The Antares launch vehicle on the pad at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) on Wallops Island, Virginia, earlier this week. (credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)
The launch of any rocket requires a large number of things to fall into place: all the various components and subsystems of the rocket itself, the weather, and the range. Getting all of that together is a challenge for a veteran rocket, but more so for a vehicle making its first flight. That’s why it shouldn’t be surprising that Orbital Sciences Corporation’s Antares rocket is still standing on its launch pad at Virginia’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) this morning, after two very different issues postponed its first two launch attempts.
On Wednesday, it was the case of an unforeseen technical issue. About 12 minutes before the planned liftoff time, an umbilical between the rocket’s second stage and its Transporter Erector Launcher (TEL), which serves as the gantry for the rocket, disconnected from the rocket. The umbilical was an Ethernet data cable providing information on the state of the rocket’s upper stage. The disconnected cable meant that Orbital had to, figuratively and literally, pull the plug on Wednesday’s launch.
The problem, Orbital executive vice president and mission director Frank Culbertson said, was a combination of a “slight hydraulic movement” in the TEL and insufficient slack in the umbilical. When the TEL shifted slightly, the cable came loose. “The good news is that this is a simple adjustment to the external support systems,” Culbertson said at the time, and the launch was rescheduled for Saturday, since weather conditions on Friday were not promising.
Saturday dawned with a 90-percent chance of acceptable weather at launch time. A cold front passed through the night before and, while there were still some high clouds, conditions initially looked good for the launch. However, as the day wore on and the clouds gradually moved off to the east, powerful upper-level winds posed an issue for the launch. The concern was not with the vehicle itself, but worries that any debris from an accident would be blown beyond a designated limit. Ultimately, Orbital decided not to fuel the vehicle—thus preserving the option of a Sunday launch—and scrubbed the attempt at 4:30 pm EDT (2030 GMT) Saturday.
“We had the rare case of the wind coming from the southwest at a very high velocity,” Culbertson told reporters after the scrub Saturday. Orbital postponed the launch by over an hour, to 6:10 pm EDT (2210 GMT) to wait for more weather balloon data to come in on the state of the upper level winds, but saw no hope for a Saturday launch when the new data came in. “It was still red, and the trend towards green was not nearly strong enough, so we made the decision to go and scrub at this point.”
Other than the winds, though, the vehicle was in good condition, Culbertson added. Those upper level winds are forecast to diminish to acceptable levels on Sunday, with a 75-percent chance of acceptable weather at launch time: gusty ground level winds are the main issue, but Culbertson said that concern is “marginal” at best. So, perhaps Sunday conditions will align to permit a launch, or, perhaps, they’ll find another little unforeseen issue that forces them to try again another day.
A model of a lunar base displayed by Bigelow Aerospace in the exhibit hall of the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight (ISPCS) in Las Cruces, New Mexico, in October 2011. Bigelow is reportedly finalizing an agreement with NASA on how to potentially develop such bases commercially. (credit: J. Foust)
On Thursday, Las Vegas City Life columnist George Knapp wrote that Bigelow and NASA have reached an “adventurous deal” that “reads like a Kubrick screenplay or an Arthur C. Clarke story,” he claimed. The two have agreed to study “a series of strategic goals and timetables” for future space exploration, up to and including bases on the Moon, led by private enterprise. “Bigelow’s company would become a clearinghouse of sorts,” Knapp wrote. “Its first assignment: to identify which other companies would be most valuable for NASA’s long-range goals.”
Knapp’s column was based on an interview he did with Robert Bigelow when Knapp was a guest host on the “Coast to Coast” radio program on the night of March 31; a recording of the space portion of the interview is also available here (the interview also touched on Bigelow’s other major interest, UFOs.) Bigelow offered more details about the agreement in that interview. “The purpose of the agreement is to facilitate and explore, in a manner that can facilitate commercial goals and objectives as well as the public goals and objectives, to work together to provide facilities to allow people to work and live in space beyond LEO,” Bigelow said. That, he said, includes facilities in the Earth-Moon L1 and L2 points “or even a lunar base.”
“It’s a classic opportunity for a very logical partnership to occur,” Bigelow said. “Bigelow Aerospace is kind of being used as the tool to gather together a number of major aerospace companies in this country and create an identification of the folks who can contribute what kind of hardware and identify timeframes for that and costs, and then orchestrate the various kinds of missions that otherwise NASA would not be able to afford.”
Bigelow’s comments suggested that the agreement is, at least for now, a study with NASA on the potential capabilities of the private sector to support such development. The first phase is a 100-day study to identify the various companies and assets that could be used. That would be followed by a 120-day “mission scenario” study. That second study would deliver to NASA “a variety of scenarios that that the private sector says it will support financially and timewise, and deliver these on a fixed-price basis,” he said, including options for NASA to buy or lease those facilities, as well as allowing other commercial use of them. That effort, he said, would also seek to make use of NASA’s Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System (SLS) booster by providing new destinations for them.
Bigelow suggested that the goal of this was to enable a lunar base, something that has been in his company’s long-term plans to the point of constructing models of such a facility that make use of expandable habitats (see photo above.) “This agreement is coupled with private sector long-term plans of beyond low Earth orbit operations, including those of Bigelow Aerospace to place a base on the surface of the Moon,” he said, stating that he was reading from the agreement. “We’re making no bones about it, that that’s what we’re out to try to accomplish.”
At the end of the March 31 interview, Knapp asked Bigelow when the agreement would be made public. Bigelow said there were five dates under consideration for a press conference at NASA Headquarters to publicly reveal the agreement. Three of those dates—April 10, 11, and 12—have already passed. The other two are coming up this week: April 17 and 18. However, those dates conflict with the planned first launch of Orbital Sciences Corporation’s Antares rocket, currently slated for the late afternoon of the 17th; holding a press conference the same day could distract from a rocket whose development NASA helped support. So we may need to wait a little while longer to find out more details about this agreement between NASA and Bigelow.
SpaceShipTwo and its contrail, created by a “cold flow” of nitrous oxide through its engine during an unpowered test flight on April 12. (credit: MarsScientific.com)
A successful glide flight Friday by SpaceShipTwo could be the final step before Virgin Galactic attempts what it calls “the most significant milestone” yet for the suborbital vehicle: powered flight.
SpaceShipTwo (SS2) performed a 10.8-minute glide flight April 12 in the skies above the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, the second such flight in as many weeks. This flight was distinguished by a “cold flow” test of the SS2’s propulsion system, where nitrous oxide flowed through the rocket engine and out the nozzle, creating a distinctive contrail. “As well as providing further qualifying evidence that the rocket system is flight ready, the test also provided a stunning spectacle due to the oxidizer contrail and for the first time gave a taste of what SpaceShipTwo will look like as it powers to space,” Virgin Galactic noted in a statement.
In December, when SS2 flew for the first time in its “powered flight” configuration, the company said it planned to perform at least two more glide flights in that mode before attempting a powered test flight. With Friday’s flight, it has reached that threshold, suggesting that a powered flight could come as soon as the next SS2 test flight. The Virgin Galactic statement suggested that they’re ready, or close to it, noting that Friday flight “completed the profile of the upcoming milestone flight – apart from actually igniting the rocket.” Also, the entry for the flight in Scaled Composites’s SS2 test log states that the flight was a “PF01 mission rehearsal”, with PF01 a likely designation for the first powered flight. (Friday’s flight was designated “CF01″, which may refer to it being the first “cold flow” test.)
The glide flight was the first for SpaceShipTwo since December 19, when it made its first such flight in “powered flight” configuration, with its rocket motor installed. At that time Virgin Galactic said they planned a “minimum” of two more glide flights before beginning powered flights, suggesting that, after yesterday’s flight, there may be just one more glide test before SpaceShipTwo ignites its rocket motor in flight. Virgin has also been publicizing a series of static fire tests of the rocket motor, the most recent of which took place on March 30, according to its test logs. Those engine tests are a “short series of final tests” before SpaceShipTwo’s first powered flight, according to the company.
A SpaceX Dragon spacecraft descends towards splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the Baja California coast on Tuesday. (credit: SpaceX)
After all the drama of its launch, the return of the latest Dragon spacecraft was, fortunately, a bit anticlimactic. The International Space Station’s robotic arm unberthed Dragon from the station, releasing it at 6:56 am EDT (1056 GMT). Dragon pulled away from the station and reentered a few hours later, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean a few hundred kilometers off the Baja California coast at 12:36 pm EDT (1636 GMT). All phases of Dragon’s return to Earth went well, according to SpaceX, and the capsule on a ship headed back to Los Angeles.
With that mission wrapped up, though, the focus of SpaceX shifts a bit. Until now, every Falcon 9 launch, dating back to the vehicle’s introduction in June 2010, carried a Dragon spacecraft of some kind (that inaugural launch carried a boilerplate model, while subsequent missions carried “real” capsules.) Now, however, SpaceX will be demonstrating over the next several months the ability of the Falcon 9 to carry more conventional satellite payloads using a new version of that rocket.
The company’s next launch, now planned for some time in June, will feature several firsts. The launch will be the first of the upgraded “v1.1″ Falcon 9. That version uses Merlin 1D engines that generate more thrust than the 1C versions uses on previous Falcon 9 vehicles. The company announced last week that the Merlin 1D was flight qualified after completing an extensive series of tests. The first stage of the Falcon 9 v1.1 is also longer to accommodate larger propellant tanks, and the nine Merlin engines are arranged in an “octagonal” (eight in a circle with the ninth in the center), rather than the three-by-three grid of the original Falcon 9.
The launch will also be the first to take place from the company’s new launch facility at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, on a pad previously used for Titan IV launches. The launch will also be the first to carry a satellite, and thus require the use of a payload fairing. The payload will be CASSIOPE, a Canadian satellite carrying a space weather instrument as well as a broadband communications technology demonstration payload.
Assuming that launch is successful, SpaceX plans to rapidly follow that mission with two commercial satellite launches. Speaking at the Satellite 2013 conference last week, Barry Matsumori, senior vice president for commercial sales and business development at SpaceX, siad the company plans to launch its first geosynchronous orbit (GEO) satellite, SES-8 for European satellite operator SES, in early July from Cape Canaveral. That would be followed in late July by another commercial GEO satellite, Thaicom 6. That rapid pace of mission raised more than a few eyebrows at the conference, but Matsumori confirmed they can turn the pad around at the Cape in less than three weeks if required.
As SpaceX continues to push the boundaries of space technology with its enhanced Falcon 9 launches and broadening satellite missions, it showcases the theme of innovation and progression in highly specialized fields. Similarly, the pharmaceutical industry sees parallel advancements with medications such as Strattera in aeticle Understanding the Cost, Availability, and Issues with Generic Strattera, which is used to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Just as SpaceX leverages the latest engineering breakthroughs to improve payload capacity and efficiency in space flights, Strattera represents a significant advancement in ADHD treatment by using a non-stimulant approach that differs from traditional stimulant therapies. This parallel underscores how both sectors—space exploration and pharmaceuticals—are driven by the need to innovate and improve upon existing technologies and methodologies to meet the evolving demands and challenges within their respective fields.
Two more Falcon 9 launches are planned by SpaceX before the end of the year, Matsumori said. One will be the first group of ORBCOMM satellites, while the other will be the third Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) Dragon mission to the ISS.
Virgin Galactic wants to make sure people know its first powered SpaceShipTwo (SS2) flight is coming soon. Yesterday the company tweeted a photo of what it called the second “in a short series of final tests” of the vehicle’s hybrid rocket motor prior to that first flight:
The 2nd in short series of final tests prior to SS2’s 1st rocket-powered flight. <3 the photo, <3 the data even more. twitter.com/virgingalactic…
While Musk debuted the video of the latest Grasshopper test Saturday in his on-stage interview at the South by Southwest (SXSW) conference in Austin, Texas, it wasn’t the only space-related topic discussed during the hour-long event. Musk also provided some new insights on the problems the company’s latest Dragon spacecraft experienced immediately after launch on March 1 as well as the latest in the company’s interest in a Texas spaceport.
Musk said the problem with three of the thruster pods was initially puzzling because they didn’t expect three to fail. “These things are cross-strapped. You’d think that maybe one wouldn’t work or a cross-strapped pair wouldn’t work, but not three. It was really, really strange.” That left the spacecraft tumbling while SpaceX developed new code to send to the spacecraft to try and solve the problem, using US Air Force antennas with enough power to get that code uplinked to the spacecraft.
Musk said that the company now believes the problem was with check valves in pressurant lines leading to oxidizer tanks for the three affected thruster pods. “There was a slight change to a check valve that was in three of the tanks and not in the other. We were able to replicate that problem on the ground later,” he said. They solved the problem by building up pressure upstream and then releasing it to “slam the valve” and get it to open. “We’re trying to give it sort of the spacecraft equivalent of the Heimlich maneuver,” he said. That ultimately worked, getting all four thruster pods up and running.
Another topic discussed in the interview was the company’s interest in developing a new commercial spaceport on the Texas coast near Brownsville. On Friday, Musk was up the street from the Austin convention center at the State Capitol, testifying before a committee about his plans. “Right now, Texas is arguably the leading candidate,” he said at SXSW. “We need certain legislation passed supportive of space launch.” That legislation, which he said is “not particularly controversial,” includes the ability to close the beach during a launch (current state law requires beaches to be open to the public), as well as “protection for the 1-in-10,000-person case who complains about the thing.” He didn’t specify what that “protection” would be, although he cited a case where a person sued over SpaceX’s rocket testing facility near McGregor, Texas, even though that person didn’t even live in the same county as the test site.
“If thing go as expected, it’s likely that we’ll have a launch site in Texas,” Musk said. In the best-case scenario, the company would make a decision this year about the location of the launch site and start construction of it next year. The first launches from the spaceport would take place in two to three years.
Later in the interview, after discussing his other two ventures, electric car company Tesla and solar power company SolarCity, the interview turned back to Musk’s interest in going to Mars. “If humanity doesn’t land on Mars in my lifetime, I’ll be really disappointed. That would probably be my biggest disappointment,” he said. “I do personally want to set foot on Mars, but honestly, I would be doing this even if I knew there was no chance of me to go to Mars, because I think it’s important that we’re on a path to getting there.”
Near the end, Musk was asked who influenced and inspired him. He went through a number of historical figures and then some current businesspeople, including Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin as well as Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, who, of course, has his own space company, Blue Origin. “Every time I see Jeff Bezos,” Musk said, “I say, ‘Why aren’t you doing more in space?'”
Saturday afternoon Elon Musk was the subject a keynote interview at the South by Southwest (SXSW) conference in Austin, Texas. It was at the conference that he showed the first video of Thursday’s test flight of SpaceX’s Grasshopper vehicle. How new was this video? “You’re the first people to see that video,” he told an audience that filled the main ballroom and an overflow room at the conference, as well as those watching online. “Even including SpaceX, apart from the video editor who just sent it to me half an hour before this.”
Musk called this test the “Johnny Cash hover slam” test, and the video itself featured Cash’s iconic “Ring of Fire” song as its soundtrack. Grasshopper flew to an altitude of 80.1 meters, according to a statement released by SpaceX while Musk was speaking, and was airborne for 34 seconds. By comparison, on its previous flight, in mid-December, Grasshopper flew to 40 meters and was aloft for 29 seconds. The landing was “its most accurate precision thus far on the centermost part of the launch pad,” according to the SpaceX statement. And, alluding to the “hover slam” aspect of the test, “at touchdown, the thrust to weight ratio of the vehicle was greater than one, proving a key landing algorithm for Falcon 9.”
“What you saw there was essentially testing the terminal guidance and landing capability of the rocket,” Musk said at SXSW. “With each successive test, we want to go higher and further and improve the technology to the point where we’re doing transitions all the way through hypersonic and back, hopefully later this year.”
Grasshopper is a technology development vehicle that is part of SpaceX’s efforts to create a reusable version of its Falcon 9 rocket. Musk emphasized the importance of reusability to lowering launch costs in his SXSW presentation. “That’s been the goal since the beginning of the company,” he said. “I think we’ve kind of got a handle on it. We’ve got a design that, in the simulations… it closes. If we can build that thing, it should work.”
Grasshopper, the reusable launch vehicle (RLV) technology demonstrator developed by SpaceX, made its fourth flight on Thursday, according to government records. The list of flights performed under experimental permits issued by the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation now includes a flight on Thursday, March 7, by Grasshopper from SpaceX’s test site near McGregor, Texas. The entry offers no technical details about the flight other than it was a vertical takeoff and landing flight.
SpaceX developed Grasshopper to test technologies it plans to incorporate into a future reusable version of the Falcon 9. The vehicle is a Falcon 9 first stage with a single Merlin engine and fitted with landing legs. The vehicle last flew in December, flying to an altitude of 40 meters and staying airborne for 29 seconds. SpaceX previously flew Grasshopper in September and November.
A SpaceX spokesperson did not respond to a request for information about the flight on Friday afternoon. In December, the company waited nearly a week after the successful test flight before releasing videos of the flight and other information.
SpaceShipTwo, the suborbital vehicle under development by Virgin Galactic and its partner Scaled Composites, has been on the verge of beginning powered flights for a few months now, after performing a glide flight in a “powered flight configuration” in December. There’s been little news from Virgin since then, until a blog post today by Sir Richard Branson himself about a first-of-its-kind nighttime test of SpaceShipTwo’s rocket motor. Much of the blog post is a description of the February 28th test written by Matt Stinemetze, the Scaled program manager for SS2. The key item from the post is at the end, where Stinemetze writes that this test was the “first in a rapid series of final confirmation firings leading up to SpaceShipTwo’s first rocket powered flight.”
The test doesn’t yet appear on the RocketMotorTwo flight test log maintained by Scaled, where the last test is from Janaury 24. The description also doesn’t mention the length of the burn or other details, other than it appeared to be a success. The fact that the test merited a blog post, though, and by Branson himself, suggests a growing level of confidence that this first SS2 powered flight will finally be coming soon.
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