June 2008 Archives

This world exclusive first image of Virgin Galactic's White Knight II (WK2) with its wing attached to its fuselages shows the port side forward fuselage, WK2 has two such booms

The port fuselage does not have the windows present on the starboard fuselage, which can be seen in the construction images in the extended portion of this blog post

More Virgin Galactic images can be found here at airspace.aero

Click on the image to see a larger version in the same browser window

Check this blog on Monday 30 June as I will post an important Virgin Galactic update in the morning UK time

At 1500h EDT (2000h BST) yesterday (26 June) NASA held a media telecon on the damage to pad 39A's flame trench during the 31 May launch of Space Shuttle Discovery for the STS-124 mission

Here are the news reports about that telecon from Orlando Sentinel, Space.com, Florida Today and Spaceflight Now for you to read

Below this text and in the extended portion of this blog post you will find images from an internal NASA briefing about the damaged pad. Click on the images to see the larger versions

One time British X-Prize team Starchaser Industries, with offices in the UK and near the spaceport-to-be New Mexico's Spaceport America, is to unveil its new rocket on 1 July, which it claims will be the UK's largest when it launches from the island nation in September 2009


credit: Starchaser Industries / caption: this graphic shows the rocket's capsule and LES

Xcor Aerospace has progressed further with its Lynx single stage to suborbit vehicle mock-up since I visited the company and here are the latest pictures

According to sources within NASA's International Space Station Progamme office, managers are still considering whether they want to leave the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module on orbit despite the agency's earlier denials that that could happen. But the current baseline has it returning

Another major change is the possible altering of the rules for Space Shuttle, Soyuz docking at ISS. The idea is that now that the orbiter and Soyuz "docking ports are farther away [from each other]" and ISS will be doing "indirect handovers," with the station crew expansion to six from May 2009, for Shuttle mission flexibility the docking rules can change

Previously Soyuz dockings have not been allowed to occur while the orbiter is on-station and so agency officials want to see if it makes sense to plan for a Soyuz docking or undocking during a Shuttle mission

NASA is also altering its rescue mission planning, also known as launch-on-need flights. The new launch-on-need approach is to use the next flight with the planned cargo complement to rescue the previous flight if necessary, so the concept of STS-3xx is ending

Space Daily has a brief report about comments by NASA administrator Michael Griffin to ABC news regarding the plan for a rescue mission for the crew of Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission STS-125/HST SM-4

The Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) report has a proposed rescue method for an orbiter distant from the International Space Station and it involves a space walk transfer via a guideline from one payload bay to another - graphics below are taken from the Columbia Accident Investigation Board report


credit: CAIB


credit: CAIB

This computer enhanced "spy pic" shows what I think is the cockpit structure of the first SpaceShipTwo (SS2) flight model

While it shares some of the features of the White Knight II (WK2) fuselage, cockpit structure seen in the picture below (taken from this blog entry) there are key differences that suggest it is for SS2 instead


credit: Virgin Galactic

credit: Lockheed Martin

1 The Russian Federal Space Agency's website is carrying a statement (see link) saying that its head Anatoly Perminov knew nothing of this agreement you publicised between you and Roscosmos for your private flight. How do you respond to this?

OK I admit it is just a mock-up but at least it gives you an indication of the size of the vehicle and a view of the inside of Xcor Aerospace's hangar at Mojave air and spaceport

This screenshot is taken from a new NASA video and shows the Orion crew exploration vehicle approaching the Ares V Earth departure stage that has circular solar arrays and an Altair lunar lander, which are different to previous designs shown in NASA videos - see below and in extended portion



Thanks to Hyperbola reader Ned for bringing this to my attention. I will see what comment I can get from NASA about the apparent changes in the video. Click through to the extended portion for more new video images

The Rotary Rocket will greet you at the sort of entrance to Mojave air and spaceport, the USA's first in-land spaceport. Last week I found myself at the air and spaceport visiting various people as part of my California trip - I flew back into London this morning

There are only eight days left now in Flight's 100 Greatest vote and it is fair to say that each category is going to be an extremely close run thing

Although the obvious nominations are popular (Moon Landing, Wright Brothers etc), there is still ample opportunity for some surprises when the final list is revealed during the Farnborough Air Show

So have some fun checking out the nominations from everyday people and NASA astronauts that can be seen at airspace.aero  and maybe you'll want to vote for SpaceShipOne or X-15 or even SpaceX's Dragon?  

Space Adventures' big announcement about potential tourists buying a stake in the company is a curious one for reasons I will explain below

Alan Boyle's Cosmic log blog nicely sets out the details of this deal that apparently could see a privately launched Soyuz

But I have my doubts about Alan's suggestion that Space Advenures can bid against NASA for seats on Soyuz as NASA will be buying Soyuz so it can meet its Internatonal Space Station obligations

As for the private Soyuz flight, it can't possibly be three tourists on one Soyuz as the Russians and ISS partners would require a qualified Soyuz commander to ensure a safe docking. So you now have two tourists going up but where will they dock?

Let me explain. Next April and May Soyuz spacecraft will deliver six crew to the station, three with the April flight and three with the May flight

The April three will return in October and two weeks after they have landed a crew of three will launch to the ISS, returning the station compliment to six. The May crew return in November and a replacement crew launch that month also. This is the transport operation that the ISS partners have agreed

That means that from 2010 any private Soyuz flight has a two week window four times a year when a docking port will be available at ISS. But this does not mean a 14-day trip as flight rules regarding arrivals and departures require a period of time between each and so I would guess that the flight is more likely to stick to the 10-day tourist mission that has previously occured

On the price, the customers will have to pay, for a private flight, for an Energia Soyuz spacecraft and its Samara Space Center Soyuz booster plus all the ground ops and launch control and flight management, there and back, and the post-mission recovery from the Steppes and the hire of a Soyuz commander for ten-days at least - assuming the commander does not require extra training. You can see that this is not going to be $30 million per tourist, more like $50 million plus!

I hope to get more details soon as I will call Space Adventures to write a story for Flight International magazine

Just quickly coming back to the idea of buying a NASA seat on Soyuz. I think it is quite clear from the agreed method of transporting the six ISS crew that if you give a spare seat on a Soyuz going up in 2011, or 2010 or 2009, then that person is not coming down for months. So unless the Russians have been prepared to sell a six month stay at the ISS I can't see how this can happen

It's time for more of those news bites and today I am writing this blog entry from San Diego, California no less

Following on from the blogs and other internet reports from the National Space Society's International Space Development Conference I have some more information on the work that is being undertaken by Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites


caption: Four PW308A will power WK2 / credit: Pratt & Whitney Canada

I think I have an idea about the propulsion system that SpaceShipTwo (SS2) will use and with so many things in life the information that took me down this particular route came my way sort of out of the blue

Oddly, in a bizarre twist of fate, Clark Lindsey mentioned in his blog a rumour he had heard that Virgin Galactic would use a wax based solid fuel for the hybrid rocket motor many people believe is planned. Investigating the propulsion options for SS2 back in 2006 I asked Will Whitehorn about the possible use of a wax, well paraffin really, based solid fuel and he took demonstrable enjoyment in telling me, "no"

I had come across various reports of solid fuel research including material about Stanford University and NASA's involvement but it wasn't until a few days before Clark's blog post that I came across some key information in southern France, of all places