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While its main role is vegetation mapping, the European Space Agency's Proba-V spacecraft is also being used to carry an aircraft tracking payload.  While primary radars can give direct positioning of aircraft by their radar returns, and transponders can give "squawk" identifying information, the latest improvement Automatic Dependent Broadcast - Surveillance (ADS-B) system. 

This now gives details of an aircraft's altititude, speed and direction as well as identifying information.  ADS-B receivers however have limitations.  For example aircraft flying over remote regions and oceans can be out of range of such receivers.  One way around this is to position receivers on spacecraft.  To test this theory, ESA's Proba-V has been carrying one of these payloads. The German Aerospace Agency, DLR, has now released images showing how aircraft can be tracked by the payload test being run by DLR and SES TechCom.

Aircraft tracked down Australia by ADS-B aircraft tracking payload on Proba V spacecraft  Courtesy: DLR/SES TechCom

Reuters reports that the joint Boeing-Lockheed Martin firm, United Launch Alliance (ULA), which builds and markets the Atlas V and Delta IV rockets, will be investigated by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for anti-trust violations in allegedly using an exclusivity clause to prevent the US-Russian built rocket engine, the RD Amross RD-180, from being used by other rocket firms. 

According to the report, Orbital Sciences Corp would like to use the LOx (lIquid oxygen)/kerosene RD-180 for later versions of its Antares rocket.  The Antares first stage currently uses two Aerojet produced AJ-26-500 engines, which are refurbished Russian-built NK-33 LOx/kerosene rocket engines, 30 of which powered the unsuccessful Soviet-era N-1 moon rocket.  When the N-1 rocket programme was cancelled in the early 1970s after four launch failures, the production line for the NK-33 was stopped.  The remaining supply of unused NK-33 engines was stored until Aerojet recovered them for refurbishment and modernisation to the AJ-26-500 standard.

Comment by David Todd: While the AJ-26-500 is regarded as a very efficient LOx/kerosene engine, both in terms of its specific impulse and thrust-to-weight ratio, it only has about half the thrust of an RD-180. However, it is really the prospect that the supply of AJ-26-500 engines eventually running out, that appears to be the main reason why Orbital Sciences wants to find an alternative engine for its Antares launch vehicle. 

While the name Orion has been used as the name of real and fictional spacecraft before (e.g. Space 2001 - A space Odyssey's transport shuttle, and the latest manned spacecraft being developed by NASA)  the original Project Orion was actually about researching a high speed Interplanetary travel propulsion system. And one that used atomic bombs to do it  

As mankind contemplates journeys to other planets and how to get their economically, and fast enough to not run out of consumables, space propulsion scientists continue in their quest for specific impulse, that measure of momentum change per kg of propellants which could make such missions much more likely if this can be improved.  Some have considered nuclear thermal rockets which can double the specific impulse in comparison to chemical rockets - though using nuclear reactor technology in orbit remains unpopular ever since Cosmos 954 spread its nuclear entrails over Canada in 1978.  

Artist's impression of Project Orion spacecraft departing Earth. Courtesy: Adrian Mann

An even better way of improving specific impulse is to use exotic electric propulsion technologies which can offer ten-fold improvements.  However, they have one major drawback: they are very low thrust and to provide a practically usable amount they would need large power generation system.  In effect this means that they would need either massive solar arrays or a powerful nuclear reactor (yes - it is that N-word again).

There are, of course, other ways of using nuclear propulsion.  An idea originally proposed by Sanislav Ulan in 1947 was to use hundreds of atomic bombs to drive a spacecraft along. This idea was later turned into a full research project called Projct Orion. The history of the project was outlined at an evening lecture at the British Interplanetary society made by Douglas Liddle, a former engineer and aerospace history expert with experience in nuclear weaponry. 

Liddle described how the project was orignally set up in July 1958 after originally gaining traction after an unexpected observation during the Teapot series of nuclear weapons tests in the 1950s that some items could remain intact close to a nuclear detonation.  Bakerlite items had shown themselves to suffer only minor ablation - the logic being that if a nuclear bomb could be exploded near a pusher plate coated with a similar plastic or oil based material, it could be propulsed along without being destroyed.   

Cornelius Everett working with Stanislav Ulan produced a report noting that such a system could be used for space propulsion and Project Orion was formed under the auspices of Freeman Dyson at General Atomic.  The spaceships of various sizes were  designed use a magazine of nuclar devices (upto 900) which would be dropped from the rear of the spacecraft and exploded at one second intervals.   The Plutonium fuelled fission-class atomic bombs of 50kT yield would be specially designed using various explosive lensing techniques to aid the achievement of critical mass along with neutron tubes acting as initiators.  

Each bomb would have a Tungsten "bullet" designed to act as the working fluid of the device.   Scientists realised that a nuclear blast plasma itself would not offer enough mass and hence momentum to propel the craft along at fast enough speeds and that tungsten would be needed to blasted at the back plate to "pulse" the craft on its way.

To protect the crew at the front of the craft, there would have to be extensive nuclear shielding and shock absorbers various invoving double action gas and toroidal techniques.  The tungsten "bullets" would also act as shielding while not used.

The system had advantages over chemical systems.  Overall it was robust and less likely to be damaged by meteoroid strikes as propellant tankage would have been apt to do. Directional control of the craft would be made by either angling the back plate and by using chemical rocket thrusters on the craft.   In acheiving thrusts equivalent to several million Newtons and at specific impulses ranging between 2000-10000 seconds, a mission to Mars could be cut by several hundred days when compared to a Hohmann transfer chemical rocket alternative.

There were off course problems with the design.  Launching such a device containing several hundred nuclear weapons would require a very reliable and very large launch vehicle.  Apart from the shielding and shock absorption problem, the crew would also have to be protected from high and low frequency vibrations.

Experience in nuclear weapons tests in the upper atmosphere (e.g. the Project Starfish explosions) had shown that it was unwise to explode nuclear devices too close to the Earth's magnetic field and this causes large numbers of charged particles to surround the Earth causing new radiation belts.  Likewise, having bright explosions as the spaceship set off might have damaged the eyesight of observers.  Moving too far away from the Earth  would surely defeat the object of this transport system.

Nevertheless, after initial reluctance to support the idea, by 1964 even Werner Von Braun came to conclusion that such a device had merit.  But by then the Project was looking doomed.  For while NASA and the US Air Force initially supported the project, moves to take nuclear weapons out of space (the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963) banned nuclear devices being exploded in the upper atmosphere and the Outer Space Treaty (1967) banned nuclear weapons from being placed in orbit) meant that NASA withdrew its backing and the project was formally ended in 1965.

As a footnote, Doug Liddle reminded the audience that there was one country that has never been a signatory to the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty:  China.   As such, one day it could be China that builds such a spacecraft like Project Orion to eather travel to other planets or to move an incoming asteroid out of the way.

US President Barack Obama has formally made his Fiscal Year 2014 budget request for NASA.  At $17.7 billion investment the budget is largely unchanged in cash terms from 2012 levels and is $1 billion higher than the 2013 budget, but taking inflation into account, it still still represents a decline.  The plan, which assumes that the sequestration limits will no longer be in effect, commits to continuing with the the Orion space capsule and its SLS heavy lift booster rocket programmes, and contributing towards the final development of the James Webb Space Telescope, leading to its planned launch in 2018.

NASA's asteroid initiative will use new capture and navigation technologies.  Courtesy: NASA 

One surprise in the budget request was confirmation that NASA is looking seriously at "dragging" an asteroid into near Earth space.  Funding worth $105 million has been allocated to to this "asteroid retrieval" mission along with the the solar electic and guidance technlogies which would be needed to allow such a mission to be undertaken.  If such a mission is successful, the idea is that NASA astronauts would then be able to explore this asteroid and even that mining operations coud be set up. 

While the actual war fighting intent of North Korea remains an enigma, its various "sabre-rattling" threats to conduct a nuclear first strike on neighbouring countries and US bases in the region is being taken seriously, especially in the light of Japanese media reports that satellites have observed long range or medium range ballistic missiles  being transported to the coastline of North Korea.

As such, while Japanese and US Aegis/Standard Missile SM-3 equipped naval destroyers and cruisers have already been deployed in the Sea of Japan, the US Department of Defense has also announced that it is to also deploy land-based THAAD missile intercepters to protect its bomber aircraft base in Guam.  Although North Korea is officiallly doubted to have yet managed to acquire the capability to hit mainland USA with nuclear weapons, it is believed to have the ballistic missile capability, via its Taepodong-2 missiles or newer KN-08 missiles, to hit the island of Guam and mainland Japan.

THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) missiles are truck mounted and are specifically designed to defend against medium range ballistic missiles.  The US DOD has anounced that these missiles are deployed as a "precautionary move to strengthen our regional defense posture against the North Korean regional ballistic missile threat,"

While a recent US Air Flight B-2 Stealth bomber flight across South Korea was seen as provocative riposte to recent warlike declarations from North Korea, the US government has since tried to diffuse the situation by cancelling one of its own ballistic missile tests.  The government of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) had previously declared itself to be still at war with South Korea, that it would target US bases and cities with nuclear weapons in the event of war (including making a first strike), and has since warned all foreign embassies in its capital Pyongyang that it cannot be held responsible for the future safety of foreign diplomats.

Comment by David Todd:  It is thought that while North Korea may not want to begin an all out war with South Korea, Japan and USA, a demonstration of its military power may be imminent.  This may include a new nuclear weapons test and/or a ballistic missile flight.  The demonstration may combine the two, with a fission-class nuclear warhead being launched by a ballistic missile as part of such a weapons test.  Such a test would be in obvious breach of the international test ban on overground atmospheric nuclear explosions. Currently, only underground nuclear weapons testing is allowed.

While Flightglobal's Hyperbola blog previously referenced the science fiction movie Soylent Green (1973) as a warning as to how far the current European horsemeat scandal may go - as Charlton Heston's character exclaimed about mankind's futuristic food stuff: "Soylent Green is People!" - it seems it might have been prophetic.  As reported by the BBC documentary Horsemeat Banquet, recent DNA tests carried out on dishes from curry houses and take away restaurants have found a lamb curry to have no lamb in it.  Nor, for that matter, did it have chicken, beef, horse or goat.  Instead.the meat used was described as being an "unspecified meat" which had the UK press speculating that it could be dog or cat or perhaps an even more terrifying alternative.

Still, on the cat front, there could be good news for those owners not wanting "Tiddles" (or whatever their moggy is called) to land up in a vindaloo.  Inventor and cat lover Dave Evans has devised a small GPS satellite location tracker device to fit on a cat's collar allowing an cat owner to download their pet's movements onto a map of the local area.  He reportedly originally invented the device to find out why his cat Yollo was gettting fat, suspecting that others were feeding him extra dinners.  While the "CatNav" device, which is now being marketed under the name G-Paws, does not yet transmit a live location, it will at least allow their owners to make sure that they pet's daily travels do not take them too close to the local Indian food take away.  Of course, it really will be a sickener if a G-Paws CatNav device is ever found in an Indian curry.

Unfortunately, it can also be a matter of time before over-anxious parents put the devices on their children and Orwellian-surveillance-loving governments put them on their citizens. But if it keeps us proles from becoming dinner for others, perhaps we might yet become in favour of wearing them.

While the European space firm Astrium's communications satellite services division continues to build on its revenues, so far its Earth observation and radar imagery business has not quite delivered the revenues it expected. But Astrium continues to sense "gold in them there fields" when in comes to radar and optical Earth observation. However, it realises that to progress further it has to have some strategic partnerships.

For example, Astrium is looking for partners on its plan to offer continuous relatively high resolution moving imagery from space.  Specificallly, having failed to gain European funding, it is now in discussions with Singapore to see if it would like to partner for its 8,800kg GO-3S Earth observation satellite to be positioned in Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO).  That spacecraft is to provide 3m resolution imagery of tracts of Earth at a rate of 5 frames per second during daylight hours.

Meantime,Space News reports that Astirum is attempting to team up with Canada's MDA's RCM radar imagery operation in order to provide a ground infrastructure so that its own radar imagery from Germany's planned TerraSAR-X2 can be more easily marketed.   

Aware that North Korea is much further advanced than Iran with its nuclear weapons programme (North Korea has fission-class nuclear weapons, Iran does not yet have them) and appreciating that North Korea is now verbally threatening the continental USA with nuclear war, US Defence Secretary, Chuck Hagel, has decided to suspend construction of a ballistic missile defence over Europe to defend against Iran's perceived ballistic missile threat, in favour of one countering North Korea's nascent internconintental ballistic missile (ICBMs) capability. 

In an announcement Chuck Hagel disclosed that this change will include the addition of 14 more interceptor missiles of the Ground-based Midcourse Defence (GMD) system to the 26 already located in silos at Fort Greely, Alaska.  A further four interceptor missiles are located at Vandenberg, Califormia.  The new interceptor missiles will be placed at Fort Greely by September 2017 and will cost an extra $1 billion presumably from funds redirected from the suspended Europe-based system.

Ground-based Midcourse Defence (GMD) system interceptor missile being emplaced in a silo at Fort Greely, Alaska. Courtesy: SMDC

For a short while there was hope in US diplomatic circles that the announcement would help relations with Russia which had long been opposed to US plans to deploy anti-ballistic missiles in Europe to protect the continent against Iranian ballistic missiles. Nevertheless, the announcement has been met with a cool reception from both Russian and China who realise that the new Alaska-based missiles will be able to intercept more of their own ballistic missiles in time of war.  Meantime, Iran's own ballistic missile and satellite launch vehicle programme is not going well.  The Iranian space programme is reported to have had a launch failure in February.

Russia was originally concerned that if interceptors had been located in Poland, they could have been used against their own medium-range and long-range ballistic missile systems.  Later, to try to appease Russia, and to lower the overall cost of deployment, these missiles were changed to the smaller less-capable (in terms of range) Standard Missile SM-3* design. 

*Standard Missile SM-3 missiles are already deployed against North Korea on Aegis-system-equipped cruisers and destroyers of the US and Japanese Navies. 

After NASA found it could no longer offer launches for the ExoMars mission, the European Space Agency (ESA) approached Russia for help.  As a result of long running discussions, on 14 March the ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain and Head of Roscosmos Vladimir Popovkin  have signed a formal agreement for their respective agencies  to work in partnership on the ExoMars programme towards the launch of two missions: one to be launched in January 2016, and one to be launched in 2018.

Under the deal, ESA will provide the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) and the Entry, Descent and Landing Demonstrator Module (EDM) in 2016, and the carrier and rover in 2018. Roscosmos will be responsible for the 2018 descent module and surface platform, and will provide launchers for both missions. Both partners will supply scientific instruments and will cooperate closely in the scientific exploitation of the missions.

The 2016 mission has two major ESA elements: the TGO and the EDM. The TGO will search for evidence of methane and other atmospheric gases that could be signatures of active biological or geological processes. It will also serve as a data relay for the 2018 mission. The EDM will land on Mars to prove key technologies for the 2018 mission.

In 2018, the ExoMars rover, to be provided by ESA, will search the planet's surface for signs of life, past and present. It will be the first Mars rover able to drill to depths of 2 m, collecting samples that have been shielded from the harsh conditions of the surface, where radiation and oxidants can destroy organic materials. The rover will be delivered by a Russian descent module that includes a surface platform equipped with additional scientific instruments.

While taking a back seat to the other partners, NASA will still make important contributions to the ExoMars programme, including the Electra UHF radio package for TGO, and Mars Proximity Link telecom and engineering support to the EDM

The ExoMars Programme is funded by fourteen ESA states (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the U.K., and Canada) of which Italy is the largest contributor and the UK the second largest. Member states also provide scientific instruments to ExoMars. For the 2016 TGO, these include the infrared and ultraviolet spectrometer package NOMAD (led by Belgium) and the CaSSIS high-resolution colour stereo camera (led by Switzerland). Italy will lead the DREAMS environmental station on the EDM.

The 2018 Rover will comprise PanCam, a wide-angle and high resolution camera system (led by the United Kingdom); CLUPI, a close-up imager (led by Switzerland); WISDOM, a ground-penetrating radar (led by France); Ma_MISS, a miniaturised infrared spectrometer integrated in the subsurface drill (led by Italy); MicrOmega, a visible and infrared imaging spectrometer (led by France); RLS, a Raman spectrometer (led by Spain), and MOMA, a novel organic molecule detector (led by Germany, with substantial contributions from the United States).

Dennis Tito and his Inspiration Mars outfit has been giving full details of their plan to send humans around the planet Mars on a free return trajectory using a capsule and inflatable living area.  The full story is here.

Interestingly, they are asking for older/middle-age couples to apply for the journey.  Wisely, knowing that older couples are apt to get things wrong and may even have to repair their hardware themselves, they are making the systems as idiot proof and simple to repair as possible. 

Either way, your correspondent briefly thinks about asking Mrs.T if she would like to go, and then rules it out.  Being cooped up with him for 501 days will surely give her the temptation to shove him out of the airlock. 

P.S. Their spacecraft systems might be "idiot-proof" but are they "blithering idiot proof"?  The would have to be if this writer and his "trouble-and-sfrife" were to make the journey