April 2010 Archives

credit: Virgin Galactic / caption: could SpaceShipTwo use a liquid propulsion system?

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo could be a single stage to suborbit vehicle using liquid chemical propulsion according to independent research carried out by a company that has been contracted by the European Space Agency for suborbital and hypersonic transport studies

UK company Gas Dynamics has concluded, after its own internal study, using all the publicly available material it could obtain about SS2, that the spacecraft does not need its carrier aircraft WhiteKnight Two if it is fitted with a liquid chemical propulsion system

Sounds like a great idea, it inspires the kids, showcases the amazing engineering achievement that is spaceflight and helps to drum up electoral support for projects that are good photo opportunities for the politicians and makes voters feel good about their country

Sadly the likelihood of a European or even UK version of NASA tv isn't looking very likely a few weeks after this blog's clarion call for such a thing

So here's the bad news, the European Space Agency doesn't have any sort of broadcast licence and doesn't plan to get one and is happy for the time being having an arrangement with the rolling news channel euronews

The British Broadcasting Company would not even do a dedicated science channel and it turns out that the UK's digital terrestrial broadcast system Freeview is "tightly controlled" and the frequency spectrum is already allocated. Or maybe the problem will be rather like that which stymed US firm Hulu's internet tv hopes for the UK?  

Whatever the obstacles are outreach was a word heard often with the launch of the UK Space Agency but what will that be? A few school competitions? Can we expect the odd poster care of trade body UKSpace to raise awareness about the UK space industry, meaning that it does have one?

So what's the good news? Well we're about to enter a pretty turbulent political period here in the UK thanks to the self inflicted almost total destruction of our financial industry. That's the good news?! Well yes, the UK's ruling elite now knows we need manufacturing as much if not more than finance and no one can ignore that

Spaceflight is high tech engineering so it is going to be an open door to push on and an UKSAtv channel is one way of preparing a new generation to take up that challenge  

Hello UKSpace, are you receiving me, over? 

Spacevidcast.com has released this video and this article about Russia's MAKS aerospace system

credit: Dassault Aviation / caption: this is the VSH, Dassault's space tourism spin off from VEHRA 

French aerospace company Dassault Aviation's In the Air newsletter issue 14 has provided an update on its spaceflight related activities and teased us with the prospect of an imminent report outlining a possible future for the European suborbital vehicle VSH, or is that K:1000?

In its report "Suborbital Aviation: on the very edge of space" it says:

The study of suborbital vessels, both manned and unmanned, constitutes the natural extension of the activities of Dassault Aviation with regard to the aircraft of the future.
The suborbital activity began with the VEHRA (air-launched reusable hypersonic vehicle) project. This constituted an "evolution" of the X-38 experimental lifting body from NASA, for which Dassault Aviation had defined the shape. It comprises a family of vehicles that comes in three versions:
− 10 t demonstrator;
− 30 t vehicle for launching small (300 kg) satellites;
− heavy vehicle (200 t) for placing a 7 t payload in low orbit.

The newsletter goes on to say:

Air-launching from a commercial transport aircraft does away with the take-off constraints of classic launchers. In terms of flexibility, this type of launch requires a much more slim line ground infrastructure, and offers the possibility of aborting the mission and recovering the vehicles and their payloads in the majority of cases. The VEHRA project has generated repeat works (configuration, systems, propulsion, etc.) for the engineering division (DGT). Interns from the major engineering colleges have also been associated over the years with these futuristic vehicle projects.

Below and in the extended portion of this blog post are my notes from a telecon I had with a Lockheed Martin Orion crew exploration project manager in mid-2009. The bizarre situation was that I was at the Colorado Convention Center and Lockheed Martin Space Systems is only a car journey away but I couldn't get a rental car to get myself there (something was happening that meant all the rentals in and around Denver were taken) and the aerospace prime didn't seem too enthusiastic to come get me

I had planned to write the interview up at the time but events got in the way and despite repeated attempts since to get an interview with Lockheed to update this information and write a feature or lengthy blog nothing came of any of it

In the months since that telecon we have had news about the Orion heat shield being made by Lockheed, the choice of lithium aluminum supplier has been made with Rio Tinto Alcan annuoncing its selection and there have been Aerojet engine tests and ATK's Orion launch abort system attitude control motor tests; and one company called G Systems has made public the fact that it has delivered its test stations to the Michoud Assembly Facility for Orion. Next month I think there is an Orion pad abort test too

Anyway, last year I began to write "After a 10-month delay to its preliminary design review NASA has spent over $3 billion on its Orion crew exploration vehicle," and below are my notes

International Space Station (ISS) is higher inclination [than lunar orbit], requires more launch vehicles performance but the spacecraft is [now] lighter

Can carry 3,500lb more cargo to ISS with four crew

Four crew is now the baseline but requirements for that have not been spread through out Constellation

Amount of [crew] consumables didn't change very much [with crew reduction]

We have always kept the waste management system

[Astronaut corp] Crew has been very involved from the beginning

"Driving all the systems to an optimal path, we need enough time to check out the vehice before we fly"

Fan motors have a two year lead time

Putting together different options for Orion and its service module (SM), 17,500lb propellant for lunar, 8,000lb for ISS, SM can be used as a space tug, this could have 16,000lb

we are at 606G design for PDR and after next two cycles get to 606H

21 August have PDR board that lasts for a couple of days

It is not often Africa and spaceflight get mentioned in the same breath but here are a couple of interesting items

South Africa had a satellite symposium the other week and the country is apparently interested in co-operating with Russia and Japan on satellite based astronomy

NASA administrator Charles Bolden had an op-ed in today's {well the website says 27 April) yesterday's Houston Chronicle that is notably short and strangely refers to a 2015 International Space Station retirement date in the present tense

While I can understand why he was making the point of the Constellation programme's Ares I crew launch vehicle and its Orion crew exploration vehicle only starting to operate after ISS was to be retired in 2015 surely president Barack Obama has now OK'd station use to 2020? Bolden doesn't mention that his plan's commercial crew programme is not expected to deliver an operational crew transport system until 2016 at the earliest

But Bolden has greater problems than the use of tense in an op-ed, as the Congressional investigation into actions by NASA on Constellation contracts steps up a gear; has the agency broken the law?

I wonder how Congress will also feel about co-operation with the Chinese? According to the Agence France Presse, via the Times Colonist (?) website, Bolden said Tuesday that he would be happy to co-operate with China - the rumours are a US astronaut would fly on a Shenzhou mission

And just to add to Bolden's Congressional woes, on the same day as his Houston Chornicle op-ed, 27 April, another Congressman gave their penny's worth on the Obama plan

The Hunstville Times isn't giving president Barack Obama's NASA plan a good write up with its latest article about the political reaction to the flexible path to asteroids and Mars from 2025

With the headline, NASA plan: 'Cosmic bridge to nowhere', the article has a particularly strong qoute from a Senate staffer that says, "I don't know how many more blunt objects we have to hit NASA over the head with"

Despite this aggressive talk what the article communicates is a view that the Moon return programme Constellation's proponents know they are unlikely to win and save it. But its not stopping them from trying, see this spacepolitics.com post here and this one here by NASAWatch

The Huntsville article also refers to a Congressional hearinjg in mid-May. This could be the hearing that was mentoned during the last Senate hearing with NASA administrator Charles Bolden

For any US nationals or green card holders that are interested Virgin Galactic is advertising for a head of safety on the Virgin group website. The role also works for The Spaceship Company (TSC),  a Mojave based Virgin group, Scaled Composites joint venture that is the Boeing, shall we say, to Virgin Galactic's Virgin Atlantic. The head of safety will make public appearences as well

The advert says:

VG/TSC is seeking a first rate qualified Head of Safety to define and develop Virgin Galactic's operational safety approach, and to lead the establishment of the Galactic Group safety policies & framework.

and that the role will

• Be responsible for the risk management process at the core of the SMS, from hazard identification and analysis to development of mitigation approaches. Emphasis will be on integrating Scaled Composites / TSC's space launch system hazard analyses, VG LLC's operationally focused hazard analyses, and Spaceport America/NMSA's infrastructure and airspace analyses.

and that it will

• Develop, with the Chief Pilot and their team, emergency scenarios and appropriate action plans or mitigation approaches. These should include dress rehearsals and emergency / incident response plans in accordance with FAA and stakeholder requirements.

Following a meeting between the Space Shuttle and International Space Station programmes and the space operations mission directorate's senior management NASA has concluded that

• STS-133/Discovery now becomes the Launch-On-Need (LON) vehicle for the STS-132/ULF-4 mission targeted for 14 May launch
• STS-133/ULF-5 is to fly 16 September
• STS-134/ULF6/AlphaMagneticSpectrometer is targeted for mid-November
• AMS should be at Kennedy Space Center in late August - so STS-134 date is still fluid
• While November is the new "no earlier than" launch date for STS-134/Endeavour, due to ISS traffic with Soyuz, ATV and HTV a flight timeframe of "end of CY2010 and early into CY2011" is said to be "challenging"

credit: NASA / caption: plenty has been done and there is plenty more for Constellation

When this blogger saw the headline of this 30 March article by Aviation Week's senior space editor Frank Morring it seemed that the "program of record" that dare not speak its name had finally broken cover and spoken to the media after a self imposed vow of silence

But alas no, even Aviation Week's article had no detail on what was going on with Constellation and so there was still everything to play for, time to hit the phones and email - again

Now, by way of leaked emails, it seems that Constellation's management are preparing for any eventuality

But way back at the beginning on the 1 February the newly published fiscal year 2011 (1 October 2010 to 30 September 2011) budget request for NASA had notably continued funding the Moon return Constellation programme until 2012, even if it was cancelled this year

This blogger decided that whatever anyone thought of the programme's merit it was worth giving the space agency a call. A call to find out how the Ares and Orion and lunar surface systems project offices were planning to spend in FY2010 and FY2011 the $8 billion odd budgeted for for Constellation

NASA's new human spaceflight standards may not be as rigorous as those it already demands for high profile launches such as James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) or Cassini

In an emailed answer to Hyperbola's question about NASA Launch Services (NLS) vehicle certification requirements and crew transport the US space agency says: "NLS is only applicable to NASA payloads, not crew. You should not infer any relationship between NLS and commercial crew."

Yet for high profile "class A" missions, such as JWST, to be launched on a "category three" low risk launch vehicle NASA's certification requirements ask for a 14 consecutive successful flight history - go here for related launch policy directive documentation

United Launch Alliances' Delta IV doesn't have that, Space Exploration Technologies' (SpaceX) Falcon 9 won't have that until 2013 at least, Orbital Sciences' Taurus II never will because it only has eight commercial resupply missions manifested and so only the ULA Atlas V has an adequate launch history - is this what the final report of the Review of US human space flight plans was referring too with its mystery booster?

Sorry, I hear you say, but that is for payloads, not crew. So are you saying that crews will ride on rockets with a lesser launch history than payloads? And if it is greater, well at least you have until 2016 for those commercial crew programme vehicles but NASA administrator Charles Bolden's hopes of something sooner seem a bit dashed

Is this situation what Bolden was referring to yesterday in the Senate hearing when he said that SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft was a cheaper longer term option and that instead Orion was the choice for an International Space Station escape capsule three year's hence?

The Orion crew exploration vehicle looks set to return not only as an escape capsule but also as a beyond low Earth orbit spacecraft according to NASA administrator Charles Bolden

In today's Senate appropriations subcommittee hearing Bolden said that Orion would become a programme of incremental improvement to realise a spacecraft that can conduct missions beyond low Earth orbit (LEO)

On 1 February this year Orion was effectively cancelled by president Barack Obama's fiscal year 2011 (starting 1 October 2010) NASA budget and then on 15 April Obama declared that the Lockheed Martin developed spacecraft would be an escape capsule. But Obama's plan for NASA also envisages human missions beyond the Moon to asteroids and Mars

Now Bolden appears to have given back to Orion the mission it was to have originally, going beyond LEO

Bolden also indicated that he expected Orion to be able to begin operation as an escape capsule in three years, long before any commercial provider. He said he saw the likes of Space Exploration Technologies' (SpaceX) Dragon capsule as a longer term but cheaper prospect

This would seem to be a blow to the hopes of those companies planning to be a part of NASA's $6 billion commercial crew programme. In particular SpaceX which has stated it could deliver an ISS crew transport vehicle three years after being given the go-ahead

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Mexico has begun preparations to construct its own 30-hectare space center on the Yucatan peninsula for the country's space agency that was created in 2008

Russia has said it is ready to help Mexico with its space ambitions. In 1996 Russia and Mexico signed an agreement on cooperation in the exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes. In March 2009 a Russian Federal Space Agency (aka Roscosmos) delegation visited Mexico's Senate committee on science and technology. That committee dealt with the formation of the Mexican space agency. Roscosmos' statement about the new agency's coastal Yucatan site refers to the centre as a launch facility

Meanwhile according to this report a Greek-Russian cosmonaut is preparing to blast off to the ISS later this year. Think of a word, any word...

"The president proposes and the Congress disposes," is a phrase Democratic party senator for Florida Bill Nelson has been using a lot since the 1 February publication of president Barack Obama's fiscal year 2011 NASA budget

With such a contentious ongoing debate about the Obama space plan and one bill already put forward to radically change it, it is no surprise that someone like Nelson would add to the NASA budget

The Houston Chronicle reports that the $746 million, or $1 billion depending on what you read, that was voted through by the Senate on Wednesday 21 April was achieved with an argument about defence and not exploration. In the Youtube video above hear Nelson talk about the solid rocket booster technology needs of US defence and possible future Ares I-Xs; there is a lot of background noise on the video

NASAWatch has an interesting perspective here from an alleged Congressional staffer explaining that Congress can basically force its own space programme on Obama

Amateur rocketeers have fun at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center  last week according to this website

credit: spacepolicyonline.com / caption: the schedule slide that will come to haunt Obama's flexible path

In a president George W. Bush-like moment NASA administrator Charles Bolden is reported to have said: "it is the uneasiest thing we could do". Uneasiest? Don't you mean it is one of the hardest things you could do?

And Bolden might not want to admit it but his allegedly executable non-Constellation programme is ultimately, in capabilities terms, just as challenging and probably unexecutable as Bush's Constellation in technology and funding 

Why? We now know that president Barack Obama's plan for NASA is to work towards a 2025 asteroid rendezvous and a mid-2030s Mars mission that would not land. Constellation had Mars as an aspiration but its goal was to begin Moon missions from 2018 with a landing soon after and the slow build up of a permanent lunar base from the early 2020s

Surely they are very different? Look again

Despite the grandiose visit to Kennedy Space Center (KSC) president Barack Obama's space plan is still being divisive even with the announcements of a 2025 asteroid goal and a 2035 mission to orbit, but not land on, Mars



In the video above Buzz Aldrin says he wish he could have spoken to his ex-Apollo astronaut colleagues before they sent a letter condemning Obama's plan

Florida Today lists a series of reactions from notable people here, as does NASAWatch with its report here; qouting media organisations including Time magazine and Fox News. Below SpaceX's founder Elon Musk tells Bloomberg tv NASA's Constellation programme was uneconomic. Here the Orlando Sentinel reports that Musk spoke to Obama during his KSC visit. You can find here Musk's long statement endorsing Obama's plan 



While Utah Senator Orrin Hatch continues to take issue with the Obama plan. Hatch met with NASA administrator Charles Bolden and was not at all happy with the outcome

In the English language NDTV news channel report above the head of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) K. Radhakrishnan says he expects his government to approve a seven-year human spaceflight programme by mid-June. NDTV is an Indian 24-hour news channel, India has three English language 24h news channels; yes you read that right, three 

Hopefully the human spaceflight programme will see more success than India's latest rocket launch that saw its cryogenic engine powered second stage tumble to failure. According to ISRO's official statement the second stage's engine, fuelled by liquid hydrogen and oxygen, did ignite. In this report ISRO denies the cryogenic engine was the cause of the failure while this article says it did fail and the country would have to buy Russian technology - unlikely in this blogger's view

Watch part of president Barack Obama's speech in the video above. For the second and third parts of this speech go here and here. For more coverage of Obama's visit to Kennedy Space Center yesterday see below and in the extended portion of this blog post. Find here NASA's special web page about Obama's visit and watch here the agency's video of his speech

MSNBC video

CNN video

Sky.com video

Go here for a video report about the Apollo astronauts who oppose Obama's plan and this report highlights a 200-person protest (apparently tea party linked) held near to the Center

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

One of many media channels to report it, watch NBC's bulletin above about the open letter sent to the White House Tuesday by Apollo mission commanders Neil Armstrong, Gene Cernan and Jim Lovell and a second such letter from other Apollo veterans all criticising president Barack Obama's NASA plan

Go here for spacepolitics.com report on the White House's reaction to the Apollo astronauts' criticism. How much worse can the PR get for Obama's day at Kennedy Space Center?

One has to wonder what on Earth (pun intended) president Barack Obama, his administration and the NASA management team think will be accomplished with a 1h 55min chin wag between "senior officials, space leaders, academic experts, industry leaders and others" about the future of US space exploration

Public relations disaster is one accomplishment that this blogger can envisage. If everyone comes out of the conference (see timing below - all times in Eastern Daylight Time) declaring the Obama plan a fantastic vision the event will be criticised as a White House whitewash and if a single individual speaks out against it, the reports will be of a divided conference

Hyperbola suspects the outcome will be far far worse

We are told Obama will have some "private time" with politicians attending the event. Anything other than the president's ageement to a wish list of space transportation projects is going to see those politicians attack the new space plan. And it won't stop there, academics will likely go on the record to say they don't agree with all or parts of the plan while industry will simply brief journalists, off the record, about why the plan doesn't make sense 

It is not obvious at what point the media get to question the president and, or his conference participants but I would imagine that certain politicians and corporations are already on the phone to Florida based and national media. Is it a conference or is it Obama's last space stand?

The afternoon to save exploration in full

13:30h NASA tv begins President Barack Obama KSC visit coverage
14:25h President Obama speech in Operations & Checkout building
15:45h Conference overview
           with NASA admininstrator Charles Bolden, Norman Augustine, John Holdren
16:25h Conference breakout sessions
           - increasing access to and utilization of the International Space Station
           - jumpstarting the new technologies to take us beyond
           - expanding our reach into the Solar System
           - harnessing space to expand economic opportunity
17:40h Conference wrap-up with Bolden and breakout session moderators

The 15:45h conference overview and 16:25h breakout sessions will all take place in the Operations & Checkout building

Later today president Barack Obama will give a speech about his plans for NASA at the Kennedy Space Center. In advance of that Republican Utah Congressman Rob Bishop gave a statement on the floor of the House of Representatives urging him to maintain the Moon return Constellation programme

Reading about president Barack Obama's decision to resurrect the Orion crew exploration vehicle as an escape capsule we are told (here and then here and in plenty of other articles) that this will reduce NASA's dependence upon Russian crew transport services

This could not be more wrong. Russia has been providing all International Space Station (ISS) crew rotation flghts since STS-129, the last Shuttle flight to do that job in November last year

The ISS has six crew (yes Expedition 22 had only five crew) and for that Russia is providing four three-crew Energia Soyuz TMA spacecraft a year

Orion Lite will not launch crew, it launches unmanned for an automatic rendezvous and docking with the International Space Station and then sits there, but until when?

It is not needed for an emergency return. Soyuz have been docked to the station for the emergency return role ever since station has been inhabited. So Orion Lite is not reducing Russian flights to the station and it is simply not needed for the escape role

Republican Alabama Senator Richard Shelby has not welcomed president Barack Obama's new version of his flexible space exploration path plan and appears to take a swipe at NASA administrator Charles Bolden with the reference to the agency's "management team" - unless its more NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver bashing. Bolden's deputy has been blamed as the primary author of the hated Plan A in earlier Congresional hearings. Will Garver get more Witch Finder General treatment at the hands of Congress? The next hearing is scheduled for 22 April 

"The President's new plan unmistakably shows that NASA's management team does not understand the issues at stake. While the Administration may have finally realized that its initial budget request was a complete disaster, the new plan, from the same team, still ends human space flight. This new plan does not represent an advancement in policy or an improvement upon the Constellation program, but a continued abdication of America's leadership in space. NASA's objective is to let so-called private industry develop with taxpayer money a launch vehicle for humans, yet NASA's current commercial providers today cannot lift an ounce of cargo to the space station. The plan does nothing to reduce our reliance on the Russians well into the next decade. There is no rocket or capsule being built through this plan that can safely carry humans to space. The President commits to building a heavy lift vehicle five years from now, at which point he may very well no longer be in office. It extends the International Space Station's life by five years, yet we will have no way to reach it on our own. The President has replaced one visionless plan with another. It is clear that the Administration does not believe that American leadership in human space flight is a priority worth fighting for."

credit: Orbtial / caption:

Orbital Sciences released the latest concept image of its Taurus II rocket launch site (being built at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility aka the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport) during its presentation at the Space Foundation's 26th National Space Symposium. Previously Orbital had published the image below in its Taurus II user's guide


credit: Orbital Sciences / caption: the Taurus II launch site as shown in the rocket's user's guide

credit: NASA / caption: NASA's proposed Ares V cargo launch vehicle mode in a windtunnel 

A heavy lift rocket is needed to sustain the International Space Station (ISS) because when Shuttle retires key parts of the station are too large for any of the existing rockets available or those planned

In an exclusive interview Boeing vice president and ISS programme manager Joy Bryant stressed the need for a heavy lift capability and downmass - to bring back experiments - to ensure the station is full realised as a laboratory

Boeing has been NASA's prime contractor for the US segment of the ISS since 1993. On 5 March this year the company officially "delivered" the outpost to NASA but Boeing will continue to service the station on a "sustaining" contract. In Bryant's view to sustain the ISS a heavy lift launcher is needed

Watch former NASA astronaut and now Boeing space exploration general manager and vice president Brewster Shaw talk Ares I crew launch vehicle upper stages and Ares V cargo launch vehicle design contracts in this video from the National Space Symposium in 2009. He also talks about the "8-10,000" direct job losses expected if Shuttle retires without substantial progress on Ares V. He is referring to the Chinese at the beginning of the video because if I remember correctly (I was at this briefing) he had just come from a meeting with China's space programme officials. This video is part two, for part one go through to the extended portion of the blog post

Boeing tells Hyperbola that its own video from the 2010 Boeing National Space Symposium exploration briefing will be posted here so check back soon

According to the above video in 1976 Goddard Space Flight Center was a "kaleidoscope of extremes". Is that still so Goddard workers of today? Hyperbola wants to know. But more importantly this video was about the center's celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first liquid rocket engine flight, care of its name sake Robert H. Goddard. I think 1976 was the 200th anniversary of some historically significant event as well but for the life of me my British mind can't recall what it was...

Next year will be the 50th anniversary of human spaceflight and space.com's report about Bolden's speech at the 26th National Space Symposium doesn't really provide any sort of idea of what NASA 2011 will be like. It's not space.com's fault but Bolden said so little, making one wonder why he even bothered to add to his carbon footprint and hot foot it all the way to Colorado for a morning chit-chat

While in the Sunshine state we have learnt today, care of the Orlando Sentinel, that Obama will now not check out the X-37 during his visit. As if making a speech about a plan that cancels a vehicle whose building your standing in at the time isn't ironic enough, standing by the Space Shuttle look-a-likey X-37 might just be a bit too much for anyone

If you're a young American looking for a vibrant space programme perhaps India is the place to go? According to Aviation Week the Indians are just getting on with it, it being a manned space programme. And Bangalore owes the USA a few jobs...

Virgin Galactic's commercial director Stephen Attenborough talks about the future of space tourism from an Irish science and engineering education organisation's event held in 2008 but the video was not posted until end of 2009. Go through to the extended portion of this blog post to see parts two and three

credit: CNES / caption: one day this will not just be a CGI video screengrab

This month, the European Space Agency director general Jean Jacques Dordain told me, the launch complex gantry for the Samara Space Center Soyuz 2-1a rockets flying from French Guiana should be finished and a maiden flight date should be announced. However Russia's deputy prime minister Sergei Ivanov was not so sure when speaking to RIA Novosti this week, saying "This year, I hope, a milestone rocket...event will take place" [emphasis added]

This blogger would have asked Dordain at the CroySat-2 launch event but the director general was not available for questions, despite the success of that Kosmotras Dnepr rocket flight. Perhaps the Soyuz 2-1a flight will take place in time for the global space summit Ivanov's president, Dmitry Medvedev, has called for? Rather than the usual G8 suspects of the US, European countries, Russia and Japan Medvedev also sees exploration collaboration between it and the G8 near-peers, China, India and Brazil. In this article on the Russian Federal Space Agency website Ivanov pledges increases in spending for the country's space programme. Are you listening Mr Obama? 


credit: Federal Space Agency / caption: the gantry is constructed in Russia prior to shipping

More details of President Barack Obama's visit to NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) are emerging. It is now clear that KSC's operations and checkout building (and not the center's training auditorium), refurbished for use with the Constellation programme's Orion crew exploration vehicle, will be the stage for the head of state's speech about his plan that cancels that Moon return programme. Is this proof Obama can't do irony? The official security alert is below

The O&C Facility will be closed to all personnel on Thursday, April 15, from 7:00 a.m to 7:00 p.m., to accommodate President Obama's visit.  All services within the building, to include but not limited to, fitness center, Rehabworks, massage, cafeteria, sundry store, etc., will be closed.  No access will be permitted unless previously authorized and included on an approved entry authorization list.  Parking will not be permitted in the O&C east parking lot or the front curb parking area.  All vehicles, including GSA vehicles, must be removed from these areas no later than 7 a.m. on Thursday, April 15^th.  The O&C west parking lot will be partially closed.  All vehicles, including GSA vehicles, must relocate to the western-most portion of this parking lot (closer to the Training Auditorium).

NASA just emailed this:

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of Media Affairs
MEDIA ADVISORY: M10-054

PRESIDENT OBAMA TO DELIVER REMARKS AT KENNEDY SPACE CENTER

WASHINGTON- On the afternoon of Thursday, April 15 President Barack Obama will visit Cape Canaveral, Florida and deliver remarks on the bold new course the Administration is charting for NASA and the future of U.S. leadership in human space flight.

Both the arrival and departure of Air Force One at the Shuttle Landing Facility and his remarks at the NASA Operations and Checkout Building are open to the media. Note that all media must apply through the NASA website https://media.ksc.nasa.gov by 4:00 PM EDT on Tuesday, April 13 to obtain credentials. Additionally, media can only cover either the arrival/departure of Air Force One or the President's remarks. It will not be logistically possible to cover more than one event. Media credentialing and logistic details, for planning purposes only, can be found below.

When is a summit not a summit, when it is a 2h meeting on a Thursday? Florida's local groups lobbying for a better spaceflight plan can't be too happy about that and how did NASA administrator Charles Bolden explain it to the Colorado Senators he met - go here for a picture of Bolden with Colorado Senator Mark Udall

Some in industry it seems have simply abandoned all hope for the Constellation programme as cracks appear - care of Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne's alleged decision - in whatever industry front there was. No one seems to have told United Launch Alliance, a company born of Lockheed Martin and Boeing, which side it should be on because ULA is just plugging away at helping to publicise the proposed Obama commercial crew programme while nothing it seems will stop the various political reactions however feeble they may be

Russia Today has provided an English language version of this Russia 24 news channel interview with Energia space corporation head Vitaly Lopota about the country's new Advanced Crew Vehicle and how it could be used to go to the Moon. Energia is the Russian government's prime contractor for ACV

Interestingly the first unmanned flight of ACV was given as 2015 but the first manned flight was stated as 2018, later than previously stated and quite a gap at three years. Why not launch in 2016? Perhaps the 2015 flight will not use the Rus-M rocket that is designated as the launcher for ACV? Is Rus-M the long pole in Russia's manned spaceflight plans?

In the video Lopota says that his company will not address space tourism for many years to come because of its focus on the International Space Station. And in this text only Russia Today article it is reported that Russian Federal Space Agency head Anatoly Perminov has explained that tourism flights are not going to happen for years to come and that the country's Angara rocket family's first launcher's first flight is suffering further delays and is now expected in 2012

This video from Russian news channel Russia 24 has CGI video of the country's proposed Advanced Crew Vehicle (ACV) that would be launched by the new Rus-M rocket. In the video ACV is launched by a rocket that looks different to previous Rus-M designs seen and the crew vehicle flies to the International Space Station and lands using its retro-rockets and landing gear, without any help from parachutes

Anatoly Perminov head of Russia's Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) speaks today, the 49th anniversary of the first human spaceflight, to the Russia 24 news channel. For those of you who can't speak Russian he tells tham that people could fly to Mars as early as 2020 and that Russian scientists are developing a nuclear energy source that could reduce the travel time to the Red planet by 20 times

While this report on Roscosmos' website is the first this blogger has seen that mentions an activity planned for next year on the 50th anniversary of humanity's first flight into space, thanks to Yuri Gagarin, his Vostok 1 capsule and the Soviet space programme and its leader Sergei Korolev

Hyperbola is hearing that astronaut corp rumours are circulating about STS-134, previously the penultimate Space Shuttle fleet flight, saying that it is now to take place in December at the earliest and maybe even January or February 2011

One of the reasons for the delay is the fact that STS-133 will now fly the Permanent Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM), Leonardo, which won't be ready until October - three months after its current official date of September

While the orbiter Atlantis will be retired as early as this May after its mission STS-132, its sister ship Endeavour will still be used for STS-134 and Discovery will deliver Leonardo on STS-133; but before STS-134 rather than after it, as stipulated in the existing Shuttle manifesto

What will further extend Shuttle operations into calendar year 2011 is the extra money NASA was given for the possible continuation of operations beyond 1 October 2010. That extra money, the well sourced rumours say, could fund an extra flight, which would be STS-135 using Discovery

The STS-135 flight would be to deliver much needed spares and other cargo with an MPLM to the International Space Station but there would be no Launch On Need (LON) rescue Shuttle organised. Instead the mission would have a crew small enough for a Soyuz rescue spacecraft replacing the LON scenario - how much will that cost NASA?

Listening in from Frankfurt airport's gate B31 yesterday this blogger wondered what would result from the morning's surprise media telecon announcement that had the inspiring title of NASA Announces Future Work Assignments for Field Centers - and bar a few nuggets of info about the 15 April space summit what was left unsaid was more interesting

One wonders if the telecon was called simply to rebuff NASAWatch and others latest claims about what is going on behind closed doors. Certainly one US journalist got to ask about those NASAWatch Shuttle lives-on claims and NASA administrator Charles Bolden was happy to shoot down those theories. Theories about a future that members of Congress intend to shape themselves, so the outcome is anyone's guess

Or was it called to put into the public domain a bit of background for the forthcoming 15 April space summit that president Barack Obama will attend? This mystery event, which had one space state politician putting a letter asking for any info on the summit into the public domain, is going to see discussion groups apparently - with politicians, academics, scientists, industry executives. Has no one at the White House watched the Congressional hearings?

The politicians will attack Bolden's Plan A, the academics and scientists will argue over what the priorities will be, and probably attack Plan A as well, and the discussion will come to no outcome whatsoever. Why should it when Plan A has actually managed to achieve the one notable thing the Obama administration has singularly failed too, create a bi-partisan legislative effort?

It will be interesting to see what reaction Bolden gets at the next Congressional hearing to his comments yesterday that "in terms of NASA planning, as a programme, Constellation is dead"

Today Hyperbola is calling on the UK space industry, advocacy groups and political parties to back the idea of television programming from the European Space Agency and NASA to be broadcast in the UK via all means available. Outreach was highlighted as an area of importance for the recently launched UK Space Agency (UKSA)

Through a partnership of ESA, UKSA and the British Broadcasting Corporation (which is required by law to educate) a channel consisting of ESA output, past and ongoing BBC science programmes and perhaps special co-productions from industry (Virgin Galactic?) and UKSA could be broadcast via the terrestrial and satellite Freeview (and later Freeview HD) services, the internet (perhaps from UKSA's website) and cable and satellite providers should be legally required to carry the channel - as Sir Richard Branson has his Virgin Media cable company he should be enthusiastic to support an ESA/UKSA/BBC "Space Exploration channel"

In that great tradition of immoveable objects encountering the unstoppable force it seems the force has won out and the object, the flexible path aka plan A, is succumbing to Congressional will

Certainly if you believe what NASAWatch thinks is happening behind closed doors, which it seems even Utah's elected officials and Floridian politicians can't access, then its going to be all change for the president Barack Obama budget request for 2011

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (see video above) is all for Shuttle extensions while between the many tears NASA administrator Charles Bolden stuck to the script and told the BBC that its game-over for Shuttle; words he didn't repeat during his visit to Hunstville, Alabama last week

For more defence of the flexible path approach go here for C-SPAN video of the spaceflight panel at the George C Marshall Institute which spacepolitics.com reported on last week

But for some levity how about Venezualan space programme goals and troubled New York governor David Paterson's hopes for an orbiter for his state - dream on Paterson

Never let it be said that spaceflight is not high profile in Russian society, whether it is the birthday of the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, or the recent visit by the country's prime minister Vladimir Putin to Star City aka Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre

And preparations continue for the new cosmodrome at Vostochny with another meeting between Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) head Anatoly Perminov and the governor of the region that hosts the spaceport

NASA's Space Shuttle Discovery delivered the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module Leonardo today. Leonardo will be attached permanently to the International Space Station for Shuttle's final mission STS-133. Watch this video of the MRM 1 which is to be delivered by Shuttle in May. Its sister module MRM 2 was launched to the International Space Station by a Samara Space Center Soyuz rocket in November last year

Go here for a Russian, English language, news report on the NASA, Roscosmos crew transport deal. Thanks to the US government Russia will profit from NASA's transport needs for years to come, Shuttle extension or no Shuttle extension

Find here a video alleging to be the recent Soyuz TMA 18 docking at the International Space Station 

As the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Hayabusa probe, which may have collected a soil sample from an asteroid, limps into Earth orbit due to thruster problems, a new debate seems to have started about the country's space programme

According to this article from the English language Daily Yomiuri newspaper the Japanese space programme has its own problems with a debate brewing about whether manned spaceflight can continue

Japan, despite being a wealthy nation, has always had goals far beyond the resources its prepared to put into them and last year the country's government imposed a 10% cut on the agency's budget

Once touted as a partner in the doomed ESA/Russian Federal Space Agency plans for Kliper/Clipper JAXA must now be wondering how it sustains its involvement in the International Space Station to 2020 and beyond 

The new UK Space Agency now has its own website and the old British National Space Centre (BNSC) URL re-directs to the new site, which is essentially the BNSC site with a new logo. A comment on the realities of the agency perhaps?

Meanwhile go here for a critique of the logo design