March 2009 Archives

credit: ESA / caption: home to the Mars mission simulation but for 105 or 520 days?

Its called Mars500 but the volunteer "astronauts" for this Mars mission simulation will only be in there for 105-days initially and the 520-day mission will not start until late this year. The simulation will include delays on communications of up to 20min to replicate the distance from Earth in a real mission. Not much phoning home then...

credit: Federal Space Agency / caption: The mobile gantry is built before being sent to South America

The mobile gantry for the Samara Space Center Soyuz 2-1a (and eventually 2-1b) rocket's CNES/European Space Agency spaceport in French Guiana is being constructed in Russia. Once check it is to be dismantled before its trip to South America

The image is from the Russian Federal Space Agency website. Last week ESA and CNES signed an agreement for use of the French Guiana spaceport until 2013

credit Space Foundation / caption Website homepage screen grab

You can find Flightglobal.com's news and blog page (or landing page as its known in the jargon) for the 25th National Space Symposium right here

You can create you're own landing pages for any aerospace topic you want by going to this page and typing into the landing page generator called "create your own page" the aerospace topic of your choice 

credit ITT/Space Foundation / caption: What does ITT know?

What does ITT know? Is Ares I crew launch vehicle going to get solid rocket boosters? I am guessing that this is an Exploration Systems Architecture Study trade space reject - this blog post is just a bit of fun I haven't got the time to actually check it

But at least it isn't an EELV, I'm not sure that would be good customer relations even now Michael Griffin is no longer NASA administrator - twice as safe remember!

Go through to the extended portion of this blog post to see a larger version of the portion of the picture above that features the Ares I-like rocket

credit Roscosmos / caption: in case the link to the Google translation page does not work

Following on from this blog posting about Russia's Soyuz TMA replacement I have found the tender on the Roscosmos website and it appears a contractor or contractors will be selected on 6 April

If this link to a Google translation of the original Russian Federal Space Agency tender website page doesn't work then some of the detail can be seen in the above screen grab. At the bottom of the tender page is a link to documents that can be downloaded, the RFP documents, while the webpage text is, I guess, a synopsis

As can be seen above the contract submission deadline is today and the work is supposed to start straight away, or maybe they just include in the contract payment for work done for the tender?

My guess is that this contract is for early design work and maybe to downselect to the prime contractor if more than one company gets awarded anything, but I would bet the final outcome will see S P Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia design ACTS

credit IAASS / Caption: click on this image to see a larger version in the same browser window

Detail's from the Russian Federal Space Agency's request for proposals for its Soyuz TMA replacement, apparently now called Advanced Manned Space Transpotation System (unless this is just a translation issue and it is still called Advanced Crew Transportation System  - ACTS), can be found in the March issue of the Association for the Advancement of Space Safety's (IAASS) newsletter

Hyperbola has been told that tomorrow (Tuesday 31 March) there is to be a press conference at the British Interplanetary Society in London (but its website says nothing about this) all about something called the Space Renaissance and Buzz Aldrin might be there

The press kit for this initiative can be found here - for some reason my corporate firewall blocks access

Find the press release for tomorrow's press conference in the extended portion of this blog post

credit Google / caption: Go look at the Broadmoor Center here

This week Hyperbola is coming from the US of A and in particular two spaceflight conferences. They are, the Space Foundation's National Space Symposium, usually at the beginning of which there are protesters outside so one wonders if that will happen again this year (I might even do a quick audio interview to find out what they think), and then from Thursday evening I'll be in Phoenix to cover the Space Access Society conference

Hopefully this week (if it all goes to plan) expect from Hyperbola and its twitter page, flighthyperbola, breaking news, podcasts of speeches and one-on-one interviews and possibly even video of the same. While Flightglobal.com/spaceflight will run all the full articles

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This Virgin Galactic 6min 31s video has comments by Burt Rutan, Peter Siebold and Will Whitehorn with footage of WhiteKnight Two prototype Virgin MotherShip Eve flying

To see Flightglobal.com's own video of the taxi runs and test flights that were posted months ago go here 

Above is Virgin Galactic's official 28 July 2008 WhiteKnight Two roll out video that has recently been posted to its website and below is the original Hyperbola video posted to flightglobal.com on the day last year

TEST FLYING PROGRAMME FOR VIRGIN GALACTIC SPACE LAUNCH SYSTEM NOW FULLY UNDERWAY - MOTHERSHIP EVE ACHIEVES FASTEST AND LONGEST YET FLIGHT IN THE TROPOSPHERE

 

WhiteKnightTwo launch vehicle for SpaceShipTwo heralds a new era in aerospace fuel efficiency, performance and versatility

 

 

Mojave Air and Spaceport, California

27^th March 2009

 

The test flying programme for WhiteKnightTwo (WK2), the space launch vehicle being developed for Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo (SS2) has now completed its third successful test flight - the longest and fastest to date with a duration of over two and half hours, maximum speed of 140 knots and an altitude of over 18,000 ft. The flight also saw a further 7 tests successfully completed including in flight engine restarts, engine thrust asymmetry assessment and continued expansion of WK2's operating envelope and evaluation of WK2's handling qualities.

 

credit Virgin Galactic / caption: VMS Eve flies for first time

See more official Virgin Galactic WhiteKnight Two in-flight images here
 

credit NASA / caption: Apollo 11 anniversary but isn't this the Earth rise Apollo 8 is famous for?  

Go here to find NASA's Apollo 11 40th anniversary website and click through to this to find a document with the list of events to be associated with the anniversary but while 20 July is a big day in the calendar for some odd reason 16 July has nothing happening and yet that was the day the mission was launched. Watch the launch in the video below 

Expect the first images of the third WhiteKnight Two test flight tomorrow, they should be available on the Virgin Galactic website after noon

Hyperbola has been told that the WhiteKnight Two prototype Virgin MotherShip Eve's third flight was to 18,000ft, it lasted 2h 20min and 40 "tests" were conducted but we don't know what they were

credit: Flight / caption: 28 July rollout

NASA's first Ares I crew launch vehicle (CLV) five-segment solid rocket motor (SRM) firing test has been delayed by up to six-months from 2 April to September at the latest or August

Ares I uses an SRM for its first stage and its prime contractor Alliant Techsystems (ATK), which provides the Space Shuttle Programme's four-segment motor, won the development contract in 2007

Asked why there was a possible six month delay ATK says: "[We] need to be sure the first test is right and there is no critical path impact," meaning the CLV's development will not be set back by the delay

ATK had planned to test after DM-1 its demonstration motors DM-2 and 3 in August and September, which are now likely to be delayed toward the end of the year if not to 2010

credit NASA / caption: Ares' mobile launcher comes together

Enjoy this picture of the Ares I crew launch vehicle's mobile launcher (ML), more can be seen here at Kennedy Space Center's online image gallery

For scale check out the lime green portaloo (as we call them here in the UK) next to the nearest "leg" of the ML

Today NASA (in fact right about 30min ago) is/was having a handover ceremony for the Space Shuttle Programme's (SSP) Mobile Launch Platform (MLP) 1. It is to become part of the Constellation programme and be modified for the Ares I-X launch, delayed from April to 11 July this year. SSP will continue to use MLP2 and MLP3 for its Shuttles

credit NASA / caption: Obama enjoys phone call to ISS but stays silent on space agency's future

It was with a forlorn hope that Hyperbola listened to the president Barack Obama teleconference with the Space Shuttle Discovery and International Space Station (ISS) crews yesterday wondering if there might be a clue to what is happening to the space agency under this administration (see the video of the teleconference in the extended portion of this blog and read the transcript here) and unsurprisingly it was just warm words, as welcome as they are

With the news that all the rumoured NASA administrator candidates have gone by the by Hyperbola understands that the search will have to start all over again and once again a process taking up to two months will take a hold at which point (late May, early June) there maybe another series of candidates, one of whom will face Congressional hearings, or should I say join a queue of the many, many people yet to be approved for the many government departments, that could last another two months. In all likelihood acting administrator Christopher Scolese's successor will not be approved until August (anybody know when Congress goes on its summer holiday?) with probably just five or six weeks of fiscal year 2009 remaining

So Hyperbola thought it would trawl recent NASA history to see if there were any candidates that might fit the bill. And what is that bill?

Clark Lindsey's always up-to-date Space Transport News blog has a link to The Space Show's podcast with Pete Worden and reports that the NASA Ames Resaerch center director has a dim (geddit?) view of Space Based Solar Power (SBSP)

And Hyperbola could not agree more with his analysis. The problem with solar power is not whether you have what is basically a magnifying glass in orbit but how good your solar arrays are in orbit, or on Earth, at converting sunlight into electricity and how much it costs to manufacture and install or launch that array. As for ideas about beaming power down to Earth in the microwave bandwidth, it won't be much good with clouds in the way as moisture is a good absorber of microwaves

Seeing the Obama administration's website festooned with papers on SBSP has not been encouraging and yesterday Obama spoke of solar power in glowing (excuse the pun) terms while discussing with the ISS crew that station's use of solar power

At London's Royal Aeronautical Society last year Elon Musk was asked about SBSP. He said that as the owner of a launcher company and as an investor in solar power he should be a champion of it but he actually thought it was a dead end. So there you go, feel free to flame away SBSP enthusiasts

First HATV test 8 Mar 2009, video montage with timecodes from Sonny W. on Vimeo.

credit: Copenhagen Suborbital / caption: never under estimate the Vikings  

The above rocket, the Danish Copenhagen Suborbital team's Hybrid Atmospheric Test Vehicle (HATV) uses nitrous oxide, following in Burt Rutan's footsteps. Go to the team's website for some more impressive videos of their propulsion technology. The website also lists what they are workng on and for a non-commercial project it is pretty good: 

Heat shield testing
2 HATV booster rockets
Launch tower
HATV launch manifest
Spacecraft design
Test-rig for HATV-booster test

Of the European amateur rocket work I am aware (admittedly not much) this development of hybrid technology seems pretty good

credit: Astrium / caption: the world's financial downturn has grounded Astrium's space jet suborbital  spaceplane

Hyperbola had heard that EADS Astrium had shelved for the time being its aspirations for the suborbital market and now the European space company has confirmed the rumour to this blog with the following statement: "The world economic situation has created a difficult near term environment in which to finalise ongoing discussions with investors. Astrium is to temporarily slow down the technical activities focusing on core risk mitigation for the project. The [space jet] team achieved impressive results in the pre-development phase particularly in the field of propulsion technology. Astrium sees suborbital flight as a promising area because of the emerging space tourism market."

Event will be replayed at www.nasa.gov/ntv

Before then read my notes below, the coversation began at 1353h GMT and ended by about 1420h

Obama is talking to ISS and Space Shuttle Discovery crews with school children and members of Congress, he said the nation was proud of their astronauts

Obama told about solar array installation and he linked that with his efforts to encourage green energy

 

credit NASA / caption: even if you're the acting something surely you're not unable to do anything?

Jeff Foust's Space Politics qoutes NASA Johnson Space Center director Mike Coats from the 19 March Space Transportation Association (STA) breakfast meeting (I was surprised about this, I usually get STA invites and my DC colleagues attend when they can but I knew nothing about this) as saying that NASA employee's are frustrated at the lack of an Obama administration space policy and that acting administrator Christopher Scolese (pictured above) feels limited by what he can do because of this and the fact that he is only the acting administrator

In some respects this point of view makes sense and can even be sympathised with but for Hyperbola it raises some questions and misses the reality of the situation, whereby there are Congressionally appropriated funds and as we say in journalism, "follow the money"

ARCA has posted video of its recent rocket motor propellant tests on Youtube, find the others in the extended portion of this blg post. Go here for pictures of the Romanian Google Lunar X prize team's day out

Twelve weeks after the 21 December 2008 first flight of Scaled Composites WhiteKnight Two experimental prototype Virgin MotherShip (VMS) Eve only Hyperbola and flightglobal.com has all the video of the carrier aircraft carrying out taxi trials and test flights; none of which can be found on Virgin Galactic's own website



see more video in the extended portion of this blog post

Finishing off some of the work for the forthcoming Flight International magazine feature on Virgin Galactic the spaceline's president Will Whitehorn has told Hyperbola

• the reality TV series will follow the documentary series
• work for the documentary series "is now underway"
• there will be an announcement in April for the documentary programme(s)
• the reality tv series will air after the spaceline is operating commercially
• The Spaceship Company (TSC) is underway and has just leased an extensive facility in Mojave near Scaled to commence its activities. TSC is being headed up by Virgin Galactic's Enrico Palermo
  
  I recognise Hyperbola has been a bit Virgin Galactic heavy of late, expect normal service to resume shortly

credit Virgin Galactic / caption: VMS Eve makes its maiden flight on 21 December 2008

Click here to listen to the final fifth part of Hyperbola's series of podcasts that will in total make up the 45min interview with Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn held on 4 March 2009 in the company's London offices. During this 9min 37s interview hear Whitehorn talk about the challenge of the waiver concept's legal status, US rules, European regulation, the selection of Spaceport Sweden, a possible Scottish spaceport and more

credit Virgin Galactic / caption: no show for SpaceShip Two till 2011?

Virgin Galactic will likely start commercial flights in the US in 2011, not 2010 as it has stated, according to Spaceport Sweden official Johanna Bergstrom-Roos. Reported by AFP in an article carried by Spacedaily.com, if true the qoute is another indication that the 2010 date, designed to coincide with the completion of facilities at New Mexico's Spaceport America, will not be met

Bergstrom-Roos, seen in the picture below third from the left on the front row, also said that she expected Virgin Galactic flights from Spaceport Sweden in 2012. More pictures can be found here

 
credit Spaceport Sweden / caption: Back row (L-R) are the five new Accredited Space Agents, Hannibal & Marco Polo, Aarhus, Denmark - Anders Martin Larsen; Area Travel Agency, Helsinki, Finland - Teppo Viiperi; Area Travel Agency, Helsinki, Finland - Mari Rouvi; ICEHOTEL Travel, Kiruna, Sweden - Roland Sand; The Search, Malmö, Sweden - Andreas Axelson; Upplevelseakuten, Stockholm, Sweden - Lasse Schmidt; and across the front row (L-R) are Virgin Galactic's Kate Button and Carolyn Wincer; Johanna Bergstrom-Roos, Spaceport Sweden and Carina Johnsson, Swedish Space Corporation

credit: NSSO / caption: this concept of operations has been superceded by a new version after a Sept 2008 event

Almost a month after the 24-26 February National Space Security Office's technology forum for its Rapid delivery of military assets via space request for information details of the event at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas and its contributors' proposals have begun to emerge

Hyperbola has obtained the agenda that amongst other things indicates an involvement by General Dynamics in the US military's Small Unit Space Transport and Insertion (SUSTAIN) work and shows that closed government briefing sessions took place at the forum for Alliant Techsystems, Northrop Grumman, Pratt & Whitney, Andrews Space, Rocketplane Global and Blue Origin

Brett Alexander, Personal Spaceflight Foundation president and also a consultant to Blue Origin, was at the mysterious company's presentation, given by its general counsel Robert Millman. Alexander told Hyperbola, "all the right people were there [from] the Department of Defense (Dod). [Blue Origin] was there to talk about its suborbital activities. But [the Dod] are nowhere near an acquistion."  

The agenda also reveals that Xcor Aerospace's chief executive Jeff Greason spoke at the conference. His company has a horizontal take-off reusable launch vehicle related USAF contract. Hyperbola had contacted Xcor and was still waiting for a response at the time of publication of this blog post.

While the agenda does not mention Virgin Galactic that Anglo-American spaceline's president Will Whitehorn (the company is Anglo-US not Whitehorn) had previously told Hyperbola that the company would only attend as an observer

While Hyperbola has also obtained some participants' information that is designated as proprietary...

credit ESA / caption: Eurockot's Rockot launches ESA's GOCE satellite

According to ESA's press release  

This afternoon, the Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) satellite developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) was lofted into a near-sunsynchronous, low Earth orbit by a Rockot launcher lifting off from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in northern Russia.
 
With this launch, a new chapter in the history of Earth observation in Europe has begun. GOCE is the first of a new family of ESA satellites designed to study our planet and its environment in order to enhance our knowledge and understanding of Earth-system processes and their evolution, to enable us to address the challenges of global climate change. In particular, GOCE will measure the minute differences in the Earth's gravity field around the globe.

The Russian Rockot launcher, derived from a converted ballistic missile, lifted off at 15:21 CET (14:21 GMT) and flew northward over the Arctic. About 90 minutes later, after one orbital revolution and two Breeze-KM upper-stage burns, the 1052 kg spacecraft was successfully released into a circular polar orbit at 280 km altitude with 96.7 degree inclination to the Equator. The launch was procured from Eurockot Launch Services, a German/Russian company based in Bremen, Germany.

Halted at 7s from blast off yesterday the European Space Agency and its Russian Rockot launch provider EUrockot, the EADS Astrium, Khrunichev Space Center joint venture, will try to send the Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) mission satellite into orbit from the Plesetsk launch complex at 1721h local time (1421h GMT) today

You can follow the agency's twitter feed here, look at pretty pictures in the Flickr feed here and watch it on ESA television here or gaze at the mission control webcam in the mean time here. Below is the Google map satellite image of Plesestk cosmodrome, you might want to pan out a little...


View Larger Map

credit The Everett group / caption: Whomever funded this could you please bring this survey to Obama's attention?

Jeff Foust twittered about this survey, carried out by the Everett group, and anyone wondering what the US taxpayer thinks what NASA's core mission should be (something president Barack Obama wants to navel gaze about apparently) need only read this

credit Spaceport America/Virgin Galactic / caption: flights should fly first from Spaceport America in New Mexico

Click here to listen to part four of Hyperbola's series of podcasts that will in total make up the 45min interview with Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn held on 4 March 2009 in the company's London offices. During this 7min 21s interview hear Whitehorn talk about the importance of the Experimental Aircraft Association's AirVenture event in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, the rate of ticket sales, putting travel agents through centrifuges, US regulations and more

credit Agency.se / caption: Blonde Sir Richard Branson will no doubt feel at home in Sweden

What do you mean you don't read Swedish?

Go through to the extended portion of this blog post to see the translation

credit ESA / caption: ESA's gravity mission GOCE sits atop this Rockot booster

The European Space Agency mission GOCE was held at 7s and will be delayed until tomorrow

Review the countdown here at ESA's twitter page and follow the space agency's "photo stream" at Flickr

credit:NASA / caption: Originally designed in 1993 the electromechanical thrust vector control remains on the shelf

It didn't last that long and this procurement, which Hyperbola has had a peculiar interest in, had the potential to deliver mass reductions for the Ares I crew launch vehicle first-stage but on Friday 13 March (oh no!) the electric thrust vector control (TVC) was quietly cancelled

The purpose of this amendment is to cancel Solicitation No. NNM08261607R.   Proposals may be re-solicited in the future after further programmatic decisions are made.

credit Virgin Galactic / caption: Virgin Galactic's pilots (L-R): Steve Johnson, chief pilot; David Mackay, chief test pilot; Alex Tai, former Virgin Galactic chief operating officer; and Alistair Hoy, chief training pilot.

click here to listen to Hyperbola's 16min 16s interview with Virgin Galactic's chief test pilot David Mackay (pr.Mack-eye)

David Mackay is Virgin Galactic's chief test pilot on a part time basis while he still works for Virgin Atlantic, which he joined in 1995. He joined the Virgin airline after spending 16 years with the Royal Air Force (RAF) and spent half of that time as a test pilot. He graduated with his test pilot wings from the French test pilot school, École du Personnel Navigant d'Essais et de Réception (EPNER) through an exchange between EPNER and the RAF's Empire Test Pilot School

This audio recording was made during a phone conversation. Noises in the background are my colleagues here in the Flight office

Expect part four of Hyperbola's podcasts with Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn on Monday 16 March

credit NASA / caption: acting NASA administrator Christopher Scolese (above) speaks rarely it seems

Following US president Barack Obama telling the Orlando Sentinel that he is to choose his NASA administrator "soon", the National Space Foundation has confirmed the secretary of the US Air Force for its 1600h slot on its 25th National Space Symposium's (NSS) final day, Thursday 2 April, which had been down as a speech by the NASA administrator but TBC

credit JAXA / caption: this low res picture shows a possible future JAXA Selene-X lunar lander

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has released infromation about the latest meeting for the global exploration strategy, agreed in 2007. Its International Space Exploration Coordination Group met for the third time in Yokohama, Japan from 10-12 March

credit change.gov / caption: Obama's space policy is still rhetoric

Many scientists will no doubt be cheering the fact that US president Barack Obama has confirmed that he will be greenlighting the $1.5 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer mission, adding one more flight to the shuttle manifest, not that the manifest on nasa.gov is showing it yet

And well done to Orlando Sentinel's Mark Matthews for putting the question to Obama about the impact of Shuttle's shutdown on the Florida economy, quantified as 28,000 direct and indirect jobs by Matthews. Sadly Obama's response shows that despite the president's fiscal year (FY) 2010 budget proposal for the agency the space programme is some way off from having a clear cut future

credit Flight / caption Virgin Galactic's experimental prototype VMS Eve takes off for a second time on 5 February

Click here to listen to part three of Hyperbola's series of podcasts that will in total make up the 45min interview with Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn held on 4 March 2009 in the company's London offices. During this 8min 32s interview hear Whitehorn talk about WhiteKnight Two's potential as a demonstrator for large scale all-carbon composite aircraft, whether the credit crunch has impacted Virgin Galactic's development timetable, what industries are at risk during the downturn, who his customers are, if they are recession proof and more

credit NASA tv / caption: the hydrogen vent line connects to the external tank for space shuttle Discovery

NASA has set the launch date for space shuttle Discovery's mission STS-119 as no earlier than this Sunday but only what NASA engineers call "wiggle room" in a 30h retorque requirement process holds any hope of lift-off on the 15 March, with a Monday 16 March launch more likely

credit ARCA / caption: the test firings are another milestone in ARCA's progress

The European Google Lunar X Prize team ARCA has conducted propellant firing tests for its Stabilo suborbital vehicle and the Lunar injection stage engine for its European Lunar Explorer vehicle that would touch down on the Moon for the team to claim a Google Lunar X Prize

credit Virgin Galactic / caption: will we see SpaceShiptwo fly this year?

Click here to download part two of a series of podcasts that will in total make up the 45min interview Hyperbola had with Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn on 4 March 2009 in the company's London offices. During this 9min 46s interview hear Whitehorn talk about marketing the unmanned LauncherOne rocket proposed by Virgin Galactic and Surrey Satellite Technology, comparing the investment in Virgin Galactic with buying Boeing 747s, creating the business plan and more

credit Lockheed Martin / caption: the heat shield has become a very tall tent pole in the Orion tent, so to speak

In the next few weeks NASA is to announce its selection for the heat shield material for the Orion crew exploration vehicle's (CEV) crew module. The space agency has told Hyperbola that assuming "all materials and work is completed" the press release could be published this month, so maybe it will actually be April but either way it is a decision that is at least 14-months late

credit Flometrics / caption: the vernier rocket engine was fired for 6s in January 2009 

Flometrics' Steve Harrington is planning to test fly his biodiesel rocket this Saturday. A successful static firing test of a vernier rocket engine using the biofuel took place back in January

Harrington says

We are planning a flight test of the Biodiesel rocket this Saturday March 7th, weather permitting. (we cannot launch into clouds) Providing everything goes as planned, we will send out a press release and have HD video and photos available.

credit: Myasishchev Design Bureau/Flight / caption: Myasishchev's concept for air launched suborbital tourism

Sources at Russia's United Aircraft (UA) have informed Hyperbola that the Myasishchev Design Bureau is being absorbed into the state run aviation company, created in 2006, and its headquarters is to be bulldozed so the Russian Federal government can sell the land in central Moscow

credit Virgin Galactic  / caption: Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn  

Click here to download part one of a series of podcasts that will in total make up the 45min interview Hyperbola had with Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn on 4 March 2009 in the company's London offices. During this 8min 50s interview hear Whitehorn talk about how early customers influenced the spaceline's plans, how accurate the 2002 Futron study was, why a commercial SpaceShipOne could have been possible but not preferable, where other space tourism projects went wrong in the past and more

NASA Engineering and Safety Center's (NESC) Max Launch Abort System (MLAS) has been in development since mid-2007 and had originally planned a flight test in September 2008. The agency has told Hyperbola that its launch is scheduled for no earlier than 27 March this year

The US space agency describes MLAS as

a less-well-developed concept that does have the potential to help Constellation. [The 27 March launch] will be the first demonstration in a passively stabilized LAS on a vehicle in this size and weight class. We will get aeroacoustic data from the faired capsule in flight that will give us a better idea if there are potentially harmful noise levels. In addition, data from the parachute element will help validate simulation tools and techniques for Orion's parachute system development.

credit: ESA / caption: this was Hyperbola's screengrab of the only lander like design in an ESA Moonbase image

The European Space Agency has released information about its lunar lander plans 15 months after Flight first reported on it in November 2007 and the agency's exporation director Bernard Hufenbach provided Hyperbola with more lander detail in the following April - this was triggered by NASA's Neal Newman spilling the beans about a 1,500kg (3,300lb) payload capable ESA lander at the 3rd space exploration conference held in Denver

credit NASA / caption: Neil Armstrong outside the LM Eagle during the first Moon walk

NASA is to launch its 40th anniversary website for Apollo 11 by 16 March but this month doesn't seem to be linked to any particularly significant Apollo milestone as far as I can see

You can find the 30th anniversary website here but I am guessing the 40th anniversary site will have better whizzy graphics and more interactive content like this Apollo 9 feature has been given 

Find the above image of Neil Armstrong on the Moon and other images at nasaimages.org

Go here to get the latest newsletter from the IAF that has various reports including a link to a New Scientist story about the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich designing a solar powered plane that would fly in the atmosphere of Mars

Sounds very similar to this idea from NASA that would see gliders circumnavigate the planet that Flight wrote about back in the 20th century, or 1999 to be precise

credit: Battelle /caption: Is this an insight into the Altair lunar lander LDAC-3 design?

New Altair project office manager Kathy Laurini revealed to Flight and this blog NASA's thoughts on how to use landers more efficiently and now it seems Kriss kennedy, Lunar Surface Systems (LSS) Project Office Altair integration lead and habitation manager, has helped Battelle reveal a little bit more about the state of play with the son-of-LEM (Gary Spexarth works at JSC but I couldn't find an online document that confirmed which project office he worked with, Altair or LSS)

credit NASA / caption: what will that comms antenna look like in the end?

We hear a lot about the Ares I crew launch vehicle and not a lot of good so NASA's Project Orion team and its Lockheed Martin contractor are probably happy for that unloved rocket to be a lightning rod for those who aren't too keen on Constellation on the whole. But in a recent edition of Johnson Space Center's 8th Floor News email circular a little bit of Orion history was revealed