Virgin Galactic: Stephen Attenborough provided considerable details about their plans to flight test SpaceShipTwo (SS2). Ground testing will continue until the end of this [...]]]> In yesterday’s sessions at the Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference in Boulder, Colorado, four major developers of suborbital vehicles presented updates on their efforts. Here’s a summary of what they revealed:

Virgin Galactic: Stephen Attenborough provided considerable details about their plans to flight test SpaceShipTwo (SS2). Ground testing will continue until the end of this quarter, he said. The first captive-carry flight, with WhiteKnightTwo (WK2) carrying SS2 aloft but not releasing it, should take place by the end of this quarter. The second quarter of 2010 will be for captive-carry tests flights. The first drop test will be some time in the third quarter. That initial drop test, he said, “will be a pretty interesting moment for all of us on the ground, and a pretty interesting moment for the pilot as well.”

Attenborough said he hoped first powered test flight of SS2 would take place by the end of this year. There would be “a lot” of powered test flights in 2011, he said. His “best case” scenario for beginning commercial operations would be the end of 2011 or the beginning of 2012, adding it would be entirely depending on the progress made during the test flights. “We can’t cut corners” on the test program, he noted.

XCOR Aerospace: Jeff Greason noted that development of the prototype Lynx Mark 1 was underway, which will be followed “as quickly as possible” (9-18 months, according to his slides) by the more capable Mark 2. Engine development, normally a limiting factor in the development of a launch system, isn’t a concern. “The engines are ahead of the airframe,” he said. The first test flights of the Mk 1 prototype are planned for the first half of next year.

Masten Space Systems: Fresh off its wins in the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge last fall, Masten is pressing ahead with plans for a couple of different vehicles in the coming year, said Michael Mealling. First up, in the next couple of months, will be “Xoie v2.0″, an updated version of the XA-0.1E that won first place in Level Two of the LLC, now equipped with an aeroshell and the ability to do an engine relight; it will be able to fly up to about 36 kilometers. XA-0.1G, or “Xogdor”, will be built by October or November, will pick up where Xoie left off, flying eventually up to 100 kilometers using a new 3000-lbf engine under development. By 2011 Masten plans to fly commercial missions, and is even looking at the possibility of getting into the nanosat launch market through the use of an expendable second stage.

Blue Origin: Gary Lai didn’t make any great new revelations about the secretive company’s plans in a presentation, which he said was the first time a Blue Origin employee had presented any details at a conference. “If we’re famous for anything it’s famous for keeping quiet,” he said. The reason for that, he said, “is that we have a culture within the company to talk publicly only about results, and not about plans,” an approach similar to Burt Rutan.

While he didn’t provide much in the way of specifics, and no hints about schedule, he did reveal a few things. He briefly discussed Goddard, the gumdrop-shaped prototype of the New Shepard propulsion module that the company first flew in November 2006. “One of the main reasons for flying Goddard was to learn how to take a vertical-landing vehicle that uses the same propellants that our operational vehicle uses and learn how to fly that and turn it around in a very rapid manner,” he said. “Most of our lessons learned were in the operational area.”

However, he cautioned about reading too much into Goddard. “That is not necessarily what the operational New Shepard vehicle looks like,” he said.

One of the most intriguing NewSpace companies is Blue Origin, perhaps because they’re also one of the most secretive. Backed by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos—and thus without the [...]]]>

Illustration of Blue Origin's orbital crew vehicle, designed to be launched on an Atlas 5, as shown on a NASA slide at an FAA conference last week.

One of the most intriguing NewSpace companies is Blue Origin, perhaps because they’re also one of the most secretive. Backed by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos—and thus without the funding concerns of many other companies in this field—the company has been working for several years on its “New Shepard” vehicle that takes off and lands vertically. While the company has done a few test flights in 2006-2007 that required experimental permits from the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation, it hasn’t done any such flights recently, and speculation continues about what the company is, or isn’t, up to, and how long it might be before they have a vehicle flying.

The company has been closely guarded, revealing few details about its developments: its posting in January 2007 about its first test flight (which took place the previous November) has been its biggest bit of publicity. Those who have gotten a look inside the company, though, have been duly impressed. One of those is Dan Rasky of NASA Ames, who visited the company as part of an effort to develop a technology roadmap for commercial RLVs. “I joke with people that if you want to see what a billionaire’s clubhouse looks like, go visit Blue Origin,” he said at a public workshop last week in Washington.

However, Blue Origin isn’t quite as black as it has been. Late last year they announced that they has selected three investigations that would be the first suborbital research payloads the company plans to fly. At that time the company said that the crewed flight opportunities for New Shepard would be in 2012, with the possibility of flying remote-controller or autonomous payloads as early as 2011.

More recently, the company won a small contract from NASA’s Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program that has provided a bit more of a peek of what the company is up to. The $3.7-million contract covers the development of two items: work on “pusher” launch escape system and a composite pressure vessel. The escape system would use thrusters below a crew cabin that pushes the cabin away from its launcher in the event of a malfunction, instead of the “tractor” escape systems mounted on top of a crew capsule that pulls it away; the company had been planning something like that for its New Shepard vehicle, whose crew module is designed to separate from the propulsion module and land separately. A composite pressure vessel would, most likely, provide a lighter-weight option for any sort of vehicle that Blue Origin might be developing.

What is interesting is that Blue Origin is actively looking beyond suborbital spaceflight to orbital missions. Proof of that came in a presentation last week by Alan Lindenmoyer, who managers NASA’s Commercial Crew and Cargo Programs, including CCDev. Speaking at the FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference in Washington, he presented slides describing all five CCDev awards, including for Blue Origin. The Blue Origin slide, shown below, revealed that the company was proposing a “bi-conic space vehicle” that could be launched on an Atlas 5 402, a variant of the Atlas 5 with two Centaur engines in its upper stage and no strap-on solid rocket boosters. The slide notes that the composite pressure vessel that would be tested under the CCDev contract would be structural test article of their planned suborbital vehicle “as a subscale demonstrator for the orbital Space Vehicle”.

Blue Origin CCDev award details

Robert Milliman of Blue Origin, who was present at the February 2 NASA press conference in Washington where NASA unveiled the CCDev winners, as well as existing COTS/CRS awardees Orbital Sciences and SpaceX, didn’t provide many details about what the company’s plans were. “The [Blue Origin] team is dedicated to creating technologies for an enduring human presence in space,” he said before briefly describing the technologies funded under their CCDev award.

In very brief comments after the press conference, he said that Blue Origin was still focused on its suborbital program right now, proceeding “step by step”. He didn’t provide any specifics, such as schedule, about the company’s development of New Shepard or any future orbital vehicle, other than to say that flight tests are “coming up”.

It’s not surprising that Blue Origin sees suborbital as a step towards orbital flight, although the concept they proposed for their CCDev contract indicates that, at least in the relatively near term, they’re less likely to scale up New Shepard into an orbital vehicle than use some of that technology for a crewed vehicle that could be launched on an ELV.

A Blue Origin representative is scheduled to speak Thursday at the Next-Generation Suborbital Research Conference in Boulder, Colorado. Maybe we’ll learn a few more details about their vehicle plans. And maybe not.

“Umm, no,” I responded.

“You should,” he responded. And I did, and you should, too: the company has provided a major new update on its web site, in the form of a [...]]]> I was just sitting down to lunch when a coworker came up to me and asked, “Have you checked out Blue Origin’s web site recently?”

“Umm, no,” I responded.

“You should,” he responded. And I did, and you should, too: the company has provided a major new update on its web site, in the form of a public letter by Jeff Bezos (dated January 2), as well as some photos and videos of the November 13th first flight of Goddard, the first in a series of vehicles for its New Shepard suborbital vehicle. Some initial notes and analysis:

• The flight itself lasted about 30 seconds, a quick up-and-down flight to an altitude of 285 feet (87 meters). From the grainy video it appears the vehicle, which has a conical, almost capsule-like shape, has nine thrusters in the base, with five arrayed in a cross at the center and four closer to the edges, apparently to provide vectoring.
• This was not the first attempt to launch Goddard: an attempt a few days before was scrubbed because of winds, according to Bezos (they had reserved airspace with the FAA from November 10th through the 13th)
• There were a number of friends and family at the site for the test, and the company provided them with a Jumbotron to better see the launch, entertainment for the kids, and “delicious chuck wagon food”.
• Bezos said his only job at the test “was to open the champagne, and I broke the cork off in the bottle.”
• Bezos said that he has a slow, methodical approach to development: “We believe in incremental improvement and in keeping investments at a pace that’s sustainable. Slow and steady is the way to achieve results, and we do not kid ourselves into thinking this will get easier as we go along.”
• The company has a decidedly retro (think 19th, or even 18th or 17th century retro) logo, complete with turtles (a nod, perhaps, to their methodical approach) and the motto “Gradatim Ferociter”. I quick online check reveals that this means something to the effect of “step by step, with spirit”. I’m sure someone who actually knows Latin can come up with a more accurate and elegant translation…