So, North Korea made another attempt at orbiting a satellite, and it ended up in the drink again, the first stage fell in the Sea of Japan, as intended, but the second stage and payload flew over Japan and then landed in the Pacific Ocean….OOPS!!!
*What can I say, I make sure to watch all the shows that my kids do, so I know the show…..I actually find it amusing.
So, the National Reconnaissance Office and Space Command are looking to set up a ground based laser system to clean up space debris. (paid subscription required)
And I’m Anna Nicole Smith….This isn’t an attempt to set up a cleaning system, this is an attempt to develop a laser based anti-satellite weapon, not withstanding their fig leaf of some sort of multinational effort:
To help offset such a negative reaction, [Andrew Palowitch, director of the “Space Protection Program”]Palowitch says, five lasers could be built and installed in five countries—Russia, China, India, France and the U.S. All would be operated by an international consortium with “everybody participating equally with free access to the particular sites in a coordinated activity.”
Propose a regime, that you could never get the French to agree to, much less China, and then go and develop a satellite zapper on your own.
Seriously, how stupid do they think that we are?
Because Indian scientists are working out how to put curry in space.
I volunteer as a test subject.
So, it appears that we have yet another aspect of NASA’s Orion moon program, the heat shield, where the original material, Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator (PICA) has been replaced with an updated version of Avcoat, which was used in the original Apollo capsule.
The PICA heat shield was delivered late, and looked to be overkill for what should be the primary mission of the spacecraft, low earth orbit, with a focus on servicing the space station.
This is a reversal from the decision made in 2006 by both NASA and Lockheed-Martin, the prime contractor, to go with PICA, and that should have been the end of the story, only the preliminary design review (PDR) also scheduled for that year has still not been held, and Avcoat showed lighter weight than the original, along with significant reductions in the toxic substances used in its manufacture.
Confused? So is NASA, so it seems.
*The first two lines of the Talking Heads song Road to Nowhere. It’s a metaphor for NASA.
So, it looks like India is looking to join the man-in-space club, unveiling a 3 person capsule.
I’m not sure why, but I get the sense that there is a lot of Russian/Soviet lineage in the design.
I’m not sure why it gives me that sense, but it does.
* Seriously, first an Iridium and a Cosmos satellite collide in orbit spewing debris all around the immediate vicinity, and now French and British boomers (SSBNs) have collided.
This is just weird.The HMS Vanguard and Le Triomphant, each carrying 16 missiles, and an indeterminate number of warhead struck each other in the middle of nowhere:
Not only did it occur in the open ocean, as opposed to a choke point like a port or the Straights of Gibralter, but it was two SSBNs.
If one had been an attack submarine, I could see it, because you would have a “friendly” tracking exercise, but this is not the task of the SSBN.
Yes, I know about the story of the Leningrad elephant, but it’s just weird.
*Tin foil hat image swiped from Attytood.
We have both the report from Iran, and a report from JSR that they have observed the satellite and 2nd stage in orbit.
So it appears that they actually did it this time.
If you look at the launch (video below), I notice something odd, no ice, which implies the use of less efficient room-temperature propellants, which makes the technology more applicable to military uses, as it can be stored fully fueled in as silo or on the back of a TEL.*
*Transporter/Erector/Launcher
And why the first step of of the Obama administration should be to fire NASA administrator Michael Griffin.
He’s still lobbying aggressively for his pet project the Ares launcher, claiming that keeping the shuttle flying will cost $3 billion per year and have a one in 8 risk of another fatal accident, so we need to accelerate the Ares.
The fact is that there is a man-rated system that can meet the needs of space station servicing, the Russian Soyuz, in the interim, and not withstanding his arguments that the atmospherics of relying on a foreign system somehow or other diminish US prestige, this has been the sort of self destructive behavior that has characterized NASA since the shuttle, where they decimated existing capabilities in order to insure that there was no viable alternative.
Obama should be announcing a replacement for Griffin sooner, not later.
It now appears that people in the Pentagon and in NASA are feedinb Obama and his transition team scare stories about a Chinese manned program to the moon:
President-elect Barack Obama will probably tear down long-standing barriers between the U.S.’s civilian and military space programs to speed up a mission to the moon amid the prospect of a new space race with China.
The argument is that the Chinese will be able to put a man back on the moon before the US’s goal of 2020.
It should be noted that planting a flag on the moon means nothing.
That China is making strides in space development is true, and the military implications are a legitimate concern, and the idea of replacing NASA’s Ares vehicles with existing vehicles, which means military launchers because NASA has meticulously destroyed the opposition on their end, is a good thing.
But this whole “race to the moon” thing is 6 pounds of sh%$ in a 5 pound bag.
If Obama and his team believe this, I have some ballots in Florida for them to count.
The USAF has announced a “restructuring” of the Transformational Satellite Communications System which will delay the launch of the first satellite from 2013 to 2019.
It’s supposed to replace MILSTAR, and it is suppose to have 100 times the bandwidth, and from what I know of the “systems of systems” that is supposed to be the new networked military, this capability is very much a part of it.
And now it’s been delayed 6 years.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
When I was in college, I recall, reading about a British program called HOTOL (Horizontal Take-Off and Landing, click picture to be taken to a page on it) which was supposed to use a “liquid air” engine in order to more efficiently reach orbit.
A short description of the cycle was that it was fueled with LH2 and for much of the way up, it would use the cold liquid hydrogen to extract liquid oxygen out of the air.
It got canceled, or more accurately, when the program ended it was not taken to the next phase.
I kind of figured that technical issues, my guess at the time (which appears to be wrong) was getting the heat exchangers small enough and light enough.
The real problem appeared to be that the engine was heavy, and in an aft mounting configuration, maintaining the center of lift far enough aft compromised performance.
In any case, a company called Reaction Engines are having another go at the concept with the Skylon, (paid subscription required) , which uses the Sabre (Synergic Air-Breathing Engine).*
As is clear from the picture, they dealt with the CG issues by placing the heavy engines at the center of lift on the wing tips.
It’s supposed to function as an air-breather until it reaches 30km altitude and “around Mach 5”, and then function as a normal liquid fueled rocket the rest of the way up to orbit.
They are looking at testing a 9% scale precooler (left) in January on a test stand, using a RR Viper turbojet behind the cooler (left below)
There are two problems with Liquid Air Cycle Engines (LACE), hydrogen embrittlement of the heat exchanger, and condensation of water and CO2 on the heat exchanger, which will plug it up.
It solves these problems by not cooling the air to full liquid state, but instead having a high-pressure turbo compressor behind the air to liquefy it, and by using helium as an intermediate medium for the heat exchanger, along with an unspecified proprietary frost control technique. (bottom pic)
It’s a neat concept, but I’m dubious of any project that is not fully funded, or almost fully funded by government sources, and at this point, they are getting just a trickle from the British National Space Center and the the European Space Agency (ESA).
*Let me note here that the Brits come up with cool names.
Well, it appears that NASA has created an robotic nose to sniff the air in the space station.
It’s called the ENose, but as all Futurama fans, yours truly included, know, it should be called the Smell-O-Scope.
This is actually fairly well trodden ground, with an F-15 launching an anti-satellite weapon in the 1980s, and concepts using a MiG-31 to launch microsats in the past few years.
What looks like fuel tanks under the wings are actually solid rocket boosters, which is a bit of a change from earlier configurations.
While the F-15 did successfully intercept a satellite (that was still putting out good scientific data…oops), nothing has come of this otherwise.
I’ve mentioned the technology before, and now it appears that the VASIMR plasma drive has hit a major milestone in the lab. The first stage (helicon) of the system has hit its rated 30 KW power.
Thrust levels are relatively low, though they are high compared to something like Ion, around 10N in low ISP mode, and in the 100mN range in high ISP mode.
The developer of this technology, Ad Astra Rocket Company, hopes to get a space-rated model to the ISS in the next few years to validate performance in space.
Picture pr0n:
VASIMR Space Craft Concept
I believe that the spacecraft shown uses nuclear power for propulsion requirements.
I am, of course referring to NASA’s Ares manned vehicle, which has hit yet another snag.
First, the rocket was not powerful enough, then it threatened to shake its occupants to death, and now it appears that the interface with the tower is such that it could hit or significantly the launch gantry tower (launch drift).
A fix to the launch pad configuration would take over a year and require money not in the budget.
Jeebus, what a clusterf%$#….Guys, it’s not like this is rocket science…Oh, wait…It IS rocket science, isn’t it?
The real lesson from all this is just how much damage was done to NASA by the space shuttle. It’s been hollowed out as an organization.
This is a good place to start, and the rather extensive footnotes are useful too.
This worries me, I think that Martians might interpret this as a belligerent act.
On the other hand, this bit of video pr0n of the system in action mars is amusing:
I will note that the deployment system seems byzantinely complex, and hence subject to failure at multiple points.
It’s called a UltraFlex solar array, and it looks like the photovoltaics are mounted on mylar or something similar.
It’s intended for the Orion crew exploration vehicle, which is intended to, among other things, carry a crew to the moon.
Cool system:
With Dr. Hubert J. Farnsworth’s Smell-o-Scope, but, “NASA has commissioned a British chemist to recreate the fragrance of outer space,” for astronauts in training.
This will actually be a difficult job, as the smell has been described as, “smell of fried steak, hot metal and even welding a motorbike.”
Is space no one can smell you…….I dunno…any suggestions for a twist on the Alien catch phrase?
The British Defence Ministry is looking at fielding its own satellite reconnaissance assets.
Up to now, it has been using either US military assets or civilian assets for its space imaging needs. It looks like Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (currently in the process of being taken over by EADS Astrium) is the most likely candidate for the program with its SSTL-200 (pictured), which currently has a 2.5m resolution, though improvements to sub-meter resolution are thought to be possible.
As always, the problem is funding, with a price tag starting at £100M, which would have to come from elsewhere in the defense (defence) budget, particularly given the budgetary needs caused by the financial meltdown.