International/Military/ Commercial Space news

delft said:

What about the price of such journey? You select a dozen or more airports to travel between. Pay for the adaptations to traffic control, organize the fuel supply at them and provide the people capable of receiving the craft and turn it round. All that has to be ready. It doesn't make sense to tell the customer she can fly in 2.5 hours from NY to Sydney, Australia, as long as she books a week in advance. So to let this work you has to invest in a very expensive network of airport facilities which makes the tickets much more expensive than a flight from one airport to the same airport.

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Nasa's Curiosity rover finds water in Martian soil
Dirt sample reveals two pints of liquid water per cubic feet, not freely accessible but bound to other minerals in the soil
Alok Jha, science correspondent
The Guardian, Thursday 26 September 2013 14.14 EDT
Curiosity rover on Mars
Nasa scientists have confirmed in a paper published in journal Science that Curiosity has found water molecules in Martian soil. Photograph: Nasa/Getty Images
Water has been discovered in the fine-grained soil on the surface of Mars, which could be a useful resource for future human missions to the red planet, according to measurements made by Nasa's Curiosity rover.

Each cubic foot of Martian soil contains around two pints of liquid water, though the molecules are not freely accessible, but rather bound to other minerals in the soil.

The Curiosity rover has been on Mars since August 2012, landing in an area near the equator of the planet known as Gale Crater. Its target is to circle and climb Mount Sharp, which lies at the centre of the crater, a five-kilometre-high mountain of layered rock that will help scientists unravel the history of the planet.

On Thursday Nasa scientists published a series of five papers in the journal Science, which detail the experiments carried out by the various scientific instruments aboard Curiosity in its first four months on the martian surface. Though highlights from the year-long mission have been released at conferences and Nasa press conferences, these are the first set of formal, peer-reviewed results from the Curiosity mission.

"We tend to think of Mars as this dry place – to find water fairly easy to get out of the soil at the surface was exciting to me," said Laurie Leshin, dean of science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and lead author on the Science paper which confirmed the existence of water in the soil. "If you took about a cubic foot of the dirt and heated it up, you'd get a couple of pints of water out of that – a couple of water bottles' worth that you would take to the gym."

About 2% of the soil, by weight, was water. Curiosity made the measurement by scooping up a sample of the Martian dirt under its wheels, sieving it and dropping tiny samples into an oven in its belly, an instrument called Sample Analysis at Mars. "We heat [the soil] up to 835C and drive off all the volatiles and measure them," said Leshin. "We have a very sensitive way to sniff those and we can detect the water and other things that are released."

Aside from water, the heated soil released sulphur dioxide, carbon dioxide and oxygen as the various minerals within it were decomposed as they warmed up.

One of Curiosity's main missions is to look for signs of habitability on Mars, places where life might once have existed. "The rocks and minerals are a record of the processes that have occurred and [Curiosity is] trying to figure out those environments that were around and to see if they were habitable," said Peter Grindrod, a planetary scientist at University College London who was not involved in the analyses of Curiosity data.

Flowing water is once thought to have been abundant on the surface of Mars, but it has now all but disappeared. The only direct sources of water found so far have been as ice at the poles of the planet.

The other papers included x-ray diffraction images of the soil in order to work out the crystalline structure of the minerals on the Martian surface and analysis of a volcanic rock called "Jake_M", which is named after a Nasa engineer. The analysis showed that the rock was similar to a type on Earth known as a mugearite, which is typically found on ocean islands and in rift zones.

Grindrod said that the latest results published by the Nasa team were just the start of the scientific insights that would come from Mars in the next few years. "It's the first flexing of Curiosity's analytical muscles," he said. "Curiosity spent a long time checking out the engineering, instruments and procedures it was going to use – these papers cover just that engineering period. The targets here weren't chosen because of their science goals as such but as good targets to test out the instruments."

Leshin said that, as well as the excitement of exploring a new world for the first time, the increasingly detailed analysis of the Martian surface would be critical information for planning human missions. As well as the water discovery, analysis of the soil has also shown, for example, the presence of a type of chemical called a perchlorate, which is can be toxic to people. "It's only there at a 0.5% level in the soil but it impedes thyroid function," she said. "If humans are there and are coming into contact with fine-grained dust, we have to think about how we live with that hazard. To me it's a good connection between the science we do and the future human exploration of Mars."

She added: "I do think it's inevitable that we'll send people there and so let's do its as smartly as we can. Let's get as smart as we can before we go."

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Orbital Sciences Launches Cargo Capsule for Space Station
Company Hopes to Become Second Commercial Entity to Supply Orbiting Lab
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By ANDY PASZTOR CONNECT
Orbital Sciences Corp. ORB +1.14% launched an unmanned capsule on its maiden voyage to the international space station, hoping to become the second commercial entity to transport cargo to the orbiting laboratory.

The 40-meter Antares rocket, which blasted off without a hitch Wednesday morning from Wallops Island off the Virginia coast, carried the company's Cygnus cargo vehicle, filled with about 680 kilograms of food and other supplies. The mission is intended to demonstrate the capsule's ability to communicate, maneuver and safely link up with the station.

If all goes well, Cygnus will arrive Sunday, remain docked for a month and then fire its rockets to break away from the space station and burn up as the capsule falls through the atmosphere.

The goal is for Orbital Sciences, based in Dulles, Va., to begin regular cargo deliveries to the station as early as December, under a $1.9 billion contract with the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

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Associated Press
The Antares rocket, which blasted off Wednesday morning from Wallops Island off the Virginia coast, carried the company's Cygnus cargo vehicle, filled with about 680 kilograms of food and other supplies.

NASA's drive to outsource such resupply missions already has scored some early successes. Closely held Space Explorations Technologies Corp. of Hawthorne, Calif., last year became the first company to conduct commercial-cargo flights into orbit. SpaceX, as it is called, has garnered world-wide attention for pioneering private deliveries of supplies into space. It now is focused on launching a more powerful booster and developing commercial taxis able to shuttle U.S. astronauts to and from the space station.

For Orbital, which has hit snags with slipped deadlines, budget overruns and years of technical problems, Wednesday's blastoff is the culmination of a more than $500 million bet on commercial cargo service. Private and public investment in the Antares rocket, the capsule and the Virginia launch complex has topped $1 billion.

In addition to building a two-stage launcher using legacy technology that relies on both liquid and solid fuel, Orbital developed the Cygnus capsule as an expendable vehicle with other potential uses besides serving the space station.

"Orbital's extraordinary efforts are helping us fulfill the promise of American innovation to maintain our nation's leadership in space," said NASA chief Charles Bolden Jr. A major test, however, will be whether Orbital is able to maintain the ambitious launch schedule NASA envisions.

Beyond staking Orbital Sciences' reputation and lucrative NASA contract on Wednesday's demonstration flight, David Thompson, the company's chairman and chief executive, has described Antares and its capsule as a catalyst to help transform the company and position it for sustained growth despite shrinking Pentagon space budgets. Mr. Thompson and his team are betting that changes in commercial and civilian satellite projects will allow Antares and Cygnus to take advantage of new markets. A capsule, among other things, could remain in orbit and carry out other missions after leaving the space station.

Best known for focusing on smaller satellites and less-powerful rockets, Orbital Sciences also hopes eventually to become one of the leading global players in building and launching midsize satellites for commercial, military and scientific uses.

The stakes also are high for NASA, which seeks to build on Wednesday's flight to create an alternative space-transportation system partly by using the recently completed East Coast launch complex. NASA aims to outsource transportation into low-earth orbit to husband its resources for more-ambitious robotic and manned missions into deeper space.

Orbital Sciences had a successful test launch of the rocket earlier this year. Cargo missions using its capsule had been supposed to begin in 2011.

Orbital Sciences executives said both of the rocket's stages operated as designed. The main booster shut off at an altitude of about 180 kilometers. Cygnus subsequently separated from the second stage as planned, and the capsule's solar arrays deployed as expected.

The launch prompted loud cheers and clapping in the control room monitoring the rocket's trajectory and systems. A second control room kept track of the capsule.

Write to Andy Pasztor at [email protected]

A version of this article appeared September 19, 2013, on page B3 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Second Startup Sends Cargo to Space Station.

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Soyuz reaches International Space Station in under six hours

26 September 2013 Last updated at 16:24 BST

A joint US-Russian crew which took off from Kazakhstan on Wednesday has reached the International Space Station in less than six hours.

Previous journeys had lasted on average nearly two days.

Two of the Russian cosmonauts plan to take an unlit Winter Olympic torch on one of their spacewalks, to promote the Sochi 2014 Olympics.

Leonid Louneev reports.

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27 September 2013 Last updated at 13:02 ET
Satellite measures Pakistan 'quake island'
By Jonathan Amos
Science correspondent, BBC News
The "quake island" that rose from the sea off Pakistan this week is pictured clearly in a new satellite image.
It was acquired by the French Pleiades high-resolution Earth-observing system, and has enabled scientists to map the muddy mound's precise dimensions.
It is almost circular - 175.5m on the short axis and 160.0m on the long axis, giving a total area of 22,726 sq m.
The island, sited near the town of Gwadar, came up after the 7.7-magnitude tremor in the region.
Scientists say the intense shaking likely disturbed previously stable sediments and gas at the sea floor, which then oozed to the surface rather like a mud volcano.
The feature is not expected to persist. The ocean will erode the soft sediments, like it has with similar quake islands in the past.
The Gwadar mound is reported to be the fourth in the region since 1945, and the third during the last 15 years.
Pleiades is primarily a French national space project. It comprises two satellites that can resolve features on the ground as small as 50cm across.
The pair were built by Astrium, Europe's largest space company; the imaging instrument was supplied by Thales Alenia Space (France).
Pleiades has both a civilian and a military role, and a number of European countries (Austria, Belgium, Spain and Sweden) have part-funded the project to get access to the picture

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TerraN_EmpirE said:

Blue my friend there is a hidden agenda for the epsilon... Its commercial. Japan and India are both trying to get in to the coming corporate space race fallowing the Russians, in using a government space program for commercial ventures. Still if they can pull it off good for them.

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Virgin Galactic Now Aiming for Spaceflight in February
Virgin Galactic is now hoping to get SpaceShipTwo into space on a test flight in February, according to multiple sources who attended the company’s gathering of future astronauts in Mojave on Wednesday.

Virgin Group CEO Richard Branson told about 300 future passengers that February is the new target date for having the six-passenger spacecraft fly above the Karmen line located at an altitude of 100 km (62 miles).

One attendee said that Branson didn’t project a lot of confidence about the February date. Overall, the British billionaire seemed rather subdued during in his opening remarks to attendees, lacking some of the enthusiasm he had shown at previous Virgin Galactic events, sources said.

Others who are familiar with the troubled development of SpaceShipTwo’s hybrid engine were less confident in Branson’s prediction. A flight in February is possible, they said, but it might not occur in 2014.

Virgin Galactic had been hoping to fly SpaceShipTwo into space by the end of this year. After the vehicle’s first powered test flight on April 29, Branson boldly predicted that he and his two children, Sam and Holly, would be on the first commercial flight on Christmas Day.

Branson’s prediction caused a lot of eye rolling by people in Mojave who are familiar with the complexity of flight test. Few people believed it would be possible to complete the test program and obtain regulatory approvals to begin commercial service in less than eight months.

The new plan is for Scaled Composites to complete the test program next year, obtain a launch license from the FAA, and to begin commercial service by the end of 2014.

A spaceflight would be a key milestone in a flight test program being run by Scaled Composites, which built SpaceShipTwo and its WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft.

SpaceShipTwo has made two powered flights to date using hybrid nitrous oxide-rubber engines that have fired for 16 and 20 seconds. Virgin Galactic has never been specific about the length of a full-duration firing, but sources say it exceeds one minute.

The problem is that despite public claims to the contrary, the nitrous oxide-rubber hybrid has never been hot fired on the ground at full duration, sources indicate. And the engine is not powerful enough even when fully fired to get SpaceShipTwo into space with any actual payloads (i.e., six wealthy passengers).

Even as Scaled Composites has pursued the flight test program and Virgin Galactic has issued optimistic flight predictions that commercial flights are only months away, the two companies have been secretly working on alternatives to the nitrous oxide-rubber engine they have been using to explore SpaceShipTwo’s flight envelope.

Sources report that the development of alternative hybrid designs has been running into trouble. An engine that used nitrous oxide and nylon exploded on Scaled Composites test stand on May 17. The nozzle and rocket casing were thrown clear and the test stand was wrecked. The composite tank holding the nitrous oxide did not explode, but it was damaged to the point where it could not be reused.

Scaled said they were testing an experimental, non-flight engine into which they had introduced flaws on that day. Sources say this is true; however, the explosion and wrecked test stand were not part of the test plan.

There has been work done on developing a liquid-fuel engine, which many experts see as a better long-term solution. A hybrid engine must be replaced after each flight, a process that is a delicate, complicated and expensive. A robust, reusable liquid engine would allow SpaceShipTwo to be refueled and fly again the same day.

It is not clear whether a liquid-fuel replacement is in active development at the moment, or how long it might take to get one ready for flight test on a SpaceShipTwo vehicle.

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NBC reality TV show to send winner to space with Virgin Galactic
Photo
12:02pm EDT
By Irene Klotz
HOUSTON (Reuters) - After a decade of casting around for a space-themed show, reality TV producer Mark Burnett has finally found a way to launch his dream.
On Thursday, Burnett, creator of "Survivor" and "The Voice" unveiled a partnership with Virgin Galactic, a U.S. offshoot of Richard Branson's London-based Virgin Group, for a TV series that will send someone to space.
"For the past 10 years I have relentlessly pursued my dream of using a TV show to give an everyday person the chance to experience the black sky of space and look down upon mother Earth," Burnett said in a statement.
Virgin Galactic intends to begin commercial spaceflight services aboard the suborbital SpaceShipTwo next year.
The six-passenger, two-pilot ship, which is undergoing testing in Mojave, California, is designed to fly about 63 miles above Earth and return, giving passengers a few minutes of weightlessness and a view of the planet set against the blackness of space.
About 630 people have put down deposits or purchased tickets for the ride, which now costs $250,000 a person.
The series, called "Space Race," will feature contenders in an unscripted elimination competition. The winner will get a ticket to ride on SpaceShipTwo. Details of the show's format, or when it will air, have not been released.
As part of the deal, Virgin Galactic will give the production team "unprecedented access" to SpaceShipTwo's base at Spaceport American in New Mexico, series backer NBC said in a news release.
(Editing by Peter Cooney)

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Space Firm Says Virginia Stiffed It for $16.5M
By RYAN ABBOTT
ShareThis
RICHMOND, Va. (CN) - The Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority refuses to pay a contractor $16.5 million for improvements to a launch facility that will serve the International Space Station, according to a lawsuit filed in the city's Circuit Court.
According to plaintiff Orbital Sciences Corp., NASA is paying it $1.9 billion to launch supplies to the ISS, and the company chose the Wallops Island MARS (Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport) as its sole launch site.
But in order for this to happen, Virginia had to improve the site.
Unfortunately, Orbital says, and ran into costs overruns that threatened to shut down construction.
To prevent that, the company said it lent the money to the authority in the form of an asset purchase in which Orbital bought various pieces of space equipment, including launch pad hydraulics and transporter vehicles; Under the terms of the agreement, Virginia was buy back the assets upon completion.
But the commonwealth failed to hold its end of the bargain, Orbital says.
"In the last six years, Orbital has invested of over $150 million in Virginia, and total Orbital headcount in the Commonwealth has increased by almost 200 new employees," the company states. "Overall, Orbital has invested a total of $660 million in the development of its Antares rocket and related space system that will deliver cargo to the ISS on nine missions to be flown out of MARS."
All in all, Orbital says it bought $16.5 million in space gear, "but the Commonwealth and Authority have declined to perform their obligations."
In response, the company sued the authority, the state of Virginia, and state Comptroller David Vin Moll for breach of contract seeking an order compelling the parties to buy back the assets - plus interest.
The firm is represented by Hugh Fain III of Spotts Fain of Richmond.

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NASA's Maven mission to Mars is back on track after shutdown holdup
Alan Boyle, Science Editor NBC News
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Image: Maven
NASA / GSFC
An artist's conception shows the Maven probe flying over Mars.
Preparations for the launch of NASA's Maven orbiter to Mars have resumed after the $650 million mission was granted an exception from the federal government's shutdown, in order to protect U.S. property. In this case, the property is sitting on Mars, according to Maven's principal investigator.

"Basically, we're back, full speed," University of Colorado planetary scientist Bruce Jakosky told NBC News on Thursday.

Workers who had been furloughed or locked out are back at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida to resume preparations for a Nov. 18 launch. "We've been able to get back into the facilities where the spacecraft and development team have been working," Jakosky said.

About 250 people are typically involved in the current phase of the mission, but Jakosky couldn't say how many furloughed workers have been called back.

The Maven mission — also known as Mars Atmospheric and Volatile Evolution — is designed to study Mars' upper atmosphere and unlock the mysteries surrounding the Red Planet's loss of water reserves. When the shutdown began on Oct. 1, Jakosky worried that Maven could miss this year's launch opportunity, which extends from Nov. 18 to mid-December. If that happened, the next opportunity wouldn't come along until 2016, due to orbital mechanics.

"If this had gone on into next week, it would have jeopardized the Nov. 18 launch day," Jakosky said.

Relay role considered crucial
Fortunately for Jakosky and his team, NASA Headquarters in Washington determined that Maven's preparations should go ahead on an emergency basis — not because of its scientific objectives, but because of its expected role as a communications relay satellite for the Opportunity and Curiosity rovers on Mars.

"Both Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Odyssey have been acting as communication relays, but they've passed their design lifetime," Jakosky explained. "Maven carries communication equipment to take over that job as necessary. Getting us launched at this opportunity is a way to preserve that ability to communicate."

The Maven team includes NASA personnel at Kennedy Space Center, Goddard Space Flight Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory — as well as contractors at Lockheed Martin and other companies, and non-NASA scientists like Jakosky.

'Bittersweet victory'
Spacecraft operations in support of missions that are under way, ranging from the International Space Station to the Mars Curiosity mission, have continued with skeleton crews despite the shutdown. For the most part, preparations for missions yet to be launched have been suspended. (The James Webb Space Telescope is an exception, because some of its instruments are undergoing crucial cryogenic tests.)

Jakosky said he was relieved to see Maven back on track, but his relief was tempered by concern about others affected by the shutdown. "I'll be honest, there's a little bit of a 'bittersweet victory' thing," he told NBC News, "because we know there are still 800,000 people out there who are still furloughed."

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NASA’s J-2X Engine To Be Mothballed After Testing
By Frank Morring, Jr.
Source: Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

October 04, 2013
NASA’s J-2X engine, once considered the pacing item for the next U.S. human-rated rocket, will go on the shelf after development testing wraps up next year because it will be years before the engine is needed to push humans toward Mars.

While the agency is actively seeking other missions for the heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS) in the planetary science and military arenas, most of the human flights it has in sight for the big new rocket probably can be accomplished with an upper stage powered by the RL-10 engine instead of the J-2X.

“The J-2X for certain [design reference missions] is somewhat overpowered,” said Todd May, NASA’s SLS program manager.

An upgrade of the Saturn V upper-stage engine, the all-cryogenic J-2X generates 294,000 lb. of thrust with its gas-generator cycle. While it almost certainly will be needed to send men and women to Mars, the equally venerable RL-10 is beginning to look like a better power plant for the SLS upper stages that will be needed before that far-off mission.

Congress ordered an SLS able to lift 130 metric tons to low Earth orbit (LEO), which is a generally accepted requirement for launching a Mars mission. But for missions to the Moon, where a lot of Mars-precursor missions are being planned, a 105-ton SLS is probably sufficient, according to Steve Creech, May’s deputy, who is responsible for finding other applications for the SLS.

One way to get to that capability would be with a “dual-use upper stage” carrying three or four RL-10s. All of them would ignite to get the payload — an Orion crew capsule, in-space habitat or lunar lander — into LEO, and then some subset of that number would fire for the trans-lunar injection to send the payload toward the Moon.

NASA hasn’t ruled out using the J-2X for that portion of the trip, but it could be faster to develop the dual-use stage than the originally planned SLS upper stage powered by the J-2X, and a cryogenic propulsion stage (CPS) for getting into lunar orbit.

“What we’ve looked at to try to save costs and accelerate mission capability [is] combining the functions of our upper stage and the CPS so that we just have to have one stage,” Creech says.

Development of the J-2X started under the Bush administration’s Constellation program, which envisioned a human-rated launcher called the Ares I that used a shuttle-derived solid-fuel first stage, and an upper stage powered by the Saturn-heritage J-2X. At the beginning of the Constellation effort, the J-2X was considered the most time-consuming element of the Ares I, even though its Saturn heritage was chosen to minimize development complexity.

Now the engine has been built, using drawings and some hardware retained by NASA and Aerojet Rocketdyne, and is in development testing at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. Those tests are scheduled to end next year, and after that work on the J-2X will halt “until we’re ready” to integrate the engine with an SLS upper stage, probably for the Mars mission, May says.

“Under constrained funding the number of simultaneous developments is limited, and that’s why we’ve essentially ended up with the architecture we did, because we only have the core to develop,” he says, referring to the SLS first stage. “And if you can do a dual-use upper stage you can actually get to a very capable rocket with only one more major development — not an upper stage and then a CPS.”

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Musk lays out plans for reusability of the Falcon 9 rocket
October 3, 2013 by Yves-A. Grondin no alt
SpaceX CEO and Chief Designer Elon Musk has laid out his plans for recovery and reusability of the first stage of the Falcon 9. The debut mission to launch the Cassiope satellite into orbit included a number of events that should help SpaceX recover and possibly even reuse the first stage of the Falcon 9 in 2014.




Two critical recovery burns achieved during the Cassiope mission:

SpaceX have been advancing their ambitions to create a fully reusable launch system since Musk announced his intentions in 2009, prior to expanding on his plans early last year.

Z3The weekend debut of the Falcon 9 v1.1 – also known as the F9-R – providing the first real “space test” of this technology, providing vital data for the forward path.

Recovery of the first stage of the Falcon 9 involves a supersonic retro-propulsion with three engines and a second burn involving the center engine that allows the stage to do a precise and controlled landing. These two critical burns for recovery were initiated during the recent mission that lofted the Cassiope satellite into orbit.

All three engines were fired during the first descent burn and the first stage survived re-entry into the atmosphere.

Musk explained at the post flight press conference that this achievement was significant, given that previously SpaceX’s “first stages always essentially exploded upon re-entering the atmosphere due to the extreme forces they encountered.”

The second burn, involving the center engine, was also initiated during the Cassiope mission and was also successful.

Z4However, despite both descent burns being successful, the stage did not achieve a controlled landing. Because the first stage did not have landing gear on this flight to help stabilize it, the stage ended up spinning to a degree that was greater than what could be controlled with the gas thrusters.

Musk explained that the landing gear on the upgraded Falcon 9 does more than just land the first stage, it also acts to stabilize the stage upon descent much like fins do on an aircraft. The spinning of the first stage centrifuged the propellant and caused the stage to run out of propellant before hitting the water.

“The first stage hit the water relatively hard,” noted Musk. Despite the impact, SpaceX still managed to recover portions of the first stage which includes according to preliminary reports, the inter-stage, a number of the components from the engine bay, and some of the composite overwrap pressure vessels.

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Although the landing of the first stage wasn’t entirely successful, Musk was still thrilled with the results of the recovery attempt.

“The most important thing is that we now believe we have all the pieces of the puzzle (for recovery). If you take the Grasshopper tests, where we were able to do a precision takeoff and landing of a Falcon 9 first stage and you combine it with the results from this flight where we were able to successfully transition from vacuum to hypersonic, through supersonic, through transonic and light the engines all the way through and control the stage all the way through.

“We have all the pieces necessary to achieve a full recovery of the boost stage.”

Next recovery attempt on the CRS-3 flight:

Musk indicated that SpaceX would not attempt to recover the first stage for the SES and Thaicom flights, instead “(for) the next two launches, we are going to gather data from the first stage but we are not going to attempt to recover it because we’ve committed to give the customers on the next two flights maximum performance of the rocket. The next recovery attempt for the first stage will be the fourth flight (CRS-3) of this version.”

Z5Musk indicated that SpaceX would like to have the landing legs on the CRS-3 flight, although they would not postpone the flight for this design change.

“If landing legs end up being delayed for any reason then we won’t hold up the (CRS-3) flight for that,” Musk added. “The schedule for that mission is mostly governed by upgrades to the Dragon spacecraft.”

With Musk indicating the next CRS flight will probably be sometime in February, he also indicated that SpaceX is still debating whether the first stage on CRS-3 “will land with landing legs in the ocean or land with landing legs on land. (But) either way, we do want it to have the landing legs on.”

SpaceX will attempt the recovery of more first stages after the CRS-3 flight, with Musk indicating that SpaceX’s goal is “to recover the first stage on all CRS flights and really on most flights. The next two flights are somewhat of an exception.

Z3A1“When we negotiated these deals (with SES and Thaicom), we didn’t have much bargaining power. It was before we had obviously flown this version of the Falcon 9 successfully. So we kind of agreed to give up all performance on the rocket and not reserve anything for reusability. But going into the future, with future contracts, with a few exceptions, we have reserved enough performance to recover the stage.

“It’s not just the CRS flights, it should be most flights after these next two (flights).”

Musk explained that the actual reuse of a recovered first stage could happen as early at the end of 2014 but that it depends on a number of factors.

“In terms of when we actually re-fly the stage, it’s going to depend on what condition the stage is in and obviously getting customers comfortable with that (i.e., with reusing the first stage). So it’s difficult to say when would actually re-fly it. If things go super well then we would be able to re-fly a Falcon 9 stage before the end of next year. That’s our aspiration.”

Performance hit for reusable rockets:

Musk also addressed the performance hit that results from reserving propellant for landing the first stage.

“If we do an ocean landing (for testing purposes), the performance hit is actually quite small, maybe in the order of 15 percent. If we do a return to launch site landing, it’s probably double that, it’s more like a 30 percent hit (i.e., 30 percent of payload lost).”

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Musk believes that the most revolutionary aspect of the new Falcon 9 is the potential reuse of the first stage “which is almost three-quarters of the cost of the rocket.”

Return to launch site landing – safety and location:

Although a “return to site” landing of the first stage could happen as early as the CRS-3 flight in February, Musk cautioned that SpaceX would only attempt it if it is perfectly safe to do so.

Z44Citing safety as part of the reason why they first wanted to land in the ocean, SpaceX wants to make sure that everything is working properly in the first instance before attempting to land with legs on land. Musk noted that if a return to launch site recovery is made, it would be done over an unpopulated area.

“For any landing area that we would have, the landing ellipse, the sort of error that the stage could encounter would be an unpopulated region,” Musk added. “So we would aim to have a landing site that’s unpopulated with a radius of a couple of miles.”

He also explained that this could be achieved in certain areas at Cape Canaveral and at Vandenberg.

“We have actually been working with Air Force Range Safety and the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) to identify landing locations at Cape Canaveral and we have identified a few. I don’t think that we are quite ready to say what those locations are but they are kind of out on the tip, on the eastern (part) of Cape Canaveral.”

Z6Noting that both the Air Force Range Safety and the FAA which have been quite supportive of their return to launch site landing efforts, Musk added that SpaceX expects to get the required FAA license for a return to site landing. He also explained that the Falcon Heavy will eventually also be able to do return to launch site landings.

“The Falcon Heavy is essentially the Falcon 9 with two additional boost stages as strap on boosters.” For the Falcon Heavy, he added. “once the three boost stages will separate, they will come back and land individually and they will behave just like the Falcon 9 boost stage.

“All three of them will come back hopefully and land on three separate pads and we’ll join them back together for future flight launches.”

Although not specifically mentioned by Musk during the press conference, the testing in Spaceport America of the F9R-1 – the next phase of the Grasshopper program – could have an impact on how soon the return to launch site landing is attempted on an actual flight.

SpaceX intends to test the final phases of the recovery of the first stage of Falcon 9 at Spaceport America at higher altitude than those that have been achieved under the current Grasshopper program (i.e., more than 250m).

As mentioned previously by NASASpaceflight.com on September 25, the F9R-1 test stage was recently undergoing Octaweb Integration operations ahead of engine installation.

(Images: SpaceX)

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Add key test of Dream Chaser space plane to list of shutdown casualties
Leonard David Space.com
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Oct. 15, 2013 at 5:10 PM ET

Test
Carla Thomas / NASA
NASA partner Sierra Nevada Corp. performs a captive-carry test of the Dream Chaser spacecraft at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif.
A key test flight of a new private space plane that aims to be a next-generation transportation vehicle for astronauts has become another casualty of the ongoing U.S. government shutdown.

The new commercial space plane, called Dream Chaser, was slated to make a major free-flight test slated on Oct. 5 at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, located inside Edwards Air Force Base in California. But because the government shutdown has shuttered most of NASA, Dream Chaser's debut unmanned drop test is now on hold.

"Our first vehicle is primed to take its test," said Mark Sirangelo, corporate vice president and head of Sierra Nevada Corp.'s (SNC) Space Systems based in Louisville, Colo. "Right now we're basically on final, waiting for clearance to go ahead." [Photos of Dream Chaser, America's New Space Plane]

SNC is one of three companies — along with Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX ) and The Boeing Co. — funded under NASA’s Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) initiative to develop a next-generation crew transportation vehicle. Of the trio of spacecraft, Dream Chaser is the only reusable, lifting body vehicle with runway landing capability.

A winged spacecraft, Dream Chaser is designed to support space station crew transportation for NASA, international and commercial space applications. The space plane is designed to launch seven astronauts and cargo on missions to and from low-Earth orbit.

TEst1
NASA
Dream Chaser, a commercial space plane built by Sierra Nevada Corp.'s Space Systems, is seen at NASA's Dryden Flight research Center located inside Edwards Air Force Base in California.
Ground, captive-carry tests
SNC engineers have put the Dream Chaser prototype through a series of ground and captive-carry tests to set the stage for the now-stalled unpiloted approach-and-landing drop.

"It has been a lot of work," Sirangelo told Space.com.

The first Dream Chaser test vehicle has been at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center since mid-May. It has already completed ground-based taxi and tow tests, evaluated the performance of its main landing gear and completed a flight test readiness review.

That was followed by a successful two-hour captive-carry test of Dream Chaser at Dryden on Aug. 22. During that test, the craft dangled under an Erickson Air-Crane helicopter.

That assessment cleared several of the Dream Chaser systems and sub-systems prior to the upcoming free-flight test, Sirangelo told Space.com. Software was also tested that included flight computer, guidance, navigation and control, the vehicle's control surfaces, and the landing gear and nose skid, which was deployed during the helicopter hoisting flight.

Dream Chaser team in limbo
The closing of Dryden due to the government shutdown has meant some 50 to 60 Dream Chaser team members being placed in limbo, Sirangelo said.

Test2
NASA / Ken Ulbrich
The Dream Chaser flight vehicle is readied for 60 mph tow tests at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center on Aug. 2
"Not having access to the NASA facilities certainly delays the execution of parts of the program," he added. "But there’s nothing we can do about it. I don't think anybody can do anything about it right now."

Even a government back-to-work go-ahead would mean readying the Dream Chaser and the team for the drop test, a situation that would likely take a week, Sirangelo said.

"But it's not about the vehicle anymore. It's about the logistics of flying," Sirangelo added. "This was not on my contingency list. I thought I had thought of everything."

Sirangelo said Dream Chaser went to Dryden and Edwards because it was the right place to be and that's where America should test its space planes. "But we didn't think it would come back and haunt us," he said.

Dream Chaser milestones and money
Under the NASA CCiCap, the Dream Chaser work doesn't mean the private company is billing NASA every month for its time on the project.

"We get paid later when we complete the milestone," Sirangelo said. "We're funding more time, if you will, on the money."

On an upbeat note, Sirangelo said that nobody is thinking the government shutdown will go on forever. "It's just a delay (of) a few weeks in my mind."

Furthermore, Sirangelo said that SNC is not standing still and is busy at work on future Dream Chaser plans.

"Things have gone well and we're ready to fly … and we expect to be flying this year," he said.

Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is former director of research for the National Commission on Space and is co-author of Buzz Aldrin's new book "Mission to Mars – My Vision for Space Exploration" published by National Geographic. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

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OCTOBER 16, 2013
GRASSHOPPER COMPLETES HALF-MILE FLIGHT IN LAST TEST

On Monday, October 7th, Grasshopper completed its highest leap to date, rising to 744m altitude, hovering and returning back to the launch pad. The test lasted 78.8 seconds and was conducted at SpaceX’s rocket development facility in McGregor, TX. The video is filmed from a single camera hexacopter drone, getting closer to the stage than in any previous flight.

Grasshopper is a 10-story Vertical Takeoff Vertical Landing (VTVL) vehicle designed to test the technologies needed to return a rocket back to Earth intact. While most rockets are designed to burn up on atmosphere reentry, SpaceX rockets are being designed not only to withstand reentry, but also to return to the launch pad for a vertical landing. The Grasshopper VTVL vehicle represents a critical step towards this goal.

Grasshopper consists of a Falcon 9 rocket first stage tank, Merlin 1D engine, four steel and aluminum landing legs with hydraulic dampers, and a steel support structure.

This was the last scheduled test for the Grasshopper rig; next up will be low altitude tests of the Falcon 9 Reusable (F9R) development vehicle in Texas followed by high altitude testing in New Mexico.

During the most recent Falcon 9 flight, SpaceX successfully initiated two engine relights of the rocket’s first stage and recovered portions of the stage after atmospheric reentry. Along with the Grasshopper tests, this further informs our efforts toward achieving full recovery of the Falcon 9 first stage.

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SpaceX rocket could see first Spaceport America launch in December
By Diana Alba Soular

[email protected] @AlbaSoular on Twitter

POSTED: 10/16/2013 05:50:38 PM MDT


Robin Zielinski Sun-News Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX president and chief operating officer, meets with visitors after speaking on Wednesday at the International Symposium of Personal and Commercial Spaceflight at the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum.
LAS CRUCES >> A SpaceX rocket could have its first test flight from Spaceport America by the end of the year, the CEO of the company said Wednesday during a yearly space conference in Las Cruces.

The launch could happen around late December, said Gwynne Shotwell, president and CEO of SpaceX, one of the biggest names in the emerging commercial space industry.

Until now, the vehicle -- dubbed Grasshopper -- has been in development at a facility in McGregor, Texas. But the company is limited in what it can do there.

At Spaceport America, the reusable rocket will fly to a much higher altitude, traveling at higher speeds, Shotwell said.

"You just can't do that at that particular location in Texas," she said.

In May, New Mexico officials announced a three-year agreement to lease land and facilities at Spaceport America to SpaceX for the project.

The Grasshopper rocket had its final Texas test flight earlier this month. Shotwell showed a video clip of that launch during a presentation to attendees at the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight. The footage drew a round of applause from the audience.

Typically, a launching rocket burns up in the atmosphere, but SpaceX's 10-story rocket is being designed to launch, fly and then land near its launch pad.

Shotwell said the company selected New Mexico's spaceport for launches partly "because the business environment was very good for us to come here."

"They did a lot of work and were really accommodating to bring us here," she said.

Also, Shotwell said, the "way the land is laid out and the population"

give "the ability to do all sorts of really extraordinary testing that you can't really do in many other locations."

Shotwell said about 25 of SpaceX's more than 3,000 employees will be based at New Mexico, temporarily, for the start of the project's work at the spaceport.

Asked by a reporter whether the launch would be open to the media, Shotwell she didn't immediately know. But she said it would be noticeable, either way.

"You'll see it," she said emphatically.

The conference got underway in earnest Wednesday after a kick-off community luncheon a day earlier. Investors, executives from spaceflight companies, some technical experts and space enthusiasts all roamed the meeting rooms and halls of the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum in southeast Las Cruces.

Clayton Mowry, president of Arianespace Inc., described the event as "hand-crafted." He said it's a "different kind of conference in a lot of ways."

"There's lots of things I can learn here," said Mowry, whose company has been in the launch business for about 30 years.

Mowry said Arianespace launches mainly communications satellites.

The federal shutdown kept at least two scheduled speakers from the lineup Tuesday. Bill Gertsenmaier, NASA associate administrator for human explorations and operations, didn't present, as previously was planned. Organizers had to adjust the schedule.

Symposium Chair Patricia Hynes said about 230 people attended Tuesday. In a news release, Hynes said "attendance numbers this year have not been significantly affected by the shutdown," evidence that the commercial space industry is becoming more robust and not relying only on the government for support.

Alan Hale of Cloudcroft, co-discoverer of Hale-Bopp Comet, was among attendees. He said he was involved in a group including the late aerospace advocate Len Sugerman of Las Cruces that first proposed the idea of a spaceport for southern New Mexico. ISPCS attracts space businesses to visit New Mexico, which is beneficial, he said.

"We're at the center of a new industry," he said.

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OCTOBER 14, 2013
UPGRADED FALCON 9 MISSION OVERVIEW

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On Sunday, Sept. 29th, SpaceX successfully completed the demonstration mission of its upgraded Falcon 9 rocket, delivering the CASSIOPE, CUSat, DANDE and POPACS satellites to their targeted orbits. All of the satellite owners are in contact with their spacecraft and are reporting nominal operations.





This was the first Falcon 9 launch using SpaceX’s new 17 foot diameter fairing, designed and built in house by SpaceX. The fairing separates using pneumatic pushers instead of explosives and is large enough to fit a city bus. This was also the first launch from SpaceX’s newly refurbished launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base, and the first demonstration of a number of technologies on the upgraded vehicle.



On this mission, Falcon 9 lifted off with nine Merlin 1D engines, generating 1.3 million pounds of thrust at liftoff and increasing to 1.5 million pounds of thrust as it approached the vacuum of space—nearly twice the thrust than when previously powered by the Merlin 1C. The engines were configured in a more robust engine support structure called the Octaweb, which is easier to manufacture and improves the vehicles reliability. To fuel the more powerful engines, SpaceX extended the propellant tanks by approximately 60%. The upgraded vehicle featured a triple-redundant avionics system similar to that used on Dragon, providing a single-fault tolerant architecture. A new stage separation system reduced the number of connection points from 12 to 3, and the vehicle also flew with a stronger heat shield that allows the rocket to reenter Earth’s atmosphere and eventually land propulsively.



The flight proceeded according to plan, with a nominal first-stage flight and shutdown 2 minutes and 41 seconds after launch. Stage separation occurred at 2 minutes and 45 seconds, with MVac ignition following 7 seconds later. SpaceX's new fairing separated at approximately 3 minutes 32 seconds into launch. Nine minutes and 2 seconds into flight, the upper stage engine shut down. Approximately 14 minutes into flight, CASSIOPE was deployed directly at its target orbit of 325x1500km, 81 deg inclination. Each system performed as expected and all payloads were delivered to their intended destinations.


View from the onboard rocket cam looking down the first stage.



First stage separates 2 minutes and 45 seconds into the flight, prepares to reenter the Earth's atmosphere


Merlin Vacuum engine on the second stage ignites 7 seconds after stage separation



SpaceX's new fairing separates approximately 3 minutes and 32 seconds into launch, preparing for payload deployment


Nine minutes and 2 seconds into flight, the upper stage engine shuts down in preparation for payload deployment

Following separation of the last payload, SpaceX attempted an internal milestone of relighting the second stage. Conditions appeared satisfactory for relight of the upper stage engine as the stage flew over Antarctica. The engine initiated ignition, with pressure rising in the thrust chamber to about 400 psi, but the flight computer sensed conditions did not meet criteria and it aborted the ignition. SpaceX believes it understands the issue which didn’t involve anything fundamental, rather a need to iron out some of the differences between operating the engine on the ground versus in a vacuum. SpaceX has actually relit the Merlin engine in ground testing a dozen times in some cases and SpaceX is confident it can make the necessary adjustments before the next flight.

Despite reports to the contrary, the Falcon 9 second stage remained intact and healthy following spacecraft separation. It takes a few days to get the data from the Air Force Satellite Control Network into the SpaceX data system for review, but the data confirms the stage passed over Hawaii from approximately 1748 to 1754 Universal Time (10:48-10:54 PDT), roughly 1 hr 48 minutes after launch, starting into our second orbit. SpaceX still had power on the second stage, and the transmitters were left on to drain the batteries (standard procedure).

Though not a primary mission objective, SpaceX was also able to initiate two engine relights on the first stage. For the first restart burn, we lit three engines to do a supersonic retro propulsion, which we believe may be the first attempt by any rocket stage. The first restart burn was completed well and enabled the stage to survive reentering the atmosphere in a controlled fashion.



SpaceX then lit the center engine for a single engine burn. That relight also went well, however we exceeded the roll control authority of the attitude control thrusters. This particular stage was not equipped with landing gear which could have helped stabilize the stage like fins would on an aircraft. The stage ended up spinning to a degree that was greater than we could control with the gas thrusters on board and ultimately we hit the water relatively hard.

However, SpaceX recovered portions of the stage and now, along with the Grasshopper tests, we believe we have all the pieces to achieve a full recovery of the boost stage.

This launch also marked the first of three certification flights needed to certify Falcon 9 to fly missions for the U.S. Air Force under the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program. When Falcon 9 is certified, SpaceX will be eligible to compete for all National Security Space (NSS) missions.

The next few months remain busy for SpaceX and the upgraded Falcon 9. We are currently preparing to launch our first geosynchronous transfer orbit mission out of Cape Canaveral with SES-8 followed by Thaicom and our next trip to the space station in the early part of next year.

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How Virgin Galactic Private SpaceShipTwo Will Launch Science Flights
by Tanya Lewis, Staff Writer Space.com | October 19, 2013 10:15am ETSoon, Virgin Galactic could be ferrying more than tourists to space on its suborbital flights.

The company that aims to be the world's first commercial "spaceline" also plans to give scientists and educators the chance to fly experiments aboard SpaceShipTwo, its latest suborbital space plane. The first public flight is slated for December 25 and commercial service is set to begin in 2014.

"We started building SpaceShipTwo with space tourism in mind, but we knew from the start that the same vehicles, the same mission and the same staff could be used for science," said William Pomerantz, vice president for special projects at Virgin Galactic.The company will offer two kinds of research flights: Researchers can either fly along with their experiments, or send them up on dedicated payload flights. For the latter, the passenger seats will be removed, making room for a payload of up to 1,300 lbs.(600 kilograms). [See photos of SpaceShipTwo's amazing 2nd powered flight]Suborbital flights will provide three to four minutes of high-quality microgravity, Pomerantz said. That's much longer than the roughly 30 seconds aboard parabolic aircraft such as the Zero-G plane, and is "a good stepping stone to the International Space Station," Pomerantz said.

The cost to fly an experiment will depend on its size and mass, but priceswill start at $50,000. Researchers will pay an additional $250,000 per person to fly — the same price space tourists will pay.

Pomerantz, a graduate of Harvard University, the NASA Academy, and the International Space University, said he was frustrated by how few opportunities researchers had to fly their experiments in microgravity. Often, "you only get one shot," he said. Virgin Galactic hopes to change that.

Researchers who fly aboard SpaceShipTwo could include academics, private companies, NASA centers and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), among others.One of Virgin Galactic's primary science clients will be NASA's flight opportunities program. Researchers who apply to the program could be funded to fly with their experiments on SpaceShipTwo. The arrangement is the first time that NASA has contracted with a commercial partner to provide spaceflights on suborbital spacecraft, according to a Virgin Galactic statement.

SpaceShipTwo will carry six passengers up past 328,000 feet altitude (100 kilometers), the point where astronaut wings are awarded.SpaceShipTwo will carry six passengers up past 328,000 feet altitude (100 kilometers), the point where astronaut wings are awarded. See how Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo works in this SPACE.com infographic.
Credit: Karl Tate, SPACE.com contributorView full size image
In developing equipment for its science flights, Virgin has adhered to existing standards and common equipment. "We wanted to make sure we're not reinventing the wheel," Pomerantz said.

In addition to human-run experiments, SpaceShipTwo flights will support autonomous experiments that provide a view through the spaceship's windows. Virgin Galactic is looking at ways of mounting experiments on the outside of the spacecraft, to allow for atmospheric sampling, for example.

Virgin Galactic also intends to bring educators on its flights to do science outreach.

For its tourist flights, Virgin Galactic has accepted nearly $80 million in deposits from about 640 individuals who wish to fly to space. SpaceShipTwo had its second powered test flight on Sept. 5.

On Oct. 3, the company announced a deal with NBC to create a TV series called "Space Race," in which participants can compete to win a flight on SpaceShipTwo.

Virgin Galactic's first suborbital spacecraft, SpaceShipOne, won the $10 million Ansari X Prize for being the world's first private team to launch a reusable manned spacecraft into space twice within two weeks.

Follow Tanya Lewis on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on SPACE.com.

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TerraN_EmpirE said:

Commercial
Dream Chaser is undergoing a bit of reschedualing on October5 she was dated for a drop test at a USAF base then the shutdown happened.

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