July 2009 Archives

Angara's
credit Khrunichev Space Center / caption: Angara is one step closer to its first flight

Go here for more photos from Khrunichev about its URM-1 test firing. Read below about the details of this latest milestone for the Angara rocket's first stage


URM-1 Fire Testing Completed at Rocket & Space Industry Research & Testing Center

31.07.2009

On 30 July 2009 the Universal Rocket Module URM-1 for the prospective Angara family of launch vehicles was successfully  fire-tested at the Rocket & Space Industry Research & Testing Center near Moscow.

Fire-testing is a mandatory phase of ground-based development cycle for any similar space industry articles.

The objective is to conduct comprehensive checkouts of URM-1 in order to validate its functionality and expected performance as Angara's 1^st Stage and check out the algorithm and timeline for ground processing of flight launch vehicles.

UPDATE: Florida Today's The Flame Trench blog has a transcript of its live blogging output from today's Norman Augustine's "Review of US human spaceflight plans" panel's visit to Cocoa Beach, Florida

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What people are saying about nasa_hsf

_Baylink: @NASA_HSF "Out there. Thataway." If you prefer, "second star to the right, straight on 'til morning". While practical, NASA's about dreams.

About 4 hours ago

Whateyupey: RT @NASA_HSF We leave you today with this image and a question. Where do you see NASA going from here? http://tinyurl.com/inspirat...

About 6 hours ago

Whateyupey: RT @NASA_HSF We will inform you when documents and video from this week's public meetings go online.

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Whateyupey: RT @NASA_HSF Thank you everyone for following along today. We will be in Washington, DC on August 5th.

About 6 hours ago

Whateyupey: RT @NASA_HSF Dr. Austin thanks everyone and closes the meeting.

About 6 hours ago

genejm29: RT @NASA_HSF: We leave you today w/ this image & question. Where do you see NASA going from here?  http://tinyurl.com/...

About 6 hours ago

jimhillhouse: #NASA_HSF I hope General Lyles didn't hold the view, "Preeminence does not mean dominance." as an Air Force officer. Defeat != loss? Wrong.

About 6 hours ago

stratocumulus: RT @NASA_HSF We leave U today with this image & a question. Where do U see NASA going from here?  http://tinyurl.com/...

About 6 hours ago

AmericaSpace: #NASA_HSF General Lyles comment, "Preeminence does not mean dominance." goes a long way in explaining what's wrong with our Space program.

About 6 hours ago

chronsciguy: @NASA_HSF Great work the last three days.

About 6 hours ago

drewmanchu: Heh... RT @NASA_HSF: "Big dumb rocket" comment from the current public speaker referring to Ares rocket.

About 6 hours ago

genejm29: RT @CatherineQ: Catching up on @NASA_HSF Committee meeting Public meetings have been recorded are posted to http://hsf.nasa.gov

About 6 hours ago

jimhillhouse: #NASA_HSF General Lyles comment, "Preeminence does not mean dominance." goes a long way in explaining what's wrong with our Space program.

About 6 hours ago

stratocumulus: RT @NASA_HSF We will inform you when documents and video from this week's public meetings go online.

About 6 hours ago

genejm29: RT @NASA_HSF: We will inform you when documents and video from this week's public meetings go online.

About 6 hours ago

 

Care of my Flightglobal colleague Jon Ostrower and his Flightblogger blog at 2min 25s into the above video Scaled Composites founder Burt Rutan talks about the life support system that SpaceShip Two and WhiteKnight Two share

credit SpaceX / caption: the tank and interstage pass testing

Space Exploration Technologies' has announced another milestone in the preparation for its first Falcon 9 launch. Read here Flightglobal's review of SpaceX's progress to date

SpaceX completes qualification of Falcon 9 First stage tank and interstage

McGregor, TX  (July 29, 2009) - Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) announces the successful completion of qualification testing for the Falcon 9 launch vehicle first stage tank and interstage.  Testing took place at SpaceX's Texas Test Site, a 300 acre structural and propulsion testing facility, located just outside of Waco, Texas.   

The first stage tank and interstage hardware were subjected to a proof test of 1.1 times the maximum expected operating pressure (MEOP), and a burst pressure proof test of 1.4 MEOP; qualifying both articles with a 1.4 factor of safety.  The 1.4 factor of safety designation means that the first stage tank and the interstage can withstand 140 percent the maximum internal pressure expected during flight, and qualifies both pieces of hardware to meet human rating safety requirements, as defined by NASA. The first stage also passed this human rating milestone when subjected to structural bending tests. 

The testing regimen included over 150 pressurization cycles, exceeding the number of required life cycles by more than 100.  In addition, the first stage and interstage were subjected to stiffness tests, maximum dynamic pressure loading and main engine cutoff conditions; all at expected values, as well as ultimate loads. 

"Falcon 9 continues to pass qualification testing in preparation for its first flight, scheduled for 2009," said Elon Musk, CEO and CTO of SpaceX.  "All hardware was designed to be man-rated, and these tests confirm that SpaceX is one step closer to flying humans on the Falcon 9/Dragon system." 

Falcon 9's first stage and interstage also passed ground wind qualification tests, critical for when the vehicle is vertical on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.  Both components were designed, built and tested by SpaceX. 

credit Flightglobal / caption: A happy Will Whitehorn on 28 July  2009 at Airventure Oshkosh

Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn spoke to Hyperbola after the first public demonstration flight of the WhiteKnight Two, which Sir Richard Branson participated in by sitting in the flight engineer's seat. The demo flight took place exactly one year after the 28 July 2008 roll out of the mothership at Mojave air and spaceport. Watch the interview video in the extended portion of this blog post

Above is the left hand seat of WhiteKnight Two's starboard cabin command module with the helmets of its pilot Peter Siebold and co-pilot Clint Nichols. Watch a video of the interior below
In the extended section of this blog post are more exclusive pictures of the cockpit, the rest of the interior of WK2's righthand fuselage and of Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson preparing for his participation in the demo flight - that took place on the afternoon of Tuesday 28 July here at the EAA Airventure air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin

all the images in the blogpost are copyright Flightglobal/Reed Business Information

click on all of the images in this blog post to see larger versions in the same browser window, feel free to download for personal use

In what is more like a "mega-angel" investor than what would be considered the normal process of raising rounds of private finance Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group has managed to sell effectively a third of Virgin Galactic. At the Royal Aeronautical Society Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn spoke of his confidence of SpaceShip Two flying in the Middle East and of obtaining private finance in the next 12-months. Now we know why. Find the press release below and in the extended portion of this blog post

Oshkosh/Abu Dhabi, 28th July 2009: Abu Dhabi 's Aabar Investments and Virgin Group today announced that they have agreed to enter a strategic partnership, which will see Aabar take an equity stake in the world's first commercial spaceline - Virgin Galactic. To date, Virgin Galactic has been wholly owned and funded by Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group. The deal, signed today at the EAA AirVenture air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin attended by Sir Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Group, and Mohamed Badawy Al-Husseiny, CEO of Aabar. The signing ceremony is taking place alongside Virgin Galactic's new carrier space launch vehicle, WhiteKnightTwo (VMS Eve) which is making its public demonstration flying debut in Oshkosh. Under the deal, Aabar will invest approximately US$280m and take around a 32% stake in Virgin Galactic's holding company, valuing the business at about $900m. The transaction is subject to obtaining regulatory clearances in the United States and elsewhere. Additionally, Aabar has committed $100m (plus transaction cost) to fund a small satellite launch capability, subject to the development of a full business plan. It will also gain exclusive regional rights, subject to regulatory clearances, to host Virgin Galactic tourism and scientific research space flights. Finally, Aabar has plans to build spaceport facilities in Abu Dhabi.

credit Flight/Alan Radecki / caption: see the notch in the bottom of the rudder

In the photo above the new modification to the WhiteKnight Two prototype Eve's rudder, a notch cut into the bottom of it, can be seen and above it, glinting in the sun, are the vortex generators previously added. The photo was taken on Monday 27 July during the mothership's take-off at about 07:37 local time at Mojave air and spaceport as it began its journey to Oshkosh

Scaled Composites founder and chief engineer Burt Rutan told Hyperbola about the latest change to the rudder during a brief chat the aircraft designer had with media after WK2 landed at Wittman regional airport in Oshkosh on Monday 27 July

Watch Flightglobal's interviews about WhiteKnight Two and SpaceShip Two with Virgin group chairman and Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson and Scaled Composites founder and chief engineer Burt Rutan. As well as Associated Press and the Green Bay affiliate of CBS television Flightglobal got to talk to Rutan and Branson under the wing of WK2 immediately after it landed

All images property of Flightglobal

Click on any of the images in this blog post to see a larger version in the same browser window

credit Flight/Alan Radecki / caption: WK2 takes-off

On Monday 27 July 2009 Virgin Galactic's mothership WhiteKnight Two takes off from Mojave air and spaceport at 07:37 local time as it begins its four to five hour journey to Wittman regional airport in Oshkosh, Wisconsin for the EAA Airventure air show

Expect video and pictures of its arrival on Hyperbola later today

This video is the first of seven that can be found about the Google Lunar X Prize session that took place at the New Space 2009 event, the agenda for which can be found here.

The New Space 2009 conference also saw a pre-view showing of the Apollo documentary Moonbeat.

July 11, 2009, Mojave, CA -  Flometrics, Inc. has successfully flown a liquid fueled rocket with a renewable version of JP-8. and liquid oxygen.  The fuel was developed by the EERC under a DARPA contact. The fuel was supplied by Bob Allen of  the Fuels and Energy branch of the US Air Force Research Lab at Wright Patterson Air Force base.  The 180lb rocket was a 20ft tall, 1ft diameter and it was powered by a RocketDyne LR-101 rocket engine that was originally used as a steering engine on the early Atlas and Delta rockets.  The rocket performance during the 15s long burn was better than the performance of a similar rocket using RP-1 refined kerosene rocket fuel. It reached an altitude of approximately 20,000ft and may have exceeded Mach 1. The biofuel ran cleaner than the standard rocket fuel that has been used before. Since the biofuel was originally designed for jets, it may be possible to tune it for better performance in rocket engines.

credit NASA / caption: Can you stay at 100,000ft for two-days?

Anyone out there eager to sell NASA some suborbital launches?

This chart above shows NASA Ames Research Center's sub-orbital science mission platform requirements and was presented by Bay Area Environmental Research Institute senior research scientist Steve Wagener at the Shephard UV Europe 2009 conference in Newport, Wales.

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

From 25 July to 14 August Hyperbola will be based in the US and working on the east coast and in Colorado and Utah, on Mountain time. From the public debut of Virgin Galactic's WhiteKnight Two at the EAA AirVenture air show at Oshkosh to the latest on NASA's plans from the 45th Joint Propulsion conference in Denver, Hyperbola will be stateside for the next three weeks

So here is the official announcement, SpaceX has officially lost Hylas to Arianespace

 

 

Avanti Communications Group plc, has chosen Arianespace to launch the HYLAS telecommunications satellite. This new contract is the 11^th signed by Arianespace with the major satellite operators.

 

The launch of the HYLAS satellite is planned for the first semester of 2010, using an Ariane 5 or Soyuz launcher from the Guiana Space Center, Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana.

 

HYLAS is the first satellite entrusted to Arianespace by Avanti Communications, the new European satellite operator. Avanti Communications is Arianespace's 31st new customer.

 

The video above is part one of a series of videos that can be found here at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics AIAA Youtube webpage. The event, Innovations in Orbit: An Exploration of Commercial Crew and Cargo Transportation, was held on 18 June 2009. It was a half day event exploring commercial crew and cargo concepts designed to service both government and private sector needs in low Earth orbit

credit Flight / caption: what further control surface changes are being made?

Has Scaled Composites made further changes to the rudder of its WhiteKnight Two prototype Eve?

In the company's online log for its WK2 prototype's flight test 13 it says: "Eval control surface mods, Eval pitot probe relocation, Intstrument approach practice, Pilot LOA practice."

Hyperbola contacted Virgin Galactic and was told by its president Will Whitehorn: "minor refinements [made to control surfaces were] based on learning to date."

Asked which control surfaces had been modified, Whitehorn said: "this is commercially sensitive as it is and Scaled don't give a running commentary to their competitors, that's all they wish to say."

In its 23 April statement Scaled Composites stated that "We concluded the rudder aerodynamic modification tasks following flight 3."

credit ATK/NASA / Caption: DM-1 is readied for its August test firing

Alliant Techsystems released on 20 July this image of the first five segment demonstration motor for NASA's Ares I crew launch vehicle first stage. Called Demonstration Motor One or DM-1 it is set for ignition on 25 August

The test had been set for 2 April and then 13 August. Between now and the new date of 25 August ATK will install the instrumentation for the test

Oscillation, due to forces acting within the organ pipe-like solid rocket motor (SRM), has been big news for quite some time and the latest on that is the difficulties in designing an avionics box that can withstand the expected vibration

When I spoke to Ares project office engineers last year at the AIAA Space conference they did say that the Ares I first stage avionics (housed in the equipment section forward of the SRM forward segment) was "hot," which they explained meant it was still at a very early stage of development

Speaking to some Italian solid rocket motor experts last year they informed Hyperbola that while ground tests for SRMs are useful the data is not without its problems because of interactions between the ground and the motor

The only way, according to the Italians, to obtain accurate good data about motor performance is to fly them. Italy is leading the European Space Agency's work on developing the Vega rocket that has solid fuel motors for its first and second stages. Its maiden flight is late 2010

Go through to the extended portion of this blog post to see the ATK press release

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

It was a simple question, given rhetorically by then president John Fitzgerald Kennedy on 12 September 1962 in the baking heat of Rice University in Houston, Texas and its simplicity understated its significance

The answer, no doubt, is that they play because it is a challenge

And it is the challenge of the unknown, of being ready to seek what is over the next hill, to overcome the difficult environment that maybe there, and to persist; that is the simple explanation for why the technical achievement that was Project Apollo was undertaken and accomplished

Humanity had wanted to go for millenia and that manifested itself in myth and legend, books and film, and in the earliest days of the moving picture too. It just took a race between super powers to realise it

The challenge is still there, to go and stay and not just at the Moon. Mars looms large in peoples' imaginations and space agencies see it as the greater goal. Humanity will go back to the Moon and do the other thing

The simple question that remains is, will the nation that leads that great endeavour speak of Rice playing Texas or Shanghai playing Beijing or Delhi playing Mumbai?

credit: Russian Federal Space Agency / caption:  The bullet shape is feintly reminiscent of Kliper

The above image is a cropped screencap from an animation embedded in a Russian Federal Space Agency "tvRoscosmos" webpage. It shows a very different concept, from what has been reported to be the craft, for the planned Advanced Crew Vehicle (ACV) that Russia wants to launch on its new Rus-M rocket in the second half of the next decade

The animation video shows a future Rus-M launch of ACV, also known as Crew Space Transportation System, and it can be found in the extended portion of this blog post

The video follows a surprise slide (see below - cropped again for space) from Roscosmos head Anatoly Perminov's presentation to the 17 June Review of US human spaceflight plans committee meeting that shows a basic capsule and something that looks like the European Space Agency's EXPERT re-entry technology demonstrator.

However Roscosmos has said that no ACV designs will be shown until next year. What makes Hyperbola wonder about this bullet shape design is that a very senior Energia designer and Soviet space programme veteran told it that Kliper had severe subsonic instability. Perhaps they are aiming now for something more like Lockheed Martin's Orbital Space Plane concept


credit: Russian Federal Space Agency / caption: is this accurate at all?

Last week Paul Coffman and Bob Biggs, former Rocketdyne engineers and members of the development teams for the J-2 and F-1 engines, respectively,spoke to Flightglobal through a teleconference organised by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne

Both are now consultants on NASA's Ares rocket J-2X engine programme. Due to the quality of the telephone line the audio is best listened to through headphones with the volume up

Paul Coffman's MP3 file is here and Bob Biggs' MP3 file is here

The European Space Agency has just this minute released this information with an invite to media to attend the Thales Alenia Space Italy contract signing event - it is on Monday


Set for launch in 2010, the data collected by the European Experimental Reentry Testbed (EXPERT) will provide aero-thermodynamic tool validation on the basis of actual flight data for a number of physical phenomena encountered by space transportation vehicles during their re-entry phase in the Earth atmosphere. It will also improve the European competence in the atmospheric re-entry field and associated technologies.

Developing improved space transportation systems requires an increased confidence in the knowledge of such phenomena and a reduction of the design margins to increase system performance. The availability of detailed experimental data will allow the refinement of the aerodynamic and aero-thermodynamic models and project tools.

EXPERT is conceived to provide these data through a low cost in-flight experimentation.

The EXPERT vehicle consists of:

- a cold structure that hosts the avionic equipment and payload electronics,

- a thermal protection system, which is also a hot structure,

- power and data handling subsystems,

- a parachute system to ensure a soft landing of the vehicle,

- an inertial measurement unit.

The payload will entail a series of scientific flight measurement equipment, including classic and advanced techniques such as temperature, heat flux and pressure sensors, spectrometers and an infrared camera.

Unsurprisingly despite various reports on the blogosphere that Ares I is dead, or toast as some people like to call it, the rocket is very much still in the running according to Review of US human spaceflight plans committee chairman Norman Augustine in his progress report telecon to the media today

It did seem a bit odd when the first reports started to emerge about Augustine's committee asking for alternatives to NASA's Ares I crew launch vehicle. That was because looking at alternatives to that and the Ares V cargo launch vehicle is the whole point of the review

And we have known about that from the very beginning and at the 17 June meeting DIRECT and Heavy Lift Vehicle and others had their time to make their claims

What Augustine did say seems to repeat what he said to the NASA Advisory Council according to this blog post - link care of Clark Lindsey's excellent Hobbyspace.com - and more

During the 17 July telecon Q&A he started out saying that he expected to be able to give insights "in a couple of weeks" into the constraints his team would consider when drawing up the options they would supply NASA and the White House with

Hyperbola did not get to ask a question during the telecon but the most interesting questions centred around the idea of alternatives to the Ares rockets. Augustine said of the committee's views on Ares I, "It would be completely wrong to say Ares is dead in the water."

On 22 July the UK government science and innovation, and space, minister Lord Paul Drayson and guests* will give details about the new European Space Agency facilty in the UK and Hyperbola has heard that the British National Space Centre (BNSC) is to become the UK Space Agency but there is no new money despite this BNSC statement

So this space agency will be one only in name and instead of new money for UK civil space activities there is to be a reallocation of monies with the main beneficiary being the European Space Agency's new Oxfordshire based-facility. What does that mean for the MoonLITE mission?

Go here to download the update that chairman of the Review of US human spaceflight plans committee Norman Augustine gave to the media on 17 July 2009 and go here to hear the question and answer session

credit Flight / captin: Christoper Riley was interviewed at the Royal Aeronautical Society

Christopher Riley, co-producer of the In the Shadow of the Moon documentary, spoke at the Royal Aeronautical Society's Apollo 11 Forty years on lecture on 16 July 2009 and Hyperbola was there to interview him

His latest collaboration is the restoration of Moonwalk One. This NASA funded documentary was made about the historic 1969 mission and is being shown by the British Film Institute at its National Film Theatre as part of its One Giant Leap season. The BFI describes the season as a series of "landmark films and live events celebrating the 40th anniversary of the first Apollo moon landing"

Go here for Flightglobal.com's 40th anniversary webpage and here for NASA's restored "first step" film and here for other anniversary related material from the US space agency

NASA is requsting proposals for provision of a supersonic stacked toroid Inflatable decelerator model for its fundamental aeronautics programme supersonics and hypersonic projects

The above image shows NASA's design for a supersonic stacked toroid inflatable decelerator model. The delivered model will be tested in a supersonic wind tunnel at Ames Research Center and Glenn Reseach Center for the space agency's fundamental aeronautics programme supersonics and hypersonic projects that is researching the slowing down of large spacecraft, which could be pre-deployed assets for a Martian base or a manned descent vehicle, in the supersonic speed regime as they enter planetary atmospheres

Mmmm, now is it me or is it just a coincidence that Google Lunar X Prize contender Odyssey Moon has announced this just after the Futron corporation releases its commercial Moon report that appears to have been funded by the Google Lunar prize organising X Prize Foundation?

Mountain View, California & Douglas, Isle of Man - Google Lunar X PRIZE contender Odyssey Moon Limited announced today that top industry leaders Near Earth LLC, WPP Group, Aon and Milbank have joined its corporate team. Odyssey Moon intends to become the first private company to supply payload delivery services to the Moon in support of science, exploration and commerce. This is the first time such major organizations have come together to support a commercial Moon venture.

As the world celebrates the 40th anniversary of "Moon 1.0" - mankind's first but short lived activities on the lunar surface - Odyssey Moon is forging ahead with its plans to capitalize on commercial opportunities created by renewed interests in exploring the Moon - "Moon 2.0".

Joining the Odyssey Moon venture is:

Will Futron, the company that predicted the space tourism market after SpaceShipOne get it right again? This press release was just sent out

Playa Vista, CA (July 16, 2009) - A study performed by the Futron Corporation, an aerospace consultancy based in Bethesda, MD, predicts that companies such as those competing for the Google Lunar X PRIZE will be able to address a market in excess of $1 billion over the course of the next decade. The results of the study resonate with the expectations of the X PRIZE Foundation, which conducts the $30 million competition that challenges space professionals and engineers from across the globe to build and launch privately funded spacecraft capable of exploring the lunar surface. The market projection demonstrates the breadth of commercial opportunities that companies are likely to pursue either during or after the conclusion of their Google Lunar X PRIZE missions.

NASA is to cost the impact of altering its 29 July 2010 Space Shuttle Endeavour STS-133/ULF5 flight in preparation for a decision on permanently attaching its Raffaello multi-purpose logistics module (MPLM) to the International Space Station (ISS). In a reply to an enquiry by Hyperbola the space agency said 

The change request was put into the system to cost the technical impacts of doing it if approved.  It has not yet been agreed to by the programme or international partners.

SPACEX'S FALCON 1 SUCCESSFULLY DELIVERS RAZAKSAT SATELLITE TO ORBIT

Hawthorne, CA (July 15, 2009) - Space Exploration Technologies announces the successful launch of Falcon 1 and delivery of Malaysia's RazakSAT into the correct orbit.

"This marks another successful launch by the SpaceX team," said Elon Musk, CEO and CTO of SpaceX. "We are pleased to announce that Malaysia's RazakSAT, aboard Falcon 1, has achieved the intended orbit."

And so it begins the UK government public relations machine whirrs into action and canny science and innovation (and space!) minister Lord Drayson dangles the space agency carrot by not denying it could be announced next week

On 22 July in London there is to be a press conference about the new European Space Agency facility that is to be located at the Harwell Science and Innovation Centre, also home to the now privatised UK Atomic Energy Authority. The facility, for robotics, is supposed to herald a new level of investment by the UK in the European agency's activities

To see space tourism red tape get UK national newspaper coverage and for it to centre on criticism from the second largest political party in the country's 1,000-year old parliamentary system would be surprising to many Britons to say the least

While the UK is not a country known for having enthusiastic support for space travel from its political class Hyperbola is not entirely surprised. This blog is aware that on 8 June Sir Richard Branson met with Conservative party leader David Cameron - the Conservative party (locally known as the Tories) is that second largest party and under the country's constitutional law is referred to as the "official opposition"

credit JAXA / caption: JAXA has only released a thumbnail image

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) Mitsubishi Heavy Industries H-IIB ground test vehicle participated in a ground test at its Tanegashima Space Center launch site on 11 July. The test took the vehicle all the way through the launch procedure to the point where the first stage engines would have been started. In this blurry picture, an enlarged version of the thumbnail image that JAXA has released, the H-IIB GTV's first and upper stage has been rolled out to the pad but without its fairing. The launch window for the maiden flight of the H-IIB is scheduled for 11 September this year. The rocket will launch the first of JAXA's H-IIB Transfer Vehicle resupply spacecraft for the International Space Station

Hyperbola hears on the grapevine that Sally Ride's subcommittee for the Review of US human spaceflight plans is looking at those Space Shuttle extension studies

The review's ISS/Shuttle subcommittee is led by Ride and is charged with looking at the Shuttle schedule and the human spaceflight gap, among other things

While persons on the Space Shuttle Programme (SSP) tell Hyperbola that Florida is largely resigned to losing the orbiter in 2010 the review of extension options will be welcomed by many

However it is more likely that the extension plans' re-examination has more to do with evaluating the SSP Heavy Lift Vehicle proposal. Its advocates suggest the orbiter's final few flights could be stretched out to mitigate contractor capability loss and minimise the gap between Shuttle and HLV

credit NASA / caption: will it ever be crewed? 

Flightglobal recently interviewed Space Shuttle Programme manager John Shannon about the Heavy Lift Vehicle (HLV). He gave a presentation about it to the Review of US human spaceflight plans commitee on 17 June. The Flightglobal article about HLV can be found here and also below and in the extended portion of this blog post are the notes from that interview that have information excluded from the article - due to reasons of word count limits for the web site's sister print title Flight International

The Shuttle-C separated from the External Tank (ET), the HLV doesn't. Industry looked at side mount for two years, 2004, 2005

A deployable fairing was added by the SSP HLV team, which added payload capability

Learnt from SSME about life cycle costs. "Reusability is a myth in my opinion" because of the parts that have to be replaced and associated costs with keeping the supply chain in place to keep the engines maintained

The cargo carrier boat tail is permanently attached to the ET while the avionics are at the front of it

I wish we had done Shuttle-C in 1980s and 1990s we could have tested upgrades, developments that could then be rolled into the Shuttle-Orbiter stack

The HLV block one will use existing Shuttle flight software, but would not use the full suite used on the Orbiter

The aerodynamics between the ET and the orbiter are complex, acoustic models, structural models, loads, trajectory models need to be done for the cargo carrier and crewed version 

If you used a cargo carrier that has the same or similar mould line as shuttle stack has now you already have that history/data

credit NASA / caption: This manifest is more revealing than one would hope

Notice anything different about the image of the slide above, compared to most other Constellation programme schedules? It is the complete lack of any milestone for the Ares V cargo launch vehicle and its Altair lunar lander, all the way out to 2020

This might seem like a silly oversight but this slide is from the pre-proposal conference for the Exploration ground launch services contract that will be awarded in 2010. Flightglobal spoke to NASA about this and you can read the agency's response in this story here

The Obama NASA budget request looked bad for Ares V with $25 million in FY2011 when Bush's 2008 budget request gave it more than ten times that in that year. Then the conceptual design contract was put on hold for the Review of US human spaceflight plans. If that wasn't bad enough for the CaLV the EGLS slide indicates that Ares V will not be seen anytime soon. Some might see that as an indication that Ares I's future is bleak, as the two rockets are linked as part of a 10-15-year (2005 to 2020) Moon return architecture. Only time will tell

There has also been mention in the blogosphere of potential changes for Ares I-Y. The change is clear in this chart above. Note the March 2014 date for Ares I-Y when the 2 February 2009 Multi-Programme Integrated Milestone chart you can find on the web has the date as third quarter calendar year 2013, a nine month slip

It is good to know that there are still ivory towers in the universe and clearly the US National Academies is one of them

Some NASA managers may have been concerned at the timing of such a prestigous sounding report as America's Future in Space: Aligning the Civil Space Program with National Needs. And from such a worthy corner as the National Academies but Hyperbola imagines that many will be relieved at the motherhood and apple pie rhetoric that drips from its slim 126-pages that were made public on 7 July

Rather like the MIT future of human spaceflight December 2008 report, the Obama campaign space policy and the Center for American Progress Action Fund New Democracy Project, the National Academies' tome does not address the fundamental problem and instead it would seem that "national needs" is just about anything that can dreamed up by the committee that produced this tome-lite publication

The great and the good of the academies has missed the point that the big problem is that no one can get the US Congress to add federal chump change on a yearly basis to the NASA budget. The US Congress is ready and willing to pass authorisation acts that have goals as imaginative as anything the National Acadmies can dream up but without the bucks, well you, dear reader, can finish that sentence

Charles Bolden got it right when in his statement for his Congressional hearing for the NASA administrator job it said "Today we have to choose". Or more accurately Congress must choose because it is the elected representatives that have stopped a Republican president with his own Congressional majority from getting the budget increases he asked for and many of the same people on both sides of the senate/house appear to be ready to stop the US space agency from even getting the modest budget Obama requested; again at a time when the president's party controls Congress

If the big brains of the National Acadmies had earned their pay cheque with this report they might have addressed this political conundrum that the US space programme faces and proposed a way to restructure the agency to extend its budgetary appeal to the Congress men and women that count because Florida, Texas and California don't seem to amount to much anymore

Go through to the extended section of this blog post to see the "recommendations" made by the National Academies and ask yourself how much that and the rest of the 126-pages cost you the tax payer

First Briton in space Helen Sharman spoke to Hyperbola after being awarded the first silver astronaut pin by the British Interplanetary Society (BIS) on 3 July 2009. Sharman flew to the Mir space station in May 1991. Called Project Juno the mission had been initiated by London based Moscow Narodny Bank, a subsidiary of the Soviet Union's Vnesheconombanka bank, that thought it could organise private funding to send a foreign citizen to the Mir space station

Deciding to conduct this commercial venture in the UK adverts were placed in 1989 for applicants and over 13,000 were received. Managed by Brunel University's Institute for Bio-Engineering Sharman, a chemist working in the food industry at the time, was selected and with a British Army air corps Major as her backup crew man went through 18 months of cosmonaut training. Launched on Soyuz TM-12 on 18 May her mission lasted eight-days

The BIS also awarded a silver pin to British born US citizen Richard Garriott, the sixth spaceflight participant to go to the International Space Station. Garriott, the son of NASA Skylab and Space Shuttle astronaut Owen Garriott, made his money in the computer game industry. The BIS plans to award British born NASA astronauts Michael Foale, Piers Sellers and Nick Patrick silver pins in the near future 

Despite reports in 1991 and since that Project Juno was a private mission, and even Sharman herself refers to it as a commercial mission, the Soviet bank failed to raise any private financing and the entire mission was paid for by the Soviet government. It went ahead with the approval of then Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev. Hyperbola investigated the background to Juno a while back and spoke to the UK organisers about the realities of Project Juno

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has announced that the launch window for its Mitsubishi Heavy Industries H-IIB launcher and its H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV) payload will open at 0204h Japan Standard Time (1204h GMT) on 11 September. The launch of the HTV is important to the future of the International Space Station (ISS). Without NASA's Space Shuttle the HTV will be crucial to operating a viable ISS crew of six that can conduct plenty of science. What makes the 11 September (couldn't they have picked a less forbidding date?) launch so risky is that it will be the H-IIB's first flight or as JAXA puts it, "test flight". One senior ESA ISS official told Hyperbola that was "brave". Shuttle may yet get a reprieve 

 

credit NASA / caption: The Shuttle derived Heavy Lift Vehicle lifts off from KSC

So now we see that some parts of the media are getting all excited about the Shuttle derived Heavy Lift Vehicle. This presentation is, Hyperbola thinks, from the NASA technical team that is reviewing the original work carried out by the Space Shuttle Programme (SSP) office. The presentation contains material previously seen by Hyperbola from briefings that were provided prior to the 17 June Augustine meeting presentation but not included within that presentation

NASA's SSP manager John Shannon told Flightglobal last week that a NASA team and a Aerospace Corporation team would look over the work started by SSP. Notes from the interview that were not used for the Flight International magazine spaceflight page HLV special, now online, will be posted on this blog soon

No doubt lots of fun will be had by various individuals leaking material to various journalists over the weeks and months to come, and all augmented by the grapevine. While HLV certainly hits a host of buttons what should be remembered is that it doesn't give NASA the same capability to go to the Moon as Constellation, the HLV crewed version has big questions hovering over it, as big as Ares I crew launch vehicle's oscillations, such as external tank proximity, and even the cargo version will still need to meet International Space Station human rating requirements

credit ESA / caption: (L-R) Luca Parmitano, Alexander Gerst, Andreas Mogensen, Samantha Cristoforetti, Tim Peake, Thomas Pesquet

At the Paris air show Hyperbola got to interview three of the European Space Agency's new astronauts, Tim Peake, Andy Mogensen and Samantha Cristoforetti. Go here to listen to the astronaut podcast

Peake is the UK's first ESA astronaut, Mogensen is the first Dane and Cristoforetti the first Italian woman, and second woman to be selected to the ESA astronaut corps. The other three ESA astronaut candidates are Italy's Luca Parmitano, Germany's Alexander Gerst and France's Thomas Pesquet

Danish born Mogensen revealed himself to be a bit of a Hyperbola fan, listen here as he talks about how he hoped Hyperbola would get the astro scoop of the year and reveal the names of those selected. Oddly Hyperbola had predicted that a Dane could be among those selected and also this blog expected a women to be among the finalists

And so for this blog's next prediction it will say, Cristoforetti should be the first of the new astronauts to fly. While officially the national agencies do not have a say in who flies when Italy has a bilateral relationship with NASA for International Space Station and that gives it its own opportunities for ISS exploitation, shall we say. And Italian Space Agency commissioner Enrico Saggese told Flightglobal that he would like Cristoforetti to fly as soon as possible

caption: the space cooperation working group is second from bottom

My pals in the Kremlin (joke!) pointed me to this 6 July 2009 President of Russia statement (above) about the US Russia bilateral Presidential commission that includes a space cooperation working group. The working group is to be led by the head of Roscosmos Anatoly Perminov and the NASA administrator, who at this point is bound to be Charles Bolden. The first meeting could be in September, towards the end of the 120-day review that the US has underway

EADS Astrium has released this latest concept image of the European Space Agency's Advanced Reentry Vehicle (ARV) along with the announcement that the European company has been awarded a €21 million phase A study for ARV - see press release in the extended portion of this blog post

The press release bravely says that the ARV could fly in 2016. What it doesn't mention is that the €21 million ($29.3 million) is the entire sum the ESA member states gave their agency for ARV from 2009 and up to and including 2011

So without some substantial spending for ARV immediately after the 2011 ESA member states ministers' meeting, at which they will also be asked to sign off on Ariane 5 ME and possible Ariane 6 (more on this in a blog post very soon), ARV will remain a pretty picture

Certainly the upbeat tone of Astrium's press release (when are press releases ever not up beast though?) contrasts sharply with what Hyperbola was hearing from ESA's technical centre a few months ago

caption:European Space Agency director general Jean-Jacques Dordain is second from right

During a short conversation with European Space Agency director general Jean-Jacques Dordain this morning here in Paris, at the 3rd European Conference for Aerospace Sciences,  Hyperbola asked him about India, South Korea and China

During the first public meeting of the Reveiw of US human spaceflight plans committee on 17 June Dordain had referred to these three countries specifically during his telecon with the meeting - listen below -  when talking about the future of the International Space Station

With an extension of the life of the ISS to 2020 and beyond becoming increasingly likely (the Review committee will address the issue this month) there is a need to start discussing who will provide what beyond 2015. This had been the notional date for the end of ISS use when it was originally agreed in the 1990s although no date appears in the inter-agency framework agreement that underpins ISS

With China's proven crew transportation capability and India's plans to have its own manned space programme by about 2015 these two countries could prove crucial to ISS logistics support. South Korea is another soon-to-be space faring nation with its Korea Space Launch Vehicle (built with the help of Russia's Khrunichev Space Center) expected to launch for the first time later this month

I can't see any political problems with Korea and India, Korea having had a close relationship with the US since the Korean war in the 1950s and the billion citizen democracy and superpower-to-be India's ties with the US have been strengthened over the last ten years. But China's involvement faces a lot of US Congressional obstacles, I can't see how that officially Communist government is going to get onboard anytime soon

But either way Dordain's view is that "the question of these countries" must be raised soon and to not raise the question of other countries involvement in ISS and these nationos in particular is in Dordain's opinion, "the very worse thing we could do"
   

U.S. Human Space Flight Committee-Washington, DC Part 2 from U.S. HSF Committee on Vimeo.

Hyperbola recently asked Space Adventures some questions by email about this proposed private Soyuz flight to the International Space Station (ISS). Interestingly although space tourist Richard Garriott, a co-founder of the company, wants to go back to the ISS he told Hyperbola that he did not expect to be one of the customers for the private Soyuz flight; which Flightglobal first reported on in July 2003. Yes that date is 2000 and three

At the Paris air show last month the head of the Russian Federal Space Agency Anatoly Perminov said that Roscosmos would not "abandon space tourism" but he indicated that it would be many years after the September flight of Guy Laliberté before another ISS visit would take place. On the other hand, if Japan's HTV resupply vehicle fails during its mission this September there may need to be a reduction in ISS crew size, at which point Space Adventures is back in business

As you will read below, with a minimum 30 month lead time between ordering the rocket and spacecraft and the mission, to send two tourists to ISS by the end of the latest target date of 2013, a deal has to be done by June 2011. Below and in the extended portion of this blog post are the questions and answers from Space Adventures chief executive Eric Anderson

1 How are you marketing such a mission?

We are discussing the opportunity with various individuals and corporations around the globe.

2 What is the seat price for such a trip? How do you calculate that?

credit: Virgin Galactic / caption:  

Go here to find the test logs for Rocket Motor Two develoment, the hybrid solid rocket motor that will send SpaceShip Two above 100km (62miles)

No information on the fuel or oxidiser type is given although there is an indication that the fuel was changed after hot fire one. The test logs are fairly bland although some introductory text at the top of the webpage gives some interesting background

Many subscale hot-firings were performed at Scaled Composites between Jun 05 and April 09 to evaluate several different fuels, igniters, injectors, insulators and nozzle configurations, as well as other components and parameters. Based on the results of those subscale firings, the Scaled/SNC team chose a full-scale rocket motor system design and began testing in April, 2009.

 

credit: Lukas Wilcocks/Flight caption: (L-R Nelson, Shelley) One is yet to fly, one will fly it hard to fly in 2010 

At the Royal Aeronautical Society's 30 June 2009 space tourism conference Xcor Aerospace chief operating officer Andrew Nelson and Space Adventures vice president sales and marketing Tom Shelley answered the audiences' questions after each giving a presentation

Go here to download part one and here to download part two of the audio of the Q&A. While I was not allowed to make a video or audio recording of the actual presentations, because audio recordings are supplied to conference attendees with the proceedings, I was told that the question and answer sessions were not included in the post-conference package

credit: Lukas Wilcocks/Flight / caption: (L-R) McCallum, Abrahamsson. Both spaceports have legal obstacles

At the Royal Aeronautical Society's 30 June 2009 space tourism conference Spaceport Scotland Support Group strategic development director Thomas McCallum and Swedish Space Corporation business development manager Mattias Abrahamsson answered the audiences questions after each giving presentations

Go here to download the audio of that Q&A. While I was not allowed to make a video or audio recording of the actual presentations, because audio recordings are supplied to conference attendees with the proceedings, I was told that the question and answer sessions were not included in the post-conference package

credit: Lukas Wilcocks/Flight  / caption: Whitehorn said that UK space law would stop Virgin Galactic flying

At the Royal Aeronautical Society's 30 June 2009 space tourism conference EADS Astrium's deputy chief technical officer Hugues Laporte-Weywada and Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn answered the audiences questions after each giving presentations

Go here to download the audio of that Q&A. While I was not allowed to make a video or audio recording of the actual presentations, because audio recordings are supplied to conference attendees with the proceedings, I was told that the question and answer sessions were not included in the post-conference package