NASAs Kepler space telescope team has identified 219 new planet candidates, 10 of which are near-Earth size and in the habitable zone of their star. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Scientists have published a catalog of exoplanet discoveries made by NASAs Kepler space telescope, identifying 219 previously-unknown planet candidates circling stars elsewhere in the galaxy, including 10 would-be worlds that appear to be about the same size of Earth with temperatures potentially hospitable for life.

Culling data collected during the first four years of Keplers mission, researchers used computers to pick out and analyze signals from stars that could be have caused by nearby planets. Automated software identified the detections most likely to be real worlds, according to Susan Thompson, a Kepler research scientist at the SETI Institute and NASAs Ames Research Center who led the cataloging effort.

This is the last search that we performed, and we used our most improved techniques, and with that we found 4,034 candidates, which include 10 new terrestrial-sized candidates in the habitable zone of their star, Thompson said.

Follow-up observations have, so far, confirmed 2,335 of the more than 4,000 candidate worlds discovered by Kepler are real. The 10 new Earth-sized exoplanet candidates identified by Kepler scientists bring the missions total haul to 49 likely worlds about the same size as our home planet that could have the right temperature to harbor liquid water, Thompson said.

Thirty of the 49 Earth-sized planets have been verified.

This new result presented today has implications for understanding the frequency of different types of planets in our galaxy, and helps us to advance our knowledge of of how planets are formed, said Mario Perez, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters.

The four years of data covered in the exoplanet catalog come from Keplers observations of around 200,000 stars in the constellation Cygnus. Using a 37-inch (95-centimeter) telescope and a unique wide-angle 95-megapixel camera, Kepler looked for subtle dips in the brightness of stars in a predetermined patch of sky beginning soon after its 2009 launch on a Delta 2 rocket.

The brightness fluctuations if they occur in regular patterns could be caused by a planet transiting in front of the star, blotting out a tiny fraction of its light. Sophisticated software written specifically for the Kepler mission was tasked with rooting out false positives that could be caused by starquakes or other natural phenomena.

Thompson said scientists injected simulated transits and measured how often Kepler and its data-crunching computers missed a planet. The catalog also accounted for noise in Keplers data archive that software could have mistaken for a planet.

That is how scientists arrived at the 4,034 planet candidates from Keplers four-year observing campaign in the constellation Cygnus. Subsequent detections from other telescopes, in space or on the ground, have verified 2,335 of them to date.

These are planets where there is no question at all that that signal is coming from an exoplanet, Thompson said.

In the case of the exoplanet candidates, there is still some room for doubt whether that signal is coming from a planet, she said. It still could be coming from other astrophysical signals.

Several of the newly-discovered planet candidates orbit G dwarf stars like our sun.Thompson singled out one exoplanet candidate named KOI-7711, which is about 1.3 times the size of Earth and orbits its star every 302 days.

She said KOI-7711 gets approximately the same amount of heat that we get from our own star.

However, theres a lot we dont know about this planet, and as a result, its hard to say whether its really an Earth twin, Thompson said Monday. We need to know more about its atmosphere, whether theres water on the planet.

Alien astronomers looking into our solar system through a distant telescope could be tricked into assuming more than one planet was hospitable to life.

I always like to remind people that it looks like there are three planets in our habitable zone Venus, Earth and Mars and Id only really want to live on one of them, Thompson said.

Keplers updated exoplanet listing will help astronomers estimate how common rocky, potentially habitable planets are in our galaxy.

For M dwarfs, which are small stars that make up 75 percent of the stars, in the galaxy, we know that one out of every four of them has a planet that is small and is in the habitable zone, said Courtney Dressing, a NASA Sagan Fellow at the California Institute of Technology.

Dressing said scientists still trying to determine the ubiquity of Earth-sized planets around sun-like stars, one of the chief goals of the Kepler mission. But the catalog released this week will arm scientists with better data to answer that question.

One thing thats important for us is are we alone? Perez said Monday. And maybe Kepler today has told us indirectly although we dont have confirmation that we are probably not alone.

Statistics from the Kepler planet catalog also suggest small planets fall into two families, said Benjamin Fulton, a doctoral candidate at the University of Hawaii in Manoa.

One grouping of planets ranges from smaller than Earth to less than twice the size of Earth, and another set of planets found by Kepler measure up to four times Earths diameter. There are relatively few worlds in between, Fulton said.

Most of the planets in the first group may be akin to the Earth with rocky surfaces and little to no atmospheres, Fulton said. Planets in the second group are probably more like cousins of Neptunes with thick atmospheres and no surface to speak of.

Astronomers turned to the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii to measure the sizes of approximately 1,300 stars known to have planets. The data yielded better estimates of the planets dimensions.

Scientists believe the delineation between super-Earths and mini-Neptunes stems from the way the planets form. Some worlds suck in more hydrogen and helium, growing thick, deep atmospheres, while others develop comparatively thin atmospheres that can be blown away by stellar winds and heat.

This result has significant implications for the search for life, Fulton said. Approximately half of the planets that we know are so common have no solid surface, or a surface deep beneath the crushing weight of a thick atmosphere, and these would not be nice places to live.

Our result sharpens up the dividing line between potentially habitable planets, and those that are inhospitable to life as we know it, he said.

Keplers mission has been plagued by the failure of two of the observatorys four reaction wheels, spinning gyro-like mechanisms that kept the telescope steadily pointed at the missions star field in the constellation Cygnus.

With the loss of Keplers second reaction wheel in 2013, the telescope could no longer meet the missions original pointing requirements.

Engineers found a way to harness the pressure of photons of sunlight by positioning the spacecraft to prevent solar radiation from slowly pointing the telescope away from its astronomical targets. Although solar pressure exerts very low forces on spacecraft, the constant bombardment of solar photons can alter the orientation of satellites.

Controllers can eliminate the effects of solar pressure by balancing Kepler against the stream of sunlight, similar to balancing a pencil on a finger. The telescope cannot detect the faint signatures of planets without stable pointing.

Kepler orbits the sun at roughly the same distance as Earth. NASA calls telescopes current observing program the K2 mission.

Keeping Kepler balanced means it must be pointed in the ecliptic plane, or the plane where all the solar systems planets orbit the sun. The mitigation against solar pressure means Kepler can only look at a narrow band of stars, shifting its 100-square-degree field-of-view every two or three months to avoid pointing its sensitive camera at bright sunlight.

The new observing method means Kepler is now best-suited to finding exoplanets located very close to their host stars.

Kepler continues searching for planets, but officials expect it to run out of fuel some time next year.

The spacecraft has about 10 percent of its hydrazine fuel supply remaining, according to Jessie Dotson, the K2 missions project scientist at Ames.

We think the limiting factor is probably going to be the fuel, Dotson said.

NASAs next planet-hunting mission, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral in March 2018 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. TESS will survey the entire sky to look for exoplanet signatures around nearby, bright stars.

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Updated Kepler catalog contains 219 new exoplanet candidates - Spaceflight Now

June 22, 2017 by Fraser Cain, Universe Today Credit: SpaceWork Enterprises, Inc

We've spent a few articles on Universe Today talking about just how difficult it's going to be to travel to other stars. Sending tiny unmanned probes across the vast gulfs between stars is still mostly science fiction. But to send humans on that journey? That's just a level of technology beyond comprehension.

For example, the nearest star is Proxima Centauri, located a mere 4.25 light years away. Just for comparison, the Voyager spacecraft, the most distant human objects ever built by humans, would need about 50,000 years to make that journey.

I don't know about you, but I don't anticipate living 50,000 years. No, we're going to want to make the journey more quickly. But the problem, of course, is that going more quickly requires more energy, new forms of propulsion we've only starting to dream up. And if you go too quickly, mere grains of dust floating through space become incredibly dangerous.

Based on our current technology, it's more likely that we're going to have to take our time getting to another star.

And if you're going to go the slower route, you've got a couple of options. Create a generational ship, so that successive generations of humans are born, live out their lives, and then die during the hundreds or even thousands of year long journey to another star.

Imagine you're one of the people destined to live and die, never reaching your destination. Especially when you look out your window and watch a warp ship zip past with all those happy tourists headed to Proxima Centauri, who were start enough to wait for warp drives to be invented.

No, you want to sleep for the journey to the nearest star, so that when you get there, it's like no time passed. And even if warp drive did get invented while you were asleep, you didn't have to see their smug tourist faces as they zipped past.

Is human hibernation possible? Can we do it long enough to survive a long-duration spaceflight journey and wake up again on the other side?

Before I get into this, we're just going to have to assume that we never merge with our robot overlords, upload ourselves into the singularity, and effortlessly travel through space with our cybernetic bodies.

For some reason, that whole singularity thing never worked out, or the robots went on strike and refused to do our space exploration for us any more. And so, the job of space travel fell to us, the fragile, 80-year lifespanned mammals. Exploring the worlds within the solar system and out to other stars, spreading humanity into the cosmos.

Come on, we know it'll totally be the robots. But that's not what the science fiction tells us, so let's dig into it.

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We see animals, and especially mammals hibernating all the time in nature. In order to be able survive over a harsh winter, animals are capable of slowing their heart rate down to just a few beats a minute. They don't need to eat or drink, surviving on their fat stores for months at a time until food returns.

It's not just bears and rodents that can do it, by the way, there are actually a couple of primates, including the fat-tailed dwarf lemur from Madagascar. That's not too far away on the old family tree, so there might be hope for human hibernation after all.

In fact, medicine is already playing around with human hibernation to improve people's chances to survive heart attacks and strokes. The current state of this technology is really promising.

They use a technique called therapeutic hypothermia, which lowers the temperature of a person by a few degrees. They can use ice packs or coolers, and doctors have even tried pumping a cooled saline solution through the circulatory system. With the lowered temperature, a human's metabolism decreases and they fall unconscious into a torpor.

But the trick is to not make them so unconscious that they die. It's a fine line.

The results have been pretty amazing. People have been kept in this torpor state for up to 14 days, going through multiple cycles.

The therapeutic use of this torpor is still under research, and doctors are learning if it's helpful for people with heart attacks, strokes or even the progression of diseases like cancer. They're also trying to figure out if there are any downsides, but so far, there don't seem to be any long-term problems with putting someone in this torpor state.

A few years ago, SpaceWorks Enterprises delivered a report to NASA on how they could use this therapeutic hypothermia for long duration spaceflight within the solar system.

Currently, a trip to Mars takes about 6-9 months. And during that time, the human passengers are going to be using up precious air, water and food. But in this torpor state, SpaceWorks estimates that the crew will a reduction in their metabolic rate of 50 to 70 percent. Less metabolism, less resources needed. Less cargo that needs to be sent to Mars.

The astronauts wouldn't need to move around, so you could keep them nice and snug in little pods for the journey. And they wouldn't get into fights with each other, after six to nine months of nothing but day after day of spaceflight.

We know that weightlessness has a negative effect on the body, like loss of bone mass and atrophy of muscles. Normally astronauts exercise for hours every day to counteract the negative effects of the reduced gravity. But SpaceWorks thinks it would be more effective to just put the astronauts into a rotating module and let artificial gravity do the work of maintaining their conditioning.

They envision a module that's 4 metres high and 8 metres wide. If you spin the habitat at 20 revolutions per minute, you give the crew the equivalent of Earth gravity. Go at only 11.8 RPM and it'll feel like Mars gravity. Down to 7.8, and it's lunar gravity.

Normally, spinning that fast in a habitat that small would be extremely uncomfortable as the crew would experience different forces at different parts of their body. But remember, they'll be in a state of torpor, so they really won't care.

Current plans for sending colonists to Mars would require 40 ton habitats to support 6 people on the trip. But according to SpaceWorks, you could reduce the weight down to 15 tons if you just let them sleep their way through the journey. And the savings get even better with more astronauts.

The crew probably wouldn't all sleep for the entire journey. Instead, they'd sleep in shifts for a few weeks. Taking turns to wake up, check on the status of the spacecraft and crew before returning to their cryosleep caskets.

What's the status of this now? NASA funded stage 1 of the SpaceWorks proposal, and in July, 2016 NASA moved forward with Phase 2 of the project, which will further investigate this technique for Mars missions, and how it could be used even farther out in the solar system.

Elon Musk should be interested in seeing their designs for a 100-person module for sending colonists to Mars.

In addition, the European Space Agency has also been investigating human hibernation, and a possible way to enable long-duration spaceflight. They have plans to test out the technology on various non-hibernating mammals, like pigs. If their results are positive, we might see the Europeans pushing this technology forward.

Can we go further, putting people to sleep for decades and maybe even the centuries it would take to travel between the stars?

Right now, the answer is no. We don't have any technology at our disposal that could do this. We know that microbial life can be frozen for hundreds of years. Right now there are parts of Siberia unfreezing after centuries of permafrost, awakening ancient microbes, viruses, plants and even animals. But nothing on the scale of human beings.

When humans freeze, ice crystals form in our cells, rupturing them permanently. There is one line of research that offers some hope: cryogenics. This process replaces the fluids of the human body with an antifreeze agent which doesn't form the same destructive crystals.

Scientists have successfully frozen and then unfrozen 50-milliliters (almost a quarter cup) of tissue without any damage.

In the next few years, we'll probably see this technology expanded to preserving organs for transplant, and eventually entire bodies, and maybe even humans. Then this science fiction idea might actually turn into reality. We'll finally be able to sleep our way between the stars.

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By studying hibernation, a Duke University team is providing a window into why humans sleep. Observations of a little-known primate called the fat-tailed dwarf lemur in captivity and the wild has revealed that it goes for ...

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A medically induced coma isn't hibernation, the bodies biochemical process still take place at the same rate. All you are doing is suppressing - incompletely- the brain's ability to create memories from external stimuli. You will age at the same rate at best and at worst undergo significant physical degradation.

Talking to ex-critical care patients, in a previous role, it became clear that many of them experienced vivid dreams - actually nightmares - whilst in induced comas. This was primarily ascribed to the use of opioids as analgesics. Almost all patients given respiratory support for more than five days had to be weaned off of ventilators gradually as they were no-longer able to breathe independently due to muscle wastage.

So you could be put into a coma - but when you arrive you don't know who you are and why you're there (or be just an all-round vegetable).

In any case: when you get there it won't be different from living/dying in a ship. Because there's nowhere to live. You'll still need to be confined to the ship (or a similarly confined structure on any planet you land on). Might as well go for the generation-ship. Makes no difference.

What would be the point?

They won't be coming back. and communication with them would likely be impossible due to the immense distance and power requirements, reducing the amount of data transfered to something like a single photograph per year and even that takes 80 years to turn up.

That's why people need to go. The robots run for a time and then break down, whereas people can form colonies and build giant transmitters from local materials without the need of science-magic-grey-goo-nanobot stuff that's even less plausible than singularity or robot overlords.

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Jason Rhian

June 21st, 2017

WhiteKnightOne and SpaceShipOne. Photo Credit: Lunar Clips

It was a heady time for the emerging NewSpace movement, California-based Scaled Compositeshad sent Mike Melvill in the privately produced SpaceShipOne on flight 15P up 62 miles (100 kilometers) into space.This set the stage for them to win the Ansari X-PRIZE and from there send the first touristson suborbital hops. Or, so they hoped. Thirteen years and four lives later, the follow-on vehicle, SpaceShipTwo, has yet to send a single tourist to sub-orbit.

Although initial indications suggested that SpaceShipOne and its successors would be ferrying tourists to the very edge of space, none have done so since the company won the Ansari X PRIZE on Oct. 4, 2004. Photo Credit: Scaled Composites

Flight 15Pwas followed by 16P, with Melvill once again at the helm, this time taking SpaceShipOne up to 64 miles (103 kilometers) on Sept. 29, 2004, and the 17P flight on Oct. 4, 2004. These last two flights were competitive and met the requirements under the Ansari X-PRIZE worth an estimated $10 million.

The Ansari X-PRIZE was instituted to jump-start commercial space efforts, and it appeared that Scaleds owner, aerospace maverick Burt Rutan, would show the world that private industry could do things more quickly, better, and less expensively than government operations.

With Scaled Composites closing in on the X-PRIZE, Sir Richard Branson, the founder of the Virgin franchise, entered into an agreement with the company to produce the successor aircraft and spacecraft WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo.

However, since their initial successes, efforts to have well-heeled (a ticket on board the spacecraft costs an estimated $250,000) space tourists sent up into the black sky, to the very edge of space (sub-orbit), have stalled.

On July 26, 2007, three people were killed when a rocket engine explodedduring a test that was being developed for SpaceShipTwo. Knights Arrow, utilizing aCalifornia Public Information Act, obtained access to areport from the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration on the incident.

Inthe Knights Arrow report, several factors were suggested as contributing to the deaths ofTodd Ivens, Eric Blackwell, and Charles Glenn May. These included either a lack of due-diligence or,possibly, as the Knights Arrow article claims, a wilful disregard of the truth. Also, suggestions were made that the Nitrous Oxide (N2O) fuel was stable and benign. This may have led to the erroneous belief that viewers could watch the test from a relatively close distance, with nothing but a chain-link fence as protection.

Photo Credit: D. Ramey Logan

The ambient temperature that day was estimated to be about 105 F (40.5 C); however, the recorded ambient temperature at the nearbyMojave Airport peaked at 115 F (46 C). Also, there was a holding tank containing more than 10,000 pounds (4,536 kg) of N2O at 70 F (21 C) and pressurized to 360 psi (2,482 kPa).

After about three seconds into the test, therig exploded. According to the Knights Arrow report, many of the individuals present that day, as well as those responsible, were not interviewed.

Fast forward seven years to Oct. 31, 2014, and theVSS Enterprise (tail numberN339SS) SpaceShipTwo was conducting its fourth powered test flight when the co-pilot accidentally activated the spacecrafts feather system, which allows the spacecraft to return to Earth without the penalty of having a heavy heatshield.

The VSS Enterprise, the first of five planned spacecraft of this type, broke up killing the co-pilot Michael Alsburyand leaving the pilot Peter Siebold seriously injured.

The sign Melvill held aloft thirteen years ago read: SpaceShipOne, Government Zero. On this anniversary of those first exciting steps, one could say that the loss offour liveshas provided the producers of both SpaceShipOne and SpaceShipTwo with some humble experiences that have tempered their initial swagger.

The loss of thisconfidence, coupled with the accidents, has slowedthe rapid pace that Scaled Composites / Virgin Galactic / The Spaceship Company started out with (in July 2009, Bransontold the BBCthat the first paid flights should take place within 18 months that was roughly six years ago). Since that time, the date of when paying customersmight fly to space on SpaceShipTwo has slippedto the right several times, so much so that even Branson has stopped providing a date as to when this might occur.

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Certain statements within this article are based on the views of the author and do not, necessarily, reflect those of SpaceFlight Insider.

Tagged: Sir Richard Branson SpaceShipOne SpaceShipOne Government Zero SpaceShipTwo The Range The Spaceship Company Virgin Galactic

Jason Rhian spent several years honing his skills with internships at NASA, the National Space Society and other organizations. He has provided content for outlets such as: Aviation Week & Space Technology, Space.com, The Mars Society and Universe Today.

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Our SpaceFlight Heritage: SpaceShipOne, Government Zero 13 years later - SpaceFlight Insider

Bart Leahy

June 22nd, 2017

Boeing logo. Photo Credit: Paul J. Richards / AFP

Boeing is looking to make its operations leaner and more competitive by breaking up its Defense, Space & Security (BDS) unit into smaller business units reporting directly to BDS CEOLeanne Caret. Effective July 1, 2017, the unit will reorganize into several smaller divisions covering Autonomous Systems; Space and Missile Systems; Strike, Surveillance, and Mobility; and Vertical Lift.

Boeings structural changes will eliminate a layer of executive oversight, laying off approximately 50 executives. The changes are expected togive each of the organizations more autonomy and direct access to Caret, but also give her more direct oversight over their operations.

The smaller business units responsibilities will be broken out as follows:

The Development, Global Operations, and Phantom Works segments, which also report to Caret, will largely be unchanged.

We need to be an agile organization that is more responsive to customers needs and committed to continually improving productivity, Caret said. We are fundamentally addressing how we compete, win, and grow in Boeings second century.

It is uncertain, as yet, what impact this reorganization will have on Boeings involvement in ULA. However, the company already has two major reusable space systems under development: the X-37B for the U.S. Air Force and the XS-1 reusable winged launcher for DARPA.

Tagged: Boeing Defense Space & Security The Range

Bart Leahy is a freelance technical writer living in Orlando, Florida. Leahy's diverse career has included work for The Walt Disney Company, NASA, the Department of Defense, Nissan, a number of commercial space companies, small businesses, nonprofits, as well as the Science Cheerleaders.

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Boeing reorganizing for more agile performance - SpaceFlight Insider

Christopher Paul

June 22nd, 2017

Rick Mastracchio hovers above the cupola window in the Tranquility module of the International Space Station during his STS-131 mission in 2010. He recently retired from NASA and joined Orbital ATKs Commercial Resupply Services program. Photo Credit: NASA

Orbital ATK has hired former NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio as its new senior director of operations for the Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program. The company made theannouncement via aJune 19, 2017, press release welcoming the three-time Space Shuttle astronaut to its Space Systems Group team.

Orbital ATK is one of two companies working with NASA to regularly resupply the International Space Station with consumables and experiments. Using the Cygnus spacecraft, the Dulles, Virginia-based company has been sending cargo to the outpost since 2013.

Rick Mastracchio takes an EVA selfie during a spacewalk in April 2014. Photo Credit: NASA

Mastracchio, who retired from NASA on June 16, 2017, will be responsible for managing Orbital ATKs mission and cargo operations teams. Additionally, he will be support the companys other interests in human spaceflight, according to the release, including pursuits beyond low-Earth orbit.

We are thrilled to welcome Rick Mastracchio to Orbital ATK, said Frank DeMauro, vice president and general manager of Orbital ATKs Advanced Programs Division. With his experience as an astronaut and his time spent on the International Space Station, Rick brings a unique understanding of human space flight, making him an invaluable resource for our human space flight endeavors.

Mastracchio started out at NASA as a member of the Flight Crew Operations Directorate in 1990. Before working for NASA directly, he worked for Rockwell at Johnson Space Center beginning in 1987.

As a member of the Flight Crew Operations Directorate, Mastracchio worked on the Space Shuttles avionics software, as well as planning ascent and abort procedures.Joining the staff of NASAs Mission Control in 1993, he served as an ascent/entry Guidance Procedures Officer, supporting 17 missions as a flight controller.

Mastracchio was selected as an astronaut candidate in 1996 and began training in August of that year.His first flight was on STS-106 as a mission specialist aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis. He flew again on STS-118 aboard Endeavour, and finally on STS-131 aboard Discovery. All three missions served as assembly and resupply missions to the ISS.

In 2013, Mastracchio flew to the outpostaboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft and served as a member of Expeditions 38 and 39. It was during this mission that the first Cygnus under the CRS contract, the Orb-1 mission, arrived at the outpost.

In total, Mastracchio has spent 228 days in space across his four spaceflights. During that time, he went on nine spacewalks totaling just over 53 hours.

After his last trip into space, he continued working for NASA as a designer for the cockpit on the Orion spacecraft, building on his experience helping the space agency upgrade the Shuttles cockpit in 2003.

Rick is a classmate and a friend and he has done great work for NASA, both in space and on the ground, said Chief Astronaut Pat Forrester, who was selected as an astronaut in the same class as Mastracchio. His breadth of experience over three decades in human spaceflight will serve him well as he moves on to his next endeavor.

Tagged: Commercial Resupply Services Cygnus NASA Orbital ATK Rick Mastracchio The Range

Christopher Paul has had a lifelong interest in spaceflight. He began writing about his interest in the Florida Tech Crimson. His primary areas of interest are in historical space systems and present and past planetary exploration missions. He lives in Kissimmee, Florida, and also enjoys cooking and photography. Paul saw his first Space Shuttle launch in 2005 when he moved to central Florida to attend classes at the Florida Institute of Technology, studying space science, and has closely followed the space program since. Paul is especially interested in the renewed effort to land crewed missions on the Moon and to establish a permanent human presence there. He has covered several launches from NASA's Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral for space blogs before joining SpaceFlight Insider in mid-2017.

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Former astronaut Rick Mastracchio joins Orbital ATK - SpaceFlight Insider

Lloyd Campbell

June 21st, 2017

Double Feature: SpaceX will attempt to launch two Falcon 9 rockets in just two days. The first will be the BulgariaSat-1 mission on June 23, 2017, which will fly out of Kennedy Space Centers Launch Complex 39A. The second will be the Iridium-2 mission on June 25, 2017, which will liftoff from Vandenberg Air Force Bases Space Launch Complex 4E. Pictured is the Iridium-1 mission, left, and the NROL-76 mission, which launched in January and May 2017 respectively. Photo Credits: SpaceX

Due to an adjustment in its mission manifest, SpaceX will attempt to fly two Falcon 9 rocketsa little more than 50 hours apart from opposite sides of the United States. Using two different launch teams, it would set a new record for successive launches by the NewSpace company.

The first mission is scheduled to take flight Friday, June 23, 2017, from Kennedy Space Centers Launch Complex 39A. Originally scheduled to launch June 19, this flight was delayed following the discovery of a problem with a pneumatic valve in the payload fairing, which SpaceX determined needed to be replaced to ensure a safe deployment of the satellite.

SpaceX performs a static fire test on flight-proven core 1029, paving the way for the BulgariaSat-1 mission to launch. Liftoff is targeted for June 23, 2017. Photo Credit: SpaceX

The valve is responsible for separating the two halves of the fairing during flight after the payload is above the thickest parts of the atmosphere. While there is redundancy in the system, SpaceX decided to err on the side of caution and replace the suspect valve.

Having already completed all of its pre-launch testing, including a static fire test over the weekend, the flight-proven Falcon 9 should be ready to fly once it is returns to the pad.

This will be the second flight of this particular first stage, core 1029, having previously launched the first 10 Iridium NEXT satellites in January 2017 during the Iridium-1 mission.

The payload for the EastCoast flight is a television broadcasting satellite called BulgariaSat-1, which will provide direct-to-home television to the Balkans, among other areas.The two-hour launch window opens at 2:10 p.m. EDT (1810 GMT). If the flight does not happen Friday, a backup opportunity exists Saturday with the same window.

Nearly three minutes into the flight, core 1029 will separate from the second stage and attempt to land on the Of Course I Still Love You drone ship which will be stationed downrange in the Atlantic Ocean.

Two days later, on the other side of the continent, a second Falcon 9 mission will take place. Scheduled for Sunday afternoon from Vandenberg Air Force Bases Launch Complex 4E (east) in California, this will be the fourth liftoff SpaceX has executed from that facility.

The company completed a successful static fire test on the rocket Tuesday, June 20. It involved filling both stages with liquid oxygen and rocket-grade kerosene in a simulated countdownculminating in the nine first stage Merlin-1D engines igniting for just over 3 seconds to confirm everything was functioning properly.

With the test out of the way, SpaceX can now move ahead with integrating the payload,the second set of 10 Iridium NEXT satellites,with the rocket. These spacecraft will give Iridium Communications customers better voice and data service.Liftofffor the Iridium-2 mission is set for1:25 p.m. PDT (4:25 p.m. EDT / 20:25 GMT). This will be the first flight for this specific Falcon 9 first stage, core 1036.

The company will attempt to land core 1036 on its West Coast drone ship, Just Read the Instructions, following the separation of the second stage some 2.5 minutes into flight. Assuming a successful recovery, SpaceX plans to refurbish and reuse the booster for a future launch.

Tagged: bulgariasat-1 Falcon 9 Iridium-2 Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A Lead Stories Space Launch Complex 4E SpaceX Vandenberg Air Force Base

Lloyd Campbells first interest in space began when he was a very young boy in the 1960s with NASAs Gemini and Apollo programs. That passion continued in the early 1970s with our continued exploration of our Moon, and was renewed by the Shuttle Program. Having attended the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery on its final two missions, STS-131, and STS-133, he began to do more social networking on space and that developed into writing more in-depth articles. Since then hes attended the launch of the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover, the agencys new crew-rated Orion spacecraft on Exploration Flight Test 1, and multiple other uncrewed launches. In addition to writing, Lloyd has also been doing more photography of launches and aviation. He enjoys all aspects of space exploration, both human, and robotic, but his primary passions lie with human exploration and the vehicles, rockets, and other technologies that allow humanity to explore space.

Visit link:

SpaceX to launch, land 2 Falcon 9 rockets just days apart - SpaceFlight Insider

On June 21, 2017, Spaceport America announced it's vision and direction ahead. They talked about how the facility is being used and about commercial space flights. Credit: KFOX14 / CBS4

New Mexico is getting closer to commercial space travel, according to officials at the Spaceport America facility in Truth or Consequences.

Flights to space on Virgin Galactic were supposed to begin in 2014, but were delayed.

On Wednesday, Spaceport America announced it's vision and direction ahead. They talked about how the facility is being used and about commercial space flights.

"We have access to space 24/7," said Dan Hicks, CEO at Spaceport America.

He said more companies are becoming interested in the site for space testing.

"One of the key attributes we have is restricted airspace," he said. "So from surface to unlimited, we have a partnership with White Sands Missile Range and the Department of Defense."

Virgin Galactic was the first anchor tenant at the facility.

Hicks said there are now five tenants.

Jonathan Firth is the executive vice president of Spaceport America and talked about Virgin Galactic's strategy for space travel.

"We have our flight test system, going through flight tests right now," Firth said. "We have a new spaceship that we've built, we've been testing it for 9 months now in flight tests and we're going to continue doing that for the rest of this year, and probably into the early part of next year."

KFOX14 asked when the first commercial space flight would happen. But Firth said they're not releasing a time frame.

"The approach now is that when we're ready, we'll fly, and we're not going to announce a date ahead of time," Firth said.

Both Firth and Hicks said they believe New Mexico is beginning to feel the economic impact the Spaceport America facility is bringing to the state.

"Just the rent payments, and you know the user fees that we've paid to the Spaceport already exceeds $7 million so far," Firth said. "If you look at our relationship with New Mexico, supplies in general, and other things that we need, we've looked locally wherever possible. We've spent more than $9 million dollars."

Mark Russell is the founder and CEO of the company Pipeline2Space. The company began using Spaceport America back in April to further a project of its own.

"Flying on demand here , and that's really the key here," he said. "Because of its proximity to White Sands Missile Range, you are able to fly when you want to, and we want to fly on a five minute metronome."

Russell said this New Mexico facility has given him opportunities to further his project that he wouldn't have had otherwise.

He also said he feels his company is contributing to the New Mexico economy as his project pushes ahead.

"We need to put holes in the ground, and we need to create infrastructure, and we need to create operations teams that live, work and go to school right here in New Mexico," Russell said.

See the original post:

Spaceport America talks commercial space flights, introduces new tenants - KFOX El Paso

Laurel Kornfeld

June 21st, 2017

NASAs Kepler space telescope team has identified 219 new planet candidates, 10 of which are near-Earth-size and in the habitable zone of their star. Image & Caption Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech

NASAs Keplermission has released the most extensive list of exoplanet findings: a total of 219 planet candidates, of which ten are probablyEarth-like and occupy their stars habitable zones where temperatures allow liquid water to exist on the surface.

The eighth and final data release of the original, four-year Kepler mission brings the total number of exoplanet candidates found by the telescope to 4,034. Of these, 2,335 have been confirmed to be planets, and 50 are located in habitable zones and are roughly Earth-sized.

Launched in March 2009, Kepler spent four years observing stars in the constellation Cygnus by using the transit method, which involves searching for regular dimming of stars light as orbiting planets transit or pass in front of the stars. However, the failure of the spacecrafts second of four reaction wheels in May 2013 put an end to that part of its mission, which had been expected to be extended until 2016.

Keplers latest findings announced at a news conference on Monday, June 19, held at the NASA Ames Research Center in California also revealed the existence of two divergent categories of small planets. The first are gaseous worlds with no known solid surfaces, dubbed mini-Neptunes, while the second are rocky planets sometimes described as super-Earths.

Researchers using data from the W. M. Keck Observatory and NASAs Kepler mission have discovered a gap in the distribution of planet sizes, indicating that most planets discovered by Kepler so far fall into two distinct size classes: the rocky Earths and super-Earths (similar to Kepler-452b), and the mini-Neptunes (similar to Kepler-22b). This histogram shows the number of planets per 100 stars as a function of planet size relative to Earth. Image & Caption Credit: NASA / Ames / Caltech / University of Hawaii (B. J. Fulton)

Using the Kepler data, one group of scientists observed 1,300 stars and 2,000 planets that the telescope found with the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, with the goal of obtaining precise measurements of the planets sizes. Their studies confirmed the presence of the two distinct small planet types.

Rocky planets appear to have a size limit at around 75 percent larger than the Earth. For reasons not well understood, some small planets accumulate hydrogen and helium, swelling out to become gaseous worlds with heavy atmospheres and no known solid surfaces. The latter are not good locations to search for life.

We like to think of this study as classifying planets in the same way that biologists identify new species of animals. Finding two distinct groups of exoplanets is like discovering mammals and lizards make up distinct branches of a family tree, explained Benjamin Fulton, lead author of the second study and a doctoral student at the University of Hawaii.

This diagram illustrates how planets are assembled and sorted into two distinct size classes. First, the rocky cores of planets are formed from smaller pieces. Then, the gravity of the planets attracts hydrogen and helium gas. Finally, the planets are baked by the starlight and lose some gas. At a certain mass threshold, planets retain the gas and become gaseous mini-Neptunes; below this threshold, the planets lose all their gas, becoming rocky super-Earths. Image & Caption Credit: NASA / Kepler / Caltech (R. Hurt)

Particular attention was given to one approximately Earth-sized world discovered orbiting in the habitable zone of its Sun-like star. Designated KOI-7711, this planet candidate resembles Earth in both its orbit and size, but the composition of its atmosphere and its ability to host liquid water on its surface is unknown.

In the Solar System, Venus, Earth, and Mars are all located in the habitable zone, yet only Earth is capable of supporting life, the scientists noted.

Theres a lot we dont know about this planet, Kepler scientist Susan Mullally said, noting it is premature to refer to it as an Earth twin.

In the past, planets discovered by Kepler were initially thought to be habitable only to later be found inhospitable due to phenomena such as bombardment by stellar flares.

Highlighted are new planet candidates from the eighth Kepler planet candidate catalog that are less than twice the size of Earth and orbit in the stars habitable zone the range of distances from a star where liquid water could pool on the surface of an orbiting planet. The dark green area represents an optimistic estimate for the habitable zone, while the brighter green area represents a more conservative estimate for the habitable zone. The candidates are plotted as a function of their stars surface temperature on the vertical axis and by the amount of energy the planet candidate receives from its host star on the horizontal axis. Brighter yellow circles show new planet candidates in the eighth catalog, while pale yellow circles show planet candidates from previous catalogs. Blue circles represent candidates that have been confirmed as planets due to follow-up observations. The sizes of the colored disks indicate the sizes of these exoplanets relative to one another and to the image of Earth, Venus, and Mars, placed on this diagram for reference. Note that the new candidates tend to be around stars more similar to the sun around 5,800 Kelvin representing progress in finding planets that are similar to the Earth in size and temperature that orbit Sun-like stars. Image & Caption Credits: NASA / Ames Research Center / Wendy Stenzel

To address the possibilities of both false positives and failure to identify actual planets, the Kepler team analyzed the data by combining it with software simulations that added false signals and deliberate misses of known planets. Mixing real data with simulated information accurately predicted both overcounts and undercounts.

This carefully measured catalog is the foundation for directly answering one of astronomys most compelling questions how many planets like Earth are in the galaxy? said SETI research scientist and catalog study lead author Susan Thompson.

The Kepler data set is unique, as it is the only one containing a population of these near-Earth analogs planets with roughly the same size and orbit as Earth, said Mario Perez, a Kepler scientist in NASAs Science Mission Directorate Astrophysics Division. Understanding their frequency in the galaxy will help inform the design of future NASA missions to directly image another Earth.

There are 4,034 planet candidates now known with the release of the eighth Kepler planet candidate catalog. Of these, 2,335 have been confirmed as planets. The blue dots show planet candidates from previous catalogs, while the yellow dots show new candidates from the eighth catalog. New planet candidates continue to be found at all periods and sizes due to continued improvement in detection techniques. Notably, 10 of these new candidates are near-Earth-size and at long orbital periods, where they have a chance of being rocky with liquid water on their surface. Image & Caption Credit: NASA / Ames Research Center / Wendy Stenzel

None of the new data comes from the revamped K2 mission, for which the Kepler telescope is searching other parts of the sky beyond Cygnus. K2s most recent discovery over 100 exoplanets was announced in July 2016.

The search for other exoplanets, in general, and another Earth, in particular, will continue with NASAs Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and with the James Webb Space Telescope, both scheduled for launch in 2018.

Thompson, Fulton, Perez, and Courtney Dressing, a NASA Sagan fellow at Caltech, participated in the news conference.

All exoplanet candidates and confirmed planets are listed in NASAs Exoplanet Archive online.

The population of exoplanets detected by the Kepler mission (yellow dots) compared to those detected by other surveys using various methods: radial velocity (light blue dots), transit (pink dots), imaging (green dots), microlensing (dark blue dots), and pulsar timing (red dots). For reference, the horizontal lines mark the sizes of Jupiter, Neptune, and Earth, all of which are displayed on the right side of the diagram. The colored ovals denote different types of planets: hot Jupiters (pink), cold gas giants (purple), ocean worlds and ice giants (blue), rocky planets (yellow), and lava worlds (green). The shaded gray triangle at the lower right marks the exoplanet frontier that will be explored by future exoplanet surveys. Kepler has discovered a remarkable quantity of exoplanets and significantly advanced the edge of the frontier. Image & Caption Credit: NASA / Ames Research Center / Natalie Batalha / Wendy Stenzel

Tagged: Ames Research Center Exoplanet Kepler Space Telescope Lead Stories NASA

Laurel Kornfeld is an amateur astronomer and freelance writer from Highland Park, NJ, who enjoys writing about astronomy and planetary science. She studied journalism at Douglass College, Rutgers University, and earned a Graduate Certificate of Science from Swinburne Universitys Astronomy Online program. Her writings have been published online in The Atlantic, Astronomy magazines guest blog section, the UK Space Conference, the 2009 IAU General Assembly newspaper, The Space Reporter, and newsletters of various astronomy clubs. She is a member of the Cranford, NJ-based Amateur Astronomers, Inc. Especially interested in the outer solar system, Laurel gave a brief presentation at the 2008 Great Planet Debate held at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, MD.

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Kepler discovers 10 Earth-like exoplanets, 219 planet candidates - SpaceFlight Insider

A space flight bill to be included in the Queen's Speech could see Scotland become "a thriving hub" for the industry, according to the Secretary of State for Scotland.

New powers would see the launch of satellites from the UK for the first time, horizontal flights to the edge of space for scientific experiments and the creation of spaceports across the UK.

A number of Scottish sites have expressed an interest in the project, including Prestwick, Machrihanish and Stornoway.

Secretary of State for Scotland David Mundell said: "This new legislation on space ports will be a giant leap forward for Scotland's ambitious space and satellite sector.

"It will give each of our potential spaceports a fantastic opportunity to establish Scotland as a thriving hub for commercial spaceflight.

"By capitalising on our existing scientific expertise, a Scottish spaceport would create new, skilled jobs and drive economic growth."

More than 38,000 jobs rely on the UK's space industry, which is worth 13.7 billion to the economy.

The global market for launching satellites is estimated to be 25 billion over the next 20 years.

New powers would be given for a wide range of new spaceflight, including vertically-launched rockets, spaceplanes, satellite operation, spaceports and other technologies.

It would take the UK into the commercial space age by enabling small satellite launch and spaceflight from UK spaceports.

And it will create new opportunities for the UK's scientific community to carry out research in a microgravity environment by giving British scientists easier access.

The legislation comes as part of a series of bills aimed at infrastructure.

Theresa May is preparing for the Queen's Speech on Wednesday but has not yet struck a deal with the Democratic Unionist Party to prop up her minority government.

The event sets out the Prime Minister's legislative plans for the coming year.

More:

Space flight bill could see Scotland become 'thriving hub' for the industry - Herald Scotland

Jim Sharkey

June 20th, 2017

NASAs Opportunity Mars rover passed near this small, relatively fresh Martian crater in April 2017, during the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 16 mission to the Moon. (Click to enlarge) Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell Univ./Arizona State Univ.

During the 45th anniversary of Apollo 16s voyage to the Moon, NASAs Opportunity Mars roverdrove by a relatively young Martian crater, providing a connection between the two missions. The feature was informally named Orion Crater by the Opportunity mission team, in honor of the Apollo 16 lunar module Orion.

Orion was the name of the Lunar Module that carried astronauts John Young and Charles Duke to and from their lunar site, on the Descartes Highlandsin 1972.Orion also happens to bethe name of NASAs newest crew-rated spaceship which the space agency is developing to send crews on missions beyond-Earth orbit.

Opportunitys Panoramic Camera (PanCam) took images of Orion Crater on April 26, 2017. The crater is about 90 feet (27 meters) wide and estimated to be no older than 10 million years.

It turns out that Orion Crater is almost exactly the same size as Plum Crater on the Moon, which John Young and Charles Duke explored on their first of three moonwalks taken while investigating the lunar surface using their lunar rover, said Opportunity science-team member and SpaceFlight Insider contributor Jim Rice, of the Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, Arizona.

Rice sent the Pancam mosaic image of Orion Crater to Apollo 16 Lunar Module Pilot Charles Duke, to which the Apollo astronaut responded with much enthusiasm.

This is fantastic. What a great job! I wish I could be standing on the rim of Orion like I was standing on the rim of Plum Crater 45 years ago, Duke said.

Apollo 16 astronaut Charles Duke standing on the rim of Plum crater, which is 131 feet (40 meters) in diameter and about 33 feet (10 meters) deep. Photo Credit: NASA

Tagged: Apollo 16 Charlie Duke Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity Plum Crater The Range

Jim Sharkey is a lab assistant, writer and general science enthusiast who grew up in Enid, Oklahoma, the hometown of Skylab and Shuttle astronaut Owen K. Garriott. As a young Star Trek fan he participated in the letter-writing campaign which resulted in the space shuttle prototype being named Enterprise. While his academic studies have ranged from psychology and archaeology to biology, he has never lost his passion for space exploration. Jim began blogging about science, science fiction and futurism in 2004. Jim resides in the San Francisco Bay area and has attended NASA Socials for the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover landing and the NASA LADEE lunar orbiter launch.

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Martian crater provides reminder of Apollo 16 mission - SpaceFlight Insider

An artist's impression image of the proposed spaceport at Machrihanish. Picture: Contributed

09:46 Tuesday 20 June 2017

A space flight bill to be included in the Queens Speech could see Scotland become a thriving hub for the industry, according to the secretary of state for Scotland.

New powers would see the launch of satellites from the UK for the first time, horizontal flights to the edge of space for scientific experiments and the creation of spaceports across the UK.

A number of Scottish sites have expressed an interest in the project, including Prestwick, Machrihanish and Stornoway.

READ MORE: Campbeltown spaceport moves a step closer to reality

Scottish secretary David Mundell said: This new legislation on space ports will be a giant leap forward for Scotlands ambitious space and satellite sector. It will give each of our potential spaceports a fantastic opportunity to establish Scotland as a thriving hub for commercial spaceflight.

By capitalising on our existing scientific expertise, a Scottish spaceport would create new, skilled jobs and drive economic growth.

200 Voices: find out more about the people who have shaped Scotland

More than 38,000 jobs rely on the UKs space industry, which is worth 13.7 billion to the economy. The global market for launching satellites is estimated to be 25bn over the next 20 years.

READ MORE: First Prestwick space flights predicted for 2019

New powers would be given for a wide range of new spaceflight, including vertically-launched rockets, spaceplanes, satellite operation, spaceports and other technologies.

It would take the UK into the commercial space age by enabling small satellite launch and spaceflight from UK spaceports. And it will create new opportunities for the UKs scientific community to carry out research in a microgravity environment by giving British scientists easier access.

The legislation comes as part of a series of bills aimed at infrastructure.

Prime Minister Theresa May is preparing for the Queens Speech tomorrow but has not yet struck a deal with the Democratic Unionist Party to prop up her minority government. The event sets out the Prime Ministers legislative plans for the coming year.

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Space flight bill could create 'thriving hub' in Scotland - The Scotsman - The Scotsman

Bart Leahy

June 20th, 2017

Bill Dana as astronaut Jos Jimnez on the Bill Dana Show, 1963. (Click for full view) Photo Credit: NBC Television

Comedian and comedy writer Bill Dana, who became famous through his Jos Jimnez character in the 1950s and 1960s, died June 15 at the age of 92. The Jimnez character, a stereotyped cowardly astronaut, was a favorite performer with television audiences and with the Original Seven Mercury astronauts.

A man of many talents, Danas official website described him as a successful writer, author, cartoonist, producer, director, recording artist, inventor, and stand-up comedian. Born William Szathmary, after serving as a combat infantryman in World War II, Dana turned to stand-up comedy and then TV comedy.

In1956, Dana appliedhis comedic talents to writing as well as performing, becoming a writer and then head writer for The Steve Allen Show, where his Jos Jimnez character came to life. Eventually, he got his own situation comedy show on NBC, which ran from 1963 to 1965.

Jos Jimnez oftenappeared in an interview format, taking questions from a straight-man interviewer who would ask him questions about his life as an astronaut. The Spanish-accented Jimnez would answer in fearful fashion about his fate. Danas approach to the space program provided comic relief during a tense and uncertain space race with the Soviet Union. He was a particular favorite of the United States first Mercury astronaut, Alan Shepard.

Adopted by all of the Mercury astronauts, Dana became part of space history when the first words spoken to Alan Shepard on his Freedom 7 flight were, O.K. Jos, youre on your way! Danaand his characterhave been included in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and the Astronaut Hall of Fame. Dana also served on the board of the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation.

In 1970, with ethnic humor drawing criticism, Dana stopped performing the character. Despite this cultural shift, the National Hispanic Media Coalition endorsed the Jos Jimnez character, invited Dana to sit on their advisory board, and gave him an image award in 1997.

Tagged: Bill Dana Comedian Lead Stories Project Mercury

Bart Leahy is a freelance technical writer living in Orlando, Florida. Leahy's diverse career has included work for The Walt Disney Company, NASA, the Department of Defense, Nissan, a number of commercial space companies, small businesses, nonprofits, as well as the Science Cheerleaders.

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Comedian Bill Dana, creator of 'Jos Jimnez', dead at 92 - SpaceFlight Insider

Powers planned by the Government aiming to pave the way for commercial space flights in Britain will be included in the Queens Speech alongside a raft of investments in transport infrastructure.

The legislation, according to Department for Transport (DfT), willallow the launch of satellites from the UK for the first time, horizontal flights to the edge of space for scientific experiments and the establishment of spaceports in regions across Britain.

The Queens Speech, which has been delayed by two days due to the current instability in British politics, will also include measures to improve conditions for the 100,000 drivers of plug-in vehicles by removing barriers that are preventing more drivers switching to electric.

As things stand, those wanting to use publicly-accessible charging points may need to register with several different companies that run them, the Department for Transport added. The planned legislation will include measures to ensure drivers need register only once to make full use of the existing infrastructure.

According to the DfT aseries of Bills will insure Britain gets the infrastructure it needs to thrive through Brexit and beyond.

But one Bill will concentrate specifically on the future of spaceflight technology in Britain. The DfT believes the new powers to be outlined on Wednesday will allow UK companies access to a wide range of new spaceflight, including vertically launched rockets, spaceplanes, satellite operation and spaceports.

Announcing the plans, Chris Grayling, the Transport Secretary, said the Government is absolutely determined to give Britain the transport infrastructure it needs so that we can thrive and grow as we leave the European Union.

He added: The measures we outline this week will ensure our legal structures are ready for the high skill, highly paid jobs of the future, while backing the transport projects that will make journeys better for ordinary working people.

Its only by backing infrastructure through our Modern Industrial Strategy that we can spread prosperity and opportunity around the country.

The Government will also set out its plans for the next stage of HS2 the new north-south railway system and provide new legal powers to build the next leg of the route that will link the Midlands and the North West.

The DfT added: HS2 will create vital capacity on the railways, freeing up commuter services on the existing network with the creation of the line, playing a role in rebalancing the economy as improved connections between our cities generate jobs, skills and economic growth and help us build an economy that works for all.

It will also help create prosperity around the country, creating tens of thousands of jobs all over the UK during its construction phase, as firms across Britain compete for contracts up and down the supply chain.

Read the original here:

Queen's Speech: Government to announce plans for commercial space flights and ports for spaceships - The Independent

Updates Atlantis' Crew Leaves the Shuttle

July 21, 2011 07:14am ET

After gliding to a smooth landing at 5:57 a.m. EDT, the shuttle astronauts worked through a checklist with Mission Control to safe the vehicle on the ground.

Atlantis' four astronauts, commander Chris Ferguson, pilot Doug Hurley, and mission specialists Sandy Magnus and Rex Walheim, have all exited the vehicle now as ground teams continue their work at the Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility.

The astronauts are now being greeted by NASA officials, including administrator Charles Bolden, shuttle launch director Mike Leinbach and Lori Garver, the agency's deputy administrator. The four crewmembers will have the opportunity to walk around their vehicle and soak in the moment with other members of the shuttle program.

--Denise Chow

July 21, 2011 05:57am ET

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The space shuttle Atlantis glided down to Earth and slowed to a stop here on the runway of the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

The orbiter arrived less than an hour before dawn, heralding the end of the 30-year space shuttle program. Four astronauts returned to Earth aboard the spaceship, which flew the 135th shuttle mission, called STS-135.

--Clara Moskowitz

July 21, 2011 05:36am ET

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The space shuttle Atlantis is just 25 minutes away from touching down here at the Kennedy Space Center in the last shuttle landing ever.

The orbiter is plunging its way through Earth's atmosphere, and is approaching the point of maximum heat on re-entry. Atlantisis currently approaching the coast of Central America.

--Clara Moskowitz

July 21, 2011 04:53am ET

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The space shuttle Atlantis has performed a de-orbit burn to come out of Earth orbit and begin the descent back to the ground, where it will touch down here at Kennedy Space Center.

The shuttle is a little more than an hour away from its final landing, slated for 5:56 a.m. EDT (0956 GMT).

--Clara Moskowitz

July 21, 2011 04:18am ET

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Mission Control gave the space shuttle Atlantis a "go" to conduct a de-orbit burn of its engines at 4:49 a.m. ET (0849 GMT) to begin the descent down to Earth.

--Clara Moskowitz

July 21, 2011 04:00am ET

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The weather here at Kennedy Space Center is "go" for landing today,capcom Charlie Hobaugh told Atlantis' commander Chris Ferguson.

The shuttle is about an hour away from making a "de-orbit burn" of its engines to initiate re-entry.

--Clara Moskowitz

July 20, 2011 09:39pm ET

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The four astronauts aboard shuttle Atlantis' final mission awoke to begin their landing day today at 9:29 p.m. EDT (0129 GMT Thursday). The wakeup song today wasKate Smith's rendition of Irving Berlin's "God Bless America."

"What a classic patriotic song," Ferguson said. "So appropriate for what will likely be the shuttle's final day in orbit. Thank you to America for supporting this program, and we'll see you in a few short hours hopefully."

The shuttle is slated to land Tuesday (July 21) at 5:56 a.m. EDT (0956 GMT).

--Clara Moskowitz

July 20, 2011 01:48pm ET

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.-- The space shuttle Atlantis astronauts have gone to bed for their last sleep in orbit before landing tomorrow at Kennedy Space Center here.

Commander Chris Ferguson took time out to mention a significant anniversary.

"Forty-two years ago today Neil Armstrong walked on the moon." Ferguson said. "I consider myself fortunate that I was there to actually remember the event. I think there was probably a lot of folks in that room who didnt have that privilege or honor."

The spaceflyers are scheduled to land Thursday (July 21) at 5:56 a.m. EDT (0956 GMT).

--Clara Moskowitz

July 20, 2011 04:25am ET

HOUSTON The space shuttle Atlantis released the 180th and last shuttle payload ever in the form of a tiny satellite called PicoSat.

The mini spacecraft is covered with solar panels to test new solar cell technology. After the satellite was released into orbit mission specialist Rex Walheim read a poem in its honor.

"One more satellite takes its place in the sky

The last of many that the shuttle let fly Magellan, Galileo, Hubble, and more Have sailed beyond her payload bay doors There's still science books, and still more to come The shuttle's legacy will live on when her flying is done We wish PicoSat success in space where it roams It can stay up here, but we're going home Yes, soon for the last time we'll gently touch down Then celebrate the shuttle with our friends on the ground," Walheim said.

--Clara Moskowitz

July 19, 2011 10:19pm ET

HOUSTONThe STS-135 crew was awoken this morning by the musical piece "Fanfare For The Common Man" by Aaron Copland, played along with a video message from employees at Florida's Kennedy Space Center.

"Good morning, Atlantis! Kennedy salutes you. See you back at wheel stop," the Kennedy crowd cheered.

"Good morning, Houston, and to the great folks at the Kennedy Space Center who'vecared for these vehicles for the last 30 years, a special good morning to you," Atlantis commander Chris Ferguson replied.

The astronauts will spend their day deploying a mini satellite and preparing for a predawn landing Thursday.

--Clara Moskowitz

July 19, 2011 12:30pm ET

HOUSTONThe shuttle Atlantis astronauts have gone to sleep after a busy day that included the last space shuttle undocking from the International Space Station.

The crew is now focused on preparing for re-entry and landing Thursday morning. They are set to wake Tuesday at 9:59 p.m. EDT to begin their final full day in space.

--Clara Moskowitz

July 19, 2011 03:09am ET

HOUSTON Astronauts onboard the International Space Station are rotating the vehicle 90 degrees while the shuttle Atlantis watches from a distance of 600 feet away. The maneuver, which will allow astronauts on both craft to capture photos of each other, will take about 26 minutes.

--Clara Moskowitz

July 19, 2011 02:28am ET

HOUSTON The space shuttle Atlantis has undocked from the International Space Station, capping off 37 docked missionsof the shuttle to the orbiting outpost.

The first docking of Atlantis to the ISS came in May of 2000. Thespace shuttles have cumulatively spent about 40 weeks docked at the station.

"The International Space Station now enters the era of utilization," Atlantis commander Chris Ferguson said. "Like a proud parent, we anticipate great things to follow. From this unique vantage point, we can see a great thing has been accomplished. Farewell ISS, make us proud."

Atlantis is slated to land back on Earth early Thursday (July 21).

--Clara Moskowitz

July 18, 2011 10:16pm ET

HOUSTONThe four astronauts onboard shuttle Atlantis woke Monday eveningjust after 10 p.m. EDT (0200 GMT Tuesday) to begin their 12th day in space, during which they will undock for the last time from the International Space Station.

The crew woketo the song "Don't Panic" by Coldplay, played especially for pilot Doug Hurley.

"Good morning Houston, I'd like to thank my wife Karen and my son Jack for the great song they know I really like it," Hurley said. "We are getting ready for undock today. We get to do one last lap of Atlantis around ISS and start our trip home."

Hurley is married to fellow astronaut Karen Nyberg, who joined NASA in the same astronaut class as he did in 2000.

--Clara Moskowitz

July 18, 2011 02:25pm ET

HOUSTON The four astronauts onboard space shuttle Atlantis have finished their 11th day in space and begun their sleep shift.

The spaceflyers are onboard their orbiter, still attached to the International Space Station, after closing the hatches between the two vehicles earlier today. Atlantis will undock from the outpost Tuesday at 2:28 a.m. EDT (0628 GMT).

--Clara Moskowitz

July 18, 2011 01:59pm ET

HOUSTON The four astronauts onboard space shuttle Atlantis have finished their 11th day in space and begun their sleep shift.

The spaceflyers are onboard their orbiter, still attached to the International Space Station, after closing the hatches between the two vehicles earlier today. Atlantis will undock from the outpost Tuesday at 2:28 a.m. EDT (0628 GMT).

--Clara Moskowitz

July 18, 2011 09:09am ET

HOUSTON Astronauts officially closed the hatches between the International Space Station and the last visiting space shuttle today at 10:28 a.m. EDT (1428 GMT).

The shuttle astronauts said a final farewell to their six space station counterparts after spending 7 days, 21 hours and 41 minutes at the orbiting outpost.

Atlantis is due to undock Tuesday morning at 2:28 a.m. EDT (0628 GMT).

--Clara Moskowitz

July 18, 2011 07:48am ET

HOUSTON Astronauts have successfully transferred the large Raffaello multi-purpose logistics module from the outside of the space station into the shuttle Atlantis' payload bay. Raffaello is filled to the brim with trash and broken hardware to be returned to Earth with the shuttle.

Shuttle astronauts are gearing up to depart the space station. They plan to close the hatches between the two vehicles today at 9:19 a.m. EDT (1319 GMT).

--Clara Moskowitz

July 17, 2011 11:15pm ET

HOUSTONThe crew of space shuttle Atlantis wasawoken at 10:29 p.m. EDT (0229 GMT) to the song "Days Go By" by country star Keith Urban, played along with a recorded video message from workers here at NASA's Johnson Space Center.

"Good morning, Atlantis, from all of us at the Johnson Space Center. Have a great day!" the crowd shouted while holding up handmade signs for each crew member.

"Well, good morning, Houston," replied Atlantis' mission specialist Rex Walheim. "The days do go by, so we better start living and we are. We are enjoying every minute up here. Thanks so much for the greeting from the Johnson Space Center, our home home of some of the hardest working, most talented people who have made some incredible things happen in spaceflight.We thank you for the greeting. We're looking forward to another great day in space."

The astronauts will finish packing up their orbiter today and say goodbye to the space station crew before closing the hatches between the shuttle and the orbiting outpost. Atlantis is due to depart the International Space Station early Tuesday (July 19).

--Clara Moskowitz

July 17, 2011 04:35pm ET

HOUSTON The four space shuttle Atlantis astronauts are almost finished packing their orbiter for the trip back to Earth on Thursday (July 21). While the Raffaello cargo module is fully packed, the shuttle's middeck is about 84 percent packed with trash and broken equipment to be returned to Earth.

The packing job is turning out to take quite a while, and ran into some of the crew's time off today.

"The crew had another very busy day in space today," flight director Chris Edelen told reporters during a briefing. "The crew used a lot of their spare time. Unfortunately, they had to work through some of their off-duty time."

--Clara Moskowitz

July 17, 2011 08:09am ET

HOUSTON Astronauts Doug Hurley and Rex Walheim took time out today from their STS-135 mission to answer a series of recorded questions from students about what life is like in space.

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Complete Coverage: Final Flight Of Nasa's Space...

Artists concept of a pulsar (blue-white disk in center) pulling in matter from a nearby star (red disk at upper right). The stellar material forms a disk around the pulsar (multicolored ring) before falling on to the surface at the magnetic poles. The pulsars intense magnetic field is represented by faint blue outlines surrounding the pulsar. Credit: NASA

A NASA instrument built to help astronomers learn about the structure and behavior of neutron stars, super-dense stellar skeletons left behind by massive explosions, has been mounted to an observation post outside the International Space Station after delivery aboard a SpaceX supply ship earlier this month.

Since its arrival inside the trunk of SpaceXs Dragon cargo capsule, the X-ray astronomy experiment has been transferred from the spacecrafts unpressurized carrier to a platform on the space-facing side of the space stations starboard truss backbone, powered up and checked to ensure it can point at stellar targets as the research outpost orbits around Earth.

The Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer, or NICER, is now going through alignment checks and test scans, allowing scientists to fine-tune the instrument. The calibrations should be complete next month, and NICERs ground team has penciled in July 13 as the first day of the instruments 18-month science mission.

NICERs developers at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center crammed 56 individual X-ray mirrors inside the instruments shell, with matching silicon detectors that will register individual photons of X-ray light, measuring their energies and times of arrival.

NASA says NICER is the first mission dedicated to neutron star research. Astronomers discovered neutron stars in 1967, decades after scientists first predicted their existence.

Neutron stars are left behind after lower-mass stars exploded in violent supernovas at the ends of their lives. The material from the star ends up crammed into an object the size of a city, and astronomers say one of the densest stable forms of matter in the universe resides in the deep interiors of neutron stars.

Scientists compare the density of a neutron star to packing the mass Mount Everest into a sugar cube. One teaspoon of neutron star matter would weight a billion tons on Earth, according to NASA.

NICER flew to the space station inside the rear trunk of a SpaceX Dragon supply ship, which launched June 3 from NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida and berthed with the orbiting outpost June 5.

The stations Canadian-built robotic arm extracted the NICER experiment from the Dragon spacecraft June 11, and the instrument rode to its mounting location on an external platform EXPRESS Logistics Carrier-2 on a mobile rail car down the stations truss.

Mission controllers in Houston commanded and monitored the multi-day transfer from the ground, with the help of the stations two-armed Dextre robot.

The space stations robotic arm installed NICER on its mounting plate June 13, and controllers powered up the instruments electronics the next day, verifying all systems were OK. Range of motion tests were completed Friday after engineers needed extra time to release troublesome launch restraint bolts.

NICER rode to the space station with two other experiments in Dragons trunk.

One of the payloads, sponsored by the Air Force Research Laboratory, will test a new solar array design could be used on future commercial satellites, making the power generators 20 percent lighter and able to fit into a launch package four times smaller than conventional fold-out solar panels.

A commercial Earth-imaging platform developed by Teledyne Brown was also stowed in Dragons trunk. TheMultiple User System for Earth Sensing, or MUSES, can host high-definition and hyperspectral cameras for Earth-viewing.

The MUSES payload was robotically moved to its new home on the space station before NICER, and the solar array testbed was unfurled for seven days of testing this week.

The installation of NICER clears the way for nearly a month of calibrations before it can start regular science observations.

Neutron stars are fantastical stars that are extraordinary in many ways, said Zaven Arzoumanian, NICERs deputy principal investigator and science lead at Goddard. They are the densest objects in the universe, they are the fastest-spinning objects known, they are the most strongly magnetic objects known.

The NICER science team wants to know the structure and composition of neutron stars, which are so extreme that normal atoms are pulverized, freeing subatomic particles like neutrons, protons and electrons.

As soon as you go below the surface of a neutron star, the pressures and densities rise extremely rapidly, and soon youre in an environment that you cant produce in any lab on Earth, said Slavko Bogdanov, a research scientist at Columbia University who leads the NICER light curve modeling group.

Unlike black holes, which develop from explosions of stars more than 20 times the mass of the sun, neutron stars can be directly observed.

A partnership between NASA, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Naval Research Laboratory, NICER should give scientists their first measurements of the size of a neutron star.

They emit light all across the spectrum, from radio waves to visible light up to X-rays and gamma rays, primarily in narrow beams from their magnetic poles, Arzoumanian said. Just like the Earth, the magnetic poles on a neutron star are not necessarily aligned with the spin of the star, so you can get narrow beams that sweep as the star spins, just like a lighthouse.

And if we happen to be in the path of the sweep we see a flash everytime one of these beams go by and the stars from a distance appear to be pulsing, so theyre called pulsars, Arzoumanian said.

Scientists will also demonstrate the potential of using the timing of pulses from neutron stars for deep space navigation.

Were going to look at a subset of pulsars in the sky called millisecond pulsars, said Keith Gendreau, NICERs principal investigator at Goddard. In some of these millisecond pulsars, the pulses that we see are so regular that they remind us of atomic clocks.

Atomic clocks are the basis of the Global Positioning System satellites, according to Gendreau.

NASA calls the navigation demonstration the Station Explorer for X-ray Timing and Navigation Technology, or SEXTANT.

Jason Mitchell, SEXTANTs project manager at Goddard, said his team aims to use predictable pulsar signals to locate the space station with a precision of 6 miles, or 10 kilometers, without the aid of GPS satellites or on-board navigation solutions.

Thats a small step compared to GPS, but its a giant step for using only pulsar measurements, and that will help us get into deep space, Mitchell said.

Our goal is to turn the G in GPS into galactic, and make it a Galactic Positioning System, he said.

Email the author.

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

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Experiment devoted to neutron star research installed on space station - Spaceflight Now

File photo of a previous Long March 3B launch. Credit: Xinhua

Ground controllers could try to salvage a Chinese television broadcasting satellite deployed in a lower-than-planned orbit Sunday by a Long March 3B rocket.

A brief statement from the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp., a state-run contractor for Chinas space program, confirmed an anomaly in the Long March 3B rockets third stage left the Chinasat 9A communications satellite in the wrong orbit following a liftoff from the Xichang space center.

An investigation into the cause of the launch failure is underway, CASC said.

The contractor said the Chinasat 9A satellite separated from the Long March 3Bs third stage after the anomaly and deployed its electricity-generating solar panels and antennas. The spacecraft is apparently healthy and in contact with engineers on the ground, who are taking relevant efforts to control the satellite, according to CASC.

Officials did not elaborate on what went wrong on the Long March 3Bs third stage, which is powered by a dual-nozzle YF-75 engine that burns a mixture of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants.

Sundays launch mishap was the first time one of Chinas Long March 3-series rockets has failed to deliver a payload into its intended orbit since August 2009. Variants of the Long March 3 rocket, which include configurations with and without strap-on boosters, logged 49 straight successful launches in the last seven-and-a-half years.

Chinas other Long March rockets, which use the same engine technology as the Long March 3-series, have suffered failures in recent years. A Chinese Earth observation satellite was destroyed during the botched launch of a Long March 4C booster Sept. 1, and a Long March 2D placed a pair of commercial Earth-imaging spacecraft into a lower-than-intended orbit in December, but those satellites recovered from the rocket mishap.

U.S. military tracking data indicated Chinasat 9A is orbiting around Earth at altitudes ranging between 120 miles (193 kilometers) and approximately 10,165 miles (16,360 kilometers), significantly lower than intended.

The rockets upper stage aimed to release Chinasat 9A in an egg-shaped elliptical orbit with an apogee, or high point, around 35,800 kilometers (22,300 miles) above Earth.

Chinasat 9A carried its own fuel to circularize its orbit more than 22,000 miles over the equator following its deployment from the Long March 3B. If the satellite is able to overcome the altitude deficit after Sundays launch, it will have to consume more of its on-board propellant supply than expected, likely shortening its useful life.

In addition to the orbit-raising maneuvers needed to reach its final operating position, Chinasat 9A must also reshape its orbit, which is currently tilted 25.7 degrees to the equator, into one that always hovers over the equator.

The 184-foot-tall (56-meter) Long March 3B rocket lifted off with Chinasat 9A at 1611 GMT (12:11 p.m. EDT) Sunday from the Xichang launch base in southwestern Chinas Sichuan province.

The liquid-fueled launcher, comprised of a three-stage core and four strap-on boosters, turned east from Xichang after blasting off at 12:11 a.m. Monday, Beijing time.

Chinese media did not release any photos of the launch, but an amateur video from Xichang shared on Twitter shows the rocket taking off just after midnight.

The early portion of the mission went according to plan, and the Long March shed its four boosters and first stage a few minutes after liftoff. A second stage firing also apparently performed well, and the third stage took over nearly six minutes into the flight for the first of two burns needed to place Chinasat 9A into a geostationary transfer orbit.

The third stages first engine firing was expected to cut off around 10 minutes after liftoff to propel Chinasat 9A into a preliminary low-altitude orbit, and a second burn a few minutes later was supposed to send the spacecraft toward its high-altitude target.

Chinasat 9A, with a launch mass estimated in excess of 11,000 pounds (5 metric tons), was scheduled to separate from the Long March 3Bs third stage less than a half-hour after liftoff.

Based on the DFH-4 satellite design built by the China Academy of Space Technology, Chinasat 9A is Chinas first domestically-made communications satellite for direct-to-home television broadcasting, according to China Satcom, the crafts owner and operator.

Chinasat 9A was supposed to enter service later this year in geostationary orbit over the equator at 101.4 degree east longitude, where its orbital velocity would match the speed of Earths rotation, making the satellite remain fixed over the same geographic coverage area.

The satellites 24 Ku-band transponders are designed to provide television broadcasts and other media services to China Satcom customers in China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, the company said.

Email the author.

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

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Chinese broadcasting satellite ends up in wrong orbit after rocket failure - Spaceflight Now

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches the first 10 Iridium NEXT communications satellites into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Jan. 14, 2017. SpaceX will use the same Falcon 9 rocket booster to launch another satellite from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 23, with another Falcon 9 launching from Vandenberg on June 25.

SpaceX has delayed the launch of its next Falcon 9 rocket to at least Friday (June 23), setting the stage for a possible "weekend doubleheader," company representatives said this weekend.

On Sunday (June 18), SpaceX announced it had pushed back the Monday afternoon launch of a Bulgarian communications satellite to no earlier than Friday so ground crews could replace a valve on the Falcon 9 booster.

The delay means SpaceX will now launch a previously flown Falcon 9 rocket with the Bulgarian satellite (called BulgariaSat-1) from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, then launch another commercial satellite mission on Sunday (June 25) from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. That Sunday flight will use a new Falcon 9 to launch 10 new satellites for the Virginia-based company Iridium, which is building a 70-satellite constellation for its Iridium NEXT mobile communications network.

If schedule holds there will be two Falcon 9 launches within 48 hours (Cape & Vandenberg) this weekend https://t.co/GbleRPm6iZ

"Standing down on BulgariaSat-1 to replace a fairing valve, next launch opportunities are 6/23 and 6/24," SpaceX representatives wrote in a Twitter message Sunday.

That note was quickly followed by another message: "Iridium targeted for 6/25could be a weekend doubleheader."

Elon Musk, SpaceX's CEO and founder, then chimed in on the possibility of seeing two SpaceX rockets launching in just a few days.

"If schedule holds there will be two Falcon 9 launches within 48 hours (Cape & Vandenberg) this weekend," he wrote.

SpaceX test fires the previously flown Falcon 9 rocket booster that will launch BulgariaSat-1 during a June 15 test. The rocket is scheduled to make its second spaceflight on June 23.

SpaceX's Florida launch is scheduled to fly no earlier than 2:10 p.m. EDT (1410 GMT) on Friday from NASA's Launch Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. The Iridium satellite launch, meanwhile, is currently scheduled to lift off from Vandenberg's Space Launch Complex 4 at 1:25 p.m. PDT (4:25 p.m. EDT/2025 GMT).

Earlier, Musk wrote that the BulgariaSat-1 launch delay was a safety precaution. SpaceX engineers needed time to replace a pneumatic valve on the fairing, the protective nose cone that covers the satellite during liftoff, but there was already a backup in place, he added.

"Postponing launch to replace fairing pneumatic valve. It is dual redundant, but not worth taking a chance," Musk wrote.

The BulgariaSat-1 launch will mark SpaceX's second flight using a used Falcon 9 rocket booster. It happens to be the same one SpaceX used in January to launch the first 10 satellites of the Iridium NEXT satellite constellation.

The Iridium satellites launching Sunday on the brand-new Falcon 9 rocket will be satellites No. 11-20 of the NEXT constellation.

SpaceX is expected to attempt Falcon 9 first stage booster landings for both of the upcoming launches as part of its reusable rocket program to lower the cost of spaceflight.

SpaceX has landed Falcon 9 boosters 11 times so far, and even relaunched one of them in March. On June 3, the company launched its first reused Dragon cargo spacecraft, a robotic capsule packed with NASA supplies for the International Space Station. That Dragon capsule will return to Earth in early July.

Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him@tariqjmalikandGoogle+. Follow us@Spacedotcom,FacebookandGoogle+. Original article onSpace.com.

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SpaceX Delays Rocket Launch, Eyes Potential Spaceflight 'Doubleheader' - Space.com

A space flight bill to be included in the Queen's Speech could see Scotland become "a thriving hub" for the industry, according to the Secretary of State for Scotland.

New powers would see the launch of satellites from the UK for the first time, horizontal flights to the edge of space for scientific experiments and the creation of spaceports across the UK.

A number of Scottish sites have expressed an interest in the project, including Prestwick, Machrihanish and Stornoway.

Secretary of State for Scotland David Mundell said: "This new legislation on space ports will be a giant leap forward for Scotland's ambitious space and satellite sector.

"It will give each of our potential spaceports a fantastic opportunity to establish Scotland as a thriving hub for commercial spaceflight.

"By capitalising on our existing scientific expertise, a Scottish spaceport would create new, skilled jobs and drive economic growth."

More than 38,000 jobs rely on the UK's space industry, which is worth 13.7 billion to the economy.

The global market for launching satellites is estimated to be 25 billion over the next 20 years.

New powers would be given for a wide range of new spaceflight, including vertically-launched rockets, spaceplanes, satellite operation, spaceports and other technologies.

It would take the UK into the commercial space age by enabling small satellite launch and spaceflight from UK spaceports.

And it will create new opportunities for the UK's scientific community to carry out research in a microgravity environment by giving British scientists easier access.

The legislation comes as part of a series of bills aimed at infrastructure.

Theresa May is preparing for the Queen's Speech on Wednesday but has not yet struck a deal with the Democratic Unionist Party to prop up her minority government.

The event sets out the Prime Minister's legislative plans for the coming year.

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Space flight bill could see Scotland become 'thriving hub' for the industry - AOL UK

Jerome Strach

June 19th, 2017

Astronauts Dan Burbank (left) and Victor Glover evaluate the interior of the SpaceX Recovery Trainer, a full-scale practice version of the companys Crew Dragon spacecraft. The trainer is to be used by astronauts and support teams to rehearse recovery techniques for missions. The Crew Dragon is in development in partnership with NASAs Commercial Crew Program to take astronauts to the International Space Station. (Click for full view) Photo & Caption Credit: NASA

Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) is continuing with their development of the Crew Dragon capsule, which is being built for NASA per the Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) agreements. The evolution in Dragon design has been shaped by the CRS contract drawing a line between a cargo version and a crew version.

Dragon v1 has been responsible for delivering 10 cargo shipments to theInternational Space Station (ISS). Crew Dragon, or Dragon v2, will fly crews to Low Earth Orbit(LEO) as early as 2018, thereby re-enabling the United States to transport its astronauts into space from their home ground.

Crew Dragon in orbit. CGI Credit: Nathan Koga / SpaceFlight Insider

In Florida, at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), engineers are building a full-scale model, orRecovery Trainer, of the Crew Dragon capsule. Training is best executed when real artifacts or carefully created test articles can be utilized in real-world scenarios. This training is essential foreveryone involved to assist in better defining procedures when things go wrong and lives are atstake.

The Dragon Recovery Trainer has been constructed with the aid of the Kennedy Prototype Lab, which has a history of providing fast solutions to complex design challenges. SpaceX is putting the finishing engineering touches into theRecovery Trainer to ensure that it will float identically to how an actual Dragon v2 will with a crewpresent.

NASA has a documented history of test flights and practice runs that ensure the flight crew,support crew, and emergency personnel are able to perform as expected during an emergencyevent. One notable incident was Gus Grissom in Liberty Bell 7 when the hatch prematurely blew on hiscapsule and suddenly the Navy was faced with a drowning astronaut and a sinking capsule. Itis critical to ensure that both crew and rescue personnel know what to do in case of an emergency.

Unlike Liberty Bell 7, the Crew Dragon can carry up to seven astronauts, which makes evacuationmore challenging. Two escape hatches and other various components within the RecoveryTrainer will be present to better reflect a real-world environment for astronaut crew and Pararescuemen, also known as PJs.

Grissom prepares to enter Liberty Bell 7. Photo Credit: NASA

USAF Pararescuemen will be required to enter the water to assist in any number ofrescue scenarios where a crew may or may not be able to assist in their own recovery. This is anexercise that neither NASA nor the USAF takes casually and both organizations will invest many practicehours to ensure a safe environment and rapid execution of rescue.

The real SpaceX Dragon v2 spacecraft has numerous features integrated into the design toensure that it is a very safe ship. It has an integrated thrust system that incorporates four pairs of twoSuperDraco engines, each engine providing about 16,000 lbf (71.2 kN) of thrust each. The SuperDraco engines are not only designedto lift the Dragon v2 with a crew away from a launch mishap to safety but also will allow the spacecraft to land anywhere on Earth with the precision of ahelicopter even if two of the eight engines fail.

Each SuperDraco engine, created with a 3-D printing process using an Inconel superalloy, sits within an isolated nacelle. Additionally, if during a descent from orbit the computers detect any of the SuperDraco engines are suffering froman anomaly, the Dragon also has an integrated parachute recovery system that has robustnessbuilt into its design. To paraphrase Elon Musks feelings on the matter, he expressedconfidence that if there is a safer way to design the capsule, he doesnt know what that is.

Additionally, the PICA-X heat shield is a 3rd generation derivative minimizing ablation duringre-entry allowing for maximum reflights of the hardware with minimal refurbishing effort. Finally,the gumdrop shape design allows for automatic orienting of the spacecraft through re-entryeven if the flight computers are compromised.

In July 2011, the United States ended its capability to launch astronauts from its soil when Congress stopped funding the Space Transportation Shuttle (a.k.a. the Space Shuttle). Since then, NASA has paid for seats on Russias Soyuz spacecraft, thereby fulfilling the role of ferrying U.S. astronauts to and from the ISS.

Soon, Boeing and SpaceX will provide a crewed capsule capability with the CRS program to ensure that U.S. astronauts no longer have to rely on a foreign government for transportation to LEO or beyond. Americans and Congress anticipate that day with pressing eagerness.

Tagged: Commercial Resupply Services Crew Dragon Dragon v2 Kennedy Space Center NASA SpaceX The Range

Jerome Strach has worked within the Silicon Valley community for 20 years including software entertainment and film. Along with experience in software engineering, quality assurance, and middle management, he has long been a fan of aerospace and entities within that industry. A voracious reader, a model builder, and student of photography and flight training, most of his spare time can be found focused on launch events and technology advancements including custom mobile app development. Best memory as a child is building and flying Estes rockets with my father. @Romn8tr

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Full-scale Crew Dragon recovery trainer being built at KSC - SpaceFlight Insider

Curt Godwin

June 17th, 2017

Image Credit: Peoples Republic of China

China is preparing to launch theZhongxing-9A direct-to-home (DTH) television service satellite aboard the countrys Long March 3B/E carrier rocket. Although newsfrom the countrys tight-lipped space agency is difficult to come by, information fromtheGBTimes indicates the launch may occur as soon as June 18, 2017, from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center.

Tipping the scales at more than 11,200 pounds (5,100 kilograms) is the Zhongxing-9A satellite, also known as ChinaSat 9A. It will ride to space atop the 185-foot (56.3-meter) tall Long March 3B/E.

File photo of a Long March 3B being prepared for launch at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center. Photo credit: Chinanews.com

Built on the indigenous DFH-4bus, the spacecraft isChinas first domestically-produced DTH satellite. It will provide services to mainland China,the autonomous regions of Macau and Hong Kong, and the island of Taiwan via 24 Ku-band transponders.

ChinaSat 9A has a design lifetime of 15 years, and will be positioned at 101.4 degrees East in geostationary orbit.

One of Chinas workhorse rockets, the Long March 3B willdeliver the spacecraft into a geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO). The boosterhas launched 39 times notching 37 successes, onepartial failure, and onetotal failure across both its standard (3B) and enhanced (3B/E) configurations.

Although it hasnt been confirmed, its assumed the rocket will be configured in its enhanced arrangement to support delivering the heavy payload to GTO.

The Long March 3B/Eis a three-stage rocket, with four supplemental liquid-fueled strap-on boosters. When outfitted in the enhanced configuration, the vehicle is capable of lofting 12,100 pounds (5,500 kilograms) into GTO, compared to the11,200 pounds (5,100 kilograms) in the standard configuration.

At liftoff, the firststages YF-21C engine and the supplemental power suppliedby a singleYF-25 on each of the four boostersprovide 1.3 million pounds (5,923.2 kilonewtons) of sea-level thrust. The boosters operate for 140 seconds before falling away, while the first stage burns for an addition 20 seconds.

The vehicles second stage is powered by a YF-24E propulsion unit comprised of a loneYF-22E engine and a quartet ofYF-23C vernier thrusters. In total, the YF-24E provides 177,419 pounds (789.2 kilonewtons) of thrust and operates for slightly more than three minutes.

Like its first stage and booster siblings, the second stages YF-24E burns a relatively inefficient mixture of nitrogen tetroxide and unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine. Although this toxic mixture is significantly less efficient than either a kerosene/liquid oxygen or liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen combination, it has the benefit of being able to be stored at room temperature.

The third stage is outfitted with a single YF-75 engine, producing 37,850 pounds (167 kilonewtons) of vacuum thrust and burning a mixture of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. This stage can operate for nearly eight minutes across two ignitions.

This will mark Chinas sixth launch in 2017.

Tagged: China Lead Stories Long March 3B/E Xichang Satellite Launch Center Zhongxing-9A

Curt Godwin has been a fan of space exploration for as long as he can remember, keeping his eyes to the skies from an early age. Initially majoring in Nuclear Engineering, Curt later decided that computers would be a more interesting - and safer - career field. He's worked in education technology for more than 20 years, and has been published in industry and peer journals, and is a respected authority on wireless network engineering. Throughout this period of his life, he maintained his love for all things space and has written about his experiences at a variety of NASA events, both on his personal blog and as a freelance media representative.

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Long March 3B to launch Zhongxing-9A television satellite - SpaceFlight Insider