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Aviation History
2002
2002 - 3098.PDF
SPACEFLIGHT ZERO GRAVITY GRAHAM WARWICK / WASHINGTON DC Weightless 727 flights on the way Research, education and corporate incentive programmes among the targets for Los Angeles company's enterprise A US company plans to offer com mercial weightless flights using a modified Boeing 727-200 freighter. Los Angeles-based Zero Gravity (Zero-G) has completed six test flights and obtained supplemental type certification for the aircraft modifications required for para bolic flight, and is negotiating with a cargo carrier to operate the 727 under wet-lease. Zero-G hopes to begin commer cial flights late in the first quarter of next year, says chairman Peter Dia- mandis. The company has signed a reseller agreement with Space Adventures, which markets weight less flights in Russia's Ilyushin 11-76 cosmonaut training aircraft. Mar keting agreements have also been signed with Paris-based Novespace, which operates Europe's zero-£ Airbus A300, and US-based Omega World Travel. Target markets include corporate incentive pro grammes, research, education, en tertainment and the general public. Zero-G says its service will be cheaper and more accessible than the 11-76 flights, which cost $5,500 and require a week-long trip to Russia, while NASA's Boeing KC-135 and Novespace's A300 are not avail able commercially. The concept is to use 727 overnight freighters that would otherwise be idle during the day and at weekends, with modified aircraft available at several locations around the USA. A typical flight would involve 20 parabolas, each providing about 30s of reduced gravity, says president Byron Lichtenberg: "Five Martian at one- third g, five Lunar at one-sixth g and the rest at zerog." The US Federal Aviation Ad ministration has told Zero-G it will allow commercial parabolic-flight operations in partnership with a Part 121 airline. Negotiations are under way with two "significant" US cargo carriers, Diamandis says. In conjunction with the selected oper ator, the company must seek final approval from the carrier's local FAA flight standards office. Zero-G will pay for the modifica- Boeing's RS-68 cryogenic liquid- oxygen/liquid-hydrogen first-stage engine on the first Delta IV Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) was successfully fired for 5s at the end of a countdown dress rehearsal at Cape Canaveral, Florida, on 14 October. The test clears the way for the maiden flight next month of the booster on a commercial mis sion carrying Eutelsat's W5 commu nications satellite. The booster is a Delta IV Medium +4.2 model, one of five in a range that will include a Delta IV Heavy with a 13t to geostationary transfer orbit capability. The RS-68 is the first new cryo- it tions, principally accumulators to h maintain hydraulic pressure during d parabolic flight, then wet-lease the n aircraft and aircrew, installing pallet- ;- mounted seats, mats and experi- d ment racks via the large cargo door. The aircraft will carry 25 custom- I- ers and five trainers, Lichtenberg 11 says. Pilots from the carrier will be it trained to fly accurate parabolas a between 24,000ft (7,300m) and e 32,000ft. The manoeuvres involve " pulling 45° nose-up, then pushing n over to begin the zero-gravity seg- r- ment and reaching 30° nose-down ll before initiating a l.8g pull-out. \ Parabolic flights "are a first step towards going into space", says i Diamandis. I genie first-stage engine built in the e USA since the Space Shuttle Main i Engine. The firing was designed to 0 prove the rocket, engine, launch e pad and software will work success- il fully together. During the test the 4 RS-68 was brought up to full power £ at 650,0001b thrust (2,900kN). if Previous Delta IV countdown »- demonstrations had been thwarted i- by software glitches. "We are about to launch a family n of rockets that will have a long- e term impact on the space launch, y telecommunications and defence :r industries," says Dan Collins, vice- president and programme manager >- for the Delta boosters. ondly to participate in an international manned landing on Mars before 2030. Prototypes of spacecraft intended to land on Mars have been tested on Mount Etna, in Sicily. The craft were developed by the Italian Space Agency, Alenia Spazio, Germany's DLR, ESA and Italy's Turin University. INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION Atlantis team installs trass Space Shuttle Atlantis STS112 mission astronauts David Wolf and Piers Sellers completed their third and final spacewalk at the International Space Station (ISS), lasting 6h 36min, on 14 October. The astronauts freed a faulty bolt on the mobile transporter used to move the ISS's robot arm, completing connections to the 13.5m (44ft)-long, 15t, $390 million S1 truss segment delivered by Atlantis and extending a 23m-long radiator panel. The truss is equipped with 2,400m of wiring, plus computers, communications hardware and radiators. EXPLORATION ESA starts assessment planning The European Space Agency (ESA) environment, and a Mars sample has approved the start of assessment return mission - and two Arrow mis- studies of the first four robotic mis- sions, featuring an Earth re-entry sions under the agency's Mars capsule and a Mars aerocapture craft, exploration programme, Aurora. Flagship missions are intended to The studies involve two Flagship advance the scientific and technical missions - Exo-Mars, a surface rover knowledge in preparation for a human to characterise the Martian biological mission. The less-complex Arrow LAUNCH VEHICLES TIM FURNISS / LONDON Engine firing clears Delta IV for November N g for robotic missions to Mars ) t f t f t s , . The studies involve two Flagship missions - Exo-Mars, a surface rover to characterise the Martian biological environment, retur - sions, capsul . Flagship missions are intended to advance the scientific and technical knowledge in preparation for a human mission. The less-complex Arrow operations employ cheaper technol ogy and are intended to reduce the risk involved in the Flagship missions. These programmes are part of a long-term, two-phase campaign, designed firstly to demonstrate tech nologies during 2005-15 for possible human exploration of Mars, and sec- 26 22-28 OCTOBER 2002 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL www.flightinternational.com
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