1. Space Flight

Category Archives: Space Flight

Space station team eager to begin record yearlong flight

Posted on by

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko are gearing up for launch March 27 to kick off a record one-year stay aboard the International Space Station, an orbital marathon both men say is crucial for planning future flights beyond Earth orbit and, eventually, to Mars.

While four cosmonauts logged flights longer than one year between 1987 and 1999, the upcoming flight will be a first for the international lab complex and the first to focus on the long-term biological effects of the space environment using state-of-the-art medical and scientific research equipment and procedures.

"If we're ever going to go beyond low-Earth orbit for longer periods of time, spaceflight presents a lot of challenges to the human body with regard to bone loss, muscle loss, vision issues that we've recently realized people are having, the effect on your immune system, the effect of radiation on our bodies," Kelly said Thursday during a news conference in Paris. "Understanding those effects are very important.

"If a mission to Mars is going to take a three-year round trip, we need to know better how our body and our physiology performs over durations longer than what we've previously on the space station investigated, which is six months. Perhaps there's a cliff out there with regards to some of these issues that we experience and perhaps there aren't. But we won't know unless we investigate it."

A veteran of three previous space flights, including a shuttle mission to the Hubble Space Telescope and a 159-day stay aboard the station in 2010-11, Kelly is the twin brother of Mark Kelly, a retired astronaut who flew four shuttle missions and who is married to former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

Kornienko also is a station veteran, logging 176 days aboard the outpost in 2010.

Astronaut Scott Kelly, left, and cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko strike a pose during training for launch next year on a record year-long mission aboard the International Space Station.

NASA

"The last long-time space mission was on the Mir (space) station and it brought major data for investigations and research about how humans will feel during long-term flights into space," he said. "I hope that our mission will be an opportunity for others who will follow in our footsteps and take space exploration further."

Originally posted here:

Space station team eager to begin record yearlong flight

Elon Musk's next trick: Landing a rocket upright on a barge in the middle of the sea

Posted on by

Ambitious plan: billionaire Elon Musk. Photo: Supplied

And now for Elon Musk's next trick.

The billionaire entrepreneur is on the verge of attempting an audacious manoeuvrethat could make his next space flight notable not just for the takeoff, but for the landing.

Typically rocket boosters have their few minutes in the fiery, 3-2-1 spotlight, propelling the rest of the stages into the great beyond, before petering out and crashing unceremoniously into the sea.

A screen grab from a video a drone shot showing a prototype reusable rocket launch and land itself.

But Musk thinks that ditching one of the most expensive parts of the rocket is an unnecessary waste.

Advertisement

So SpaceX, his start-up space company, has designed a rocket he hopes will be able to launch, then return to Earth, touching down softly on the bullseye of a barge floating in the Atlantic Ocean.

Musk, the founder of Paypal and Tesla Motors, said that the odds of pulling off such an unprecedented feat "are not great - perhaps 50 per cent at best." But if SpaceX is able to one day stick the landing of the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket with consistency, it would mark a significant advancement for space flight.

Musk's Falcon 9 can launch, but can it land? Photo: AP

Excerpt from:

Elon Musk's next trick: Landing a rocket upright on a barge in the middle of the sea

Wonkblog: Elon Musks next trick: Landing a rocket upright on a barge in the middle of the sea

Posted on by

And now for Elon Musks next trick.

The billionaire entrepreneur is on the verge of attempting an audacious maneuver that could make his next space flight notable not just for the takeoff, but for the landing.

Typically rocket boosters have their few minutes in the fiery, 3-2-1 spotlight, propelling the rest of the stages into the great beyond, before petering out and crashing unceremoniously into the sea.

But Musk thinks that ditching one of the most expensive parts of the rocket is an unnecessary waste.

So SpaceX, his startup space company, has designed a rocket he hopes will be able to launch, then return to Earth, touching down softly on the bullseye of a barge floating in the Atlantic Ocean.

Musk, the founder of Paypal and Tesla Motors, said that the odds of pulling off such an unprecedented feat are not greatperhaps 50 percent at best. But if SpaceX is able to one day stick the landing of the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket with consistency, it would mark a significant advancement for space flight.

For years, Musk has been working on a way to land and reuse rockets. In two previous launches this year, the company completed soft landings in the ocean, briefly hovering over the water before toppling over.

Unfortunately, it sort of sat there for several seconds then tipped over and exploded, Musk said during a forum at MIT in October. Its as tall as a 14-story building. When a 14-story building falls over, its quite a belly flop.

On its next trip to resupply the International Space Station, scheduled for Jan. 6, SpaceX aims to land the rocket on a barge 300 feet long by 170 feet wide, using its engine thrust to slow down from a velocity of about 3,000 mph. In tests, the company has practiced launching the rocket hundreds to thousands of feet into the air and then reeling it back down slowly, as if tethered to kite string before landing square on the landing pad.

But stabilizing such a large rocket coming back from a great distance at high speeds isnt easy like trying to balance a rubber broomstick on your hand in the middle of a wind storm, Musk said.

Go here to read the rest:

Wonkblog: Elon Musks next trick: Landing a rocket upright on a barge in the middle of the sea

Playing Elite on the day NASA detailed its mission to Mars

Posted on by

It was an interesting day to try my hand at virtual reality space flight and fight.

Sitting in a lounge chair in a downtown New York hotel room, with an Oculus Rift headset strapped to my face and high-end flight stick and throttle in my hands, I couldn't help but be reminded of the day's big news from NASA.

I spent the time leading up to this scheduled appointment with the team behind Elite: Dangerous, watching a historic, live press conference from NASA.

It's called Orion, the gathering of administrators and rocket scientists told the world, and if it succeeds it will take people to Mars.If everything works out, if there are no issues and a team can be put together, it would be another six years at least before Earth said goodbye to its intergalactic explorers.

As a fan of science fiction, growing up on Star Trek and Star Wars and Heinlein, it's hard to keep the butterflies away when NASA starts talking about a Mars landing.

I thought about it during my short walk to the hotel to see Elite, a space combat and exploration game built on the premise that a future society splits in two, some sticking around Earth and the rest breaking away to the distant edges of the universe.

When I arrived, I couldn't help but ask David Braben, the director on this game and co-writer of the original title, about the real world news and its timing.

"It's great and exciting and fun," Braben said, launching us into a conversation about the game's astrophysics, the state of our universe and the game's AI-driven procedurally generated universe.

"The night sky is a blizzard of stars," he said. "We have been unbelievable lucky the solar system hasn't had a close encounter with another star, but within another thousand years there will be.

"Systems pass through each other, some of those could cause serious change."

See the article here:

Playing Elite on the day NASA detailed its mission to Mars

Daniel Glavin of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center discusses the discovery of organic – Video

Posted on by


Daniel Glavin of NASA #39;s Goddard Space Flight Center discusses the discovery of organic
Daniel Glavin of NASA #39;s Goddard Space Flight Center discusses the discovery of organic matter on Mars and other recent results from the MSL Curiosity rover. ...

By: Dqdein Ltoov

More here:

Daniel Glavin of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center discusses the discovery of organic - Video

2014s top space stories

Posted on by

By Miriam Kramer

Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko as seen from the Rosetta orbiter on Nov. 20, 2014. The Philae lander soft-landed on the surface of the comet on Nov. 12.(ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM CC BY-SA IGO 3.0)

From accidents to soaring daredevils to space capsules, 2014 was a big year in spaceflight.

Humanity soft-landed a probe on the face of a comet for the first time, while Virgin Galactic experienced a tragedy making it a bittersweet 12 months for people involved with space.

Here are Space.com's most important spaceflight stories of 2014:

NASA's Orion capsule debut

NASA successfully launched an uncrewed test of its Orion spacecraft, built to take humans to deep-space destinations like Mars or an asteroid, for the first time. The space capsule designed to carry four astronauts is the first spacecraft built by NASA to take humans to the Red Planet eventually.

Orion made two orbits of Earth during its approximately 4.5-hour test in early December. The flight was designed to help engineers test key systems onboard the spacecraft that could be needed during eventual crewed missions. The capsule reached an altitude of about 3,600 miles, marking the first time a NASA spacecraft built for humans has been out of low-Earth orbit in more than 40 years. [Images of Orion Test Flight]

NASA's Space Launch System the agency's mega rocket built to take Orion into deep space also hit a big milestone in 2014. Completing a critical design review that will allow engineers building the rocket to go forward.

Private rocket explodes after liftoff in Virginia

Read more here:

2014s top space stories

Space Station's 3D Printer Makes Wrench From 'Beamed Up' Design

Posted on by

The 3D printer aboard the International Space Station has wrapped up the first phase of its orbital test run by cranking out a ratchet wrench whose design was beamed up from Earth.

The wrench, along with the 19 other objects built by the orbiting 3D printer thus far, will travel to Earth early next year, where engineers will compare the objects with ground samples produced by the same machine before it launched, NASA officials said.

"We can't wait to get these objects home and put them through structural and mechanical testing," Quincy Bean, of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, said in a statement. "We really won't know how well this process worked in space until we inspect the parts and complete these tests." [10 Ways 3D Printing Could Transform Space Travel]

The 3D printer arrived on the space station in September as part of the 3D Print project, a collaboration between NASA and the California-based startup Made in Space, which designed and built the machine. The printer was installed in the station's Microgravity Science Glovebox on Nov. 17, then printed out its first part a piece for the printer itself called an extruder plate a week later.

All the other parts made by the printer during its first month of operations came from designs installed on the machine before its launch. So sending the wrench's file up from Earth marked another milestone, NASA officials said.

"For the printer's final test in this phase of operations, NASA wanted to validate the process for printing on demand, which will be critical on longer journeys to Mars," 3D Print program manager Niki Werkheiser, also of NASA Marshall,said in the same statement. "In less than a week, the ratchet was designed, approved by safety and other NASA reviewers, and the file was sent to space where the printer made the wrench in four hours."

The wrench measures 4.5 inches long by 1.3 inches wide (11.4 by 3.3 centimeters), and consists of 104 layers of extruded plastic, space agency officials said.

NASA has high hopes for 3D printing, saying in-space manufacturing technology could bring down the cost of spaceflight significantly and make voyaging spacecraft more self-sufficient. (Carrying a printer and some raw "feedstock" material would be easier and cheaper than lugging a huge cache of spare parts, the thinking goes.)

The 3D Print project is one step toward this ambitious goal. And the machine's work aboard the space station isn't done yet; phase two should start early next year.

"For our next phase of operations, we are working with the astronaut office to identify existing tools that we can make with the printer," Werkheiser said. "We can't wait until it is routine to see station astronauts use tools that they built in space."

Originally posted here:

Space Station's 3D Printer Makes Wrench From 'Beamed Up' Design

Final Frontier Design signs Space Act Agreement with NASA for Space Suit Development

Posted on by

Final Frontier Design (FFD) is proud to announce the signing of a Space Act Agreement (SAA) with NASA to collaborate on the development, design review, and testing of its launch and re-entry space suit for orbital space flight. NASAs Collaborations for Commercial Space Capabilities (CCSC) initiative is designed to advance private sector development of integrated space capabilities, for emerging products to be commercially available to government and nongovernment customers within the next five years. A series of four SAAs were awarded today to FFD, United Launch Alliance (ULA), ATK Space Systems, and Space X.

Via this SAA, FFD will be conducting a series of defining reviews and tests including the System Requirements Review (SRR), System Definition Review (SDR), Preliminary Design Review (PDR), and Critical Design Review (CDR) of their space suit, with NASA input and interface. These formal reviews ensure conformity, standards, and safety in FFDs materials, processes, engineering, facilities, and testing. FFD plans on completing this SAA within 24 to 30 months or sooner.

FFD will be partnering with various institutions, including Embry Riddle Aeronautical University and Starfighters Aerospace, to conduct human testing and relevant environment research on the suit. Tests slated for 2015 include hypobaric chamber and decompression, human interface definition, sizing, range of motion, zero G (in aircraft), high G (in aircraft and centrifuge), dynamic capabilities, and metabolic rate definitions.

FFD President Ted Southern said, "Our goal is to provide a higher performing suit for less money, with the most extreme use envelope for Low Earth Orbit and Exploration missions via this SAA. We are very happy to work with NASA to ensure we are meeting the most stringent standards of the government and are grateful for their support. We look forward to offering a competitive alternative for launch and entry suits to both NASA and private industry. "

For more information on FFD, visit their website at http://www.finalfrontierdesign.com

For more information about the CCSC awards visit: http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/december/nasa-selects-commercialspace- partners-for-collaborative-partnerships/

Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook.

The rest is here:

Final Frontier Design signs Space Act Agreement with NASA for Space Suit Development

NASA Video Shows Astronauts-Eye View of Trial by Fire from Inside Orion EFT-1 on First Test Flight

Posted on by

Video Caption: New video recorded during NASAs Orion return through Earths atmosphere provides viewers a taste of what the vehicle endured as it returned through Earths atmosphere during its Dec. 5 flight test. Credit: NASA

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL Newly released NASA footage recorded during the first test flight of NASAs Orion crew capsule this month gives an astronauts-eye view of what it would have been like for a crew riding along on the Trial by Fire as the vehicle began the fiery reentry through the Earths atmosphere and suffered scorching temperatures during the approximately ten minute plummet homewards and parachute assisted splashdown.

The video provides a taste of the intense conditions the spacecraft and the astronauts it carries will endure when they return from deep space destinations on the journey to Mars, NASA said in a statement.

The video was among the first data to be removed from Orion following its unpiloted Dec. 5 flight test and was recorded through windows in Orions crew module.

The Orion deep space test capsule reached an altitude of 3604 miles and the video starts with a view of the Earths curvature far different from what weve grown accustomed to from Space Shuttle flight and the International Space Station (ISS).

Then it transitions to the fiery atmospheric entry and effects from the superheated plasma, the continued descent, gorgeous series of parachute openings, and concludes with the dramatic splashdown.

NASAs Orion spacecraft glides through clouds under its three massive main parachutes on its way toward a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on Dec. 5, 2014. Credit: NASA

Although parts of the video were transmitted back in real time and shown live on NASA TV, this is the first time that the complete video is available so that the public can have an up-close look at the extreme environment a spacecraft experiences as it travels back through Earths environment from beyond low-Earth orbit.

A portion of the video could not be sent back live because of the communications blackout that always occurs during reentry when the superheated plasma surrounds the vehicle as it endures peak heating up to 4000 F (2200 C) and prevents data downlink. Video footage shows the plasma created by the interaction change from white to yellow to lavender to magenta as the temperature increases.

The on-board cameras continued to operate all the way through the 10 minute reentry period to unfurling of the drogue and three main parachutes and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean at 11:29 a.m. EST at about 20 mph.

Read more here:

NASA Video Shows Astronauts-Eye View of Trial by Fire from Inside Orion EFT-1 on First Test Flight

KerbalEdu receives its first major update

Posted on by

Kerbal Space Program's developer Squad and TeacherGaming has released their first update to KerbalEdu, a teaching-focused version of the wildly popular indie game.

Following their development of MinecraftEdu, TeacherGaming is focusing on the application of Kerbal Space Program in the fields of maths, physics, and other STEM fields. They are developing KerbalEdu in conjunction with Squad.

"We always hear about how much our players have learned through playing the game," Miguel Pea, Kerbal Space Program producer, commented. "While we're proud of inspiring so many players who've learned through KSP, we've always been a game first. TeacherGaming takes KSP to the next level and makes education aspects as important as the gameplay, if not more so, in the best ways possible. They've modified things to where students can grasp onto some of the game's concepts in an easier more practical way."

According to KerbalEdu's website, the update demonstrates the forces used in space flight, as well as allowing teachers to create missions and lesson plans, and then upload them for others to use. In addition, there will be an in-depth flight recorder that means "students can create data driven experiments and learn how changes in design or construction influence the performance of their spacecraft, or plot the data to discover the relationships of gravity, mass and acceleration."

The price of KerbalEdu varies depending on what kind of educational institution you represent, with schools paying $17 for a single license, with 25 going for $330, which works out to $13 per license.

As a testament to the robustness of Kerbal Space Program's systems, the folks at NASA have often said they play the space flight simulator.

View post:

KerbalEdu receives its first major update

The CSCA Announces New Board of Directors for 2015-16

Posted on by

The Canadian Space Commerce Association (CSCA) recently completed the election of a new Board of Directors who will serve a term of two years beginning on January 1, 2015 and until December 31, 2016. The new board members are:

- Yaroslav Yarko Pustovyi (President) Was part of the first astronaut group selected by the National Space Agency of Ukraine (NSAU). In 1997 he served as a backup payload specialist for the STS-87 Space Shuttle Columbia flight. He is a co-founder and Vice President of Space 1 Systems Inc.

- Catherine Carr (Treasurer) Is experienced in many facets of corporate finance and accounting. An avid space exploration and astronomy enthusiast with 18 years accounting experience, Catherine can assist organizations with establishing internal accounting controls, developing financial reporting, budgeting & analysis and with day to day operations.

- Azam Shaghaghi (Secretary) Visionary entrepreneur, space enthusiast, 2005 world invention 2nd & 3rd place contest winner, Azam is currently on the board of directors at Space Tourism Society Canada as a president. - Farnaz Ghadaki (Director) Is a strategic marketing & management consultant and a member of the entrepreneurship & investment committee of the International Astronautical Federation (IAF).

- Wilfred So (Director) Wilfred So is a Patent Agent at Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP. His work involves the preparation and prosecution of patent applications, as well as industrial designs. He also advises on issues of infringement and validity, as well as patent filing strategy. Wilfred is also a former editor-in-chief of the Canadian Space Societys Gazette. Prior to joining Blakes, he gained aerospace engineering experience working at MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd., Honeywell Inc. and Messier-Dowty Inc. He is also the co-inventor and co-owner of issued U.S. patents relating to aircraft control systems.

About the Canadian Space Commerce Association

The Canadian Space Commerce Association, founded in 2007, is a registered not-for-profit industry organization that advances the economic, legal and political environment for space focused companies. For more information about the Canadian Space Commerce Association and when our next event is, please visit our web site at: http://www.spacecommerce.ca.

Follow us on:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CanadianSpace Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/CanadianSpace/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostRecent=&gid=8218235

Media Contact:

Visit link:

The CSCA Announces New Board of Directors for 2015-16


  1. Space Flight