Masten Space Systems, one of three companies to receive awards from DARPA for the Experimental Spaceplane 1 (XS-1) program, has revealed the design it proposes to develop for [...]]]>

An illustration by Masten Space Systems of its Xephyr design that was funded by DARPA for Phase 1 of the XS-1 program. (credit: Masten Space Systems)

Masten Space Systems, one of three companies to receive awards from DARPA for the Experimental Spaceplane 1 (XS-1) program, has revealed the design it proposes to develop for the program. And that design has something unusual for a company best known for its vertical-takeoff-and-landing designs: wings.

The “Xephyr” vehicle does take off vertically, as shown in the illustration provided by the company. However, the design also has small wings, presumably to allow it to glide, either for landing or other phases of flight. Overall, the design bears similarities to the X-34, an experimental spaceplane developed by Orbital Sciences for NASA but cancelled before its first flight. The X-34 featured a single tail while Mastern’s Xephyr features two. The X-34 was also designed to be air-launched from an aircraft, while Xephyr will launch vertically and would eventually become an air-launch platform itself for an expendable upper stage. (It’s worth noting that XCOR Aerospace, which has experience with winged vehicles, is partnered with Masten on its XS-1 contract.)

“XS-1 comes at the right time for the industry and the right time for Masten,” said Masten CEO Sean Mahoney in a company press release issued Wednesday. “The tide is turning and space access is opening up. We’re thrilled to lead a team to tackle the hard problems DARPA has put in front of us.”

Masten is one of three companies awarded Phase 1 contracts by DARPA for the XS-1 program. The other two are Boeing and Northrop Grumman.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced Tuesday it has awarded study contracts to three teams, representing a mix of established and entrepreneurial space companies, to study concepts for a reusable suborbital spaceplane.

DARPA said [...]]]>

Boeing’s concept for the XS-1 spaceplane, one of three selected by DARPA for Phase 1 studies. (credit: Boeing)

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced Tuesday it has awarded study contracts to three teams, representing a mix of established and entrepreneurial space companies, to study concepts for a reusable suborbital spaceplane.

DARPA said it awarded contracts to three teams: Boeing, working with Blue Origin; Masten Space Systems, working with XCOR Aerospace; and Northrop Grumman, working with Virgin Galactic. The contracts, for phase one of the Experimental Spaceplane 1 (XS-1) program, cover initial design work on concepts for the vehicle, designed to serve as a reusable lower stage of a low-cost launch system for medium-sized satellites.

“We chose performers who could prudently integrate existing and up-and-coming technologies and operations, while making XS-1 as reliable, easy-to-use and cost-effective as possible,” said DARPA XS-1 program manager Jess Sponable in a DARPA statement announcing the contracts. “We’re eager to see how their initial designs envision making spaceflight commonplace—with all the potential military, civilian and commercial benefits that capability would provide.”

The DARPA statement did not reveal the size of the contracts. However, DARPA has earlier announced, though a Federal Business Opportunities posting, a contract award to Masten valued at just under $3 million. Boeing, in its own press release about the contract, said its contract was valued at $4 million, although it wasn’t clear if that included any award to Blue Origin.

Boeing also released an illustration of its XS-1 concept, a winged vehicle. “Boeing brings a combination of proven experience in developing launch systems and reusable space vehicles, along with unparalleled expertise in the development and fielding of highly operable and cost-effective transportation systems,” said Steve Johnston, director of Boeing’s Phantom Works Advanced Space Exploration division, in the Boeing release.

The goal of the XS-1 program is to develop a vehicle capable of flying ten times in ten days, including at one least one flight to Mach 10. The XS-1, coupled with an expendable upper stage, would be able to launch satellites weighing up to about 2,270 kilograms into low Earth orbit for no more than $5 million a flight. The vehicle could also serve as hypersonics technology testbed. DARPA will select a company in a Phase 2 some time next year to build the XS-1.

One decade ago, hopes were high for suborbital space tourism. Scaled Composites had performed the first powered test flight of SpaceShipOne in December of 2003, and other than a minor landing mishap, the company seemed to be on track for [...]]]>

SpaceShipTwo during its first powered test flight on April 29, 2013. (credit: Virgin Galactic/MarsScientific.com)

One decade ago, hopes were high for suborbital space tourism. Scaled Composites had performed the first powered test flight of SpaceShipOne in December of 2003, and other than a minor landing mishap, the company seemed to be on track for flying into space in the new year, putting it on the inside track to win the $10-million Ansari X PRIZE before it expired at the end of 2004. That, many believed, would usher in an era of suborbital space tourism by Scaled and other companies, including other X PRIZE competitors, in the following years.

The future, though, turned out a little differently. Scaled did win the X PRIZE with SpaceShipOne, performing suborbital flights in late September and early October of 2004 (as well as a test flight in June.) Scaled also announced a deal with Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, establishing a venture called Virgin Galactic that planned to perform flights using a new vehicle, called SpaceShipTwo, as soon as late 2007.

But six years after that initial start date, SpaceShipTwo is still not yet in commercial service. Building a new, and bigger, vehicle, with a larger version of the hybrid rocket motor that powered SpaceShipOne has turned out to be a far greater challenge than expected in the heady days of 2004. And the other teams who were competing for the X PRIZE in the early 2000s have largely faded away—the da Vinci Project, anyone?

Still, there are signs of optimism for 2014. While development of SpaceShipTwo has been slow, Virgin Galactic did achieve some milestone in 2013, most notably the first powered flight of the vehicle in April. However, more than four months passed before SS2 made a second powered flight, in early September. A third powered flight was reportedly planned for mid-December but scrubbed by poor weather; it’s likely to be rescheduled for early January, after the holiday break ends for Scaled and Virgin.

Virgin did put the year’s developments in a positive perspective in a blog post by Branson on Monday, which included a 90-second video recap of highlights of the past year. It also included undated footage of a full-duration (approximately 55 seconds) burn of a hybrid rocket engine on a test stand; that engine has long been perceived as the limiting factor in SpaceShipTwo’s development.

“We are truly in the final phase of preparations for commercial service,” George Whitesides, CEO of Virgin Galactic, said in the video. When that commercial service will begin isn’t stated, but the company expects that to be some time in 2014; coverage of Virgin’s deal with NBC Universal to broadcast the first commercial SpaceShipTwo flight mentioned a date of August 2014. That, though, is contingent on Virgin making sufficient progress on the test program, which appears to be going slowly so far.

Virgin isn’t the only company in the suborbital spaceflight market. Just down the flightline at Mojave Air and Space Port from Scaled and The Spaceship Company (the Virgin-owned entity that will manufacture SpaceShipTwo and WhiteKnightTwo vehicles), XCOR Aerospace has been working on its Lynx vehicle. Its development has also been slow going, although the company has in recent months been actively blogging work on the Lynx and associated activities, like engine tests. In the company’s most recent release, about a payload integrator agreement with the Czech Space Office, XCOR said flights of the Lynx Mark I prototype will begin in 2014.

XCOR is selling seats on the Lynx through another company, Space Expedition Corporation, or SXC. It’s best known for the contest it held in 2013 with Unilever, whose products include Axe deodorants and related products. That worldwide contest culminated earlier this month with Axe Apollo Space Academy, which awarded 23 trips on Lynx flights earlier this month to contestants after a week of testing and training in Florida.

Blue Origin is also working, slowly, on a suborbital vehicle. In early December, it issued a press release and held a media teleconference—both rare events for the publicity-averse company—to discuss a test of its BE-3 rocket engine, which flew a simulated suborbital flight profile. Company president Rob Meyerson said suborbital flights of its New Shepard vehicle should begin “in the next several years,” without being more specific.

While Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, and XCOR Aerospace all plan to continue development of their suborbital vehicles for space tourism and research activities in 2014, a fourth company is unlikely to follow. In August, Armadillo Aerospace founder John Carmack said in a speech that his company was out of funds and in “hibernation mode” because of a lack progress after a suborbital test flight in January that suffered a parachute failure. Carmack said the company would remain in hibernation until he found an outside investor or “there’s another liquidity event where I’m comfortable throwing another million dollars a year into things,” as he had previously supported the company with his “crazy money” that he has since exhausted.

Masten Space Systems is not in the suborbital space tourism business—its focus is on flying experiments and technology demonstrations—but it has been quietly working on some vehicles. At the Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference (NSRC) in Colorado in June, Masten chief operating officer Sean Mahoney called 2013 “a critical year” for the company as it decides whether to continue work on low-level technology demonstrators or pursue a suborbital vehicle that can fly to 100 kilometers. If the company has made a decision on its direction for 2014, it’s kept that quiet so far.

The article linked to in the preceding paragraph also shows how the schedule slips for other companies continue: at NSRC less than seven months ago, Virgin Galactic was predicting test flights of SpaceShipTwo to space by the end of the year, while XCOR said Lynx text flights would begin by late in the year. Neither, though, happened. As 2014 begins, companies continue to promise major developments, but the slow progress and delayed schedules of the past suggest that people should continue to be patient.

On Tuesday Masten Space System’s Xaero vehicle took to the skies and achieved a new milestone for the company: the highest flight yet by a Masten vehicle. Xaero took off from the company’s test pad at the Mojave Air and Space Port and flew to an altitude of 444 meters before landing on the [...]]]>

On Tuesday Masten Space System’s Xaero vehicle took to the skies and achieved a new milestone for the company: the highest flight yet by a Masten vehicle. Xaero took off from the company’s test pad at the Mojave Air and Space Port and flew to an altitude of 444 meters before landing on the 75-second flight (timing based on the video above). That flight was the highest by a Masten vehicle to date as the company prepares for even higher-altitude flights in the coming months as both part of its suborbital vehicle development effort and to perform flights for NASA’s Flight Opportunities program.

The Masten blog post about the Xaero flight also pointed out a couple of other changes with Xaero. One clear one is the shift from deployable landing legs to a fixed set. “[T]hey looked cool, but they were too complex and took too long to replace for the flight rate we’d like to achieve,” the company noted in the post, adding the fixed legs also save about seven kilograms of vehicle mass. They have also been working to improve the vehicle’s guidance and control system “to get Xaero flying to our satisfaction.”

This was the first Xaero flight by Masten (at least publicized by the company) for a while, but they promise “we have plans to continue to expand the envelope in the near future.”

On June 21, 2004, Scaled Composites made history in the skies above the just-renamed Mojave Air [...]]]>

Mike Melville raises his arms after exiting SpaceShipOne following his suborbital flight on June 21, 2004. To the left, in the yellow shirt, is Burt Rutan; in the blue shirt and cap is Paul Allen. (credit: J. Foust)

On June 21, 2004, Scaled Composites made history in the skies above the just-renamed Mojave Air and Space Port in the high desert of Southern California. Scaled’s White Knight carrier aircraft took off from the airport, with the SpaceShipOne suborbital spaceplane attached underneath. After climbing to an altitude of 14,300 meters (47,000 feet) at 7:50 am PDT, the White Knight crew released SpaceShipOne, which fired its hybrid rocket motor several seconds later. With Mike Melvill at the controls, SpaceShipOne ascended towards space, achieving a peak altitude of 100.124 kilometers (328,491 feet) before gliding back to a runway landing at Mojave. That flight was the first time a commercially-developed crewed spacecraft flew into space—if only briefly crossing the 100-kilometer Kármán Line that is a commonly-used demarcation of space.

That flight, and the two that followed in late September and early October of 2004 that claimed the $10-million Ansari X PRIZE, were supposed to be the beginning of a new era of commercial spaceflight. The strong public interest in the flight, the two dozen other teams competing for the prize, and the entrance of Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Galactic locked up a deal with Scaled and its funder, Paul Allen, shortly before the X PRIZE-winning flights, all foretold the beginning of an era when suborbital spaceflights, for tourism or other applications, would be relatively common, at least when compared to the small number of orbital launches that take place worldwide each year.

That future, though, has been on hold for a while. The final SpaceShipOne flight, on October 4, 2004, remains to this day the last commercial suborbital human spaceflight. Rather than putting SpaceShipOne into service, as many imagined would happen to the prize-winning vehicle since the $10-million prize purse was only a fraction of its development cost, Scaled and Allen instead put the vehicle into the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, where it hangs today next to another prize-winning vehicle, Charles Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis. (Allen later revealed that the tax writeoff from the donation, coupled with the prize money and technology licensing fees from Virgin, allowed him to get a “net positive return” on his investment in the project.) Development of its successor, SpaceShipTwo (SS2), has gone on slowly, and other ventures working on suborbital vehicles have also seen little progress.

This lack of progress also has its own form of Boyle’s Law, in this case named after MSNBC science reporter Alan Boyle. “When it comes to private spaceflight, the future always seems to be two years away,” he quipped in May 2007, summarizing the state of the industry. At that time, for example, Virgin was planning to put SpaceShipTwo into commercial service by late 2009, a date it missed. Rocketplane Global also planned to start test flights of its suborbital vehicle by 2009, which it also missed because of Rocketplane’s financial issues that eventually forced the company into bankruptcy.

Now, though, the future may be a little closer than two years off. Virgin and others are making progress—slower than they might have liked, but progress nonetheless. Customers may not be flying into space commercially this year, but their future flights may now be more like a year off.

Virgin Galactic remains the most visible of the commercial suborbital companies, thanks in large part to the Virgin marketing machine. Technically, though, the company is making progress in recent weeks. SpaceShipTwo took to the air on a “captive carry” flight on June 8, the first time the vehicle was airborne since a trip to Spaceport America in New Mexico last October. The test log indicates that this flight was a “rehearsal for glide flight”, suggesting that SS2 will fly free again some time in the near future for the first time since last September. Those flights are a prelude to powered test flights by SS2, which have been waiting on the development of its rocket motor, called Rocket Motor Two (RM2). Just yesterday they performed a static test of RM2, the first such test at Scaled’s facility in Mojave (previous tests had been conducted by Sierra Nevada Corporation elsewhere in Southern California). “These tests provide an end to end test of all the vehicle’s rocket motor systems and additional confidence before committing the vehicle to powered flight test,” the test log states.

Late last month, Virgin also announced that it had secured an experimental permit for flight tests from the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST). The permit is needed for Virgin and Scaled to perform those powered SS2 flight tests. “Scaled expects to begin rocket powered, supersonic flights under the just-issued experimental permit toward the end of the year,” Virgin stated in its announcement. First will be glide tests to study SS2’s aerodynamic performance with the additional weight of the rocket motor; those flights will start this summer and continue into autumn.

It’s possible, though, that Virgin could be beaten in commercial service by another Mojave-based company, XCOR Aerospace. XCOR is making steady progress on its Lynx suborbital vehicle with tests to begin later this year and the first “air under the wings”—in the form of a brief powered hop off the runway at Mojave—possible by the end of this year. A press release from XCOR yesterday about an agreement to provide flight training services to Excalibur Almaz indicated that its first Lynx flight is planned for “later this year or in early 2013″ with several Lynx suborbital flights per day by 2015.

There are other ventures as well. Armadillo Aerospace and Masten Space Systems are working on suborbital vehicles that take off vertically and land either by parachute (Armadillo) or under engine power vertically (Masten). These vehicles will be initially uncrewed, although Armadillo does have plans for a crewed vehicle and an agreement with Space Adventures to market those flights. Both companies have test flights planned for later this year. Blue Origin, whose public focus (or, at least, as public as the secretive company gets) has been on orbital spacecraft as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Development program, still has plans for suborbital vehicles.

Eight years after SpaceShipOne first flew in space, the lack of progress can seem disappointing compared to the hopes and expectations of the crowd that gathered that sunny morning in the desert north of Los Angeles. But, perhaps, the future that we were promised that historic day is finally arriving.

Next month, SpaceX is planning to launch [...]]]> SpaceX announced Monday afternoon (in a press release that, curiously, was not on their web site as of late Tuesday morning) that they have received a commercial spacecraft reentry license from the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST), the first since license issued by that office:

Next month, SpaceX is planning to launch its Dragon spacecraft into low-Earth orbit atop a Falcon 9 rocket. The Dragon capsule is expected to orbit the Earth at speeds greater than 17,000 miles per hour, reenter the Earth’s atmosphere, and land in the Pacific Ocean a few hours later.

This will be the first attempt by a commercial company to recover a spacecraft reentering from low-Earth orbit. It is a feat performed by only 6 nations or governmental agencies: the United States, Russia, China, Japan, India, and the European Space Agency.

That launch, scheduled for no earlier than December 7, is the first of three Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) demonstration missions, part of the company’s $278-million COTS award from NASA in 2007. The receipt of the license also generated a congratulatory statement from NASA, which is depending on SpaceX and Orbital Sciences, the other COTS awardee, to provide transport of cargo to (and in the case of SpaceX, from) the ISS.

The SpaceX license award came the same afternoon that Mojave-based Masten Space Systems announced signing a letter of intent with Space Florida that could lead to suborbital demonstration flights from Cape Canaveral in 2011. Masten would fly from Launch Complex 36, a former Atlas launch site that is now operated by Space Florida. According to a Florida Today report, Masten would fly a prototype of its planned future suborbital vehicle from the Cape, flying to altitudes of about 30 kilometers.