LOS ANGELES — The aerospace company that built the solid rocket boosters for NASA's space shuttle fleet announced plans today (May 9) to develop its own private launch system — a spaceship and rocket — to fly astronauts to and from low-Earth orbit. The first manned flight could launch in about three years, company officials said.
Link:
Shuttle Rocket Booster Maker to Launch Private Space Taxi by 2015
Aerospace Utahs role is producing first-stage rocket booster.
While it may be some time before tourists can book space travel, an announcement Wednesday from Alliant Techsystems Inc. (ATK) puts that dream within reach.
During a late afternoon webcast, ATK representatives revealed completion of the Liberty commercial crew transportation system, which includes the spacecraft, abort system, launch vehicle and ground and mission operations. Initial test flights are slated for 2014, with a test flight carrying a crew in late 2015.
ATK is teaming with Europe-based Astrium, which has a record of 47 consecutive safe space flights with its Ariane 5 rocket. Liberty also receives support from Lockheed Martin.
"Our goal in providing Liberty is to build the safest and most robust system that provides the shortest time to operation using tested and proven human-rated components," Kent Rominger, Libertys vice-president and program manager, said in a statement.
Liberty will provide the United States with new launch capability, Rominger added, "and a schedule that we expect will have us flying crews in just three years, ending our dependence on Russia."
The system knits together established infrastructure and flight-proven elements in its aim to produce a simplified, safe and relatively low-cost commercial product although no prices were cited Wednesday since the company is competing in a NASA bidding contest that concluded in August.
According to John Schumacher, chief executive officer of Astrium in North America, the Liberty system will be capable of transporting both crew and cargo with payloads that could well include U.S. Department of Defense satellites. Space tourism is also in the offing, Schumacher added.
Libertys business model is expected to generate thousands of jobs across the United States and in Utah where ATK operates three facilities and employs more than 3,000 workers.
"The biggest thing for Utah is the five-segment solid rocket booster for the systems first stage," said George Torres, vice-president for ATK communications. Those boosters are produced at ATKs Promontory facility and have been successfully ground-tested horizontally three times so far, Torres said.
See more here:
The U.S. Air Force's secretive robotic X-37B space plane mission continues to chalk up time in Earth orbit, nearing 430 days of a spaceflight that while classified appears to be an unqualified success.
The space plane now circuiting Earth is the second spacecraft of its kind built for the Air Force by Boeings Phantom Works. Known as the Orbital Test Vehicle 2, or OTV-2, the space plane's classified mission is being carried out by the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office.
The robotic X-37B space plane is a reusable spacecraft that resembles a miniature space shuttle. The Air Force launched the OTV-2 mission on March 5, 2011, with an unmanned Atlas 5 rocket lofting the space plane into orbit from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
Spectacular success
General William Shelton, commander of Air Force Space Command, briefly saluted the high-flying X-37B space plane on April 17 during his remarks at the 28th National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo.
"Our second X-37 test vehicle has been on orbit for 409 days now" much longer than the 270 day baseline design specifications, Shelton said. "Although I can't talk about mission specifics, suffice it to say this mission has been a spectacular success," he added. [Photos: The X-37B Space Plane's Second Mission]
In a follow-up meeting with reporters, Shelton told SPACE.com: "It's doing wonderful." When asked specifically about when the craft will be brought back down to Earth, Shelton's response was guarded.
"When we're through with it it's going great," Shelton said.
U.S. Air Force Maj. Tracy Bunko, the Pentagon's spokesperson for the X-37B project, told SPACE.com that the space plane's current mission "is still on track and still ongoing."
Bunko said that a third flight of an X-37B spacecraft slated for liftoff this fall will use the same craft that flew the first test flight, the OTV-1 mission, back in 2010. That maiden voyage of the X-37B space plane lasted 225 days. It launched into orbit on April 22, 2010, and then landed on Dec. 3, zooming in on autopilot over the Pacific Ocean and gliding down onto a specially prepared runway at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Read more:
Next week the billionaire SA expat Elon Musk will make space flight history by docking his own orbiter, Dragon, with the International Space Station.
It was bad South African TV that gave Elon Musk part of his mysterious edge. As a 10-year-old he read whole volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica after emptying the family bookshelvesanything to avoid another episode of ChiPs or Die Man van Intersek.
Now, 29 years later, Musk is still playing video games alone into the late hours of the night.
These days it is in a basement man cave in a leased mansion in Bel Air, California, where Musk, who sold his online payment system PayPal for R11-billion in 2002, is plotting the future of the human race.
Sixteen months ago, the South African expat accomplished something only ever achieved by the governments of the United States, Russia and China. He sent a spacecraft into orbit and then recovered it.
Changing space flight Next Monday he plans to change space flight forever, becoming the first entrepreneur to dock his own orbiter, Dragon, with the International Space Station.
And it literally is his spacecraft. Beyond founding his private SpaceX company in 2002, Musk likes to remind people that he is also the self-taught chief designer of the Falcon launch rockets and their Dragon capsules.
Shortly after the symbolic end of the space-shuttle era and the transport of the shuttle Enterprise to its new home at a New York museum, Americans are struggling to digest how an African-born 39-year-old with no background in rocketry represents their future access to spacea guy so apparently whacky he once travelled to Russia to haggle with God knows who for an intercontinental ballistic missile, which he hoped to use to land a greenhouse on Mars.
It is tough for a lot of people to swallow, said Rand Simberg, a leading space industry analyst. But he is a visionary guy and I take him at his word. Barring disasters, he will be ferrying astronauts to space and he is quite serious when he said he wants to retire on Mars.
From the terse and stoic reassurances of Nasa administrators, Americans are now having to deal with this kind of rhetoric from their new doorman to the heavens: An asteroid or a super-volcano could certainly destroy us and we face risks the dinosaurs never saw: an engineered virus, inadvertent creation of a micro black hole, catastrophic global warming or some as-yet-unknown technology could spell the end of us, he wrote in an essay for Esquire in 2008. And that is when he is making sense.
See the article here:
Next week the billionaire SA expat Elon Musk will make space flight history by docking his own orbiter, Dragon, with the International Space Station.
It was bad South African TV that gave Elon Musk part of his mysterious edge. As a 10-year-old he read whole volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica after emptying the family bookshelvesanything to avoid another episode of ChiPs or Die Man van Intersek.
Now, 29 years later, Musk is still playing video games alone into the late hours of the night.
These days it is in a basement man cave in a leased mansion in Bel Air, California, where Musk, who sold his online payment system PayPal for R11-billion in 2002, is plotting the future of the human race.
Sixteen months ago, the South African expat accomplished something only ever achieved by the governments of the United States, Russia and China. He sent a spacecraft into orbit and then recovered it.
Changing space flight Next Monday he plans to change space flight forever, becoming the first entrepreneur to dock his own orbiter, Dragon, with the International Space Station.
And it literally is his spacecraft. Beyond founding his private SpaceX company in 2002, Musk likes to remind people that he is also the self-taught chief designer of the Falcon launch rockets and their Dragon capsules.
Shortly after the symbolic end of the space-shuttle era and the transport of the shuttle Enterprise to its new home at a New York museum, Americans are struggling to digest how an African-born 39-year-old with no background in rocketry represents their future access to spacea guy so apparently whacky he once travelled to Russia to haggle with God knows who for an intercontinental ballistic missile, which he hoped to use to land a greenhouse on Mars.
It is tough for a lot of people to swallow, said Rand Simberg, a leading space industry analyst. But he is a visionary guy and I take him at his word. Barring disasters, he will be ferrying astronauts to space and he is quite serious when he said he wants to retire on Mars.
From the terse and stoic reassurances of Nasa administrators, Americans are now having to deal with this kind of rhetoric from their new doorman to the heavens: An asteroid or a super-volcano could certainly destroy us and we face risks the dinosaurs never saw: an engineered virus, inadvertent creation of a micro black hole, catastrophic global warming or some as-yet-unknown technology could spell the end of us, he wrote in an essay for Esquire in 2008. And that is when he is making sense.
See the rest here:
MONTGOMERY, Alabama -- Marshall Space Flight Center Acting Director Gene Goldman said the center that helped take people to the moon is working again to explore deeper space.
"Marshall is still making history and making an impact on Alabama and our world," Goldman said in an address to lawmakers
Lawmakers today honored Marshall for its role in space exploration and for its economic impact in Alabama. Legislators presented a resolution honoring Marshall. Goldman spoke to a joint session of the Senate and House saying that "our past accomplishments and our future successes are intertwined."
"With your support, Marshall Space Flight Center pledges to keep making history every day, exploring space, learning more about our planet, inspiring the youth who will take our place, improving the quality of life for all and making Alabama proud," Goldman said.
Goldman said Marshall has a $2.9 billion economic impact, according to a 2009 study. With 5,500 government and contract workers, it is the third largest employer in Huntsville with 90 percent of employees having a four-year college degree or higher.
The center that developed the Saturn V moon rocket in the 1960s, Goldman said, is now developing NASA's new Space Launch System designed to "take us exploring again beyond Earth's orbit with people and robots in ways that aren't possible today."
Marshall is leading the design and the development of the SLS, aheavy-lift launch vehicle that NASA says will eventually take humans to destinations such as Mars.
Goldman said Marshall is not just about rocket development. Marshall scientists used satellite data to track the path of destruction from last year's tornado outbreak. Marshall also helped track and study the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Goldman told lawmakers that Marshall is part of the state's heritage and one of its valuable resources, "no less valuable to the future of Alabama than our waterways and coastline -- our farms and auto industry - our educational institutions and our culture."
As part of the celebration, NASA exhibits dotted the hallways of the the State House. A space shuttle engine was parked in front of the State House.
See more here:
Marshall director to lawmakers: Space exploration part of Alabama's past and future
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - The Alabama Legislature paused briefly from the frantic activities of the final days of the 2012 session to honor NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.
Marshall acting director Gene Goldman told legislators Thursday the space flight center still has an important mission even though the space shuttle program has been discontinued.
He said Marshall, which developed the Saturn V moon rocket, is currently working on the new "Space Launch System," a long-range rocket to take "us exploring again beyond Earth's orbit."
Legislators presented Goldman with a resolution praising Marshall.
Goldman pointed out that Marshall does more than develop rockets. He said in recent years Marshall has helped Alabama deal with earthly issues such as the oil spill in the Gulf and tracking last April's deadly tornadoes.
The rest is here:
The need for additional software assurance testing has again delayed the launch of SpaceX's commercial demonstration flight to the International Space Station, the company announced Friday, until at least May 19.
Photo of the Falcon 9 rocket's hotfire engine test on Monday. Credit: SpaceX "SpaceX and NASA are nearing completion of the software assurance process, and SpaceX is submitting a request to the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station for a May 19 launch target with a backup on May 22," the company said in a statement released Friday.
"Thus far, no issues have been uncovered during this process, but with a mission of this complexity we want to be extremely diligent," the statement said.
Launch of the Falcon 9 rocket on May 19 would occur at approximately 4:55 a.m. EDT (0855 GMT).
The mission can only launch every few days to ensure the Dragon spacecraft has sufficient propellant margins for extra orbital maneuvers planned for the test flight.
The launch slip puts liftoff of the test flight from Cape Canaveral after the docking of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft with three new space station residents - a NASA astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts - to restore the lab to a full six-person crew. NASA and station partners avoid having two visiting spacecraft fly to the space station at the same time.
The Soyuz is due to launch May 14, U.S. time, and dock with the space station May 17.
SpaceX has blamed delays from the beginning of this year on the need to verify flight software can safely accomplish the Dragon spacecraft's final approach to the space station, a sensitive phase of the mission in which the capsule must be capable of recognizing on-board problems and executing an abort out of the vicinity of the crewed outpost.
"After additional reviews and discussions between the SpaceX and NASA teams, we are in a position to proceed toward this important launch," said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for human exploration and operations. "The teamwork provided by these teams is phenomenal. There are a few remaining open items but we are ready to support SpaceX for its new launch date of May 19."
The last target launch date for the test flight was May 7.
Visit link:
This is the third in a series of Wired Q&As with spaceflight experts leading up to SpaceXs launch. You can read the first part and then the second.
We may be at the dawn of a new, private era in space.
In the near future, SpaceXs Falcon 9 rocket will liftoff the launchpad, bringing the Dragon spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station. Until now, only the U.S., Russia, Japan, and the European Union have accomplished such a goal. If SpaceX succeeds, it will become the first private company to do so.
This week, Wired interviews experts in the spaceflight community to discuss the ways this historic launch will impact NASA and mankinds presence in space. Is it a giant leap, or just a baby step?
Today we have Linda Billings, a space policy analyst at George Washington University in Washington D.C. She does communications research regarding NASAs astrobiology program and advises the agencys Mars Exploration and Planetary Protection programs.
Wired: Will this launch be a big game changer for how spaceflight is done?
Billings: Its certainly different from the past. We didnt have Internet billionaires in the 1980s. But I think some of the rhetoric from the new spaceflight companies masks whats going on.
They say this is all that free-spirited, free-market, American-style pioneering the future. But its not really some huge new never-been-done-before method. What irks me about the rhetoric is that these private companies trying to launch new things are receiving government subsidies. So lets call them what they are.
Wired: How do you think this will this impact NASA?
The rest is here:
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) The Alabama Legislature paused briefly from the frantic activities of the final days of the 2012 session to honor NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.
Marshall acting director Gene Goldman told legislators Thursday the space flight center still has an important mission even though the space shuttle program has been discontinued.
He said Marshall, which developed the Saturn V moon rocket, is currently working on the new "Space Launch System," a long-range rocket to take "us exploring again beyond Earth's orbit."
Legislators presented Goldman with a resolution praising Marshall.
Goldman pointed out that Marshall does more than develop rockets. He said in recent years Marshall has helped Alabama deal with earthly issues such as the oil spill in the Gulf and tracking last April's deadly tornadoes.
2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The rest is here:
Claiming that challenges to space flight are political and not technical, the former National Aeronautical Space Administration (NASA) astronaut Marsha S. Ivins pointed out here on Thursday that every year the United States spent more money on pizza than on the entire space programme.
Decisions in space programmes are political. The challenges of space flight are not technical; they are politicalWe don't spend a lot of money in the United States on the space programme, Ms. Ivins told journalists on the sidelines of a programme for schoolchildren organised by the American Centre in the city. We spend more money in the United States on pizza than we do on the entire space programme, she remarked adding that the U.S. spent 0.6 per cent of its fiscal budget on the space programme.
Asked if there was a decline in interest on outer space, the astronaut, who has clocked more than 1,318 hours in space, admitted that interest in the space programme had flatlined in the U.S. because NASA doesn't have a big goal.
I think if we had a plan that said in the next 15 years we would put crews on Mars, and we developed the capability, then people will get excited, she said adding that it would get children interested in travelling to outer space.
Continued here:
26-11-2011 14:17 3D space flight simulations constructed from Hubble images as seen in 'IMAX Hubble 3D' set to Arvo Part's "Tabula Rasa - Silentium". Original Footage: IMAX Hubble 3D Original Music: Arvo Part "Tabula Rasa - Silentium"
Go here to read the rest:
02-02-2012 23:01 CLICK LIKE / FAV! GOOGLE PLUS: TWITTER: FACEBOOK: Minecraft Space Mission, Will Be A Challenge, BTW Sorry This Video Isn't Fancy I Have Had CAMTASIA For LITERALLY 2 MINUTES D: Minecraft By The67go Ep 12 Thanks For Watching, Please Comment Rate & Subscribe © The67go Productions Ltd, February 2012
Read the original post:
25-01-2012 01:23 We take a look at the recent solar flare, SpaceX's plans for reaching the space station, dolphin speech, exoplanets, getting energy from seaweed, crowd sourcing earthquake data, spacecraft updates, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week. Show Notes & Download:
The rest is here:
18-02-2012 16:59 Universal Newsreel Friendship 7 Mercury space flight of John Glenn; Glenn getting ready, puts on space suit, walks to launch pad, 6 am EST, 10 months after Gagarin, gets into his capsule on top Atlas missile, rocket blastoff, animation of capsule turning around, go for 7 orbits, "actual pictures of Glenn in the capsule" and animations of Glenn's orbit around earth, destroyer Noah lifts capsule aboard, Glenn rests and then lifted aboard helicopter for flight to carrier USS Randolph (complete newsreel)
More here:
17-03-2012 05:49 Video Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center From year to year, the moon never seems to change. Craters and other formations appear to be permanent now, but the moon didn't always look like this. Thanks to NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, we now have a better look at some of the moon's history. Learn more in this video! This video is public domain and can be downloaded at: "Still Images, Audio Recordings, Video, and Related Computer Files NASA still images; audio files; video; and computer files used in the rendition of 3-dimensional models, such as texture maps and polygon data in any format, generally are not copyrighted. You may use NASA imagery, video, audio, and data files used for the rendition of 3-dimensional models for educational or informational purposes, including photo collections, textbooks, public exhibits, computer graphical simulations and Internet Web pages. This general permission extends to personal Web pages. This general permission does not extend to use of the NASA insignia logo (the blue "meatball" insignia), the retired NASA logotype (the red "worm" logo) and the NASA seal. These images may not be used by persons who are not NASA employees or on products (including Web pages) that are not NASA-sponsored. NASA should be acknowledged as the source of the material except in cases of advertising. See NASA Advertising Guidelines. If the NASA material is to be used for commercial purposes, especially including advertisements, it ...
View post:
Evolution of the Moon - NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center / SunsFlare - Video
25-03-2012 14:10 Pandora is the idyllic blue world featured in the movie Avatar. Its location is a real place: Alpha Centauri, the nearest star to our Sun and the most likely destination for our first journey beyond the solar system. Remarkably, it's anti-matter, the science fiction fuel of choice that could take us there. Normally, it's only created in powerful jets that roar out of black holes. We can now produce small quantities in Earth-bound particle colliders. Will we journey out only to plunder other worlds? Or will we come in peace? The answer may depend on how we see Earth at that time in the distant future. The year is 2154. Our planet has been ruined by environmental catastrophe. In the movie Avatar, greedy prospectors from Earth descend on the world of an innocent hunter-gatherer people called the Na'vi. Their home is a lush moon far beyond our solar system called Pandora. Could such a place exist? And could our technology... and our appetite for exploration... one day send us hurtling out to reach it? In fact, the supposed site of this fictional solar system is one of our most likely interstellar targets, until a better destination turns up. Pandora orbits a fictional gas planet called Polyphemus. Its home is a real place... Alpha Centauri... the brightest star in the southern constellation of Centaurus. At 4.37 light years away, it's part of the closest star system to our sun. Alpha Centauri is actually two stars, A and B, one slightly larger and more luminous than our own ...
See the original post:
24-04-2012 16:23 Time-lapse video of the installation of J-2X engine 10001 in the A-2 test-stand at Stennis, complete with clamshell assembly and nozzle extension. With these enhancements test engineers will measure the flight-configured engine performance at flight-like conditions. This video covers three months of activity to prepare for hot-fire testing
Go here to see the original:
Hank Silverberg, wtop.com
WASHINGTON - The arrival of space shuttle Discovery this month has spurred discussion about the end of the federally funded manned space program in the United States and the future of commercial space flight.
Now, Virginia has released a report on how the state can capitalize on that.
Virginia already boasts the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) and the Wallops Island Flight facilities, both of which are on the Eastern shore.
More than 9,000 Virginians work directly in space-related industries with another 19,000 people employed in supportive roles. The report says the state should actively try and recruit the workforce being laid off by NASA and should step up mentoring programs in schools for courses like science, technology, engineering and math.
Virginia's Transportation Secretary Sean Connaughton says the state is already ahead of many other efforts to attract a space industry.
"We will have by the end of this year space flights or re-supply missions up to the International Space Station coming from Wallops Island," says Connaughton.
Currently, Virginia's biggest competition comes from Florida, home to both the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral.
Connaughton says Virginia can benefit from the thousands of retired military personnel who have experience in the aerospace industry, which contributes $7.6 billion to the annual economic output of the state.
The report also says the state needs to do more to market and promote the existing commercial space industry.
Read the original:
April 25, 2012
The center section of the backplane structure that will fly on NASAs James Webb Space Telescope has been completed, marking an important milestone in the telescopes hardware development. The backplane will support the telescopes beryllium mirrors, instruments, thermal control systems and other hardware throughout its mission.
Completing the center section of the backplane is an important step in completing the sophisticated telescope structure, said Lee Feinberg, optical telescope element manager for the Webb telescope at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. This fabrication success is the result of innovative engineering dating back to the technology demonstration phase of the program.
The center section, or primary mirror backplane support structure, will hold Webbs 18-segment, 21-foot-diameter primary mirror nearly motionless while the telescope peers into deep space. The center section is the first of the three sections of the backplane to be completed.
Measuring approximately 24 by 12 feet yet weighing only 500 pounds, the center section of the backplane meets unprecedented thermal stability requirements. The backplane holds the alignment of the telescopes optics through the rigors of launch and over a wide range of operating temperatures, which reach as cold as 406 degrees Fahrenheit. During science operations, the backplane precisely keeps the 18 primary mirror segments in place, permitting the mirrors to form a single, pristine shape needed to take sharp images.
The Northrop Grumman Corporation in Redondo Beach, Calif., and its teammate ATK in Magna, Utah, completed construction of the center section. Northrop Grumman is under contract to Goddard for the design and development of Webbs sunshield, telescope and spacecraft. ATK manufactured 1,781 composite parts of the center section using lightweight graphite materials and advanced manufacturing techniques.
Successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, the Webb telescope is the worlds next-generation space observatory and will be the most powerful space telescope ever built. It will observe the most distant objects in the universe, provide images of the very first galaxies ever formed and study planets around distant stars. The Webb telescope is a joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.
Image 1: Artists concept of the James Webb Space Telescope in orbit. Credit: NASA
Image 2: The center section of the James Webb Space Telescope flight backplane, or Primary Mirror Backplane Support Structure, at ATKs manufacturing facility in Magna, Utah. Credit: ATK
More: