Here is video of Swedish Space Corporation business development manager Mattias Abrahamsson speaking to Hyperbola about Spaceport Sweden's future at the 30 June 2009 Royal Aeronautical Society space tourism conference

As well as European Union funded projects that will start later this year such as FAST20XX the Swedish Space Corporation has calculated that Space Exploration Technologies' Falcon 1 could allow the Swedes to launch satellites from their most northern territory without dropping rocket stages onto their neighbours

Video games multi-millionaire Richard Garriott, Space Adventures' sixth space tourist and one of the company's co-founders, spoke to Hyperbola at the Royal Aeronautrical Society's 30 June 2009 space tourism event. He followed in his NASA astronaut father's footsteps, Owen Garriott was a scientist astronaut that was a Skylab crew member and participated in a Space Shuttle mission

Xcor Aerospace's chief operating officer Andrew Nelson spoke to Hyperbola at the Royal Aeronautical Society's space tourism event on 30 June 2009 about the tickets they have sold, the test flight plan for Lynx and related technology development and early plans for an orbital system

The Commercial Spaceflight Federation, whichly recently re-branded from Personal Spaceflight Federation, has released the statement you'll find in the extended portion of this blog post and placed this white paper on its website

In an email to journalists CSF executive director John Gedmark says, "Please see attached for an announcement from members of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation concerning our submission to the White House Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee (also known as the Augustine Committee).

The central recommendation of the White Paper, entitled "Commercial Spaceflight in Low Earth Orbit is the Key to Affordable and Sustainable Exploration Beyond", is that NASA should invest in commercial human spaceflight capabilities to the International Space Station.  Without leveraging the resources of the private sector, NASA will simply not be able to afford to meet the twin goals of (a) fully utilizing the Space Station, potentially through 2020, and (b) conducting sustainable exploration beyond Low
Earth Orbit.

We believe this program should be modeled on the success of NASA's existing Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, which is enabling the development of commercial capabilities to deliver cargo to the International Space Station, based on the principles of fixed-price, milestone-based, competitive awards."

Go through to the extended portion of this blog pot to rea the CSF's press release

credit: NASA / caption: NASA simulation image of the Orion crew exploration vehicle with ATLAS docking adaptor attached in close proximity to the International Space Station's APAS docking port

You could have said Boeing to that answer, after all the aerospace behemoth is to manufacture the Ares I crew launch vehicle upper stage but you would be wrong, and a little cruel considering some of its recent problems, Boeing that is, not the Ares I upper stage

My answer, as it clearly states in the headline, is computer aided design and computer aided engineering. And not for good but for ill

"For ill, how so", you may ask, "that technology is ubiquitous throughout aerospace industry along with finite element analysis and simulation packages galore?"

(You may also ask, why not an Ares picture? Because this rendition of the Orion is the only low res CAD-esque image I have of anything from the Constellation programme)

And you would be right but Hyperbola's argument is that these computer software packages have led to a level of, eh, let's call it "under design", that has led to real world trouble for both programmes. I'm not just talking "garbage in, garbage out"

Hyperbola is attending the Royal Aeronautical Society's space tourism "a new industry in the making" conference tomorrow, Tuesday 30 June. The all day event will feature Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn, Space Adventures vice president marketing and sales Tom Shelley, Xcor Aerospace chief executive (and US human spaceflght review committeee member) Jeff Greason operating officer Andrew Nelson, EADS Astrium's deputy chief technical officer Hugues Laporte-Weywada, the FAA's office of commercial space transportation head George Nield, and more

Hyperbola hopes to deliver pictures, audio and video interviews and tweets from the conference and maybe even the odd traditional print journalism story or two

UPDATED: The RAeS has told Hyperbola that no audio or video recording is allowed beyond individuals interviews. But expect a fair few tweets during sessions and I can probably squeeze in the odd photo

Mojave air and spaceport can still call itself that after a May award of a new licence to operate horizontal type launches. In 2004 for the X Prize SpaceShipOne (SS1) flights the airport was awarded a licence for launches by the White Knight, SS1 system into space and it was to expire this year on 17 June

Earlier this year Mojave's operations manager Bob Rice told Hyperbola that the airport had submitted a new application to cover the work it expected to do with SpaceShip Two. He said it had a specific number of test flights as part of that application but Rice declined to say how many that figure was

The US Federal Aviation Administration's office of commercial space transportation told Hyperbola that it could confirm that the licence had been renewed and that it was for five years and it was open ended on flight numbers but the launch system had to remain the same

An article in an Australian publication from April mentions a test flight number of 30 but over the years Hyperbola has heard a range of figures, slightly lower and substantially higher

And are those test flights all into space or does it include the early drop/glide tests, supersonic rocket powered level flights before the ascents and any other flight regime testing they wish to do that is not above 100km (62miles)?

All questions that can be asked of Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn at the Royal Aeronautical Society's space tourism conference taking place here in London on Tuesday 30 June

The study did not address the other US Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) - a heavy-lift version of the Atlas V - because of "no clear advantages and several disadvantages," including the difficulty in obtaining human-rating data on its Russian RD-180 engines.

wrote Frank Morring with his 15 June scoop. Of that sentence there are 12 words that represent the biggest obstacle to using the Atlas V and I can't remember it ever being discussed by the blogosphere, the difficulty in obtaining human rating data on its Russian RD-180 engines

The Russians will have their own technology export rules and it is not beyond plausiblity that the information that is needed to human rate the Energomash RD-180 is restricted by them

Oh but the Russians might use the RD-180 for the new launcher for the Advanced Crew Vehicle, I hear the blogosphere cry. Fine, and they have access to the data to human rate that engine but Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne won't be getting it anytime soon

Or to flip this argument on its head, if you think members of Congress don't like paying Russia for crew transport to the International Space Station now how do you think they will like having the the US ISS ferry and subsequent return to the Moon programme's crew transportation system dependent entirely on Russian engines?

he sad reality is that this whole RD-180 situation has been dragging on for years...   

This video was shown by Constellation programme manager Jeffery Hanley at the 17 June public meeting of the Review of US Human Spaceflght Plans committee in Washington DC and is embedded from the NASA YouTube website

Thanks to NASA and UStream if you missed the 17 June public meeting of the Review of US Human Spaceflght Plans committee in Washington DC then you can while away the hours watching the above

Speaking to NASA Space Shuttle programme office manager and shuttle derived heavy lift vehicle proponent John Shannon today he expressed views on the outcome of the Norman Augustine led review that could cheer some but perhaps concern a lot more

"There is not enough time to do this super detailed review and I really don't expect them to come out and say you should build this rocket. What I suspect is that they will have a 'NASA should go look or consider at these options with this architecture for this budget number' and we'll go work that with Congress and White House and whatever budget numbers we get will define a lot of what happens next," Shannon told Hyperbola, the implications of which are that NASA will continue working on Ares for some time to come just as it is already while the Review of US human spaceflight plans is ongoing

More uncertainty extending into 2010 would surely be the worst outcome? More delay and more studies would simply make the situation worse for the likes of Kennedy Space Center and the wider industry if, as Shuttle retires, there is doubt about the new vehicles and all current work was abandoned - love or loathe Ares I its keeping capability and jobs alive come 2011

A post-Augustine technical investigation could, paradoxically, ensure Ares I wins by default because by the time any such study concluded the maturity of the crew launch vehicle design and propinquity of the 2015 target date could close the book on other proposals

Shannon gave a presentation on the Shuttle derived heavy lift vehicle on 17 June at the first public meeting of the Review of US human spaceflight plans committee in Washington DC

credit Flight / caption: But will it ever be built?

I snapped this photo last week at the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center stand at the Paris air show. It shows the company's proposed heavy lift Angara A7 rocket model. During the Russian delegation press conference at the air show Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) head Anatoly Perminov, with a rare smile, referred to the "complete family" of Angara rockets now on the agency's exhibit - which houses all the major space companies

The data sheet that accompanied the model can be seen in the extended portion of this blog post. It describes a vehicle launched from Plesetsk cosmodrome, with a 1,133,000kg (2.4 million lb) gross lift off weight, using liquid oxygen and kerosene propellant and able to put 7,600kg into geostationary orbit and 12,500kg into a "geo transfer orbit" with what it calls a KVTK-A7 upper stage. How different is that to the Breeze M/KVTK upper stage I wonder? There is also a reference to a "support orbit" with the figure 35. Is that 35,000kg to LEO?

Talked about publicly on and off for a number of years the earliest article Hyperbola can find is a 1 March 2005 TASS article referring to the A7 as able to put 41,000kg into low Earth orbit (along with talk of a 100,000kg to LEO capable super booster) but there was no reference to this on the Paris air show data sheet - I did get to meet the head of public relations for Khrunichev and forgot to ask, doh! Too busy with the ILS folks, more on that in a future article

Strangely there is not even a mention of the A7 on the Khrunichev website and during my email contact them prior to writing this article no mention was made of the A7. Perhaps recent difficulties with Angara made talk of the A7 a little academic? However a potted history and some technical detail with some artist's impressions can be found at Anatoly Zaks' Russian Space Web site

credit United Launch Alliance / caption: In 2007 the Delta IV launches the USAF DSP-23 satellite

Watching the NASAtv webcast repeats of United Launch Alliance (ULA) president and chief executive Michael Gass' presentation and the Aerospace Corporation's Gary Pulliam explanation of the Delta IV study, it became clearer that the original NASASpaceflight.com (NSF) report was based on ULA's argument (was it me or was Gass very nervous?). The ULA, NSF similarities are:

• the selling point for the Boeing Delta IV Heavy is its alleged 20% performance margin
• the need for the still-in-development RS-68A to achieve the 20% performance margin
• the claim that the black zones are not an issue with the RS-68A enabled 20% margin
• ULA/NSF claim a 2014 Initial Operating Capability (IOC) date for Delta IV Heavy
• ULA claims 4.5-years to IOC for Delta IV Heavy 
• ULA says $800 million for a new pad, NSF said $750 million

Watching Pulliam's presentation the significant points indicating that the report does not support the safety and other claims made by ULA/NSF are:

• Pulliam said the report only looked at cost and schedule
• Aero Corp says up to 7-years needed to realise human rated Delta IV Heavy 
• And an extra year is needed for new Orion/Delta interfaces with a different upper stage

The Flame Trench blog post that Hyperbola has previously discussed was entitled Report: EELVs Could Safely Launch Orion but we now know that the Aerospace Corp study did not tackle safety, only "cost and schedule," Pulliam's own words

Augustine panel member and former astronaut Leroy Chiao asked Pulliam if a "PRA" had been carried out. Hyperbola has confirmed with Chiao that he was referring to loss of crew or loss of mission probabilistic risk assessment. Puliam's answer was a no, confirming that the Aerospace Corporation study did not examine safety 

The BBC has video of WhiteKnight Two (WK2) overflying Las Cruces on Saturday 20 June but the terms of use for embedding it on other websites is for personal use only. As this is a commercial site I can't embed it but go here to find it and watch it. And if I am not mistaken you'll see the back of one Jeff Foust in the video, go Jeff!!

In the end WK2 over flew Las Cruces international airport after missing the ground breaking ceremony on the 19 June 72km (45 miles) north of Las Cruces city after an actuator warning forced the plane's pilots to divert to Phoenix Mesa Gateway airport. On 20 June WK2 flew from Phoenix to Las Cruces and back to Mojave airport, where it is based and which was having its own air show for the day

Find the full BBC report on the 19 June ground breaking ceremony with interviews here

Spaceport America has put out this press release about the plans for the second attempt at a flyover to celebrate the ground breaking for the spaceport

LAS CRUCES, NM - Virgin Galactic's WhiteKnightTwo vehicle is expected to fly over the Las Cruces International Airport at around 9:30 AM on Saturday, June 20. The aircraft was originally scheduled to fly over Southern New Mexico on Friday as part of the groundbreaking ceremonies for Spaceport America. Due to a minor technical issue with an actuator, WhiteKnightTwo made a technical stop in Phoenix. Due to approaching thunderstorms, it was decided not to move forward on Friday.

 

Weather permitting, the WhiteKnightTwo is expected to arrive around 9:30 AM and circle the Las Cruces International Airport three times before beginning its return trip to Mojave, California.

 

Scaled posted a report on 19 June about its prototype WhiteKnight Two's (WK2) tenth flight on that day and why it diverted to Phoenix-Mesa Gateway airport

En route testing above 40,000 feet was uneventful. During the descent toward the Spaceport America groundbreaking we experienced a failure of a speedbrake actuator. Based on facilities available and logistics for our ground crew, the pilots elected to make a precautionary landing at Williams Gateway airport near Phoenix. Our ground crew is on site and we hope to return to Mojave either this afternoon or tomorrow morning.

We now know that WK2 is still at Phoenix and likely to fly out today, 20 June, Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn sent this email to Hyperbola at about 1830h New Mexico local time on 19 June: "Now WK2 overflying Las Cruces and spaceport site at 9.30 tomorrow [20 June] morning NM time [1530h GMT]."

UPDATE: The pictures linked to below have been made private by the photographer, Joe Copalman, and were in fact not taken by a Matt Bearup as I erroneously wrote, apologies Joe. Mr Copalman has now posted this long distant shot of the aircraft

Go here to see a picture of Virgin Galactic's WhiteKnight Two coming into land and another here of the mothership sat on the deck care of the Flickr account of one Matt Bearup.

Shame Matt and his fellow snappers in that locale didn't get my message before they posted, there would have been a very nice bounty for the snapper that provided flightglobal.com with exclusive pictures of that aircraft at that airport

Speaking to Williams Gateway/Phoenix-Mesa Gateway airport again I've been told that as well as no photos (oops guess they lucked out there) the WK2 pilots don't want any press releases by the airport's management about its presence, too late! No press release needed


View Larger Map

Google Lunar X Prize's twitter feed has linked to the NextGiantLeap twitter account that reported that WhiteKnight Two was diverted during its flight to overfly the Spaceport America ground breaking ceremony and landed at a Phoenix, Arizona aiport

That diversion can be seen at this website FlightAware. Hyperbola has spoken to the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway airport at about noon local time today and have been told that WhiteKnight Two is sitting on the airport's cargo ramp and that its pilots do not want any pictures taken of the aircraft

Hyperbola will provide more infromation on the condition of the aircraft as soon as we get it

With comment from Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn find more information here

credit Aerospace Corporation

AvWeek's Frank Morring has explained the above figure of $16 billion in his article about the 17 June Review of US human spaceflight plans commitee meeting. But he doesn't detail why and so I am guessing that its a mixture of shutting down the solid rocket booster infrastructure and then years later starting it back up again and not developing the J-2X engine for a new Delta IV upper stage and having to restart that work years later

credit NASA / caption: "original" plan for lunar development, what does CxP know about the lunar goals?

Another NASA presentation slide from the 17 June Norm Augustine led review of US human spaceflight plans committee meeting. Presented by NASA exploration systems mission directorate associate administrator Doug Cooke and his Constellation prgramme manager Jeff Hanley, according to the presentation's first page, some of its bullet points raise further questions

It says Orion is designed for land landing contingencies but I understand that the airbags have been deleted so I am guessing that an Orion crew exploration vehicle capsule making an off-nominal land landing is not going to be reusable but probably surviveable

The other interesting bits are this $35 billion cost figure for 2015 IOC (whatever happened to those $40-plus billion figures?) and the reference to an "original plan" that had $9 billion for lunar development (that does add up to $44 billion)

This and the other presentations in today's Hyperbola blog posts can be found here and eventually these and more will no doubt appear here

credit NASA / caption: what's with all the red?

click on the table to see a larger version in the same window browser

You can find the presentation the above slide is taken from on this webpage.  I think I was on my back from the Paris air show on the Eurostar train when NASA exploration systems mission directorate associate administrator Doug Cooke showed this slide (the top half is Space Exploration Technologies timetable) as part of his Commercial Orbital Transportation Services presentation to the 17 June 2009 meeting of the Norm Augustine led review of US human spaceflight plans committee

Maybe some of you bloggers out there who had a chance to watch or even attend the event can explain this but that there seems to be a lot of red on that table and that can't be good

Go here for the Aerospace Corporation's presentation given to the Norm Augustine led review of US human spaceflight plans committee 17 June meeting. Because of the complexity of the subject matter the slides content's meaning is not always clear but what can be gleaned is that

• Delta IV launcher could be ready in 5.5 years
• development period includes upper stage re-competition
• new upper stage with J-2X could deliver better performance than Ares I

Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn has confirmed to Hyperbola the report by Jeff Foust on his twitter account about comments made yesterday and told this blog: "As ever sort of with the caveat that weather, bits and pieces technically etc may change that but I said in [New Mexico] last night that we are planning to unveil, and drop test [SpaceShip Two] before Christmas and the likely date subject to all those usual caveats is Dec 7th."

SS2 mothership WhiteKnight Two prototype Eve is to overfly the Spaceport America groundbreaking ceremony today and the webcast of that event can be viewed here

Thales Alenia Space released this press release on Wednesday:

Paris Air Show, June 17, 2009 - Thales Alenia Space announced today the signing of a contract with Orbital Sciences Corporation for the design, development, production and delivery of nine pressurized modules for cargo transport - to include equipment, spare parts, scientific experiments and other items - to the International Space Station (ISS). The contract foresees the first unit delivery in December 2010 and the last unit delivery in the middle of 2015.

At around 8min watch new footage (as far as I can tell) of Burt Rutan and WhiteKnight Two (WK2) rated pilot Peter Siebold appearing to land SpaceShip Two (SS2) in Scaled Composites' SS2/WK2 simulator. The new Mojave air and spaceport video press kit has video from the 2008 press kit that shows elements of the simulated SS2 flight profile with its separation from the WK2 mothership, its flight in space and then final approach and finally, the new video footage shows the landing with Rutan, Scaled's founder, in control

The video has been released as WK2 has made its ninth flight on 15 June reaching 52,400ft (15,900m) which could be SS2's launch altitude. On 19 June WK2 is expected to overfly the Spaceport America ground breaking ceremony in New Mexico. Due to various work pressures Flight and Hyperbola personnel won't be there to cover it, unfortunately

Here is Lockheed Martin's press release, released here at the Paris air show, about an imminent Orion LAS test:

Lockheed Martin announced today that two launch abort system (LAS) motors for NASA's Orion crew exploration vehicle are now in place at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico for integration and preparation for the first flight test, known as Pad Abort 1.

Lockheed Martin and NASA have planned a series of ground and flight tests for the launch abort system over the next few years leading up to Orion's first crewed flight to the International Space Station scheduled for 2015.

As the prime contractor to NASA for the Orion Project, Lockheed Martin is responsible for designing and building this advanced-technology spacecraft that will have more flexible space exploration capability than any previous human space flight vehicle. The launch abort system that sits atop Orion is a complex system designed to activate within milliseconds in the event of an emergency on the launch pad or during initial ascent phase.

Congrats to Frank Morring on a great scoop that builds the case against abandoning Ares I

Hyperbola was aware of the argument that US Air Force Expendable Evolvable Launch Vehicles (EELV) could not deliver a vehicle in time for the 2015 target date but did not know if the latest Aerospace Corporation report would confirm that

In this article I referred to a 2005 report Aerospace Corp produced on human rating EELVs. Never published because of its highly technical and commercially sensitive content Hyperbola was aware that its conclusion was not as positive as some EELV proponents would have liked

Despite claims in the blogosphere of rigged analysis and inaccurate upper stage mass figures in the Exploration Systems Architecture Study report the claim that launch vehicles designed for satellites could "easily" be converted for crew capsules never rang true

credit Flight / caption: Three different versions for the failed Russian tender?

There was no one today (well it is Sunday and the air show officially starts tomorrow) on the stand to talk about these models of the Khrunichev Space Center piloted space complex (see second picture in the extended portion of this blog post for vehicle data) but Hyperbola does intend to talk to the Russian space company this week so expect more details. Looking at the data and seeing how closely they align with the manned spacecraft tender that the Russian Federal Space Agency published this complex concept design (with Angara 3 identified as its launch system) is probably Khrunichev's failed bid for what is now known as the Advanced Crew Transportation System

click on all the images in this blog post to see larger versions in the same window browser

From 15-17 June Hyperbola will be coming from Le Bourget where the 100th Paris air show will be launching into full swing - and there may even be reportage on breaking news over the weekend (yes I've got to work Saturday and Sunday...). Expect multimedia coverage (when I have the time to upload it) of the space industry that camps out in the Parisian suburb for the first half of next week along with tweets from the European Space Agency and Russian Federal Space Agency press conferences, at least. C'est magnifique!

Utilisez Google traduire, en haut à gauche, à lire le blog au-dessus de l'affichage en français

Among the debris of unfinished exhibits here in the halls of the Paris air show is sat the OHB Systeme lunar lander mockup - expect more on this this week - and elsewhere NASA is putting the finishing touches to its very philisophical (why go?) stand that is proudly showing off its Ares I crew launch vehicle and Ares V cargo launch vehicle models, while the agency still can

See more pictures from the show with Flighthyperbola's new twitpic photos

Go here to find out more about how you can follow all the tweet action from the Flightglobal team working this week at the Le Bourget Paris Salon de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace (that's aeronautics and space to the anglais only readers out there) as the air show is also known

It is a bright and sunny Saturday (13 June) morning here in le Bourget, France where preparations continue for the 100th Paris air show that will see a whole of lot of aeronautics stuff and plenty of European spaceflight industry and agency activity to fill the Hyperbola posts that are to come, hopefully along with some podcasts and video reports


Agrandir le plan

credit Max Kingsley-Jones / caption: Charlie Brown being inspected by Londoners

Three weeks and forty years ago today the NASA capsule pictured above was orbiting the Moon, on 22 May 1969. Apollo 10 and its crew, Eugene "Gene" Cernan, John Young and Thomas Stafford paved the way for the 20 July 1969 landing of Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin

The Apollo 10 command module named "Charlie Brown" seen above is in the London science museum and was photographed this month by Max Kingsley-Jones, Flight International magazine's deputy editor. More of Max's photos of the capsule including its fully equipped interior can be found here

Flight has an Apollo programme gallery in its airspace.aero community site and an Apollo 10 image collection can be found there too

Expect more from Flight about the Apollo programme in the run up to the 40th anniversary of humanity's first landing on the Moon

credit NASA / caption: will it all go as planned?

Progress for the test flight vehicle Ares I-X has been the subject of a NASA release this week and in the above Ares I-X team 90-day timetable it looks like August will see stacking of the experimental booster, planned for high bay three of the vehicle assembly building, while elsewhere its reported that "stacking operations" begin on 30 June

Hyperbola is guessing that the rescheduled (meaning postponed) 24 July avionics acceptance review is going to be a key point in this process and wonders what date under review means for the first stage review and the 18 September launch date now given for the much delayed test

There can be few objects whose alleged imminent death has been cheered by so many so vocally bar perhaps Saddam Hussein's statue in 2003 or one of those boats they floated in the Coliseum where they apparently recreated ancient sea battles 20 centuries ago in imperial Rome. But the criticism of NASA's Ares I crew launch vehicle must be on a par

With US Air Force memos making claims about exploding Ares I first stages (126 Shuttle missions and not one SRB has exploded so why do they worry so?) and newspaper articles about launch abort systems taking longer to design - what the article doesn't mention is that you can't close a LAS design until you know what mass (hello, Orion project office?) it is definitley lifting - the staff of NASA's Ares projects office might be feeling like the Christians that the Romans so happily fed to Lions, again in the Coliseum

It has to be said that the English language pro-spaceflight community's blogosphere (which is overwhelmingly American) is broadly in agreement (see here, here, here and here as examples) over what future Ares I should have, i.e,. none. Sorry NASA but your blog postings don't quite balance things out...

But not to worry as Hyperbola is setting itself on a trajectory to put forward counter arguments (hopefully better ones than NASA has put forward to date) to the blogosphere barrage and give reasons as to why Ares I will survive the US human spaceflight plans review  

credit RSC-Energia / caption: Mini Research Module 2 in final assembly at Energia

S P Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia has posted on its website a photo report of the Min Research Module 2 (MRM2) in final assembly with cosmonauts and NASA astronauts in attendance during training

MRM2 will be launched by a TSKB-Progress aka Samara Space Center Soyuz rocket to the International Space Station this November. Although called a mini research module MRM2 is actually to operate as (scroll down to bottom of page) a port for the docking of Soyuz, Progress and other cargo vehicles and as the primary Russian airlock for the performance of spacewalks by two ISS crewmembers using Russian Orlan spacesuits

The picture above shows MRM2 in final assembly and in the lower half of the image the group of people, Energia says, "includes the cosmonauts A. Kaleri, O. Skripochka, M. Suraev, A. Skvortsov and S. Revin and the American astronauts R. Garan, Sh. Walker and J. Williams"

They took part in training by the RSC-Energia specialists at the Checkout & Test Facility, where the module is in the final stage of its manufacturing operations

Meanwhile go here for images of MRM1, which will be launched in 2010 by Space Shuttle

caption: is this the way of the future for bad news?

I get RSS feeds from NASA, am on pretty much all the agency's email alerts and over an hour after this tweet went up (at 1640h Thursday 11 May) there is still nothing on the website or in my Google reader or in my email inbox. The URL in the tweet goes to a NASA webpage that has a description of MLAS and gives 15 June as trhe launch date

Just a week ago NASA announced the MLAS launch would take place on 15 June and now it is to occur on 20 June. It seems tweets is the new way of getting out not so good news

Read NASA's background on MLAS here and Hyperbola's previous blog postings about previous MLAS launch target dates in May and March this year here

credit Virgin Galactic / caption: Virgin group chairman Sir Richard Branson with WhiteKnight Two, SpaceShip Two

Virgin group chairman Sir Richard Branson hailed what he calls "our successful quest to find a re-entry mechanism" in an answer to questions from flightglobal.com readers on Monday 8 June

SpaceShip Two (SS2) and SpaceShipOne (SS1) chief designer Burt Rutan might take issue with that as the "feathering" mechanism, where the spacecraft's booms are moved to a perpendicular position relative to the fuselage to change the aerodynamics, was designed for SS1 long before SS2 was thought of. Unless of course there is more to SS2's re-entry than just dropping like a stone a la SS1?

Branson answered readers' questions when "guest editing" flightglobal.com on 8 June. Read the full question from Dutchman Thijs van der Tuin and Branson's answer below: 

Virgin Galactic is going to offer a service that can't be matched by anyone else at this moment. It brings the possibility of space flight to a lot people. What has surprised you the most since you gave the green light to Virgin Galactic? For example: are there things you thought that wouldn't be possible, but now they are? Media feedback? The amount of time it consumes in your daily life? PS compliments to you for signing with Brawn G.P. Thijs van der Tuin - The Netherlands. 

RB: What has surprised me is our successful quest to find a re-entry mechanism. It has made Virgin Galactic possible and it is something that has plagued NASA before. I'm pleased to say Virgin Galactic consumes much of my time and I'm confident our great team will make it happen shortly. I can't wait to be on the first flight with my family. Thank you for your kind comments on Brawn G.P. Jenson Button has done a great job with a great car.

credit Virgin Galactic / caption: this is a screen grab from the video

It was not clear from the press release or the video whether the SpaceShip Two (SS2) rocket motor two testing involved a full scale engine or that one was fired for as long as SS2 needs it too but Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn has told Hyperbola that that is the case

"Full scale and there were three firings, still more to do in phase two but it has burned for a full SS2 profile," Whitehorn told Hyperbola

So one assumes three rocket motors were used for this first phase and its three tests. Hyperbola hopes to bring further rocket motor testing details including whether SS2 prime contractor Scaled Composites and its motor development partner Sierra Nevada subsidiary Spacedev have resolved issues the SpaceShipOne motor had, such as its low- and high-frequency combustion instability

credit: EADS Astrium / caption: this is Astrium's idea of a lunar lander

A lunar landing technology demonstrator could be flown in 2012 if a €1 million ($1.39 million) German Aerospace Center (DLR) feasibility study awarded to EADS Astrium is successful

The €1 million study starts this month and lasts for nine months, ending with a technical specifiation for a lander. Astrium described the landing technologies as autonomous and involving optical navigation

A second phase could see powered descents in Germany conducted from an altitude of 4,920ft (1,500m). The descents will also test navigation and obstacle avoidance technologies

Go through to the extended portion to see more Astrium concept images

click on all the images in this blog post to see larger versions in the same window browser

credit: / caption: this design has changed Will Whitehorn told the ISDC in May

As well as the Scaled Composites WhiteKnight Two flyover at about midday you can also look forward to liquid cheese the night before as part of the entertainment. What liquid cheese is I have no idea (unless it is the live music) but no doubt it is as innovative as the US invention that is hotdog on a stick. Read below and in the extended section of this blog post the details of Spaceport America's ground breaking event

Meanwhile Hyperbola will be at the world's biggest aerospace event the le Bourget salon aka Paris air show (that's Paris, France not Texas) so absoutely none of our editorial team can be there. Best of luck New Mexico Spaceport Authority - and Scaled ;-)

SPACEPORT AMERICA PRESS ADVISORY

June 5, 2009

SCHEDULE UPDATES

SPACEPORT AMERICA GROUNDBREAKING EVENT
SECOND NOTICE - REGISTRATION INSTRUCTIONS & EVENT SCHEDULE UPDATES

LAS CRUCES New updates to the Spaceport America groundbreaking events have been added to the schedule for Friday, June 19. Please go online at www.spaceportamerica.com/groundbreaking to see the up-to-date detailed event schedule. Members of the media are invited to attend the groundbreaking events, and special transportation provisions have been made for media. This advisory contains specific media-related information required for registration to attend the groundbreaking event.

Expect normal service to resume on Monday 8 June