May 2012 Archives

On 31 May the Dragon capsule undocked from the International Space Station at 0807 GMT after having delivered some cargo and then being loaded up with some experiment results and other equipment to be returned to Earth. Once undocked the craft was manoeuvered away from the station by the robotic arm. Once clear of the station the craft carried out three engine burns to propel it away from the station. The Dragon then flew for a few more hours before being commanded to perform a de-orbit engine firing at 1451 GMT. The craft re-entered Earth's atmosphere and then deployed its parachutes to splash down in the Pacific Ocean 1542 GMT for recovery. 

 

Dragon splashed down successfully. Courtesy of SpaceX

Falcon 9 Heavy will have 27 rocket engines firing at lift off. Courtesy: SpaceX

Flushed with success after its Falcon 9/Dragon launch to the International Space Station,  the Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) firm which was set up by former internet entrepreneur Elon Musk, has announced that it now has a commercial launch contract with Intelsat to launch commercial communications satellites via its Falcon 9 Heavy rocket.  

This announcement is an indication that SpaceX is now threatening the dominance of Arianespace and ILS in the commercial launch arena.   If a Falcon 9 Heavy can carry two or more large GEO communications satellites for half the launch price of an Ariane 5 or Proton M booking, then this could spell the end of their commercial operations as going concerns.

It is not only on the commercial front that SpaceX may dominate.  SpaceX's Falcon 9 Heavy launch service promises to be less than half the cost of using equivalent Atlas and Delta rockets.  So even the cosy launch provider-governmental relationships that previously benefited the likes of Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Pratt and Whitney/Rocketdyne could now be threatened.     The US Government Accountability Office has more or less suggested that the US Air Force should seek better value options when they consider their launch contracts.

While commercial and military launches will be its main future revenue generators, the icing on the cake is that SpaceX is now providing both cargo missions support to NASA manned operations and also intends to actually fly astronauts as well  This will break Russia's current manned monopoly.

As SpaceX competes for military, commercial and even manned launches, reliability will be key.  If the competitors of SpaceX can point out regular launch failures then this might change the firm's prospects.   The heavy-lift version of the Falcon 9 effectively has three standard Falcon 9 first stage rockets strapped together. While SpaceX points out the redundancy benefit of having so many engines in the case of any in-flight shutdowns, some may be fretful about having 27 liquid fuel Merlin 1D engines all firing at lift off,   

For the most part, the fewer engines a launch vehicle has, the better is its reliability.and economics.  So at first sight it is surprising that there are so many engines on the Falcon 9.    In fact, the Merlin 1 engine was originally developed for the Falcon 1 small launch vehicle and is thus undersized even for the standard Falcon 9 resulting in the need for nine of them on the first stage 

With fewer larger rocket engines, a Falcon 9 and its Heavy derivative would probably become even more competitive and probably more reliable.  As such, SpaceX is known to be considering a new larger engine dubbed Merlin 2. Nevertheless, for the time being, Musk and his rocket company is going with what they have. While Elon Musk many not have the optimum rocket engine, you can expect he will succeed given his track record to date. 

This writer has been a critic of Elon Musk's past optimism over his plans and especially over his expectations for initial flight reliabilty (the Falcon 1 subsequently failed three times on its first three flights). Nevertheless, Elon Musk gets this writer's deserved congratulations for getting SpaceX from zero to a mainline launch and spacecraft provider in just ten years. And he did it with comparitively little funding. 

Musk's great achievement has to be acknowledged by his supporters and critics alike.  

At 0731 GMT on 29 May, China launched the Yaogan 15 satellite on a Long March 4C vehicle from the Taiyuan launch centre. Officially the satellite is to be used for for scientific experiments, land resources surveys, crop yield estimates and disaster response applications. But analysts believe that the Yaogan series of satellites are used for military reconnaissance missions.

Just the Disney-Pixar Toy Story cartoon character Buzz Lightyear was so named after the Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin, so the 55-year-old British comedian and space aficionado, Frank Skinner, has also named his new baby boy Buzz. 

Apparently the drily-amusing comedian is a fan of cowboys as well. The baby's second name Cody has been given after the cowboy showman Buffalo Bill Cody.  

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin (real name Edwin Aldrin) was so named in childhood after his sister kept mispronouncing "brother" as "buzzer".   When it came to family names, of course, it was almost as if it was ordained that astronaut Buzz would set foot on Earth's natural satellite.   Buzz Aldrin's mother's maiden name was Moon.

A Long March 3B/E launch vehicle successfully launched Chinasat 2A at 1556 GMT from the Xichang launch site in China on 26 May 2011.   The communications satellite which is to be placed into Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) has a mass of 5,200kg.

According to a report on Chinadaily.com, there was some falling stage damage done to some houses and to a powerline.  Debris from the first stage of the vehicle damaged houses and a 10kV power line in the village of ShuanJiang in Suining County, Hunan Province, China. No casualties were reported.

Following a successful launch on 22 May, SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft spent two days chasing the International Space Station and on 25 May was ready to attempt getting into position for capture by the stations robotic arm. The capsule conducted tests of its positioning laser to cautiously approach the station until it was at a distance of 10 metres. Once there astronuat Don Pettit manoeuvered the robotic arm to capture the craft at 1356 GMT. Once captured the robotic arm moved the spacecraft to dock with the Earth facing port of the Harmony module of the station. Docking took place at 1602 GMT. The craft will be opened up on 26 May and the cargo unloaded. Once unloaded the craft will have the results of science experiments loaded into it and will undock on 31 May. Once undocked the Dragon capsule will return to Earth, re-entering Earth's atmosphere and splashing down in the Pacific Ocean to be recovered.

After Saturday's aborted launch attempt of the Falcon 9, a second attempt on 22 May was carried out successfully. The vehicle launched at 0744 GMT from Cape Canaveral in Florida. Now in orbit the Dragon spacecraft will be conducting several tests on its chase to rendezvous with the International Space Station. The biggest test of the craft will be the safe rendezvous, approach and docking with the station. If all goes well the Dragon craft will be captured by the stations robotic arm and dock with the station on 25 May. The craft is carrying non-essential cargo for the station and once successfully docked this will be unloaded. Under the current schedule the Dragon will remain docked with the ISS until 31 May. Once undocked the craft is planned to be deorbited over the Pacific Ocean and conduct a controlled re-entry, parachute descent and then splash down 300 miles of the the western coast of Southern California and then be recovered. If all the tests of the spacecraft are successful this will clear the way for SpaceX to start commercial re-supply missions to the Space Station under a contract with NASA. The first of these missions is currently planned for August this year.

Citing safety and environmental concerns a Russian Defence Ministry report is recommending the end of using old RS-20 (SS-18, Satan missile) ICBM's for space launches. The RS-20's were called the Dnepr when converted for space launches. The first launch of the Dnepr as a space launcher took place in 1999. Since then there have been a further 16 launches of the vehicle with one failure which happened in 2006. Recent launches have suffered from numerous delays due to the failure of the Russian and Kazakhstan governments to agree on the drop zones for the first and second stages of the vehicle.

An ILS Proton Breeze M rocket successfully launched the Nimiq 6 commercial communications satellite for the satellite operator Telesat at 1912 GMT on 17 May from the Baikonur launch site in Kazakhstan.  After a 9 hour 14 minute 5-burn mission, the Breeze M upper stage successfully released the satellite into its planned geostationary transfer orbit.  The satellite, which uses a version of the Space Systems Loral, SS/L-1300 bus design, will use its on-board propulsion to positition itself into its final geostationary Earth orbit position.

 

 

The Japanese climate change monitoring satellite GCOM-W1 (Shizuku) was launched successfully at 1639 GMT on 17th May 2012 by a Japanese H-2A202 launch vehicle.  The lift off took place at Japan's main launch site at Tanegashima. Also aboard was the South Korean Earth observation satellite Kompsat 3 and two small satellites: the Houryuu 2 (aka Houryuu 2) amateur radio satellite and the experimental satellite SDS 4.

As the Malaysian satellite operator Measat sues Intelsat over an alleged breach of contract and for alleged lost earnings due to a damage-related launch delay, Measat has revealed details about exactly how the damage was done to its Measat 3A satellite.

While it was known that the Measat 3A communications satellite was struck by an overhead crane hook duriing its Baikonur launch preparations in August 2008 (for which led a pre-launch insurance claim was paid out), less well known is that in November 2008, as the spacecraft was being loaded into its transport aircraft on its way back to the satellite's maker, Orbital Sciences, for repairs, the Measat 3A satellite was accidently dropped by another crane.  In the end Measat 3A was returned and successfully repaired, and was finally launched by a Zenit 3 SLB rocket flying from Baikonur in June 2009.

After Internatioal Space Station Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers played Sir Elton John's famous song Rocket Man to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the release of the song, so now the 65 year old singer has sent up a video of a live version which he performed in Las Vegas, also to celebrate the 40th anniversary.  

The United Kingdom's Institude of Directors (IoD) has commissioned a report into Britain's Space Industry.  The report called Space: Britain's New Space Infrastructure  notes how well the space business is doing in the United Kingdom.  While it reports that this is mainly on the back of "downstream" activities like satellite television and space insurance, it also states that Britain has found itself a successful niche role in spacecraft manufacturing via  Astrium and Surrey Satelltie Technology Limited (both firms are owned by EADS).   

As it notes the growth of commercial orbital and suborbital space launch providers in the world, and reports the UK firm Reaction Engines' progress with its Skylon spaceplane technology studies (this writer is a small shareholder in the firm) the report has called for the construction of a spaceport with an extra long runway in the UK to allow it and other reusable launch operators to use.

Comment by David Todd:  This spaceport idea is probably a good one but it should be built on UK territory rather than on the UK mainland.  While Scotland could be used as a launch site for polar and sun-synchronous missions (northbound flights would not overfly any built up areas)  for most other orbits it is important to be as close to the equator as possible (this increases the velocity boost from the Earth's spin - for Eastbound flights - and reduces the amout of orbital inclination needed for removal for those boosted satellite missions heading for geostationary Earth orbit - GEO).  As such the UK's territory of Ascension Island in the Atlantic would be ideal for a space port/launch site.  And it could also be used for polar/sun-synchronous flights as well.

The Russian military spacecraft designated Cosmos 2480 was successfully launched at 1405 GMT on 17 May by a Soyuz U launch vehicle flying from the Plesetsk launch site in Northern Russia.  The spacecraft is believed to be a Yantar-4K2M (Kobalt M) class military reconnaissance satellite.

The Soyuz TMA-04M spacecraft carrying the crew of NASA astronaut Joe Acaba and Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin successfully docked with the Poisk module of the International Space Station at 0436 GMT on 17 May 2012.

An Ariane 5 ECA launch vehicle successfully launched the Japansese commercial communications satellite JCSAT-13 along with the Vietnamese communications satellite Vinasat 2 at 2213 GMT on 15 May 2012 from the Kourou launch site in French Guiana.  

Both satellites, which are to be finally placed in geostationary Earth orbit (GEO), used versions of hte A2100 bus design built by Lockheed Martin Commercial Space Systems.

While ratings for the UK TV talent show The Voice continue to decline on BBC television, one of the judges, Will.i.am, still has fans in the space business it seems.  For according to the UK-based tabloid newspaper The Sun, NASA has asked the Black Eyed Peas band member to come up with a song to be broadcast back to Earth on a future NASA science mission to Mars. Will-i-am has previously worked with NASA before, on twitter to encourage interest in NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, and as a narrator on a NASA TV documentary.

 

Will-I-am sitting with former astronaut Leland Melvin, NASA associated administrator for EducatIon, during a twitter broadcast just before the launch of NASA's previous Mars Science Laboratory mission.  Courtesy: NASA

 

A Russian Soyuz-FG rocket successfully launched the Soyuz TMA-04M spacecraft carrying three crew to the International Space Station (ISS) at 0301 GMT this morning, 15 May. The three crew are Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka, Mission Commander. Cosmonaut Sergei Revin, Flight engineer and US astronaut Joe Acaba, Flight engineer. The spacecraft is scheduled to dock with the ISS at 0438 GMT on 17 May.

 

Soyuz TMA-04M launches to ISS - Courtesy Russian Federal Space Agency.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) have released some images taken by the C Band Synthetic Aperture Radar that is on their Risat-1 satellite that was launched on 26 April this year. More images can be seen here http://isro.org/pslv-c19/Imagegallery/satelliteimages.aspx#0

Image Courtesy of ISRO

 

Courtesy: BAE Systems

 

The UK Government has just reversed a decision on which type of F-35 fighter aircraft it wants for its new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers which are currently under construction.  Fearful of any costly development hitches over new technology electromagnetic catapults/traps, the government has decided to go back to the STOVL  "jump jet" F-35B version rather than having the longer range US Navy-style F-35C tail-hook/arrestor hook landing type.  

 

The decision has its dangers, not least because the costly-to-develop vertically landing F-35B might still be cancelled as it so nearly was in 2011.  In that event, the Royal Navy would be in the unhappy position of having aircraft carriers with no aircraft to fly off them, especially given that the UK's Ministry of Defence has already sold its remaining Harrier GR7 and GR9 strike bombers to the Americans.  

 

Is bringing the Sea Harrier out of retirement feasible in an emergency? 

 

Of course, the Royal Navy could try and dig its prematurely retired Sea Harriers out of their museums and engineering training establishments (the final FA-2 version of the Sea Harrier fighter was highly rated for its Blue Vixen radar/AMRAAM missile fit).  However, Ascend's analysis is that only about 10 to 12 of these could be restored to flying condition and that any such recovery could take several months.  Even this discounts all the ground and aircrew training that would be needed for such an emergency squadron resuscitation.

 

Whether the F-35B proves to be the right choice of carrier jet fighter or not, some critics are wondering if the United Kingdom needs aircraft carriers at all.  In recent newspaper and television interviews, Sir John Nott, who was the UK Defence Secretary at the time of the Falklands War in 1982, said he still did not think that the Royal Navy needed aircraft carriers.  His conclusion remains erroneous and even a little ungrateful, especially given that it was the same Sea Harrier-toting aircraft carriers that he had previously tried to scrap or sell off, which allowed the Falklands War to be won.

 

Carriers are very useful but they are vulnerable

 

While Sir John Nott and his fellow carrier critics are probably wrong about their utility, it has to be accepted that due to their size and military value, aircraft carriers do make very vulnerable and attractive targets.  Just as the one-time king of the seven seas, the battleship, was soon rendered impotent by the advent of carrier-borne dive-bombers and the threat of torpedos launched from aircraft and submarines, so the inheritor of the battleship's crown, the aircraft carrier, may soon find its own reign usurped by the arrival of a new weapon class:  diving anti-ship missiles.

 

After Exocet's lethality was demonstrated in the Falklands War, a lot of effort was put into developing missile and gun defences against Exocet-class sea-skimming anti-ship missiles and, most recently, against their satellite-targeted  supersonic successors (e.g. india's Brahmos missile).  However, now a very different kind of anti-ship missile is threating naval ships.  These are ballistic missiles which have been especially designed to make high velocity diving attacks "from the Gods".  

 

China and Iran are developing diving anti-ship missiles

 

An example of this new missile type is China's DF-21D which has been specifically designed to target US Navy aircraft carriers and deny them an operational position in close proximity to China's territory (or a disputed territory like Taiwan).  These missiles are thought to be remotely targeted,  using data-relayed target observations from China's Yaogan/Jianbing  radar and optical reconnaissance satellites, and from airborne reconnaissance aircraft, before  finally employing a sophisticated optical seeker for the terminal guidance of their final diving strikes. 

 

It is not just China that has worked on this type of anti-ship missile technology with aim of making an "area denial" to carriers.   Iran has boasted about its own shorter range ballistic diving missile system called Khalije Fars and has even had its official FARS news agency post images and footage of one of its successful missile tests - albeit that it hits an admittedly stationary target ship.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc7eUO1aw9M&feature=fvwrel

 

Nevertheless, while the technology is still relatively young, these ballistic diving missiles, once perfected, could mark the retirement of the carrier as a serious offensice weapons platform.   The US and Royal Navies have one hope for their carrier operations:  that is that  anti-ballistic missile systems carried by their carriers' escort vessels, such as the US Navy's Standard Missile SM-3 and Royal Navy's Aster 30 (Sea Viper), will be able to intercept such hostile missiles during their hypersonic approaches and supersonic terminal dives.  But they will have to do so without failure if their carriers are to survive.   

 

The answer:  Spread the risk and put F-35B jets on lots of ships

 

As the Battle of Midway showed during World War II, just a single strike on an aircraft carrier can be enough to change the odds in a sea battle, and with it the tide of a war. 

 

This factor plays to the STOVL advantages of the F-35B which can also be operated from smaller helicopter-class carriers and might even be flown off vessels that are not designed to be carriers at all.  For the more ships you have acting as "aircraft carriers", the less is the chance that you will "lose all your eggs in one basket" -  if you think that your "basket" might be hit by a missile that is.

 

 

 

Hyperbola would like to pay a belated short tribute to Sir Raymond Lygo who briefly figured in the UK attempt to build a reusable spaceplane.  Sir Raymond Lygo passed away in March at the age of 87.

Having briefly worked in the newspaper industry, Lygo worked his way up from the ranks to become a World War II fighter pilot and officer in the Royal Navy.  Lygo went on to have a post war naval career in which he became Captain of the aircraft carrier Ark Royal.  Having been knighted the year previously, Lygo finally left the Navy in 1978 with the rank of Admiral.  

Sir Raymond Lygo then joined British Aerospace (now known as BAE Systems) to lead its Dynamics missile division before being promoted to head the whole company.  In that role he managed to gain government support for the launch of the now successful A320 passenger aircraft.  More controversially, the plain speaking Lygo become involved in the argument about the future of the Westland helicoper company and whether it became part of a US or European firm.

During his time at Briish Aerospace, Lygo also did nuch to promote the HOTOL concept of a single-stage-to-orbit reusable spaceplane.  In the end, for technical reasons and because of a lack of government support, that design never came to fruition, though it subsequently led to a technically more promising, if very slowly developed, spaceplane design called Skylon. 

When proposals for endoatmospheric long-range hypersonic passenger transport aircraft briefly came into vogue, knowing that aerothermodynamically-generated total heat loads might make such flights impossible, Lygo suggested that leaving the atmosphere altogether for most of a flight would be a better option.   

Sir Raymond Lygo officially retired in 1989 though for a time he became Chairman of the delivery company TNT Express.   Sir Raymond Lygo married twice, the second time as a widower, and had three children by his first marriage.  A memorial service for Sir Raymond Lygo is being held at Chichester Cathedral in June.

China has launched the Yaogan 14 electro-optical military reconnaissance satellite into a near-polar sun- synchronous low Earth orbit on 10 May.   The launch took place at 0706 GMT, lifting off from the Taiyuan launch site.  The flight used a Long March 4B launch vehicle.   

Being launched with Yaogan 14 was a small science satellite called Tiantuo 1 (TT-1).  This satellite is officially for "scientific purposes" and was built by China's National University of Defence Technology (NUDT), based in Changsha, Hunan Province.  The university is reported to be under the supervision of China's Ministries of Defence and Education.

Following its loss of contact on 8 April, and a subsequent failure to recover the spacecraft, the European Space Agency (ESA) has formally declared that the Envisat environmental and remote sensing satellite mission is now over. 

Since the failure, engineers and scientists from ESA and Envisat's manufacturer Astrium have struggled to recontact the craft. The attempt at fault finding and recovery even enlisted ground radar and telescopes on Earth and Pleiades imaging satellites in space.  However, in the end all the effort was fruitless. 

Artist's impression of the Envisat spacecraft.  Courtesy: Astrium

Despite the formal ending of the mission, engineers will continue to investigate the failure and carry on with attempts to recontact the craft.  For the time being, an internal power regulator failure or short circuit is suspected of causing the sudden failure of the telemetry and command system or its safe mode solar pointing default procedure; failures that there would normally be no way back from.    

Launched in March 2002, Envisat exceeded its five year minimum design life by over five years.  During its ten year life the spacecraft has yielded valuable Earth monitoring data covering weather, atmospheric and temperature measurements as well as providing optical and infrared imagery.  Concerns remain within the climate change science community that the dataset will now be significantly interrupted until ESA's new Sentinel spacecraft from Europe's Global Monitoring for Environmental Security (GMES) programme, can come online.

 

In early May, teams of rocket enthusiasts were at the Big Range 2012 Launch Campaign in Sutherland, Scotland to hold suborbital high altitude experimental rocketry tests.  The event is a collaboration between the Scottish Aeronautics & Rocketry Association (SARA), UK Rocket Association (UKRA) and AspireSpace. 

 

Of the teams, one from Cambridge University made an attempt at taking the current UK altitude record for an amateur rocket.   The record currently stands at 24,500 feet and the Cambridge hoped to better that by 10,000 feet using a two stage solid fuel rocket using 15kg of ammonium perchlorate - the same fuel that were used by the Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) on the Space Shuttle launch system.  The Cambridge team's rocket's light weight structure was made from carbon fibre and red anodised aluminium.  The total mass of the rocket was 40kg.

 

After a one day delay due to ignition failure, the launch and stage separation went well on 3 May.  However, sadly, the team could not tell whether the altitude record had been breached as they could not find the second stage with the altimeter recording system aboard.   The science writer, Dr. Lucy Rogers, who was observing the launch, amusingly commented: "We hope the gamekeeper will come across it sometime."

 

The team was not disheartened however and gained plaudits from rocket experts including James Macfarlane, Chairman of the UK Rocket Association (UKRA) and Director of the rocket research firm Airborne Engineering Ltd:  "I am very impressed with this group. Every problem they have encountered they have designed and built elegant and professional solutions."

 

Given the altitude targets involved, a special NOTAM air traffic warning was issued for the event which is now expected to become an annual gathering.   Next year, the Cambridge University Spaceflight Rocket Team is promising to return with a three-stage rocket capable of reaching 50,000 feet.  

 

 

 

The US military should benefit from the launch of its latest communications satellite, AEHF-2.  The military communications satellite was launched successfully at 1842 GMT on 4 May 2012 via a United Launch Alliance (ULA) operated ATLAS V 531 launch from Cape Canaveral.  

 

An ATLAS V 531 flew the AEHF 2 military communications spacecraft into orbit.  Courtesy: ULA/Pat Corkery

 

The next launch into orbit was from China's Jiuquan launch base when a Long March 2D/2 launched the Tian Hui 1B Earth observation satellite successfully at 0710 GMT on 6 May 2012.

 

The first Falcon 9/Dragon C2+ launch to the International Space Station was delayed to 19 May to conduct further software checks on the Dragon capsule.

While your correspondent cannot call himself a huge fan of the game, by family tradition, he supports the London football team of Queen's Park Rangers (QPR).   Nevertheless, it was to his surpise, that, during one of his irregular trips to a very tense relegation avoidance match (against Stoke), that in between all the swearing and booing at the opposing team, the fans appeared to be chanting their support for the NASA's now retired and re-entered Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS).    While it sounded like "Come on UARS!" in fact what they were actually chanting was "Come On You Rs!"  (Rs is the nickname for Rangers).

On a more serious subject, sport (especially Premier league football) remains the main reason that BSkyB's subscription satellite television operation remains so popular.  Its £1 billion a year profitability is why Rupert Murdoch is so keen to gain control of the firm (nearly bringing down a Prime Minister in the process). 

Actually, so great are its reveneus that satellite television has skewed the analysis of figures on UK satellite industry.  Recently, the UK Space Agency has been crowing about how "space revenues" are growing at circa 10% - and that is in a recession.  However it should be realised that lot of this business is, in fact, in the form of revenues from derivative interests such as satellite broadcasting. satellite services, and space insurance.  While this growth and revenue does feed downwards (or rather upstream) to the rest of the industry, sadly, satellite and launch vehicle manufacturing remains a very small business in the United Kingdom. 

Nevertheless, due to its high-added-value small volume manufacturing nature, space remains one of the few high tech industries (Formula One motor racing is another example) that the UK can genuinely compete and succeed in.   

As such, like QPR, the UK Space Industry gets this writer's well deserved, if a little too irregular, support.

While under financial pressure from the US Senate and US House of Representatives to pick only one winner for commercial crew program's next Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) phase in August (the US Senate and the House plans to cap commercial crew spending at circa $500 million during the Fiscal year 2013) NASA remains resolute that it wants to choose more than one crew launch system.  Without true competition, NASA warns that crew launch purchase costs will inevitably rise. 

 

The administration hints that it may yet decide to proceed with all four competitors: Boeing Co., Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), Sierra Nevada Corp., and Blue Origin.  Neverthless, the likelihood remains is that NASA will select just two to go forward.  Without this down-select, its funding may be too diluted to be an effective subsidy to the winning firms.    UPDATE:  In early June, an agreement with Congress set funding at $525 million and allowed NASA is to select two companies to get a full award and one to get a partial award.

 

Of the four main competitors, Sierra Nevada offers its Dream Chaser NASA HL-20-derived mini-shuttle/lifting body design which has the flexibility of glider style landings.   The craft would be launched via an Atlas V expendable launch vehicle.    In a way, it can been seen as a natural sucessor and "son" of the Space Shuttle.

 

Artist's impression of Dream Chaser.  Courtesy: Sierra Nevada Corp

 

Also using an Atlas will be Boeing's CST-100, a simple-to-operate capsule that will employ parachute and airbag ground landings.   Boeing developed its vehicle from its losing design after being edged out of NASA's deep space manned spacecraft competition by Lockheed Martin's Orion design.  Lockheed Martin may be regretting beating Boeing on the exploration vehicle front if Boeing now wins a major NASA commercial manned contract to low Earth orbit (LEO) using its "losing" spacecraft. This is because flight rates and hence revenues could be considerably higher for these operations than those for deep space exploration.  

 

Artist's Impression of CST-100 Capsule approaching ISS.  Courtesy: Boeing    

 

While it is diametrically smaller than some of the other competitors, the SpaceX Dragon capsule may have a winning card in that it has flown already (albeit as an unmanned freighter form) and that it will be flying on a different launch vehicle, the Falcon 9.  By choosing this as one as competition to say Dream Chaser, NASA would in effect have "assured access to space" if ever one of the two launch systems or spacecraft is grounded.    There may also be cost saving benefits in choosing SpaceX as it plans to turn the Falcon 9 into a reusable space launch system.  

 

Interestingly, while SpaceX plans to use a splashdown landing technique - at least initially - SpaceX does hope to have its Dragon capsule eventually able to touch down vertically on land using rocket power. 

 

Artist's view of Dragon capsule making a rocket powered landing.  Courtesy: SpaceX

In a way, most interesting of all is Blue Origin's bi-conic capsule design. While it does not quite have the cross range capability of a winged vehicle, it is certainly better than a blunt capsule design.    Blue Origin also plans to land on land and it will use parachutes like the Boeing CST-100.

While the Blue Origin bi-conic space vehicle will initially be lofted into orbit on an Atlas V rocket, eventually, the craft will be launched on a Blue Origin partly reusable two stage rocket.  It uses a first stage dubbed the Reusable Booster System (RBS) which will land down range from a launch. Artist's impression of Blue Origin's bi-conic orbital spacecraft atop its planned partially reusable launch vehicle.  Courtesy: Blue Origin 

 

Key factors in the choice:  safety, experience, economics and redundancy  

 

Dream Chaser remains the competition's favourite due to its benign (low-g) re-entry characteristics, safe and controllable runway landings and good cross range capability. 

Having said that, second favourite - at least at this point - is probably SpaceX's Dragon design as it should be the first to fly in manned configuration.  In addition, by using the Falcon 9, it would also give NASA the launcher/spacecraft redundancy it needs.  It is the low risk option - assuming the test flight of the Dragon cargo version goes as planned in May.  The capsule would also make an ideal "crew lifeboat" from the International Space Station.

 

While its rocket powered descent and landing looks attractive for the future - if it can be made to work safely, for the time being Dragon remains wedded to ocean splashdowns - the logistics of which can be expensive especially if human lives are at stake (Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions were usually met by US Navy aircraft and helicopter carriers).   For cost reasons, NASA will only want to use splashdowns if it has to.  NASA's Lockheed Martin-built Orion blunt body capsule which is designed to cope with their higher velocity re-entries, only uses a splashdown technique for weight reasons.  

 

Of the remaining official runners, Boeing's CST-100 has the best manned spaceflight pedigree (its heritage bloodline reaches back through the Space Shuttle, Apollo, Gemini and Mercury) and could thus avoid repeating any serious design mistakes.  Nevertheless, in some ways the design could be seen as a backward step to 'just a capsule".  However it is larger than the SpaceX entry and may make a better choice for that reason.  Its parachute landing and airbag landing method looks simpler as well.

 

CST-100 boilerplate landing test on 2 May 2012.  Courtesy: Boeing

 

Blue Origin's very different bi-conic capsule has a better cross range capability than either the Dragon and CST-100 and may prove to be more economic in the long run - especially if it does land on land via parachutes etc - and does eventually use partly reusable rockets.  However, the bid's weakness is that the firm has no space experience yet.  

 

If NASA does have to choose only one Commercial Crew system/supplier as a winner it could do worse than to continue to fund some manned launches of the Russian Soyuz to the International Space Station - at least to offer some baseline competition.    Even the "state run" Orion multi-purpose crew vehicle spacecraft could also fulfil this roll.    That is not to say that the competition losers might not carry on with their own internally funded development.  In other words, NASA may not even have to provide funding to allow a competitive environment.

 

Update:  As expected there has been a late bid from ATK with an ATK/Astrium-built Liberty launch vehicle launching a composite capsule-based Liberty spacecraft incorporating Lockheed Martin systems (one way that Lockheed Martin can maintain an interest in this commercial transport field apart from its Atlas V launch vehicles).   The bid's chances are probably low given concerns over the solid rocket first stage (vibrations, stage bumping potential etc), cost of the Ariane V-derived upper stage, and over the very late design of a crew capsule using novel composite technology.  Interestingly, ATK has been at pains to note that the Liberty rocket can be used to launch other manned commercial spacecraft designs.

 

And don't forget the toilet!

 

As it stands, the Orion and Soyuz alternatives to any commercial spacecraft, will likely be more popular with astronauts given that both have a toilet aboard.  Boeing, Space X, and Sierra Nevada have all confirmed to Flightglobal/Ascend that, none of their vessels has a toilet.   Blue Origin  effectively declined to disclose whether or not their spacecraft design has one.   There is no word yet on whether the late bid Liberty spacecraft has a toilet or not.

 

Not having a toilet is a backward step especially given that the Space Shuttle (now retired) had a toilet aboard.   There are even hygiene and health implications.  Apollo astronauts recounted how grim it was to use that programme's toilet bags on space missions and noted that unpleasant spillages sometimes occurred.

 

The Space Shuttle's Waste Collection System (toilet) may have been complicated but it beat Apollo's bags.  Courtesy: NASA

 

The Commercial Crew system contenders now admit that this was a design oversight.  A senior executive at SpaceX explained that the firm is now rethinking its toilet strategy on the Dragon capsule, especially in light of likely operations to and from the International Space Station.

 

"Currently it (Dragon) does not have a toilet, but you obviously have to consider that when you put crew on, and there are a lot of different concepts we're looking at...anything from diapers to an actual system,"  said the executive before adding: "Now NASA requires an actual system, because right now they want the ability to go on, potentially, a three-day approach to (the) station."

 

Of course, there is always Plan B.  Just as some Apollo astronauts did in their attempts at avoiding having to use their hated "faecal bags". so modern astronauts could also dose themselves up with Imodium to make sure that they stayed bunged up for the flight.

 

Zach Rosenberg contributed to this report.

The launch of US Air Forces AEHF 2 communications satellite was postponed on 3 May due to a problem with the helium flow during the purge of the Centaur interstage adapter prior to launch. This was most probably caused by a misconfiguration of a manually operated valve. Launch has been rescheduled for 4 May with a launch window of 1842 - 2042 GMT.

Or in other words, someone forgot to switch a tap on.

The European Space Agency is to launch a second pair of Galileo navigation satellites on 28 September before beginning a fast-track launch schedule in 2013 to orbit 18 satellites by the end of 2014 for a functional service, and 26 satellites by the end of 2015 for near-global coverage. The full constellation of 27 spacecraft and three orbiting spares should be deployed by 2019.

All launches will be from ESA's Kourou, French Guiana spaceport. The first Galileo flights are Soyuz rockets, including the veteran Russian launcher's maiden flight from Kourou last October.

From the second half of 2014, a requalified Ariane launcher, known as Ariane 5 ES Galileo, should be equipped with a four-satellite dispenser and be capable of delivering the spacecraft to orbital altitudes of 23,200km. The current ES launcher is used to launch ESA's Automated Transfer Vehicle to the International Space Station at about 380km.

In its "Cosmic Vision" push to explore the Solar system, Europe has set its sights on Jupiter icy moons, with a mission to launch for Europa, Ganymede and Callisto in 2022.

The so-called JUICE mission - Jupiter Icy moons Explorer - will arrive at Jupiter in 2030 and spend at least three years making detailed observations. Europa, Ganymede and Callisto are all thought to host internal oceans, so the mission will study the moons as potential habitats for life, addressing two key themes of Cosmic Vision: what are the conditions for planet formation and the emergence of life, and how does the Solar System work?

JUICE will continuously observe Jupiter's atmosphere and magnetosphere, and the interaction of the Galilean moons with the gas giant planet.

It will visit Callisto, the most heavily cratered object in the Solar System, and will twice fly by Europa. JUICE will make the first measurements of the thickness of Europa's icy crust and will identify candidate sites for future in situ exploration.

The spacecraft will finally enter orbit around Ganymede in 2032, where it will study the icy surface and internal structure of the moon, including its subsurface ocean.

Ganymede is the only moon in the Solar System known to generate its own magnetic field, and JUICE will observe the unique magnetic and plasma interactions with Jupiter's magnetosphere in detail.

"Jupiter is the archetype for the giant planets of the Solar System and for many giant planets being found around other stars," says Alvaro Giménez Cañete, ESA's director of science and robotic exploration. "JUICE will give us better insight into how gas giants and their orbiting worlds form, and their potential for hosting life."

JUICE was chosen over two alternatives: NGO, the New Gravitational wave Observatory, to hunt for gravitational waves, and ATHENA, the Advanced Telescope for High-Energy Astrophysics. Either of these may be reconsidered when ESA again polls the scientific community in another call for large missions, expected in 2013.

ESA's next big Solar System venture is the BepiColombo mission to put two orbiters around Mercury from 2022, following a launch in 2014. That mission will just the third to the planet closest to the Sun, after NASA's Mariner 10, which made fly-bys in 1974-75, and Messenger, which has been in orbit around Mercury since March 2011.

And, in 2016 and 2018 ESA is planning a pair of launches to Mars. The ExoMars missions will test a descent module and then land a rover equipped to test geological samples gathered by deep drilling.