exploration: September 2008 Archives

This year's International Astronautical Congress begins today with an opening ceremony that the organisers claim, in the usual British understatement, will be shorter than the Beijing Oylmpic's ceremonies, and that will be followed by a heads of agency plenary session and technical sessions

The heads of agency are from NASA, European Space Agency, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Chinese National Space Administration and the Canadian Space Agency except Russia and India who have sent deputies

Click here to go to the event's homepage

From 29 September to 3 October Hyperbola will be reporting from the biggest space event of the year the International Astronautical Federation's congress, held this year in Glasgow, Scotland

As well as live blogging I hope to post images, podcasts and videos of interviews and plenary speeches of the world's space agencies' leaders, their programme managers and individuals presenting new ideas about human exploration of the cosmos - cue grandios music

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

While the pre-Apollo Wernher von Braun manned Mars mission plan is well known through the Collier's magazine and von Braun's now published Project Mars: A Technical tale, the German born rocket engineer also developed long range plans for the Nixon administration that included a 1982 manned Mars mission



click on any of the images in this blog post to see larger versions in the same window browser

Tuesday 9 Septemer
1112h

Tony Lavoie, is Lunar Precursor Robotics programme manager at MSFC

Talking about Lunar Reconnassaince Orbiter and need for good lunar pole data
Talking about LCROSS and lunar mapping project, nothing new
We decided that we could get the human mission going, get most of the information we need with just LRO and LCROSS
In medium term have plans to shift focus to scientific focus

Credit: ESA

The above image shows the current concept for a European low lunar orbit space station that would act as a refeuling depot, as a staging point and as a safe haven if disaster struck. At the node's nadir port a cylindrical lander with suit ports is ready to descend to the lunar surface while at the forward longitudinal port there is what appears to be a Crew Space Transportation System capsule with its Automated Transfer Vehicle-derived service module


credit: ESA

This European Space Agency image shows an interior concept for CSTS with six crew and the pilot stations on the lower level. The seat arrangement is different to the design recently released by Rocket and space Corporation Energia  

Credit: JAXA

The images in this blog are from a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) presentation given at the European Space Agency's Integrated Architecture Review held from 7-8 July at ESA's European Space Research and Technology Centre in the Netherlands

click on images in this blog post to see a larger version in the same window browser

This European Space Agency video shows a concept lunar space station in low orbit that docks with a visiting spacecraft

credit: Astrium


credit: Astrium

CTSE? A German acronym meaning Crew Transport System Europäische perhaps? Surely it should also be Européenne équipage système de transport spatial (ESTS)? I am waiting to talk to ESA and Astrium about what CTSE is exactly

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

 
I couldn't find this video on the NASA website or on Youtube but after my last proclamation of exclusivity I dare not do that again because someone is bound to have put this on the websome where. So, enjoy this 2min 6s NASA Langley Research Center video that shows a European Space Agency cargo lander delivering modules for a lunar outpost

Click through to the extended portion of this blog post for another lunar outpost video that has found its way on to Youtube

credit: Astrium

The image above appears to be the latest Astrium design for the European Space Agency, Russian joint Crew Space Transportation System

Gaetano Marano at his Ghostnasa website has leaked, from a European Space Agency website, an EADS Astruim presentation that was part of a 8 July lunar architecture, industry day


credit: EADS Astrium

So it would appear that a European Moon mission would require four launches. Two for the lander and its Earth departure stage (EDS) to be sent into orbit around the Moon, probably to dock with an existing lunar station and another two to launch the crew space transportation system and its EDS, which would dock in Earth orbit before going to the Moon. 

ESA's interest in a cislunar space station was already known and the use of such a station as a fuel depot seems to have heavily influenced the European Moonship design with its 16,000kg mass that is substantially less than the NASA Orion crew exploration vehicle's

click on any of the images in this blog post to see larger versions in the same browser window