ULA Chief Anticipates 40% Launch Cost
Reduction (Source: Space News)
"We’re going to do it within the decade. We’re on track right now to
take 30 percent out of our costs. I can see a path through not just
those efficiencies but through technology updates and innovations that
will take us easily to 40 percent. Then from there, we’ll find the rest
of the way... In this environment we’re moving into, there’s going to
be a lot more competition and new entrants coming in needing to make a
name for themselves. ... You’re going to see ULA have a much
higher-profile presence. We don’t do so well with flamboyance and
rhetoric but we’re pretty good about talking about facts and the real
story." (11/10)
Atlas-5 to Get Thicker with Blue
Origin Engines (Source: Space News)
The thing that is most different about the Blue Origin engine is it
burns methane, liquefied natural gas. We’re going to have to change the
booster, the first stage, to accommodate that. Because of the density
difference we’re going to need a larger tank. We’re going to have a
larger diameter tank that may or may not be longer.
There will be software modifications to accommodate the different
performance and timing because this engine is going to produce a lot
more thrust than we currently have with our RD-180. But beyond that
it’s all the same. My vision is to update the technology. The trades
for what that vehicle family looks like are still underway and they’ll
be completed about the end of the year.
[As for the RD-180's future,] it takes years to develop an engine and a
liquid-oxygen system that fits with it. You need to allow for a
graceful transition for your own national interests. That means we’re
going to need to continue to buy RD-180s for several years — five, six,
seven-plus years. And we will fly them for a couple of years after
we’re done buying them. (11/10)
Bruno: Senate Language to on Russian
Engines is Too Restrictive (Source: Space News)
Unfortunately, the way [the legislation] was worded, I believe
inadvertently, it even prohibits us from offering Deltas because we use
the RD-180 for Atlas. It would just be terrible. It would actually be
so anticompetitive because it would take your most important provider,
ULA, and say, well, you can no longer participate. For a whole class of
missions, it immediately becomes a monopoly for the other supplier. The
upper-end missions to the highest orbits would be unable to be
fulfilled at all...It would just be a disaster. (11/10)
Virgin Galactic's Fliers Reassess
Plans After SpaceShipTwo's Crash (Source: NBC)
After Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo crashed into California's Mojave
Desert, killing one test pilot and injuring the other, some of the
people who planned to ride the rocket plane to the edge of outer space
asked for their money back. Others said they were unfazed. And then
there was the customer who wasn't sure.
On the night of the accident, that customer made a phone call to Craig
Willan, a veteran of the aerospace industry who's No. 8 on Virgin
Galactic's passenger list. Without disclosing the caller's identity,
Willan told NBC News that the man had been planning to cancel his
reservation the following Monday.
"I told him, 'Don't,'" Willan recalled. "Don't do it. You don't want to
get into that for a couple of reasons. One is, it would be a potential
run on the bank. And the second thing is, it sends the wrong signal to
humankind. This is a very important phase in the gestation of something
new, and we don't want to screw up this pregnancy. (11/10)
Plan Developing to Boost Spaceport
America Business (Source: Washington Times)
State officials have vowed to push on to ensure Spaceport America
becomes a success despite a recent tragedy that has delayed commercial
space flights by Virgin Galactic, the anchor tenant at the
taxpayer-financed spaceport in southern New Mexico. The New Mexico
Spaceport Authority is developing a plan that includes hiring more
staff to boost marketing efforts aimed at diversifying the spaceport’s
client base.
Christine Anderson says it’s important to remember that it’s not the
Virgin Galactic Spaceport, but rather Spaceport America. “Up to now, we
were focused on building the spaceport, which was a humongous task,”
she said, acknowledging that it was designed around Virgin Galactic’s
needs. “We have to now adjust our business strategies.” (11/9)
Google Subsidiary Signs 60-Year Lease
on Moffett Field (Source: Parabolic Arc)
In an effort to reduce costs and shed surplus property, NASA today
signed a lease with Planetary Ventures, LLC to manage Moffett Federal
Airfield (MFA), an agency facility located in Moffett Field,
California, and rehabilitate its historic Hangar One. NASA estimates
the lease will save the agency approximately $6.3 million annually in
maintenance and operation costs and provide $1.16 billion in rent over
the initial 60-year lease term.
MFA, currently maintained by NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett
Field, California, includes approximately 1,000 acres of land located
on South San Francisco Bay. The land includes Hangars One, Two and
Three, an airfield flight operations building, two runways and a
private golf course.
After a fair and open competition, the U.S. General Services
Administration (GSA) and NASA selected Planetary Ventures, LLC as the
preferred lessee in February 2014 and began lease negotiations. The
negotiated lease, which is neither a procurement action nor a
government contract, will put Hangar One to new use and eliminate
NASA’s management costs of the airfield, with the federal government
retaining title to the property. (11/10)
Family Calls for Branson to Scrap
SpaceShipTwo Before Anyone Else Dies (Source: Parabolic Arc)
The destruction of SpaceShipTwo brought back painful memories for the
families, friends and colleagues of three Scaled Composites engineers
killed in 2007 during a test of the vehicle’s propulsion system. The
family of one of them, Todd Ivens, has called for Richard Branson to
scrap the program before anyone else dies. Mr Ivens’s sister Tara Ford,
41, said: “Yet another good man has lost his life to Branson’s plan.
Personally, I would have scrapped it when the first three died, but
then that’s just practical thinking."
“Seeing as it was figured out the boys were not properly trained for
what they were doing back in 2007, it makes me wonder if things are
going how they are supposed to.” ... "It is understood that Scaled
Composites conducted its own an internal review of what went wrong
although those findings have never been made public. The cause of the
accident was also never made public... I got that ‘not again’ feeling
when I saw the news last week." (11/10)
Secluded North Carolina Tracking Spot
Could Play Larger NASA Role (Source: Outer Banks Voice)
For eight years, NASA has used a secluded spot south of Nags Head to
track and retrieve critical trajectory and other telemetrics from
vehicles launched into space from the Wallops Flight Facility in
Virginia. The space agency is expected to continue gathering the data
there and potentially bring new space-related businesses, educational
and tourism opportunities to the Outer Banks in the future.
The location, near Coquina Beach on National Park Service land, is
“ideally situated to provide tracking as a temporary off-access site
for solid-propellant vehicles.” Steve Kremer said Coquina is one of two
major sites used for launch-day tracking. The other is on Bermuda, off
the North Carolina coast. Why Coquina? Kremer said the Outer Banks site
is critical to the nation’s space missions because it can track rockets
from a side angle, after they go below WFF’s horizon. (11/9)
Three Space Station Crewmen Return
Safely to Earth in Kazakhstan (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
A veteran Russian cosmonaut and two International Space Station
crewmates, one from the United States and one from Germany, returned
safely to Earth on Sunday with a parachute landing of their Soyuz
capsule in Kazakhstan, ending 5-1/2 months in orbit. Maxim Suraev, who
was commander of the station during the mission, climbed into the Soyuz
craft with NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman and German flight engineer
Alexander Gerst descended through cold, windy and overcast skies to
touch down on the frozen steppes northeast of Arkalyk. (11/10)
SpaceX Proves Challenging To China's
Long March Launcher (Source: Aviation Week))
For more than 40 years, China has relied on a rocket technology the
rest of the world has largely dropped for main space-launch propulsion.
But now, moving from hydrazine propellant and its easily developed
engines to the harder technology of kerosene, liquid hydrogen and
liquid oxygen, the Chinese industry is introducing a family of
launchers that should be more efficient and therefore more cost
effective.
Consistent with that, SpaceX sees its most intense competition for
low-Earth orbit (LEO) space launch services coming from China. But it
looks like CASC, the Chinese government’s main space industrial group,
cannot match SpaceX when it comes to cost. This is especially important
for what will probably be the key member of the new Chinese family, the
Long March 7, a medium-heavy launcher in the class of the SpaceX Falcon
9 that, according to the 2013 schedule, was due to fly this year.
The Falcon 9 can deliver 13.15 metric tons to LEO; the equivalent Long
March 7 version, with two engines of 260,000-lb. thrust in the core
first stage and one in each of four boosters, is intended to throw 13.5
tons to LEO. SpaceX quotes a standard price of $61.2 million for a
launch in 2016. CASC has not published a price for the Long March 7,
but Tauri says that the most powerful of the current Chinese launchers,
the Long March 3B—capable of launching 12 tons to low Earth orbit—is
$70 million a shot. (11/10)
Russia Likely to Continue Supplying
RD-180 to U.S. (Source: Sputnik)
Russia is likely to continue supplying RD-180 engines for US Atlas
carrier rockets despite cooling relations between Moscow and
Washington, Russian and US physicist Roald Sagdeev told Sputnik. "The
Russian series RD-180 engine was being used for the American Atlas
carrier rockets. And for some time here [in the U.S.] there was a state
of confusion, with people wondering whether the use of RD engines in US
carrier rockets would be affected by the prevailing atmosphere of
bilateral relations."
According to Sagdeev, "recent events confirm that Russia still won't
interrupt the supply of these engines, and this work will continue.
This is a very good sign that even in such a sensitive area relating to
defense use, the obligations of cooperation will still be fulfilled,"
the scientist said. (11/10)
Florida Student Loses Experiment in
Antares Explosion (Source: Florida Today)
A southwest Florida student is working to restart a science experience
lost when an unmanned commercial supply rocket bound for the
International Space Station exploded after liftoff last month. Braden
River High School sophomore Harley Wade developed the experiment with
his former classmates at Fayette Academy in Somerville, Tennessee. They
were testing microgravity's effect on reishi mushrooms' ability to
weaken, damage or destroy cancer cells.
The experiment was lost along with more than a dozen other student
projects when Orbital Sciences' Antares rocket blew up Oct. 28 over the
Virginia coast. Wade tells The Herald that "the excitement of the
launch turned to shock." Wade and his former classmates now are working
to restart the experiment in time for the launch of another rocket Dec.
9 at Cape Canaveral. (11/10)
Swiss Space Systems Concludes
Drop-Test Flight Campaign (Source: SpaceRef)
During the week-long flight test campaign, various helicopter flight
profiles were successfully performed in order to evaluate the flight
systems, which will ultimately be integrated into a reduced scale
mock-up of the SOAR suborbital shuttle. The fully-equipped mock-up and
flight-tested jig system will be used in the spring of 2015 for captive
flights from a helicopter.
These first test flights were done with the purpose of testing and
validating avionics systems, drone systems, Guidance-Navigation-Control
instruments and various sensors. All system components were inserted
into an avionics system container suspended by a local
custom-manufactured flight support and release jig structure.
The flight support and release jig structure was custom-manufactured by
North Bay Machining Center and assembled at the Canadore College
Aviation Campus by Canadore College faculty in collaboration with the
S3 design team. The first phase of a drop-test flight campaign in North
Bay included contributions from seven local companies, with all work
completed and delivered on-time and on-budget. (11/10)
Angara-5 Rolls Out to Russian Launch
Pad (Source: Russian Space Web)
The first Angara-A5 rocket, which will become the most powerful space
booster in the Russian fleet, was rolled out from the assembly building
to the launch pad at Site 35 in Plesetsk on Monday, the Russian
Ministry of Defense announced. The testing on the pad, including
electric checks of the rocket and tests of launch equipment, was
scheduled to continue for seven days in preparation for the maiden
launch of the new rocket in December, the Russian military said. (11/10)
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