The Soyuz TMA-10M rocket launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan carrying the Expedition 37 crew to orbit. Credit: NASA/Carla Cioffi.
The next crew of the International Space Station is on their way to orbit. Three members of the Expedition 37 crew members blasted off in a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 20:58 UTC (4:58 p.m. EDT) Wednesday, Sept. 25, and will take a fast-track six-hour flight to the Space Station.
Update: The crew has now docked safely to the ISS, at 10:45 pm EDT (02:45 UTC).
Watch a video of the launch, below.
Michael Hopkins of NASA and Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) are scheduled to dock their Soyuz spacecraft to the Poisk module on the Russian segment of the at 02:48 UTC on Sept. 26 (10:48 p.m. EDT, Sept. 25) All the action of the launch and docking will be on NASA TV.
The crew is scheduled to open the hatches between the Soyuz spacecraft and the space station about two hours later.
Hopkins, Kotov and Ryazanskiy will be greeted by three Expedition 37 crew members who have been aboard the space station since late May: Commander Fyodor Yurchikin of Rosmosmos and Flight Engineers Karen Nyberg of NASA and Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency.
The new crew will remain aboard the station until mid-March. Yurchikhin, Nyberg and Parmitano will return to Earth Nov. 11.
NASA says the new crew will take part in several new science investigations that will focus on human health and human physiology. The crew will examine the effects of long-term exposure to microgravity on the immune system, provide metabolic profiles of the astronauts and collect data to help scientists understand how the human body changes shape in space. The crew also will conduct 11 investigations from the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program on antibacterial resistance, hydroponics, cellular division, microgravity oxidation, seed germination, photosynthesis and the food making process in microgravity.
In an unusual news item from Russia’s RiaNovosti news, cosmonaut Yuri Lonchakov, who was scheduled to fly to the International Space Station in 2015, has resigned for undisclosed reasons. But one of the heads the Russian Space Corporation Energia, former cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, was quoted by Russian media as saying that Lonchakov had “found a more interesting job.”
The type of new job was not disclosed, but it has to be pretty good to beat flying in space … at least in our opinion.
It’s not that astronauts and cosmonauts haven’t ever quit or retired, but usually they don’t quit when they have a space flight scheduled. Lonchakov was set to fly to the ISS as the commander of Expedition 44 in May 2015 along with Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Korniyenko and NASA astronaut Scott Kelly; the latter two are going to be part of an experimental one-year mission on the ISS.
Lonchakov has flown in space three times: on space shuttle Endeavour in 2001 on a construction mission to the ISS, helping to deliver the Canadarm2 Arm, then was part of the Soyuz flight to the ISS in 2002, staying just ten days, and then was part of Expedition 18 to the International Space Station in 2008-2009.
RiaNovosti said Lonchakov will be formally discharged from his job on September 14.
An graphic released of an Iranian space capsule capable of carrying humans to space. Via ISNA.
After Iran launched a monkey in a suborbital rocket earlier this year, they are now setting their sights on sending humans to orbit, according to the Iranian news agency ISNA. The news release says researchers at the University of Haj Nasir “have designed and built a manned spacecraft,” but only images of basic designs were released.
The spacecraft appears to be a classic capsule design, and is capable of carrying “one to three people to lower orbits for several hours. This type of aircraft is made up of several modules.”
The researchers, Leila Khalajzadeh and Mehran Shams, were reported as saying in their presentation that the capsule design is the most economical type of spacecraft.
The Israeli news site Hayadan reports that Tal Inbar, head of the Space and UAV Research Center at Fisher Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies in Israel, says that no technical data was released from Iran on the new spacecraft designs, nor have they provided information about the launch vehicle required to send the capsule to space.
According to details released earlier by the Iranian space agency, they want to launch the first sub-orbital spaceflight with an Iranian on board by 2016 at an altitude below 200 kilometers as preparation for the eventual orbital spaceflight.
Iranian participation in the future Chinese space station program has also been discussed.
Reportedly, much of Iran’s technological equipment derives from modified Chinese and North Korean technology. In 2008, Iran successfully launched a two-stage all solid-fuel sub-orbital sounding rocket called the Kavoshgar-1 (Explorer-1), for the first sub-orbital test flight from the Shahroud space launch complex. Later, in 2010-2013, at least three animal flight tests were sent on suborbital launches, some flights with outright failures, others with varying degrees of success.
Gather round the internets for another episode of the Weekly Space Hangout. Where our experienced team of journalists, astronomers and astronomer-journalists bring you up to speed on the big happenings in the universe of space and astronomy.
Our team this week:
Reporters: Casey Dreier, David Dickinson, Amy Shira Teitel, Sondy Springmann, Nicole Gugliuci
We record the Weekly Space Hangout every Friday at Noon Pacific, 3 pm Eastern. Join us live here on Universe Today, over on our YouTube account, or on Google+. Or you can watch the archive after the fact.
A spacecraft makes a close pass by Jupiter. Credit: Adrian Mann
Picture the scene: It’s the not too distant future and humanity has started to construct colonies and habitats all across our solar system. We’re gearing up to take that next big step into the unknown – actually leaving the cozy protection of the Sun’s heliosphere and venturing into interstellar space. Before this future can happen, however, there’s an important thing which is often overlooked in discussions on this subject.
Navigation.
Just as sailors once used the stars to navigate the sea, space travelers may be able to use the stars to navigate the solar system. Except that this time, the stars we’d use will be dead ones. A specific class of neutron stars known as pulsars, defined by the repeated pulses of radiation they emit. The trick, according to a recent paper, may be to use pulsars as a form of interplanetary – and possibly even interstellar – GPS.
Theories and ideas on spacecraft engines are plentiful. Foundations such as Icarus Interstellar keenly advocate the development of new propulsion systems, with some systems such as the VASIMR thrusters appearing rather promising. Meanwhile, fusion rockets are expected to be able to take passengers on a round trip from Earth to Mars in just 30 days, and researchers elsewhere are working on real life warp drives, not unlike the ones we all know and love from the movies.
Interplanetary GPS
For Voyager 2, out on the edge of our Solar system, conventional navigation methods don’t work too well. Credit: NASA
But navigation is just as important. After all, space is mind-meltingly vast and mostly empty. The prospect of getting lost out in the emptiness is, frankly, terrifying.
To date, this hasn’t really been a problem, particularly seeing as we’ve only sent a small handful of craft past Mars. As a result, we currently use a messy mishmash of techniques to keep track of spacecraft from here on Earth – essentially tracking them with telescopes while relying heavily on their planned trajectory. This is also only as accurate as our instruments here on Earth are, meaning that as a craft gets more distant, our idea of where exactly it is becomes increasingly less accurate.
This is all well and good when we only have a few craft to track, but when space travel becomes more easily attainable and human passengers are involved, routing everything through Earth will start to become more and more difficult. This is particularly the case if we’re planning on leaving the confines of our home star – Voyager 2 is presently over 14 light hours away, meaning that Earth-based transmissions take over half a day to reach it.
Navigating Earth with modern technology is quite simple thanks to the array of GPS satellites we have in orbit around our world. Those satellites are constantly transitting signals which are, in turn, received by the GPS unit you may have on your car dashboard or in your pocket. As with all other electromagnetic transmissions, those signals travel at the speed of light, giving a slight delay between when they were transmitted and when they’re received. By using the signals from 4 or more satellites and timing those delays, a GPS unit can pinpoint your location on the surface of Earth with remarkable accuracy.
The Icarus Pathfinder starship passing by Neptune. Credit: Adrian Mann
The pulsar navigation system proposed by Werner Becker, Mike Bernhardt, and Axel Jessner at the Max Planck Institute, works in a very similar way, using the pulses emitted by pulsars. By knowing the initial position and velocity of your spacecraft, recording those pulses, and treating the Sun as a fixed reference point, you can calculate your exact location inside the solar system.
Considering the Sun to be fixed this way is technically referred to as an inertial reference frame, and if you compensate for the motion of the Sun through our galaxy, the system still works perfectly well when leaving the Solar system! All you need is to keep track of a minimum of 3 pulsars (ideally 10, for the most accurate results), and you can pinpoint your location with surprising accuracy!
Interestingly enough, the idea of using pulsars as navigation beacons dates all the way back to 1974, notably not long after Carl Sagan had used pulsars to show Earth’s location on the plaques attached to the Pioneer 10 and 11 space probes. If Project Daedalus had ever been constructed, it might have been equipped with a system not unlike the one described here.
Packing for long haul
Becker and his colleagues looked at the different types of pulsar visible in the sky, and picked out a type known as rotation-powered pulsars as the best type to use for a galactic positioning system. In particular, a sub-type of these known as millisecond pulsars are ideal. Being older than most pulsars they have weak magnetic fields, meaning they take a long time to slow down their spin rates – helpful as strongly magnetised pulsars can sometimes change their rotation speed without warning.
An x-ray image of the Vela pulsar, one of the brightest known millisecond pulsars. Credit: NASA/CXC/PSU/G.Pavlov et al.
With countless pulsars to choose from, the question turns to how you might equip your spacecraft to track them. Pulsars are easiest to spot in either x-rays or radio waves, so there’s a little choice as to which may be better to use. Essentially, it all turns out to be a question of how large your spacecraft is.
Smaller vehicles, more akin to modern spacecraft, would be best off using x-rays to track pulsars. X-ray mirrors, like the ones used in certain orbiting space telescopes are compact and lightweight, meaning that a few could be added for a navigation system without increasing the overall mass of the craft all that much. They may have the minor disadvantage that they may be easily damaged by an x-ray source which is too bright, this wouldn’t be a problem except under some unfortunate circumstances.
On the other hand, if you’re piloting a large space ship between planets or even stars, you would likely be better using radio waves. In radio frequencies, we know a lot more about the way in which pulsars work, as well as being able to measure them with a higher degree of accuracy. The only drawback there is that the radio telescopes you’d need to install on your ship would require an area of at least 150 m². But then, if you happened to be flying a starship, that kind of size probably wouldn’t make much difference.
It’s interesting to bear in mind the way that astronomers frequently use the analogy of pulsars being “like lighthouses” when explaining why they appear to pulse. If we someday find ourselves using them as actual navigation aids, that analogy may take on a whole new meaning!
Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano, right, reacts to NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy's shaved head, a welcome present for the bald Parmitano. Via NASA TV.
International Space Station astronaut Chris Cassidy surprised the new crew arriving at the station earlier today, welcoming them aboard with a new look: he shaved his head to match his new crewmate, Luca Parmitano, who always sports a bald noggin. You can watch the video below to see Parmitano’s reaction.
During a televised video conference with family after the crew came aboard, Parmitano said Cassidy looked awesome.
Parmitano, Russian Fyodor Yurchikhin, and NASA’s Karen Nyberg docked their Soyuz to the station’s Rassvet module at 02:16 UTC on May 29 (10:16 p.m. EDT on May 28).
During the video conference, Nyberg’s husband and fellow astronaut Doug Hurley said the crew looked good, but “there are way too many bald guys on space station right now. Have a great time up there.”
Now with a full crew compliment of six, Expedition 36 will operate full throttle the next five and a half months, and perform up to six spacewalks, and welcome four cargo ships, including the exciting maiden visit of the Cygnus commercial cargo craft built by Orbital Sciences Corporation (tentatively scheduled for sometime in June), as well as ESA’s “Albert Einstein” Automated Transfer Vehicle-4 in June, a Russian Progress cargo craft in July and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s H-II Transfer Vehicle-4 in August.
Five of the spacewalks will prepare for the installation of the Russian Multipurpose Laboratory Module in December, and a spacewalk scheduled for November 9, 2013 will bring an Olympic torch outside the ISS.
Among the scientific research the crew has on tap are the Hip Quantitative Computed Tomography (QCT) experiment, which will evaluate countermeasures to prevent the loss of bone density seen during long-duration space missions. The experiment, which uses 3-D analysis to collect detailed information on the quality of astronauts’ hip bones, also will increase understanding of osteoporosis on Earth.
The station’s crew will continue research into how plants grow, leading to more efficient crops on Earth and improving understanding of how future crews could grow their own food in space. The crew also will test a new portable gas monitor designed to help analyze the environment inside the spacecraft and continue fuel and combustion experiments that past crews have undertaken. Studying how fire behaves in space will have a direct impact on future spaceflight and could lead to cleaner, more efficient combustion engines on Earth.
The trio of Cassidy, Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin will return to Earth aboard their Soyuz TMA-08M spacecraft in September. Their departure will mark the beginning of Expedition 37 under the command of Yurchikhin, who along with crewmates Nyberg and Parmitano will maintain the station as a three-person crew until the arrival of three additional flight engineers in late September. Yurchikhin, Nyberg and Parmitano are scheduled to return to Earth in November.
Screenshot from NASA TV of the Soyuz TMA-09M spacecraft arriving at the International Space Station.
The crew of Expedition 36 aboard the Soyuz TMA-09M set a record for the fastest trip ever to the International Space Station. From launch to docking, the trip took 5 hours and 39 minutes. That’s six minutes faster than the previous Soyuz that used the new “fast track” four-orbit rendezvous.
Soyuz Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Luca Parmitano docked their Soyuz to the station’s Rassvet module at 02:16 UTC on May 29 (10:16 p.m. EDT on May 28).
“Thank you for the best spacecraft, finer than the best pocket watch!” Yurchikhin radioed to Mission Control in Moscow after docking.
Docking and hatch opening videos below:
Launch took place at 20:31 UTC (4:31 p.m. EDT) Tuesday (2:31 a.m. May 29, Baikonur time).
The new abbreviated rendezvous with the ISS uses a modified launch and docking profile for the Russian ships. It has been tried successfully with three Progress resupply vehicles, and this is the second Soyuz crew ship that has used it.
In the past, Soyuz manned capsules and Progress supply ships were launched on trajectories that required about two days, or 34 orbits, to reach the ISS. The new fast-track trajectory has the rocket launching shortly after the ISS passes overhead. Then, additional firings of the vehicle’s thrusters early in its mission expedites the time required for a Russian vehicle to reach the Station.
After the hatches open at 11:55 p.m. EDT, the new trio will join Flight Engineer Chris Cassidy of NASA and Commander Pavel Vinogradov and Flight Engineer Alexander Misurkin of Roscosmos who have been on board since March 28. All six crew members will then participate in a welcome ceremony with family members and mission officials gathered at the Russian Mission Control Center in Korolev near Moscow.
Expedition 36/37 Soyuz Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), top, Flight Engineers: Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency, center, and Karen Nyberg of NASA, bottom, wave farewell as they board the Soyuz rocket ahead of their launch to the International Space Station, Wednesday, May 29, 2013, Baikonur, Kazakhstan. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls.
Three new International Space Station crew members are set to launch aboard the Soyuz TMA-09M spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Launch is scheduled for is 20:31 UTC (4:31 p.m. EDT) Tuesday (2:31 a.m. May 29, Baikonur time). The new Expedition 36 crew will take an accelerated four-orbit, 6-hour journey to Space Station. They will be docking at 02:17 UTC on May 29 (10:17 pm. EDT May 28). You can watch Live NASA TV coverage below, which begins an hour before launch (19:30 UTC, 3:30 p.m. EDT), and live coverage will return about 45 minutes before docking.
The new crew includes Soyuz Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Luca Parmitano.
UPDATE: If you missed the launch live, you can watch a replay, below.
The crew will dock their Soyuz to the station’s Rassvet module. After the hatches open, the new trio will join Flight Engineer Chris Cassidy of NASA and Commander Pavel Vinogradov and Flight Engineer Alexander Misurkin of Roscosmos who docked with the orbital complex May 28. All six crew members will then participate in a welcome ceremony with family members and mission officials gathered at the Russian Mission Control Center in Korolev near Moscow.
In the past, Soyuz manned capsules and Progress supply ships were launched on trajectories that required about two days, or 34 orbits, to reach the ISS. The new fast-track trajectory has the rocket launching shortly after the ISS passes overhead. Then, additional firings of the vehicle’s thrusters early in its mission expedites the time required for a Russian vehicle to reach the Station.
This is the second Soyuz crew vehicle to make the accelerated trip, and three Progress resupply ships have also taken the fast track to the ISS.
The Service arms are raised into position around the Soyuz rocket, with the TMA-09M spacecraft, after arriving at the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch pad by train, Sunday, May 26, 2013, in Kazakhstan. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls.
You can see more images from the Expedition 36 launch and pre-launch activities at NASA HQ’s Flickr page.
Sol-X CEO Blaze Sanders wearing a Final Frontier Design space suit. Credit: Solar System Express.
Editor’s note: This guest post was written by Ron Atkins, a life-long supporter of human space exploration and an ardent advocate of “NewSpace” and Commercial Spaceflight. He curates and maintains “The NewSpace Daily” on Scoop.it
Tony Stark has been to a lot of cool places in that Iron Man get-up of his. But low Earth orbit might still be a bit beyond his operational flight envelope. Not so for the developers of the revolutionary RL Mark VI Space Diving suit. A hi-tech ensemble consisting of augmented reality goggles, power gloves, control moment gyros, and a low-cost commercial space suit, the RL Mark VI will allow future thrill seekers and space tourists an experience that up until now could only be imagined in the boldest science fiction.
A joint collaboration between Solar System Express and Juxtopia LLC., two minority-owned hi-tech startups both based in Baltimore, Maryland, the RL MARK VI Space Diving configuration will allow the well-equipped space tourist of the near future the opportunity to actually return to Earth without his spaceship.
Space diving is the next big step beyond sky diving, and it is envisioned as a concept that would allow spaceflight participants a means of escape from a possibly disastrous on-orbit emergency, or perhaps just a new recreational activity for those no longer satisfied with merely jumping out of aircraft. The RL MARK VI would allow high-altitude jumps from near-space, suborbital space, and eventually low Earth orbit itself.
The first few flight tests of the MARK VI hardware will follow a profile very reminiscent to that of the recent record-breaking Red Bull Stratos dive of Felix Baumgartner, where the daring aerialist completed his plunge through the stratosphere with a soft parachute touchdown back on terra firma. But the ultimate goal of this futuristic project is far more radical than that. Eventually, through the use of modern “wing suit” skydiving technology and assisted by miniature aerospike engines attached to specially designed footwear, the space diver will end his spectacular glide through the heavens with a propulsive, power-assisted landing on two feet. No parachute. At all. Just like Tony Stark does it in the movies.
In addition to Hollywood, the RL Mark VI also draws upon history for its inspiration. Major Robert Lawrence, United States Air Force, was America’s first African-American astronaut. Major Lawrence was killed on December 8, 1967 in a test flight at Edwards Air Force Base in California before his dream of flying in space ever came to pass. In his honor the principal design team at Solar System Express chose to use his initials for the product code name of this revolutionary new concept.
On October 2, 2012, the birthday of Robert Lawrence, Blaze Sanders, Chief Technology Officer of Solar System Express, ratified a licensing agreement with Dr. Jayfus Doswell, president and CEO of Juxtopia, for the use of Juxtopia’s Augmented Reality (AR) head mounted display technology.
Similar in functionality to Google Glass, Juxtopia’s AR Goggles are primarily intended to provide the space diver with a continuous stream of vital information that will keep him on course and within safe life-support parameters throughout the duration of his jump. These visually displayed real-time dynamic analytics will tell the jumper his heart rate, respiration, internal space suit temperature, and his external temperature as well. They will provide data on GPS location, elevation, and rates of acceleration and deceleration. An FAA radar display of the local airspace will always indicate his current relative position.
Example of the graphical symbology that will be displayed by the Juxtopia AR Goggles during a typical RL MARK IV space dive. Credit: Blaze Sanders, solarsystemexpress.com
Unlike Google Glass there will be no video mode for these goggles. Instead they will work on the principal of “Optical See-Through,” much like the Heads Up Display on a modern fighter jet, that overlays numerical information and other visual symbology over the pilot’s view of the outside world. In the words of Dr. Doswell, “Video mode works fine for Hollywood, but in real life if you lose video during the jump then you’re flying blind and unlike in the movies there is no quick reboot option.”
The goggles will respond to voice commands specifically addressed to the name that the diver has designated for the RL MARK VI‘s system computer. Special software algorithms will filter the diver’s voice and eliminate all “false positives” such as wind, air, engine sounds and any other noise that is not human speech. The final result of this filtered audio signal is referred to as “pure speech.” Such audio commands will be used to turn the RL MARK VI’s systems on and off, to eject various hardware components from the diver’s body at different altitudes, to control suit cams and various lighting options, and to control voice communications to a ground control station.
In addition to voice commands, according to Dr. Doswell, “other human-computer interface modalities are being investigated for control of the MARK VI during its high speed decent as well.” Interfaces such as the electrical activity in your muscles harnessed by gesture control systems from MYO, and a distance only radio frequency sensor developed by Dr. Kuhlman at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD.
Modern fighter aircraft also employ specific audio outputs in cases of emergency or imminent danger. The MARK VI will be no different. Juxtopia is developing a culturally-specific system of programmable user preferences that will allow the diver to select his own audio alarms for any possible in-flight emergency and any other critical decision points such as altitude level or diminishing fuel state. This approach will help to enhance the international marketability of the MARK VI as well as ensure safety throughout the space dive for potential users from a variety of different cultures.
This video provides a taste of what space diving will be like:
Falling through the vacuum of space will be quite different than a dive that begins in the relative thickness of Earth’s lower atmosphere. There will be no aerodynamic forces acting upon the diver’s body that will allow him to stabilize his jump. This problem will be solved by a pair of gyroscopic boots and the fingertip controls built into the gloves of the diver’s spacesuit. Commands so issued to the control momentum gyroscopes built into his footwear will establish proper attitude and help to steady his fall through the airless void.
As a safety precaution a flat spin compensator will automatically actuate after more than five seconds if the diver is unable to maintain adequate manual control. As the diver descends through the upper atmosphere, eventually the air will thicken to the point where aerodynamic forces will allow him to control the attitude of his body. Olav Zipser, word-renowned skydiver and lead jumper on the FreeFly Astronaut Project, has praised the new suit. “Your product would be a great way to stabilize my decent during the first 30 seconds of free fall, when there is virtually zero atmosphere,” he said.
CAD representation of the RL MARK VI’s gyroscopic boot prototype. Credit: Blaze Sanders, solarsystemexpress.com
The final function of the diver’s gyroscopic boots will kick in as he nears the surface of the Earth, and he fires off his miniature aerospike thrusters to smoothly lower himself to the ground for a two-point upright landing.
Two different landing scenarios are presently under consideration: “a feet-down” landing where the aerospikes fire into action from an altitude of hundred feet, gently lowering the diver down to earth; and the much more daring and challenging “wing suit flare up” where the diver swoops within ten feet of pay dirt before pulling up sharply and then lighting off his thrusters to initiate his controlled descent to the ground.
Solar System Express intends to first test this propulsive landing capability somewhere around 2016, with a production model of the RL MARK VI coming to market about a year later. Until then any live tests of the system will conclude with traditional parachute jumps. Data collected during these jumps, along with rigorous control system testing and computer simulated recreations of each space dive, will enable Blaze Sanders and his team to refine the parameters and the protocols required for a text book propulsive landing.
CAD representation of the RL MARK VI’s high-intensity LED chest piece prototype. Credit: Blaze Sanders, solarsystemexpress.com
Mounted on the front of the jumper’s space suit will be a “high intensity LED chest piece” powered by energy-storing super capacitors and equipped with miniature stereo cameras which will collect much of the data necessary for recreating the jump in a 3D computer simulation. When finally transferred to video all of this collected 3D data should easily yield the kind of YouTube upload that one can point to with pride for years to come.
The Gravity Development Board, a proprietary piece of hardware designed by Solar System Express, will serve as the main interface between the MARK VI’s three major components as well as the device which controls all critical systems.
According to Mr. Sanders, “The GDB will be the first space-rated open hardware electronic prototyping board, enabling any type of person to create space qualified hardware. The GDB will replace the Arduino Uno® as the preferred high-level prototyping environment, by being up to forty times faster, seventy percent smaller, having integrated high power drivers (capable of handling one hundred times the current), with more flexible Input/Output configurations, and yet be still much easier to program via 12 Blocks™, the powerful, intuitive visual language used for robotic programming. Engineers, artists, and designers are thus enabled to create any project they can imagine. Our quick release breakout board, the ‘Ejection Seat™,’ allows for easy prototyping, yet keeps the GDB form factor small and robust enough to use in New Space start-up product releases.”
Final Frontier Design, of Brooklyn, New York, is working with Solar System Express on a customized version of their low-cost Intra-Vehicular Activity IVA 3G spacesuit, first introduced to the public last year and successfully crowd funded through an online kickstarter campaign. The entire RL MARK VI ensemble, along with the 3G spacesuit and a protective thermal outer covering, will be put through a rigorous testing regime beginning in June of 2014. Ground based testing will commence with a series of thermal and vacuum chamber tests, and vertical wind tunnel tests to be conducted at the Goddard Spaceflight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
The protective thermal covering will be fashioned from lightweight layers of aerogel and NASA Space Shuttle-like flexible insulation blankets formed into a garment that will serve as the spacesuit’s outermost layer. This is the material that will protect the space diver from the heat of reentry as he plunges through the earth’s upper atmosphere. Solar System Express has already started conversations with several wing suit manufacturers interested in employing this revolutionary thermal technology into their product line.
The first tests at altitude should begin around July of 2016. They will commence with two-kilometer parachute jumps from a helium balloon-tethered tower that will comprise the major test platform of The LiftPort Group’s Lunar Space Elevator Project. Eventually near-space jumps from as high as 40 kilometers will be conducted by Olav Zipser and his FreeFly Astronaut Project using a specially modified rocket designed and manufactured by InterOrbital Systems of Mojave, California.
No firm dates have been set for suborbital and orbital testing but initial plans call for the use of a human medical robot prototype supplied by Juxtopia to be used as the test subject for these first jumps before real live space divers eventually become involved.
Blaze Sanders estimates the total development costs to bring the RL MARK VI to market at around $2.2 million. He has already invested about $100,000 of his own time and money into the project. In the next three years he expects to generate another $1.1 million dollars in revenue through sales of his company’s Gravity Development Board. He expects to generate additional revenue from a wide variety of sources including ongoing consulting fees, government grants and loans, angel investment, kickstarter campaigns, and technical consulting fees from motion picture productions already interested in the use of his technology, as well as a video game simulation also based on his revolutionary hardware.
Should he ultimately succeed then, who knows, one day he may end up just as rich and successful as Tony Stark himself. He’s already got the suit. And he’s prepared to take it to dazzling new heights.
Just a sample of Chris Hadfield's creativity in sharing his space experience. 'Weightless water. This picture is fun no matter what direction you spin it,' he said via Twitter.
During the past five months, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield has been providing a steady flow of strikingly beautiful images, as well as concisely sharing his experiences via social media sites like Twitter. Hadfield has become an internet sensation, and with his eloquence, wit, and ebullience he can certainly turn a phrase, as well as educate and elucidate.
During his Expedition, Hadfield has performed experiments with schoolchildren, chatted with people via amateur radio, and serenaded us with songs, including singing along with nearly 1 million students via webcast. He’s also exchanged tweets with Star Trek captains, first officers and engineers, as well as several averages Joe who asked a question. Hadfield has set a new standard of incredible.
Here are a few of our favorite quotes and Tweets from Hadfield during his mission. Feel free to add your own favorites in the comments.
Over the weekend, the ISS crew needed to do an emergency EVA, which could have been a tense situation. Instead, Hadfield tweeted about how fun this was going to be:
What a fun day! This type of event is what the years of training were for. A happy, busy crew, working hard, loving life in space.
As the air was let out of the Quest airlock to allow Tom Marshburn and Chris Cassidy to step outside to do their EVA, Hadfield radioed to Mission Control that the depressurization was underway by saying, “We’re now doing our best to pressurize the rest of the Universe.”
On May 4, widely considered Star Wars Day around the world, Hadfield posted this fun picture, demonstrating some ‘Jedi skills’ on the ISS (and yes, we know its not an exactly correct quote from Yoda):
Being in space is such a great experience, Hadfield said, that he didn’t want to miss a minute, even to sleep:
“This is a marvelous, marvelous human experience,” Hadfield said in his first news conference after assuming command of the ISS in March. “The only thing that gets me mad is I have to sleep. My resolution has been to make the absolute most of it — to spend as little time sleeping as I can.”
During that same news conference, he expressed his excitement at taking command: “Thank you very much for giving me the keys to the family car… we’re going to put some miles on it, but we’ll bring it back in good shape.”
Hadfield talked to students several times from space – and performed some great show and tell, including the infamous ‘wringing out a washcloth in space’ video. He also coined some gems during these talks, such as:
“The cool things about space is when you put your pants on here, you can put them on two legs at a time.”
But he also gave some great advice. During a Q&A on Reddit, one student asked if Hadfield had any advice for an aspiring astronaut. Hadfeild replied:
“Decide in your heart what really excites and challenges you, and start moving your life in that direction. Every decision you make, from what you eat to what you do with your time tonight, turns you into who you are tomorrow and the day after that.” “Look at who you want to be, and start sculpting yourself into that person. You may not get exactly where you thought you’d be, but you will be doing things that suit you in a profession you believe in. “Don’t let life randomly kick you into the adult you don’t want to become.”
Gavin Aung Than, who pens Zen Pencils website, created a wonderful comic strip, “An astronaut’s advice” based on Hadfield’s response. See it here.
Hadfield quipped on the challenges and special clothing needed for their Soyuz landing – taking place tonight: “On landing we wear the Centaur G-suit, squeezes our calves, thighs and gut so that our blood stays in our heads. Space Spanx 🙂 “
Good to know that after 5 months, my Sokhol pressure suit still fits. It’s what we wear in the Soyuz. High fashion. twitter.com/Cmdr_Hadfield/…
It is sort of like being inside your mother’s womb where your body is floating, your knees come up your arms go out, your head comes down. You are completely relaxed, it’s a wonderful way to sleep.
His description of how he felt during the Soyuz launch back in December:
“It is spectacular. From about five minutes in, when we knew for sure that we were going to have the weather to go, the smile on my face just got bigger and bigger, and I was just beaming through the whole launch. I mean, it is just an amazing ride.”
Then later during a press conference:
“Going to space and going from acceleration to weightlessness is like you’re being beaten and pummeled by a big gorilla on your chest and suddenly he throws you off a cliff.”
Then there were all the images of Earth from space, providing such a unique perspective of our humanity. For example, just this morning:
You can see how high we are when you see how close this jet trail is to the ground. twitter.com/Cmdr_Hadfield/…
Here Hadfield summed up his thoughts on getting ready to head for home:
The amount of images Hadfield has taken during his mission is incredible and impressive. Here you can see an interactive graphic of all the images taken or tweeted by Chris Hadfield during his Expedition.
With over 833,000 followers on Twitter, will Hadfield keep up his social media presence once he returns back to Earth?
His son Evan, who has been Hadfield’s social media manager since Hadfield was chosen for this mission, assured that his father will keep the conversation going.
“A lot of people think that when he comes back he’ll stop, but I don’t really understand why because it’s not an end to something,” Evan said in an interview with the CBC. “It’s going to be so much greater when he comes home and people can interact with him face to face now that they know what he’s achieved and what it’s possible to achieve.”
