SpaceX DragonLab™ - a free-flying, fully-recoverable, reusable spacecraft capable of hosting pressurized and unpressurized payloads. Credit: SpaceX
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Two upstart commercial space companies have been awarded contracts by NASA for commercial cargo resupply services to the International Space Station. SpaceX, also known as Space Exploration Technologies received a contract for $1.6 billion while Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va. has a contract valued at $1.9 billion. NASA has ordered 12 flights from SpaceX and eight from Orbital. In October, at this year’s International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight, SpaceX Vice President of Marketing and Communications Diane Murphy said that the six- year-old company has it in their sights to be able to fly to the space station by 2009. For now, the contract is for cargo only, however SpaceX’s Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket are human rated, and would be capable of delivering up to 7 crew members to the station. The Dragon could also be used as an escape vehicle. If SpaceX and Orbital can be successful in cargo re-supply, it could pave the way for a potential solution to the gap between the shuttle retirement in 2010 and when the Constellation program would be ready to fly, hopefully by 2015.
“The SpaceX team is honored to have been selected by NASA as the winner of the Cargo Resupply Services contract,” said Elon Musk, CEO and CTO, SpaceX. “This is a tremendous responsibility, given the swiftly approaching retirement of the Space Shuttle and the significant future needs of the Space Station. This also demonstrates the success of the NASA COTS program, which has opened a new era for NASA in US Commercial spaceflight.” Orbital's Cygnus module will be used for ISS resupply. Credit: Orbital
“We are very appreciative of the trust NASA has placed with us to provide commercial cargo transportation services to and from the International Space Station, beginning with our demonstration flight scheduled in late 2010,” said Mr. David W. Thompson, Orbital’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “The CRS program will serve as a showcase for the types of commercial services U.S. space companies can offer NASA, allowing the space agency to devote a greater proportion of its resources for the challenges of human spaceflight, deep space exploration and scientific investigations of our planet and the universe in which we live.”
Orbital will use their module called Cygnus to deliver cargo, launched on their Taurus rocket.
These fixed-price indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contracts will begin Jan. 1, 2009, and are effective through Dec. 31, 2016. The contracts each call for the delivery of a minimum of 20 metric tons of upmass cargo to the space station. The contracts also call for delivery of non-standard services in support of the cargo resupply, including analysis and special tasks as the government determines are necessary.
NASA has set production milestones and reviews on the contracts to monitor progress toward providing services. The maximum potential value of each contract is about $3.1 billion. Based on known requirements, the value of both contracts combined is projected at $3.5 billion.
These agreements do fulfill NASA’s need to for cargo delivery to the space station after the retirement of the space shuttle.
Apollo 8's famous Earthrise picture. Would you like to have this view? Credit: NASA
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The Apollo 8 mission was a seminal moment not in only the history of spaceflight, but in human history as well. The mission came during a time when the US and the world were divided by war and racial issues. It’s been said that Apollo 8 “saved” 1968 from being an otherwise divisive and disheartening year, and because of the success of the mission – in terms of both technical and philosophical matters — the Apollo 8 crew of Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders were named “Men of the Year” by Time Magazine. Apollo 8 was the first human mission to orbit the moon, but it wasn’t supposed to be. And the mission was responsible for one of the most iconic images of our time.
Read more about Apollo 8 and watch an excellent video NASA put together to commemorate the mission on its 40th anniversary
Originally the mission was slated to test the lunar lander hardware in Earth orbit. But the lunar lander wasn’t ready and then other political issues came into play. NASA was told, incorrectly it turned out, by the CIA that the Soviet Union was preparing its own manned lunar mission and was ready to launch. As NASA wanted to be first to the moon and also fulfill President John Kennedy’s call for a US manned lunar landing by the end of the decade, they took a gamble and designated Apollo 8 to go and orbit the moon.
The decision was controversial. NASA’s giant Saturn V rocket, the only rocket capable of taking humans to the Moon, had been fraught with problems and instrument failures on its two test flights. Also, fresh in everyone’s minds was the fire in 1967 in which killed three astronauts – Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee – during a ground test of an Apollo capsule. Apollo 8 launch. Credit: NASA
Yes, it was a gamble, but it paid off. The crew launched on December 21, and it was the first manned launch of the Saturn V rocket. It went well, although Anders tells the story how he felt severe vibrations during the first moments of launch, and feeling almost like a bug on top of a car antenna, vibrating back and forth. But the giant rocket, 363 feet tall and weighing 6.25 million pounds performed well and following a rocket burn for trans-lunar injection, the astronauts were on their way to the moon.
Early on Christmas Eve, Apollo 8 reached its destination. The astronauts fired the propulsion system to slow the rocket, putting them into lunar orbit. For its first three obits, the astronauts kept its windows pointing down towards the Moon and frantically filmed the craters and mountains below. One of their main tasks was to do reconnaissance for the future Apollo landings.
It was not until Apollo 8 was on its fourth orbit that Borman decided to roll the craft away from the Moon and to point its windows towards the horizon in order to get a navigational fix. A few minutes later, he spotted a blue-and-white object coming over the horizon. Transcripts of the Apollo 8 mission reveal the astronauts’ wonder and amazement at what they were seeing: Earth, from a quarter of million miles away, rising from behind the Moon. “Oh my God! Look at the picture over there. Here’s the Earth coming up,” Borman shouted. This was followed by a flurry of exclamations by Anders and Lovell and a scramble to find a camera. Anders found one first and the first image he took was black-and-white, showing Earth just peeping over the horizon. Then Anders found a roll of 70mm color film for the Hasselblad camera, and he took the photograph of Earthrise that became an icon of 20th-century, portraying technological advances and heightening ecological awareness. Apollo 8 crew. Credit: NASA
This was the way humans first recorded their home planet from another world. “It was the most beautiful, heart-catching sight of my life,” Borman said later, “one that sent a torrent of nostalgia, of sheer homesickness, surging through me. It was the only thing in space that had any color to it. Everything else was either black or white. But not the Earth.”
Jim Lovell said that Earth was “a grand oasis in the vast loneliness of space.”
The three astronauts agree the most important thing they brought back from the mission was the photography, not only of the moon, but of Earth.
To commemorate the 40th anniversary of Apollo 8, the crew of the International Space Station’s Expedition 18, Commander Mike Fincke and Flight Engineers Sandy Magnus and Yury Lonchakov will send a message to be aired on a message that will air on NASA Television as part of the daily Video File, beginning at 11 a.m. CST, Friday, Dec. 19. The video also will be broadcast in high definition on the NASA TV HD channel at 10
a.m., noon and 3 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 19, and Tuesday, Dec. 23.
A charred Soyuz descent module after landing 400 km off-course on April 19th 2008. Credit: NASA
[/caption]Back in April, the world was captivated by what happened to the crew of Soyuz TMA-11. It was supposed to be a routine trip from the International Space Station to the Kazakhstan landing site, but the crew return capsule endured a ballistic re-entry (i.e. an uncontrolled re-entry occurring steeper than planned) and a hard landing 400 km off-target. Fortunately cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, US astronaut Peggy Whitson and South Korean spaceflight participant Yi So-yeon survived the landing, but endured significant stress (plus Yi So-yeon had to receive medical attention to her back). Several days of media confusion ensued as misinformation was circulated by Russian officials, accusations of incompetence were directed at the crew (by the Russian space agency), and then (my personal favourite) a senior space agency manager put forward his theory on what had gone wrong: Having more women than men on board the spaceship was a bad omen.
So, what really happened above the atmosphere of Russia? It appears Russian engineers are beginning to understand what initiated the ballistic re-entry (without an omen in sight)…
While the rest of the world tried to work out who was to blame for the April 19th hard landing, engineers were busy trying to figure out what actually went wrong with Soyuz TMA-11. For a while now there has been a focus on the explosive bolts that possibly failed to fully separate the service module from the descent module as the craft began to enter the upper atmosphere. A rather heroic spacewalk was even carried out to remove one of the bolts from Soyuz TMA-12 whilst attached to the space station in July 2008. It was placed (carefully) in a blast-proof container and brought back to Earth for analysis.
Russian space officials have said the problem with the explosive bolts (or “pyrobolts”) has been solved and re-entries can go on as normal. However, an instrument will be attached to the outside of the space station, near to where the Soyuz vehicles dock. The installation is scheduled for a December 23rd spacewalk. If the problem has been solved, why investigate the issue further? The reality is that Russian scientists are still trying to understand what causes the Soyuz pyrobolts to misfire; after all, the ballistic re-entry is not exclusive to the April 2008 descent, it also happened in October 2007 during the re-entry of Soyuz TMA-10.
According to Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator for the Space Operations Mission Directorate, scientists in the Russian space agency have converged on a common theory, the electromagnetic interference (EMI) hypothesis. EMI is thought to be caused by the flow of space plasma around the hull of the station, causing interference with the pyrobolts in the docked Soyuz vehicles. One effect could be the hardening of the explosives igniter wire, meaning a higher electrical current is needed to trigger the small explosives. Another effect of EMI could cause “the slurry of combustible material around the wire [to] migrate away from the wire, so there’s a gap between the slurry and the wire,” Gerstenmaier said.
Therefore, the hull-mounted instrument (called a Langmuir probe) will be used to measure the electric potential of the plasma flowing around the station near the Soyuz dock. This will help the scientist on the ground gauge the significance of the two space plasma EMI hypotheses, while they continue to study the pyrobolt brought back from TMA-12. It will be interesting to hear what they find out…
Obama is in for a rough ride to get the economy back on track, but NASA cutbacks are not the answer
[/caption]There’s no denying it, President-elect Barack Obama will have one of the toughest jobs in presidential history. The challenges the 44th President of the United States will face are deep and varied. Everything from the economy to housing, from health care to warfare, from energy to security; everything appears to be in a state of “crisis”. So, of the incoming administration’s priorities, getting man back to the Moon is low on the list. Unfortunately, the exploration of space is often viewed as a luxury rather than a necessity, policy changes interfere with long-term projects, and the NASA budget can become an easy target for cutbacks.
It will come as no surprise then, that news is surfacing about some friction between Obama’s new administration and the existing top brass in NASA. Some reports point to direct non-cooperation by NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, an allegation that both NASA and the Obama transition team deny. Regardless, there is tension building, especially when it is becoming clear that the transition team may be eyeing up NASA budget cuts, postponing the Constellation program, possibly putting long-term US manned access to space at serious risk.
A space exploration crisis is on the horizon, but what damage would it cause?
Writing about NASA’s endeavours in space can be a frustrating experience. On the one hand, the US space agency is responsible for mankind’s biggest space-faring achievements. NASA has always led and the world has followed. NASA pushes back the frontiers of manned and robotic exploration, and now the agency’s expertise is being passed down to commercial spaceflight companies (such as SpaceX support through COTS contracts) to fill in the void behind NASA’s advances.
We are reaching an age where other nations are investing in space exploration too. The European Space Agency (ESA) is rapidly growing, Russia has one of the most robust launch systems on the planet, China is making huge leaps in manned spaceflight, India has sent a probe to the Moon; the list is growing by the month. Therefore, the US is beginning to feel competition from the international community, and although the US won’t be toppled as #1 in space any time soon, what about a decade from now? Will the playing field turn against NASA’s dominance in Earth orbit and beyond? Fortunately the US has close collaborative ties with ESA and Russia, but what happens if this situation changes?
NASA recently extended their use of the Russian Soyuz vehicle to fill in US manned access to space during the “5-year gap” between Shuttle decommissioning in 2010 and (proposed) Constellation launch in 2015. Although it is reassuring to know astronauts will still be able to fly with cosmonauts to-and-from the International Space Station (ISS) beyond 2010, what happens if relations between the US and Russia chill even further (the South Ossetia conflict is a prime example of how the politics between the two nations can freeze solid)? The Russian government could very quickly pull the plug on US manned access to space.
Artist impression of the SpaceX Dragon approaching the space station (SpaceX)And so, all eyes on US space companies accelerating their development of alternative means of transportation. Elon Musk’s SpaceX for example, is a front-runner when it comes to commercial manned spaceflight. In a recent interview I conducted with SpaceX, Diane Murphy (Vice-President of Marketing and Communications) was very optimistic about SpaceX’s Dragon module providing the answer to manned spaceflight. “I think we’ll surprise them [NASA] with how quickly we are moving so they can use us for crew as well. We’ll be ready!” she told me. Judging by the speed at which the company is developing, it certainly seems to be a possibility.
But, for now, we are stuck in an awkward position. NASA gets a minuscule budget when compared with other government departments. The US government has underfunded the agency for many years, and the funds it does receive are constantly open to erosion by changing administrations and space policy. Now Barack Obama’s administration must balance the needs of NASA with the worsening financial crisis hitting the world, so a transition team has been sent to look into NASA business to understand where work needs to be done.
Now it seems as if tensions are coming to a head. According to reports in the Orlando Sentinel, Michael Griffin, who was attending a book launch with members of the Obama transition team (including ex-NASA senior administrator Lori Garver), accused Garver as being “unqualified” to be assessing whether funds should be cut from the development of the Constellation Program. According to witnesses at the book launch, Garver tried to reason with Griffin saying, “Mike, I don’t understand what the problem is. We are just trying to look under the hood.”
Griffin apparently disliked this assertion and said, “If you are looking under the hood, then you are calling me a liar. Because it means you don’t trust what I say is under the hood.”
Associates who attended the book launch said the exchange between Griffin and Garver was not an argument, it was simply “a discussion about stuff.” Still, whatever tone the discussion was pitched at, there seem to be problems brewing. To calm rumours that he was not cooperating, Griffin wrote an email to NASA employees saying, “This report, largely supported by anonymous sources and hearsay, is simply wrong. We are fully cooperating with the [transition] team members.”
Hemorrhaging the NASA budget? Stern cites the MSL as a prime example of damaging overspending (NASA)This could be the symptom of recent accusations by Alan Stern, ex-NASA Associate Administrator for Science, that there was a “cancer” in the administration’s management structure. According to Stern, the result of this “cancer” is zero-accountability for project budget overspending and wasteful practices. His words came when NASA announced it would be removing a sample storage box from the Mars Science Laboratory after it had been developed and constructed (thereby throwing away $2 million), then followed by an announcement about a two year postponement of the mission. Needless to say, Stern is highly critical of the mission, prompting him to say that the “Mars Program is slowly committing suicide before our very eyes.”
Putting government underfunding, and alleged NASA mismanagement to one side, it appears to be a continuing misconception that the exploration of space (whether it be manned or robotic) is an academic endeavour. Personally, I’d argue that manned exploration of space is essential for the long-term survival of our species, but politics only thinks about the next four-year term in office. Although politics is a fantastic motivator for space exploration in some cases (cue: Apollo Program during the Cold War in the late ’60’s and early ’70’s) to fulfil short-term goals, during periods of social and economic upheaval, space exploration becomes an unnecessary luxury and policies become a lot more introverted.
To finish off, let’s look at the European Space Agency. Although ESA is a completely different entity from NASA–it is not politically-driven (although some leaders want it to be), it is a consortium of many nations and its budget is smaller than NASA’s–its outlook for Europe’s efforts in space are far more optimistic. Rather than trying to cut funding to save money, ESA appears to have a renewed vigour toward using space exploration as a means to stimulate the economy:
These decisions have particular relevance at the present time, showing as they do Europe’s determination to invest in space as a key sector providing for innovation, economic growth, strategic independence and the preparation of the future. – ESA press release
To avoid any regrets in space policy, the upcoming US administration needs to look hard at ESA’s motivation. Investment in space provides independence, economic growth and preparation for the future. Alas, by making cutbacks to the Constellation Program, the US will start depending on Russia for manned access to space (if a commercial alternative isn’t available in time), economic influence of a manned space program will be cancelled out, and as for the future? Well, we’ll just have to hope for the best.
What could be more premium than space beer? (Sapporo Breweries)
[/caption]For the first time, beer brewed totally from barley grown in space can be enjoyed on terra firma. The Japanese-owned Sapporo Brewery is one of the oldest beer producers in the nation, so it seems fitting that the company would want to diversify into the next frontier. Although the beer wasn’t actually brewed in space, the barley ingredient was grown there. Through a joint program between Sapporo, the Russian Academy of Science and Okayama University in Japan, the small amount of barley was grown on board the ISS as part of a project to research the cultivation of foodstuffs in Earth orbit.
100 litres of Space Beer has been produced as a result of the successful microgravity barley farming effort, and a lucky 60 people will have the exclusive chance to taste the beer in Tokyo next month. Unfortunately, the Space Beer is not yet commercially available, so put that pint glass away…
Back in May, I was very excited to write about the first space beer brewing success, and Sapporo’s plans to manufacture 100 bottles of beer brewed from barley grown in space. However, my excitement quickly dissipated when I realised astronauts wouldn’t actually be drinking a cool one in orbit, and I became even less impressed when it turned out that the vast majority of the world wouldn’t actually have a chance of tasting it (unless, of course, you are in Tokyo and win the Sapporo space beer tasting lottery in January).
On further inspection, the prospect of drinking any carbonated product in microgravity becomes very unappealing. After all, bubbles don’t rise through a beer to form a nice head of foam in space; the bubbles remain suspended in the liquid. When you swallow the weightless mix of beer and CO2 you have the rather antisocial “wet burp” scenario to contend with, making you very uncomfortable and extremely unpopular with your crewmates. Drinking and driving the Shuttle isn’t an option, and that’s not because flying a spaceship whilst intoxicated is a bad idea. It’s because you’d have a hard job keeping beer in your stomach and not all over the cabin. Ewww.
So, space beer is best served at 1-G, on Earth, and the managing director for strategy at Sapporo Breweries is very excited about how special this brewing effort is. “There’s really no beer like it because it uses 100 per cent barley. Our top seller is the Black Label brand, using additional ingredients such as rice. This one doesn’t, and is really a special beer,” said Junichi Ichikawa.
So what’s the point? Is this just a marketing gimmick, or does it have a purpose? I’m sure Sapporo are very impressed with this achievement, but what sets Space Beer apart from the stuff I’ll be drinking down the pub later?
As Ichikawa mentions, the barley used is only space produce, and there are no other ingredients (such as rice). However, I think we should ask whether there are plans to use water samples from the brand new urine recycler STS-126 installed during Space Shuttle Endeavour’s “home improvements” mission in the brewing process. I think this would make Space Beer more complete (besides, recycled wee tastes pretty good. Apparently).
The science behind growing stuff in space is also a great achievement as barley was one of several types of plant to be grown in orbit. Wheat, lettuce and peas were also grown earlier in the year and harvested. There are also plans to grow potatoes in space. All these projects aid the future of manned space travel; once we can sustain ourselves by cultivating our own produce, the dependence on Earth slowly diminishes. The operations on the ISS are a testament to these endeavours, and growing seeds and vegetables in orbit, along with recycling waste water is a tremendous achievement. Also, there appears to be no discernible difference in the DNA of plants grown in space when compared with those grown on Earth (in which case I’d expect no difference in taste between Space Beer and local pub beer anyway).
If you read the last paragraph and linked the future plans to grow potatoes in space with another alcoholic beverage, Cosmonaut Boris Morukov (who spent 11 days on the ISS) has a sobering message for any space man or woman wanting to set up their own distillery to get around the “wet burp” issue: “I think we would try to grow potatoes as food, not for vodka production.”
That said, where mankind goes, alcohol is sure to follow, it’s only a matter of time when we start seeing space bars popping up in orbit, on the Moon and Mars (especially if space tourism becomes a major industry)…
NASA announced Thursday that space shuttle Atlantis’ STS-125 mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope is targeted to launch May 12, 2009. The mission, which was previously scheduled for October of this year was delayed when a data handling unit on the telescope failed. Since then, engineers have been working to prepare a 1970’s era spare unit for flight. They expect to be able to ship the spare, known as the Science Instrument Command and Data Handling System, to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in spring 2009.
STS-125 is an 11-day flight featuring five spacewalks to extend Hubble’s life into the next decade by refurbishing and upgrading the telescope with state-of-the-art science instruments and swapping failed hardware. The crew consists of Scott Altman, commander; Greg Johnson, pilot; and mission specialists are veteran spacewalkers John Grunsfeld and Mike Massimino, and first-time space fliers Andrew Feustel, Michael Good and Megan McArthur.
The next space shuttle mission, STS-119, is scheduled for launch on Feb. 12, 2009, which will go to the International Space Station and bring up the S6 starboard truss segment and the final set of solar arrays. Another shuttle mission, STS-127 mission, is also targeted for launch in May 2009, but it’s possible that flight could slip. The Hubble mission will need another shuttle on standby for a rescue mission, should STS-125 encounter any problems (since its not going to the ISS, which would serve as a safe haven if a shuttle had any damage where it could not land safely).
Beyond that, STS-128 is targeted for August 2009, and STS-129 is targeted for November 2009. As always, all target launch dates are subject to change.
Two of the teddy bears imaged in Near Space. Credit: CU Spaceflight
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I don’t think this is what Iran has in mind about launching animals into space, but … you never know. Four teddy bears voyaged to the edge of space on Monday, December 1st via high altitude helium balloon. This was done as an experiment by a student organization at Cambridge University in England, along with a science club and community college. The bears were lifted to 30,085 meters above sea level, and the goal of the experiment was to determine which materials provided the best insulation against the -53 ° C temperatures experienced during the journey. Each of the bears wore a different space suit designed by 11-13 year-olds who were took part in the experiment. But the main goal of the endeavor was to give young students the opportunity to try their hand at a real mission in sending objects into space.
“We want to offer young people the opportunity to get involved in the space industry whilst still at school and show that real-life science is something that is open to everybody” says Iain Waugh, chief aeronautical engineer of student-run Cambridge University Spaceflight.
“High altitude balloon flights are a fantastic way of encouraging interest in science. They are easy to understand, and produce amazing results,” said Daniel Strange, treasurer of CU Spaceflight. Prelaunch of the high altitude balloon. Credit: CU Spaceflight
The payload which carried the bears was designed by CU Spaceflight and contained several cameras, a flight computer, GPS and a radio. During the 2 hour and 9 minute flight, the radio broadcasted the location of the payload to a chase team on the ground. The team predicted the landing site using wind speed data and arrived in time to see the payload and teddy bears drift slowly back down to earth by parachute.
CU Spaceflight is a student-run society aiming to reduce the cost of sub-orbital spaceflight. They have launched several payloads to near space on high-altitude helium balloons and are currently designing a system to launch a rocket from a balloon platform to outer space for under £1000 per launch. They have run several outreach events and are currently holding the UK Space Challenge 2009, as part of the University of Cambridge’s 800th Anniversary. Twenty four teams of science students aged 14-18 are competing to design a scientific experiment that will be taken to near space on a high-altitude helium balloon.
Iran is planning to launch animals into space. According to Mohammed Ebrahimi from Iran’s Aerospace Research Institute, in the near future, the Kavoshgar-3 and -4 rockets will use animals as test passengers before they attempt a human mission. On November 26, Iran successfully launched its second space rocket, the Kavoshgar-2, which contained a space lab and a data-monitoring and processing unit. This Iranian rocket is fully capable of packing a small payload and then re-entering Earth’s atmosphere with a high degree of accuracy, according to reports. They will attempt two more test flights before trying to launch a working satellite into orbit with a larger rocket, the Safir-e Omid (or Ambassador of Peace) rocket. In August, Iran claimed they successfully launched a dummy satellite into space, which was refuted by the US. Officials from Iran insist the country’s space program is non-military in nature.
No information was released about what kinds of animals would be launched. On Nov. 26 Iranian state television reported that the Kavoshgar-2 completed its mission and returned to Earth via parachute after 40 minutes, and that the rocket had been designed and built by Iranian aerospace experts.
Much of Iran’s technological equipment derives from modified Chinese and North Korean technology. Earlier in November, Iran said it had also test-fired a new medium-range missile. Its 2,000-km (1,240-mile) range would be capable of reaching Western Europe. However, Iran denies that its long-range ballistic technology is linked to its atomic program.
The country is already under international pressure to give up its nuclear work, which it says is purely civilian.
SpaceX conducted a successful full mission-length firing of its Falcon 9 launch vehicle’s first stage at its McGregor Test Facility in Texas, late Saturday evening, November 22. But the big news wasn’t the success of the firing, but the brouhaha it created with the neighboring communities. The test occurred at 10:30 pm local time, and the light and noise created by the test was unprecedented, causing a bit of panic. People said it sounded like a bomb exploding, that their house and windows shook the entire time, and one woman said her son was scared the sun was exploding. Television news reports convey the panic, and some online newspaper articles have an incredible amount of comments posted. But SpaceX has conducted over 2,000 previous engine tests and this one is the only test that prompted such a commotion … why?
SpaceX spokesperson Lauren Dryer said the weather conditions at the time of the test contributed to sound and light traveling further. “A combination of low clouds and cool temperatures drastically affected the distance the sound and light traveled,” Dryer said, making the test easier to see and hear from much farther away. She said the company has never had any previous calls or concerns with test firings, even though SpaceX has conducted more than 2,000 tests since operations began in 2003, including 10 multiple-engine tests similar to Saturday’s. SpaceX said they notified local police and fire departments about the test, put a notice in the local newspaper and even put it on the marquee of the area high school, but obviously many residents had no clue the test was going to occur. SpaceX said they will try to put out more notices about future tests as well as invite the media to cover them.
For the static test firing, the first stage remained firmly secured to a huge vertical test stand, where it fired for 178 seconds or nearly three minutes, which simulates the climb the rocket will take to Earth orbit. At full power, the rocket generated 855,000 pounds of force at sea level. In vacuum, the thrust increases to approximately one million pounds or four times the maximum thrust of a 747 aircraft. The test consumed over half a million pounds of propellant.
All nine engines fired for 160 seconds, then two engines were shut down to limit the acceleration and the remaining seven engines continued firing for 18 more seconds, as would occur in a typical climb to orbit. The test firing validated the design of SpaceX’s use of nine engines on the first stage, as well as the ability to shut down engines without affecting the functioning of the remaining engines. This demonstrates the ability of Falcon 9 to lose engines in flight and still complete its mission successfully, much as a commercial airliner is designed to be safe in the event of an engine loss. The Falcon 9 will be the first vehicle since the Saturn V and Saturn 1 to have the ability to lose any engine/motor and still be able to complete its mission without loss of crew or spacecraft.
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The Dawn spacecraft’s three ion engines have done their work for now, and mission engineers shut down the frugal but powerful ion propulsion system on Thursday as scheduled. The spacecraft is now gliding toward a Mars flyby/gravity assist in February 2009. “Dawn has completed the thrusting it needs to use Mars for a gravity assist to help get us to Vesta,” said Marc Rayman, Dawn’s chief engineer from JPL “Dawn will now coast in its orbit around the sun for the next half a year before we again fire up the ion propulsion system to continue our journey to the asteroid belt.” The unique propulsion system will allow Dawn to travel to the asteroid Vesta in 2011, enter orbit around the asteroid, and then leave that orbit to head to orbit another asteroid, Ceres in 2015. This has never been accomplished before, and the ion engines make it all possible.
Dawn’s ion engines are vital to the success of the misson’s 8-year, 4.9-billion-kilometer (3-billion-mile) journey to asteroid Vesta and dwarf planet Ceres. Just one of these extremely frugal powerhouses can generate more than 24 hours of thrusting while consuming about .26 kilograms (about 9 ounces) of the spacecraft’s xenon fuel supply — less than the contents of a can of soda. Over their lifetime, Dawn’s three ion propulsion engines will fire cumulatively for about 50,000 hours (over five years) — a record for spacecraft. Artists concept of Dawn. Credit: NASA/JPL
Dawn’s ion engines may get a short workout next January to provide any final orbital adjustments prior to its encounter with the Red Planet. Ions are also scheduled to fly out of the propulsion system during some systems testing in spring. But mostly, Dawn’s three ion engines will remain silent until June, when they will again speed Dawn toward its first appointment, with Vesta.
Vesta is the most geologically diverse of the large asteroids and the only known one with distinctive light and dark areas — much like the face of our Moon. Ceres is the largest body in the asteroid belt. By utilizing the same set of instruments at two separate destinations, scientists can more accurately formulate comparisons and contrasts. Dawn’s science instrument suite will measure shape, surface topography, tectonic history, elemental and mineral composition, and will seek out water-bearing minerals. In addition, the Dawn spacecraft itself and how it orbits both Vesta and Ceres will be used to measure the celestial bodies’ masses and gravity fields.
