Atlantis begins the slow journey to Launch Pad 39A from the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) in preparation for the launch of STS-79 in 16 September 1996. This dramatic view looking directly down onto the shuttle stack atop the Mobile Launcher Platform (MLP) and crawler-transporter was taken from the VAB roof approximately 525 feet (160 meters) above the ground. In view are the Orbiter, orange External Tank and twin white Solid Rocket Boosters. Credit: NASA
If you’ve got a new use for the mobile launcher platforms NASA used for the shuttle program, the agency is all ears.
NASA invited government and commercial entities to submit their ideas for the platforms, which used to ferry the space shuttles and the Apollo rockets from the Vehicle Assembly Building to their launch pads.
Space shuttle Discovery on board one of the mobile launcher platforms. Credit: NASA
The ideal for NASA is to make them available for commercial launch activity. “Interested parties are requested to provide the following … estimated annual launch manifest, plans for retrofitting, storing, transporting, estimated schedule for acquiring use of the MLP(s), and the length of time the MLP(s) would be required for a particular activity,” the agency stated in a request for information.
Other options for the platforms could include modifying them for use in oil rigs, artificial reefs or even museum exhibits. Deconstruction is also being considered.
Each of the three platforms is two storeys tall, weigh 8.2 million pounds, with a platform of about 160 feet by 135 feet.
A subsurface spacecraft prototype is deliberately slammed into 10 tonnes of ice in a rocket facility. Credit: European Space Agency/YouTube (screenshot)
If you want to get inside a planet or moon fast, the European Space Agency says lobbing a spacecraft at the surface might be a good approach.
This concept may sound like suicide. A recent prototype test, however, shows the spacecraft structure is mostly okay. Next step is figuring out what can survive on the inside.
ESA, like NASA and other agencies, isn’t afraid to test out new landing concepts if they suit better than the traditional ones (which use rockets and/or parachutes to land a spacecraft softly on the surface). Witness the Curiosity rover’s “seven minutes of terror” concept as a successful example.
Imagine that you want to look at water below the surface of Mars, or (like the people in Europa Report) you wish to plumb into the ice of Jupiter’s moon, Europa. One option could be a drill. Another one could be a subsurface spacecraft.
“One benefit over landers and rovers is that penetrators provide access to the subsurface without the need for additional drilling or digging,” ESA stated.
To test this out, engineers put 12 solid-propellant boosters on to a 44-pound (20 kilogram) prototype and fired it at almost the speed of sound at sea level: 1,118 feet a second (341 meters/second). (More technical details on the test).
The 1.5-second test, shown in the video, saw the prototype careening into 10 tonnes of ice at a deceleration of 24,000 times the force of gravity. Astronauts, by contrast, usually only withstand 3-4 g when going into space.
The scuffed and dented spacecraft was retrieved successfully, and now ESA is reviewing how well the internal structure held up in the chaos. They also plan to develop battery and communications systems that could somehow survive intact.
High-speed tests are not only useful for spacecraft landings, but also for meteor simulations.
Most meteors are comet dust striking at the atmosphere at speeds so high, they vaporiz in a blaze of light. This is a meteor from the Leonid shower in 2001. Credit: Bob King
An article in Wired recently covered the progress of the NASA Ames Vertical Gun range in its nearly 50 years of operation.
“Though it’s called a gun, the facility doesn’t look much like any firearm you’ve ever seen,” wrote Adam Mann. “The main chassis is a long metal barrel as thick as a cannon mounted on an enormous red pole that forks at the end into two legs.”
Sierra Nevada Corp.'s Dream Chaser just before tow tests at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center on Aug. 2, 2013. Credit: NASA/Ken Ulbrich
Another kind of commercial spacecraft is almost ready to take flight, its backers say.
Sierra Nevada Corp.’s Dream Chaser recently finished four low- and high-speed ground tests at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif., the same spot where the shuttle was put through its paces in early tests of its program. Several shuttle flights also landed at Dryden.
The Dream Chaser tow-and-release tests, which took place at speeds ranging from 10 to 60 miles per hour (16 to 96 kilometers per hour), examined items such as the flight computer, how the guidance performed, steering parameters and the flight surfaces.
“Watching Dream Chaser undergo tow testing on the same runway where we landed several space shuttle orbiters brings a great amount of pride to our Dream Chaser team,” stated Steve Lindsey, SNC’s Space Systems senior director of programs, who is also a former NASA astronaut.
“We are another step closer to restoring America’s capability to return U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station.”
The next step will be an approach and landing test, which should take place sometime in the third quarter of 2013.
SNC is one of three companies receiving money from NASA under the agency’s commercial crew program, whose goal is to move astronaut launches back to American soil in the next few years. The other competitors are SpaceX and Boeing. You can read a more in-depth look at their proposals here.
The SpaceX Grasshopper during its test flight on March 7, 2013. Credit: SpaceX.
SpaceX proved yesterday that their Grasshopper prototype Vertical Takeoff Vertical Landing (VTVL) vehicle can do more than just go straight up and down. The goal of the test, said SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on Twitter was, “hard lateral deviation, stabilize & hover, rapid descent back to pad.”
On August 13th, the Grasshopper did just that, completing a divert test, flying to a 250-meter altitude with a 100-meter lateral maneuver before returning to the center of the pad. SpaceX said the test demonstrated the vehicle’s ability to perform more aggressive steering maneuvers than have been attempted in previous flights.
While most rockets are designed to burn up in the atmosphere during reentry, SpaceX is looking to make their next generation of Falcon 9 rocket be able to return to the launch pad for a vertical landing.
This isn’t easy. The 10-story Grasshopper provides a challenge in controlling the structure. The Falcon 9 with a Dragon spacecraft is 48.1 meters (157 feet) tall, which equates to about 14 stories high. SpaceX said diverts like this are an important part of the trajectory in order to land the rocket precisely back at the launch site after reentering from space at hypersonic velocity.
Also on Twitter this morning, NASA’s Jon Cowert (who is now working with the Commercial Crew program) provided a look back at NASA’s foray into VTVL vehicles with the Delta Clipper Experimental vehicle,(DC-X). The video below is from July 7, 1995, and the Delta Clipper was billed as the world’s first fully reusable rocket vehicle. This eighth test flight proved that the vehicle could turn over into a re-entry profile and re-orient itself for landing. This flight took place at the White Sands Missile Range in southern New Mexico.
But after some problems (fires and the spacecraft actually fell over when a landing strut didn’t extend) NASA decided to try and focus on the X-33 VentureStar, which would land like an airplane…. and that didn’t work out very well either.
It always looked so easy in the Star Trek episodes. “Two to beam up,” Captain James T. Kirk would say from the planet’s surface. A few seconds later, the officers would materialize on the Enterprise — often missing a few red-shirts that went down with them.
A new analysis says the teleportation process wouldn’t take a few seconds. It could, in fact, stretch longer than the history of the universe! “It would probably be quicker to walk,” a press release said laconically.
Comparison of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy offered by SpaceX. Credit: SpaceX
Just the fact’s ma’am. This week SpaceX rolled out the new updated look for their website and put out this fact-filled 2-minute drill on the Falcon 9: what it has achieved and the tests for future vertical landings. Enjoy the imagery and the music to get you pumped up.
The K10 Black planetary rover during a Surface Telerobotics Operational Readiness Test at NASA's Ames Research Center.
Credit: NASA/Dominic Hart
Astronauts, start your rover engines. Two astronauts recently remote-controlled a rover vehicle in California from their perch on the International Space Station — about 250 miles (400 kilometers) overhead.
The concept is cool in itself, but NASA has loftier aims. It’s thinking about those moon and asteroid and Mars human missions that the agency would really like to conduct one day, if it receives the money and authorization.
Potentially, say, you could have a Mars crew using rovers to explore as much of the surface as possible in a limited time.
Mars Curiosity and its predecessor rovers have found amazing things on Mars, but the challenge is the average 20-minute delay in communications between Mars and Earth. NASA deftly accounts for this problem through techniques such as hazard avoidance software so that Curiosity, say, wouldn’t crash into a big Martian boulder. (More techniques from NASA at this link.) But having astronauts above the surface would cut down on the time delay and potentially change Mars rover driving forever.
Luca Parmitano controlled the K10 rover from space on July 26, 2013. Credit: NASA Television (screencap)
So about that test: two astronauts so far have run the K10 planetary vehicle prototype around a “Roverscape” at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California. NASA calls these runs the “first fully-interactive remote operation of a planetary rover by an astronaut in space.”
Expedition 36’s Chris Cassidy was first up on June 15, spending three hours moving the machine around in the rock-strewn area, which is about the size of two football fields. Then his crewmate Luca Parmitano took a turn on July 26, going so far as to deploy a simulated radio antenna. Another test session should take place in August.
“Whereas it is common practice in undersea exploration to use a joystick and have direct control of remote submarines, the K10 robots are more intelligent,” stated Terry Fong, human exploration telerobotics project manager at Ames.
“Astronauts interact with the robots at a higher level, telling them where to go, and then the robot itself independently and intelligently figures out how to safely get there,” added Fong, who is also director of Ames’ intelligent robotics group.
The tests simulated a mission to the moon’s L2 Lagrangian point, a spot where the combined gravity of the moon and Earth allow a spacecraft to remain virtually steady above the surface. One possibility for such a mission would be to deploy a radio telescope on the lunar side opposite from Earth, far from Earth’s radio noise, NASA said.
These tests also showcase a couple of technical firsts:
NASA is testing a Robot Application Programming Interface Delegate (RAPID) robot data messaging system to control the robot from space, essentially working to strip down the information to the bare essentials to make communication as easy as possible. (RAPID has been tested before, but never in this way.)
The agency is also using its Ensemble software in space for telerobotics for the first time. It describes this as “open architecture for the development, integration and deployment of mission operations software.”
1st operational Cygnus pressurized cargo module from Orbital Science Corp. and newly arrived from Italy sits inside high bay processing facility at NASA Wallops Flight Facility, VA. This Cygnus may launch to the ISS as early as December 2013. Credit: Ken Kremer (kenkremer.com)
The privately built Cygnus Pressurized Cargo Module (PCM) was developed by Orbital Sciences Corp. & Thales Alenia Space under the Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) cargo transport contract with NASA.
Universe Today took an exclusive look at the unmanned Cygnus cargo carrier housed inside the high bay facility where the vehicle is being processed for flight during a visit at NASA Wallops.
Cygnus is an essential lifeline to stock the station with all manner of equipment, science experiments, food, clothing, spare parts and gear for the international crew of six astronauts and cosmonauts.
1st operational Cygnus pressurized cargo module from Orbital Science Corp. sits inside high bay clean room facility with crane overhead at NASA Wallops Flight Facility, VA for preflight processing. Credit: Ken Kremer (kenkremer.com)
The Cygnus PCM is manufactured by Thales Alenia Space at their production facility in Turin, Italy under a subcontract from Orbital.
The design is based on the Multi Purpose Logistic Module (MPLM) space shuttle cargo transporter.
The standard version has an internal volume of 18.9 cubic meters and can carry a total cargo mass of 2000 kg.
It was encased inside a special shipping container and flown from Italy to the US aboard an Antonov An-124 aircraft on July 17. The massive An-124 is the world’s second largest operating cargo aircraft.
After unloading from the An-124 and movement into a clean room high bay at Wallops Processing Building H-100, the shipping crate’s cover was raised using a 20 ton bridge crane. The PCM was unloaded and likewise gently craned over to an adjacent high bay work stand for flight processing.
Cygnus pressurized cargo module was loaded inside this shipping container and transported aboard Antonov An-124 from Italy to NASA Wallops Flight Facility high bay processing facility and launch site in Virginia. Credit: Ken Kremer (kenkremer.com)
Approximately a month and a half before launch, technicians mate the Cygnus PCM to the Service Module (SM) which houses the spacecraft’s avionics, propulsion and power systems and propels the combined vehicle to berth at the ISS.
The Cygnus SM is built by Orbital at their manufacturing facility in Dulles, VA., and shipped to Wallops for integration with the PCM in the processing building.
This particular vehicle is actually the second PCM bound for the ISS, but will be the first of eight operational cargo delivery runs to the space station over the next few years.
The first PCM to fly is set to blast-off on a Demonstration Mission (COTS 1) to the ISS in some six weeks on Sept. 14 atop Orbital’s privately developed Antares rocket. It is also in the midst of flight processing at Wallops inside a different building known as the Horizontal Integration Facility (HIF) where it is integrated with the Antares rocket.
Cygnus stored inside shipping container is unloaded from Antonov An-124 aircraft after arrival at NASA Wallops, VA on July 17, 2013. Credit: NASA/Patrick Black
Orbital says the Cygnus Demo vehicle is already fueled and will be loaded with about 1550 kg of cargo for the station crew.
The purpose of the demonstration flight is to prove that the unmanned spacecraft can safely and successfully rendezvous and dock with the orbiting outpost. The flight objectives are quite similar to the initial cargo delivery test flights successfully accomplished by Orbital’s commercial rival, SpaceX.
All of Orbital’s ISS cargo resupply missions will occur from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport’s (MARS) pad 0A at Wallops.
Antares rocket will launch Cygnus spacecraft to the ISS from Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) Launch Pad 0A at NASA Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia. Credit: Ken Kremer (kenkremer.com)
This past spring on April 21, Orbital successfully launched the 1st test flight of the Antares rocket. Read my articles here and here.
Orbital’s Antares/Cygnus system is similar in scope to the SpaceX Falcon 9/Dragon system.
Both firms won lucrative NASA contracts to deliver approximately 20,000 kilograms each of supplies and science equipment to the ISS during some 20 flights over the coming 3 to 4 years.
Cygnus spacecraft is loaded onto the Cygnus Vertical Carrier (CVC) 16-wheeled transporter to move between processing facilities at NASA’s Wallops Island launch site. Credit: Ken Kremer (kenkremer.com)
The goal of NASA’s CRS initiative is to achieve safe, reliable and cost-effective transportation to and from the ISS and low-Earth orbit (LEO) as a replacement for NASA’s now retired Space Shuttle Program.
Orbital’s contract with NASA for at least eight Antares/Cygnus resupply missions to the ISS is worth $1.9 Billion.
NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik prepares to enter the CST-100 spacecraft, which was built inside The Boeing Company's Houston Product Support Center. Credit: NASA/Robert Markowitz
A pair of NASA astronauts donned their spacesuits for key fit check evaluations inside a test version of the Boeing Company’s CST-100 commercial ‘space taxi’ which was unveiled this week for the world’s first glimpse of the cabin’s interior.
Boeing is among a trio of American aerospace firms, including SpaceX and Sierra Nevada Corp, seeking to restore America’s capability to fly humans to Earth orbit and the space station using seed money from NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP).
Astronauts Serena Aunon and Randy Bresnik conducted a day long series of technical evaluations inside a fully outfitted, full scale mock up of the CST-100, while wearing NASA’s iconic orange launch-and-entry flight suits from the space shuttle era.
During the tests, Boeing technicians monitored the astronauts ergonomic ability to work in the seats and move around during hands on use of the capsules equipment, display consoles and storage compartments.
The purpose of the testing at Boeing’s Houston Product Support Center is to see what works well and what needs modifications before fixing the final capsule design for construction.
“It’s an upgrade,” said astronaut Serena Aunon at the evaluation. “It is an American vehicle, of course it is an upgrade.”
This is an interior view of The Boeing Company’s CST-100 spacecraft, which features LED lighting and tablet technology. Image Credit: NASA/Robert Markowitz
Former NASA Astronaut Chris Ferguson, the commander of the final shuttle flight (STS-135) by Atlantis, is leading Boeing’s test effort as the director of Boeing’s Crew and Mission Operations.
“These are our customers. They’re the ones who will take our spacecraft into flight, and if we’re not building it the way they want it we’re doing something wrong,” said Ferguson.
“We’ll probably make one more go-around and make sure that everything is just the way they like it.”
The CST-100 is designed to carry a crew of up to 7 astronauts, or a mix of cargo and crew, on missions to low-Earth orbit (LEO) and the International Space Station (ISS) around the middle of this decade.
Although it resembles Boeing’s Apollo-era capsules from the outside, the interior employs state of the art modern technology including sky blue LED lighting and tablet technology.
Check out this video showing the astronauts and engineers during the CST-100 testing
Nevertheless Boeing’s design goal is to keep the flight technology as simple as possible.
“What you’re not going to find is 1,100 or 1,600 switches,” said Ferguson. “When these guys go up in this, they’re primary mission is not to fly this spacecraft, they’re primary mission is to go to the space station for six months. So we don’t want to burden them with an inordinate amount of training to fly this vehicle. We want it to be intuitive.”
The CST-100 crew transporter will fly to orbit atop the venerable Atlas V rocket built by United Launch Alliance (ULA) from Launch Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
The CST-100 crew capsule awaits liftoff aboard an Atlas V launch vehicle at Cape Canaveral in this artist’s concept. Credit: Boeing
Boeing is aiming for an initial three day manned orbital test flight of the CST-100 during 2016, says John Mulholland, Boeing vice president and program manger for Commercial Programs.
The 1st docking mission to the ISS would follow in 2017 – depending on the very uncertain funding that Congress approves for NASA.
The Atlas V was also chosen to launch one of Boeing’s commercial crew competitors, namely the Dream Chaser mini shuttle built by Sierra Nevada Corp.
Boeing CST-100 capsule early mock-up, interior view. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
NASA’s CCP program is fostering the development of the CST-100 as well as the SpaceX Dragon and Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser to replace America’s capability to launch humans to space that was lost following the retirement of NASA’s space shuttle orbiters two years ago in July 2011.
Since 2011, every American astronaut has been 100% dependent on the Russians and their Soyuz capsule to hitch a ride to the ISS.
“We pay one of our [ISS] partners, the Russians, $71 million a seat to fly,” says Ed Mango, CCP’s program manager. “What we want to do is give that to an American company to fly our crews into space.”
Simultaneously NASA and its industry partners are designing and building the Orion crew capsule and SLS heavy lift booster to send humans to the Moon and deep space destinations including Near Earth Asteroids and Mars.
As NASA’s fiscal 2014 budget proceeds through Congress, it’s still quite the ping-pong ball match to try to figure out where their budget numbers will fall. How do you think the budget will end up? Leave your thoughts in the comments.
Also, be sure to watch the latest markup on the NASA bill occurring today when the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology meets — the webcast is here. It starts at 11:15 a.m. EDT/3:15 p.m. GMT.
– Obama administration initial request – $17.7 billion: Unveiled in early April, the $17.7 billion “tough choices” NASA budget was for $50 million less than requested in 2013; the actual FY 2013 budget was $16.6 billion due to cuts and sequestration. While reducing funding opportunities for planetary science, the FY 2014 budget provided funding for a NASA mission to capture an asteroid. The asteroid mission proposal, in later weeks, did not impress at least one subcommittee.
It appears that NASA’s proposed Space Launch System is getting budgetary support from at least some House members. Credit: NASA
– U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies – $18 billion: On Tuesday, the Senate subcommittee suggested an allocation to NASA of $18 billion. A press release says the budget level will give “better balance for all of NASA’s important missions, including $373 million more for science that helps us to better understand Earth and own solar system while peering at new worlds way beyond the stars. The Senate also provides $597 million more to let humans explore beyond low earth orbit while safely sending our astronauts to the space station on U.S. made vehicles.”
– NASA’s reaction: David Weaver, NASA’s associate administrator for communications, said the agency is “deeply concerned” about the House funding levels. “While we appreciate the support of the Committee, we are deeply concerned that the bill under consideration would set our funding level significantly below the President’s request,” he wrote in a blog post, adding, “We are especially concerned the bill cuts funding for space technology – the “seed corn” that allows the nation to conduct ever more capable and affordable space missions – and the innovative and cost-effective commercial crew program, which will break our sole dependence on foreign partners to get to the Space Station. The bill will jeopardize the success of the commercial crew program and ensure that we continue to outsource jobs to Russia.”
– Reaction of Commercial Spaceflight Federation: Much the same as NASA. “Less funding for the commercial
NASA fears there will not be enough money to fund commercial providers such as SpaceX (Dragon cargo spacecraft pictured) who aim to bring astronauts to the space station themselves. Credit: NASA/CSA/Chris Hadfield
crew program simply equates to prolonged dependence on foreign launch providers,” stated federation president Michael Lopez-Alegria, who is a former NASA astronaut. “As a nation, we should be doing our utmost to regain the capability of putting astronauts in orbit on American vehicles as soon as possible.”
– What’s next: The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology markup of the NASA bill takes place starting at 11:15 a.m. EDT/3:15 p.m. GMT (again, watch the webcast at this link.) We’ll keep you posted on what they say. The Planetary Society’s Casey Dreier, who said $16.6 billion is the smallest NASA budget in terms of purchasing power since 1986, points out that the House doesn’t have the final say: “The Senate still needs to weigh in, so this House budget is not the last word in the matter, but it’s deeply troubling. You can’t turn NASA on and off like a spigot. Cuts now will echo through the coming decades.”
