NewSpace Journal » Technology

In-flight suborbital Internet access? Maybe not.

Jeff Foust — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 10:55:29 +0000

One of the nice things about flying on Virgin America (among some other airlines) is having access to the Internet in flight. On one of those long transcontinental flights, it’s great to make the time productive by having access to the web, email, and the like. But what if you’re making a quick trip into space?

Flightglobal.com reports that Virgin Galactic is investigating the possibility of having Internet access on its suborbital flights. The system being considered, according to an unnamed source, would use X-band frequencies to provide connectivity between SpaceShipTwo and the ground. It doesn’t take much to imagine people using the system to post tweets, status updates, and the like from their brief jaunts into space.

There are, though, two problems with this proposal. One is technical. For space communications, X-band frequencies are traditionally reserved for government applications, including military satellite communications and deep space transmissions to spacecraft throughout the solar system. It’s not clear how a commercial venture would be able to use those frequencies. The other is more practical: if you’re spending $200,000 for a relatively short spaceflight, are you really going to be taking the time to post a Facebook update in-flight?

One Virgin official suggested the latter issue made it unlikely the company would develop an in-flight Internet access system. “I like Twitter as much as anyone else, but put the phone down,” advised Will Pomerantz, vice president of special projects, during a Commercial Spaceflight Forum organized by SpaceUp Houston on Thursday night. “Hopefully our passengers are not clamoring to look at their Blackberries and iPhones while in outer space.”

That approach makes some sense. Certainly there will be some data connectivity needs on these flights, both for vehicle telemetry as well as for transmitting data from any experiments carried on the vehicle, but a full-fledged Internet access system, like that on airliners, doesn’t seem necessary.

SA10: Commercial RLV Technology Roadmap update

Jeff Foust — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 00:27:16 +0000

[The first in a series of posts from the Space Access ’10 conference this week in Phoenix.]

Dan Rasky of NASA Ames presented on the status of their Commercial RLV Technology Roadmap Study, seeking to identify what technologies needed for such vehicles (both suborbital and orbital) are of most interest to industry. The full details of the effort are in his slide presentation, posted here by popular request. The goal, he said, is to have an interim roadmap ready to present at the NewSpace 2010 conference in July at NASA Ames; the final version will be out in September.

One interesting note from the presentation: Rasky said that NASA Dryden recently acquired the two airframes from the canceled X-34 program. They had been in storage since the program’s cancellation when a Dryden employee bought them for $1 each from Orbital Sciences, but when he retired the airframes were dragged out to the bombing range at Edwards AFB. Fortunately the airframes were recovered intact, although several crates of other X-34 parts were lost. Rasky said his office is trying to get some funding to study the airframes and determine their potential viability for future integrated flight tests, something the roadmapping study has found considerable interest for so far.

The wide world of space tourism

Jeff Foust — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 11:17:51 +0000

A roundup of space tourism news from across the globe:

Our first stop is Davos, Switzerland, where Space Adventures’ Eric Anderson says “business is good” for the space tourism company. Anderson, attending the World Economic Forum, said he’s looking for additional customers, but potential clients “should not expect any bargains because of the global financial turmoil.”

While we’re in Europe, check out a Flight International report on new European vehicle studies funded by the EU’s Future High-Altitude High-Speed Transport (FAST) 20XX program, to the tune of nearly $10 million. The effort is looking at two concepts: a relatively near-term (circa 2015) suborbital vehicle and a long-term hypersonic point-to-point transport. (How long term? Try 2075.) The funding is only for early-stage technology studies; where the money would come from for further development, even of the suborbital vehicle, is unclear.

The prospects for space tourism in China is examined in an Asia Times article this week. Industry officials agree that there’s tremendous potential in the Chinese market given its size, but for US companies export control restrictions would make it difficult to do business there. Also, the lack of a commercial space regulatory framework in China would hinder any effort for a domestic space tourism industry to develop.

There is, though, interest in space tourism in Mexico. The English-language Guadalajara Reporter said that an anonymous local businessman has signed up to fly with Virgin Galactic, becoming the first person from Mexico’s second-largest city to reserve a flight to space. Viajes Capistrano, the tourist agency who is one of five in the country that sells Virgin Galactic trips, is planning to make a bigger push for clients in the city in coming weeks.

A jet engine for White Knight 2

Jeff Foust — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 11:17:08 +0000

Pratt & Whitney Canada announced today that Virgin Galactic has picked its PW308 engine for use on the White Knight 2 aircraft that will be the carrier aircraft for SpaceShipTwo. The engine, which generated up to 30,700 newtons (6,900 pounds) of thrust, has been used on a number of bizjets; the press release doesn’t indicate how many such engines WK2 will use. The release does state that P&WC will work with Virgin on the potential use of “advanced biofuels” to reduce engine emissions, reducing the system’s overall carbon footprint by up to 50 percent.

Benson’s low-G reentry plan

Jeff Foust — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 11:28:30 +0000

In his speech at the ISDC in May, Jim Benson said that the reentry forces that his company’s redesigned suborbital spacecraft would be less than the 6 Gs that SpaceShipTwo will experience. He wasn’t more specific then, but this week the company announced that their vehicle will subject passengers to no more than 3 Gs during reentry by spreading the deceleration forces over a wider range of altitudes. The vehicle will accomplish this through something called “Variable Ballistic Coefficient” slowing, which involves a number of vehicle configuration changes, most notably the dive brakes; the company has filed a patent application for this approach.

Something like this could prove to be a good differentiator over time: lower G forces will result in a more comfortable experience for passengers and perhaps allow people that for health reasons can’t tolerate higher G forces to fly at all. It may be less of an issue in the near-term, though, since people who are the most eager to fly (and have the means to pay for the flight) will probably be willing to put up with the inconvenience of a momentary surge of G forces.

For composites experts only

Jeff Foust — Thu, 17 May 2007 10:08:52 +0000

The trade publication High-Performance Composites offers this news about the development of SpaceShipTwo:

Advanced Composites Group Ltd. (ACG, Heanor, Derbyshire, U.K.) will supply a new generation of out-of-autoclave prepregs for the project, featuring MTM45-1, a variable-cure temperature, high-performance, toughened epoxy matrix developed for resin film infusion and prepreg processing. It was designed for low-pressure vacuum bag processing and, in addition to resin film and prepreg formats, is available in partially or selectively impregnated formats to reduce layup time, surface defects and internal voids. After a freestanding postcure, the system is capable of 150°C (302°F) wet Tg and reportedly exhibits good damage tolerance. Initial cure can be as low as 80°C/176°F, which ACG says allows for the use of lower cost tooling materials.

But you all knew that already.

An ultralight approach to orbital space tourism

Jeff Foust — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 11:09:55 +0000

In an article in this week’s issue of The Space Review, Richard Speck of Micro-Space Inc. proposed a radical approach to human orbital spaceflight: to keep launch costs low, make the spacecraft as simple and as lightweight as possible. He proposes a spacecraft that is little more than a spacesuited astronaut strapped into a heat shield and thruster system, enough to get into orbit, maneuver to a space station, and then reenter and parachute to a landing. Speck goes through the technical details with such an approach, which could allow people to fly for just a few million dollars even at today’s relatively high launch costs.