April 2008 Archives

credit: JAXA

Jeffrey Bezos of Amazon and Blue Origin fame better get a move on with his New Shepard vehicle or the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will be putting him in the shade

Above is an artist's impression of the proposed JAXA reusable vertical take-off, vertical landing sounding rocket that would travel to 100km (185nm) and back for microgavity experiments. But the experiments must be pretty big, just look at the tanker truck next to it! The rocket is a follow on to JAXA's Reusable Rocket Vehicle Tests from 2001 and to get more detail on the new VTVL booster click through to the extended part of this posting

credit: JAXA

This (pictured above) is the European Space Agency's Intermediate Experimental Vehicle (IXV) and it is being proposed as a test flight vehicle for the ESA/Russian Federal Space Agency Crew Space Transportation System (CSTS). The IXV would be launched by the new European Vega rocket, which is to have its maiden flight from French Guiana next year. These pictures, taken of the presentation made by ESA's Giorgio Tumino at the 15th AIAA international space planes, hypersonic systems and technologies conference, show that the IXV mission is now being considered as an early test flight for CSTS

credit: CIRA

This is a Crew Space Transportation System concept from an Italian Aerospace Research Center, aka CIRA, presentation and shows a biconic capsule-like design at the bottom of the picture highlighted by a red circle

Speaking to a Thales Alenia Space manager the other week about CSTS and other matters I was told that biconic was still in the trade space. But can anyone guess what the conical capsule is that is attached to what looks like the International Space Station's Node 3 but with a very odd looking docking system - could it be ATLAS? For the space tourism stuff, click on...

For those of you who don't know Kurd Lasswitz (you'll need to read German for this link) is known as the father of German science fiction and was a contemporary of the UK's Herbert George (H.G.) Wells

While the European Space Agency's first cargo spaceship, its Automated Transfer Vehicle named Jules Verne, successfully reboosts the International Space Station's altitude the second of what is five planned ATVs is being constructed but is as yet unnamed

caption: This is ATV-1 Jules Verne during its processing
credit: ESA

I contacted ESA's ATV programme manager, John Ellwood (who is British), and he said: "ATV - 2 is already being assembled!! There is no name as yet for the 'bird' - I think it may have to be a German - do you know the name of any good authors??"

So I suggested Kurd Lasswitz (yes his name is spelt with that German B that is pronounced as a long-S sound but I haven't go that letter/symbol on my UK English language computer) who I believe was best known for his book called Two Planets, published in 1897, which is about an encounter between humans and an older, more advanced Martian civilization - Lasswitz has also had a Martian crater and an asteroid named after him

Anyway, Ellwood really liked it and so, remember you heard it here first...

I had suggested to Ellwood that an ATV be called H. G. Wells but sadly the UK's lack of participation in the project will probably mean that will never happen

caption: This lander concept image is cropped from an ESA artist's impression of a Moonbase
credit: ESA
I obtained more detail about the proposed European Space Agency robotic lunar lander for cargo delivery in a 2020-2025 or 2025-2030 timeframe during my 21 April phone interview with ESA's human spaceflight directorate's head of strategy and architecture office, Bernhard Hufenbach

I only had 15min and had pushed on the issue of non-US commercial resupply services for the International Space Station if the contractors didn't deliver so I just left the issue when NASA’s ISS programme’s transport office manager, Kathryn Lueders finally said: “The plan is secure all upmass through domestic services;" but the answer perhaps begs more questions?

credit: NASA

Speaking to the European Space Agency's human spaceflight directorate’s head of strategy and architecture office, Bernhard Hufenbach today (21 April) he spoke enthusiastically of commercial services for a lunar outpost

caption: will this NASA concept of a lunar comms and GPS spacecraft have an Inmarsat or Iridium logo in the future?

The use of commercial services for exploration seems to be gaining ground and we might see it recommended as part of a report to be produced by NASA and ESA in mid-May. It will summarise their progress thus far in finding common ground between their respective architectures for the Moon, and beyond

NASA has certainly been thinking about how it can extend its forays into the commercial world to the wider exploration initiative and the British National Space Centre has said it has been an advocate of commercial services in its bilateral talks with the US space agency

As well as details about the ESA-Russian Federal Space Agency project Crew Space Transportation System, Thales Alenia Space's head of systems management and methodologies for the company's space infrastructure and transportation business unit, Claudio Ferro, also told me about his company's work on inflatable structures for the European Space Agency (ESA) for space stations - during my visit to Thales' Cannes facility on Wednesday 16 April

A prototype inflatable module should be completed by Thales later this year

According to Ferro ESA's work on inflatable modules dates back to the 1990s when NASA had a plan to attach one to the International Space Station's Node 3. While Node 3 and its cupola viewing port is still expected to go up on a Shuttle mission the inflatable module will not

Despite the orbiter Columbia disaster ending that plan for the ISS, European work on inflatable habitats has still continued and for the last year Ferro's colleague's have been working on regenerative life support systems

While Ferro said he hoped one day such an inflatable module could be attached to the station he admitted that the Shuttle flight that was required isn't going to be available. So for the time being we'll have to wait and see what happens with the prototype

Visiting European aerospace giant Thales Alenia Space yesterday I got to talk to the head of systems management and methodologies for the company's space infrastructure and transportation business unit, Claudio Ferro about Crew Space Transportation System (CSTS) and he says there are now crew and cargo-only variants being discussed and an Apollo-like capsule is still a possiblity

caption: This artist's impression shows ESA's 2,800kg (6,100lb), 2.8m (9.18ft)-diameter Atmospheric Reentry Demonstrator (ARD) capsule in orbit. With 200 onboard sensors ARD was launched on 21 October 1998 by an Ariane 5 into a 830km (515miles) apogee suborbital trajectory and splashed down in the Pacific ocean after its 100min flight

Energia has a "photo report" on the latest Soyuz capsule to go to the International Space Station

Romania's ARCA has its Google Lunar X Prize info up on its website

If you like pretty pictures there is always JAXA's Kaguya mission image gallery

Cosmic log takes a look at the Rocket Racing League

According to China's Xinhua news agency a new tracking ship has been launched especially for the Shenzhou VII mission that could see the country's first extra-vehicular activity; though I'm doubtful

Hobbyspace.com has a series of links, as always

See above the International Space Station's Cupola viewing port. I photographed this and other modules of the ISS while at Kenedy Space Center in February this year

In this picture you can see the cupola's size relative to people

credit: Andy Elson

This photo shows a carbon fibre nose cone for a Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) Falcon 5 that would have launched Magic Dragon, the first manned capsule designed for SpaceX

Magic Dragon is the UK's first commercially built manned capsule demonstrator, with its own life support system and communications equipment and it was fabricated in 2005 for Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) before the company got involved in NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services programme

This blog entry at Rocketeer.co.uk brought it to my attention. But I now have more detail from the UK company that built Magic Dragon

The UK is not known for its orbital manned spaceflight which is why I got on the phone quick to Andy Elson who built the capsule for SpaceX and who has a history of fabricating capsules for high altitude balloon flights

The following text is the expanded notes from my 23 January interview with Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn.

The registration number for SpaceShipTwo (SS2) is N339SS and the White Knight II (WK2) is N348MS. The Virgin Group has a 15 year licence for technology from SpaceShipOne (SS1) from its financier Paul Allen's Mojave Aerospace Ventures.

SS2 has cold gas reaction control system. It also has a controlled reentry in comparison with SS1s “carefree” reentry. The internal atmospheric pressure of SS2 could be sea level.