Commercial human spaceflight: December 2008 Archives

credit Flight

Go through to the extended portion of this video to see video of the take-off and landing

And read more about the maiden flight of SpaceShipTwo's mothership here

credit: Xcor Aerospace

Kindly provided by Xcor Aerospace, click on this image for a gigantic version that can brighten up your desktop background

And dare I say it but feel free to use Hyperbola's share it feature to share this image, all in the Christmas spirit, of course

credit: Spaceport America

So Spaceport America got there eventually. It was the US Federal Aviation Administration environmental impact assessment that held it up

A while ago the then spaceport authority chairman and New mexico government cabinet secretary for economic development Rick Homans (now New Mexico Secretary of the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department) told me that they had under estimated how long that assessment would take

Go through to the extended portion of this blog for a trip down memory lane with Flight's coverage of the development of the world's first dedicated commercial spaceport

credit: Xcor Aerospace 

Four of these 5K18 engines will power Xcor Aerospace's Lynx suborbital spaceship. Detail about Lynx's development can be read here  

The company's 5K18 engine test press release says:

The new engine, designated the 5K18, produces [up to 2900lb (12.9kN)] thrust by burning a mixture of liquid oxygen and kerosene.  The engine was fired Monday, December 15th, 2008 at XCOR's rocket test facility located at the Mojave Air and Space Port.  The first test of the engine was performed using pressure-fed propellants whereas the final version of the engine will be fed using XCOR's proprietary cryogenic piston pump for liquid oxygen and a similar piston pump for kerosene.

Congratulations to the Mojave resident that won Hyperbola's $100 Virgin Galactic video bounty. That will be with you shortly via electronic banking

credit: Flight / caption: click on this image to see a larger version in this browser window

Hyperbola has obtained video of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo mothership WhiteKnightTwo travelling down the runway during a low speed taxi trial, with pitot tube fitted, at Mojave air and spaceport on Friday 12 December at about 1500h local time (2300h GMT)

Watch the video and read more about what happened with WhiteKnightTwo at Mojave air and space port on 12 December at flightglobal.com/spaceflight or click through to the extended portion of this blog post and see the video there

credit: Spaceport America

On Tuesday 9 December CBS Television Network affiliate KRQE ran a local news story about the progress of New Mexico's $225 million Spaceport America. The US Federal Aviation Administration's environmental impact assessment recently found no problems with the spaceport's construction and operation. And in what could be another boost for the spaceport, New Mexico governor Bill Richardson has been named as president-elect Barack Obama's candidate for secretary of commerce

You can watch the video here at krqe.com's report. I tried to embed it but it refused to work

credit: Blue Origin

Whatever happened to Blue Origin? was to be the title of a blog I had planned to write and then publish over the festive holiday. As Clark Lindsey has done it again and chanced upon a new entry to the Blue Origin website now seems as good a time as any to speculate wildly about this secretive effort funded by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos 

At the end of October I had contacted Blue Origin's media relations people about any forthcoming news as it is literally years since anything has been heard from them

credit: Virgin Galactic

Watch Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn talk about WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo at the 4th Appleton space conference held at the UK's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory on 4 December

In the video, you can watch in the extended portion of this blog post, you can see Whitehorn talk about having $40 million in the bank, SpaceshipTwo being almost finished, WhiteKnightTwo's high speed taxi runs, Whitehorn's expectations for external investors in late 2009 and up to 400 people asking Virgin Galactic about sending relative's ashes into space

http://twitter.com/flighthyperbola

When will it fly?

At twitter.com/flighthyperbola and via an embedded frame in the flightglobal.com/Hyperbola entry Live Twitter: Virgin Galactic @ UK space conference, tomorrow you can read Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn's answer to that question and more as I'll be twittering via my Blackberry from a UK space conference

Whitehorn is speaking at the 4th Appleton space conference in Oxfordshire, England, on 4 December at about 1040h GMT (1140h CET or 0540h EDT) and Hyperbola will be there to cover it

Parts of the conference will be video taped (if they will let me) and uploaded to flightglobal.com on Friday (5 December)

credit: SpaceX

This Dragon spacecraft qualification unit is going through leak and structural integrity testing. For the leak tests the capsule is pressurised to ensure there are "no leaks in the structure itself, or through the hatches, and windows," says SpaceX

I can't see this image on the SpaceX website

At 1000h local time in California (1800h GMT) Xcor Aerospace has its press conference about its first customer, now known to be Danish citizen Per Wimmer, its first travel agent and technical advances for its proposed suborbital Lynx vehicle

I have been provided with the webcast logon details. Assuming that works I'll be twittering while watching the webcast from here in London, England. You can follow that twittering here 

credit: JAXA / caption: even frugal Japan is looking at human missions

After 50-years of robotic space science leading the way and the prospect of an orbital transportation system being stood up for less than the price of the development of the Airbus A380 you might think that space scientists should accept that the time has come for human's to take the lead in scientific discovery of the solar system...

Hyperbola's vision for space exploration part 2b will now be posted tomorrow 

credit: Xcor / caption: Per Wimmer is on the left

Yes, as a P. W. Mothman has commented (on this earlier post) the Xcor customer is Danish born, UK resident Per Wimmer. Xcor cheekily, and perhaps at some risk, published the above photo but without caption so unless you knew Per you would not have known that he was the customer in question

I knew this when I published my post and thought I could break the news just before Xcor did today but it seems that the Daily Mail made it all public yesterrday - you can tell I'm not a Daily Mail reader

Remember: Hyperbola is now on twitter and by following Hyperbola on twitter you can find out the latest stuff being worked on and who has been talking too whom