Recently in Russia Category

credit: Roscosmos / caption: MRM 2 was launched before MRM 1

Go here for NASA's picture of the Mini-Research Module (MRM) 2 "Poisk" module that docked with the Russian International Space Station segment Zvezda's zenith docking port on 12 November. In the photo you can only really see the propulsion module

According to the US space agency Poisk is a Russian word that can mean search, seek or explore while you can read about Poisk's arrival and the fact that it it delivered 750kg (1,650lb) of cargo here at the Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) website

Go here for a picture of MRM 2 under construction. Roscosmos says of the Poisk, "Its original name was Docking Module 2 (Stykovochniy Otsek 2 (SO-2)), as it is almost identical to Pirs already on the station. It will be added to the zenith port of the Zvezda module, and will serve as an additional docking port for Soyuz and Progress spacecraft and as an airlock for spacewalks. Poisk will also provide extra space for scientific experiments, and provide power-supply outlets and data-transmission interfaces for two external scientific payloads to be developed by the Russian Academy of Sciences."

Poisk will be joined by MRM 1 in May 2010 when Space Shuttle Atlantis delivers it, a mission that was previously scheduled for April 2010 and using the Discovery orbiter. The arrival of MRM2 marks a new phase in Russia's contribution to the ISS

Watch this video from the International Astronautical Congress in Daejeon, Korea where the future of the International Space Station was discussed by the ISS partners 

Go here for more IAC2009 videos

Watch this video from the Internatonal Astronautical Congress in Daejeon, Korea first plenary session where heads of the world's major space agencies discuss the future

Go here for more IAC2009 videos

credit: IAF/KARI

So Hyperbola has finally touched down in Daejeon in south Korea, after a scorching reentry from the Oort cloud, or was that just the effect of the Korean spicy Kimchi pickle and the even more spicy red pepper paste, Kochu Chang, they put on most of their food?

Either way it is a countdown now to the start of the 60th International Astronautical Congress and the space agencies' plenary session, so expect pictures and pithy comment from this blog as the week unfolds with everything from grand human exploration visions to suborbital tourism

But it won't end with Hyperbola's Asiana flight out of Seoul next weekend, oh no, the international space theme continues with the AIAA/DLR International hypersonics and spaceplanes conference in Bremen, Germany next week

Hyperbola is launching to the Oort cloud for a week's R&R from today and will be returning via Daejeon, Korea from the 12 October. In Daejeon Hyperbola will be blogging from the International Astronautical Congress, where the world's space community meets. And yes there may even be Virgin Galactic news there...

Khrunichev Space Center has successfully fired its Angara family Universal Rocket Module-1 again. Go here for more information and pictures

NASA has told Hyperbola: "Administrator [Charles] Bolden will attend the Expedition 21 launch on September 30. The [first space cooperation working group] meeting will take place during this trip. The Administrator will attend the [60th International Astronautical Congress in Daejeon, Korea] but I haven't seen his itinerary for the trip."

On Friday 4 September I spoke to former NASA astronaut and Excalibur Almaz (EA) executive vice president for technical operations Leroy Chiao about the commercial orbital tourism venture that is using Soviet developed space vehicles. In the extended portion of this blog post are my notes from that telecon, facts that did not necessarily find their way into either this analysis article about the vehicles in development today or this article about Excalibur Almaz's plans and some comment

The USA must seem like the centre of space reviews with all its videos and public deliberations for its human spaceflight plans committee that could lead to the cancellation of the return to the Moon programme Constellation

But for spaceflight reviews no other country can lay a hand on the United Kingdom. Hyperbola has lost count of the number of reviews since 2006 but this country has certainly had a new spaceflight "strategy" partly published in 2008 when it was supposed to start, a review of its launch licensing regulation, a space technology programme that came and went, a report on regulating space tourism, a space exploration review to ask what the UK could do as a part of a human Moon return effort, an examination of a possible UK human spaceflight programme and a review of bilateral cop-operation with NASA

And now we have the Innovation and Growth Team for space, or Space IGT as it is known. Reporting by January its leadership from the UK space industry hope to impress on the politicians and civil servants the need for action. As the UK is having an election come May or June next year (expect the electoral phony war to begin this month with the political party conferences) the space industry will also be engaging with the other political parties to try to convince them that space is worth including in their electoral pledges

The UK space industry certainly has got some good arguments. To give you an idea of how farcical government support is for the country's industry Hyperbola is informed that a deal with the Russians collapsed because the UK government wanted to operate through a deal done with the Soviet Union, despite the Russians pointing out that the Soviet Union no longer existed, and it took five technical meetings with the Chinese before the British had to own up to not having any money to do anything anyway

No doubt the IGT Space report will be very worthy and have lots of dry but significant statistics but the simple route of ridicule of the existing Labour party led government set up might work just as well, it will certainly get more media coverage. And the incoming government won't feel the need to defend it (all the opinion polls point to a Conservative party led government next year). We haven't heard much about the UK-NASA MoonLITE mission, why not start there?

Meanwhile over in Russia where there is no confusion over what to do in space the Russian Federal Space Agency's website has an interesting article about Angara's RD-191 rocket engine (translated here care of Google) and a pic here showing the progress with the Soyuz launch pad in French Guiana - come on ESA where are your pics?

A concern expressed by this blog was that the Norman Augustine led review, all 90-odd days of it, would simply be too short to achieve anything and that the options this US Review of human spaceflight plans committee would come up with would just lead to another study 

Fortunately it would seem, according to sources brave enough to talk to Hyperbola, that Bolden will have a "forward plan" very soon after Augustine has briefed the US Senate and House of Representatives, dates for which are being organised now

This will follow the committee chairman's 14 August debrief to NASA administrator Charles Bolden and John Holdren, Office of Science and Technology Policy director - whose office kicked off the review on behalf of president Barack Obama's administration

The rapid timing for all this is apparently because political wheels are to be set in motion as regards the Congressional budgetary process. So it is nice to know everything but the engineering is driving the schedule

But fear not Hyperbola readers because this NASA announcement yesterday indicated that all would be revealed sooner than you think

The Aug. 12 meeting will be held from 1 to 5 p.m. EDT at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center Amphitheater, located at 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW in Washington. The agenda is:

1:00 to 5:00 p.m. Committee public deliberations:

Discussion of final options

Discussion of final report

Discussion of close-out activities

Hyperbola understands that all the Augustine materials will be made public on 12 August, and perhaps there won't even be set of secret appendices...

Coming back to this forward plan of Bolden's, some people have been getting quite excited about what Xcor founder and chief executive Jeff Greason's (pronounced Grey-son) propellant depot presentation means for the options that Augustine's committee could choose