Bezos says space industry stalwarts will help Blue Origin build moon lander – Spaceflight Now

Jeff Bezos, founder of Blue Origin, speaks Tuesday at the International Astronautical Congress in Washington. Credit: Stephen Clark/Spaceflight Now

Blue Origin has partnered with Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman to build elements of the companys human-rated lunar lander, and Draper will lead development of the landers avionics and guidance systems, with an aim to be ready to land a crew on the moon by 2024, company founder Jeff Bezos announced Tuesday.

In the first major update on the companys lander program since May, Bezos said Blue Origin has assembled a national team of aerospace contractors to develop, build and fly the three-stage spacecraft, which is based on Blue Origins previous work on the Blue Moon landing system.

Blue Origin is the prime contractor, Lockheed Martin is building the ascent stage, Northrop Grumman is building the transfer element and Draper is doing the GNC (guidance, navigation and control), Bezos said Tuesday at the International Astronautical Congress in Washington. We could not ask for better partners. Blue Origin, in addition to being the prime, is going to build the descent element.

Blue Origin is competing for a NASA contract to develop a crewed lunar lander, or Human Landing System, for the Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the surface of the moon by the end of 2024.

During his presentation Tuesday, Bezos emphasized that bold ambitions in space require the support of an industry, and not individual companies.

This is a national team for a national priority, said Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon and Blue Origin. I could not be more excited to be doing it with these partners. This is the kind of thing thats so ambitious that it needs to be done with partners. This is the only way to get back to the moon fast, and this time were not going back to the moon to visit, were going back to the moon to stay.

The three-element landers descent stage will be powered by Blue Origins throttleable BE-7 engine, which burns super-cold liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants. The Northrop Grumman-made transfer vehicle will also use the BE-7 engine, Bezos said.

While Blue Origin did not confirm plans to use NASAs planned Gateway station in lunar orbit, the inclusion of a transfer module indicates the company intends to use the the mini-space station as a staging base for landing missions. Under NASAs approach, astronauts will lift off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida inside an Orion crew capsule on top of the Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket, then dock with the Gateway and board their moon lander.

The transfer module would guide the lander from the Gateways high lunar orbit closer to the moon, where the landing module will begin a powered descent to the surface.

Bezos did not discuss the propulsion system for the reusable ascent module, made by Lockheed Martin, where astronauts will ride during the lunar landing and the launch off of the moon. Lockheed Martin will leads crewed flight operations and training for the lander, and a company spokesperson said the ascent module will incorporate technology Lockheed Martin has developed for the Orion crew capsule.

The reusable ascent module element will be capable of multiple trips to and from the moon.

Lockheed Martin has been honored to help NASA explore space for more than 50 years, providing deep space robotic missions, planetary landers, space shuttle heritage and the Orion exploration spacecraft,said Rick Ambrose, executive vice president for Lockheed Martins space business.We value Blue Origins thoughtful approach to developing human-rated flight systems, and are thrilled to be part of a national team with this mix of innovation and experience. We look forward to safely and sustainably returning our nation to the surface of the moon by 2024.

Lockheed Martin is, as far as I know, the only company that actually lands on the surface of Mars, Bezos said. They are unbelievably competent in space. They are experts in life support systems, so to have their expertise on the ascent element is a really big deal.

Northrop Grumman, through its predecessorGrumman Aircraft Engineering Corp., built the Apollo lunar module that performed six successful landings on the moon with astronauts from 1969 through 1972.

We are one step closer to meeting NASAs goal to get the first American woman and the next American man to the surface of the moon by 2024, said Frank DeMauro, vice president and general manager of Northrop Grummans space systems division. This team brings the best technical and program talent together in the industry to deliver on NASAs ambitious timeline.

Draper is doing the guidance and control, an incredibly complex job for landing on the moon, especially when you want to do a precision landing. Of course, they did that for the original Apollo program way back, but today it will be done in a completely new way, Bezos said.

The Draper guidance system will use computer vision to perform precision landings on the moon using landmarks for navigation, according to Bezos.

When the nation needs precision guidance, it calls on Draper,said Kaigham Gabriel, president and CEO of Draper. We guided Apollo to the moon and back nearly 50 years ago. Were ready to do it again with the Blue Origin team for Artemis.

Bezos also updated test achievements on the new BE-7 engine destined to fly on the lunar lander. The engine, which produces up to 10,000 pounds of thrust, has logged 13 minutes of run time since June, with a longest continuing firing of three minutes.

NASAs deadline for industry proposals for the Human Landing System is Nov. 1. The landers will be developed, owned and operated commercially. NASA plans to select up to four companies for study contracts late this year or in early 2020, then down-select to two contractor teams in late 2020 to proceed with full development of a human-rated lander. Agency officials will later decide which of the two development teams will attempt the first landing in 2024, followed by a second landing mission in 2025.

In the interest of rapid development, NASA has also relaxed requirements for the early human-rated lunar landers to be reusable. NASA eventually wants to reuse landers on missions ferrying astronauts between the moons surface and the Gateway space station in lunar orbit, where the spacecraft could be refueled for multiple landings.

NASA is not planning to conduct an unpiloted demonstration of the lander without astronauts on-board before committing a human crew to a descent to the moon, and the agency will not require the initial set of commercial landers to be based at the Gateway.

NASA has limited the time for companies to submit their proposals to one month.

Thirty days, said Marshall Smith, NASAs director of human lunar exploration programs, during a presentation to a NASA Academies advisory board last month. We know its crazy, but so is 2024, I suppose. So were all working very fast.

Email the author.

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

Link:

Bezos says space industry stalwarts will help Blue Origin build moon lander - Spaceflight Now

Army astronaut to military medical students: You will solve the health issues of extended space flight – ArmyTimes.com

Army Col. Drew Morgans list of accomplishments is extensive: graduate of West Point and member of the schools title-winning parachute team; ER doctor; battalion surgeon for 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne), where he maintained his flight, dive and airborne qualifications; deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa; husband; father ... and NASA astronaut currently aboard the International Space Station.

Yet Morgan, who was hurtling through space at 17,150 miles per hour Wednesday and completed a harrowing 7-hour space walk earlier this month, choked up at the beginning of a live link with students from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, in Bethesda, Maryland, where he is an alumnus.

Its such an honor to be with you. I have tears in my eyes, Morgan said, holding up a pennant bearing the USUHS logo. The Uniformed Services University is a center of excellence for military medicine, and Im so proud to be a part of your team.

Morgan has been in space since July 20, when he, Russian cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov and Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano blasted off from Kazakhstan in a Soyuz MS spacecraft. Like all astronauts on the ISS, Morgan is a jack-of-all-trades, conducting spacewalks, working on robotics, repairing the stations systems and managing research.

But on Wednesday, he took time out to discuss what its like to be in space with soon-to-be military physicians.

Commissioned in 1998, Morgans spent several tours overseas, deploying with special operations forces to Afghanistan, Iraq and several African countries. On those deployments, he used his skills as an emergency medical doctor to set bones, stitch wounds and save lives. In space, however, he uses his hands to install refrigerator-sized batteries on the outside of the space station, run experiments and occasionally deals with bumps, bruises and other minor ailments that affect astronauts.

An additional duty is crew medical officer, so when there is a physician on board, obviously Im a natural choice for that," he said.

When hes not conducting long space walks, Morgan largely is doing research, with more than 300 experiments on the ISS, including biological and human studies that have a goal of facilitating medical breakthroughs and understanding the effects of long-duration space travel.

Sign up for the Army Times Daily News Roundup Don't miss the top Army stories, delivered each afternoon

Subscribe

Enter a valid email address (please select a country) United States United Kingdom Afghanistan Albania Algeria American Samoa Andorra Angola Anguilla Antarctica Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Bouvet Island Brazil British Indian Ocean Territory Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile China Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia Comoros Congo Congo, The Democratic Republic of The Cook Islands Costa Rica Cote D'ivoire Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Faroe Islands Fiji Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guadeloupe Guam Guatemala Guinea Guinea-bissau Guyana Haiti Heard Island and Mcdonald Islands Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq Ireland Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Lao People's Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macao Macedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Mexico Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco Mongolia Montserrat Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands Netherlands Antilles New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway Oman Pakistan Palau Palestinian Territory, Occupied Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Pitcairn Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Reunion Romania Russian Federation Rwanda Saint Helena Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Pierre and Miquelon Saint Vincent and The Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Georgia and The South Sandwich Islands Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Svalbard and Jan Mayen Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand Timor-leste Togo Tokelau Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States United States Minor Outlying Islands Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela Viet Nam Virgin Islands, British Virgin Islands, U.S. Wallis and Futuna Western Sahara Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe

Thanks for signing up!

By giving us your email, you are opting in to the Army Times Daily News Roundup.

This past summer, the ISS acquired a biological 3D printer a BioFabrication Facility, or BFF to print human tissue from adult human cells and tissue-derived proteins, with an aim to eventual fabricate complex tissues, like organs, in space where gravity isnt a factor in supporting tissue shapes.

He and his fellow space travelers also are working on experiments using novel protein crystals that show potential for developing cancer medications and medications to fight Alzheimers and Parkinsons, he said.

Theres a lot of relevance for military medicine, Morgan told the students. When we grow tissues in culture on Earth we are required to use a scaffold. With [this] we are able to potentially grow structures we wouldnt be able to do on earth, it has some real potential and applications.

In earlier interviews, Morgan said his interest in space began as a child in Texas, where he saw the space shuttle fly overhead. In fourth grade, he was required to write a letter to a famous Texan; he chose Apollo astronaut Alan Bean, who actually wrote him back, and the seed was planted.

On Wednesday, he told the military medical students he wanted first to be a soldier. Then, while at the U.S. Military Academy, he decided to become a doctor. Finally, after serving with and caring for soldiers, he revisited his childhood dream to become an astronaut. He began training for his current flight since 2013.

Many of the experiments Morgan works on aboard the ISS focus on developing technologies and solutions for longer space missions, including NASAs Artemis program to put the first woman and another man on the Moon by 2024, as well as extended exploration of the lunar surface and eventually, sending astronauts to Mars.

Morgan said it would be doctors in this room who will help guide the medical research and health care needed to care for those future space travelers.

The room you are sitting in is filled with people who are going to help us tackle some of these problems of how we deal with surgical emergencies far away. Is this something well do robotically with remote guidance or is this something that well have a crew member trained ... so they could comfortably perform a surgical operation? I dont know that we know how we are going to deal with that yet, he said.

Since arriving at the ISS, Morgan has conducted three spacewalks, including one on Oct. 6 with fellow NASA astronaut Christina Koch, during which he lost some material on the palm of his glove a potential threat to his protective space suits integrity. His tether became snarled on the ISS as he returned after a long day to the airlock, and the pair installed a battery that later was found to be broken.

Morgan said he relies heavily on his special operations training, first during his NASA training, and now, when potentially life-threatening problems occur.

Out-of-the-box thinking is one of the hallmarks of special operations always being the thought leader, on the cutting edge of how to solve problems under ambiguous circumstances with limited resources, Morgan said. [In Special Forces training], humans are more important than hardware. The emphasis is put on our people and developing them. Its something NASA does well and it was part of my operational skill set.

In the audience on Wednesday were two of Morgans former Army medics, Army 2nd Lt. Steve Radloff and Army Master Sgt. Daniel Morissette. Radloff is a 4th year medical student at USUHS; Morissette is in the schools Enlisted to Medical Degree Preparatory Program, hoping attend USUHS next year.

Radloff asked what lessons Morgan learned on crisis management on board the ISS, but Morgan was so excited to hear from him that he forgot the question.

You are some of the finest examples of medical professionals I have ever encountered," he said to his former medics. The greatest honor of my life was serving alongside you guys and many medics just like you. It warms my heart to see you so successful there.

Morissette later said Morgans heartfelt reply to Radloff was just one example of his humility.

Hes always been supportive of me, of what I was trying to achieve, regardless of what he had going on. When I was applying for this program, he was in the midst of his train-up for his launch, and he made time [to help me], Morissette said.

With his wife, Stacey, and four children at home, Morgan has, and will, miss many events while in space: anniversaries, sports games, school achievements, holidays. On Wednesday, Navy Ensign Ted Johnson reminded him he also will miss the Army-Navy football game on Dec. 14.

Good afternoon, Col. Morgan, my name is Ensign Ted Johnson, USU Class of 22, Naval Academy Class of 18, Go Navy, Beat Army, Johnson said.

Not likely, Morgan retorted.

Morgan and Parmitano are scheduled to make five spacewalks in November to repair the ISSs Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, or AMS, cosmic-ray detector. All space walks can be watched live on NASA TV.

Read more:

Army astronaut to military medical students: You will solve the health issues of extended space flight - ArmyTimes.com

Virgin Galactic is set to trade on the NYSE on Monday as the first space tourism stock – CNBC

VSS Unity First Powered Flight, April 5, 2018

Virgin Galactic

Private space tourism is about to go public.

Shareholders approved Virgin Galactic's merger with one of Chamath Palihapitiya's ventures on Wednesday, according to SEC filings, setting up the space tourism company to list directly on the New York Stock Exchange on Monday.

Virgin Galactic will become the first human spaceflight company to trade on public markets.

The merger was announced in July, with Palihapitiya's Social Capital Hedosophia taking a 49% stake in Virgin Galactic. The merger gives the combined company a valuation of $1.5 billion, with Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson retaining a 51% controlling stake.

Palihapitiya's company already trades on the NYSE, under the ticker IPOA. The filing said the company expects the merger with Virgin to close on Friday. After the closing, the shares will trade under the ticker symbol SPCE at the NYSE on Monday.

Branson hinted to CNBC in an interview last week that Virgin Galactic's public debut was coming soon. "It's not long now," he said during the company's unveiling of its spacewear collection with Under Armour.

Virgin Galactic's spacecraft can carry six passengers and two pilots to the edge of space. The spaceship is dropped from a jet-powered aircraft and fires a rocket motor, reaching over three times the speed of sound as it climbs though Earth's atmosphere. The spacecraft and its passengers then float weightless for a few minutes, before gliding back down to land on Earth much like a traditional aircraft.

A ticket for a Virgin Galactic flight goes for about $250,000 per person, and the company has a list of 603 customers waiting to fly.

Special purpose vehicles, known as SPACs, raise capital to buy an existing company. In Social Capital Hedosophia's case, Palihapitiya's SPAC is buying just under half of the company to help it enter the public market. Palihapitiya is founder of Social Capital and had been an early executive at Facebook.

Read the rest here:

Virgin Galactic is set to trade on the NYSE on Monday as the first space tourism stock - CNBC

Now You Can Buy The Worlds First Spaceship Stock – Forbes

Rumor has it, pop star Justin Bieber and actor Leonardo DiCaprio are taking a trip to outer space...

It sounds like a sci-fi movie, but have you heard of Virgin Galactic? Founded by British billionaire Richard Branson, the company has built the worlds first spaceship.

Let me be clear...

Its not just an idea. Its not just a concept. Its not just a glorified airplane.

Its a real, working SPACESHIP tested and approved by the US Federal Aviation Administration.

Last December, this spaceship completed a successful test flight with two astronauts and a passenger on board. It blasted to the edge of earths atmosphere, 51.4 miles up then safely landed just outside Orlando, Florida.

Now, the company is preparing to launch the first commercial space flight in history, which is expected to take off as soon as 2020.

For the first time, civilians will have a chance to shuttle around in outer space.

The good news is you can be one of the first investors to buy the worlds first spaceship stock. And as Ill explain its an investment opportunity you should take seriously, just like these three I told you about before.

Virgin Galactic is an ultra-luxury tourism company, for now...

Virgin Galactic has already sold out its first batch of 600 flight tickets for a hefty fare of $250,000 collecting over $80 million. Another 1,500+ rich folks are on the waiting list.

As I mentioned before, the first passengers include celebrities like pop star Justin Bieber and actor Leonardo DiCaprio

Which led investors to label Virgin Galactic an ultra-luxury tourism company. Ive heard folks compare it to companies renting 300-foot-long yachts or private islands.

But make no mistake, Virgin Galactics ships are much more than a playground for rich people. Thats just step one in its plan to disrupt the space industry.

Space tourism is just a testing ground

Virgin Galactic has a unique business model that will let it earn hundreds of millions of dollars right out of the gate.

As a testing ground, it will sell its space flights to very rich folks as an expensive vacation.

And believe it or not, theres a huge market for this service.

The company says it needs to fly only 1,000 people a year to be a viable business. As I mentioned, there are already 1,500 on its waitlist and the company has barely marketed the concept at all.

If Virgin Galactic pulls this off, it will rake in $250 million in its first year as a public company. Thats 2X more than Amazon and Apple earned in their first years combined, as you can see below

RiskHedge

While the company rakes in hundreds of millions of dollars by pleasing ultra-rich folks, it will quietly start preparing for the next phase of space travel.

Virgin Galactic is coming to disrupt dreaded long-haul flights

Virgin Galactic sees an opportunity to disrupt long-haul travel by flying folks through outer space.

These flights can potentially get you from, say, New York to Tokyo in two hours as opposed to the 14 hours it takes today. And the company is making great strides toward it.

Virgin Galactic has recently joined forces with Boeing, the worlds largest plane-maker. They are developing a commercial spaceship that will travel at 5X the speed of sound 7X faster than todays commercial planes.

Within a decade, space travel will be a $23 billion industry and threaten airlines, according to UBS. And Virgin Galactic is positioned to be the unquestioned leader in this space.

Virgin Galactic is quietly tapping into an $800 billion industry

Air travel is an $800 billion a year industry. UBS estimates the space industry will be worth $805 billion by 2030. And space travel is just a tiny part of it.

Virgin Galactic is planning to use its spaceships to conduct science experiments, launch small satellites, and bring other cargo to space.

The possibilities are endless.

For example, president of Virgin Galactic Will Whitehorn thinks we could put computer servers powering the internet in space quite easily.

You see whats happening?

Most investors dismiss Virgin Galactics space flights as a gimmick. But the company is actually an up-and-coming space giant.

How to buy the worlds first commercial space stock

Earlier this year, Virgin Galactic announced it would merge with Social Capital Hedosophia (IPOA), a publicly traded shell company. The company will buy a 49% stake in Virgin Galactic.

That makes Social Capital Hedosophia the first publicly traded space stock available to the public.

I have to warn you, though.

The upside of this company is limitless. You would be buying into the very early stage of the company as well as the commercial space industry.

Social Capital Hedosophia is worth a little shy of a billion today, and its going after an $800 billion industry. Theres plenty of room for the company to grow 10X or more.

It could be like investing in Boeing right after it rolled the first Boeing 707 out of the hangar in 1957 a moment that changed aviation for good.

That said, Virgin Galactic has a very small margin for error. Any accident threatening human lives could send Virgin Galactic stock plunging down.

My recommendation: Put a small position in this stock, just like I did a couple of months ago. Make it small enough that big a drop in its price wouldnt hurt you badly.

Get our report"The Great Disruptors:3 Breakthrough Stocks Set to Double Your Money".These stocks will hand you 100% gains as they disrupt whole industries.Get your free copy here.

See the rest here:

Now You Can Buy The Worlds First Spaceship Stock - Forbes

Rocket Lab Aims for the Moon and Beyond with New Photon Satellite Platform – Space.com

WASHINGTON Rocket Lab is shooting for the moon. Literally.

The small-satellite launch startup announced today (Oct. 21) that its new Photon satellite platform will be able to fly small spacecraft on deep-space missions to the moon and beyond. The plan will combine Rocket Lab's workhorse Electron rocket with Photon, a vehicle designed to provide end-to-end spaceflight services for customer payloads.

The move, Rocket Lab says, will allow the company to go beyond low Earth orbit (LEO) and bring "medium, geostationary, and lunar orbiters within reach for small satellites," according to a statement. To reach the moon, the company will add what it calls a "bulk maneuver stage" to the Electron-Photon combo to allow lunar flyby and moon-orbiting missions.

Video: Watch Rocket Lab Launch Its Highest Flight Ever!More: Rocket Lab Gearing Up for 1st Launches from US Soil in Early 2020

NASA plans to return astronauts to the moon by 2024, and Rocket Lab sees small satellites playing a major role in that effort.

"Small satellites will play a crucial role in science and exploration, as well as providing communications and navigation infrastructure to support returning humans to the moon," Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck said in the statement. "In the same way we opened access to LEO for smallsats,RocketLabis poised to become the dedicated ride to the Moon and beyond for small satellites."

Rocket Lab unveiled the Photon satellite platform in April at the 35th Space Symposiumin Colorado Springs, Colorado. The vehicle is an evolution of the company's "kick stage," a single-engine craft used to deliver payloads into their final circular orbits around Earth, and is expected carry payloads of up to 375 lbs. (170 kilograms) for up to five years, Rocket Lab has said.

The first Photon mission could fly by late 2020, company representatives said today.

The company's 57-foot-tall (17 meters) Electron booster made its launch debut in 2017 and is designed to launch payloads of up to 500 lbs. (227 kg) into low Earth orbit for $5 million per flight. To date, the company has launched nine missions, including its highest mission yet, which lifted off last week.

That mission, called "As The Crow Flies," lifted off from Rocket Lab's Launch Site 1 on New Zealand's Mahia Peninsula on Oct. 17 local time. It delivered a small satellite called Palisade into an orbit 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) above Earth for customer Astro Digital.

Meanwhile, Rocket Lab is busy building its second launchpad, called Launch Site 2, at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia. The company is also aims to eventually reuse the first stage of its Electron boosters. To do that, it is developing a method to have the booster parachute back to Earth and catch it in mid-air with a helicopter.

Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him @tariqjmalik. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Read more here:

Rocket Lab Aims for the Moon and Beyond with New Photon Satellite Platform - Space.com

Here’s What China’s Yutu 2 Rover Found on the Far Side of the Moon (Photos) – Space.com

The China Lunar Exploration Program has released a photo from the Yutu 2 moon rover that reveals the likely nature of a previously unidentified material.

The rover part of the Chang'e 4 mission, which in January completed the first-ever soft landing on the far side of the moon made the discovery in July. Earlier reports on the few published details captured widespread interest.

The photo taken by Yutu 2's main camera shows the center of a crater containing material that is colored differently than its surroundings and that contains bright spots. The image was released by Our Space, a Chinese-language science-outreach publication, via its Weibo social media account on Oct. 8.

Related: Chang'e 4 in Pictures: China's Mission to the Moon's Far Side

A desaturated, high-contrast version of the material viewed by Yutu 2.

(Image credit: CNSA/CLEP/NASA/GSFC/Dan Moriarty)

While gaining the attention of the Yutu 2 team, the material does not appear altogether mysterious, as claimed by Chinese media.

Clive Neal, a lunar scientist at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, told Space.com that the new image reinforces the previous suggestion that the material is broadly similar in nature to a sample of impact glass found during the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.

Sample 70019, collected by astronaut and trained geologist Harrison "Jack" Schmitt, is made of dark, broken fragments of minerals cemented together and black, shiny glass. Impact melt glass can be created or modified through high-speed meteor impacts on a planetary surface.

Dan Moriarty, NASA Postdoctoral Program fellow at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, has analyzed and processed the image, seeking clues as to its precise nature. While this compressed image lacks a lot of the useful information a raw image would contain, Moriarty said he could gain insights by adjusting parameters.

Yutu 2 looks back over tracks made from the Change 4 lander in July.

(Image credit: CNSA/CLEP)

"The shape of the fragments appears fairly similar to other materials in the area. What this tells us is that this material has a similar history as the surrounding material," Moriarty said. "It was broken up and fractured by impacts on the lunar surface, just like the surrounding soil.

"I think the most reliable information here is that the material is relatively dark. It appears to have brighter material embedded within the larger, darker regions, although there is a chance that is light glinting off a smooth surface," Moriarty told Space.com, adding that the material is likely heterogeneous in composition.

The image also gives an idea of the origin of the substance. Moriarty said the material may have been excavated by the crater-forming impact or it may be a breccia, containing highlands crust, glass, impactor material and basalts from the volcanic "seas" known as mare. "But we're definitely looking at a rock," Moriarty concluded.

Related: Moon Master: An Easy Quiz for Lunatics

China's Yutu 2 moon rover captured this image from the edge of the small crater.

(Image credit: CNSA/CLEP )

Yutu 2 has been making its way west from the Chang'e 4 landing site, which is situated within the roughly 110-mile-wide (180 kilometers) Von Krmn Crater. On July 28, during Lunar Day 8 of the mission, the rover came across a crater about 6.5 feet (2 meters) in diameter containing a material deemed to have an unusual color and luster.

The initial discovery was made by a Yutu 2 drive team member checking images from the rover's main camera. The drive team consulted lunar scientists, resulting in the decision to postpone plans to have Yutu 2 continue west and instead order the rover to check out the strange material.

Our Space, which announced the findings on Aug. 17, used the term "" ("jiao zhuang wu"), which can be translated as "gel-like." This description sparked wide interest and speculation among lunar scientists.

The first images of the crater and its contents came from an obstacle-avoidance camera. These images did not, however, have a high resolution, and they included colored shapes likely related to Yutu 2's science instruments, further obscuring the material.

Yutu 2 made a number of approaches to the material to analyze it using the rover's Visible and Near-Infrared Spectrometer (VNIS), which detects light that is scattered or reflected off materials to reveal their makeup.

The small adjustments in orientation and roving tested the rover and its team, with the danger that Yutu 2 could fall into and become stuck in the crater. The movement of the sun across the sky also altered shadowing and affected results.

A second set of measurements, taken in August, was apparently more successful than the first, but results from VNIS have not been announced.

Yutu 2 has driven a total of 950 feet (289 m) across 10 lunar days. Yutu 2 and the Chang'e 4 lander power down to hibernate during the roughly two-week-long lunar nights, when temperatures can drop to as low as minus 310 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 190 degrees Celsius).

Sunrise over the landing site in Von Krmn Crater occurred Oct. 21; Yutu 2 will wake for Lunar Day 11 on Oct. 22, and the lander will do so about 24 hours later.

Follow Andrew Jones at @AJ_FI. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

Link:

Here's What China's Yutu 2 Rover Found on the Far Side of the Moon (Photos) - Space.com

China Releases a New Photo of The Mystery Substance They Found on The Moon – ScienceAlert

In August, Chinese lunar rover Yutu-2 discovered something strange on the far side of the Moon: a mysterious substance that the Chinese space agency referred to as "gel-like" and "colored".

And now, China's Lunar Exploration Program has released a new photo of the substance - shedding more light on what the strange substance could possibly be.

According to experts, it's most likely what scientists initially hypothesized: dark glass formed as a result of an impact - the same stuff American astronauts found during the Apollo 17 mission, Space.com reports.

(CNSA/CLEP)

High velocity meteor impacts are able to pressurize minerals into shiny glass that can end up refracting light in surprising ways.

"I think the most reliable information here is that the material is relatively dark," Dan Moriarty, NASA Postdoctoral Program fellow at the Goddard Space Flight Center told Space.com.

"It appears to have brighter material embedded within the larger, darker regions, although there is a chance that is light glinting off a smooth surface."

High-contrast view of the substance. (CNSA/CLEP/NASA/GSFC/Dan Moriarty via Space.com)

Previously, Yutu-2 struggled to get a closer look since the strange object was at the bottom of a crater.

The lander is about to wake up from its two week long, lunar night cycle slumber. Perhaps then, we'll be getting more answers.

This article was originally published by Futurism. Read the original article.

More:

China Releases a New Photo of The Mystery Substance They Found on The Moon - ScienceAlert

DLR pursues international cooperation and future technologies for spaceflight – Space Daily

On 21 October 2019, the 70th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) of the International Astronautical Federation (IAF) is opening its doors in Washington D.C., with the slogan 'Space: The Power of the Past, the Promise of the Future'.

While celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landing, more than 4000 visitors will gather at 150 exhibitor stands, and will participate in and attend approximately 200 plenary discussions and technical and scientific presentations to find out about current developments in spaceflight.

The German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) has always been present at the accompanying exhibition, and this year is no different. DLR and the City of Bremen - the 'City of Space' - will be presenting eight current and future projects, as well as the goals of German spaceflight on a stand with an area of around 150 square metres.

"Since the launch of the first satellite in 1957, spaceflight has contributed to exploring the unknown, expanding boundaries and broadening horizons, as well as addressing challenges here on Earth," says Pascale Ehrenfreund, Chair of the DLR Executive Board and incoming President of the IAF.

"In its nearly 70 years of existence, the IAF has established itself an important international platform for those working in the field of space exploration and research. Here, all the major players in the space field can combine and coordinate their activities to further develop a dynamic space sector."

The IAC is dedicated to the future exploration of space, innovative technologies, the benefits of space research for society, international collaboration, space legislation and inspiring young people, as well as joint projects and missions. Discussions aimed at contributing to the continuation of global collaboration in space will be taking place during IAC.

The most prominent example of this is the work conducted on the International Space Station, which has been in operation since 2000. Its success highlights the important role that the field of spaceflight plays in our lives and is an example of collaboration across all borders. Close international cooperation is continuously being strengthened by the increasing number of nations and partnerships, as well as by commercial and private companies becoming more involved in the space sector.

German space projects at IAC 2019DLR will be presenting numerous topics and exhibits at the IAC. The astronaut assistance system CIMON and the X-ray telescope eROSITA for Dark Energy research from Germany's current space programme, for which the DLR Space Administration is responsible, will be showcased.

Other projects include GESTRA - a new radar system for the detection of space debris - and SMART LCT, a cutting-edge laser communications terminal 'made in Germany', which is capable of transmitting data from one satellite to another at extremely high speeds. It is already in use in the European Data Relay System - Europe's 'space data highway'.

Related LinksGerman Aerospace CenterRocket Science News at Space-Travel.Com

With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords.

Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year.

If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.

Originally posted here:

DLR pursues international cooperation and future technologies for spaceflight - Space Daily

Finally, a Clear Look at the Weird Substance China Found on the Moon – VICE

We finally have clear photos of the mysterious substance that China found on the far side of the Moon, which it described as gel-like in August.

Imaged by the nations rover, Yutu 2, the glittering nature of the material instead suggests it is likely glass created by an impact, according to lunar scientists.

The odd material was discovered in July by Yutu 2, which has traveled hundreds of meters across the lunar terrain since it was delivered to the Moon by the Change-4 lander in January. Change-4 is the first surface mission in history to explore the far side of the Moon.

The drive team decided to stall the trip for a while so that the rover could get a closer look at the gelatinous substance, as it was described by Chinas Lunar Exploration Program.

A clearer image of the substance was shared on October 8 by Our Space, a government-sanctioned science publication on the social media site Weibo. It was spotted by Andrew Jones of Space.com, who has been reporting on the weird substance for months.

Dan Moriarty, a geologist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, enhanced the images into different versions by adjusting brightness, contrast, and other customizable features.

In an email, Moriarty said that there are limitations to this technique because the images might be affected by JPEG compression and the lack of any scale bar.

Even so, the enhanced pictures appear to corroborate previous suspicions that the material could be glass forged by meteorites crashing into the lunar surface, which would explain why it is the middle of a crater. It could also potentially be basaltic rock that originated from a time when the Moon was more volcanically active.

"The shape of the fragments appears fairly similar to other materials in the area, Moriarty told Space.com. What this tells us is that this material has a similar history as the surrounding material. It was broken up and fractured by impacts on the lunar surface, just like the surrounding soil.

Glassy residue, both from meteorite impacts and ancient volcanism, is presumed to be relatively common on the Moon. For instance, a patch of orange soil from a volcanic eruption that occurred more than three billion years ago was found by the last two astronauts to walk on the Moon: Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt of Apollo 17.

Both Yutu 2 and its mothership Change-4 are currently waking up after about two weeks of shutdown time to escape the cold temperatures of the lunar night. Hopefully, that means the rover will send back more pictures and data of its otherworldly surroundings soon.

Read more here:

Finally, a Clear Look at the Weird Substance China Found on the Moon - VICE

Suborbital spacefliers will get pinned by the Association of Space Explorers – GeekWire

Virgin Galactics chief astronaut trainer, Beth Moses, gets her suborbital spaceflier pin from Michael Lopez-Alegria of the Association of Space Explorers. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

WASHINGTON, D.C. Will the customers who fly on the suborbital spaceships operated by British billionaire Richard Bransons Virgin Galactic and Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos Blue Origin get astronaut wings? Thats not in the cards, because those wings are typically reserved for flight crews. But at least theyll get a lapel pin to mark their achievement.

The pin, created by the Association of Space Explorers, made its debut today on the lapel of Beth Moses, chief astronaut instructor at Virgin Galactic. She was pinned here at the International Astronautical Congress by former NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, the associations president.

Moses already has her commercial astronaut wings from the Federal Aviation Administration, by virtue of her trip beyond the 50-mile mark in February as a crew member aboard Virgin Galactics VSS Unity rocket plane. But shes glad to have the pin as well.

Its wonderful to be presented with this new pin, Moses said in a news release. Its a real honor to be recognized by an association which counts so many pioneers of space exploration among its members. Im looking forward to working with them to continue to inspire and educate people around the advantages of seeing the worlds problems from the perspective of space.

The Association of Space Explorers was founded in 1985, but until now it provided recognition (and a pin) only to spacefliers who achieved orbit. The pin for suborbital space travelers, created as a result of discussions with Virgin Galactic, has a slightly different design.

Going forward, the suborbital pin will be awarded to customers and crew members who rise above 50 miles in altitude whether its on Virgin Galactics SpaceShipTwo craft, Blue Origins New Shepard spaceship or other vehicles yet to be developed.

We look forward to this new demographic of spacefliers adding to our own voices in promoting the benefits of human space exploration, greater stewardship of our home planet, and inspiring the next generation, Lopez-Alegria said.

Many more pins could be given out next year if Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin stick to their current schedules.

Clare Pelly, head of astronaut relations at Virgin Galactic, said VSS Unity and its WhiteKnightTwo carrier airplane are due to make the move from its testing grounds at Californias Mojave Air and Space Port to Spaceport America in New Mexico by the end of the year. That should set the stage for commercial flights to begin next year, with Branson getting on the first flight.

More than 600 Future Astronauts have paid as much as $250,000 each to reserve a ride. One of those future fliers is Dan Durda, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute who plans to fly alongside an experiment focusing on how grains of asteroid-like material stick together in zero gravity.

Theres an entire range of researchers, biological sciences and physical sciences, who are just champing at the bit for this relatively cheap and frequent access to the space environment, said Durda, who has been working with Virgin Galactic as well as Blue Origin. Im raring to go.

Blue Origin hasnt yet started taking reservations, but each uncrewed test flight brings the day closer when New Shepard will start flying people. Greg Ray J Johnson, a former NASA astronaut who now heads the New Shepard program, said therell be one more uncrewed test before the end of the year. He acknowledged that his team has been tapping the brakes to make absolutely sure the spacecraft is safe for crewed flights next year.

Johnson said Blue Origin would make sure theres room aboard New Shepard for poets and philosophers, and artists also. He also promised that the adventure would continue even after the flight is finished.

We plan to engage with our Blue astronauts after the flight, to keep them in the club, Johnson said.

Pelly agreed with that strategy: Probably the thing we hear the most frequently from our Future Astronauts is, Im having so much fun, I dont want it to be over.

Read more from the original source:

Suborbital spacefliers will get pinned by the Association of Space Explorers - GeekWire

The space powers have gathered. Wheres China? – Quartz

Attendees hoping to hear from the worlds busiest space power were disappointed after a Chinese space official didnt show at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC), a 70-year-old space conference.

In 2018, China launched more missions to orbit than any other nation, and it looks likely to do so again in 2019. But at a discussion between the heads of the worlds leading space agencies, Wu Yanhua, the vice chairman of the China National Space Administration (CNSA), was not present.

I miss an important space agency in this panel. Where is China? read the most popular crowd-sourced question displayed in enormous type above the assembled space dignitaries.

Pascale Ehrenfreund, the head of the German space agency, blamed Yanhuas absence on a scheduling conflict. Thats difficult to believe, given that the annual conference is planned years in advance. Later, Jan Woerner, the head of the European Space Agency, told Quartz that he believed Yanhua was unable to obtain a visa to enter the United States.

Its not nice for me, because Im always looking forward to interactions with all states worldwide, so Im sad that they are not here, he said.

A spokesperson for the International Astronautical Federation (IAF), which organizes the conference, said that Yanhua had notified them that he would not be able to attend several days before the conference. At a press briefing held before the opening day, no mention was made of Yanhuas absencethough organizers said they spent 18 months working to obtain visas for Chinese and Russian nationals. Chinese officials have attended other IAC events recently in Germany, Australia and Mexico.

The US State Department did not respond to e-mailed questions about the visas, nor did the CNSA.

Sergey Krikalev, the director of human spaceflight at Roscosmos, Russias space agency, frowned and said it was a pity that an official Chinese representative wasnt on hand. But he said that he would be meeting with Chinese officials next week and that space cooperation between the countries is ongoing. Krikalevs boss, Roscomos chief Dmitry Rogozin, is now forbidden from entering the US due to sanctions imposed following Russias seizure of Crimea in 2014.

Despite testy geopolitical feuds, the US and Russia have maintained admirable cooperation while operating the International Space Station alongside 13 other nations. But US space officials are forbidden by law from bilateral cooperation with their Chinese counterparts. NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said that problem is above my pay grade.

Chinas space ambitionsincluding a crewed habitat in low-Earth orbit and lunar explorationhave figured as a bogeyman in the Trump administrations domestic space rhetoric. And US national security officials believe there is an organized effort by China to steal high-tech US space hardware.

This morning, vice president Mike Pence pointedly noted that space cooperation would be aimed only at freedom-loving nations. Bridenstine was asked if that represented a change in US policy, which has often had to set space aside as a place its willing to cooperate with terrestrial rivals.

When we think about the future, we do need to be careful about things like the theft of intellectual property, Bridenstine said, referencing a sore spot in ongoing trade tensions between the US and China. We need to be careful about how we go about bringing new partners in that ultimately could be more harmful than helpful in future. Thats probably what the vice president was referencing in his speech today.

The IAF spokesperson said that lower-ranking CNSA officials were attending the conference and engaging with their international colleagues, though none could be found at press time and China did not host a booth in the exhibition hall. China HEAD Aerospace Technology Co., a Chinese-European space firm, was assigned a space in the hall, but the location was empty.

All in all, Chinas absence proved a major disappointment.

Meetings where we have been here physically in person have been key to international collaboration, Sylvain Laporte, the head of the Canadian Space Agency, said during the space agency leaders panel.

Here is the original post:

The space powers have gathered. Wheres China? - Quartz

NASA Needs to Get With the Times When It Comes to Planetary Protection, Report Finds – Space.com

NASA's current planetary-protection policies reflect a bygone era of space exploration and need to be updated, a new report argues.

Planetary protection refers to the effort to keep the solar system as pristine as possible. The main goals are to minimize the odds that our spacecraft infect other worlds, such as Mars, with Earth microbes (a process known as forward contamination) and to reduce the risk of alien bugs getting loose on our planet after sample-return missions (back contamination).

NASA's planetary-protection guidelines follow those established by an international scientific organization called the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR), which began such work way back in 1958. The U.S. space agency's policies have changed some over the decades, but NASA recognized that additional revisions are likely needed now to deal with the fast-changing exploration landscape.

Related: 6 Most Likely Places for Alien Life in the Solar System

Those changes are occurring on multiple fronts. For example, NASA has taken real steps toward sample-return missions. The agency's next Mars rover, which launches next summer, will collect samples for eventual transport to Earth (though when this latter step will occur is unclear at the moment).

In addition, tiny cubesats are now capable of flying interplanetary missions, as NASA's MarCO Mars probes showed last year, potentially allowing a wide range of organizations to launch probes to various cosmic destinations.

Astronauts will set foot on multiple worlds in the not-too-distant future as well, if all goes according to plan. NASA aims to land people on the moon by 2024 and on Mars in the 2030s. And SpaceX is building a giant spaceship called Starship that may get people to the Red Planet even sooner than NASA does.

So, in April, NASA established a Planetary Protection Independent Review Board (PPIRB) to take a look at the agency's policies in this realm. The PPIRB was instructed to start this work in late June and have it all done three months later. The board met this ambitious timeline. PPIRB submitted a report of its findings to NASA last week, and the agency published the report today (Oct. 18).

The PPIRB, which was chaired by planetary scientist Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado, came up with nearly 80 findings and recommendations. One of the first findings the team made was a recognition that the exploration landscape will continue to change rapidly in the near future, as scientific knowledge about cosmic bodies improves and more players get into the spaceflight game.

Therefore, "we've recommended that NASA conduct a process like this IRB at least twice per decade going forward, to take into account new findings, new entrants and new technologies, both on the scientific side and on the spaceflight side," Stern, the principal investigator of NASA's New Horizons mission, said during a teleconference with reporters today.

The PPIRB team also recommended that NASA reconsider how it categorizes missions from a planetary-protection perspective. At the moment, that system appears to be overly broad and antiquated, Stern said.

For example, all missions to the surface of Mars are "Category IV" projects, which are subject to stringent spacecraft-cleaning requirements. But data gathered by multiple Red Planet craft over the years suggest that significant portions of Mars are hostile enough to Earth life that we shouldn't worry too much about contaminating those areas. Such regions could be downgraded to "Category II" destinations, reducing the cleaning burden, and thus the prices, of missions targeting the spots, Stern said.

Related: Could There Be Life on Mars Today?

A similar reassessment should be done of the moon, which is now entirely a "Category II" world. Some parts the ones away from the water-ice-rich poles, for example could be reclassified as "Category I," Stern and the 11 other PPIRB board members wrote.

"The IRB wants to see more exploration to do more science. We want to open up the ways that Mars, the moon and all of these other spectacularly interesting objects across the solar system can be explored," Stern said.

"And so we want to move from this sort of '60s-'70s point of view that all of Mars should be treated precisely one way, and all of each world should be treated one way, to this more nuanced view, where we differentiate between different sites on the surface in order to enable more science to be done," he added.

The review board didn't tell NASA how to reclassify such worlds,which parts of Mars should be "Category IV" and which should be "Category II," for example. Stern and his colleagues just recommended that the space agency should undertake this work, and soon.

The board also recommended that NASA accelerate the development of the facility here on Earth that will receive and house the samples collected by the 2020 Mars rover, to make sure our planet is ready for this epic and unprecedented delivery.

And Stern and his colleagues advised the space agency to start educating the public about the planetary-protection aspects of the first crewed Mars missions soon now, if possible so people are ready for those as well.

"We recognize as an independent review board that there [is] a wide spectrum of opinions in the public, and a wide spectrum of knowledge and viewpoints about issues related to planetary protection," Stern said. "NASA needs to get ahead of that ball and start communicating proactively about both forward- and back-contamination issues."

The space agency can take some guidance in this matter, he added, from its proactive communication efforts surrounding the use of nuclear power aboard spacecraft, another issue about which many nonexperts have expressed strong opinions.

There are many more findings and recommendations,far too many to discuss in this story. You can read the entire 48-page PPIRB report here.

Mike Wall's book about the search for alien life, "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

More:

NASA Needs to Get With the Times When It Comes to Planetary Protection, Report Finds - Space.com

NASA names new chief of human space operations – Spaceflight Now

STORY WRITTEN FORCBS NEWS& USED WITH PERMISSION

Douglas Loverro, a veteran manager with broad experience in national security space operations, has been selected by NASA to lead the agencys human space flight programs. He takes over at a critical moment as the agency assesses the readiness of new commercial crew ships amid a full-court press to land astronauts on the moon in 2024.

Loverro is a respected strategic leader in both civilian and defense programs, overseeing the development and implementation of highly complicated systems, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement.

He is known for his strong, bipartisan work, and his experience with large programs will be of great benefit to NASA at this critical time in our final development of human spaceflight systems for both Commercial Crew and Artemis.

Artemis is the name of NASAs second-generation moon program, an accelerated Trump administration initiative to send astronauts back to the moon four years earlier than NASA originally had planned.

Bridenstine announced Loverros appointment three months after dismissing long-time associate administrator Bill Gerstenmaier, a widely respected NASA engineer with decades of human spaceflight experience, in a major management shakeup intended to spark a fresh approach to running the agencys most complex and expensive programs.

Former astronaut Ken Bowersox served as acting associate administrator of the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate after Gerstenmaiers departure. He now will resume is previous role as deputy associate administrator.

Its an interesting appointment, John Logsdon, a noted author and space historian, said of Loverro. Hes a good guy, very accessible, very easy to get along with. In his earlier life, he managed big procurement projects and has a reputation as a good manager.

More recently, Logsdon said, Loverro dealt with the White House, Congress and international partners on security space issues. I think hes well fitted to negotiate the relationships in exploration going forward.

Loverro holds a masters degree in physics from the University of New Mexico, a masters in political science from Auburn University and an MBA from the University of West Florida. He spent three decades working with the Department of Defense and the secretive National Reconnaissance Office.

He retired from the Air Force as a colonel in 2006 after selection as a member of the Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service.

As chief of NASAs Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at agency Headquarters, Loverro will be taking over top-level management of the International Space Station, the Commercial Crew Program and the Artemis project.

Boeing and SpaceX, working under NASA contracts to commercially develop new space capsules to ferry astronauts to and from the space station, are struggling to ready their ships for initial piloted test flights in the wake of budget shortfalls and technical issues.

Both companies now plan to launch astronaut crews on those long-awaited test flights early next year to pave the way toward operational crew rotation missions that will end NASAs sole reliance on Russias Soyuz spacecraft for ferrying astronauts to and from the station.

Even so, NASA likely will be forced to buy additional Soyuz seats to ensure a continuous U.S. presence aboard the lab complex if significant additional delays are encountered. As it now stands, the final NASA-contracted seat aboard a Soyuz will be used in April.

Its not yet known when the first piloted Commercial Crew mission will take off, but Loverro will play a major role in assessing NASA requirements and launch targets as testing proceeds.

His biggest challenge will be overseeing the Artemis moon program in the midst of political wrangling over how much the project might cost and resolution of major technical challenges, from work to ready NASAs huge new Space Launch System SLS booster for flight to development of a commercially procured lunar lander.

NASA originally hoped to send astronauts back to the moon in 2028, but the Trump administration reset the agenda and ordered NASA to move that up four years for a landing in 2024. The administration requested $1.6 billion in supplemental funding for the agencys 2020 budget request to kick-start development of key systems, including a moon lander.

During a hearing Wednesday of the House appropriations subcommittee for Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies, chairman Jos Serrano repeatedly pressed Bridenstine for an Artemis cost estimate beyond 2020.

I remain extremely concerned about the additional costs to accelerate the mission to the moon by four years, he said in opening remarks. Some experts have said the additional financial resources needed to meet the administrations imposed 2024 deadline could exceed $25 billion over the next five years compared to the original 2028 schedule.

To date, NASA has not provided the committee with a full cost estimate despite repeated requests. At a time of huge financial needs across numerous government programs, all competing for funding within the budget caps, an additional $25 billion cost would severely impact vital programs.

Bridenstine said later that NASA is working to refine schedules and cost estimates and will include projected costs for Artemis in the agencys next budget proposal.

We are working with the Office of Management and Budget and the National Space Council to come up with an administration consensus for what the total cost will be, and we will submit that in February, he said.

NASA is relying on the huge Boeing-built SLS rocket to propel Artemis astronauts back to the moon aboard Orion capsules built by Lockheed Martin. The SLS is years behind schedule and is not expected to make its initial unpiloted test flight until 2021.

Assuming the rocket makes it through development and flight tests, current plans call for an astronaut crew to dock with a mini space station Gateway in lunar orbit in 2024 before descending to the surface in a commercially developed lander.

Managing how that program will play out in Congress and in space will be at the top of Loverros agenda.

Its really a management challenge, Logsdon said. Theres a flip side to his not having a background in human spaceflight, that is, he doesnt have background in human spaceflight with all the culture that comes with that. He can take a fresh look.

Read this article:

NASA names new chief of human space operations - Spaceflight Now

Boeing Aims to Launch Unpiloted Starliner Test Flight to Space Station in December – Space.com

LAS CRUCES, N.M. Boeing has set a new launch date for the first orbital flight of its new commercial crew vehicle that will soon begin ferrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

The unpiloted CST-100 Starliner capsule is now scheduled to launch to the International Space Station on Dec. 17, said John Mulholland, Boeing's vice president of commercial programs, here at the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight (ISPCS).

For this mission, titled "Orbital Flight Test" (OFT), the Starliner space capsule will launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on an Atlas V rocket and dock with the International Space Station, where it will stay for about a week before making a parachute-assisted landing at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

Related: How Boeing's Commercial CST-100 Starliner Spacecraft Works

A Boeing Starliner spacecraft is prepared for a planned December 2019 test flight to the International Space Station for NASA.

(Image credit: NASA)

Before Starliner makes its first trip to the space station, Boeing will first conduct a test of the spacecraft's abort system. That in-flight abort test, which is now scheduled to take place in on Nov. 4, will demonstrate Starliner's ability to return astronauts to safety in the event of an emergency on the launch pad or during the spacecraft's ascent.

Meanwhile, SpaceX is also gearing up for the first in-flight abort test of its Crew Dragon spacecraft, another commercial crew vehicle NASA has commissioned to begin flying astronauts to and from the International Space Station to end the agency's reliance on Russia's Soyuz spacecraft. According to SpaceX's chief executive Elon Musk, the Crew Dragon's in-flight abort test could also launch sometime next month. Musk tweeted on Tuesday (the same day that Boeing announced its new launch schedule) that the Crew Dragon in-flight abort test will probably happen in late November or early December.

Although Starliner has yet to reach orbit, SpaceX has already launched its Crew Dragon to the International Space Station for its first unpiloted test mission, called Demo-1, in March. However, both vehicles have faced delays in their development.

In July 2018, Boeing reported an "anomaly" had occurred during a test of one of the pad-abort engines, putting Starliner behind schedule. A few months later, Boeing announced that the OFT mission would be ready to fly in March, but it was delayed yet again due to a scheduling conflict with another Atlas V launch from the same launch pad, Boeing said. Meanwhile, NASA said it had been delayed to allow more time for testing and safety reviews.

SpaceX also recently faced its own "anomaly" with a Crew Dragon spacecraft that put the company behind schedule for its first crewed launch to the International Space Station. In April, during a routine test of Crew Dragon's SuperDraco escape engines, a Crew Dragon capsule (the same one that flew to the space station for the Demo-1 mission) exploded at SpaceX's test facility at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, adding to the delays.

Benjamin Reed, SpaceX's director of commercial crew mission management, said the investigation into the accident is now wrapping up, and that SpaceX has already implemented changes to mitigate the cause of the explosion: a leaky valve. Both the Crew Dragon vehicle and the Falcon 9 rocket that will be used for the in-flight abort test have arrived at the launch site, launch complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Reed said. And if all goes according to plan, SpaceX could launch its first crew of astronauts to the space station in 2020.

Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her @hannekescience. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and onFacebook.

Need more space? You can get 5 issues of our partner "All About Space" Magazine for $5 for the latest amazing news from the final frontier!

(Image credit: All About Space magazine)

View original post here:

Boeing Aims to Launch Unpiloted Starliner Test Flight to Space Station in December - Space.com

Moon VIPER: NASA Wants to Send a Water-Sniffing Rover to the Lunar South Pole in 2022 – Space.com

NASA is already pulling together plans for what could become its first long-lived robotic rover on the moon's surface, designed to sniff out water and targeting a landing date of 2022.

Right now, that rover, called Volatiles Investigation Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER), is still a mission concept. If all goes well, the project could develop a long-lived, mobile robot that can hunt for water and other volatiles near the south pole of the moon. And VIPER has a head start, since the would-be mission builds on previous NASA development conducted as part of a project called Resource Prospector, which was axed in 2018. This time around, the rover would reflect the Artemis program, NASA's initiative to land humans on the moon in 2024.

"We are heavily ensconced in the intersection between science and exploration," Brad Bailey, program scientist with NASA's Lunar Discovery and Exploration Program, said about NASA's lunar program during a Planetary Science Advisory Committee meeting held in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 23. Volatiles are an area of particular overlap between the two programs, hence VIPER's relevance to both.

Related: Water Ice Confirmed on the Surface of the Moon for the 1st Time!

On the science side, understanding how water arrived at our closest neighbor would explain how Earth got its own water, even though plate tectonics has destroyed the geologic record of that era. Would-be explorers are on the hunt for fuel or even drinking water they could generate from stores of ice.

But in both cases, the first step is figuring out where the water is and that's what VIPER is designed to do, not only at the south pole, where it would land, but over the entire lunar surface. "The idea is that that mission is a very important part of looking for volatiles, looking for these potential resources on the lunar surface," Debra Needham, a planetary scientist at NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center, told Space.com. "It's a highly desired mission under formulation."

Scientists have confirmed the existence of sizable chunks of frozen water on the moon only over the past decade. But as it stands right now, NASA's last soft-landed mission to the moon was Apollo 17 in 1972, when humans last set foot on the moon. The agency has also only flown lunar rovers designed to work with humans, during the latter three Apollo missions. These rovers carried some instruments but primarily served as transportation devices for astronauts.

That means that although VIPER won't necessarily be the first mission to land in NASA's new, moon-focused Artemis era, it could be NASA's first lunar rover in decades and the agency's first independent rover ever.

The combination means that there are plenty of new capabilities NASA wants to build into such a mission. A particularly high priority for the agency is to design a rover that can power through the dramatic temperature swings between night and day. A couple of long-duration lunar rovers the Soviet Union's Lunokhod 2 and the Chinese Yutu rovers have slept through the night, woken up and resumed work.

But NASA wants to do something more: The agency wants VIPER and other future missions to keep gathering data through the night, without shutting down for safety. "One of the biggest technologies that needs to be developed is being able to survive and operate through the lunar night," Needham said.

Working through the night would double the amount of observations a rover could make in the same mission duration, which is of course appealing. But full-time observing would also offer crucial science data about phenomena that aren't observable during the lunar day. In particular, Needham said, scientists think that at dawn and dusk, dust may levitate and electrical currents could form in the lunar surface.

VIPER would let engineers test technologies designed to let lunar rovers work through the night, but it wouldn't tackle those specific science measurements. Instead, according to Bailey's presentation last month, there are four primary instruments that NASA is eyeing for VIPER.

Two of those instruments were under development for Resource Prospector; NASA also included both in a list of a dozen instruments selected in February to land on the moon as early as this year. (Bailey said they are scheduled to fly on board Astrobotic's lunar lander, which is due to fly in the summer of 2021.)

Those projects are the Neutron Spectrometer System, which measures hydrogen in the lunar surface; and the Near-Infrared Volatile Spectrometer System, or NIRVSS, which can study volatile composition, mineralogy and surface temperature.

A third instrument NASA is eyeing for VIPER is a drill designed to reach about 3 feet (1 meter) into the lunar regolith.

Scientists have glimpsed below the moon's surface before: Astronauts on the later Apollo missions also carried a drill, and they returned subsurface samples to Earth. But volatiles literally get their name from their ability to easily evaporate away, so scientists can't be sure what volatiles disappeared from the subsurface moon rocks they have examined up close with modern technology.

VIPER would change that, as both NIRVSS and a second instrument, called Mass Spectrometer observing lunar operations (MSolo), which can analyze isotopes, will conduct their analyses not only while the rover is moving but also on material that the drill pulls to the surface.

NASA also wants to make sure that the findings of a mission like VIPER could stretch far beyond the small patch of lunar surface that the rover itself would explore. In particular, the agency wants to work with the U.S. Geological Survey to establish how to apply the rover's local findings to orbital data about the rest of the lunar surface, Jay Jenkins, program executive for exploration at NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said during a panel about NASA's commercial partnerships for lunar science at a symposium held by NASA in Huntsville, Alabama, on Sept. 12.

After all, although the south pole's apparent ice cache is particularly intriguing to scientists and would-be explorers, it isn't the only water on the moon. "Ultimately, we really are trying to ground-truth all of the orbital data that we have, in terms of volatile, extent, composition, forms, etcetera," Bailey said during the advisory committee meeting.

Both Bailey and Jenkins said that NASA is hoping to launch VIPER in late 2022. "It's a very aggressive schedule," Jenkins said.

But that sort of timeline wouldn't be completely unprecedented, he added, pointing to NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, which he said was designed, built and executed within two years. (According to a NASA website for the mission, LCROSS was selected in April 2006; the flight concluded in October 2009. That would make for a slightly more generous timeline than VIPER would have if it hits its launch target.)

LCROSS is nothing if not a success story when it comes to understanding moon water. The mission, which launched with NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, watched a rocket stage crash into the moon and studied the debris until its own equally violent demise. The LCROSS data showed that its impact location is twice as wet as the Sahara Desert.

Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

View original post here:

Moon VIPER: NASA Wants to Send a Water-Sniffing Rover to the Lunar South Pole in 2022 - Space.com

Dream Chaser Space Plane Begins Full Assembly Ahead Of First NASA Mission In 2021 – Forbes

The vehicle will transport cargo to and from the ISS.

A new miniature shuttle called Dream Chaser is moving closer to completion, with the primary structure of the vehicle now constructed and full assembly set to begin for its first planned mission in 2021.

Designed by the Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) from Sparks, Nevada, Dream Chaser is a reusable space plane that, at about nine meters long, is roughly four times smaller than NASAs historic Space Shuttle. It is designed to transport cargo, and possibly even crew one day, to the International Space Station (ISS).

At an event in Colorado, where the finished vehicle will be constructed, SNC unveiled the primary structure of the vehicle, which weighs in at 1,000 kilograms and was made with a variety of materials including carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRPs).

Built by Lockheed Martin, the primary structure is a pressurized structure designed to carry payloads on their way to the ISS. It was built in Fort Worth, Texas but has now been shipped to Louisville, Colorado, where SNC will construct the complete Dream Chaser spacecraft.

Its an extraordinary engineering and manufacturing accomplishment, said Eren Ozmen, chairwoman and president of SNC, in a statement. Our team has been looking forward to this day for a long time so that we can fully assemble Americas spaceplane in preparation for its first mission for NASA.

Dream Chaser is contracted with NASA to complete six missions to the ISS as part of a Commercial Resupply Services 2 (CRS-2) contract, with the first expected in late 2021. It will be capable of taking about 5,500 kilograms of cargo, supplies, and experiments to the ISS on each flight.

The vehicle will launch vertically on ULA's upcoming Vulcan Centaur rocket, before gliding back to a runway landing on Earth. This will make it one of only two private uncrewed vehicles in operation that can return equipment from orbit back to Earth, the other being SpaceXs Dragon spacecraft.

According to NASASpaceflight, each Dream Chaser vehicle will be reusable up to 15 times, which could allow for missions beyond the six that have been contracted with NASA. [This] will be useful if SNC gains additional flights via the likely extension of the CRS2 contract if the ISSs lifetime is also extended, they noted.

The vehicle has already completed several tests, including a free flight test in 2017 when it was dropped from a helicopter (although a similar test in 2013 was less successful). NASA approved the space plane for missions to the ISS in December 2018.

Now with final construction of the vehicle set to begin, SNC hope to have the cargo module built by February 2020, the left wing by the end of 2020, and the right wing by January 2021. If all goes to plan, we could then soon see this innovative vehicle take to the skies.

Here is the original post:

Dream Chaser Space Plane Begins Full Assembly Ahead Of First NASA Mission In 2021 - Forbes

SpaceX news: Elon Musk is the Thomas Edison of the 21st century, claims veteran astronaut – Express.co.uk

Elon Musk and his Amazon counterpart, Jeff Bezos, are in the midst of a spaceflight industry revolution. An international team of scientists and astronauts has praised the two moguls for pushing the envelope in spaceflight technology. Canadian astronaut Bob Thirsk likened the two pioneers to the 19th-century inventor Thomas Edison.

The astronaut said: Musk and Bezos are not crazy, theyre the Thomas Edisons of the 21st century.

Im a big fan of them, their vision and the work that they have been able to do so far.

Frank De Winne and I are colleagues, who following spaceflight, have become ambassadors for this notion that space can be used as a way to encourage people in their educational path towards STEM careers.

The astronaut spoke about the SpaceX and Blue Origins founders during a panel dedicated to the future of human spaceflight.

Mr Thirsk was joined by fellow astronaut Frank De Winne from Belgium who served on the International Space Station (ISS).

The other panellists included former NASA scientist Dr Mark Shelhamer, NASA Apollo programme scientist Professor Laurence Young, Floris Wuyts of the University of Antwerp and the Minster of Information for space nation Asgardia Lena De Winne.

The panellists have all agreed Mr Musk and Mr Bezos have disrupted the spaceflight industry.

They were, however, sceptical about some of the loftier goals presented by the self-made billionaires.

READ MORE:Asteroid warning: The 2019 SU3 asteroid could hit Earth - will it hit?

Originally posted here:

SpaceX news: Elon Musk is the Thomas Edison of the 21st century, claims veteran astronaut - Express.co.uk

ISRO’s Space Shuttle-like Reusable Launch Vehicle will attempt its first landing in Karnataka – Firstpost

tech2 News StaffOct 16, 2019 13:04:58 IST

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is finally following in the footsteps of NASA and SpaceX by developing a space program for Reusable Launch Vehicles(RLV) which it has been testing since2016.

The RLV program aims to cut down on launch costs by, well, reusing the spacecraft. ISRO's current project appears to be using a hybrid design that sits somewhere between NASA's now-shutteredSpace Shuttle program and SpaceX's reusable rockets.

India'sRLV includesa Space Shuttle-like craft that could feature an air-breathing ramjet engine. This craft will take a payload to space and then glide back to Earth, landing like a normal aircraft, much like the Space Shuttle. The rocket that will take this shuttle to orbit will return to Earth much like Musk's Falcon 9 rockets. It will return under its own power and make a landing on a floating platform out at sea.

So far, the RLV shuttle has been tested over water. Now, it will be tested over land and make an attempt at an actual landing.

An artist illustration of the RLV-TD concept. Image: ISRO

The scientists at ISRO will be tracking the flight and landing of the RLV at the Aeronautical Test Range (ATR) at Challakere in Chitradurga district, Karnataka.

The ATR has 2.2 km runway and the RLV will be dropped from a helicopter at an altitude of three km. According to a report in the Deccan Chronicle, an onboard computer will help the RLV glide for some distance before touching down on the runway like an aircraft.

The launch vehicle is critical to unleashing ISROs dreams of human space flight, Gaganyaan. It will also helpto further cut the cost of launches.

The first demonstration of the rocket's concept was tested on 23 May2016, when ISRO carriedout its 'Hypersonic Flight Experiment'of a two-stage-to-orbit (TSTO), fully-reusable rocket.

An illustration showing the different stages in the RLV technology demonstration, from launch to landing of both stages. Image: ISRO

Four aspects of the vehicle are to be tested:

ISRO plans to recover and reuse two stages of the rocket.

To recover the first stage, ISRO willuse a similar principle to SpaceX's Falcon 9 boosters, whereby the rocket is programmed to land on a pad in the sea afterlaunch.

For the second stage of the rocket, ISRO plans to test an advanced version ofthe RLV, tested in 2016, in an advanced test in June or July2019. The rocket will be controlled by ISRO engineers after launch to land on an airstrip, after which it will be used again for a second launch.

Read this article:

ISRO's Space Shuttle-like Reusable Launch Vehicle will attempt its first landing in Karnataka - Firstpost

NASA scientist creates engine concept that can reach ‘close to the speed of light’ – Fox News

A NASA scientist has created a new concept for an engine that he says can move "close to the speed of light" all without any moving parts or need for fuel.

The paper, written by David Burns from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, discusses a "helical engine" that can be used to travel across interstellar distances, send astronauts to the moon in approximately one second and Mars in less than 13 minutes,according to The Sun, which first reported the news.

"A new concept for in-space propulsion is proposed in which propellant is not ejected from the engine, but instead is captured to create a nearly infinite specific impulse," Burns wrote in the paper's abstract. "The engine accelerates ions confined in a loop to moderate relativistic speeds, and then varies their velocity to make slight changes to their mass. The engine then moves ions back and forth along the direction of travel to produce thrust. This in-space engine could be used for long-term satellite station-keeping without refueling."

NASA IS READY TO TEST ITS FIRST ALL-ELECTRIC EXPERIMENTAL X-PLANE: 'A SIGNIFICANT EVENT'

"It could also propel spacecraft across interstellar distances, reaching close to the speed of light," Burns added in the abstract."The engine has no moving parts other than ions traveling in a vacuum line, trapped inside electric and magnetic fields."

Burns' idea is novel, as it completely removes one of the heaviest components of space flight--fuel.

NASA is looking into the possibility of usingice and water on the surface of the moon as rocket fuel, but any potential solution would likely be years, if not decades, away.

The concept, which Burns admitted he is not sure is viable, takes inspiration from high-tech particle accelerators, similar to what is seen at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

"If someone says it doesn't work, I'll be the first to say, it was worth a shot," Burns said in an interview with New Scientist."You have to be prepared to be embarrassed. It is very difficult to invent something that is new under the sun and actually works."

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Read the original post:

NASA scientist creates engine concept that can reach 'close to the speed of light' - Fox News

Elon Musk wants to move fast with SpaceX’s Starship – Spaceflight Now

SpaceXs Starship Mk. 1 prototype stands 164 feet (50 meters) tall at Boca Chica, Texas. Credit: SpaceX

Standing in front of a shiny full-scale prototype of SpaceXs Starship vehicle in South Texas, Elon Musk said Saturday night he wants the companys gigantic next-generation rocket to fly into orbit within six months, a bold schedule that he acknowledged requires exponential improvements in design and manufacturing.

Regardless of when the futuristic-looking vehicle reaches orbit for the first time, Musk told several hundred employees, local supporters, space enthusiasts and space reporters along with thousands more watching online that SpaceX will build a fleet of Starships and launch them from sites in Texas and Florida.

The first full-size prototype of SpaceXs Starship space vehicle named Starship Mk. 1 and built this summer on the South Texas coast should be ready to launch on a high-altitude atmospheric test flight in the next one or two months, Musk said.

SpaceX plans to practice launching and landing the Starship with suborbital up-and-down flights, similar to the way engineers perfected landings of Falcon rocket boosters with an experimental vehicle named Grasshopper.

Whats really kind of hard to grasp, at a visceral level, is that this giant ship will do the same thing that Grasshopper did, Musk said, backdropped by the Starhopper prototype. This thing is going to take off, fly to 65,000 feet about 20 kilometers and come back and land in about one to two months So that giant thing, its really going to be pretty epic to see that thing take off and come back.

Yeah, its wild, he added.

Musk, an avowed optimist, said an orbital launch attempt with Starship, and its not-yet-built Super Heavy first stage booster, could happen next year.

With any development into uncharted territory, its difficult to predict these things with precision, he said. But I do think things are going to move very fast. So, our plan is in basically in one to two months to do the 20-kilometer flight with Starship Mk. 1. Our next flight after that might actually just be all the way to orbit with a booster and the ship.

SpaceX says the reusable Starship and Super Heavy will eventually replace the companys Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, along with the Dragon cargo and crew capsules.

According to SpaceXs website, the Starship and Super Heavy will be able to deliver satellites to orbit at a lower marginal cost per launch than our current Falcon vehicles. But SpaceX says the next-generation booster and spaceship can do much more, including interplanetary flights to the moon, Mars and other destinations with up to 150 tons of cargo, or crews of up to 100 people.

Musks presentation Saturday came three years after he first unveiled the deep space transportation architecture that became the Starship and Super Heavy. SpaceX has since settled on a smaller, but still record-large, rocket than the design Musk presented in 2016.

The Starship and Super Heavy are designed for vertical takeoffs and landings, similar to the method SpaceX uses to return Falcon rocket boosters to Earth for refurbishment and reuse. During orbital launches, the Super Heavy booster will propel the Starship toward space before detaching and returning to a landing near the launch site. The Starship will then accelerate into orbit on its own.

I have this mantra called, If a schedules long, its wrong, if its tight, its right,' he said. If the design takes a long time to build, its the wrong design. This is the fundamental thing. The tendency is to complicate things.

I have another thing, the best part is no part, the best process is no process, Musk said. It weighs nothing, costs nothing, cant go wrong The thing Im most impressed with when I have design meetings at SpaceX is, What did you undesign? Undesigning is the best thing. Just delete it, thats the best thing.

That ethos led SpaceX to assemble the first Starship prototypes in the open in public view, not inside a climate-controlled factory with strict cleanliness requirements. Musk said it would have taken too long to construct a dedicated assembly building for the Starship.

And instead of building the vehicle out of carbon fiber, as many modern rockets use, the Starship is made of stainless steel. The structures of modern launch vehicles are primarily made of carbon fiber or aluminum, but rockets designed in an earlier era, such as the Atlas-Centaur conceived in the 1950s and 1960s, flew with a stainless steel skin.

Up until October of last year, we were pursuing a completely different design, Musk said, referring to SpaceXs switch to a stainless steel structure for the Starship, reversing earlier plans to construct it out of carbon fiber.

Less than a year after the redesign, Musk has a full-size Starship prototype on the verge of its first test flight. SpaceX says a Super Heavy first stage, which will stack under the Starship during an orbital launch, is not far behind.

Stainless steel is heavier than other rocket materials, but it comes with several major benefits that ultimately make the entire vehicle, including its heat shield, lighter than otherwise possible, Musk said.

Stainless steel is resilient and strong at super-cold temperatures. Thats important because the Starship and Super Heavy will be loaded with 9 million pounds of cryogenic methane and liquid oxygen at liftoff.

The best design decision on this whole thing is 301 stainless steel because at cryogenic temperatures, 301 stainless actually has about the same effective strength as an advanced composite or aluminum-lithium, Musk said. Unlike most steels, which get brittle at low temperature, 301 stainless gets much stronger.

Its strength-to-weight ratio at cryogenic temperatures is equivalent, or even perhaps slightly better than, advanced composites or aluminum-lithium, he said. This is not well appreciated because if you just look at the materials manual and say what is the strength of stainless steel, it looks much weaker than it is. (If) you say what is the strength at cryogenic temperature much, much stronger at very low temperature, almost twice as strong. Thats when it becomes better than carbon fiber or aluminum-lithium.

Steel has a melting temperature of around 2,700 degrees Celsius (1,500 degrees Celsius), significantly higher than that of the aluminum structure used on the space shuttle orbiter.

For a reusable ship, youre coming in like a meteor, Musk said. You want something that does not melt at a low temperature. You want something that melts at a high temperature, and this is where steel is extremely good as well.

That means the top side of the Starship will not need a heat shield, and the thermal shielding on the side of the vehicle oriented forward during re-entry into the atmosphere will be massively reduced, Musk said.

Because the steel can take a much higher temperature, your heat shield even on the windward side is much lighter, he said. The net effect is that a 301 stainless steel rocket is actually the lightest possible reusable architecture.

A ton of stainless steel is 2 percent the cost of a ton of carbon fiber, Musk said.

Also, its very easy to weld stainless steel, the evidence being that we welded it outdoors without a factory, he said. With carbon fiber this is impossible, with aluminum-lithium, also impossible. But steel is easy to weld and it is resilient to the elements.

For orbital-class Starships, SpaceX plans to install hexagonal ceramic tiles on the bottom side of the vehicle. The tiles will take the brunt of re-entry heating as the ship falls into the atmosphere at an angle of attack of around 60 degrees.

The ship will then free-fall in a horizontal orientation like a skydiver, Musk said using fins and thrusters for stability before flipping vertical and igniting its base engines for a vertical landing.

SpaceX is building a second Starship prototype, designated Mk. 2, at an industrial yard in Cocoa, Florida, near Cape Canaveral. Once complete, the vehicle will be transported to the nearby Kennedy Space Center for testing at launch pad 39A, a former Apollo and space shuttle launch facility now leased by SpaceX for its Falcon rocket family.

Im giving you literally just stream of consciousness here, Musk said Saturday at SpaceXs launch site at Boca Chica, Texas. Most likely, we would not fly to orbit with Mk 1, but we would fly to orbit with Mk. 3, which will be built after Mk. 1 right here. In fact, well start building it in about a month.

A few minutes later, Musk said the SpaceX would probably launch the first Starship into orbit using the Mk. 4 or Mk. 5 vehicle.

Just to frame things, we are going to be building ships and boosters at both Boca and the Cape as fast as we can, he said. Its going to be really nutty to see a bunch of these things, not just one, but a whole stack of them. Were improving both the design and the manufacturing method exponentially.

For example, the third iteration of SpaceXs Starship will be built in fewer pieces, with thinner walls, a lighter structure, and lower costs, he said.

The rate at which were going to be building ships will be quite crazy by space standards, he said. I think well have Mk. 2 (in Florida) built within a couple of months or less, and Mk. 3, maybe three months, that type of thing. Mk. 4, four months, maybe five months. And we would seek to go to orbit with probably Mk. 4 or Mk. 5.

This is going to sound totally nuts, but I think we want to try to reach orbit in less than six months, Musk said. Provided the rate of design improvement and manufacturing improvement continue to be exponential, I think that is accurate to within a few months.

The Starship alone could probably reach orbit without a boost from the massive Super Heavy first stage, but flying it to orbit in that configuration wouldnt make sense, Musk said. Without the help of a booster, the Starship could not carry a heat shield, extra fuel or other equipment to return to Earth intact.

So far, SpaceXs development of the Super Heavy and Starship has been privately-funded through revenues from Falcon and Dragon missions. SpaceX has also raised more than $1 billion this year from investors, largely to fund the companys Starlink program designed to provide Internet services from space.

SpaceX says future revenue from the Starlink business could be applied to the Super Heavy and Starship projects.

The priority is to build at least two Starships at each site at Boca and at the Cape and then start building the (Super Heavy) booster, Musk said. Well complete Mk. 1 through 4 before doing Mk. 1 of the booster. And then well do Mk. 1 and Mk. 2 of the boosters at the Cape and at Boca.

Clusters of methane-fueled Raptor engines will power the Super Heavy and Starship vehicles.

Three Raptors are mounted to the base of the Starship Mk. 1 prototype at Boca Chica, and three more will be installed on the Mk. 2 vehicle in Florida for initial test flights, Musk said.

The Raptor is the most powerful engine ever built by SpaceX. The early version of the Raptor engine can produce up to 440,000 pounds of thrust at sea level, roughly equivalent to the main engines flown on the space shuttle.

The Raptor engine has more than twice the thrust of the kerosene-burning Merlin 1D engine that flies on SpaceXs Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. And the Raptor is the most powerful methane-fueled engine ever flown.

Orbital-class Starships will have six Raptors three gimbaling center-mounted engines for vertical landings, and three engines with expanded nozzles optimized for firings in space.

The Super Heavy booster could accommodate up to 37 Raptor engines, depending on final design decisions and mission requirements, Musk said. He expects the Super Heavy to generate around 15 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, about two times the thrust generated by the gigantic Saturn 5 rocket used for the Apollo moon landing missions.

The main constraint on launching the booster is engines, Musk said. The booster has a lot of engines. So spooling up the Raptor production rate is extremely important vital to completing the booster. Doing the tanks and the legs and the grid fins, that is not a constraint. That we can get done fast. I think wed want to have at least probably 24 engines, but I think really at least 31 engines to launch.

The Super Heavy will likely fly with seven Raptor engines with the ability to gimbal, or swivel, to provide steering. The rest of the booster engines will have fixed nozzles, Musk said.

Including development engines from now through orbit, we probably need 100 Raptor engines. Our production rate right now is maybe one every eight to 10 days, he said.

By next year, SpaceX wants to build a Raptor engine every day.

The Starship vehicle assembled at Boca Chica stands around 164 feet (50 meters) tall and weighs 200 tons without propellants. It measures around 30 feet (9 meters) in diameter, about one-and-a-half times the diameter of a Boeing 747 jumbo jet.

Combined with the Super Heavy first stage, the entire stack will stand around 387 feet (118 meters) tall.

The fully reusable Super Heavy/Starship launch vehicle will be able to loft some 150 tons of payload to low Earth orbit, Musk said.

Assuming the Starship can be refilled with methane and liquid oxygen in orbit, the vehicle can deliver the same mass to the moon or Mars, he said.

Musk, an avowed optimist, said people could ride into space on Starship flights before the end of next year.

I think we could potentially see people flying next year, he said. Its designed to be a reusable rocket, so we can do many flights to prove out the reliability very quickly. With an expendable vehicle, if you want to do 10 flights, lets say, to prove out the viability of an expendable vehicle, you need to build and destroy 10 vehicles, whereas we can do 10 flights within basically 10 days.

When I say rapid reusability, I mean you can fly the booster 20 times a day, you fly the ship three or four times a day. Thats what I mean by reusability.

Japanese billionaireYusaku Maezawa announced last year he plans to fly on SpaceXs next-generation spaceship, along with a crew of artists, on a flight around the moon as soon as 2023.

SpaceX says the aspirational goal is to make the Starship ready for a flight to Mars without humans in 2022. A crewed flight to the Red Planet could follow as soon as 2024.

While he didnt mention it Saturday night, Musk has previously saidthe Starship could be used for point-to-point transportation around Earth, enabling intercontinental flights in minutes instead of hours.

Musks presentation Saturday was heavy on propulsion systems, structural design, aerodynamics and vision, but light on talk of funding or technologies necessary to sustain Starship crews in space, which SpaceX says may number as many as 100 people at a time.

For sure, youd want to have a regenerative live support system, Musk said in response to a question. That just means youre recycling everything. Thats for sure important if youre on a several-month journey to Mars and on the surface for 18 months. Regenerative is kind of a necessity. I dont think its actually super-hard to do that relative to the spacecraft itself. The life support system is pretty straightforward.

Musk suggested work on life support systems will come later because the Starships first flights will be unpiloted.

The early flights of Starship would not have any people on-board, he said. It would just be in automatic mode. It would only be later flights that would have people on-board. Even the first flights to Mars, we would send at least a couple of ships, (and) have them land automatically before sending people.

SpaceXs Crew Dragon capsule, designed to ferry NASA astronauts to the International Space Station, will be the companys first human-rated spaceship. But its designed for a limited purpose, and has basic life support systems to accommodate crews for a few days during trips to and from the space station.

And SpaceXs Crew Dragon has not yet flown into orbit with astronauts. Musk said in an interview with CNN after Saturday nights presentation that hardware for a high-altitude abort test will arrive at Cape Canaveral next month, and hardware for the first Crew Dragon mission with astronauts will arrive in November.

He did not specify any schedule for the Crew Dragon launches themselves.

Musk hosted a presentation similar to Saturdays event in May 2014 to reveal details about the Crew Dragon spacecraft. At that time, Musk said the Crew Dragon would be ready to carry astronauts to space in 2016.

For long-duration voyages to other other worlds, SpaceXs Starship will need a much more elaborate life support system to regulate oxygen and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, store and process human waste, generate drinking water, and perhaps grow vegetables on-board.

NASA is testing some closed-loop life support system technologies on the space station, with more upgrades set for launch to the orbiting research complex in the next few years.

SpaceX and NASA have enjoyed a symbiotic relationship for more than a decade, beginning with the U.S. space agencys award of a $278 million agreement to SpaceX in 2006 just four years after its founding to demonstrate the delivery and return of space station cargo.

SpaceX has delivered on the cargo contract, and continues to provide regular resupply flights to the station. The Dragon capsule is also the only spacecraft currently flying that is capable of returning significant mass from the station back to Earth.

The early NASA investment also gave SpaceX an anchor customer for the Falcon 9 rocket, which has become a market leader in the global commercial launch business, prompting competitors to cut prices. It also pioneered the vertical landing and reuse of rocket boosters, a crucial capability for Musks vision of expanding human civilization to Mars.

Since 2006, SpaceX has received $7.7 billion in contract awards from NASA for space station cargo and crew transportation through 2024, according to a report released last year by NASAs inspector general.

NASA selected SpaceX and Boeing in 2014 to develop and fly new human-rated space capsules the Crew Dragon and Starliner to carry astronauts to and from the space station. The commercial crew program was conceivedto limit the gap in U.S. human spaceflight capability after the space shuttles retirement in 2011.

Despite the deep bond between NASA and SpaceX, the U.S. government, so far, has little role in the privately-run Starship program.

NASA is focusing on the Space Launch System, Orion spacecraft and the development of a commercial lunar lander to achieve the Trump administrations goal of landing astronauts the moon by 2024.

SpaceX wrote in an environmental impact statement outlining the companys future construction plans at the Kennedy Space Center that the development of the Super Heavy/Starship vehicle may support NASA in meeting the U.S. goal of near-term lunar exploration.

Delays in the commercial program were revisited Friday in a written statement from NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.

I am looking forward to the SpaceX announcement tomorrow, Bridenstine said Friday. In the meantime, commercial crew is years behind schedule. NASA expects to see the same level of enthusiasm focused on the investments of the American taxpayer. Its time to deliver.

A series of redesigns and technical delays have been partly responsible for schedule slips on the Boeing and SpaceX commercial crew programs. For example, problems with the abort engines on Boeings Starliner crew capsule delayed critical testing by nearly a year, and a valve failure led to the explosion of a Crew Dragon spacecraft during a ground test in April.

But some of the commercial crew delays were caused by Congress, which failed to provide the funding NASA said it needed for the space taxi program prior to 2015.

In June, the Government Accountability Office raised workload concerns for NASA engineers tasked with reviewing a high volume of data submitted by Boeing and SpaceX teams as they finalize their designs and test plans.

The reviews are aimed at ensuring the contractors comply with NASA safety requirements.

NASAs ability to process certification data packages for its two contractors continues to create uncertainty about the timing of certification, the GAO said. The program has made progress conducting these reviews but much work remains.

Musk responded to Bridenstines apparent criticism Saturday night.

From a SpaceX resource standpoint, our resources are overwhelmingly on Falcon and Dragon, he said. Just to be clear, its a small percentage of SpaceX that does Starship, less than 5 percent of the company.

The U.S. Air Force, which needs powerful new rockets to carry satellites into orbit, has funded a fraction of the Raptor engines development costs. But the military did not select SpaceX last year as part of a round of rocket development contracts that went to SpaceX rivals United Launch Alliance, Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman.

SpaceX filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government in May protesting the Air Forces rocket development contracts awarded last year to SpaceXs competitors.

Meanwhile, the Air Force has received bids from SpaceX, ULA, Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman for lucrative military contracts for as many as 34 launches between 2022 and 2026. The so-called Phase 2 launch service procurement is the next stage in a multi-step, multi-year effort by the Air Force to select two contractors to cover the militarys future satellite launch needs, and end reliance on foreign-made rocket engines, such as those used by ULAs Atlas 5 booster.

ULA and SpaceX currently launch most of the U.S. governments military and intelligence-gathering satellites.

SpaceX said it was the only one of the four bidders to offer the Air Force a launch system that is currently flying, making the company the lowest-risk solution for the militarys most critical satellites. The Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets are already certified by the Air Force, and SpaceX indicated it planned to use the Falcon rocket family to compete for the Phase 2 launch service contracts.

ULA is developing the Vulcan-Centaur rocket to replace its Atlas and Delta rocket fleet. Blue Origin, founded by Amazon.com billionaire Jeff Bezos, is developing the New Glenn rocket, and Northrop Grumman is working on the new OmegA launcher.

While the ULA, Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman rockets are based on new designs, none look quite like the Starship.

Blue Origin is designing the first stage of its New Glenn rocket to land and be launched again, and ULA says it intends to eventually recover Vulcan main engines for reuse. But neither vehicle comes with the same lofty ambitions SpaceX has attached to the Starship.

A scaled-down version of the Starship with a single Raptor engine, called the Starhopper, completed a 500-foot (150-meter) test flight Aug. 27. The stubby three-legged vehicle, which space enthusiasts likened to a flying water tower, flew with a single Raptor engine, the most powerful rocket powerplant developed by SpaceX to date.

The Starhopper has been retired as a flight test vehicle in favor of the full-scale Starship.

About a mile down the road from the current location of SpaceXs first Starship prototype, teams are readying launch and landing pads for the vehicle. Ground crews will transfer the Starship to the launch pad ahead of the first atmospheric test flight.

Go here to read the rest:

Elon Musk wants to move fast with SpaceX's Starship - Spaceflight Now