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BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space'
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Subject: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: beardedbruce Date: 08 Apr 13 - 02:20 PM MARS Site A new private rocket rolled out onto its Virginia coast launch pad Saturday (April 6) in anticipation of its first test launch next week. The Antares rocket — developed by aerospace firm Orbital Sciences Corp. and launching from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va. — is expected to eventually deliver cargo to the International Space Station as part of a $1.9 billion deal with the space agency. Liftoff is set for Wednesday, April 17. "With the completion of the Antares roll out today, we are on a clear path to a launch date of April 17, provided there are no significant weather disruptions or major vehicle check-out delays between now and then," Orbital's Antares program manager Michael Pinkston said in a statement. During the test flight (dubbed A-ONE), Antares is expected to carry a mockup of Orbital's unmanned Cygnus spacecraft to an altitude of 155 miles to 185 miles (250 to 300 kilometers) above the Earth's surface. The Cygnus mockup is a mass simulator of the spacecraft designed to mimic the weight of an actual Orbital Cygnus vehicle, which the company plans to use for unmanned cargo delivers to the International Space Station. [Photos: Orbital's Antares Rocket and Cygnus Capsule] If all goes according to plan during this test launch, the private spaceflight company will launch a demonstration mission to the space station using the company's first flightworthty Cygnus capsule sometime later this year. Orbital is expected to make eight unmanned supply runs with Cygnus and Antares to the space station under a $1.9 billion contract with NASA. Another private spaceflight firm — the Hawthorne, Calif.-based SpaceX — has already flown two of at least 12 station cargo delivery missions using its Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket as part of a $1.6 billion deal with NASA. SpaceX's latest Dragon capsule flight visited the space station last month and returned to Earth on March 26, successfully splashing down in the Pacific Ocean after a three-week mission. NASA plans to rely on private spaceships to ferry American astronauts to and from the International Space Station by 2017. Since the end of the agency's space shuttle program in 2011, NASA has been dependent upon Russian Soyuz spacecraft to ferry astronauts to the station and back home again. SpaceX is currently developing a manned version of Dragon, and is one of several companies developing crewed spacecraft in hopes of serving NASA's human spaceflight needs. Aerospace veteran Boeing is developing a crew capsule called CST-100 to launch on an Atlas 5 rocket, while billionaire Jeff Bezo's Blue Origin firm is designing its own rocket to launch its biconic Space Vehicle. Sierra Nevada Space Systems in Colorado, meanwhile, is developing a new reusable space plane, called Dream Chaser, to ferry astronauts to and from low-Earth orbit. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: Rapparee Date: 08 Apr 13 - 03:59 PM Gee, in "2001: A Space Odyssey" PanAm was already flying people into space. Good. I hope it ALL works -- and I hope it works and the price comes down quickly enough that I can get to go. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: beardedbruce Date: 09 Apr 13 - 08:17 AM Rap, We are trying our best to make it so. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: frogprince Date: 09 Apr 13 - 11:17 AM BB, are you with Orbital, or one of the others mentioned, now? I thought I remembered your having history with NASA. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: beardedbruce Date: 09 Apr 13 - 11:22 AM With Orbital, presently at GSFC. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: Jack the Sailor Date: 09 Apr 13 - 12:18 PM Best of luck and God speed! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 09 Apr 13 - 12:27 PM Inevitable. Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic Enterprise- www.virgingalactic.com An interesting presentation. How soon will this progress from just entering space to flights circling the moon, etc. Long distance flight within our plantary system is still a dresm. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: beardedbruce Date: 09 Apr 13 - 12:36 PM The first powered manned flight was in 1903- within 40 years, one could fly anywhere in the world. With manned spaceflight starting in 1961, we are way behind schedule... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: Jack the Sailor Date: 09 Apr 13 - 02:08 PM There is a world of difference between orbital flight and interplanetary. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: beardedbruce Date: 09 Apr 13 - 02:11 PM Yes, but we do not even have ( regular) commercial ORBITAL flight, 52 years later. By 1955 ( 52 years after Kitty Hawk), there was regular commercial air service over a majority of the world. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: Jack the Sailor Date: 09 Apr 13 - 02:27 PM Well yeah, But people have been traveling from Rome to Paris for at least a couple of thousand year and have only been doing it by air for less than 100. There are simply a lot more reasons for commercial airplanes. The comparison with spaceflight is a poor analogy. I have read about commercial asteroid mining via robot vehicle being planned. That would be a start. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: beardedbruce Date: 09 Apr 13 - 02:44 PM Working on that , too.... I was MUBLCOM controller on the DART mission a few years back. (primarily for ISS rendezvous, but remote autonomous docking works with asteroids, too- just need to have the locking claws on the arriving vehicle.) ALL of our industries using heavy metals should have been moved off-surface into LEO years ago- the pollution of direct conversion solar panels is a major cause of their high cost and environmental impact. ...IMO |
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Subject: RE: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: Don(Wyziwyg)T Date: 09 Apr 13 - 07:17 PM Does anybody else find the concept of Corporations (any Corporations) in space very scary? Don T. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: frogprince Date: 09 Apr 13 - 09:46 PM Maybe no more so than some of the Governments that are in space. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: Bobert Date: 09 Apr 13 - 09:51 PM I keep my backpack packed and ready to go... I'm just waiting for the price to come down and where you can buy a ticket on priceline... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: Jack the Sailor Date: 09 Apr 13 - 11:09 PM Corporations have been in Space as long as America has. Boeing, Northup, etc. They built it all and did a lot of the support work on cost plus contracts. I guess Bruce knows a lot more than me. But it seems like the privatizing simply makes the businesses more responsible for the bottom line and removes some levels of management and oversight. Its not like the government is paying these guys to do basic research. For low earth orbit especially the issues are essentially engineering and cost optimization. That is what I have read on the science sites anyway. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: beardedbruce Date: 10 Apr 13 - 09:28 AM http://news.yahoo.com/capturing-asteroid-nasa-could-120355038.html |
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Subject: RE: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: beardedbruce Date: 17 Apr 13 - 08:31 AM NASA OKs East Coast rocket test launch this week By BROCK VERGAKIS | Associated Press – 11 hrs ago ATLANTIC, Va. (AP) — A private company is planning a test launch Wednesday of a rocket intended to help eventual supply runs to the International Space Station, but officials warn weather could delay the effort. Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles is set to launch its unmanned Antares rocket Wednesday from Wallops Island, Va., and it could be visible in cities from Washington to New York. But NASA said Tuesday there's only a 45 percent chance weather conditions would allow a launch Wednesday. Orbital would try again Thursday if need be. If successful in sending a practice payload into orbit, Orbital aims to send its cargo ship to dock with the International Space Station this summer on a test run. Orbital and California-based SpaceX have contracted to make space station supply runs with NASA, which ended its shuttle program in 2011. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: beardedbruce Date: 17 Apr 13 - 08:37 AM Big Rocket Test Launching from Virginia Island Wednesday By Tariq Malik | SPACE.com – Mon, Apr 15, 2013 The COTS Demonstration Cygnus spacecraft … It's almost show time for a new private rocket on Virginia's Eastern Shore. A commercially built rocket designed to launch unmanned cargo ships to the International Space Station is counting down toward its first-ever flight test this week from Wallops Island, Va., a small island that is home to NASA's Wallops Flight Facility and a young commercial spaceport. Liftoff for the rocket, called Antares, is currently set for Wednesday, April 17, at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT). "The team is beyond excited," Barron Berneski, spokesman for the Dulles-based Orbital Sciences Corp. that built the Antares rocket, told SPACE.com in an email. [See photos of the Antares rocket test flight preparations] Berneski said Orbital Sciences engineers are currently working to replace a valve on the Antares rocket that thwarted an engine test firing on Saturday (April 13). "Late in the countdown, at about T-16 minutes, the test was halted because the launch team had detected a technical anomaly in the process," Berneski said of the valve glitch in a statement. "A replacement unit will be installed within 24 hours with the goal of maintaining the April 17 launch date." The upcoming Antares launch is the highest profile launch yet from the Wallops Flight Facility, which was founded in 1945 and currently serves as NASA's home for balloon science missions and small sounding rocket launches that don't reach all the way into orbit. It is located on the southern tip of Wallops Island, which it shares with the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, a staging ground for commercial rocket launches overseen by the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority. Orbital Sciences plans to launch at least eight Antares rockets from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, nicknamed MARS, to deliver tons of cargo to the International Space Station under a $1.9 billion deal with NASA set in 2008. The company is one of two private spaceflight firms with a commercial cargo delivery deal. The California-based SpaceX, which has flown three missions to the station since 2012, is the other and has a $1.6 billion contract to provide 12 NASA cargo flights. But unlike SpaceX, which launches its Falcon 9 rockets and Dragon space capsules toward the station from Cape Canaveral in Florida — a mainstay launching ground for American manned and unmanned spaceflight — Orbital Sciences picked the MARS site for Antares flights. "MARS has completed construction and testing operations on its launch complex at Wallops Island, the first all-new large-scale liquid-fuel launch site to be built in the U.S. in decades," Orbital Sciences CEO David Thompson said in October 2012 when the company took control of its launch pad at the site. Wednesday's Antares rocket launch will not carry a full-fledged Cygnus spacecraft when it blasts off. Since the mission is a test flight, it will carry a "mass simulator" designed to mimic the weight of a real cargo ship. Orbital Sciences has dubbed the mission Antares A-ONE and expect the rocket to reach a maximum altitude of between 155 miles and 185 miles (250 and 300 kilometers) above Earth. The mission may also carry a set of tiny satellites for NASA, according to previous mission descriptions. The Antares rocket is a two-stage booster designed to launch robotic cargo ships called Cygnus on one-way trips. The Cygnus spacecraft is a one-use vehicle and is designed to burn up in Earth's atmosphere at the end of its mission instead of returning cargo to Earth like SpaceX's Dragon capsules. If all goes well, Orbital Sciences hopes to launch the first official Antares rocket and Cygnus flight toward the space station later this year. "There's still a lot of work to do ahead of the launch, but after nearly five years from concept design to actual launch, it feels great to be at the finish line of the R&D effort and at the starting line for our next big new product line, serving not just NASA cargo delivery, but other launch markets as well,' Berneski said. Visit SPACE.com for complete coverage of Orbital Sciences' Antares rocket test this week. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: beardedbruce Date: 17 Apr 13 - 04:02 PM http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html?param=public live launch coverage |
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Subject: RE: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: beardedbruce Date: 17 Apr 13 - 04:21 PM Launch 5 - 8 PM EST if it goes tonight- (weather) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: beardedbruce Date: 17 Apr 13 - 04:32 PM chilldown started- launch window now 10 minutes- 5:00 to 5:10 PM EST |
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Subject: RE: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: beardedbruce Date: 17 Apr 13 - 04:49 PM abort for today- try again tomorrow. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: beardedbruce Date: 22 Apr 13 - 11:54 AM http://news.yahoo.com/rocket-carry-cargo-ship-test-132126012.html |
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Subject: RE: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: beardedbruce Date: 25 Apr 13 - 10:02 AM The secondary ( cargo of opportunity) payload... NASA Is Firing Cell Phones Into Space By Brian Fung | National Journal – Wed, Apr 24, 2013 Today, in NASA Is the Best: The space agency this week took a handful of cheap but powerful smartphones, slapped them to a gigantic rocket and blasted them into low-earth orbit to see how they'd fare. The project, called PhoneSat, is one of those wacky experiments that seems at first to have nothing to do with science. But it's not a stunt. The phones — ordinary Nexus Ones, the kind made by HTC and once sold by Google — are being tested as a kind of prototype satellite, and they provide a glimpse of a possible future where ordinary commercial technology that we take for granted winds up powering and controlling larger sensing devices (or even becoming full-fledged research platforms themselves). Smartphones are already remarkably well-equipped for space: They're small. They've got powerful batteries and processors. They have gyroscopes and accelerometers, and high-quality cameras. For a budget-conscious organization like NASA that's increasingly turning away from manned space missions, PhoneSat makes a lot of sense. The three devices orbiting earth right now are cutely named Alexander, Graham and Bell, respectively, in a nod to the man commonly credited with inventing the telephone. After about 10 days from Sunday's launch, the phones will re-enter the atmosphere, burning up in the process (ouch). Even more interesting than the hardware NASA's using is the software -- and how it was developed. "The satellites almost came out of the box ready-made," said Bruce Yost, one of the project's lead scientists at NASA's Ames Research Center in California. "But all the things that made it interesting are software. The intent is to be like the software community: Build, test, break, rebuild, and keep the cycle going and see if you can spiral your way to success." Thanks to Google's open-source Android OS, each PhoneSat includes a specially developed app that helps the phones transmit information back to earth from orbit. At regular intervals, the devices beam down data about their health and status, and take up to 100 photos of their surroundings at a time, Yost said. The app then automatically selects the best shots (ones with the earth's horizon in them) and broadcasts them wirelessly to the ground, where any amateur radio operator can pick up the signal. Because each hobbyist receives a different piece of the same photo, it takes a group effort to recompile the whole thing -- a bit like building a jigsaw puzzle. The hobbyists upload what they've got back to NASA, where all the data that's coming in is built into a composite. So far, some 200 packets of data have been recorded, said Jim Cockrell, another project lead. Researchers are still a long way from totally replacing big pieces of orbital machinery with tiny iPhones or Android handsets, although one of the three phones that went up Sunday is equipped with a working solar panel array, just like their bigger cousins. It's a promising sign of how much we can accomplish just by taking advantage of the tools we've already got to hand. Watch the phones' positions change in real-time here. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: beardedbruce Date: 25 Apr 13 - 10:06 AM http://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/small_spacecraft/phonesat.html "NASA engineers kept the total cost of the components to build each of the three prototype satellites in the PhoneSat project to $3,500 by using only commercial-off-the-shelf hardware and keeping the design and mission objectives to a minimum for the first flight. " "Each NASA PhoneSat nanosatellite is one standard CubeSat unit in size and weighs less than four pounds. A CubeSat is a miniaturized satellite in the shape of a cube that measures approximately 4 inches (10 cm)." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: beardedbruce Date: 25 Apr 13 - 10:16 AM And a practical use for nanosats... Private Asteroid-Mining Project Launching Tiny Satellites in 2014 By Mike Wall | SPACE.com – 2 hrs 29 mins ago A billionaire-backed asteroid-mining company aims to start putting its big plans into action soon, launching its first hardware into space by this time next year. Planetary Resources, which counts Google execs Larry Page and Eric Schmidt among its investors, plans to loft a set of tiny "cubesats" to Earth orbit in early 2014, to test out gear for its first line of asteroid-prospecting spacecraft. http://news.yahoo.com/private-asteroid-mining-project-launching-tiny-satellites-2014-114452746.html |
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Subject: RE: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: beardedbruce Date: 30 Apr 13 - 11:28 AM The Castor 30 second stage motor, built by ATK, ignited for a burn lasting two-and-a-half minutes, accelerating the rocket to more than 17,000 mph. Engineers declared the rocket reached orbit, and the upper stage deployed a 8,377-pound block of aluminum designed to mimic the mass characteristics of the Cygnus spacecraft, which will take the dummy payload's place on the next Antares launch. "All of that demonstrated that when we do this again, we know how to make this happen," Culbertson said. "We'll get that payload - the Cygnus - into orbit and on its way to the International Space Station so it can continue its mission, and we can provide the cargo, the experiments, clothing and food that they need." The instrumented mass simulator is just dead weight on its own, but a suite of more than 70 accelerometers, thermocouples, thermometers, strain gauges and microphones beamed data back to ground antennas through the rocket's communications radio before it severed ties with the launch vehicle. The rocket reached a near-circular orbit with an average altitude of about 155 miles, or 250 kilometers. "We will have to do some additional evaluation to see if we're exactly on target, or if we need to make some adjustments," Culbertson said. "If we need to make adjustments to future flights, we will do so, but we certainly achieved orbit and that was the main goal." It was the largest rocket ever to launch from the Wallops Flight Facility, which has hosted about 16,000 launches over its 68-year history. With funding from the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority, the historic launch base added a new $120 million launch pad with equipment to support larger rockets and cryogenic liquid propellant. http://www.spaceflightnow.com/antares/demo/130421launch/?utm_source=Listrak&utm_medium=Email&utm_term=http%3a%2f%2fwww.spaceflig |
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Subject: RE: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: beardedbruce Date: 09 Jan 14 - 10:04 AM The countdown for today's rescheduled launch of an Antares rocket carrying Orbital Sciences' Orbital-1 cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station began at 4:07 a.m. EST this morning. Orbital is targeting a 1:07 p.m. launch from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport Pad 0A at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in eastern Virginia. NASA-TV will offer comprehensive video feed of launch preparations starting at 12:15 p.m. Launch commentary coverage will begin at 12:45 p.m. Go to http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv to watch online. Because of our proximity to Wallops Flight Facility, the launch vehicle will also be visible from the Washington-Baltimore area. From Greenbelt, the launch vehicle should be visible to the east approximately 90 seconds after launch. The launch will be visible from beyond our area as well. A map showing the viewing range is available at: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/launch/orbital.html. Cygnus will carry 2,780 pounds of supplies to the International Space Station, including vital science experiments that will expand the research capabilities of the Expedition 38 crewmembers aboard the orbiting laboratory. The cargo also includes crew provisions, spare parts, science experiment hardware and 23 student experiments that will involve more than 10,000 students on the ground. These experiments will involve life sciences topics ranging from amoeba reproduction to bone calcium to salamanders. Once the spacecraft arrives at the space station, Astronauts Michael Hopkins of NASA and Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency will capture the resupply vehicle with the station's robotic arm and install it on the Earth-facing port of the station's Harmony module. This and future commercial resupply missions by Orbital Sciences and SpaceX will help ensure a strong national capability to deliver critical science research to orbit, significantly increasing NASA's ability to conduct new science investigations aboard the space station. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: GUEST,Shimrod Date: 10 Jan 14 - 03:35 AM "Does anybody else find the concept of Corporations (any Corporations) in space very scary?" Yep! Remember that he who controls the 'high ground' can rule the world. Same goes for the Chinese. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: robomatic Date: 10 Jan 14 - 02:10 PM Corporation in space anticipated in Robert A. Heinlein's The Man Who Sold the Moon |
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Subject: RE: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: beardedbruce Date: 10 Jan 14 - 02:50 PM Again… http://marsspaceport.com China, India, and Japan, as well as Iran, are presently launching- but only government programs. You CAN purchase launch capability on an Ariane, but there is a waiting list... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: beardedbruce Date: 10 Jan 14 - 04:15 PM http://news.yahoo.com/virgin-galactic-spaceship-makes-third-powered-test-flight-184956053--sector.html |
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Subject: RE: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: beardedbruce Date: 14 Jan 14 - 08:13 AM http://news.yahoo.com/virgin-galactic-edges-closer-space-third-rocket-test-210514571.html "Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo made its third rocket-powered supersonic test flight about eight months before the space tourism company has said it plans to begin offering commercial flights." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Private rockets- 'Corporations in Space' From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 14 Jan 14 - 02:45 PM Virgin Galactic is aiming for commercial flights in Fall, 2014. At $250,000 a seat, some 530 customers are already reserved for the flights. (I would take a 'slow boat to China' instead). |
