International Space Station: March 2010 Archives

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

Here is a 9min 41s clip from NASA administrator Charles Bolden's 23 March appearence at the House of Representatives' Committee on Appropriatons' subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies hearing on NASA. Other Youtube clips of this hearing can be found here care of someone called ISSmania6

For the 24 March NASA hearing for the space and aeronautics subcommittee of the House of Representatives' science and technology committee click here to launch the archived webcast

credit: spacepolicyonline.com / caption: Garver's presentation click on it for a large version in this browser window

So according to NASA administrator Charles Bolden in the Congressional hearing yesterday the US will get back to the Moon before the Chinese - but will they?

As the Constellation programme progressed it was always interesting to dig around for the latest multi-program integrated milestone schedule that would occasionally be available officially or unofficially on the web somewhere. That helpful document showed graphically, in every sense, the inevitable slips of an under funded Moon return programme

Earlier this month NASA deputy administrator Lori Beth Garver gave us a new milestone schedule to scrutinise - even if it has the word notional across it - when she gave a presentation at the American Astronautical Society's Goddard Memorial Symposium (held 9-11 March)

Garver's powerpoint (one assumes) slides - shown in this blog care of a new website called spacepolicyonline.com - show an Obama space plan timeline and a version of the Constellation programme schedule

Looking at the slide above (and Garver's second slide - see extended blog portion - that shows a Constellation timeline) the question that comes to Hyperbola's mind is, if Constellation was an exploration programme that was unexecutable with the available budget why is the Obama plan any more executable?

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?

 

Russia Today is reporting that photos of the Moon taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter clearly show Lunokhod-2 the rover that landed on the celestial body in 1973 as part of the Soviet space programme. Good to know the Soviet space programme wasn't a hoax either then

Meanwhile the Russian Federal Space Agency (aka Roscosmos) is reporting on its website confirmation from prime minister Vladimir Putin of the Russian-Indian joint mission, that we reported back in July 2008, although it seems the mission will not now go to the International Space Station

Roscosmos is also reporting that the ISS partners are ready to co-operate with third parties and Cina is cited. India is also an obvious space faring nation that could be involved which makes the non-ISS Soyuz flight a bit of a mystery

In the run up to the launch of Soyuz TMA-18 Roscosmos talks about the 12 emergency landing sites outside Russia and Kazakhstan that there are, who knew there were so many? and for media there si an opportuntiy to drink tea at a tea party with cosmonauts and astronauts about to go to the ISS

While this report about Roscosmos Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency discussions about what must be the Bepi Colombo Mercury mission is somewhat hard to read but seems to suggest the Russians might get onboard this project, which has had some budgetary trouble in the past due to technical troubles

The Samaar Space Center Soyuz 2-1b rocket is about to get some new technology care of Khrunichev Space Center subsidiary Voronezh Mechanical Factory which Roscosmos says is to invent a new steering engine, the RD-0110R, the 2-1b flight control system

Finally Roscosmos had a board meeting recently

 

Russia Today reports about the International Space Station's 23rd Expedition crew's prepare for April Soyuz TMA-18 launch to the outpost

Meanwhile European Space Agency director-general Jean-Jacques Dordain spoke at the 9 February NASA Project Management Challenge 2010 Event held in Galveston, Texas. Only a month later ESA has posted Dordain's speech to the web inwhich he outlines three scenarios for co-operation with an emphasis on transportation

More Congressional NASA hearing fun has reached Youtube and here Republican party Florida senator George LeMieux questions NASA administrator Charles Bolden during the recent Commerce, Science, and Transportation Senate Subcommittee hearing about the agency's fiscal year 2011 budget proposal

Jeff Foust's spacepolitics.com has links to previous reports about the ongoing political debate over NASA, while Congressman Senator Richard Shelby is admitting there will be a fight for votes, as does NASAWatch which links to reports from the space states

Meanwhile the Space Shutle programme is letting it be known what the reality is of continuing use of the world's only reusable spacecraft

And the anti-Obama space plan rhetoric gets louder with a growing number of op-eds and space history experts and even Apollo astronauts coming out against the flexible path vision

This report makes you wonder if Obama will face a Tea party death panel like protest response to his forthcoming 15 April Florida space summit but Fox news does not appear to have decided to back the anti-flexible path coalition yet

Unsurprisingly the fate of the US space programme is beginning to get health care like levels of interest from the US media. Now we have this 15 April summit following reports of plan As and plan Bs that never were. Personally this blogger is looking forward to the Daily Show's angle on it all

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison's bill for authorising human spaceflight does not differ markedly from the leaked 9 February dated bill text revealed by Hyperbola last week

The Interesting changes are the following:

• Bolden must submit a National Space Transportation System plan within 90-days
• Complete shuttle review within 90 days - there was no time limit before
• plan for continuing Shuttle at two missions a year until alternative is found
• Within 60-days of the act publish human spaceflight requirements
• complete market assessment of commercial crew industry within 120-days

Two other surprises that require clarification are the following;

[a National Space Transportation System] architecture of government developed and operated space transportation systems, including one or more launch vehicles and associated crew [emphasis added] and cargo carriers;

OK one or more launch vehciles could be Atlas and Delta or Ares I but why would it be one or more government developed crewed spacecraft?! And then there is this from the heavy lift development section of the bill:

include consideration of the degree to which alternative vehicles may be developed in an evolutionary fashion with the objective of supporting initial crew and cargo transportation to the International Space Station by the end of 2013

are they really saying 2013 for a heavy lift evolved vehicle that can transport crew and cargo to ISS?

Former US Marine Corp Major-General Charles Bolden must by now be reflecting upon the military axiom, no plan survives contact with an enemy. In this case Bolden's enemies are the Congressmen and women hell bent on not accepting the president Barack Obama spaceflight plan

Now the Wall Street Journal reports of a NASA memo talking about plan Bs

So what could Bolden's boys and girls come up with? They might want to use the draft bill's contents as a guide. Why not pre-empt the bill and have an ISS assessment carried out immediately that will address the ideas of Shuttle extension and crew and cargo transportation needs for the flying laboratory?

Let's not beat around the bush, the politicians are concerned about jobs both within NASA and of those supplying the agency. They want centers maintained and industry supported. So what could be done considering a $19 billion budget?

• Wind down Shuttle slowly with fewer flights per year and a shift to two orbiters
• Augustine recommended a flight proven booster for the commercial crew program, use NASA resources to help develop the modified Atlas V for that
• Rapidly select a heavy lift concept and fund it for post-2020 deployment
• Rename Orion the Deep Space Exploration Vehicle by adding a habitat module to it 
• lastly provide a sliding scale of delivery based on NASA funding increases that Congress can understand

To keep Shuttle going will avoid massive job losses at a time when there are mid term elections. At least adding the mooted STS-135 flight would give some workers a breathing space. With this heavy lift, Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle and related Orion work there is plenty for the NASA centers to be getting on with and entrepreneurial companies still have a chance with crew and cargo transport

NASAWatch points to a NASASpaceflight.com forum posting it claims is made by a Senate commerce staffer. This blog made a number of attempts at contact with the committee's comms office and it never replied. Whether this 22 February version exists or not it will be interesting to see how the version that is introduced compares to the 9 Feb. version

Boiling down the 9 February version of the draft Human spaceflight capability assurance and enhancement authorization bill to just the elements that require action on the part of NASA administrator Charles Bolden after its enactment we can see that he will have too;

• within 90-days review the Constellation vehicles and start heavy lift design work within 180-days of bill's enactment
• immediate International Space Station (ISS) assessment
• within 30-days appoint a 90-day Space Shuttle flight certification review team
  

The Shuttle and Constellation reviews, and everything else Congress might dream up, is likely to be driven by the ISS assessment. President Barack Obama's support for station use to 2020 at least will probably be the hook that everything else is hung on, what transportation arrangement, both crew and cargo, will ensure that ISS is fully utilised as the national laboratory that it is and will be