Hyperbola

Will the June 2011 deadline for a 2013 private Soyuz flight be met?

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:18:36 +0000

Hyperbola recently asked Space Adventures some questions by email about this proposed private Soyuz flight to the International Space Station (ISS). Interestingly although space tourist Richard Garriott, a co-founder of the company, wants to go back to the ISS he told Hyperbola that he did not expect to be one of the customers for the private Soyuz flight; which Flightglobal first reported on in July 2003. Yes that date is 2000 and three

At the Paris air show last month the head of the Russian Federal Space Agency Anatoly Perminov said that Roscosmos would not "abandon space tourism" but he indicated that it would be many years after the September flight of Guy Laliberté before another ISS visit would take place. On the other hand, if Japan's HTV resupply vehicle fails during its mission this September there may need to be a reduction in ISS crew size, at which point Space Adventures is back in business

As you will read below, with a minimum 30 month lead time between ordering the rocket and spacecraft and the mission, to send two tourists to ISS by the end of the latest target date of 2013, a deal has to be done by June 2011. Below and in the extended portion of this blog post are the questions and answers from Space Adventures chief executive Eric Anderson

1 How are you marketing such a mission?

We are discussing the opportunity with various individuals and corporations around the globe.

2 What is the seat price for such a trip? How do you calculate that?

Scaled starts posting Rocket Motor Two test logs

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:36:58 +0000

credit: Virgin Galactic / caption:

Go here to find the test logs for Rocket Motor Two develoment, the hybrid solid rocket motor that will send SpaceShip Two above 100km (62miles)

No information on the fuel or oxidiser type is given although there is an indication that the fuel was changed after hot fire one. The test logs are fairly bland although some introductory text at the top of the webpage gives some interesting background

Many subscale hot-firings were performed at Scaled Composites between Jun 05 and April 09 to evaluate several different fuels, igniters, injectors, insulators and nozzle configurations, as well as other components and parameters. Based on the results of those subscale firings, the Scaled/SNC team chose a full-scale rocket motor system design and began testing in April, 2009.

AUDIO: RAeS space tourism 2009 Xcor and Space Adventures Q&A

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:32:28 +0000

credit: Lukas Wilcocks/Flight caption: (L-R Nelson, Shelley) One is yet to fly, one will fly it hard to fly in 2010

At the Royal Aeronautical Society's 30 June 2009 space tourism conference Xcor Aerospace chief operating officer Andrew Nelson and Space Adventures vice president sales and marketing Tom Shelley answered the audiences' questions after each giving a presentation

Go here to download part one and here to download part two of the audio of the Q&A. While I was not allowed to make a video or audio recording of the actual presentations, because audio recordings are supplied to conference attendees with the proceedings, I was told that the question and answer sessions were not included in the post-conference package

AUDIO: RAeS space tourism 2009 Spaceports speak up

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:06:00 +0000

credit: Lukas Wilcocks/Flight / caption: (L-R) McCallum, Abrahamsson. Both spaceports have legal obstacles

At the Royal Aeronautical Society's 30 June 2009 space tourism conference Spaceport Scotland Support Group strategic development director Thomas McCallum and Swedish Space Corporation business development manager Mattias Abrahamsson answered the audiences questions after each giving presentations

Go here to download the audio of that Q&A. While I was not allowed to make a video or audio recording of the actual presentations, because audio recordings are supplied to conference attendees with the proceedings, I was told that the question and answer sessions were not included in the post-conference package

AUDIO: RAeS space tourism 2009 Astrium and Galactic Q&A

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:38:35 +0000

credit: Lukas Wilcocks/Flight / caption: Whitehorn said that UK space law would stop Virgin Galactic flying

At the Royal Aeronautical Society's 30 June 2009 space tourism conference EADS Astrium's deputy chief technical officer Hugues Laporte-Weywada and Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn answered the audiences questions after each giving presentations

Go here to download the audio of that Q&A. While I was not allowed to make a video or audio recording of the actual presentations, because audio recordings are supplied to conference attendees with the proceedings, I was told that the question and answer sessions were not included in the post-conference package

Sweden considers SpaceX Falcon 1 for its spaceport

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:14:03 +0000

Here is video of Swedish Space Corporation business development manager Mattias Abrahamsson speaking to Hyperbola about Spaceport Sweden's future at the 30 June 2009 Royal Aeronautical Society space tourism conference

As well as European Union funded projects that will start later this year such as FAST20XX the Swedish Space Corporation has calculated that Space Exploration Technologies' Falcon 1 could allow the Swedes to launch satellites from their most northern territory without dropping rocket stages onto their neighbours

Private space explorer Richard Garriott talks to Hyperbola

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:34:59 +0000

Video games multi-millionaire Richard Garriott, Space Adventures' sixth space tourist and one of the company's co-founders, spoke to Hyperbola at the Royal Aeronautrical Society's 30 June 2009 space tourism event. He followed in his NASA astronaut father's footsteps, Owen Garriott was a scientist astronaut that was a Skylab crew member and participated in a Space Shuttle mission

Xcor's chief operating officer talks orbital trips to Hyperbola

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:41:41 +0000

Xcor Aerospace's chief operating officer Andrew Nelson spoke to Hyperbola at the Royal Aeronautical Society's space tourism event on 30 June 2009 about the tickets they have sold, the test flight plan for Lynx and related technology development and early plans for an orbital system

Commercial Spaceflight group lobbies Augustine panel

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:09:37 +0000

The Commercial Spaceflight Federation, whichly recently re-branded from Personal Spaceflight Federation, has released the statement you'll find in the extended portion of this blog post and placed this white paper on its website

In an email to journalists CSF executive director John Gedmark says, "Please see attached for an announcement from members of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation concerning our submission to the White House Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee (also known as the Augustine Committee).

The central recommendation of the White Paper, entitled "Commercial Spaceflight in Low Earth Orbit is the Key to Affordable and Sustainable Exploration Beyond", is that NASA should invest in commercial human spaceflight capabilities to the International Space Station. Without leveraging the resources of the private sector, NASA will simply not be able to afford to meet the twin goals of (a) fully utilizing the Space Station, potentially through 2020, and (b) conducting sustainable exploration beyond Low
Earth Orbit.

We believe this program should be modeled on the success of NASA's existing Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, which is enabling the development of commercial capabilities to deliver cargo to the International Space Station, based on the principles of fixed-price, milestone-based, competitive awards."

Go through to the extended portion of this blog pot to rea the CSF's press release

What does Ares I and Boeing 787 have in common? CAD/CAE

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:56:37 +0000

credit: NASA / caption: NASA simulation image of the Orion crew exploration vehicle with ATLAS docking adaptor attached in close proximity to the International Space Station's APAS docking port

You could have said Boeing to that answer, after all the aerospace behemoth is to manufacture the Ares I crew launch vehicle upper stage but you would be wrong, and a little cruel considering some of its recent problems, Boeing that is, not the Ares I upper stage

My answer, as it clearly states in the headline, is computer aided design and computer aided engineering. And not for good but for ill

"For ill, how so", you may ask, "that technology is ubiquitous throughout aerospace industry along with finite element analysis and simulation packages galore?"

(You may also ask, why not an Ares picture? Because this rendition of the Orion is the only low res CAD-esque image I have of anything from the Constellation programme)

And you would be right but Hyperbola's argument is that these computer software packages have led to a level of, eh, let's call it "under design", that has led to real world trouble for both programmes. I'm not just talking "garbage in, garbage out"

RAeS Space Tourism conference London, England 30 June

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:32:48 +0000

Hyperbola is attending the Royal Aeronautical Society's space tourism "a new industry in the making" conference tomorrow, Tuesday 30 June. The all day event will feature Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn, Space Adventures vice president marketing and sales Tom Shelley, Xcor Aerospace chief ~~executive~~ ~~(and~~ ~~US human spaceflght review committeee member) Jeff Greason~~ operating officer Andrew Nelson, EADS Astrium's deputy chief technical officer Hugues Laporte-Weywada, the FAA's office of commercial space transportation head George Nield, and more

Hyperbola hopes to deliver pictures, audio and video interviews and tweets from the conference and maybe even the odd traditional print journalism story or two

UPDATED: The RAeS has told Hyperbola that no audio or video recording is allowed beyond individuals interviews. But expect a fair few tweets during sessions and I can probably squeeze in the odd photo

Mojave gets SpaceShip Two licence

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:08:22 +0000

Mojave air and spaceport can still call itself that after a May award of a new licence to operate horizontal type launches. In 2004 for the X Prize SpaceShipOne (SS1) flights the airport was awarded a licence for launches by the White Knight, SS1 system into space and it was to expire this year on 17 June

Earlier this year Mojave's operations manager Bob Rice told Hyperbola that the airport had submitted a new application to cover the work it expected to do with SpaceShip Two. He said it had a specific number of test flights as part of that application but Rice declined to say how many that figure was

The US Federal Aviation Administration's office of commercial space transportation told Hyperbola that it could confirm that the licence had been renewed and that it was for five years and it was open ended on flight numbers but the launch system had to remain the same

An article in an Australian publication from April mentions a test flight number of 30 but over the years Hyperbola has heard a range of figures, slightly lower and substantially higher

And are those test flights all into space or does it include the early drop/glide tests, supersonic rocket powered level flights before the ascents and any other flight regime testing they wish to do that is not above 100km (62miles)?

All questions that can be asked of Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn at the Royal Aeronautical Society's space tourism conference taking place here in London on Tuesday 30 June

Ares I is not dead: Human rate Atlas V? Don't tell the Russians...

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:36:50 +0000

The study did not address the other US Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) - a heavy-lift version of the Atlas V - because of "no clear advantages and several disadvantages," including the difficulty in obtaining human-rating data on its Russian RD-180 engines.

wrote Frank Morring with his 15 June scoop. Of that sentence there are 12 words that represent the biggest obstacle to using the Atlas V and I can't remember it ever being discussed by the blogosphere, the difficulty in obtaining human rating data on its Russian RD-180 engines

The Russians will have their own technology export rules and it is not beyond plausiblity that the information that is needed to human rate the Energomash RD-180 is restricted by them

Oh but the Russians might use the RD-180 for the new launcher for the Advanced Crew Vehicle, I hear the blogosphere cry. Fine, and they have access to the data to human rate that engine but Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne won't be getting it anytime soon

Or to flip this argument on its head, if you think members of Congress don't like paying Russia for crew transport to the International Space Station now how do you think they will like having the the US ISS ferry and subsequent return to the Moon programme's crew transportation system dependent entirely on Russian engines?

he sad reality is that this whole RD-180 situation has been dragging on for years...

VIDEO: Jeff Hanley's 17 June Constellation movie

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:04:24 +0000

This video was shown by Constellation programme manager Jeffery Hanley at the 17 June public meeting of the Review of US Human Spaceflght Plans committee in Washington DC and is embedded from the NASA YouTube website

VIDEO: Watch Augustine panel 17 June meeting here

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:10:42 +0000

Thanks to NASA and UStream if you missed the 17 June public meeting of the Review of US Human Spaceflght Plans committee in Washington DC then you can while away the hours watching the above