Recently in commercial launch services Category

Sometimes, it's best to let things speak for themselves. Read on, friends (our highlights):

The First Vibrator in Space   
     
Los Angeles, CA - September 27, 2011 -- On October 8, 2011, online sex toy sales leader SexToy.com, will lead a team to launch the first adult sex toy vibrator into space. The space craft will be equipped with a still and video camera that will send images of its best selling vibrator back to Earth.
 
Through rigorous experimentation, the group has developed a way to send the vibrator into space. The toy will have to withstand temperatures of -75 degrees Fahrenheit and conditions 10 times over normal cosmic radiation. The vibrator will be fully exposed to the elements, reach an altitude of 100,000 feet (~20miles) above the Earth's atmosphere, which is three times the cruising altitude of a typical jet plane. The team hopes to retrieve the vibrator in fully functioning order.
 
SexToy Dave, CEO of CNV.com Inc., says of his inspiration behind the project, "I have always been into firsts and that is how I made my money. I was one of the first on the web selling sex toys, first to have an adult affiliate program, the first to make three appearances on Bravo's hit show Millionaire Matchmaker and now the first online adult business with a space program."
 
The sex toy will be carried into space by a partially solar-powered, partially helium-filled balloon 8 feet wide, armed with a 1080p HD video camera, a 10MP still camera, two consumer cell phones running tracking software, and an experimental GPS unit. The balloon and vibrating bullet will travel through Jet stream winds of up to 100 miles per hour for 1-3 hours and achieve a total distance of up to 100 miles. Sextoy.com will publish the photos on its new blog, "Chew On This" at www.sextoy.com/blog http://www.sextoy.com/blog

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?

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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...

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

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: Reaction Engines / caption: Skylon docks with the International Space Station

If links between New Mexico and UK plans for reusable spaceplanes were not evident enough with Spaceport America and Virgin Galactic's presence there then a new research contract has only made those trans-Atlantic connections more concrete

UK single stage to orbit Skylon spaceplane developer Reaction Engines has announced on its website that it has placed a study contract with the Physical Science Laboratory at the New Mexico State University (NMSU)

Reaction Engines says: "NMSU will be undertaking a preliminary evaluation of the requirements that Skylon D1 will need to meet for safe autonomous flight"

Skylon D1 is an enhanced version with a greater payload capability. The UK company states that the university was selected because of its heritage with unmanned flight vehicles - Skylon is not piloted but may have a passenger module for its payload bay

NMSU's knowledge of the US National Airspace System and "expertise" about the worldwide airspace systems were also factors in its selection

Lockheed Martin and Alliant Techsystems have announced a partnership for providing from 2012 a new 'C' version of the Athena rocket using ATK's Castor 30 solid rocket motor and new electronics. Its low Earth orbit payload capability is about 1,700kg (3,700lb) making it similar to Space Exploration Technologies' Falcon 1e and its 1,010kg to LEO ability. Interestingly the Lockheed official qouted in the release is human spaceflight vice president John Karas - a hint at partnerships yet to come? NASA administrator Charles Bolden has said that the extra $300 million odd in the fiscal year 2011 budget request for the agency's Commercial Orbtial Transportation Services (COTS) programme is for recompeting COTS to allow other potential providers to join the commercial programme

Lockheed Martin and ATK Announce 2^nd Generation

Athena Launch Vehicles 

Athena to fill Critical Niche in Affordable Rockets - Available for Launch in 2012 

Denver, March 25, 2010 - Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE: LMT) and Alliant Techsystems (NYSE: ATK), have entered into a strategic teaming agreement to offer launch services utilizing upgraded and modernized Athena rockets. These vehicles, based on the flight-proven Athena I and II, are designed to provide reliable access to space for small payloads to a wide range of orbits.  Lockheed Martin will provide mission management, payload integration, and launch operations, and ATK will provide integrated vehicle propulsion, launch vehicle structures, booster integration and launch site operations.

If anything certain emerged out of the US Senate hearing (go here for archived webcast) yesterday it was that no one really knows how long any space transportation programme will take or how expensive it will be

Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) president Gwynne Shotwell confidently told the US Senate Commerce Science and Transportation committee's science and space subcommittee hearing that "we can guarantee crew flights to the [International Space Station] for less than $50 million a seat. Three years from the time we intitiate".

However former NASA Comptroller Malcolm Peterson (who worked with the agency's administrator Dan Goldin) had said that he did not expect any US provider to be able to beat the Russian price of $150 million for three seats on Energia Soyuz TMA spacecraft and predicted a per flight cost of around $400 million. Of course SpaceX's Dragon can seat up to seven so they can both be right. SpaceX could offer seven seats, or more likely, six, at a cost of up to $300 million, Peterson's mission cost neck of the woods, while beating the $51 million Russia charges per seat

In SpaceX's defence they do have a rocket, the Falcon 9, whose technology has been tested with successful orbital flights of its smaller predecessor the Falcon 1, and the Dragon spacecraft has been designed to work with the Falcon 9 and it could fly later this year in its cargo configuration. According to SpaceX that configuration differs only from the crew transport in that it does not have seats and a control panel for the pilot. Next month could see the maiden flight of Falcon 9 with a instrumented dummy Dragon on top. Its success or failure will no doubt be used during the ongoing debate

The big question for SpaceX is, will the NASA human rating standards it says it has followed be enough to satisfy whatever rigour the agency applies to a commercial crew programme? And how far will NASA expect any commercial crew provider to go in proving how safe they are?

Along with Flightglobal.com and NASA Arianespace has decided to jump on the iphone app bandwagon