Commercial human spaceflight: April 2009 Archives

Blogosphere excitement at the prospect of $150 million, or $80 million depending upon the report you read, going directly to "commercial" development of crew transport to low Earth orbit is all misguided NASA has told Hyperbola

These are the facts:

• NASA is to spend $150 million, not $80 million
• it is to enable earlier Commercial Resupply Services cargo missions
• these early flights will help NASA determine what human rating requirements are needed
• it will also fund work on standardisation of International Space Station docking

This has nothing to do with COTS-D and reports of a crewed launch demo being funded by this money are not true says NASA

And now I am no wiser about this other strange crew transport procurement development

credit SpaceX / caption: bad Elon Musk, you are too successfull

NASA is to run a new crew launch demonstration competition that NASA acting adminisrator Christoper Scolese admitted in today's US House of Representatives' committee on appropriations' subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies hearing sounded like the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) option D, which is the commercial procurement of crew transport, but actually isn't

The reason Scolese gave for why the agency would not run COTS-D is because "only one organisation", meaning Elon Musks' Space Exploration Technologies, could go for it. A conclusion Hyperbola came too yesterday

Hyperbola has approached NASA for further details about this COTS-D lookalikee that isn't COTS-D and hopes to bring you all the details soon

There must be something going on between Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and NASA with this coy reply from SpaceX

We are currently reviewing the proposed procurement (its terms, scope, and duration).  We are interested, as you know, in providing a domestic alternative to having NASA purchase Soyuz to carry US astronauts to and from the ISS.

in response to an email of mine enquiring about this interesting development with NASA's International Space Station crew transportation arrangements being opened up

Since 2006 there have been a series of news articles reporting Chinese customers for space tourism, from MSNBC, the state owned China Daily, South Africa's iol.ca.za, Pakistan's Daily Times, and the technology website EE Times. Reports range from one businessman to half a dozen to literally dozens of Chinese lining up to go where only six Chinamen have gone before

credit Bigelow Aerospace / caption: will cold war treaties upset BIgelow's plans?

Last week UK newspaper (as the weekly current affairs magazine styles itself) The Economist (thanks Jeff Foust) made public a "victory" by Bigelow Aerospace that intends to take "sovereign" clients (that's governments to you and me) to his orbital complex (that's space station to you and me) early in the next decade. The victory being that there will be no ITAR ruling against taking foreign nationals to the Bigelow station, unless their Sudanese, North Korean, Iranian or Chinese

Much is made of the US government's ITAR rules, aka International Traffic of Arms Regulations, and the limitations they place on US industry's ability to export space technology and services 

Hyperbola spoke to the US Department of State's bureau of political military affairs, which oversees ITAR, about, well, 18-months ago at least about this issue. They said then that "spaceflight participants," to use the jargon, could be informed sufficiently enough for their consent to be given without giving them sensitive information. No story there then said I and it was all duly filed under, don't bother

But this selective legal anlaysis of the export control laws surrounding spaceflight ignores perhaps the most significant factor of all, the Cold War era Outer Space Treaty, and when Hyperbola asked the bureau about this last year it never got an answer

credit Flight / caption: now we know it was a idle thrust miss setting

Scaled Composites has put a statement on its website about its WhiteKnight Two prototype Virgin Mothership Eve test programme that confirms what Flight has been saying, that the rudder has had to be modified

There are other rather uncharitable comments made by Scaled in the statement but Hyperbola is sure that between the lines of aggressive corporate rhetoric the readers will see that they are getting factually accurate reportage and well informed comment from Flight about this unique aerospace project

Read here Flight's article about the statement and how it fits in with our coverage of the mothership's test programme

credit Mojave air and spaceport / caption: Burt Rutan and Peter Siebold flies SS2 

In the extended section of this blog post find a Mojave air and spaceport promotional video that shows SpaceShip Two simulator training at about 4min 40s

credit FAA / caption: The office of commercial space transportation's hopes for worldwide rules

At the Space Foundation's 25th National Space Symposium Hyperbola spoke to the US Federal Aviation Administration's associate administrator for the office of commercial space transportation George Nield

The surprising part of our quick chat (the background noise makes it useless for a podcast and I didn't ask Nield if I could use it for that anyway) was Nield's news that the French space agency CNES had visited his office for a "several days"

Nield said that his office was talking with Sweden (no surprise there) and that recently they had had the French space agency, CNES, visit for" several days and ask about our regulations and licensing process". Nield thought that interest was driven by "general curiosity mostly" but if you look at French Guiana but in future if they launch Soyuz and Vega questions of liability, what are the standards, what are the rules

Hyperbola has contacted CNES about this and is waiting for an answer

Below are my other notes from the audio recording of my chat with George Nield, its paraphrasing what he said in the most part

Asking about progress for the 2008 human spaceflight safety study recommendations - FAA has responsibility for launches and reentry and there is no overall agency responsibility for on-orbit operations. We are interested in that problem and willing to talk. It would take action by Congress to select an agency to have the lead responsibility for that

We are not sure where space falls on the [administrations to do list] and as soon as various committees are ready to take up that issue then that [report] is a good starting point for that [report and its recommendations]

credit Rocketplane Global / caption: The XP vehicle is now the subject of desktop analyses

Listen here to parts, one, two and three of Rocketplane Global vice president for business development Charles Lauer's 30min presentation on the status of the XP vehicle, given at the Space Access Society conference in Phoenix, Arizona on 4 April 2009. And download here the powerpoint presentation (in pdf format), altered slightly here for commercial confidentiality reasons, used by Lauer to illustrate his talk

credit Flight / caption: WhiteKnight Two prototype Virgin Mothership Eve makes second flight

OK revelations may be a strong word but some of you may have noticed a series of articles about that start-up spaceline appearing on flightglobal.com/spaceflight. This article about its customers and this one about its prospective spaceports are the first two of six articles making up a six-page feature for Flight International magazine's 14 April edition

The remaining four articles will be published over the next few days on flightglobal.com/spaceflight with the main text of the feature appearing Tuesday (14 April) evening, UK time

That final article, largely an interview with Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn, has an exclusive image from the 25 March third flight of WhiteKnight Two prototype Virgin Mothership Eve and a rather special graphic. Podcasts of that interview with Whitehorn can be found here 

For Flight's coverage of the growing personal spaceflight industry go here to the space tourism landing page

credit JAXA / caption: Japan's new space law could see more lunar exploration

A former employee of the Japan Exploration Aerospace Agency Misuzu Onuki, now an aerospace business consultant, spoke to the Space Access Society conference about space activities in Japan and Japanese space tourism

Click here to listen to part one

Click here to listen to part two

Rather than go up against the intense competition of the might of so many bloggers in the live blogging stakes here at the Space Access Society's 2009 (SAS 09) conference Hyperbola has opted for audio recordings of sessions and video interviews and more of that will be posted today and early next week

But for those of you who want the bare bones facts about what has been said and what has been going on here at Space Access in Phoenix, Arizona then I would recommend (in no particular order)

Clark Lindsey's transport news blogging on SAS 09

Rand Simberg's Transterrestrial Musings about SAS 09

Henry Cate's Why Homeschool (this is actually illegal in the UK) blog about SAS 09 

Jeff Foust's coverage of SAS 09 on his Personal Spaceflight blog

And finally here is SAS 09 coverage by Parabolic Arc

If there are any bloggers I've missed off, apologies, but five is pretty good going for any conference

credit NASA/Rocketplane Kistler / caption: Space Access Society 2009 heard that Rocketplane Kistler is not dead

Rocketplane Global's vice president for business development Charles "Chuck" Lauer talked about the NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services programme participant Rocketplane-Kistler (RpK), what happened to it, where it is today and its future at the Space Access Society's conference in Phoenix, Arizona on 4 April 2009

Listen here to Lauer describe RpK as the "canary in the [credit crunch] coal mine" and how it fell victim to the financial worldwide crisis

NASA could be ready to purchase autonomous and manned suborbital science flights from 1 October 2010 if its Ames Research Center managed human tended suborbital science programme gets the funding it wants for the fiscal year 2011 budget. That budget would be published in February 2010

NASA Ames personnel spoke at the Space Access Society conference's last session of its second day and explained the request for proposals process it has had for the science community

In the next four weeks the space agency expects to place up to eight $50,000 awards for conceptual studies relating to what the scientists, the user community, think can be done with suborbital flights

The prospect of 4min of microgravity, according to the Ames staff, is very attractive to many science communities that use the few seconds available with parabolic aircraft flights. The level of  interest in the RFP process conducted so far has meant that Ames is considering having more

According to the Ames speakers the first of the 2011 suborbital flights are likely to use equipment to characterise the environment of the flight profile to ensure experiments can be prepared properly  

Hyperbola has an audio recording of the session and plans to release it in full or in part in the next few days   

 

Xcor Aerospace's chief executive Jeff Greason spoke to Hyperbola about the development of his company's rocket powered Lynx vehicle after his 3 April presentation at the Space Access Society conference held in Phoenix, Arizona from 2-4 April 2009

Go through to the extended portion of this blog post to see the video interview with Greason

Space Adventures chief executive Eric Anderson told the media today that if the expected flight of a Kazakh cosmonaut does not go ahead on 30 September this year onboard Soyuz TMA 16 then one of his company's customers might go to the International Space Station instead; but there is also the possiblity of a Russian cosmonaut going to the ISS

Spaceflight participants have to undergo months of training and so the Kazakh situation would have to come to a head very quickly in order for any Space Adventures customer to sign on the dotted line and have sufficient training. Unless the Russian authorities are happy for a previous Space Adventures customer's backup customer, who would have had months of some training already, to take the open seat. Anderson named Ester Dyson and Nik Halik as potential candidates

Anderson also reported that the company was in discussions with two potential customers for the mooted private Soyuz TMA flight to the ISS but instead of the latter half of 2011 target date for the flight Anderson now gave a 2012 date. Bill Harwood asked what would have been Hyperbola's question, and that was, can the Russian space industry deliver five Soyuz in one year? They now have to produce four of the spacecraft a year for the expanded ISS crew of six instead of what has been the normal two and Anderson said he expected they could build a fifth, and by 2012

I guess we'll know either way for both trips fairly soon

Spacejet (above) has the full support of the leadership of EADS Astrium and it is a long term project for a long term market, Hugues Laporte-Weywada, Astrium's senior vice president and deputy chief technical officer told Hyperbola in an exclusive interview at the Space Foundation's 25th National Space Foundation in Colorado Springs today

Laporte-Weywada discusses the company's strategy for spacejet, the impact the worldwide financial crisis has had, the potential financing options and business models for third party service operators and his own personal support for this European suborbital, project in a story to be published on flightglobal.com/spaceflight tomorrow   

*** NEWS TELE-CONFERENCE ***

SPACE ADVENTURES' CEO ERIC ANDERSON

FRIDAY, APRIL 3 - 1:00 p.m. (EDT)

 

SPACE ADVENTURES' CEO ERIC ANDERSON TO DISCUSS FUTURE OF

SPACE TOURISM, AVAILABLE SEATS FOR UPCOMING ORBITAL FLIGHTS

 

WHAT:             Join Eric Anderson, co-founder, president and CEO of Space Adventures, to discuss the future of space tourism.  As Dr. Charles Simonyi prepares for his return to Earth from the International Space Station amid reports he is the "last space tourist," Eric Anderson will discuss Space Adventures' upcoming missions - including a new and exciting development.

 

Space Adventures, the only company that provides human space missions to the world marketplace, became world renowned in 2001 with the launch of client Dennis Tito, the world's first privately-funded spaceflight participant. Since then, the company has launched five other individuals to space. Dr. Simonyi made history with his recent flight as the first private explorer to make a repeat visit to the space station.

 

WHO:               Eric Anderson, co-founder, president and CEO of Space Adventures

 

WHEN:             Friday, April 3, 2009

                        1:00 p.m. (EDT)/9:00 p.m. (MSD Moscow)

In June 2008 Flight reported that the European Space Agency had concluded, after some preliminary data, that suborbital passengers have a smaller carbon footprint than those that travel on airliners

At the time Flight was told that the data would not be released because it was preliminary and that further study was required

Speaking to ESA's head of general studies, Geraldine Naja-Corbin yesterday (1 April) at the Space Foundation's 25th National Space Symposium Hyperbola asked about the suborbital tourism study, if it had concluded and if the data mentioned last year could be released

But Naja-Corbin says the study is still ongoing and the data is still being with held, so its still a case of watch this space

credit NASA / caption: Will this simulation become reality by the end of August

Elon Musk, Space Exploration Technologies' chief executive and chief technology officer, spoke at the Space Foundation's 25th National Space Symposium on 1 April 2009

Click here to listen to part one

Click here to listen to part two

Hear Musk refer to the maiden flight of his Falcon 9 rocket from its space launch complex 40 at Cape Canaveral as being in "late summer," which I would imagine is end of August. Aerospace schedules being what they are that could easily become September; so much for the reports of a June launch

Three videos were shown during Musk's session and I have edited out the audio from those but you'll hear Musk refer to them. Hyperbola hopes to have a complete video of this session, and others from the symposium in the next few days. To see the COTS-D video Musk refers to go here

I had heard a rumour that Virgin Galactic had approached Cable News Network, aka CNN, and offered them a seat, exclusively, a one time offer to a global news organisation for a ride on SpaceShip Two; and it sort of made sense considering a lot of the spaceline's potential customers are probably wandering around the world and watching the channel in hotels

Following on from my twitter teaser on the issue I can reveal that I spoke to former CNN reporter Miles O'Brien on Monday 30 March at the Coalition for Space Exploration media roundtable (where I met Nick Lampson) about this rumour

O'Brien explained that in fact while he was still at CNN his then employer and he approached the spaceline and had meetings with the Anglo-American outfit including talking to Sir Richard Branson about CNN getting onboard a flight but Branson wanted the $200,000 and CNN couldn't even get a cut price rate. So all their hopes came crashing down to Earth, so to speak

I should have told O'Brien they have already offered Hyperbola a trip, one-way of course... ;-)