Constellation: April 2009 Archives

credit NASA/Lockheed Martin / caption: Will this be seen in 2020?

Acting NASA administrator Christopher Scolese made some interesting remarks on 29 April at the Congressional appropriations hearing that Hyperbola thinks could see another human spaceflight gap for the USA at the end of the next decade

credit NASA / caption is this what return to the Moon means?

In an extraordinary exchange between NASA acting adminisrator Christoper Scolese and the US House of Representatives' committee on appropriations' subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies chair, Scolese said that the agency was still working on what "return to the Moon" meant and whether that was a outpost, which he went on to describe as expensive, or an extended sortie like Apollo

So much for Apollo on steroids...

Hyperbola hoped to have an audio recording of the webcast but unfortunately Microsoft's sound recorder didn't deliver. Hopefully the appropriations will have a webcast replay accessible soon

credit NASA / caption: now with a maximum of four crew it would seem

NASA's image of the day, its Orion crew exploration vehicle mock up is in the Atlantic ocean, all at sea, and bobbing around with little or no particular direction

The balloons on top are for up righting the capsules, the same system was used for the Apollo programme's command module

Well done to Aviation Week and Space Technology space editor Frank Morring for this scoop, with Constellation programme manager Jeff Hanley saying that for mass reduction reasons two of the Orion crew exploration vehicle's planned six seats are being pulled!

Flight had already requested an interview about Orion for this Friday, hopefully more juicy facts will be coming Hyperbola's way then

But it is not because Florida Today's The Flame Trench blog has not done its journalism properly, no, its because NASA's public affairs office got it wrong - well everybody makes mistakes I guess

NASA has told Hyperbola that The Flame Trench's article about the Aerospace Corporation Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) study on EELV suitability for launching the Orion crew exploration vehicle is wrong when it's first sentence says:

Senior NASA managers are reviewing an independent analysis

because:

Under evaluation was not accurate re: the Aerospace report. I learned later that it is in fact not finished and we can't discuss it further at this point.

Hyperbola wanted to put this information into the public domain because searching for reports about this study this blog has not uncovered any correct articles, only blogosphere postings that propagate this initial error (Yes very community minded I know)

The statement that the study is not finished also raises questions about the validity of the NASASpaceflight.com (NSF) article that kicked off this whole situation

credit NASA / caption: so near yet so far, acceleration as an option is receding for NASA's Ares boosters

You can read Aviation Week and Space Technology space editor Frank Morring's article about NASA's Constellation programme acceleration report here and read the report itself here

While Morring concludes that the acceleration study has been overtaken by events it is interesting that the report has come to light after the publication of the NASA Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel's (ASAP) 2008 annual report. It states that increased funding for the Constellation progamme in the short term will not bring forward the Orion-Ares operational in-service date

Beginning in April last year and concluding on 18 December the acceleration study's report was released on 20 April and whether you think it has been overtaken by events or not it makes for some interesting reading especially in light of the ASAP report

credit Lockheed Martin / caption: the process will take three months

NEW ORLEANS, LA, April 20th, 2009 -- Lockheed Martin has begun its first friction stir weld process on an Orion crew module Ground Test Article at the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, La.

This ground test article will serve as a production pathfinder to validate the flight vehicle production processes and tools. When completed, this first full-sized, flight-like crew module will be tested on the ground in equivalent flight-like environments, including static vibration, acoustics and water landing loads. Results will be used to correlate sizing models for all subsystems on the vehicle

Read the full press release and see more pictures here

NASA has detailed preparations for the test firing of the first demonstrator motor for its Ares I crew launch vehicle (CLV) first stage solid rocket booster.The US space agency gives the month of August as the test date however Flight has already obtained from the Ares I prime contractor Alliant Techsystems (ATK) the more specific date of 13 August

NASA says in its statement:

The first of five segments for the Ares I development motor (DM-1) was moved April 16 from ATK Space System's production facility in Promontory, Utah, to the nearby test stand, in preparation for the first ground test, targeted for August. This next generation of solid rocket motor will be used to launch humans on future missions to the International Space Station, the moon, Mars and beyond.

ATK explained to Flight that the 133-day postponement of the test would not impact on the development of the CLV. NASA has already delayed the first test flight of the motor by more than a year

credit NASA/Flight / caption: NASAWatch's reusable lander presentation looks nothing like Altair 

Back in February NASA's head of its Altair lunar lander project office Kathy Laurini spoke to Flight about the agency's ideas for a reusable or recycleable lander. A few days earlier NASA exploration expert Wendell Mendell had mentioned the reuse of landers during an event held here in London

And now NASAWatch has apparently obtained a presentation for such a lander, which I believe is called a "side loader". Is it just me or does that look very much like a Gerry Anderson SPACE: 1999 Eagle?

When I spoke to companies bidding for Altair conceptual design contracts at the National Space Symposium at the beginning of this month they said that a reusable or recycleable lander would mean substantial architecture changes

A press release about NASA's Maximum Launch Abort System test launch can be expected in the next two weeks. Originally scheduled for a 14-month development period and a September 2008 launch test, that was put back to no earlier than 27 March this year and today NASA told Hyperbola:

Latest projection is mid-to-late May.  Once it gets out of the processing building it is in now, project managers will be able to set a target date.  We plan to issue a media announcement at that point, which is expected to be about two weeks prior to test.

NASA's Engineering and Safety Center has been designing and developing this alternate vehicle concept as "risk mitigation for the Orion crew exploration vehicle launch abort system concept" since 2007

NASA needs to increase its annual average funding by $5 billion to almost $24 billion for the next decade to achieve its 2020 Moon and International Space Station (ISS) goals and be able to fly the Space Shuttles to 2015

The $5 billion prediction is from the NASA authorisation act 2008 mandated US Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) analysis of NASA's forecasted budgets and its past programmes' cost performance. The $5 billion figure is from 50% cost overrun estimates based on a 2004 CBO analysis of 72 past NASA programmes

The CBO also found that with no changes to NASA's budget to achieve the 2020 Moon and ISS goals would mean cuts to the science and aeronautics budgets

In November 2008 a CBO analysis concluded that Orion-Ares' costs could spiral by $7 billion and its first manned flight may be two years later than planned in 2017

Thanks to Jeff Foust and his tweet for alerting me to this report

credit Moon Beat / caption: Picture on the far right is of BBC's Reginald Turnill

Following in the footsteps of In the shadow of the Moon comes the flip side to the Apollo history documentary and Kevin Stirling's Moon Beat focuses on the media, the journalists who covered the programme at close quarters

NASA itself recognised those that covered the programme and called them the Chroniclers. There is a wall covered in plaques recognising the work done by the individual journalists at Kennedy Space Center and one of those plaques bears the name Reginald Turnill

The then British Broadcasting Corporation aerospace correspondent, or space reporter depending upon which webpage you read, Turnill is featured in Moon Beat

On the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik Flightglobal.com visited Turnill at his home on the south coast of England and spoke to him about that event and his career with the BBC

Hyperbola videos can be watched on its YouTube channel Flighthyperbola and the videos of channels Flighthyperbola subscribes too

With an extra $1 billion care of the Obama administration's fiscal stimulus American Recovery and Reinvestment act 2009 and fiscal year 2009 and FY2010 budgets floating around NASA had told Hyperbola it would announce this month how it is spending all the money. But now the agency is working towards something happening in May. NASA told Hyperbola:

Budget briefing is looking like "early May or late May."  We honestly don't know yet.  We've put a marker down on the calendar for May 4 AND for end of May.  We're still in consultations with [Office of Management and Budgets] and trying to get our ducks in order for a roll out press conference.  If I were a betting man, I'd bet first full week in May.

Find all of NASA's ARRA information on this webpage here. Under the ARRA NASA had 60-days from its signing (I am assuming its calendar and not working days) by Obama on 17 February to respond to Congress, giving a deadline of 17 April. So leaks about how the agency wants to spend the money could be expected in the next week or so

credit NASA / caption: 24 July 1969, the Apollo 11 command module up righting balloons can be clearly seen

It looks like NASA's Orion crew exploration vehicle is going to have even more similarities with the space agency's Apollo command module. The Orion project office tells Hyperbola that come 2015 (take your pick on Orion-Ares crewed flight dates) the sea landing of the six crew International Space Station mission spacecraft will have balloons to ensure it can right itself if it flips upside down in the swell. NASA says

The system is early in design but here is the baseline: 

Crew Module Up righting System consists of:

-        3-52" up righting airbags integrated in the forward bay

-        Stored gas inflation system

-        24 hour up righting capability

Thankfully, the silliness can end and one more name can be struck off the growing list of never wozzas for the post of NASA administrator. Jeff Foust has reported that Nick Lampson has told the Houston Chronicle that he will not be a candidate for NASA administrator

It was pretty apparent to me and Jeff, when we spoke to Lampson at the 25th National Space Symposium last week, that he was a bit bewildered by the spotlight being shone on him for the top civil space job

A blue ribbon panel to review NASA's direction is likely according to Dr John Olsen, NASA exploration systems mission directorate integration office director. Speaking to Flight last week at the National Space Symposium Olsen said he expected the panel to happen once the new administrator is in place

People involved in DC politics tell Hyperbola that unless the Obama administration can find a politician that has already been vetted to take the NASA job (this is why politicians names such as Nick Lampson are popping into the frame) the post of administrator isn't going to be filled anytime soon - Hyperbola has already described how long it could take and how acting administrator Christopher Scolese could be there for some time

More disturbingly Hyperbola has been told that Obama would like the administrator to find the agency's new direction

NASA announced yesterday that the reformulation of the Apollo programme's Avcoat has been selected for its Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV)

Flight predicted this in its 10 March article about the heat shield when an announcement was expected that month. Instead NASA announced the decision on 7 April

The decision, 14-months late, brings to an end a major question about an important mass driver for the CEV. Delayed by 10-months the Orion's preliminary design review is now more likely to go ahead later this year - the Obama administration's choice for NASA administrator likely to come so late that the individual concerned will not be in place to do anything to stop it

Avco, long since bought by Textron Systems, did propose its Apollo heat shield material for Shuttle but its abative technology lost out to the reusable ceramic tiles the orbiter's use today

And in a twist to the Constellation programme story the ceramic tiles of PICA have lost out to Avcoat for Orion

NASA is offering interviews about the Avcoat selection so expect more from Flight and Hyperbola in the near future