Recently in NASA Category

Just the Disney-Pixar Toy Story cartoon character Buzz Lightyear was so named after the Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin, so the 55-year-old British comedian and space afficionado, Frank Skinner, has also named his new baby boy Buzz. 

Apparently the drily-amusing comedian is a fan of cowboys as well. The baby's second name Cody has been given after the cowboy showman Buffalo Bill Cody.  

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin (real name Edwin Aldrin) was so named in childhood after his sister kept mispronouncing "brother" as "buzzer".   When it came to family names, of course, it was almost as if it was ordained that astronaut Buzz would set foot on Earth's natural satellite.   Buzz Aldrin's mother's maiden name was Moon.

The Soyuz TMA-04M spacecraft carrying the crew of NASA astronaut Joe Acaba and Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin successfully docked with the Poisk module of the International Space Station at 0436 GMT on 17 May 2012.

While ratings for the UK TV talent show The Voice continue to decline on BBC television, one of the judges, Will.i.am, still has fans in the space business it seems.  For according to the UK-based tabloid newspaper The Sun, NASA has asked the Black Eyed Peas band member to come up with a song to be broadcast back to Earth on a future NASA science mission to Mars. Will-i-am has previously worked with NASA before, on twitter to encourage interest in NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, and as a narrator on a NASA TV documentary.

 

Will-I-am sitting with former astronaut Leland Melvin, NASA associated administrator for EducatIon, during a twitter broadcast just before the launch of NASA's previous Mars Science Laboratory mission.  Courtesy: NASA

 

While under financial pressure from the US Senate and US House of Representatives to pick only one winner for commercial crew program's next Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) phase in August (the US Senate and the House plans to cap commercial crew spending at circa $500 million during the Fiscal year 2013) NASA remains resolute that it wants to choose more than one crew launch system.  Without true competition, NASA warns that crew launch purchase costs will inevitably rise. 

 

The administration hints that it may yet decide to proceed with all four competitors: Boeing Co., Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), Sierra Nevada Corp., and Blue Origin.  Neverthless, the likelihood remains is that NASA will select just two to go forward.  Without this down-select, its funding may be too diluted to be an effective subsidy to the winning firms.    

 

Of the four main competitors, Sierra Nevada offers its Dream Chaser NASA HL-20-derived mini-shuttle/lifting body design which has the flexibility of glider style landings.   The craft would be launched via an Atlas V expendable launch vehicle.    In a way, it can been seen as a natural sucessor and "son" of the Space Shuttle.

 

Artist's impression of Dream Chaser.  Courtesy: Sierra Nevada Corp

 

Also using an Atlas will be Boeing's CST-100, a simple-to-operate capsule that will employ parachute and airbag ground landings.   Boeing developed its vehicle from its losing design after being edged out of NASA's deep space manned spacecraft competition by Lockheed Martin's Orion design.  Lockheed Martin may be regretting beating Boeing on the exploration vehicle front if Boeing now wins a major NASA commercial manned contract to low Earth orbit (LEO) using its "losing" spacecraft. This is because flight rates and hence revenues could be considerably higher for these operations than those for deep space exploration.  

 

Artist's Impression of CST-100 Capsule approaching ISS.  Courtesy: Boeing    

 

While it is diametrically smaller than some of the other competitors, the SpaceX Dragon capsule may have a winning card in that it has flown already (albeit as an unmanned freighter form) and that it will be flying on a different launch vehicle, the Falcon 9.  By choosing this as one as competition to say Dream Chaser, NASA would in effect have "assured access to space" if ever one of the two launch systems or spacecraft is grounded.    There may also be cost saving benefits in choosing SpaceX as it plans to turn the Falcon 9 into a reusable space launch system.  

 

Interestingly, while SpaceX plans to use a splashdown landing technique - at least initially - SpaceX does hope to have its Dragon capsule eventually able to touch down vertically on land using rocket power. 

 

Artist's view of Dragon capsule making a rocket powered landing.  Courtesy: SpaceX

In a way, most interesting of all is Blue Origin's bi-conic capsule design. While it does not quite have the cross range capability of a winged vehicle, it is certainly better than a blunt capsule design.    Blue Origin also plans to land on land and it will use parachutes like the Boeing CST-100.

While the Blue Origin bi-conic space vehicle will initially be lofted into orbit on an Atlas V rocket, eventually, the craft will be launched on a Blue Origin partly reusable two stage rocket.  It uses a first stage dubbed the Reusable Booster System (RBS) which will land down range from a launch. Artist's impression of Blue Origin's bi-conic orbital spacecraft atop its planned partially reusable launch vehicle.  Courtesy: Blue Origin 

 

Key factors in the choice:  safety, experience, economics and redundancy  

 

Dream Chaser remains the competition's favourite due to its benign (low-g) re-entry characteristics, safe and controllable runway landings and good cross range capability. 

Having said that, second favourite - at least at this point - is probably SpaceX's Dragon design as it should be the first to fly in manned configuration.  In addition, by using the Falcon 9, it would also give NASA the launcher/spacecraft redundancy it needs.  It is the low risk option - assuming the test flight of the Dragon cargo version goes as planned in May.  The capsule would also make an ideal "crew lifeboat" from the International Space Station.

 

While its rocket powered descent and landing looks attractive for the future - if it can be made to work safely, for the time being Dragon remains wedded to ocean splashdowns - the logistics of which can be expensive especially if human lives are at stake (Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions were usually met by US Navy aircraft and helicopter carriers).   For cost reasons, NASA will only want to use splashdowns if it has to.  NASA's Lockheed Martin-built Orion blunt body capsule which is designed to cope with their higher velocity re-entries, only uses a splashdown technique for weight reasons.  

 

Of the remaining official runners, Boeing's CST-100 has the best manned spaceflight pedigree (its heritage bloodline reaches back through the Space Shuttle, Apollo, Gemini and Mercury) and could thus avoid repeating any serious design mistakes.  Nevertheless, in some ways the design could be seen as a backward step to 'just a capsule".  However it is larger than the SpaceX entry and may make a better choice for that reason.  Its parachute landing and airbag landing method looks simpler as well.

 

CST-100 boilerplate landing test on 2 May 2012.  Courtesy: Boeing

 

Blue Origin's very different bi-conic capsule has a better cross range capability than either the Dragon and CST-100 and may prove to be more economic in the long run - especially if it does land on land via parachutes etc - and does eventually use partly reusable rockets.  However, the bid's weakness is that the firm has no space experience yet.  

 

If NASA does have to choose only one Commercial Crew system/supplier as a winner it could do worse than to continue to fund some manned launches of the Russian Soyuz to the International Space Station - at least to offer some baseline competition.    Even the "state run" Orion multi-purpose crew vehicle spacecraft could also fulfil this roll.    That is not to say that the competition losers might not carry on with their own internally funded development.  In other words, NASA may not even have to provide funding to allow a competitive environment.

 

Update:  As expected there has been a late bid from ATK with an ATK/Astrium-built Liberty launch vehicle launching a composite capsule-based Liberty spacecraft incorporating Lockheed Martin systems (one way that Lockheed Martin can maintain an interest in this commercial transport field apart from its Atlas V launch vehicles).   The bid's chances are probably low given concerns over the solid rocket first stage (vibrations, stage bumping potential etc), cost of the Ariane V-derived upper stage, and over the very late design of a crew capsule using novel composite technology.  Interestingly, ATK has been at pains to note that the Liberty rocket can be used to launch other manned commercial spacecraft designs.

 

And don't forget the toilet!

 

As it stands, the Orion and Soyuz alternatives to any commercial spacecraft, will likely be more popular with astronauts given that both have a toilet aboard.  Boeing, Space X, and Sierra Nevada have all confirmed to Flightglobal/Ascend that, none of their vessels has a toilet.   Blue Origin  effectively declined to disclose whether or not their spacecraft design has one.   There is no word yet on whether the late bid Liberty spacecraft has a toilet or not.

 

Not having a toilet is a backward step especially given that the Space Shuttle (now retired) had a toilet aboard.   There are even hygiene and health implications.  Apollo astronauts recounted how grim it was to use that programme's toilet bags on space missions and noted that unpleasant spillages sometimes occurred.

 

The Space Shuttle's Waste Collection System (toilet) may have been complicated but it beat Apollo's bags.  Courtesy: NASA

 

The Commercial Crew system contenders now admit that this was a design oversight.  A senior executive at SpaceX explained that the firm is now rethinking its toilet strategy on the Dragon capsule, especially in light of likely operations to and from the International Space Station.

 

"Currently it (Dragon) does not have a toilet, but you obviously have to consider that when you put crew on, and there are a lot of different concepts we're looking at...anything from diapers to an actual system,"  said the executive before adding: "Now NASA requires an actual system, because right now they want the ability to go on, potentially, a three-day approach to (the) station."

 

Of course, there is always Plan B.  Just as some Apollo astronauts did in their attempts at avoiding having to use their hated "faecal bags". so modern astronauts could also dose themselves up with Imodium to make sure that they stayed bunged up for the flight.

 

Zach Rosenberg contributed to this report.

In its "Cosmic Vision" push to explore the Solar system, Europe has set its sights on Jupiter icy moons, with a mission to launch for Europa, Ganymede and Callisto in 2022.

The so-called JUICE mission - Jupiter Icy moons Explorer - will arrive at Jupiter in 2030 and spend at least three years making detailed observations. Europa, Ganymede and Callisto are all thought to host internal oceans, so the mission will study the moons as potential habitats for life, addressing two key themes of Cosmic Vision: what are the conditions for planet formation and the emergence of life, and how does the Solar System work?

JUICE will continuously observe Jupiter's atmosphere and magnetosphere, and the interaction of the Galilean moons with the gas giant planet.

It will visit Callisto, the most heavily cratered object in the Solar System, and will twice fly by Europa. JUICE will make the first measurements of the thickness of Europa's icy crust and will identify candidate sites for future in situ exploration.

The spacecraft will finally enter orbit around Ganymede in 2032, where it will study the icy surface and internal structure of the moon, including its subsurface ocean.

Ganymede is the only moon in the Solar System known to generate its own magnetic field, and JUICE will observe the unique magnetic and plasma interactions with Jupiter's magnetosphere in detail.

"Jupiter is the archetype for the giant planets of the Solar System and for many giant planets being found around other stars," says Alvaro Giménez Cañete, ESA's director of science and robotic exploration. "JUICE will give us better insight into how gas giants and their orbiting worlds form, and their potential for hosting life."

JUICE was chosen over two alternatives: NGO, the New Gravitational wave Observatory, to hunt for gravitational waves, and ATHENA, the Advanced Telescope for High-Energy Astrophysics. Either of these may be reconsidered when ESA again polls the scientific community in another call for large missions, expected in 2013.

ESA's next big Solar System venture is the BepiColombo mission to put two orbiters around Mercury from 2022, following a launch in 2014. That mission will just the third to the planet closest to the Sun, after NASA's Mariner 10, which made fly-bys in 1974-75, and Messenger, which has been in orbit around Mercury since March 2011.

And, in 2016 and 2018 ESA is planning a pair of launches to Mars. The ExoMars missions will test a descent module and then land a rover equipped to test geological samples gathered by deep drilling.

The Space Shuttle Enterprise has been moved out of Washtington D.C. now that the city has the real thing:  the Smithsonian's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center received the Space Shuttle Discovery ealier in April,  The  Enterprise, which was only ever used for gliding tests rather than flying into orbit, was flown from the Udvar-Hazy Center into New York while mounted atop a NASA 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) on 27 April, 2012.  It is to be shown at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum.

At 1420 GMT on 22 April 2012 the Russian cargo Progress M-015M spacecraft docked automatically to the International Space Station's Docking Compartment-1 (DC-1) Pirs nadir port, recently vacated by Progress M-014M.

The Space Launch System (SLS) rocket that NASA hopes to send its astronauts to the Moon, asteroids and even Mars with, could soon be getting a new high thrust engine as part of its booster configuration. In fact, the engine may not be new at all. This was after Dynetics and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne (PWR) announced its partnership to off the Apollo-era Saturn V F-1 rocket engine for the competition which initially involves bidding for a NASA risk reduction analysis contract.

In a press release statement accompanying the announcement, Ron Ramos, Pratt & Whitney's vice president for Exploration and Missile Defense, noted the F-1 engines high thrust-to-weight ratio and good reliability as he said: "We offer a domestic booster design that takes advantage of the - more - flight-proven Apollo-Saturn F-1, still the most powerful U.S. liquid rocket engine ever flown," 

Flightglobal/Ascend previously noted that manned moon exploration rockets needed bigger rocket engines - mentioning that there was a dearth of US rocket engines in the correct size.

With the LOx/kerosene burning F-1 back in the game things now look very different. The Dynetics/PWR team proposes mounting two of the proposed 1.8million lb (8,000kN) thrust F-1 derived engines on each of these boosters as an alternative to an advanced solid rocket booster proposed by ATK. The team hopes to win some of the $200 million of NASA funding in a 30 month project to research the viability and risk of producing a liquid fuelled booster.

The selling points of those proposing liquid fuel boosters is that they are throttleable and would provide much more lifting power than a solid rocket booster, increasing payload of the most powerful version of the SLS (to carry a payload at least 130 tonnes to LEO).  According to the Dynetics/PWR team, using F-1 powered boosters would boost the peak SLS payload by a projected 20 tonnes compared to using solid rocket boosters.

Artists Impression of F-1 derivative engine powered boosters attached to the core SLS launch vehicle.  Note that the core will now have four RS-25D/E engines rather than the five illustrated. Courtesy: Dynetics Inc.

While going back to 45 year old technology concerns some, the F-1 engine does have a precedent. PWR points out that later versions of NASA's SLS rocket, will be using the J-2X Lox/Hydrogen burning engine for its upper stage which is a derivative of Saturn V J-2 upper stage engine.

If the Dynetics/PWR team does decide to produce the F-1 or its more powerful F-1A derivative, it faces an uphill task. While most of the F-1 blueprints and some even actual engine examples survive, most of the original F-1 tooling has been destroyed.

Nevertheless, the news of a potential return of the F-1 (or its F-1A upgraded version) has been welcomed in the US space community, and not just because of an emotional and nostalgic response. There was concern that the only LOX/Kerosene burning rocket engines in the needed thrust range were either derivatives of the Russian-sourced  RD-170 which uses a highly effcient staged combustion cycle, or the unknown quantity of the yet-to-be-built SpaceX Merlin 2  which, like the F-1, uses a simple, if slightly less efficient, gas generator rocket cycle.

Apart from the Dynetics/PWR team and probably SpaceX, other firms likely put their hat in the ring to bid for funding include Aerojet with its its enlarged -1000 version of its AJ-26 engine and ATK with its Advanced Solid Rocket Booster offering.  It has also been mooted that Northrop Grumman my also pitch in with their past TR-107 design.  Both the AJ-1000 and TR-107 engines are thought to offer about one third less thrust than the F-1.

Should the core engines be changed next?

If large LOx/kerosene engines like the F-1 are chosen to be used on the SLS boosters then this has implications for the final design of SLS as they might be chosen for the core as well It was known that before the SLS design selection was finally made (under US Senate pressure to use Space Shuttle hardware), the propellant choice for the core stage was finely balanced between using LOx/kerosene and LOx/Liquid hydrogen.  In the end the latter was chosen though there were some regrets. Using LOx/kerosene as common propellants for both the core stage and boosters would give SLS the benefit of having cross feeding of propellants, allow for a shorter rocket, and have propellant ground handling advantages.

Having said that, a LOx/Liguid hydrogen RS-25D/E engine core does offer a higher Isp (specfic impulse) than the LOx/kerosene alternative, if less initial thrust. The advantage of this efficient propellant  combination really comes into play later, once the "brute force" lift off and initial acceleration of the fully loaded rocket is achieved.  In other words, in a similar vein to the Russian Energia concept, a "medium thrust" highly efficient LOx/liquid hydrogen engine core using high thrust medium effciency LOx/kerosene engine boosters could prove to be the best combination for SLS.

Nevertheless, if a change to a LOX/kerosene engine core ever happens for the advantages listed above, then there may be no further need for an expendable version of the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME). This RS-25E version was to have replaced the 512,000lb (2,279KN) thrust ex-Space Shuttle RS-25D engines when they had run out. However, given that SLS flight rate is planned to be very low in its early years the first two flights are in 2017 and 2021 respectively NASA might have enough ex-Space Shuttle RS-25D engines in stock to make do until a new rocket is ready.

Sidemount might still have been a faster, cheaper choice for an interim HLV

NASA might have been wiser to have chosen the three RS-25D engine  Sidemount design as an interim Heavy-lift Launch Vehicle (HLV) instead of the initial Block 1 version in-line SLS now (now confirmed as having four RS-25D engines), especially if the expendable RS-25E engine version never comes to fuition. 

The Sidemount design, was, in effect, a wingless expendable space shuttle with which had much the same 70 tonne LEO performance as the initial Block 1 SLS but would have been much much faster and cheaper to produce - and importantly only used three RS-25D engines at a time.  In the end, the Sidemount concept was rejected in favour of the much more expensive SLS inline design over Sidemount's obvious lack of evolvability and, less convincingly, due to crew escape concerns (though Sidemount mightly only have been used as an unmanned heavy lift launch vehicle with any exploration crew launched separately to orbit via a commercial crew launch system).

The Sidemount Heavy-lift Launch Vehicle (HLV) design was rejected by NASA in favour of the inline SLS design. Courtesy: NASA

Conclusion (Updated): 

The reliability and high-thrust-to-weight qualities of the venerable F-1 engine, or rather its F-1A derivative, make it like a good choice for an SLS booster engine, especially as it should require little development compared to other engines.  That said, it would need some extensive work on its production facilities if it is ever to be used.  

According to rocket analyst Ed Kyle, a four RS-25E core SLS launch vehicle with two boosters carrying four F-1A engines should be capable of carrying 140 tonnes into orbit - and that is without an upper stage.  From that, we can deduce that with a J-2X upper stage and four twin F-1A boosters (if the core structure can be modified to take them), a 200 tonne-plus payload could be carried to LEO.  Past long-range manned exploration studies have long favoured such a hugely powerful launch vehicle of this payload class.

Design concept for heavy lift launch vehice using four twin F-1A boosters as considered in NASA Mars Reference Mission 1997.   While it would need its payload accomndation shortened by 40 feet to fit in the Vehicle Assembly Building it should have impressive lifting power.  A similar booster configuraton attached to a four SSME (RS-25D) engine core and using a single SSME (RS-25D) upper stage had a projected LEO payload of 226 tonnes.   Courtesy: NASA

Other configuations are possible of course.  For aerodynamic, flexibility and balance reasons, it might be better to go for a "Delta II style" cluster of narrower single F-1A engine boosters rather than two large two-engined boosters.  Such a configuration was briefly considered in the summary of the AIAA technical paper "The Saturn V F-1 Engine Revisited" written by Shelton and Murphy in 1992.

All this assumes that upgraded ATK solid rocket boosters using better propellants (HTPB instead of PBAN) and lighter casings (wound composite instead of the heavy steel casings) do not remain the preferred choice for SLS.  While less efficient and less flexible than liquid fuel rocket boosters, solid rocket boosters' cost/effectiveness may let them win any SLS booster competition, even if this means a smaller payload has to be carried.

In late March, the US space scientist Stewart Nozette who had previously worked on NASA projects, was awarded a 13 years jail sentence after admitting that he tried to sell space technology secrets during sting operation FBI sting operation in 2009.  Nozette believed the FBI undercover men were working for Israel.  

In addition to his own Blue Origin rocket pursuits, Amazon guru Jeff Bezos is also interested in space history and artefacts. He is leading a team attempting to find parts of the first stage of the Saturn V rocket which was used to launch the Apollo 11 first moon landing expedition in July 1969. Bezos has reported that his team and has now found the Apollo 11 engines lying 14,000 feet below the surface in the Atlantic using state-of-the-art deep sea sonar.

The team hopes to recover these engines and display them (with NASA's permission) in various museums including the Smithsonian Air and Space museum.  The condition of the engines is not yet known.