On Oct. 26, 1961, NASA publicly announced plans to build the south Mississippi facility to test the massive Saturn V rocket stages for the Apollo Program.

The first test of a Saturn V second stage at Stennis was performed at the A-2 stand on April 23, 1966. Stennis engineers tested 27 first and second Saturn V rocket stages for the Apollo Program, including those used to carry humans to the moon.

In the mid-1970s, the stand was modified from Apollo Program parameters to allow testing of space shuttle main engines. The first space shuttle main engine test on the A-2 stand was conducted 35 years ago, on March 31, 1976. In ensuing decades, Stennis engineers tested space shuttle main engines used to power more than 130 missions. The last scheduled space shuttle main engine test was performed on the A-2 stand in July 2009.

After a decommissioning period, Stennis employees spent 10 months converting the A-2 stand from space shuttle main engine parameters to those needed for the new engine test series. The March 16-17 facility readiness review identified no major actions, which means the A-2 Test Stand is ready to receive the J-2X engine and begin checkout testing activation of engine critical systems. Stand employees now will work through the final items to be completed before installation of a J-2X engine in early June.

"Some of the hardware was decades old and nearing the end of its serviceability," said Gary Benton, manager of the J-2X engine testing project at Stennis. "Also, the J-2X has different testing requirements than the space shuttle main engine. It was a major transition completed on a very demanding schedule."

The transition work from the space shuttle main engine project to the J-2X test project included structural, electrical and plumbing modifications to accommodate the different geometry of the J-2X engine, and included the installation of a new J-2X engine start system. Liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen transfer lines that dated back to the 1960s also were replaced, as was other piping on the stand. Control systems also were upgraded on the stand.

The J-2X engine is being developed by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne for NASA as a next-generation engine that can carry humans beyond low-Earth orbit to deep space. Engineers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manage J-2X engine development. Stennis is preparing three stands to test the new engine. Power pack testing is scheduled on the A-1 Test Stand. Verification and sea-level testing will be conducted on the A-2 Test Stand. The A-3 Test Stand under construction and set for activation in 2013 will allow operators to test new engines at simulated altitudes up to 100,000 feet, a critical requirement for a deep space engine.

Plans now are to install a J-2X research-and-development engine on the A-2 Test Stand this summer. Testing will begin soon afterward and continue throughout the year. Various verification and start-sequence tests will be performed.

"This is the future for American space exploration," Benton said. "We are excited to play a key part in the progress of the nation's space program."

Ariane V VA201 Shuts Down On Pad Prior To Launch

2011-03-30T19:35:00.000-07:00

Kourou, March 30, 2011

In the last seconds of Ariane Flight VA201’s launch countdown as the Vulcain cryogenic main stage engine was being ignited, the checkout process detected an anomaly on the launcher, interrupting the final countdown.

The Ariane 5 launcher and payload immediately switched to a safe mode.

Data analysis is underway to determine the cause of the anomaly, and in parallel, the launcher will be transferred to the Final Assembly Building – where it will be returned to a flight-ready condition.

Arianespace will set a new launch date as soon as possible.

Japanese HTV-2 Departs Space Station

2011-03-29T13:46:00.000-07:00

From Aviation Week
By Mark Carreau

HOUSTON — Japan’s HTV-2 cargo capsule departed the International Space Station on March 28, signaling a post-earthquake resumption of command and control over major ISS operations by flight controllers at the Tsukuba Space Center, northeast of Tokyo.

The trash-laden freighter, christened Kounotori, is scheduled to make a destructive plunge into the Earth’s atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean on March 29 at 11:09 p.m. EDT, concluding a 10-week mission for the second Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) automated cargo craft. The departing space freighter was filled with discarded packing materials protecting additional cargos launched aboard Discovery as well as other station trash. Japan’s HTV, the European Space Agency’s Automated Transfer Vehicle, Russia’s Progress and emerging U.S. commercial cargo craft will shoulder all of the responsibilities for station resupply once NASA’s shuttle is retired this summer.

The HTV-2 departed at 11:46 a.m. EDT, after astronauts Catherine Coleman and Paolo Nespoli unberthed the 33-ft.-long capsule from the orbiting laboratory’s Harmony module, using the station’s robot arm.

Japanese control over the station’s Kibo laboratory and HTV-2 operations was lost when the March 11 earthquake and tsunami damaged the Space Station Integration and Promotion Center at Tsukuba and cut an undersea communications cable. Japanese personnel re-established temporary control of the facilities through NASA’s Mission Control Center in Houston. JAXA resumed control on March 22.

The HTV-2 was launched from Tanegashima Space Center on Jan. 21 with nearly six tons of external and internal supplies, including research equipment and spare parts for thermal control and electrical systems.

The spacecraft was captured and berthed to the Harmony module of the station’s U.S. segment on Jan. 27 and later repositioned to provide clearance for the arrival of NASA’s shuttle Discovery.

HTV photo: NASA

Another Ariane 5 completes its initial build-up in French Guiana

2011-03-28T09:37:00.000-07:00

March 24, 2011 – Ariane Flight VA202

Initial assembly has been completed for the Ariane 5 launcher that will orbit a dual-satellite payload of the ST-2 and GSAT-8 satellites on Arianespace’s third heavy-lift mission of 2011 from the Spaceport in French Guiana.

This build-up milestone occurred in the Launcher Integration Building with the incorporation of Ariane 5’s ESC-A cryogenic upper stage and the vehicle equipment bay – which were installed as a single unit.

Once the integrated Ariane 5 completes its current check-out phase, it will be ready for transfer to the Spaceport’s Final Assembly Building where it will be equipped with the mission’s dual-satellite payload. The Final Assembly Building currently is occupied by another Ariane 5, which is being readied for liftoff on March 30 with the Yahsat Y1A and Intelsat New Dawn spacecraft.

The Spaceport is designed for such parallel mission operations, enabling two Ariane 5s to be prepared in support of Arianespace’s sustained mission rate for its growing order book of international payloads.

The flight with ST-2 and GSAT-8 is scheduled for May, and is one of six Ariane 5 launches planned by Arianespace in 2011. ST-2 was developed for ST-2 Satellite Ventures Pte Ltd., a joint venture formed by Singapore Telecommunications Ltd (SingTel) and Chunghwa Telecom Company Ltd; while GSAT-8 is a spacecraft for the Indian Space Research Organisation.

From: http://arianespace.com/

Seattle Museum Of Flight Already Building a Home For A Retired Shuttle.

2011-03-25T05:13:00.000-07:00

STACIA GLENN; Staff writer
Published: 03/25/1112:05 am | Updated: 03/25/11 4:01 am

Read more: http://www.thenewstribune.com/

A mixture of confidence, optimism and fear of jinxing their chances keeps Museum of Flight employees from discussing the possibility of not receiving one of the much-desired space shuttles NASA is about to retire.

“We’re not even thinking in those terms,” museum spokesman Mike Bush said this week. “It’s the rarest of artifacts anywhere, and there is no better place for a space shuttle.”

The Museum of Flight south of Seattle is among 29 institutions nationwide competing to be a final destination for the Discovery, Endeavour or Atlantis.

The Enterprise, a prototype used for landing tests that never flew in space, also might be up for grabs if the Discovery is given to the Smithsonian Institution as rumored.

Maj. Gen. Charles F. Bolden Jr., the NASA administrator and sole decision-maker, will announce the final resting places of the spacecraft April 12, the 30th anniversary of the first space shuttle launch and the 50th anniversary of the first trip by a human to space (Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin).

The Seattle museum is considered a front-runner and has taken bold steps with the expectation that a shuttle eventually will arrive piggybacked on a 747 airplane.

A $12 million Space Gallery built specifically to house a shuttle is under construction across from the main museum and should be completed by July.

The 15,500-square-foot building will have a glass facade so passersby on East Marginal Way can peer inside. It also has adjustable pillars so a shuttle – which is 122 feet long and 56 feet high – can slide inside.

“We’re going to have a great Space Gallery that tells (the human space travel) story whether we have a shuttle or not,” museum president Doug King said. “But it will be a better story with a shuttle.”

The woman leading the effort to bring a shuttle to the Pacific Northwest is Bonnie Dunbar, a retired astronaut who has been to space five times, including trips aboard the Atlantis and Endeavour.

She spent hours filling out a 20-page application to NASA, agonizing over how to cram the museum’s entire pitch into a limited space.

Her team launched a website explaining why the Museum of Flight “has the right stuff” to house and maintain a shuttle, and collected 10,000 signatures on a petition.

Dunbar joined state tourism officials in raising a specially designed space shuttle flag atop the Space Needle – one she and her associates hope to fly again in celebration after the April announcement.

Dunbar is unsure whether the NASA administrator is monitoring their shuttle boosters website or the museum’s progress on the Space Gallery, but she said reaching the public with that information is just as important.

“We wanted to make sure our own folks in the Northwest understood what we’re doing,” she said.

The museum isn’t the only front-runner going to great lengths to land one of the shuttles.

The visitor center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston set up a website and brought in a marketing firm to argue a shuttle would be at home there because NASA’s Mission Control guided the spacecraft during flight.

In Manhattan, the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum has collected 150,000 names on a petition to display a shuttle on Pier 86.

Other contenders include the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Museum of the United States Air Force in Ohio and the California Science Center in Los Angeles. NASA has not released an official list of hopefuls.

The Museum of Flight first asked for a shuttle in 1986, and again in 2005, with the intention of telling the human space flight story, King pointed out.

“It’s really important that the museum has been working on this a long time,” he said. “It’s not just, ‘Hey, gee, there’s a shuttle out there.’

“There are a lot of museums weighing in here at the end. But we’ve been there, we’ve been ready, and we’ve done everything that’s been asked of us.”

King even contends the museum is one of only two competitors that meet all of NASA’s criteria:

• A climate-controlled building to house a shuttle, which weighs 170,000 pounds and has a wingspan of 78 feet. (If the museum doesn’t get a shuttle for its Space Gallery, other artifacts will be placed inside.)

• A 10,000-foot runway behind the museum where a Boeing 787 could deliver a shuttle into retirement.

• An educational program that reaches 140,000 children in kindergarten through high school each year.

• Close proximity to a major metropolitan area.

In fact, the museum plans to build a permanent campus for Aviation High School on museum grounds in hopes of using STEM education – science, technology, engineering and math – to inspire future generations.

Once the shuttles are retired, they’ll be decommissioned and readied for museum life. The work, which could run the chosen institutions $28.8 million, is expected to take about nine months.

The museum plans to raise the funds if necessary and expects private donors will step in.

Museum officials said they have no spacecraft preference.

“We’re talking about iconic historical artifacts, a symbol of American ingenuity,” Dunbar said. “We’d be proud to have any one of them.”

Stacia Glenn: 253-597-8653 stacia.glenn@thenewstribune.com

Space shuttle, station pioneer remembers exploration dream that faded

2011-03-23T12:50:00.000-07:00

by Mike Pierson
Air Force Space Command Public Affairs

3/23/2011 - PETERSON AFB, Colo. -- As the last space shuttle mission approaches, one of the fathers of the world's first reusable spacecraft discussed how the shuttle program began in the 1950's as part of a dream to explore beyond the moon that faded after budget cuts and disaster.

On Apr. 21, Dr. Hans Mark, former Secretary of the Air Force and Deputy Administrator of NASA, told about 200 people gathered in the auditorium of Air Force Space Command Headquarters that the shuttle was originally conceived as part of a larger program of exploration, first articulated in 1952.

"The idea (in 1952) was that there would be a space station that would be a staging base to go from the Earth to other places in the solar system," said Dr. Mark, who started his space career as the director of NASA's Ames Research Center in 1968. "Then, there would be a vehicle to would go back and forth to the space station; that would be the space shuttle."

As the Apollo program was coming to a close, three groups made recommendations on the future of manned space flight to President Richard Nixon in 1970, Dr. Mark said. One group recommended the building of a space station and space shuttles. They estimated the cost of the project at $24 billion over 10 to 12 years, about the same budget the Apollo program had received to put men on the moon.

The President agreed with their proposal, but told NASA to, "do it for half," or about $12 billion, Dr. Mark said. With a smaller budget, NASA decided to build the space shuttle first, as it was the most technically challenging part of the overall program.

The original shuttle designs were very similar to the final shuttle design we know today, except the original designs incorporated jet engines to help the shuttle land.

"No one thought at the time that we could 'dead stick' a big airplane back from Earth orbit," Dr. Mark said, pointing to photos of early designs showing engines built into the shuttle's wings. The shuttle ultimately never used jet engines.

The shuttle program suffered another setback in 1971, when President Nixon cut the program budget to $6 billion. Soon after, the Air Force became involved in the program. Dr. Mark said military requirements led to NASA changing their plans for a straight wing to the now-familiar delta wing, allowing the shuttle to land near its original launch site after only one orbit.

With the Air Force on-board, President Nixon gave the shuttle program the go-ahead 1972. NASA planned to fly the shuttle 50 times per year, beginning with a first flight in 1979. Dr Mark and others took issue with this aggressive schedule and worried that the glue to hold shuttle heat shield tiles to the vehicle would not be ready in time. As schedules slipped in the shuttle program, however, the glue was ready to go by the first launch in 1981.

Even before the first launch, the shuttle program almost fell victim to budget cuts during the Carter Administration. Program managers, "realized we had a fan," in President Ronald Regan in the early 1980's, Dr. Mark said, showing photos of President Regan's visit to the control room at Johnson Space Center soon after he took office. President Reagan went on to commit the nation to building a space station during a speech in 1981 at Edwards AFB following the landing of the fourth flight of "Columbia". President Reagan said the shuttle would, "help create a more permanent presence of mankind in space," Dr. Mark said.

"We couldn't get him to say 'Space Station' in the speech," since it was not yet part of the president's budget request to Congress that year. In his 1984 State of the Union Address he proposed the development of a permanently manned space station. The Congress committed $150 million to start the space station program, which President Reagan announced would be an international effort.

The concept of the space station itself evolved over time. The original concept, Dr. Mark said, was to build a smaller station and fly other smaller station components, "in formation" alongside the space station, with astronauts space walking between the parts. NASA officials at the Johnson Space Center were not enthusiastic about astronauts walking between the parts of the station; however, leading to what has become the single, massive International Space Station in orbit today. Unfortunately, Dr. Mark said, because of the inclination of the orbit of the ISS, it cannot be used as a staging base for future manned missions to other places in the solar system.

Dr. Mark, who fled Nazi Germany with his family in the 1930's and earned a PhD in physics in 1954 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is still troubled over the failures that led to the Shuttle Challenger disaster in January 1986. He said that problems with the solid rocket boosters were suspected as early as 1983, during the shuttle system's 10th flight.

In March, 1983, as the deputy administrator at NASA, Dr. Mark ordered a review of the solid rocket boosters to be completed no later than the end of May, 1983. Unfortunately, the review was not completed until August, 1985, he said. "They kept flying (the shuttle)," he said. "They kept seeing more problems."

Dr. Mark moved on to be Chancellor of The University of Texas in 1984, but stayed concerned about the lack of technical experience at the top ranks of NASA. He wrote a letter to Vice President George H.W. Bush, in late 1985, articulating his concerns.

"I guess I didn't make my letter strong enough," he said quietly. The Challenger shuttle was destroyed on liftoff when its solid rocket boosters failed, killing all seven on board, including astronaut Dr. Ron McNair, also an MIT graduate.

"Dr. McNair was a good friend of mine," Dr. Mark said. "I still weep when I think of him."

Jacques Valier Advanved Rocketry At The Cost Of His Life

2011-03-21T07:45:00.000-07:00

Alamogordo Daily News
By Michael Shinabery, New Mexico Museum of Space History

Newspapers worldwide announced Jacques Valier's May 17, 1930, death, although details varied and were mostly wrong, said "Max Valier: A Pioneer of Space Travel" (NASA/1976, translated from the original German publication).

Just two years earlier, on March 15, 1928, Valier had "built the world's first rocket car," powered by solid fuel, said his biography at the International Space Hall of Fame in Alamogordo. The next month, on April 11, Valier demonstrated the vehicle in a 40-second test. J. Kuhr Huddle, the American consul to the Department of State, summarized it in an April 17 memorandum, which in 1970 was published in "The Papers of Robert H. Goddard Vol. II."

"If such a device is finally perfected É it is to be assumed that it would possess capabilities of being worked into a constructive force of considerable magnitude and that also it might form a terrible engine of destruction in the hands of subversive elements," Huddle wrote.

Observers described "an astonishing demonstration of the practicality of rocket-propelled apparatus which its sponsors claim is capable of overcoming the force of the earth's gravity," Huddle said. He included a Der Mittag newspaper story reporting the "peculiar vehicle (was) a low, light racing car without a motor. É Its rear is a steel box with 12 round openings from which project the steel nozzles of the propulsive rockets." When the driver ignited them, the car surged forward with "an ear-splitting, whizzing roar," followed by "a trail of fire (that) belched onto the concrete track É The explosive force brought the car to a speed of (62.14 mph) within eight seconds."

According to Huddle, automaker Fritz von Opel not only financed Valier, but also "turned over to (him) all the facilities of Germany's largest auto factory in furtherance of (Valier's) projects." He added that Der Mittag reported Valier touted a flying car-turned-rocket airplane would eventually travel "at the borders of the terrestrial atmosphere É from Berlin to New York in two hours." The sole development roadblock was "but a monetary problem."

Goddard, in an Oct. 14, 1929, correspondence, felt Valier took "the idea of the rockets for his rocket car" from a Smithsonian article he had written.

Valier was born in Bozen, Austria-Hungry, in 1895. He studied astronomy, mathematics and physics at the University of Innsbruck, then "enlisted in an (Army) aviation unit" during World War I," his biography said. Post war "he attended schools in Vienna and Munich. Although he never received an advanced degree, he became a successful writer on scientific matters."

"Valier differs basically from the other people concerned with rockets in that he was an astronomer," said "Max Valier: A Pioneer of Space Travel." "He has never worked on the rocket for a Ministry of War nor for war purposes. He believed that he was serving peace on earth whilst directing people's gaze into the vastness of the universe. In this way he hoped that they would forget quarrels and wars."

As did Wernher von Braun and Willy Ley, Valier discovered Hermann Oberth's 1923 "The Rocket into Interplanetary Space." After devouring the book, Valier "was immediately compelled to write a letter to Oberth," said "Max Valier: A Pioneer of Space Travel." The two began corresponding and, in 1924, the biography stated, "with Oberth's assistance, Valier wrote a popularized discussion of rocketry and outer space, 'Advance Into Space.'" Others ridiculed him as a "sensationalist" and called him a dreamer with a "bald thick skull," said "Max Valier: A Pioneer of Space Travel." But his passion was infectious and the book quoted a contemporary who recalled: "Valier visited us frequently from 1926 onwards. He arrived like a rocket, full of plans and enthusiasm, flung his old bicycle into a corner of the passage of the house and stormed into the atelier (workshop). 'I need a new form of an aircraft, a racing car, a rocket, a naviplane' he shouted and drew a few sketch drafts from his pocket.'"

In 1927, Valier helped found the Spaceflight Society; counted among the more than 500 members a year later were co-founder Ley, von Braun, and Oberth. On Dec. 8 of that year, "Max Valier: A Pioneer of Space Travel" said he and Opel signed a contract "to which Valier offered the Opel company his project of rocket propulsion."

In 1929, Valier built a solid fuel-powered rocket sled, which the biography said "reached a speed of 250 mph." "Max Valier: A Pioneer of Space Travel" quoted Valier referring to an Oct. 3, 1929, sled run that stated "all four wheels flew off the vehicle as a result of the spokes having broken." Subsequently, he modified the design to travel on a "system of runners" that eliminated "rotating parts."

Valier died in Berlin when a chemical reaction in the combustion chamber of a liquid-fuel experiment exploded on a test stand, "the fault of a risk still unknown at that time inherent in the new propellant," said "Max Valier: A Pioneer of Space Travel." "He died for the great idea to which he had dedicated his life."

A year later, on May 2, 1931, the editor of RWZ, Heinrich Weinz, explained how Valier "was the victim of a fatal accident which occurred while he was testing his first large reaction motor with liquid fuel." Newspapers had wrongly attributed his death from "the domed cover of a tank (penetrating Valier's) chest," to an exploding gas bottle after which "Valier was found dead beneath a heap of debris from shattered steel cylinders."

Others built on Valier's achievements, claimed credit and his work was "quickly forgotten," said "Max Valier: A Pioneer of Space Travel." The book pointed out Weinz "rightly denounces the unkind forgetfulness of those who took up (Valier's) work, which was extremely successful technically and experimentally, and developed it just a little further, without making any mention of the man whose suggestion it had been, and who had laid the foundations."

Michael Shinabery is an education specialist and Humanities Scholar with the New Mexico Museum of Space History. E-mail him at michael.shinabery@state.nm.us.

Modified X-51A Waverider Ready for Next Hypersonic Test

2011-03-19T21:16:00.000-07:00

United States Air Force engineers currently plan to fly the second X-51A Waverider hypersonic flight test demonstrator as early as next Tuesday, programme officials said earlier this week.

"We are proud of the first flight results, and at the same time we understand the inherent risk in a high-technology demonstrator like the X-51A," said Curtis Berger, the director of the hypersonics programmes at Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, the company that built the X-51A's fuel-cooled supersonic combustion ramjet, or scramjet engine. "We can't wait to get this second vehicle in the air and show what we can do."

Four X-51As were built for the Air Force by teams at Boeing and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne. The X-51A made history on its inaugural hypersonic flight test on May 26, 2010, when it was launched from Edwards Air Force Base, California, tucked under the wing of a B-52 Stratofortress. After release, it ultimately accelerated to Mach 5 under scramjet power. The flight was about 10 times longer than any previous hypersonic scramjet flight and "80 to 90 percent" of flight test objectives were achieved, programme officials said.

Underscoring the complexity and uncertainty of hypersonic flight testing, Charlie Brink, the Air Force Research Laboratory X-51A programme manager, noted that not everything went perfectly on the first flight test. The vehicle failed to accelerate as quickly as anticipated and the flight test had to be terminated after 143 seconds under scramjet power. A perfect flight would have lasted another 100 seconds and accelerated the X-51A cruiser to Mach 6.

After the flight, members of the flight test team independently scoured over telemetry data for a month. Then they conducted a comprehensive "fault tree analysis" to identify every piece of anomalous data to determine the root cause.

According to Brink, two separate fault trees were identified: The vehicle failed to accelerate as rapidly as expected and unexpected temperatures and pressures were observed in internal sections of the cruiser. Engineers examined and walked through 156 different nodes in excruciating detail in search of a cause.

"In a demonstrator you learn things," Brink said.

Programme officials already knew from wind tunnel engine tests about the intense heat the scramjet engine and hypersonic flight creates. During flight, the scramjet engine actually grows about three-fourths of an inch due to heat expansion. The effect complicates design for such things as interface seals.

The Boeing "Phantom Works" and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne teams pulled the engines from the three remaining flight test vehicles and focused on the interface between the rear of the fuel-cooled engine and its vehicle mounted nozzle. Brink said the effort identified an "apparent thermal seal breach" at the interface which was not as tight as it needed to be. This caused some of the hot gases that should have provided thrust to leak into the rear of the cruiser.

"We went through a complete critical design review of the interface," Brink said.

In the end, the team made design changes to make it a "much more robust" interface. All of the remaining X-51As have been modified with the new beefed up design.

Mission and weather permitting, a B-52 test crew will take off March 16 from the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards AFB and the flight test team will run through a dress rehearsal for the entire flight profile for the next hypersonic mission, albeit without the X-51A attached.

The second X-51 is waiting in a hangar at Edwards AFB and is ready to fly, Brink said. He added the next flight is scheduled for March 22 over the Navy's Point Mugu Sea Range but a number of factors with the flight-test vehicle, weather, range availability, and supporting test assets could cause the date to slip.

The X-51 will be carried to an altitude of roughly 15 000 metres where it will be released and its MGM-140 rocket booster ignited, propelling it to Mach 4.5. The rocket will fall away and the SJY61 scramjet engine will take over and accelerate the aircraft to around Mach 6.

Brink said officials at the Defence Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA) and at NASA have been crucial to the X-51A's development. Those at DARPA provided substantial funding and NASA officials provided strong support via access to their wind tunnels at Langley Research Centre and to the supercomputer at NASA Ames Research Centre where computational fluid dynamics calculations of drag and other aerodynamic forces were performed.

Brink said the computations were validated during the first hypersonic test, coming in within 2 percent of actual data observed during the first flight. NASA Dryden aircrews also provide photo and safety chase during the flight tests.

He noted the X-51A was not designed to be a weapon, but its success as a technology demonstrator soon may enable the transition of technologies to a new class of hypersonic weapon systems. He added that there are a number of initiatives in the works, but none had been decided upon and there currently is no programme of record for a hypersonic strike or intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft based upon the Waverider.
"Right now we are just focused on the X-51's next flight," Brink said. "We definitely hope it will go longer...and faster than the first."
The X-51 project is managed by the Propulsion Directorate within the US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). The project began in the 1990s when the AFRL started the HyTECH supersonic propulsion programme. Pratt & Whitney was contracted to develop a scramjet engine, the SJX61, which was planned for NASA’s cancelled X-43C. Following cancellation, the engine was moved to the AFRL’s Scramjet Engine Demonstrator programme in 2003. The resulting aircraft was designated X-51 in September 2005.
Ground testing began at the end of 2006. Flight testing was planned for 2009 but the first captive test flight, with the X-51 attached to the wing of a B-52, only occurred on 9 December 2009. The first flight in May 2010 resulted in the longest ever scramjet burn time of 140 seconds – the X-43 previously held the record at 12 seconds of scramjet burn time while setting a speed record of Mach 9.8.

NASA TV To Cover Soyuz Landing And Launch Events

2011-03-10T09:50:00.000-08:00

HOUSTON -- NASA Television will cover the March 16th return of three crew members who have called the International Space Station home for more than five months. The March 29th launch of three new residents to the station also will be televised and streamed on the agency's website.

NASA's Expedition 26 Commander Scott Kelly, Soyuz Commander Alexander Kaleri and Russian Flight Engineer Oleg Skripochka are scheduled to land the Soyuz TMA-01M spacecraft near the town of Arkalyk in northern Kazakhstan at 2:48 a.m. CDT (1:48 p.m. Kazakhstan time) on March 16. Before departing, Kelly will hand over command of the station to Russian cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratyev during a ceremony at 3:45 p.m. on March 14.

On March 29, NASA Flight Engineer Ron Garan, Russian cosmonaut and Soyuz Commander Alexander Samokutyaev and Russian Flight Engineer Andrey Borisenko will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 7:41 p.m. (6:41 a.m. Baikonur time March 30) in a Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft.

They will join the Expedition 27 commander Kondratyev; NASA astronaut Cady Coleman; and European Space Agency astronaut Paolo Nespoli. The trio has been aboard the station since mid-December 2010.

NASA TV's scheduled coverage includes (all times Central):

Friday, March 11
2 p.m. -- Video File of the Soyuz TMA-21 crew news conference at Star City, Russia, and visit to Red Square in Moscow
Monday, March 14
3:45 p.m. -- Expedition 26 change of command ceremony
Tuesday, March 15
7:30 p.m. -- Soyuz TMA-01M crew farewells and hatch closure (hatch closure at 8 p.m.)
11 p.m. -- Undocking coverage (undocking at 11:24 p.m.)
Wednesday, March 16
1:30 a.m. -- Deorbit burn and landing in Kazakhstan (deorbit burn at 1:57 a.m., landing at 2:48 a.m.)
11 a.m. -- Video File of the undocking and landing
4 p.m. -- Video File of the landing and post-landing activities; including post-landing interview with Kelly and the cosmonauts' return to Chkalovsky Airfield, Star City, Russia
Thursday, March 17
11 a.m. -- Video File of the Soyuz TMA-21 crew departure for Baikonur ceremony at Star City, Russia
Friday, March 25
11 a.m. -- Video File of the crew activities in Baikonur
Sunday, March 27
11 a.m. -- Video File of the rocket mating and rollout to the launch pad in Baikonur
Monday, March 28
4 p.m. -- Video File of the final pre-launch crew news conference and Russian State Commission meeting in Baikonur
Tuesday, March 29
6 p.m. -- Video File of the crew pre-launch activities in Baikonur
6:45 p.m. -- Launch coverage (launch at 7:41 p.m.)
10 p.m. -- Video File of pre-launch, launch and post-launch interviews
Thursday, March 31
8:30 p.m. -- Docking coverage (docking at 9:10 p.m. followed by the post-docking news conference from Mission Control, Moscow)
11:30 p.m. -- Hatch opening and welcoming ceremony (hatch opening and welcoming ceremony at 12:10 a.m. April 1)
Friday, April 1
1:30 a.m. -- Video File of docking, hatch opening and welcoming ceremony

For NASA TV downlink information, schedules and links to streaming video, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

For more information about the International Space Station, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station

Credits: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2011/mar/HQ_M11-050_Soyuz_TV.html

Space Shuttle Discovery's Final Flight. STS-133 A Mission Preview

2011-02-22T07:43:00.000-08:00

By WILLIAM HARWOOD
CBS News

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. -- Three-and-a-half months after the shuttle Discovery was grounded by potentially dangerous cracks in its external tank, the orbiter is finally back on track for launch Feb. 24 to deliver critical spare parts, supplies and a final U.S. module to the International Space Station.

During an executive-level flight readiness review Feb. 18, senior NASA managers cleared Discovery for blastoff Feb. 24, at 4:50:24 p.m. EST (GMT-5), following an exhaustive safety analysis of the modifications used to beef up suspect ribs, or stringers, in the tank's central "intertank" section.

The shuttle Discovery atop pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. (Credit: CBS News/William Harwood)
"This is probably one of the most difficult technical issues, I think, we've ever faced because the answers were not obvious," shuttle commander Steven Lindsey said in a NASA interview. "It wasn't obvious what was wrong, why it was wrong, or how to fix it, and then you had the additional, if you will, pressure of the shuttle program winding up and we keep slipping and slipping and slipping.

"But to the space shuttle program's credit, they've really done due diligence on this one and really focused on the engineering, following the data, figuring out what was wrong. ... It's just been very impressive to watch them, not get rushed, focus on the data, focus on the engineering. When they didn't understand something, they did a lot of testing.

"You can write a thousand computer programs, but one test makes all the difference because that tells you what's really going on," he said. "So I think they've done a great job with it."

Lindsey and his five crewmates -- pilot Eric Boe, Nicole Stott, Michael Barratt and spacewalkers Stephen Bowen and Alvin Drew -- flew to the Kennedy Space Center Sunday to prepare for the start of the shuttle's countdown at 3 p.m. Monday.

A veteran of two previous shuttle flights, Bowen joined Discovery's crew in January after Timothy Kopra, the mission's original flight engineer and lead spacewalker, suffered what sources said was a broken hip in a bicycle accident near his home in Houston.

"It was actually a sad story," Bowen said in a NASA interview. "Tim had worked for well over a year putting this thing together and had an accident. He's unable to make the launch time frame (and) we needed to find somebody to fill his role. ... It was not what you expected, not what you want. Tim worked really hard."

Bowen, a veteran submariner with five previous spacewalks to his credit, was a natural choice to replace Kopra on short notice. He flew aboard the most recent shuttle mission and served as the lead astronaut in the spacewalk office at the Johnson Space Center.

He underwent accelerated training for the two spacewalks planned for Discovery's mission, joining Drew for four simulation runs in NASA's huge neutral buoyancy training pool near the Johnson Space Center.

Because of time constraints, Bowen did not attempt to assume Kopra's duties as flight engineer. Instead, Drew will take on that role for launch and Stott will serve as flight engineer for Discovery's re-entry and landing.

"I get to concentrate on just the EVA portion," Bowen said. "Tim and Drew had put together a great plan. I literally told the EVA team don't change a single word of the plan, I'm going to follow what he wrote. I've been watching the videos of what Tim did in the (training tank) and I’ve been talking to Tim as well and learning how to do these EVAs."

Kopra plans to help out in mission control during the flight, providing advice as needed based on his own experience training.

The primary goals of the 133rd shuttle mission are to deliver critical spare parts, supplies and a final U.S. module to the International Space Station. It will be Discovery's 39th and final flight as NASA presses ahead with plans to retire the fleet after just three more missions.

"Discovery's a workhorse, the fleet leader in number of flights, done a lot of famous flights, all the return-to-flight test missions," Lindsey said before the crew's initial launch attempt. "Yet when you walk inside Discovery, it still looks like a new car even after almost 30 years of service. It's a great machine, a great vehicle. It's a privilege for us to be able to fly it on the last flight."

Assuming an on-time launch, Lindsey and Boe will oversee a two-day rendezvous with the lab complex, carrying out a now-routine heat-shield inspection the day after liftoff before guiding the shuttle to a docking at the station's forward port around 2:16 p.m. on Feb. 26. It will be Discovery's 13th and final docking.

Waiting to welcome the shuttle astronauts aboard will be Expedition 26 commander Scott Kelly, Alexander Kaleri, Oleg Skripochka, Catherine Coleman, Dmitry Kondratyev and Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli.

Discovery is scheduled to spend seven days docked to the space station, departing on March 5 and landing back at the Kennedy Space Center around 12:44 p.m. on March 7.

But U.S. and Russian space managers are expected to approve a one-day mission extension for an out-of-this-world photo opportunity.

The idea is to insert a new flight day 10 in the crew's timeline -- March 5 -- so Kelly, Kaleri and Skripochka can undock in the Soyuz TMA-01M spacecraft and photograph the space station with the shuttle and a full complement of European, Japanese and Russian cargo ships and crew capsules attached.

Discovery's mission is the last time all of the international spacecraft will be docked at the station at the same time before the shuttle fleet is retired later this summer.

Assuming the fly-around is approved -- and no decisions are expected until after Discovery reaches the space station -- Discovery would undock on March 6 and land in Florida around 11:35 a.m. on March 8.

A LONG ROAD TO LAUNCH

NASA originally hoped to launch Discovery on Nov. 1, but the flight was delayed to Nov. 5 by bad weather and technical problems.
The ship was fueled for launch Nov. 5, but the countdown was called off when sensors detected a gaseous hydrogen leak in a quick-disconnect fitting used to attach a vent line to the side of the tank. That problem was quickly resolved, but engineers also discovered cracks near the tops of two adjacent structural rib-like "stringers" near a flange in the external tank that supports the upper liquid oxygen tank. More cracks were found later, after Discovery was returned to NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building for more detailed inspections.
Tracing the manufacturing history of the tank, engineers discovered that most of the original 108 stringers in the "intertank" section that separates the tank's oxygen and hydrogen sections were made using an aluminum-lithium alloy from a lot that was more brittle than usual and more susceptible to temperature-induced fractures when the tank is loaded with super-cold propellants.
That weakness, engineers concluded, along with subtle manufacturing issues, were the most likely causes of the observed cracks.

In the most invasive repair of an external tank ever attempted, engineers installed structural stiffeners, called radius blocks, to better secure the top few inches of 105 stringers to prevent cracks from forming when the tips of the stringers are pulled inward due to the contraction of the liquid oxygen tank.

The goal was twofold: to ensure the tank's overall structural integrity and to prevent cracks that could cause foam insulation to pop off during the climb out of the dense lower atmosphere when debris impacts pose the greatest threat to Discovery's fragile heat shied.

The addition of the radius blocks more evenly distributes stresses in the stringers and reduces the strains on the top few fasteners.

The tank was designed to be structurally "fail safe" even if three adjacent stringers developed cracks. Data from a Dec. 18 fueling test, elaborate laboratory tests and an exhaustive engineering analysis showed the tank would remain structurally sound even if more than three stringers developed cracks greater than four inches in length as long as they were separated by undamaged stringers.

The tank's calculated factor of safety is not precisely known, but it is greater than one in all cases, meaning that even with extensive modifications and stringers that are more brittle than usual, the structure's strength is sufficient for flight.

Testing also showed cracks greater than four inches long were most likely to occur during fueling, when the hardware is "shocked" by extreme low temperatures and that any such fractures likely would cause visible cracks in the tank's insulation. With the radius block modifications, engineers do not expect such cracks to form. But during Discovery's countdown, cameras will be focused on the liquid oxygen flange area to look for any signs of insulation damage. If any cracks are seen, the countdown will be called off.

Bill Gerstenmaier, director of space operations at NASA headquarters, praised the NASA and contractor engineers and technicians who did the troubleshooting, analysis and repairs of Discovery's tank. Many members of the repair team were called in from Lockheed Martin's Michoud Assembly Facility near New Orleans where the giant tank was built. With only three more shuttle flights planned, the production line has been shut down.

"They did a phenomenal job of doing this testing and pulling the work together," Gerstenmaier said. "I couldn't be prouder of what they've done. ... A lot of these folks, some of them in the tank world, were laid off, they were already in other jobs and we called them back to do some of this work. ... There was no question about their dedication. They really want to see this vehicle fly."

HISTORIC MILESTONES AND CHALLENGES FOR NASA

Discovery's delayed launching comes at a historic moment for NASA and its international partners. On April 12, NASA will mark the 30th anniversary of the first shuttle flight and the Russian space program will celebrate the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's launch on the first manned space flight.

Discovery's docking with the International Space Station will come just over 12 years after the Nov. 20, 1998, launch of the station's first component, the Russian Zarya module, and 10 years after the first three-man crew arrived aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft Nov. 2, 2000.

Since then, the space station has grown to include 13 pressurized modules and a huge solar array power truss stretching the length of a football field and tipping the scales at nearly 900,000 pounds. The lab has been continuously manned by rotating two-, three- and now six-person crews.

"I delivered the airlock on my first flight to space station," Lindsey said in a NASA interview. "It had just barely started and I remember thinking about all of the missions and all the components we still had to fly up there to fully build this thing out. At times it seemed like we were never going to get there. It was just, there were so many missions.

"When I look back at it now and see this fully assembled space station operating with six people and doing all the science and stuff like that, I'm just amazed at what this big team has accomplished and really excited about what it's going to accomplish in the future.

"Getting an opportunity to go up there again, which I never thought was going to happen, and see this fully assembled space station I've worked on most of my professional career here at NASA is just going to be something fantastic. I hope that the rest of the world appreciates what we have."

When Lindsey and his crewmates were named to the crew of shuttle mission STS-133, NASA intended Discovery's flight to be the program's final voyage, following a Bush administration mandate to finish the space station and retire the shuttle fleet by the end of fiscal year 2010.

That somewhat arbitrary deadline was relaxed a bit when Congress, worried about the possibility of schedule pressure on flight safety, promised an additional $600 million in funding to cover shuttle operations through the end of the calendar year. NASA managers later said internal cost-savings initiatives would allow shuttle operations to continue into early 2011 if necessary.

As it turned out, problems with a $2 billion particle physics experiment scheduled for launch aboard the shuttle Endeavour during the next-to-last fight in July 2010 forced NASA to revise the end-of-program shuttle manifest.

Because of work to replace the powerful magnet in the particle physics experiment, Endeavour's flight leap-frogged Discovery's, slipping to late November and eventually to Feb. 27, 2011. Discovery's flight, in turn, slipped from mid September to Nov. 1, in part to accommodate work to modify a cargo transport module for permanent attachment to the space station.

Discovery's launching then was delayed to Nov. 5 by bad weather and technical snags. The ship has been grounded since then because of the stringer cracks.

In the midst of Discovery's long launch campaign, NASA won political support for a third and final mission with the shuttle Atlantis to deliver additional supplies and equipment to the station. That flight, the shuttle program's final voyage, is targeted for launch June 28.

After the shuttle fleet is retired, NASA will rely on smaller unmanned Russian, European and Japanese cargo ships, along with new commercial spacecraft that are currently in development, to deliver the supplies and equipment needed by the space station to support a full-time crew of six.

"From a logistics standpoint, 2012 is going to be a real challenge for (the station program)," said shuttle Program John Shannon. "If there are delays in any of the new vehicles that are expected to deliver cargo to the station, that problem is just going to be exacerbated. It's hard to compare vehicles and capabilities. But my operations guy said one shuttle flight is roughly equivalent to about seven (Russian) Progress flights. So if you think about that, you can do pretty well on one shuttle.

"So getting to fly (Atlantis) late is going to give the space station margin from a logistics standpoint to keep six crew (members) up, to keep doing the research, to keep doing the utilization even if some of those new vehicles are delayed by some period of time."

If the Atlantis mission is not launched "and the new vehicles that are going to deliver cargo are delayed, and we end up having a logistics shortfall in 2012, and we have to go down to three crew, and we're not doing research, we have made a major error, in my opinion," Shannon said.

Faced with an uncertain budget, Shannon is struggling to reduce the shuttle workforce as required while maintaining flight safety and maximizing resupply of the space station.

Despite extensive layoffs, "the program is very healthy," Shannon said. "But I have a very high sense of paranoia that this is a very difficult time for the team, and we need to be incredibly vigilant, and any little noises that you hear you've got to go pay attention to and really make sure you fully understand what is going on. Because it's a very complex process and it's very unforgiving.

"So far, the team has done an outstanding job and we're going to continue to stay focused. The team really wants to preserve the legacy of the shuttle program and end on a really high note."

A FINAL U.S. MODULE FOR THE SPACE STATION

As originally planned, Discovery's flight did not include any spacewalks. But with the schedule revision and the initial slip to November, NASA managers added two spacewalks, or EVAs, with Drew and Kopra -- now Bowen -- and scheduled additional work to maximize the resupply effort.

"We started out as an eight-day mission," Lindsey said. "We were just going to go up, dock with space station, offload some payloads and (do) a lot of transfer and basically leave station in the best logistic state possible because when we were originally assigned we were going to be the very last shuttle mission.

"They've added a couple of spacewalks to our flight so what we've had to do is lengthen the mission from eight days to eleven days nominal with a plus one if we need it. We're having to pick up and train (for) those two spacewalks, which we hadn't been training for before. We've also added a whole bunch of robotics that go along with that.

"As a result of that, I've had to move crew members into different tasks to make the timeline fit. ... We have a good schedule in place, and we've worked out all those details. It's just going to take us a little bit longer to get there, but we still have a good plan and I feel pretty comfortable with what we're doing."

At the heart of the mission is the permanent multi-purpose module, or PMM, that will be carried aloft in Discovery's cargo bay. The Italian-built module, dubbed Leonardo, was originally designed to serve as an up-and-down cargo transport canister that could be temporarily docked to the space station and then returned to Earth aboard the shuttle.

Then called a multi-purpose logistics module, or MPLM, Leonardo was not designed to remain permanently attached to the station. But with shuttle flights coming to a close, program managers ordered modifications, beefing up Leonardo's insulation, adding increased orbital debris shielding and arranging for power, lights and ventilation. The result is the PMM.

"I think it's going to be a really outstanding addition to the station," said Stott. "Anybody who's lived and worked up there has at one time or another felt like wow, if we just had a closet where we could stick this, or we just had designated storage for these particular items it would be such a great thing.

"And I think what it's going to do is provide that, but it's also going to give us the opportunity to go through station and look at where we have stuff and maybe better distribute so we make even more space available. So I think it's going to be a really, really nice addition."

Mounted in Discovery's cargo bay, the PMM measures 21 feet long and 15 feet in diameter and tips the scales at 21,817 pounds, including 6,536 pounds of equipment and supplies. Another 1,568 pounds of station-bound gear is mounted in the shuttle's crew cabin.

The station-bound hardware includes an experiment rack, a heat exchanger for the lab's temperature and humidity control system, a spare pump for the station's internal cooling system, a large fan, a water processing assembly storage tank, a waste water tank and an experimental robot known as Robonaut 2.

Shaped like a human's upper torso, Robonaut 2 weighs about 300 pounds and measures nearly four feet from waist to head and nearly three feet across the shoulders. The robot will be operated remotely by engineers on the ground.

Describing the robot as a technology demonstrator, Barratt said "this is very much a first step. We'll be identifying some breadboard tasks over the next few years to figure out how best to use a humanoid robot in space."

"When you look at some of the tasks we're asked to do, and what a robot could do, you're thinking of things that would be perhaps dangerous for a human to do or repetitive tasks that would wear a human out," he said. "So if you were to go around the station, for instance, and identify scenarios where it was risky to send a human in, whether you had a suspected fire or a toxic release and what you needed was a switch throw or to discharge a fire extinguisher into the right fire port, that's the kind of thing we could eventually envision sending Robonaut in to do.

"I'd much rather send a robot in than go in myself on a gas mask," he said. "But again, we're very early, and we'll be mapping those tasks to the capabilities that Robonaut demonstrates over the years. And it will be years before we figure all this out. So we're excited to see this all start."

Discovery also is carrying up an 8,161-pound external storage platform carrying a folded set of radiators that will serve as a spare in case of future problems with the station's external cooling system. The station features two independent coolant loops that circulate ammonia through huge radiators to dissipate the heat generated by the lab's electronics.

The spare radiator panels weigh 2,475 pounds and are mounted on an external logistics carrier known as ELC-4. Barratt and Stott, operating the station's robot arm, will lift ELC-4 out of Discovery's cargo bay a few hours after docking on flight day three. They will hand it off to Boe, operating the shuttle's robot arm, and then reposition the station arm. After re-grappling the cargo carrier, Barratt and Stott will mount it on the right side of the station's power truss.

The next day, Barratt and Stott will use the station arm to pull the shuttle's heat shield inspection boom out of the cargo bay before handing it off to Boe and the shuttle's arm where it will remain for possible use later in the mission. Inside the station, the astronauts will begin work to repair one of the U.S. segment's carbon dioxide removal systems.

Bowen and Drew will end the day by camping out in the station's Quest airlock module at a reduced pressure of 10.2 pounds per square inch. The camp out procedure is used to help purge nitrogen from the bloodstream before spacewalks are conducted in NASA's 5-psi spacesuits.

The first major objective of the mission's first spacewalk on flight day five is to install a 10-foot-long power cord between the Quest airlock and the Harmony module directly across the station on the other side of the Unity module. The power line, which might be needed in the future if Harmony ever needs to be undocked for repairs, cannot be installed after the PMM is attached to Unity's Earth-facing port.

With the power line in place, Bowen and Drew will retrieve a failed ammonia pump module that was left temporarily stowed on the robot arm's mobile base system after a three-spacewalk repair job last August. After moving the module back to a stowage platform, Drew will install a vent line that will be used during the crew's second spacewalk to dump about 10 pounds of residual ammonia overboard.

Most of the remaining tasks were left over from earlier missions.

"On my last flight and on the next flight, there's not a lot of time to do all the tasks that have just built up over the past year," Bowen said. "Originally when this flight was assigned, there were no EVAs on it but they wisely saw they had the talent with Tim and Al and Mike and Nicole to put a good team outside and use that talent to get some work done.

"These were two EVAs that were not originally in the plan, that they've taken advantage of the fact that they have these guys on board. They're going around, and we will be doing a lot of items, a lot of stuff. It’s going to be busy."

With the pump module safely stowed, Drew and Bowen plan to carry out a variety of maintenance tasks, adjusting the insulation on the upper Z1 truss, attaching a tool stanchion and a wedge to tilt a camera away from ELC-4, providing additional clearance when hardware arrives aboard future supply ships.

Before ending the spacewalk, Bowen and Drew will open a Japanese container and "fill" it with the vacuum of space in a project known as "message in a bottle."

"It's a Japanese piece of hardware and the intention here is to use this outside space station and all we want to do is open a valve," Kopra said before the crew's initial launch attempt. "It's kind of unique and a thoughtful sort of experiment the Japanese have designed where we're just going to fill it with the vacuum of space. ... Clearly a vacuum is a vacuum whether it's space or if it's in a vacuum chamber here at NASA. But this is a little bit special, especially for the Japanese because it's the vacuum of space. So we'll do that, capture in pictures and provide that to the Japanese once we come home."

The next day, flight day six, Stott and Barratt, operating the station's robot arm from inside the multi-window cupola, plan to pull the PMM out of Discovery's payload bay and attach it to Unity's Earth-facing port. That afternoon, a block of time is set aside for a so-called "focused" inspection of the shuttle's heat shield if any problems are spotted after launch or during approach to the station.

That night, Bowen and Drew will camp out in Quest to prepare for another spacewalk the next morning.

The goals of the second excursion are to vent residual ammonia from the failed pump module, to retrieve a European experiment package from the outboard end of the Columbus laboratory module, to install protective lens covers on external cameras that could be "plumed" by approaching cargo ships and to troubleshoot problems with mounting hardware that could be needed in the future for radiator repairs or replacement.

Inside the station, the astronauts will complete outfitting the vestibule between Unity and the PMM, opening the hatch and floating inside for the first time. Unlike normal MPLM missions, the crew will be in no hurry to unload the supplies and equipment ferried aloft in the PMM. Robonaut 2, for example, is not expected to be activated for several months.

Over the next two days, the astronauts will enjoy a bit of off-duty time, participate in multiple interviews and a traditional joint crew news conference. What happens after that depends on whether the Soyuz fly-around is approved.

The pre-launch flight plan called for Discovery to undock from the station around 7:37 a.m. on March 5. After looping around the outpost for a photo-documentation inspection, the shuttle crew would depart and pull away before carrying out a final heat shield inspection to look for any signs of damage since the initial inspection the day after launch.

Discovery's 39th and final landing would be targeted for around 12:36 p.m. on March 7.

If the Soyuz fly-around is approved, however, undocking and landing would be delayed one day and a new flight-day 10 would be inserted into the timeline for March 5.

DISCOVERY WRAPS UP A DISTINGUISHED CAREER

"I don't think you can take a final voyage of a ship of exploration and not take some moments to celebrate its history," Barratt said. "As many people know, our ship Discovery, which is a ship of exploration, was named after several predecessor ships, all named Discovery, all ships of exploration.

"It's the culmination of a great heritage, really, and we hope there are future ships bearing that name. We will be carrying a medallion from the Royal Society that was struck in honor of Captain Cook. On Cook's third voyage, there was a ship called Discovery and that's the main ship for which our ship took its name. We'll be doing a few other taped commemoratives on it as well. But again, you cannot not celebrate the history and the heritage of this ship."

The contract authorizing construction of Discovery was awarded Jan. 29, 1979, and initial work to begin building the crew module began the following August. The spacecraft was completed at North American Rockwell's Palmdale, Calif., plant in October 1983 and was ferried to the Kennedy Space Center Nov. 9, 1983.

Following an on-pad main engine test firing June 2, 1984, NASA attempted to launch Discovery on its maiden voyage the following June 26. But in a moment of high drama, the shuttle's main engines shut down seconds after ignition because of a sluggish fuel valve.

The problem was corrected, and commander Henry Hartsfield and his crew, including Challenger astronaut Judith Resnik, finally blasted off Aug. 30, 1984, on a successful mission to deploy three commercial communications satellites and to test space station construction techniques.

Over the next 26 years and 38 flights, Discovery carried out four military missions, two Spacelab science flights, two visits to the Russian Mir space station, one Mir docking and 12 missions to the International Space Station. At least 24 civilian and military satellites were carried into space, including the Hubble Space Telescope.

During Discovery's final mission, the ship will make its 13th docking with the space station, and its crew will carry out the orbiter's 50th and 51st spacewalks.

Veteran of two on-pad launch aborts, Discovery also flew the return-to-flight missions following the 1986 destruction of the shuttle Challenger and the 2003 loss of Columbia. In addition, two stranded communications satellites were plucked out of orbit by spacewalking astronauts and brought back to Earth for repairs in November 1984 in what many veterans consider the most daring shuttle mission ever attempted.

Going into its final flight, Discovery had logged 142,917,535 miles traveled over 5,540 orbits, carrying 246 astronauts and cosmonauts into space, including former senator and Mercury astronaut John Glenn and Eileen Collins, the first woman to pilot and later command a space shuttle.

"When you really look at the space shuttle and its capability, it can do everything, everything you can think of in space except for one thing, it can't leave low-Earth orbit, but it can do everything else," Lindsey said in a NASA interview. "It can do robotics. It can do science. It can go dock. When you dock with the space station, in the end you have to maintain a three-inch corridor and one degree of attitude error and you can easily fly the shuttle manually and maintain that. I mean, that's unbelievable for a 120-ton vehicle.

"I don't think there's going to be another one that's ever going to match the versatility of the space shuttle, and I think that's the legacy. All the systems we've developed and things we've done on space station, or on space shuttle, have all had impacts in our society. I mean, literally any room you walk in, anything you do during the day, you can point at things in that room and say, 'That came out of the space program. This came from shuttle. This came from Apollo. This came from space station' and you can see it all around you.

"The public's not real aware of all of that ... and it's very hard to measure, but it's all there if you really think about it, and I think that's the legacy. I think the legacy is that all these things came out of it, and people take all of those things for granted."

NASA managers are considering a variety of options for Discovery's post-landing processing. Some have suggested maintaining the orbiter in a flight-ready state for as long as possible. Others have recommended using the orbiter for spare parts until Atlantis and Endeavour complete their final missions. Shannon favors a combination of approaches.

"We're in the middle of a very significant effort to identify hardware off of Discovery and also in the spares (inventory) that could be used for some future as yet unknown program, or that we would want to maintain as spares for Endeavour and Atlantis," Shannon said.

"We're also going to pull some off as engineering teaching units so that future generations will be able to take the hardware that was flown on the shuttle and dissect it and understand the engineering and how it was put together. We're also going to go in and look at some hardware on Discovery that has flown for 30 years that we've never looked at before. Things like actuators and some structural areas that are impossible to get to.

"Those will be fairly invasive, it will take time and it will take money," he said. "But I think that's one of the legacies the shuttle can provide. ... So even after Discovery lands, we will not be finished learning about the space environment. That's my goal, to start immediately on that."

No matter how the end game plays out, Discovery eventually will be shipped to a museum and put on display. But with nearly two dozen museums vying for one of NASA's three orbiters, it's not yet clear where Discovery will end up. A decision is expected later this year.

ATV Johannes Kepler operating flawlessly. After a spectacular launch viewed from the ISS

2011-02-17T09:30:00.000-08:00

ATV Johannes Kepler was launched today at 22:50:55 CET by an Ariane 5 to dock with the ISS
ESA’s second Automated Transfer Vehicle, was launched today evening from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, in French Guiana, at 22:50:55 CET by an Ariane 5 to deliver critical supplies and reboost the International Space Station. ATV Johannes Keplerwill dock with the Space Station on Wednesday, 23 February, and stay in orbit for almost four months.

Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja, 2011

The ATV's launch as seen from ISS
ATV Johannes Kepler's launch as seen from International Space Station.

Credits: ESA/NASA

These remarkable photos were taken by ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli from the ISS on 16 February 2011, just minutes after ATV Johannes Kepler lifted off on board an Ariane 5 from Kourou at 22:50 UTC. It shows the rising exhaust trail of Ariane, still in its initial vertical trajectory. The trail can be seen as a thin streak framed just beneath the Station's remote manipulator arm.

16 February 2011
ESA PR 07-2011 - ESA’s second Automated Transfer Vehicle, Johannes Kepler, has been launched into its targeted low orbit by an Ariane 5. The unmanned supply ship is planned to deliver critical supplies and reboost the International Space Station during its almost four-month mission.

The Ariane 5 lifted off from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, at 21:50 GMT (18:50 local) on Wednesday 16 February.

The launcher and its 20.06-tonne payload flew over the Atlantic towards the Azores and Europe. An initial 8-minute burn of the upper stage injected it, with Johannes Kepler, into a low orbit inclined at 51.6 degrees to the equator.
After a 42-minute coast, the upper stage reignited for 30 seconds to circularise the orbit at an altitude of 260 km. About 64 minutes into flight, the unmanned supply ship separated safely from the spent upper stage.

The Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) deployed its four solar wings soon after and will proceed with early orbit operations over the coming hours to begin its climb to the International Space Station (ISS).

Booster jettison of the V200
“This launch takes place in a crowded and changing manifest for the ISS access, with HTV, Progress, ATV and the Shuttle coming and going. In October last year we had fixed the ATV launch schedule with our international partners,” said Jean-Jacques Dordain, ESA’s Director General, “and we could keep that schedule thanks to the expertise and dedication of the European industry and Arianespace, of ESA and CNES teams and of our international partners. ATV-2 is the first of a production of four and this new step is the result of technical expertise and political support from Member States to ESA and to international cooperation. We are now looking for the docking to ISS to declare success.”

“ATV Johannes Kepler is inaugurating our regular service line to the ISS,” added Simonetta Di Pippo, ESA’s Director for Human Spaceflight.

For the first time, ESA used a special access device to load last-minute cargo items. “This late access confirms ATV’s role as a critical resupply vehicle for the Space Station,” she said.

“Right now, integration for the next vehicle in line, Edoardo Amaldi, will be finished in Europe in August 2011, and production is under way for ATV-4 and -5.” Mrs Di Pippo confirmed that “Edoardo Amaldi is planned for launch in about 12 months. The other two will follow by 2014.”

Flying in the same orbital plane as the Station but well below its 350 km-high orbit, ATV is being constantly monitored by the dedicated ESA/CNES ATV Control Centre (ATV-CC) in Toulouse, France, in coordination with the ISS control centres in Moscow and Houston.

During the coming week, ATV will adjust its orbit to rendezvous with the ISS for docking on Thursday, 24 February.

Unlike its 2008 predecessor, ATV Jules Verne, ATV Johannes Kepler will not perform practice demonstration manoeuvres. Instead, it will dock directly and autonomously with Russia’s Zvezda module to deliver cargo, propellant and oxygen to the orbital outpost.

The ATVs are contributing to the support and maintenance of the ISS together with Russia’s Progress and Japan’s H-II Transfer Vehicle, the second of which is now docked to the European-built Node-2.

These three independent servicing systems provide a secure logistics lifeline, while NASA’s Space Shuttle is going to be phased out later this year.

This launch also marks the 200th flight of an Ariane vehicle since the debut of 24 December 1979. The total includes 116 flights of Ariane 4 from 1988 to 2003 and 56 flights of Ariane 5 from 1996.

Now in its fourth decade of service, Europe’s family of launchers has lofted some 330 payloads to Earth orbit and beyond. Among these, 31 were for ESA, including deep-space probes, astronomical observatories, meteorology, remote sensing and communication satellites, as well as Space Station resupply ships.

For further information, please contact:

ESA Media Relations Office
Communication Department
Tel: +33 1 53 69 72 99
Fax: +33 1 53 69 76 90
Email: media@esa.int

An Ariane 5 Rocket Sits Ready To Launch On Pad 3. On Top, ATV-2 Johannes Kepler.

2011-02-14T18:57:00.000-08:00

It's all systems go in Kourou for the launch of ATV-2. Let's hope the weather is not a factor. It is the rainy season there. It's important to the STS-133 Space Shuttle Discovery mission that the ATV-2 docks wih the ISS on time. This mission will set a new heavy lift record for the Ariane 5 launch system. The ATV-2 weights in at +20,000lbs. It is also the 200th launch for Ariane 5. Read More Here.

There will be a live video broadcast from Ariane Space and ESA. Click Here For Live Video

STS-133: NASA Considering Soyuz Flyaround to Photograph Discovery and ISS

2011-02-12T09:34:00.000-08:00

February 10th, 2011 by Pete Harding
NASA managers are investigating a proposed plan that would see a Soyuz spacecraft undock from the International Space Station (ISS) during the upcoming STS-133 mission in order to take photographs of the orbital outpost, along with its record number of attached Visiting Vehicles (VVs) and the docked Space Shuttle Discovery.

Read More
From: http://nasaspaceflight.com/

RASAero 94,000' Project Added To There Web Site

2011-02-10T11:18:00.000-08:00

News Release by Rogers Aeroscience

Wednesday, February 09, 2011

WORLD WIDE WEB — Rogers Aeroscience is pleased to announce that a new free download on the OuR Project R Rocket 94,000 foot flight has been added to the RASAero aerodynamic analysis and flight simulation software website.

The OuR Project R-powered amateur rocket that reached 94,000 feet in August of 1996 has been added to the RASAero aerodynamic analysis and flight simulation software website. Photo and cover photo courtesy of Earl L. Cagle, Jr., Copyright © 1996-2011. The free technical report download contains the series of technical articles which were published in the July 1997 issue of High Power Rocketry magazine on the OuR Project R Rocket, which had a total impulse of 260,000 Newton-seconds, and which reached an altitude of 94,000 feet above ground level.

The download includes the technical article Postflight Analysis of the OuR Project R Rocket Flight, by Charles E. Rogers, on the postflight analysis of the rocket performance using time to apogee from on-board video and the mid 1990's versions of the Rogers Aeroscience aerodynamic drag prediction and altitude prediction software.

The OuR Project R Rocket tech article download can be found on the RASAero web site in the Technical Report Downloads - High Altitude Rocket Flights section.

Additional information on the RASAero software can be found on the RASAero web site at http://www.rasaero.com/.

The RASAero authors, Charles E. (Chuck) Rogers and David (Coop) Cooper can be contacted at CRogers168@aol.comThis email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it .

Chuck Rogers
Rogers Aeroscience

Ares 1 To Be Reborn As The Liberty Rocket

2011-02-08T20:19:00.000-08:00

NASA's scrapped Ares I rocket may see new life as part of a new private launch vehicle to provide commercial flights to space for satellites, cargo – and maybe even people, the companies proposing it announced today (Feb. 8).

The five-segment solid rocket was developed by Alliant Techsystems (ATK), a longtime NASA contractor responsible for the twin solid rocket boosters used to launch space shuttles into low-Earth orbit.

But the booster's original purpose – to serve as the first stage for NASA's Ares I rocket for launching astronauts into space on Orion capsules – fell through last year when President Barack Obama cancelled NASA's Constellation program aimed at returning astronauts to the moon. The Ares I rocket served as one of the cornerstones for the Constellation program.

Now, ATK has teamed up with the European aerospace company Astrium to repurpose the Ares I rocket's first stage into a completely new, commercial launch vehicle.

The companies call the new rocket "Liberty."

ATK and Astrium are pitching the Liberty rocket for NASA's Commercial Crew Development-2 competition, which is seeking proposals for commercial spacecraft to transport astronauts to and from space. NASA began soliciting proposals for the program in October and could make funding announcements next month, agency officials have said.

Resurrection of Ares I rocket

ATK and Astrium officials say the Liberty rocket could be ready for a first test flight by 2013 and begin operational launches by 2015 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Astrium builds the Ariane 5 rockets that have served as Europe's primary workhorse for launching satellites and spacecraft into orbit. The company would provide the second stage for the new rocket that is based on the Ariane 5 vehicle, officials said.

"Both stages were designed for human-rating since inception and would enable unmatched crew safety," ATK and Astrium officials said in a statement.

Once operational, the rocket will be able to launch payloads of up to 44,500 pounds (20,185 kilograms) into the orbit of the International Space Station, which sails about 220 miles (354 kilometers) above Earth.

That lift capability should give the Liberty rocket the ability to launch unmanned spacecraft, as well as be scaled up to carry astronauts on crewed vehicles as well, officials said.

"The Liberty initiative provides tremendous value because it builds on European Ariane 5 launcher heritage, while allowing NASA to leverage the mature first stage," said former NASA astronaut Charlie Precourt, vice president and general manager of ATK Space Launch Systems, in a statement.

NASA's space shuttle program is due to retire this year after three final flights. Once the shuttles retire, NASA is banking on the availability of commercial U.S. spacecraft and rockets to ferry astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station. However, NASA will have to depend on Russian, European and Japanese spacecraft until those American vehicles are available.

Scrapped NASA rocket

ATK's five-segment solid rocket boosters are one segment longer than the versions used to launch NASA space shuttles. The company has test-fired two of the larger rockets at its proving grounds in Utah.

In 2009, NASA launched the first Ares I rocket test flight – called Ares I-X – to demonstrate the feasibility of the booster's odd design, which featured a skinny first stage topped by a fatter second stage. NASA hailed the Ares I-X rocket test flight as a success.

But in 2010, Obama shifted NASA's focus from the moon to a new target: sending astronauts to visit an asteroid by 2025, and then take aim at a human expedition to Mars in the 2030s.

That shift drew criticism from some lawmakers and Constellation program supporters since NASA had already spent about $9 billion on the moon exploration program, which included the Ares I-X test flight and design work on a larger Ares V heavy-lift rocket that also drew on ATK-built solid rocket boosters.

A mobile launch platform for the Ares I rocket has already been built, and launch pad modifications for the Kennedy Space Center also drawn up. ATK and Astrium hope to make use of the existing infrastructure to lower launch costs, officials said.

"We will provide unmatched payload performance at a fraction of the cost, and we will launch it from the Kennedy Space Center using facilities that have already been built," Precourt said. "This approach allows NASA to utilize the investments that have already been made in our nation's ground infrastructure and propulsion systems for the Space Exploration Program."

ATK and Astrium plan to use the United Space Alliance – a longtime NASA contractor used to prepare NASA shuttles for flight – to assemble Liberty rockets for launches.

"This team represents the true sense of international partnership in that we looked across borders to find the best for our customers," said Blake Larson, president of ATK's Aerospace Systems Group. "Liberty provides greater performance at less cost than any other comparable launch vehicle."

You can follow SPACE.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik on Twitter @tariqjmalik.

From: Space.com

Fly Me To The Moon! Moon And Back Trip Is Feasible, Say Russians! $150 Million Dollars Per Seat Price Tag

2011-02-05T10:17:00.000-08:00

Moon And Back

Top Russian Official Says Negligible Upgrade Needed For Lunar Trip

MOSCOW, Russia –Space tourists can really get the opportunity to fly around the Moon and return to the Earth in the Soyuz spacecraft, Roscosmos Human Spaceflight Directorate Head Alexey Krasnov told news media today.

“It is technically feasible”, Krasnov was quoted as saying by Interfax-AVN as he was commenting on the statement by Space Adventures which revealed the sale of the first ticket for the lunar fly-around.

According to Krasnov, this objective will demand negligible Soyuz upgrading. In addition, several Soyuz-orbital ferry docking operations are to be carried out in orbit in order to ensure the mission of 3 humans to the Moon is successful. The space tugs are required to deliver the spacecraft to the LLO, make a fly-around and return to the Earth.
Human Spaceflight Directorate leader Krasnov went on to say that an additional Soyuz purposed for tourist missions would be built between 2013 and 2014. The vehicle with two tourists onboard will be controlled by one commander. This Soyuz will also undergo extra measures of certification according to the official.
Space Adventures’ chairman Eric Anderson, announced at the Digital/Life/Desgin conference in Munich, Germany ten days ago that his company Space Adventures has sold one of two seats on a circumlunar Soyuz mission. He went on to say that there was one ticket left and the price was $150 million. When Space Adventures announced its circumlunar flight plans in 2005, they said they would sell two seats for $100 million each. The first buyer is someone most people would recognize according to Anderson. People have speculated that it is possibly one of NASA’s Astronauts or perhaps one of Space Adventures previous private astronaut clients.

The Space Adventures team has designed a circumlunar mission using a unique combination of existing and flight tested Russian technology. This mission builds on space technology originally developed for manned lunar missions, and has been flown over decades as part of the world’s most successful human spaceflight program. Anderson has stated that the Soyuz was originally designed as a translunar spacecraft. The company expects a direct launch to the moon within three to five years lasting either 6 or sixteen days depending on whether they stayed over at the ISS for about 10 days. The current schedule has the flight scheduled to take place in 2015.
There are three main logistical issues for the Soyuz in going to the Moon. 1. The reentry from a lunar trajectory is about 1.4 times faster, so 40 percent faster than a reentry from an orbital flight. At this speed, the heat shield on the vehicle has to be stronger. 2. The communications systems has to be more powerful. Between Earth and orbit is a couple hundred miles. Between Earth and the Moon is a couple hundred thousand miles. We do this communication all the time, but the Soyuz would have to be modified. It requires a deep space antenna. 3. Anderson indicated that Space Adventures would like to see a bigger window on the Soyuz itself so the participants could have a unique view of the moon as they go around it. It’s currently an eight to 12-inch porthole, but the company would like to see it twice as big.

You will begin your journey to the far side of the moon by first launching aboard a Soyuz spacecraft. Then, a subsequent launch will occur of an unmanned rocket booster. Your spacecraft will rendezvous with this additional system in low-Earth-orbit. The engagement of the two will provide your spacecraft with the required propellant to travel to the moon. Once the firing of the booster is complete, the two systems will separate and you will continue on your majestic journey.
The Adrenalin web site in Australia goes into greater and somewhat differing detail. According to Adrenalin one flight profile, called Direct Staged, is a nine-day mission with a three-day free flight in low Earth orbit and a five-and-one-half-day lunar flight segment. It uses lunar boosters assembled in low Earth orbit and a lunar free-return flight profile, which includes circumnavigation of the moon. (Note that Space Adventures has stated this is a six-day mission.)
Adrenalin goes on to profile the experience: “Your adventure begins when you travel to Star City, Russia, and the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center. As part of an elite group of prospective space travelers, you study the basics of becoming a cosmonaut and train in a Soyuz spacecraft simulator. Space Adventures experienced staff is on-site, ensuring that all your goals for this historic endeavor are met. Pre-launch: Approximately two weeks prior to launch, you and your DSE-Alpha crewmembers travel to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the Republic of Kazakhstan. At this world-famous complex, final launch preparations commence for your launch to low Earth orbit (LEO).

day 1 launch: When launch day arrives, family and friends cheer as you board a Soyuz booster emblazoned with your company logo and launch to orbit for a historic rendezvous with the moon. During the three-day flight, there is much needed time to relax and adapt to the weightlessness of space.
day 2 zenit launch: Back on Earth, final preparations are made as a second vehicle, called the Zenit, is readied for launch. Its payload is a high-energy upper stage called Block DM—the flight-proven engine that will push your Soyuz spacecraft to the moon. With the Block DM safely parked in low Earth orbit, you and your crewmates head for a rendezvous with the upper stage.
day 3 block dm docking: After the Soyuz has docked and all systems are checked, all loose items are secured and you strap yourself in. With the chatter of mission control in your headset, gravity returns to the Soyuz. The thrust from the Block DM engine fires and you accelerate to 24,000 miles per hour. When the fuel is depleted, the latches holding both spacecraft together release, and the Soyuz backs away from the upper stage. With the boost phase complete, you unstrap and look back at the Earth receding below.
day 6 lunar rendezvous: Two days have passed since the lunar boost. Your outstretched palm completely covers the Earth. Your ship enters lunar gravity as the surface brightens and high-definition cameras record the dramatic view of the sunlit far side. Radio communication with Earth fades as the massive moon blocks the link. Like some distant island in a vast ocean, the Earth appears over the horizon. Suddenly, the silence is broken by familiar voices. With the event still fresh in your mind, you try to convey what you have witnessed to those back home.

day 9 earth re-entry: Your commander makes final checks with mission control as gear is sorted and readied for Earth re-entry. You and your crewmembers don space suits, seal off the orbital module and strap into your seats. The Earth looms large again outside and excitement builds as you anticipate being greeted back on the surface.
Now begins your new life as one of the few space pioneers to have journeyed to the moon. The crew will enjoy a spectacular view of the lunar landscape. It is our objective to conduct the mission when the lunar far side is illuminated. The lunar far side is dramatically different from the lunar near side due to the large amount of craters located on that side. The Federal Space Agency of the Russian Federation’s (FSA) goal is to install a large window made of optical quality in the side of the orbital module. The window will help facilitate astronomy and lunar photography during the mission. The size of the window will be approximately 15 inches in diameter and 47.1 inches in circumference. DSE-Alpha mission will take place aboard the modern Soyuz TMA spacecraft. This proven transport vehicle has delivered crews to more than three generations of space stations and supported space expeditions lasting as long as six months. The Soyuz spacecraft and its robotic sister spacecraft, the Progress M, have established a solid performance record in low Earth orbit. However, few people know that the Soyuz was originally designed to support manned lunar missions. The Soyuz can accommodate a crew of two to three and has a habitable volume of 10m3. A comparison (to the volume of a Soyuz) would be to a large SUV. This will be the first manned lunar mission since 19 December 1972. It will be the first ever Russian lunar manned mission using a Soyuz, the first Earth Orbit Rendezvous (EOR) lunar mission, the first manned atmospheric skip of re-entry capsule and the first manned private lunar mission. Who has the sense of exploration and adventure to undertake such a historic mission? Do you want to be the 28th person to circumnavigate/orbit the moon?”

The Adrenalin site adds this information:
fitness and experience
All individuals embarking on a Soyuz spaceflight to the ISS need first to be medically certified for full cosmonaut training by passing Space Adventures’ Orbital Flight Qualification Program

You must be 18 years or older and have the time and commitment to complete the training program and the will to carry out a Spaceflight

Individuals who desire to fly to the Moon need to be certified to begin full cosmonaut training by passing the Space Adventures Orbital Pre-flight Qualification Program to become a cosmonaut candidate

All cosmonaut candidates will train at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre in Star City Russia, located just outside of Moscow

Orbital clients will train extensively on Soyuz TMA and ISS spacecraft systems, study flight operations, experience weightlessness in a zero gravity jet and learn how to live and safely function aboard the ISS
what to bring/wear
You will need to arrange your own flights to Moscow, a Visa and travel insurance
what is supplied
Approximately 3 months of training

8-9 day mission depending on type of booster use with upper-stage (5.5 days in Lunar/Earth transit)

2-3 day approach to the Block-DM (upper-stage)

2.7+ days approach to the moon (Rendezvous/docking for the trans-lunar injection burn. Undocks – Block-DM ejected/destroyed in upper atmosphere of Earth)

Observation of illuminated far side of the moon (Approx 10 minutes at 100-200km above the moon’s surface. Approx 35 minutes at 100-1000km above the moon’s surface)

2.7+ days to return to Earth

Atmospheric skip re-entry (Landing zone near Arkalyk, Kazakhstan)
RSC Energia, funded by Space Adventures, completed the engineering studies for the mission and have said there would be modifications needed to the Soyuz, but they would be based on prior flight-tested designs. This is in line with what the Head of the Russian Human Spaceflight Directorate said in his press conference today.

Source: http://moonandback.com/