The rocket will be able to place up to 225 kilograms into LEO (100 kilograms into Sun-synchronous orbit) for a price “below $10 million.” (The company hasn’t released many technical details about the rocket, although the BBC’s Jonathan Amos, at the press conference in Farnborough announcing the system, tweeted that the rocket will use liquid oxygen and kerosene and not hybrid motors, as SpaceShipTwo does.) Launches would take place from Spaceport America and perhaps other sites in the US; launches outside the US may take place later after obtaining “various regulatory licenses.”
Virgin announced that they have already lined up several customers for LauncherOne, who have paid deposits for launches expected to start in 2016. They include Skybox Imaging, a company planning a series of commercial remote sensing satellites; GeoOptics, a company that plans to observe occultations of GPS signals to study the atmosphere; Spaceflight Inc. (apparently a reference to Spaceflight Services), which aggregates smallsat payloads for launch; and asteroid mining company Planetary Resources. In addition, Virgin said that two smallsat manufacturers, Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. and Sierra Nevada Space Systems, would develop versions of their smallsat buses optimized to the design of LauncherOne.
This is not the first time Virgin Galactic has talked up a smallsat system: when it announced nearly three years ago an investment by UAE-based Aabar Investments, that deal included $100 million for development of a smallsat launcher much like what was announced today; even the LauncherOne name was reported, albeit unofficially. That effort went onto the backburner, though, as the company focused on the suborbital system. Today’s announcement notes that Aabar has provided “substantial funding” for LauncherOne, but doesn’t mention an amount and whether the company has provided any more funding than that original $100-million tranche in 2009. Virgin Galactic has also received one of several Airborne Launch Assist Space Access (ALASA) awards from DARPA to develop a low-cost airlaunch system.
Virgin hailed LauncherOne as a major milestone for space access. “LauncherOne is bringing the price of satellite launch into the realm of affordability for innovators everywhere, from start-ups and schools to established companies and national space agencies,” Sir Richard Branson said in the statement announcing it. “It will be a critical new tool for the global research community, enabling us all to learn about our home planet more quickly and affordably.”
How revolutionary it will be, though, is open to question. Airlaunch systems aren’t new, with various concepts having been proposed over the years, as well as Orbital’s Pegasus, which has been flying for over two decades. Pegasus hasn’t won much business because of its price, estimated to be on the order of $30 million. Several years ago, SpaceX was going to open up the smallsat launch market with the Falcon 1, which originally was to launch about 600 kilograms to LEO for $6 million; the payload capacity later declined to about 420 kilograms as the price increased to around $9 million. Later, the Falcon 1e was to provide approximately 1,000 kilograms for $11 million, but the company withdrew the vehicle from the market, citing limited demand. While Virgin does have customers lined up, as it announced today, its prices may have to fall significantly below $10 million per launch to sustain demand over the long term, given the vehicle’s performance and the history of previous smallsat launch efforts.
In a similar vein to Virgin Galactic’s revolutionary approach to making satellite launches more accessible and affordable, the pharmaceutical industry has also seen innovative strides in making vital medications economically available. Just as Virgin Galactic is reducing the cost barrier for accessing space, efforts are being made to identify the cheapest places to buy medications like Jardiane from the link, a critical treatment for type 2 diabetes. This comparison highlights how technological and business innovations across different sectors aim to enhance accessibility, be it through aerospace ventures or healthcare solutions. By leveraging competitive pricing and distribution models, consumers can now find Jardiane at significantly reduced prices, much like the reduced costs anticipated for satellite launches. This underscores a broader trend of using innovation to serve and empower more extensive communities and consumer bases.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry appears particularly excited to see a full-scale mockup of the XCOR Lynx suborbital spaceplane Monday in Midland, alongside XCOR chief test pilot Rick Searfoss. (credit: XCOR)
Earlier in the day, XCOr did get an endorsement from Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who appeared at a separate news conference for local media in Midland. “We couldn’t be happier to welcome XCOR to the Lone Star State, and we couldn’t be prouder to be home to their new Research and Development center,” he said in prepared remarks, most of which focused on more general business and employment issues, as he played up how business-friendly the state is.
XCOR officials also made note of that pro-business environment as part of their reason for locating in Texas. “We do, of course, welcome the friendly regulatory and business climate in the state,” XCOR president Jeff Greason said. “There was no one factor that made the decision make sense for us. It really was the ensemble of a whole lot of positives and no serious negatives.”
But what attracted Midland to XCOR? Local officials said they were looking to diversify the economy, which leans heavily on the oil industry, and saw aviation and aerospace as a likely target to go after. But asked why specifically XCOR, given the wide array of other aerospace companies out there, they weren’t able to offer much in the way of specific rationales. “Wow. Just looking at XCOR I think that question’s already answered,” said Marv Easterly, director of Midland International Airport, where XCOR will set up shop. “It’s probably the neatest thing that I’ve ever seen.”
“When we were looking at the right fit for our community, taking a chance with bringing in the first large company in our target industry, the fact that they were a leader in this new type of industry, the fact that they had an established business plan,” sad MDC chairman Laura Romans.
Greason and Andrew Nelson, XCOR’s COO, emphasized that this was an expansion, not a move, and that they would maintain an operations base in Mojave, where they’re currently developing the prototype Mark 1 version of their Lynx suborbital spaceplane. That work will continue in Mojave as Midland renovates the hangar that XCOR will lease there and while the airport gets an FAA spaceport license, a process they expect to take up to 18 months. Mojave will also be a base for operational flights. Nelson said that if they later get a “wet lease” customer for the Lynx flying out of Mojave, “we’d be open to that wet lease customer assuming that operation” from XCOR itself.
Development of later versions of the Lynx, though, will take place in Midland. Greason said flight tests of the Mark 2 version of the Lynx, capable of going to 100 kilometers, will take place in Midland. The company is also planning a Mark 3 version for nanosatellite launches and even an orbital system that will start “ramping up” in a few years, Nelson said. “We see over a hundred employees over the next four to five years” in Midland, he said. And that’s music to Midland’s ears.
Today’s Midland Reporter-Telegram has more details about the agreement between XCOR Aerospace and the Midland Development Corporation (MDC) that will be formally announced Monday. It confirms earlier reports that the deal will involve XCOR moving its corporate headquarters to Midland and establishing an R&D center there, while maintaining its facility in Mojave, California, as well as, interestingly, “seek a location for an operational base on the East Coast.” XCOR COO Andrew Nelson told the paper that the company’s R&D unit is the “heart and soul” of XCOR: “All of our senior people — they’re going to be working and living there.”
The company will gradually ramp up operations there while Midland International Airport gets its spaceport license—a process expected to take 18 months—and make improvements to the hangar it will use there. XCOR will sublease the hangar from MDC for $1 per year for 10 years (MDC will lease the hangar from the city, which owns it, at the market rate of $6,000 per month; over $700,000 of the $10-million deal covers the difference in those rents.) XCOR promises under the deal to have $200,000 in payroll based in Midland during than initial 18-month period, growing to $1 million in the first 12 months after the airport gets its spaceport license and then to $12 million in 60 months. That deal, the paper adds, including “clawbacks” should XCOR fall short of those payroll milestones in the contract.
The article adds that XCOR has been interested in Midland for a few years, identifying it (among several other locations) as a possible expansion site several years ago, but put those plans on hold until last year because of the state of the economy. XCOR was in “serious discussions” with another, unnamed city when MDC, unaware of XCOR’s interest, contacted the company based on recommendations provided by a consulting firm.
The deal, to be announced Monday after approval by the MDC board of directors and the Midland City Council, has attracted a high-profile guest: Texas Governor Rick Perry, who will appear at a press conference announcing the deal at the Midland airport. This press conference is different from the media teleconference scheduled for Monday afternoon, which will feature XCOR and MDC executives as well as unspecified local government officials.
XCOR and its Lynx suborbital vehicle (above) may soon be taking off for Midland, Texas, but a source says they won’t be leaving Mojave behind. (credit: XCOR Aerospace)
According to media reports, Mojave, California-based XCOR Aerospace plans to establish operations in Midland, Texas, with an agreement about a deal with Midland officials scheduled for Monday. The Midland Reporter-Telegram and KOSA-TV reported late Thursday that the Midland Development Corporation (MDC) will seek approval at a special meeting Monday of an agreement with XCOR that would see the suborbital vehicle developer set up operations at Midland International Airport. The agenda for the meeting includes consideration of a resolution “authorizing the execution of an economic development agreement” between XCOR and MDC, as well as a lease agreement for two hangars and tracts at the airport.
The economic development agreement, according to the Reporter-Telegram report, involves $10 million in incentives for XCOR to establish its headquarters there, including $2 million for moving there and $3 million for upgrades to the hangars; the rest are “performance incentives” for reaching a payroll of $12 million within five years. XCOR COO Andrew Nelson told the paper that the weather and airspace in Midland, plus a “business-friendly community and business-friendly state”—perhaps a subtle dig at the regulatory environment in California that many companies consider onerous—were the reasons the company was interested in Midland.
“XCOR sees this as an expansion opportunity,” a source familiar with the deal said in a phone interview today, emphasizing that XCOR would be expanding to Midland, not moving there entirely from Mojave. “They plan on maintaining a presence in Mojave. This is all about growth.”
More details are expected at a press conference Monday at 3 pm EDT in Midland featuring XCOR and local officials. Some open questions about the planned deal include the timing of XCOR’s arrival in Midland and whether Midland International Airport plans to seek a launch site operator’s license (aka spaceport license) from the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation, which would be needed if XCOR planned to conduct test of operational Lynx flights from the airport. (There’s also the issue of integrating a flight test program into the normal operations of a commercial airport like Midland’s; one of Mojave’s strengths is that it is well-suited to experimental aircraft and spacecraft tests.)
An illustration of the cargo module capability for the ATK/EADS Astrium Liberty system announced earlier this week. (credit: ATK)
Some people noted earlier this week an article by Talking Points Memo (TPM) reporting that NASA plans to make selections in the next round of its commercial crew effort, the Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) program, in July or August, making more than one award. While TPM, a website primarily devoted to political news, treated that development as newsworthy, that has been in fact NASA’s plan for some time now, especially after NASA worked out an agreement with a key House appropriator, Frank Wolf, about the future of the commercial crew program. During a press teleconference on June 18 about a memorandum of understanding between NASA and FAA on commercial crew regulation, for example, NASA administrator Charles Bolden said he expected the awards to come by mid-July.
NASA has said little else about the state of the competition, beyond its plan to make “two and a half” awards: two full-sized awards and a third smaller award. What NASA hasn’t disclosed is which companies submitted CCiCap proposals. One can guess, though, that at least five companies are bidding for CCiCap: the four companies with funded second-round Commercial Crew Development (CCDev-2) awards—Blue Origin, Boeing, Sierra Nevada, and SpaceX—and the ATK/EADS Astrium team that has an unfunded CCDev-2 agreement with NASA. And while these companies have made a number of announcements about their CCDev efforts, it’s been that last team that has been the most active in making the case for their crew transportation concept.
In the course of less than a week (June 28 through July 3), ATK issued five press releases related to Liberty, including:
Their publicity push goes beyond press releases. Listeners to WTOP-FM, an all-news radio station in Washington, DC, have probably heard by now an ATK/EADS ad for Liberty during its broadcasts: a short spot playing up the benefits of Liberty to service the ISS. Such ads aren’t usual on WTOP for the defense industry (right now it’s sharing airtime with one from Lockheed Martin extolling the benefits of a missile defense systems called MEADS.) However, it’s much rarer for the commercial space field, and none of the other likely CCiCap bidders are running similar ads.
(ATK has also benefited from some friendly media coverage, like this article published Wednesday at NASASpaceFlight.com, which cites unnamed sources who claim Liberty “is actually becoming a favorite option of some high ranking Agency managers.” The site, though, may have missed the unintentional irony of the July 4th-themed headline—“ATK push for US space flight independence via Liberty‗when Liberty uses a second stage manufactured in Europe.)
Is a media push like this effective, though? As noted above, radio spots, as well as ads in newspapers and on Metro, Washington’s subway system, are commonplace in the defense industry during major procurements: at the height of the deliberations over a new Air Force tanker last year, the airwaves on WTOP at times seemed to consist of nothing but dueling ads from EADS and Boeing. Did it provide much advantage to Boeing, who won the contract? That’s hard to say, but it’s clear from this push that ATK is very interested in winning a CCiCap award to develop Liberty.
About 3 years ago after we (Eric [Anderson] and Peter [Diamandis]) founded the company, we were looking for a code name for Planetary Resources (while we were keeping in super stealth mode). Chris Lewicki, our President and Chief Engineer (along with Joe Landon) brainstormed dozens of name and ultimately proposed the name Arkyd Astronautics, a derivative of the name Arakyd Industries from the Star Wars universe.
According to Chris, “Arakyd Industries was originally a supplier of exploration droids, its most noteworthy achievement being the Viper probe droid model, which the Empire used to locate the Echo Base on the planet Hoth in Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back. The Viper model was based on the success of Galalloy Industries early probe droids – the first true probe droids to search planets and asteroids for valuable resources, such as metals to fuel the processing plants of industry.â€
As the company asks, “Is that geeky enough for you guys?”
The previous design (left) of the Spaceport America website, as it appeared Tuesday morning, and the new design (right).
When New Mexico officials announced almost six years ago that what had previously been known as the Southwest Regional Spaceport would henceforth be called Spaceport America, the decision raised a few eyebrows. After all, it wasn’t the only spaceport in the United States of America, and, in fact, at the time of the renaming the facility still existed only on paper. However, they didn’t play up the “America” (as in USA) angle that much in the branding of the site: the logo was done in a mix of black, red, and white, in a sci-fi-eqsue font somewhat similar to the one used by its anchor tenant, Virgin Galactic. In other words, more “spaceport” than “America”.
Today, though, in a redesign timed to the Independence Day holiday in the US, Spaceport America unveiled a new look that shifts that emphasis more to the “America” part of the name. The sci-fi font has been replaced with a more generic one, and the color scheme is now a very patriotic red, white, and blue. The spaceport’s logo features what the spaceport authority, in a press release about the design, calls “two stars coming together” in red and blue.
“The Spaceport America identity is created from the colors of our nation with red symbolizing energy, strength, and power and blue symbolizing trust, loyalty and wisdom,” the spaceport explained. “It reflects Spaceport America’s core commitment to the spirit of exploration, the promise of human potential, and the powerful combination of vision and courage as it launches the next generation of space.”
The spaceport authority also released one bit of non-redesign news about the spaceport itself: it has obtained a temporary “Certificate of Occupancy” from the state for the Spaceport Operations Center (SOC) building at the spaceport, a smaller dome-shaped building just north of the massive hangar that will be used by Virgin Galactic. The interior of the building it not yet complete, but the release stated that they expect final build-out to be done by the end of the year.
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.”
An earlier test of a 10-inch hybrid rocket motor by SPG. The company plans to test a larger 22-inch motor on Friday. (credit: SPG)
When you think of hybrid engines, what typically comes to mind is the hybrid rocket motor developed for SpaceShipOne that powered it to the $10-million Ansari X PRIZE in 2004, and its larger successor, RocketMotorTwo, under development today for SpaceShipTwo. Both those hybrid motors use a combination of liquid nitrous oxide and solid hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene (HTPB) as propellants. Beyond that application, though, hybrids have seen little use in launch systems.
With a test firing later today, though, a small California company hopes to demonstrate an alternative hybrid engine technology that it believes addresses some of the issues associated with more conventional hybrid motors. Space Propulsion Group (SPG) plans to test-fire a motor 56 centimeters (22 inches) in diameter at its test site in Butte, Montana. That test is planned for 10 am local time (12 pm EDT), and the company plans to webcast it. (Update: I’m told that they’re having technical difficulties with the live web feed.)
“There’s this perception out there that hybrids combine the worst of the two worlds” of solid- and liquid rocket engines, SPG president and CTO Arif Karabeyoglu said during an interview at the company’s Sunnyvale, California, headquarters last week. “There are some hybrids that will do that, but what we’re saying is that we have other technology that doesn’t have the old, bad virtues of the classical hybrids.”
The key difference between SPG’s motor and other hybrids is the choice of propellants. SPG uses liquid oxygen for its oxidizer and paraffin for its solid fuel. This retains a key advantage of hybrids—safety—but offers solutions to a couple of issues with more convention hybrids. One such issue is their low “regression rate”, or the rate at which solid fuel burns away. This requires some complex designs for the fuel in order to increase the surface area of the fuel exposed to the oxidizer. These designs include some intricate “wagon wheel” geometries that can create some issues of their own regarding the structural stability of the motor as it burns, including chunks of fuel coming loose.
Replacing HTBP with paraffin eliminates this problem, Karabeyoglu said, because it has a much higher regression rate. The “wagon wheel” and other complex designs can be replaced with a simple, single port down the middle of the motor. He said they have also tweaked the design of the motor to address low-frequency instabilities, another issue with hybrids.
Using paraffin also has cost advantages. “The advantage of the paraffin is that it’s dirt cheap,” Karabeyoglu said. “You can’t find anything cheaper than that. It’s actually less expensive than gasoline.” They buy ordinary paraffin in bulk from candle suppliers and cast it into cylindrical motors in a relatively simple process at their facility, located in a nondescript industrial park just off the 101 Freeway in the heart of Silicon Valley.
Work on the LOX-paraffin motor, including some earlier, smaller 25-centimeter (10-inch) designs, has been funded in part by the Air Force through SBIR awards. With the upcoming tests of the 22-inch motor, SPG hopes to demonstrate the capabilities of this alternative approach to hybrids and open up some opportunities for future business. The company has already looked at using this motor as part of an air-launch system as well as a ground-launched smallsat launcher that could place 100 kilograms into LEO for $2.5 million.
“It’s time to transition this technology to a product,” he said. “We were not ready last year to talk to people, because we did not have a viable solution. Now we do.”
SpaceShipTwo during its first glide test on October 10, 2010. (credit: Mark Greenberg/Virgin Galactic)
For the first time since late September, SpaceShipTwo performed a glide flight on Tuesday. Parabolic Arc, citing a report in the Antelope Valley Press (hidden behind a paywall), reported that SpaceShipTwo made a glide flight Tuesday above Mojave Air and Space Port. (The test flight has not, as of early Thursday morning, appeared on Scaled Composites’s flight logs for the vehicle.) The last glide flight for SpaceShipTwo was in late September, when it went into a stall shortly after release from WhiteKnightTwo. The resumption of glide flights was expected after a series of WK2 flights and a captive carry flight with SpaceShipTwo earlier this month.
This new series of flight tests comes as Virgin Galactic is preparing for a major announcement next month at the Farnborough International Airshow outside London. “Virgin Galactic will announce an expansion to the company’s current business plans of space tourism and research, which will support government agencies, defense and commercial customers,” the media advisory reads. That, SPACE.com reported this week, is likely to be a resumption of its smallsat launch efforts, which the company first said in 2009 it was pursuing but, more recently, appeared to be on the back burner. A full-scale replica of SpaceShipTwo will also be on display at Farnborough, which may also incorporate some minor design changes to address that stall incident last September.
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