Rob Coppinger: February 2009 Archives

credit NASA / caption: will the latest lunar surface systems architecture use inflatable habitats?

Go here for presentations from the US Chamber of Commerce programmatic workshop on NASA lunar surface systems concepts held today and the last two days at the Chamber's offices in Washington, DC

It's interesting that the new Altair project office manager Kathy Laurini is giving a talk on international standards. Either Laurini is there to cover a topic that falls into the gaps between everything else or it is an indication that the lunar lander is to have a more international dimension

credit change.gov / caption: Obama's space policy is more of the same

In his first statement as acting administrator Christopher Scolese has called the Obama administration's NASA budget for FY2010 as "responsible and reflects the administration's desire for a robust and innovative agency". NASA has declined an interview request but told Hyperbola that there will be more budget detail in a month's time

credit Flight / caption: SpaceShipTwo underwraps here at Scaled Composites hangar

Contrary to rumours that Virgin Galactic's SpaceShip Two will be appearing at the Experimental Aircraft Association's AirVenture event, held in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, every year, Hyperbola can confirm that that is not the case

credit ESA / caption: what is it? click on the image to see a larger version in the same browser window

Go through to the extended portion of this blog post to read this edition of News Bites but for fun have a guess at what the above image is of and write your answers in the comments box. The letters I and G should be ignored as they were scribbled onto the image by an unknown former Flight International magazine staff member way back in 1982 - if that is any clue...

credit Virtual Heroes / caption: Could this ascent vehicle be modelled after the famed DRM 5.0?

NASAWatch has linked to the first online reports about NASA's massively multiplayer online game, reported on by Hyperbola way back in January 2008, which we now know to be called Astronaut: Moon, Mars and Beyond and according to this website the game will have an Armageddon-style scenario (note: the above image is of a Mars mission)

The development team is crafting a series of events and missions that will start with the possibility of a near earth object impact hazard and expand to offer other reality-based challenges to gamers over time.

credit Flight / caption: HOTOL was cancelled later that year

Hyperbola has gained access to declassified files about the UK Horizontal Take-Off and Landing (HOTOL) spaceplane that was first announced in August 1984. One of the files' papers is a memo to the then UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher about the Ronald Reagan administration's interest in participating in an international venture to develp a  HOTOL spaceplane. In the extended portion of this blog you can see a key part of that memo, in which it says a prototype HOTOL "could be flying as early as 1990"

You can find Flight's cutaways and articles about HOTOL here. Next week Flightglobal.com will have a news analysis article about the declassified files and the links between HOTOL and the new UK rocket engine technology programme

credit NASA / caption: this picture is of ATV-1 leaving ISS, Kepler will fly in mid-2010

The European Space Agency has announced that the second of its five planned Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) resuppy spacecraft for the International Space Station (ISS) will be named Johannes Kepler

This was a bit of a surprise as I had been told that after ATV-1, which was named Jules Verne, the agency would stick to science fiction authors and I didn't think that Kepler wrote fiction. While I thought H G Wells or Arthur C Clarke unlikely for ATV-2 I did wonder if Germany's Kurd Lasswitz would be chosen. But Kepler apparently was a bit of an author and wrote the Somnium, which is regarded as science fiction

So, with that ATV-2 naming guess entirely wrong, it is time to speculate widely about ATV-3

credit Reaction Engines / caption: Reaction Engines' SSTO Skylon reenters Earth atmosphere

For those of you wondering about this blog post yesterday, at 0001h today this story about the European Space Agency and UK government funding technology that could be used for the Reaction Engines Skylon spaceplane went up on flightglobal.com. You can watch Reaction Engines' Skylon spaceplane animation in the extended portion of this blog post and nicely detailed it is too

credit NASA / caption: when will we see Ares I-X lift off?

The 11 February edition of the NASA Ares I-X newsletter Blast gives a timetable for activities over the next 90-days for the Constellation programme's first test flight. Go through to the extended section of this blog post to see the timetable

credit: Reaction Engines / caption: Reusable unmanned Skylon spaceplane in orbit

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

credit NASA / caption: Will Obama's act help accelerate Ares' development?

UPDATE: It has been brought to my attention that I linked to the wrong version of Obama's fiscal stimulus act so I have corrected this post

For those of you wondering where to find the online version of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 that Obama has signed into law, here is the link, care of Jeff Foust, to the final ARRA 2009 but you will have to scroll down quite some way before you get to the actual NASA appropriation - but see a screengrab from the online Act in the extended section of this blog post

credit JAXA / caption: JAXA's HTV separates from the H-IIB rocket's upper stage

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has created a new section on its website about the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) H-IIB rocket with interviews with the agency's transportation mission directorate chief, the launch vehicle project managers for H-IIB from JAXA and MHI and the H-IIB Transfer vehicle project manager. While the flight date stated is simply 2009 there is a lot of detail and there is this detailed image of the HTV

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

I never got an answer from NASA to my questions about the schedule, cost, performance and other impacts of the Ares I crew launch vehicle (CLV) staging issue that the Ares project office has given a likelihood risk rating of two but an impact rating of five (the highest) across all the consequence categories. My story was published on the 8 February and three days later this 11 February NASA blog post appears (BTW I didn't write the spiteful commentt) with an image that shows the ullage settling motors in action on the Ares I upper stage assisting with the staging

We are investigating why the two latest videos on Hyperbola will not play. Please check back later to see if they are working

UPDATE: The Iridium Cosmos satellite collision video is now working

credit University of Southampton / caption: Debris 50min after collision

This simulation by the University of Southampton astronautics research group of the 10 February Iridium Cosmos collision can now be viewed in the extended portion of this blog post

And use this hypertext to find a similar simulation in 720p high definition

credit CNES

The European Space Agency has profiled the work being done by Russia's Samara Space Center for the Soyuz 2-1a rockets that are planned to launch from French Space Agency CNES' French Guiana spaceport by the end of this year. Go through to the extended part of this blog post to see the 13min 54s video

credit University of Southampton / caption: a foresight of the future?

For now enjoy these images of a simulation by the University of Southampton astronautics research group of the Iridium Cosmos collision while tomorrow Hyperbola will post the full simulation video

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

credit ESA

Details have emerged of how the European Space Agency and the Russian Federal space Agency's hopes for collaboration on the Crew Space Transportation System (CSTS) ended and what next for the western European €21 million ($26.8 million) Advanced Reentry Vehicle (ARV) phase A work. Read it all in this presentation by ESA's Marco Caporicci

As apture refuses to work with the pdf here is the URL
http://www.uhtc.cira.it/presentazioni/3.2_MCaporicci_ESA.pdf

credit Virgin Galactic / caption: Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn will speak at the event

Go here for the agenda for the London based-Royal Aeronautical Society that will have a good line up of people from Space Adventures, Xcor Aerospace, Virgin Galactic, EADS Astrium, Swedish space corporation, the European Space Agency and the US Federal Aviation Administration

credit Whitehouse / caption: all is not well with the Obama's administration selection process

Hyperbola is hearing that the process to select a candidate for NASA administrator is not just being held up by the alleged opposition from members of Congress but in fact there are tensions much closer to the centre of government

credit NASA/Flight / caption: this amended image purports to show a refuelled descent stage ascending

NASA is considering launching Moon rock samples into low lunar orbit using refuelled Altair lunar lander descent stages to overcome the cargo return limitations of its Constellation programme vehicles

credit Flight / caption: the orbital vehicle and beside it its GSLV Mk2 booster

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

Hyperbola's colleagues here at Flight have been out at Aero India 2009 and from a quick snapshot of a slide shown during a presentation by G. Madhavan Nair, Indian Space Research (ISRO) organisation chairman, we have produced the above graphic showing the concept design for the manned vehicle and a representation of its booster, which was also depicted in the ISRO slide

credit: NASA / caption: this is the LDAC-2 ascent stage design, LDAC-3 will finish in March

It looks like the NASA Altair Lunar Lander's ascent stage could use liquid methane (LCH4) instead of the baselined hypergolics as the space agency has just published a synposis that says: "NASA system trade studies have shown that LCH4 ascent stage propellant tank fluid venting can be eliminated on the lunar surface for the 210 day mission..."

credit National Space Security Office

If you can get yourself to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas for 24-26 February you could attend the Rapid Delivery of Military Capabilities via Space technology forum. And if you have near-term commercial systems that can deliver military capabilities via space then the US Department of Defense's Department of the Air Force wants to receive information about your transport technologies by 15 March

credit NASA /caption: Orion's pilots guide the craft towards an Altair lunar lander docking

From 1 May NASA is to start a three-year human machine interface research and development study for defining the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle's (CEV) cockpit layout requirements, displays and for rapidly prototyping the controls. The work may be extended by a further two-years to 30 April 2014

 
credit NASA

NASA's Constellation programme's office of lunar and planetary exploration chief Wendell Mendell spoke to Hyperbola at the European Astrofest 2009 conference in London on Saturday 7 February

credit SSTL / caption UK minister of science Lord Drayson pictured in background, arms folded at SSTL

Hyperbola spoke to the UK minister for science Lord Drayson on Friday 6 February about robotic exploration, the UK space strategy and the possibility of a UK space agency and participation in the ESA astronaut corps during his visit to small satellite specialist Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL)

Readers have emailed in queries about the location of the Vortex Generators (VG) so for clarity, the VG's are lined up right in front of the seam-line, and are "thicker" than the tufts. Look at the"i" in "Virgin"...there's 3 in the stem, as well as one between the stem and the dot (this one, on the white background, shows the difference between the VGs and the tufts). There are 3 more right below the "i", four more right above the bottom rudder counterweight and two below it


credit Alan Radecki

click on the image for a larger version in the same browser window

UPDATE: Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn has told Hyperbola that WK2 reached 18,000ft on the 5 February

more likely to happen than not based on an answer to a question I posed to Russia's Federal Space Agency (aka Roscosmos)

On 11 June 2008 Space Adventures announced an 'agreement' to have an entirely private flight to the International Space Station in 2011 - see Hyperbola's reaction here

But the following day Roscosmos put a statement on its website appearing to undermine that 2011 claim - see the translated statement here

At the Farnborough international air show I could not get a straight answer to a question about this private flight deal between Space Adventures was Roscosmos

Why were the company's Russian partners not so forthcoming when it would be easier to be so?

In a recent interview with a Russian newspaper, that was reported on by Russian newswire RIA Novosti, the head of Roscosmos Anatoly Perminov said that there would be no more tourist visits to the ISS after 2009

This apparent categorical statement of an end to ISS space tourism, full stop, only added to the sense that senior Roscosmos officials felt uncomfortable confirming the alleged agreement with Space Adventures

NASA has released a CGI movie of a concept interior for its Altair lunar lander. I couldn't get the RealPlayer file to work, whch is normally good for screengrabs, and only the Windows media file would work in the RealPlayer player and I couldn't get a screen grab, but do enjoy the movie and go to the NASA blog entry for the rest of the blurb

credit Flight / click on the image above for a larger version in the same browser window

This image is the property of Reed Business Information's Flight Group, saving this image to a local computer for any reason other than personal use will result in legal action

Hyperbola has heard from Mojave sources that Virgin Galactic's Scaled Composites built WhiteKnightTwo has flown again today, confirming this Personal Spaceflight blog report. More details will be posted as soon as we get them

A crash yesterday delayed the second flight that was to have taken place then

UPDATE: Find more details about the second flight in the extended portion of this blog post

credit NASA ?

I think this much used image originated with NASA but to read about the prospects for such transportation the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics has produced a book called Frontiers of Propulsion Science that brings together a lot of research reelvant to wormhole drives etc

credit Flight

The return to flight of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo mothership WhiteKnightTwo was delayed yesterday when a Douglas DC-3 that belongs to the National Test Pilot School went off the runway on take-off and crashed. Fortunately no one, as far as we know, was badly hurt

credit JAXA

It is not quite as dramatic as Apollo 13 but the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) malfunctioning Hayabusa probe that visited the Itokawa asteroid is likely to get home in June 2010 according to JAXA 

credit ESA / caption: an Arianespace Ariane 5 launches the Superbird-7 and AMC-21 satellites

Why is the Tomorrow's Bird study report so delayed? Is it because its conclusions won't support other European hopes for spaceflight that require a more powerful version of the EADS Astrium Ariane 5?

Tomorrow's Bird was, is, an 15-month European Space Agency study into what the future satellites, payloads for rockets, will be like in the 2015 to 2025 timeframe that started in 2006. The study was to contribute to decisons regarding a future European launcher that could replace the Ariane 5 and in parallel a prime contractor called Next Generation Launcher was set up to oversee development of a new rocket

But almost five months after I was told that the study would be completed there is still a stoney silence from a normally talkative European Space Agency

The British Broadcasting Corporation has been told by Surrey Satellite Technology that this EADS Astrium owned UK small spacecraft manufacturer is working with Virgin Galactic on an air launched booster

Back in December Hyperbola exclusively revealed that Virgin Galactic had decided to call its air launched rocket LauncherOne, following a story Flightglobal had published about the spaceline talking to European countries regarding a two-stage launcher concept

credit S P Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation / caption: Progress M66 is processed

I found a couple of Russian and Chinese items today. Energia has been posting photo reports of the progress, as it were, of the Progress M66 cargo resupply vehicle and at the Russian Federal Space Agency there are photos of a Proton rocket being prepared for its launch

credit Spaceport America

A while ago the news of the anchor tenant, lease agreement between Virgin Galactic and Spaceport America went round the internet but there was little detail

credit BBC / caption: this image is a screengrab from Iranian state television video shown by the BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation and other media outlets are reporting that Iran has launched its first satellite and this website has some detail also. I have spoken with the press office of the Iranian embassy here in London and they said that they are expecting an official statement "in the next few days". Go here for the Iranian state television video of the rocket launch, care of the BBC

credit Flight

Virgin Galactic's president Will Whitehorn has told Hyperbola that the spaceline's carrier aircraft WhiteKnightTwo will fly again "very soon"

credit NASA / caption: will LDAC-3 look anything like this?

The third Lander Design Analysis Cycle (LDAC) for NASA's Altair Lunar Lander is expected to finish next month (March). After publishing an Apollo lunar module and Constellation programme Altair LDAC-2 comparison and accompanying Altair development timetable, based on dates from the 28 January Altair conceptual design contract request for proposals documents, NASA has informed me of new dimensions to the lander being designed for a 2020 return to the Moon

credit NASA / caption: the pilot lost an eye, if such an event strikes space tourism what will be lost?

The 10 May 1967 crash of NASA's M2-F2 lifting body, pictured above, is well known because the US television series Six Million Dollar Man used film of it for its opening credits but it is also an example of the technological hurdles that are faced by anyone looking at reentry vehicles

The personal spaceflight industry may see a variety of vehicles take to the skies in the years to come and it is very unlikely that none will have a crash of some sort. The International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety (IAASS) is an organisation of safety professionals from the world's major space agencies and aerospace companies and space tourism was a subject at its conference in Rome in October last year