The European Space Agency has set the maiden flight of its new light launcher, Vega, for 13 February - four days later than had been announced two weeks ago and perilously close to the point when the flight will have to be scrubbed to make way for a 9 March Ariane 5 launch to deliver ESA's third Automated Transfer Vehicle robotic supply ship to the International Space Station.

ESA's launch facility in Kourou, French Guiana could handle both flights more or less simultaneously, but the two rockets will follow similar trajectories and thus share the same set of ground stations, including some tracking equipment aboard ships that are today in place for the Vega launch but must be repositioned before the ATV flight. Traffic to the ISS is heavy, so 9 March - give or take a day for normal launch delays - is a non-negotiable slot.

If Vega cannot fly before Ariane 5, it will get a new date in late March or April.

Historical data shows that fully 60% of maiden launches end in failure, but ESA is determined to take every precaution for a success. At this time last year, ESA had hoped to make the Vega flight before the close of 2011, but eventually settled on 26 January 2012 - the key being to find a date in between the first-ever Soyuz flight from Kourou (which flew as planned on 20 October) and the ATV launch on 9 March.

Vega has been nine years in the works and will give ESA exceptional flexibility in its operations. The rocket's sweet spot is to place a 1.5T payload into a 750km orbit, ideal for Earth observation or scientific missions. Soyuz can loft 3T to the very high geosynchronous orbits - its first Kourou payload was a pair of Galileo navigation satellites. Ariane 5 is much bigger, ideal for up to 10T to geosynchronous orbits or heavy loads to the Space Station.

More on Vega:

-first payload

-ambitious technology

-ESA's plans for 2012

The preliminary report on Phobos-Grunt, the Russian Mars probe that crashed into the Pacific Ocean, has been released. The report's findings are that the main flight control computer reset before engine firing due to heavy charged particle interaction with the computer chips. The idea is suspect enough -- shielding electronics from such particles was a lesson learned early on, and not one that any space programme is likely to repeat.
If you accept Roscosmos' version of events, such a greivous error may be due to substandard or even counterfeit chips. As detailed by Anatoly Zak of Russian Space Web, more likely the fault is a basic design error compounded by lack of testing.

Counterfeit parts are an oft-found, little-discussed reality of aerospace, found in everything from active commercial airliners to brand-new military aircraft. This may be, however, the first time a counterfeit part has made its way into space.

WILL X-37B MINISHUTTLE SPY ON CHINA'S TIANGONG 1 STATION?  MAYBE - BUT NOT YET

Analysis by David Todd

The U.S. Air Force mini-shuttle mission X-37B/OTV 2 (Flight 1), which was launched in March 2011, had its 9 month mission unexpectedly extended at the end of 2011. The magazine of the British Interplanetary Society, Spaceflight, edited by David Baker, came to the conclusion that the U.S. Air Force mini space plane may have a secondary in-space reconnaissance role to spy on China's manned space programme in addition to its suspected Earth observation role.  

Artist's impression of the X-37B spacecfraft with its payload bay doors open and its solar array deployed.  Courtesy: Boeing

The conclusion was reached after amateur watchers noted the similarity in its orbital parameters (inclination, apogee, perigee) to that of China's Tiangong 1 small space station which was recently used for China's successful unmanned Shenzhou 8 docking tests.  Spaceflight speculated that the mission thus may be being used for intelligence gathering on the Chinese space station. Other orbital analysts disagree, noting that for long term observation their orbits would really have to be in the same plane and that they are currently more or less perpendicular to each other. 

For their planes to line up, the two orbits have to have the same inclination - which is the case at circa 42.8 degrees - and have the same right ascension of the ascending node (RAAN) - they are currently about 90 degrees apart.  The RAAN is the angular location of the point where the satellite crosses the equator going from south to north as measured from a fixed point in space (First Point of Aries).   

Nevertheless, all may not be lost for this spying theory.  While an engine firing could be made to alter the X-37B's orbital plane, this would be probably too costly in terms of fuel use.  More likely is to use the small differences in their two orbits' parameters (apogee, perigee) to allow their two orbital planes to slowly merge using the differences in their natural orbital precession rates, which are caused by the irregular/oblate shape of the Earth.    While time consuming, the Iridium communications satellite constellation moves its satellites from plane to plane in this way.  As such, with their orbital planes lined up, it would be relatively simple making minor altitude changes to allow X-37B to get into a close observing position near Tiangong 1.

The Tiangong 1 station is expected to receive a manned Shenzhou visit later this year.  The opportunity to observe this docking is probably too good to miss for the US intelligence establishment.  Thus Hyperbola expects that X-37B/OTV 2 (FLIGHT 1) will be used to monitor any manned docking when it occurs.  The proof of this will be if it lines up its orbital plane with Tiangong 1 as described.

 

The general public, especially reporters, are not generally allowed anywhere near sensitive Russian facilities. Fortunately, a blogger snuck into an Energomash facility and took extensive pictures of where rocket engines are tested.

NASA is returning the commercial crew development programme (CCDev) to its original contracting mechanism, the Space Act Agreement (SAA), after indicating otherwise for several months.

In a 15 December announcement, NASA deputy administrator William Gerstenmaier announced the agency would continue to use SAAs instead of federal acquisition regulations (FARs) it had planned to use.

The FAR vs. SAA battle has been ongoing for some time, and received no small amount of press, but for what might be considered a minor issue it actually has an outsize impact.

FAR is the standard way the government purchases goods and services. They allow NASA to describe exactly what it wants, when it wants it and how the thing should be built. Penalties can be imposed if the contracted firm can't deliver the goods on time.

SAAs, on the other hand, are much more flexible. Under a funded SAA - several unfunded ones have been signed - NASA can't dictate standards or process, just award money when certain actions are deemed completed by both NASA and the contractor. For CCDev, NASA decided to award money based on a checkpoint system: the contractor gets NASA money for completing certain tasks, finishing wind tunnel testing, for example, or completing a component review.

 The companies, of course, much prefer SAAs to FAR. It makes things less expensive, as they don't necessarily have to built to NASA's standards, allows greater leeway for payments, and generally makes government interactions easier.

 Gerstenmaier said that NASA decided to return to SAAs due to budget concerns. CCDev was awarded just over $400 million in the latest budget, well under the $850 million that President Obama requested. Further cuts are possible as the government struggles with mounting financial difficulties, an ever-increasing deficit resulting in increasing budget pressure.

After firing from Spaceport America in New Mexico, Armadillo's Stig-A successfully flew to 137,000 ft. Stig-A is now nearly halfway to the Karman Line, the arbitrary line that marks the official transition from atmosphere to space. Of course, there is a video

Armadillo, a tiny but driven company, has for years been building small rockets with the goal of suborbital flight. If they haven't quite made it, they're certainly well on their way.

Brussels signalled its intention to overcome budget crises and realise Europe's goal of an independent, civilian-controlled satellite navigation service with a proposal to earmark €7 billion to guarantee completion of the Galileo constellation and its auxiliary EGNOS enhancement service and their operation through 2020.

The first two Galileo spacecraft launched in October as part of a fast-track plan for near global coverage from 22 or 24 satellites by 2014, financed by €500 million cost savings agreed earlier this year.

But, said European Commission vice president for industry Antonio Tajani, if member states approve the proposed extra budget, the full complement of 27 active satellites and three orbiting spares will be deployed by 2018-19: "The increase of our know-how in satellite navigation technology and service will significantly support European industry in these difficult times."

The Commission also wants to ensure that another of its space priorities, the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) programme, is realised. Brussels reckons the programme needs €5.8 billion for the 2014-20 period, and its proposal is to establish a specific GMES fund, outside the European Union  modelled on the European Development Fund with GDP-based contributions from all 27 European Union member states

The GMES plan is to gather data from sensors in space, on land, on sea and in the air to create maps, reports, targeted alerts, etc.  The idea is to carefully monitor climate and other Earth conditions and both anticipate, and improve response to, change.

Disaster response is another objective. As Tajani puts it: "In order to respond to ever growing challenges at global level, Europe needs a well-coordinated and reliable Earth observation system of its own."

The thrust of all these programmes is to give Europe self-sufficiency in space-based capabilities. As yet there is no clear move to put hard cash behind another stated objective, to dramatically enhance Europe's space situational awareness (SSA) capability, though the European Space Agency is actively working to define the requirements and a 2012-13 start on a system that could cost €600-700 million over its first five years may be feasible, again pending budgets.

A European SSA system - of a single radar installation somewhere in Europe supplemented by some 20 optical telescopes at four sites equally spaced near the Equator - would be comparable to, and inter-operative with, the USA's system.

The objective is to track debris and monitor solar weather, two hazards which do €332 million ($480 million) in damage to European assets annually. Orbiting debris is a serious problem; earlier this year astronauts on the International Space Station had to take cover in the station's evacuation pods to await passage of a sizeable chunk.

But there is another concern, which will be a focus of Europe's SSA system. So-called near-Earth objects are a hazard of life in the solar system, as evidenced last month with the passage of an aircraft carrier-sized asteroid at a distance closer than the Moon. Such a chunk of debris would have unleashed a blast equal to a 4,000 megaton nuke had it hit the Earth.

No big blocks have been identified that might hit Earth over the next century. That's a good thing, too, as more than one mass extinction in Earth's long geologic history are believed to have been set off by asteroid impacts. Scientists are actively discussing methods of diverting catastrophe, there is as yet no feasible scheme to save us from the dinosaurs' fate.