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The Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC) has produced this video about near Earth objects, asteroids or comets in other words, and planetary defence

According to SGAC: "First conceived at the 2008 Space Generation Congress, the intention of the documentary is to convey non-exaggerated facts about the dangers we face from space impacts. It also provides a way for students and young professionals to get involved with planetary defence by promoting the 'Future of Planetary Defence' conference which is planned to be held in Romania in 2011. This conference will precede the 2011 Planetary Defence Conference and will be designed to allow a platform for the younger attendees to openly discuss their opinions."

No, not that Ares but the Aerial Regional-scale Environmental Surveyor, a 6.71m (22ft) wingspan aircraft that would fly through the Martian atmosphere to study its surface chemistry  


credit: NASA / caption: This is a NASA Destination Tomorrow Techwatch video

Ares is to be the subject of a NASA Langley Research Center "assessment [that] is focused on conducting scientific exploration of the planet Mars using Ares"

Martlet 0 ground launch from Cambridge University Spaceflight on Vimeo.

Care of Clark Lindsey's Hobbyspace this blog has been kept up to date over the years on JP Aerospace's high altitude balloon work and various US amateur rocket projects so it was a bit of a surprise to come across some students from the UK's University of Cambridge doing both with a similar aim to the Aeronautics and Cosmonautics Romanian Association (ARCA), namely the balloon launched rocket. While ARCA has human spaceflight ambitions the UK students envisage an unmanned flight test capability 

Nova 5 - Close to apogee from Cambridge University Spaceflight on Vimeo.

So the blogosphere is getting all worked up about an article run by Space News and authored by two former senior European Space Agency launcher officials that attacks sub-orbital tourism and hopes for commercial orbital transport

Hyperbola stresses the word former as it is clear that ESA's leadership does not share these views. The organisation has a policy on space tourism that could see ESA provide training, the agency has managed European Union studies about sub-orbital transport and the agency has even gone as far as helping prospective companies with their business plans and declaring that sub-orbit travel has a low (relatively speaking) carbon footprint. Former European astronauts like space tourism too

Despite the recent publicity about more Ares V variants being the subject of NASA studies a little bit of good news for the Shuttle derived heavy lift crowd eeked out this week in the latest edition of Johnson Space Center's 8th Floor News


credit: NASA / caption: can it compete with Ares V lite?

The 8th Floor News says "Briefing included hardware and machining tools at [Michoud Assembly Facility] that are ready for excess.  [External tank manufacturing] Hardware will not be removed until the Agency heavy lift vehicle direction is better understood."

Hyperbola understands that the hardware is now to stay until a notional date of March 2010 but that has no bearing on the actual decision timeframe that the Obama administration will follow

So much for Floridian Senator Bill Nelson's ideas about a late November Obama spaceflight vision announcement

Whatever the next US human rated spacecraft is it is likely it will be able to use the International Berthing and Docking Mechanism (IBDM) that has been under development by NASA and the European Space Agency for more than two years now. The US Congress even directed NASA to develop such a mechanism with all space faring nations


credit: Geert Smet / caption: earlier US work has informed the European studies

Belgian company Verhaert Space is ESA's prime for the European work on this IBDM and at the CEAS 2009 European air and space conference in Manchester, Geert Smet University of Leuven graduate student spoke of his work that contributed to the ESA studies

His presentation revealed that the IBDM's origins is in the cancelled X-38 programme and that now the specification for the mechanism means it can dock or berth together vehicles as "small" as 5,000kg or as large as 80,000kg but the nominal spacecraft mass will be 21,500kg - enough for ESA's Automated Transfer Vehicle or the Orion crew exploration vehicle

The planned Chinese space station is to be 60,000kg in mass. Or is it that 80,000kg would nicely suit the modules for a nuclear powered Mars ship?

credit: Roscosmos / caption: MRM 2 was launched before MRM 1

Go here for NASA's picture of the Mini-Research Module (MRM) 2 "Poisk" module that docked with the Russian International Space Station segment Zvezda's zenith docking port on 12 November. In the photo you can only really see the propulsion module

According to the US space agency Poisk is a Russian word that can mean search, seek or explore while you can read about Poisk's arrival and the fact that it it delivered 750kg (1,650lb) of cargo here at the Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) website

Go here for a picture of MRM 2 under construction. Roscosmos says of the Poisk, "Its original name was Docking Module 2 (Stykovochniy Otsek 2 (SO-2)), as it is almost identical to Pirs already on the station. It will be added to the zenith port of the Zvezda module, and will serve as an additional docking port for Soyuz and Progress spacecraft and as an airlock for spacewalks. Poisk will also provide extra space for scientific experiments, and provide power-supply outlets and data-transmission interfaces for two external scientific payloads to be developed by the Russian Academy of Sciences."

Poisk will be joined by MRM 1 in May 2010 when Space Shuttle Atlantis delivers it, a mission that was previously scheduled for April 2010 and using the Discovery orbiter. The arrival of MRM2 marks a new phase in Russia's contribution to the ISS

This week Hyperbola is off to the Oort cloud again for some R&R but will return with a fiery re-entry on Monday 16 November

credit Flight / caption: Are we looking at the future shape of China's unmanned cargo resupply spacecraft?

This 1:10 scale model of China's manned space engineering programme's Tiangong spacelab docked to a Shenzhou spacecraft was exhibited at the 60th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Daejeon, Korea in October

While talking to Chinese space programme officials in Daejeon Hyperbola was told about the cargo spacecraft that will be developed from the Tiangong spacelab, of which three could fly over the next ten years. China will use them to test technologies for rendezvous and docking, life support and experiment equipment destined for the space station  

See the cargo spacecraft design and in-orbit space station assembly pictures and video in the extended portion of this blog post 

credit: Virgin Galactic / caption: why the straigth wing and v-tail?

This design for Virgin Galactic's mini satellite launching rocket LauncherOne was shown by the company's small satellite launch general manager Adam Baker at the 60th International Astronautical Congress in Daejeon, Korea in October. For a more colourful LauncherOne design click through to the extended portion of this blog post