Latest Space News and Rocket Tests
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This document discusses several private space projects including Virgin Galactic's rocket test, more successful engine tests for Skylon, and private Mars flyby mission. It also lists projects from Icarus Interstellar such as Project Forward, Project Hyperion, Project Persephone, Project Bifrost, The Hellus Experiment, Project Tin Tin, the X-Physics Propulsion & Power Project, and Longshot II.
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Latest Space News and Rocket Tests
- 1. Space News 03 . 17 . 13
- 3. Virgin Galactic rocket test
- 7. More successful Skylon engine tests
- 9. Private Mars flyby mission
- 12. Icarus Interstellar Starship Projects Project Forward Project Hyperion Project Persephone Project Bifrost The Hellus Experiment Project Tin Tin X-Physics Propulsion & Power Project (XP4) Longshot II
Notes de l'éditeur
- Elon Musk said SpaceX is testing of new rockets that would be reusable. That would provide a massive hundre times cheaper in the cost of space flight. Fuel and oxygen is only 0.3% of the cost of a rocket. With reusable rockets, space travel could be easier to attain for more people, he said.SpaceX is currently working on a reusable rocket prototype, one that could “land safely anywhere on earth like a helicopter” after sending a given craft hurtling beyond our atmosphere to its destination. And damned if the company isn’t already part of the way there: Musk brought with him a video — set to Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” — of a successful test of one of its 10-storey-high Grasshopper rising from a launchpad, hovering in the air for a short time and then softly descending to the ground on a cushion of boosters and landing gears. The test apparently only occurred “about a day and a half ago.”“Yeah, so it worked. You’re the first people to see that video — even including SpaceX — apart from the video editor who sent it to me half an hour before this,” said Musk. “So far I’ve not been very successful in that regard, but I think we’ve got a handle on it.”Now, of course, the goal is to go “higher and further.” All in service, Musk says, of putting the prospect of establishing a human base on another planet — Mars is the dream — within our technological and economic reach.The Video shows the rocket flying up to about 3 times its height which would be about 300 feet into the air. So it was a test that lasted longer and flew higher.http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WFAfF1aTjNI
- The Virgin team just conducted an extremely significant night rocket motor firing, which has been described by Matt Stinemetze, Scaled Composites' Program Manager for the development and testing of our space vehicles, in the fantastically descriptive piece below. His words show the huge excitement now emanating from the Mojave Desert, as we move closer to breaking the sound barrier and then building up to full spaceflight in the coming months.http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/03/rocket-tests-bring-us-closer-to-age-of.htmlIn the January, 2013 issue of IEEE Spectrum, Richard Branson says he expects to be aboard a flight into space by the end of this year [2013]. In BBC News, pilot David Mackay, said Virgin's tourist flights are on track to start next year. The flights will reach higher than 350,000 feet. Once Virgin Galactic’s routine flights begin, ordinary people with US $200 000 to spare—will be able to buy tickets into space. True, the company won’t take them into orbit, but it will fly them 100 kilometers (62 miles) above sea level to the Kármán line, which the FédérationAéronautiqueInternationale defines as the edge of space.
- http://www.lgarde.com/programs/space-propulsion/sunjammer/#gallery[pp_gal]/5/The Solar Sail Technology Demonstration Mission (TDM) by NASA and L’Garde will advance the state of the art of solar sailing. The end goal of this mission is the deployment, flight, and navigation of a mission capable solar sail to demonstrably prove the efficacy of solar sails. This proposed mission will definitively advance the technology of solar sailing for use by future mission planners. This will be a definitive demonstration of a mission capable solar sail. This TDM aims to boost the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of the L’Garde solar sail from ~6 to ~9. The four main objectives of the mission are:* Demonstrate segmented deployment of a solar sail with ~4X the area of that vacuum tested at Plum Brook, “cookie cut” from the center of a much larger sail.* Demonstrate attitude control plus passive stability and trim using beam-tip vanes.* Execute a navigation sequence with mission-capable accuracy.Fly to and Maintain Position at L1 and pole sitter positions This solar sail will be over seven times bigger than any solar sail deployed in space* At just over 70 pounds, this solar sail demonstrator will weigh 10 times less than the largest sail ever flown in space.* The L'Garde solar sail will produce a maximum thrust of approximately 0.01 newton, which is roughly equivalent to the weight of a "pink packet" of artificial sweetener.* This solar sail demonstrator is truly propellantless -- it will use control vanes for attitude control.Solar sails offer many potential game-changing mission capabilities including the following:* Debris collection and removal from orbit. Debris can be captured and removed from orbit over a period of years using the small solar-sail thrust.* De-orbit of spent satellites. Solar sails can be integrated into satellite payloads so that the satellite can be de-orbited at the end of its mission.* Creating pseudo-Lagrange points by cancelling some solar gravitational pull with the sails. As an example, the GeoStorm project considers locating solar storm warning satellites three times further from the Earth increasing warning time from 15 minutes to 45 minutes.* Providing synchronous satellites at non-equatorial latitudes, such as the “pole-sitter” project. This allows the northern and southern latitudes to gain the advantages of synchronous satellites.* Providing deep space propulsion. Payloads free of the Earth’s pull can be accelerated to the other planets, or out of the solar system, such as those proposed for Project Encounter.
- http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/03/swiss-company-announces-reusable.htmlSwiss Space Systems (S-3) objective is to develop, manufacture, certify and operate unmanned suborbital spaceplanes for small satellite deployment. The range of satellites we will be able to launch goes up to 250 kg small satellites. The start of the test flights is planned for 2017.They propose a sustainable system based and built on aeronautics experience and its developments. * launch our spaceplane from a Zero-G certified Airbus A300, * spaceplane will use standard fuels, with no fuel required during landing after a suborbital flight. They are planning to build the most economic and ecological model available today. Nothing is lost on a flight. The main components used during the flight are re-usable and we intend to develop ground operations known from aviation such as inspection, repair and equipment replacement activities.They plan to launch small satellites for about 7 million pounds (about 12 million USD.) This is about four times less than current costs.
- Of course it rides up on an whomping big plane. Here shown on an Airbus. Points for cuteness.
- Culham Science Centre’s Reaction Engines Ltd has carried out successful tests on a revolutionary rocket engine for its Skylon vehicle. The space plane will be able to reach speeds of more than 19,000 miles an hour – which would cut the journey time from London to Australia to just four hours.Reaction Engines hopes to run cargo flights to space stations by 2022 and says the craft – which will take off and land from conventional runways – could later be adapted to take tourists towards the stars.SKYLON will provide aircraft-like access to space to enable:* Operation from runway to orbit and back* Order of magnitude reduction in cost vs. existing technology* 400 x improved reliabilityResponsive access to spaceEngine tests will continue for three years, with the first test flights scheduled for 2019.He said: “Initially Skylon will be a cargo vehicle, but within a few years it could be carrying people.”About £10m has been spent designing the craft and £100m more will be spent in the next five years. Each of the 270ft Skylons would cost £700m.http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/01/reaction-engines-targets-skylon-space.html
- http://ykbcorp.com/downloads/Bae_photon_propulsion_STAIF2_Paper_Circulation.pdfhttp://nextbigfuture.com/2012/12/roadmap-to-photon-propulsion-for.htmlHere are steps to Photon Propulsion for Interstellar Flight.First we have to develop photonic laser thrusters (amplifying laser propulsion by bouncing between mirrors to recycle photons). Photonic laser thrusters are described in a previous nextbigfuture article. There has been experimental work that indicates that it is feasible.The systems described here are an improvements by several orders of magnitude over regular power beaming. Recycling photons between mirrors reduces the energy requirements as does lightening the spacecraft and shortening the wavelength of the laser. There are other technological solutions to interstellar travel but this looks like one potential feasible technological solution. Then we can develop a Photonic Railway, a permanent transport structure based on photon propulsion, has a potential to enable routine interstellar commutes via Spacetrains. The Photonic Railway, as the transcontinental railway systems did, is projected to inspire sustainable economic interest and return investment, and to potentially achieve the goal: rountrip manned interstellar flight potentially within a century. In this section, a four-phased developmental pathway of the Photonic Railway toward interstellar manned roundtrip is proposed: 1) Development of PLTs for satellite and NEO maneuvering, 2) Interlunar Photonic Railway, 3) Interplanetary Photonic Railway, and 4) Interstellar Photonic Railway. It is projected that these developmental phases will result in systematic evolutionary applications, such as satellite formation flying, NEO mitigation, lunar mining, and Space Solar Power, which is projected to generate sufficient sustainable economic interest and return investment to the development pathway.
- http://inspirationmars.org/From the overview:“In 2018, the planets will literally align, offering a unique orbit opportunity to travel to Mars and back to Earth in only 501 days. Inspiration Mars is committed to sending a two-person American crew – a man and a woman – on an historic journey to fly within 100 miles around the Red Planet and return to Earth safely.The mission’s target launch date is Jan. 5, 2018. This exceptionally quick, free-return orbit opportunity occurs twice every 15 years. After 2018, the next opportunity won’t occur again until 2031. The mission will provide a platform for unprecedented science, engineering and education opportunities, using state-of-the-art technologies derived from NASA and the International Space Station. It will be financed primarily through philanthropic donations, with some potential support from government sources.”Dennis Tito provided details of the Mars Manned Flyby PlanThe mission, a “return fly-by”, in which the spacecraft would fly around Mars rather than land, would last for 500 days. It is expected to cost between $1 billion and $2 billion, which Mr Tito is hoping to fund partly through television rights and by selling data to Nasa.His organisation, Inspiration Mars, is planning to select a middle-aged couple who may have already had children and would be willing to risk the potential risk to their fertility of being exposed to radiation for a prolonged period. (Note- A few days ago when details were not released and people discussed the problem of sending two people together, I noted that sending a married couple would make more sense.)They would be forced to spend a year and a half together in a 14ft x 12 ft Dragon space craft, accompanied by supplies ranging from more than a tonne of dehydrated food to 28kg of lavatory paper. They will use a private rocket (probably a Spacex Falcon Heavy) and space capsule (Spacex Dragon probably) and some kind of habitat that might be inflatable (Bigelow Aerospace), employing an austere design that could take people to Mars for a fraction of what it would cost NASA to do with robots.18 page technical paper at http://www.inspirationmars.com/Inspiration%20Mars_Feasibility%20Analysis_IEEE.pdfChallenges 1) Launch vehicleThe vehicle of choice is the Falcon Heavy rocket, which SpaceX has designed to carry about 30,000 pounds to the vicinity of Mars. The Falcon Heavy’s first demonstration flight is planned for later this year.NBF - The Mars mission can also use two or more launches of smaller rockets which already exist. Using more smaller rockets would increase cost and complexity2) Crew life support systemParagon Space Development Corporation is contracted to build a prototype this year. The system — like the one on the International Space Station — will convert exhaled carbon dioxide into oxygen, recycle water from urine and feces, filter the cabin air, and maintain its temperature and pressure.But unlike the more automated ISS system, Inspiration’s smaller life support will be run by the crew themselves – making it simpler, quicker and cheaper to build, and less likely to break.
- 3) Cosmic rays / RadiationSo how to shield from radiation on a long flight?Water Walls. A magnetosphere protects earthlings and even ISS astronauts, but there’s no natural radiation shield for the Mars voyage.NASA has a Water Walls project. The nuclei in atoms block cosmic rays; and water molecules, made of three small atoms, contain more nuclei per volume than even metal. Water in polyethylene bags could create a 15-inch thick shield. But when NASA tested the system in 2011, they found it was not as efficient in orbit.Water Walls provides four principal functions of processing cells in four different types plus the common function of radiation shielding: 1. Gray water processing for urine and wash water,2. Black water processing for solid waste,3. Air processing for CO2 removal and O2 revitalization,4. Food growth using green algae, and5. Provide radiation protection to the crew habitat (all cells). 4) Higher speed (about 30,000 mph) earth re-entry than ever beforeAs a result of its slingshot, the spacecraft will be traveling so fast it’ll need to spend 10 days in orbit just to lose speed. After that, it’ll still be traveling at a record 14 kilometers (about 8 miles) per second when it hits Earth’s atmosphere – a higher velocity than anything manmade has ever had during re-entry. NASA will help design the re-entry path and heat shields to protect Inspiration’s astronauts.A normal conservative approach for validating a man rated system (after all the mockups and simulations) would be to have several full scale live tests. Full scale high speed tests of earth re-entry would be expensive to perform. It seems to actually perform a full scale test you would need to launch something that would slingshot around the moon and then have more rockets and fuel to increase speed before re-entry.
- This image from NASA's Curiosity rover shows the first sample of powdered rock extracted by the rover's drill. The image was obtained by Curiosity's Mast Camera on Feb. 20, or Sol 193, Curiosity's 193rd Martian day of operations.CREDIT: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS NASA says the evidence is that Mars could have supported life.http://www.space.com/20182-ancient-mars-microbes-curiosity-rover.htmlIt's official: Primitive life could have lived on ancient Mars, NASA says.A sample of Mars drilled from a rock by NASA's Curiosity rover and then studied by onboard instruments "shows ancient Mars could have supported living microbes," NASA officials announced today (March 12) in a statement and press conference.The discovery comes just seven months after Curiosity landed on Mars to spend at least two years determining if the planet could ever have hosted primitive life. To be clear, the new find is not evidence that Martian life has ever actually existed; Curiosity carries no life-detection instruments among its scientific gear."A fundamental question for this mission is whether Mars could have supported a habitable environment," said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program at the agency's headquarters in Washington. "From what we know now, the answer is yes.”Curiosity drilled into a rock on Feb. 8, boring 2.5 inches (6.4 centimeters) into an outcrop called John Klein using its arm-mounted hammering drill — deeper than any robot had ever dug into the Red Planet before. Two weeks later, the rover transferred the resulting gray powder sample into two onboard instruments called Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) and Sample Analysis at Mars, or SAM.CheMin and SAM identified some of the key chemical ingredients for life in this dust, including sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon, researchers said. Intriguingly, the mix also suggested a possible energy source for indigenous Martian life, if any ever existed in the area."The range of chemical ingredients we have identified in the sample is impressive, and it suggests pairings such as sulfates and sulfides that indicate a possible chemical energy source for micro-organisms," Paul Mahaffy, SAM principal investigator at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., said in a statement.The fine-grained John Klein rock also contains clay minerals, suggesting a long-ago aqueous environment — perhaps a lake — that was neutral and not too salty, researchers said."We have found a habitable environment that is so benign and supportive of life that probably — if this water was around and you had been on the planet, you would have been able to drink it," said Curiosity chief scientist John Grotzinger, of Caltech in Pasadena. Exactly when this water flowed or pooled is unknown, Grotzinger added, though it was likely at least three billion years ago or so
- Project Icarus President Richard Obousy gave an overview of the projects and work of the Icarus interstellar starship studies to the Centuari Dreams website.Project Icarus is an engineering challenge and designer capability exercise to design an unmanned fusion based, interstellar starship capable of exploring a star system within 15 light-years. The total mission duration is limited to a maximum of 100 years from launch. This study started in September 2009 and is being conducted by an international team of volunteer physicists, engineers, and other suitably qualified people. http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=26699Project Forward, Beamed Propulsion Starship StudyProject Forward, led by Dr. Jim Benford, is a parallel study performed by members of Icarus Interstellar and affiliated organizations with expertise in the field of beamed propulsion. The study involves:1) Analyzing past concepts to see if they are off-optimal, in terms of the recent cost-optimized model, so can be improved. Then quantify such improved sail system concepts.2) Exploring properties of materials that are being used for solar sails or have been suggested for beam-powered sails to determine their practicality. In particular, studying their properties in several domains of EM (microwave, millimeter wave, laser) to find out what accelerations they are limited to due to heating in the beam.3) Quantifying an alternate use of sails-deceleration of sail probes from a fusion-powered starship as it approaches stellar systems.----Most studies of interstellar craft focus on vessels that are unmanned. This is because the task of starship construction is considered sufficiently challenging without the additional complexity of creating an environment where humans could survive for decades or even centuries.Project Hyperion, led by Andreas Hein, tackles this specific challenge head on is performing a preliminary study that defines concepts for a crewed interstellar starship. Major areas of study include propulsion, environmental control, life support, social studies related to crewed multi-decadal/multi-century missions, habitat studies, communications, psychology of deep spaceflight, mission objectives, and the ethics of sending humans to the stars. -------Project Persephone, Living Architectures for WorldshipsProject Persephone, led by TED Fellow Dr. Rachel Armstrong is considering the application of living technologies such a protocells and programmable smart chemistries, in the context of habitable starship architecture that can respond and evolve according to the needs of its inhabitants.Project Bifrost. Emerging Nuclear Space Technologies ProjectThe Icarus NST Program led by Tabitha Smith has the long-term goals of tangible NST deliverables such as (1) The creation of RTGs, (2) Creation of Nuclear Engines (Thermal and/or Electric) and (3) Partnership with the US Government for Pulsed Nuclear Propulsion use for Starship.The Helius Experiment, Experimental Starship Systems ResearchThe Helius Experiment, led by Rob Swinney, has the objective of conducting small scale experimental research on systems integral to the development of interstellar spacecraft. Some specific objectives are to develop engineering designs and small scale pulsed propulsion prototypes, optical systems used in beamed propulsion, radiators and other heat rejection methods simulating the rejection of megawatt power systems to be used for interstellar travel.Project Tin Tin, Interstellar NanoSat Research and DevelopmentTin Tin, led by Dr. Andreas Tziolas, is conducting design, research and experimental studies relating to the use of nanosats for interstellar exploration, including modular interstellar systems testing. Project Tin Tin is a collaborative effort between the Kickstart program, Team Phoenicia, The British Interplanetary Society and Icarus Interstellar.X-Physics Propulsion & Power Project (XP4)XP4, led by myself, is a group organized to explore deep future propulsion and energy generation concepts including, but not limited to, the manipulation of spacetime (warp drive/wormhole metrics) and the exploration of the quantum vacuum as a possible energy source.Longshot II, Student Research ProjectLongshot II, led by students Divya Shankar and Tiffany Frierson is a revisit of the 1987 Project Longshot unmanned interstellar probe mission conducted by NASA sponsored summer graduate students. Our Icarus Interstellar student designers are currently revisiting the project, correcting mistakes, incorporating omissions and updating the technology to the current state of the art.