SpaceTEC Plans Educator Workshop
(Source: SpaceTEC)
The purpose of this 4 hour course is to teach aerospace technology
instructors, STEM educators grades 6-12, and college STEM instructors
how to set up their own student focused “space program” utilizing the
Mini-Cube Program. With this STEM Project Based Learning Activity,
students can have the unique, affordable, and challenging opportunity
to send experiments and/or technology projects via high altitude
balloon to an altitude of 100,000 feet (20 miles), commonly known as
the “edge of space.” Click here.
(7/28)
Russia Delays ISS Supply Launch
(Source: Tass)
Russia is pushing back the next launch of a cargo mission to the ISS by
10 days. The Progress M-29M mission, previously scheduled for launch on
Sept. 21, is now scheduled for Oct. 1. Russian officials did not
explain the delay. Meanwhile, Khrunichev confirmed Wednesday that its
Proton launch vehicle will return to flight August 28, carrying a
satellite for Inmarsat. (7/28)
Russia Considers Angara for Sea Launch
(Source: Tass)
Russia is considering using the Angara launch vehicle for Sea Launch.
Khrunichev officials said they are looking at options to either modify
the Sea Launch system to accommodate the A3 variant of the Angara, or
modifying the Angara A3 to use the current Sea Launch system. Sea
Launch has previously used the Zenit-3SL, manufactured in Ukraine. The
future of the overall Sea Launch venture has been in question,
including recent reports it could be sold to China. (7/28)
Observatory Chief Resigns Unexpectedly
(Source: Science)
The head of a large observatory under development unexpectedly resigned
Tuesday. Edwards Moses, president of the Giant Magellan Telescope
Organization, is stepping down from the post because of "family
matters," the organization said in a statement. The organization is
developing a giant telescope in Chile made of seven mirrors, each 8.4
meters across, that will make it among the largest in the world when
completed in the mid-2020s. (7/28)
Frick Leaves NASA (Source: NASA)
Astronaut Stephen Frick has left NASA, the agency announced this week.
Frick left the astronaut corps July 13 "to accept a position in the
private sector," according to a NASA statement. Frick was a pilot on
the STS-110 mission in 2002 and commander of STS-122 in 2008. He is the
second astronaut to leave the agency this month. (7/28)
Kickstarter Success Has Smithsonian
Seeking Funds for Second Spacesuit Restoration (Source:
CollectSpace)
Having won funding to "reboot" one spacesuit, the National Air and
Space Museum is seeking to restore another. The museum's Kickstarter
crowdfunding campaign, launched last week to restore Neil Armstrong's
Apollo 11 suit, passed its $500,000 goal in just four days. The museum
is now seeking to raise an additional $200,000 to restore Alan
Shepard's Mercury spacesuit. The fundraising campaign runs for 20 more
days. (7/28)
ISS Crew Ducks Debris as EVA
Preparations Move Forward (Source: SpaceFlight Insider)
Members of the Expedition 44 crew had to move out of the way of
satellite debris late in the evening of Saturday, July 25. The most
recent reminder that the environment above our world is becoming
increasingly cluttered, did not impact crew safety or operations and,
in fact, it might even get the station’s current residents a little
ahead in terms of scheduled tasks.
The six space flyers that are currently serving on the station hail
from the U.S., Russia, and Japan. There are three reboosts of the
orbiting outpost scheduled between now and the next flight of a Russian
Soyuz spacecraft with members of the Expedition 45 crew. That flight is
currently scheduled to take place on Sept. 2 of this year. (7/29)
Ex-Im is Left Out of House GOP
Hhighway Funding Extension (Source: Roll Call)
House Republicans are calling for a three-month extension of the
Highway Trust Fund that does not include reauthorization of the U.S.
Export-Import Bank. The proposed extension would preempt a Senate plan
that would attach Ex-Im's reauthorization to federal highway funding.
(7/28)
Once-Rejected Electromagnetic
Propulsion is Now a Promising Space Drive (Source: Telegraph)
A technology dismissed years ago as impossible has been proved both
possible and practical and could be the key to interplanetary space
travel. British inventor Roger Shawyer's electromagnetic propulsion
drive works by using solar power to "generate multiple microwaves that
move back and forth in an enclosed chamber," producing inexhaustible
power that could take astronauts to the moon in four hours. (7/28)
As Sir Richard Branson Plunges Deeper
Into the Space Race, Don’t Hold Your Breath (Source: The Times)
As ever with Sir Richard Branson, the project lacks neither ambition
nor vision. The Virgin founder announced in January that he was joining
an enterprise aiming to bring high-speed internet and telephony
services to communities that lack them by building, launching and
running a low-earth-orbit satellite constellation.
The business, OneWeb, is led by Greg Wyler, a satellite industry
veteran who previously worked on something similar at Google. Taking
part alongside Virgin, whose involvement is via its Virgin Galactic
division, is Qualcomm, the American chip and mobile technology giant,
with Sir Richard describing the pair as “the principal investors in
OneWeb”. (7/28)
Virgin Galactic Craft Design Ignored
Pilot Risk, Probe Finds (Source: Bloomberg)
Virgin Galactic’s spacecraft designers failed to anticipate that pilots
might trigger its brakes too early, leaving the ship vulnerable to the
error that led to last year’s fatal crash, investigators said. The
National Transportation Safety Board focused on pilot training Tuesday
in a hearing into the Oct. 31 accident that grounded Richard Branson’s
space-tourism venture months before it was to start taking customers to
the edge of Earth’s atmosphere.
Co-pilot Michael Alsbury was killed when the vehicle was torn apart
after he prematurely unlocked a braking mechanism. The failure by
Scaled Composites LLC, the craft’s designer, to consider and protect
against the mistake was a probable cause of the crash, the NTSB
determined. Scaled Composites knew the vehicle would be destroyed if
the mechanism was deployed too early but assumed that only systems, and
not humans, would cause an error, the NTSB found.
The FAA’s oversight also was “deficient,” the board said. The probe is
the first detailed look into the new generation of space vehicles
straddling the line between experimental flight and rockets. The NTSB
findings “will help make the fledgling commercial space industry safer
and better,” said Branson, the 65-year-old U.K. billionaire founder of
Virgin Group, said in a blog post Wednesday. (7/28)
Earth Could Get Just 12 Hours' Warning
of Damaging Solar Storm (Source: Guardian)
Humanity would only have a 12-hour warning about the arrival of a
“coronal mass ejection” that could damage the National Grid, pipelines
and railway signals, according to a newly released document from the UK
Cabinet Office. In a report worthy of a Bruce Willis film, the
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has set out the
nature of the risk to the UK from “severe space weather”, which it says
results from various types of solar activity.
The report, the Space Weather Preparedness Strategy, states: “Solar
activity can produce x-rays, high-energy particles and coronal mass
ejections of plasma. Where such activity is directed towards Earth
there is the potential to cause wide-ranging impacts. These include
power loss, aviation disruption, communication loss, and disturbance to
(or loss of) satellite systems.” (7/28)
Lockheed and Boeing Announce Quarterly
Results (Source: Space Digest)
Lockheed Martin reported 2nd quarter 2015 net sales of $11.6 billion,
compared to $11.3 billion in the 2Q 2014. Net earnings in the 2Q 2015
were $929 million, or $2.94 per share, compared to $889 million, or
$2.76 per share, in the 2Q 2014. Meanwhile, Boeing reported that 2nd
quarter revenue increased 11% (compared to 2Q 2014) to $24.5 billion on
record commercial deliveries. Defense, Space & Security
department's 2Q revenue was $7.5 billion, compared to $7.7 billion a
year ago (3% decrease). (7/28)
When a Rocket Blows Up —1 in 20
Fail—Who Pays For It? (Source: CNBC)
Companies and governments spend huge sums to get things into space, but
an average of about 1 in 20 launches will fail. That's why many of
today's launches—especially those putting commercial satellites into
orbit—are covered by space insurance policies to prevent catastrophic
financial losses.
But insuring a payload on the tip of a rocket is entirely different
from insuring a home, boat or car. There are only about 50 insured
launches each year paying about $750 million in premiums to a handful
of companies. If just a few big accidents pile up, there is a real risk
of the industry ending up in the red—and it looks like 2015 is shaping
up to be a tough year.
"The nature of this business is very volatile," said Chris Kunstadter,
senior vice president and global underwriting manager for space at XL
Catlin. "You don't have many losses, but when you do, they're large."
Not only are the potential losses huge, but there are too few launches
each year to do the same sort of actuarial math as in other types of
insurance. A few bad launches in an unlucky year can cause the failure
rate to bounce between 3 percent and 10 percent, and accidents tend to
be total losses. (7/28)
Meet the Badass Woman Who Will Put
Humans on Mars (Source: Boston.com)
Since Dava Newman left her MIT teaching position in May to become
deputy administrator of NASA (the agency’s second-in-command), things
have been “a little hectic,” she told Boston.com. That’s
understandable. It’s been a bumpy summer. Click here.
(7/27)
China's Supercomputer to Support
World's Largest Radio Telescope (Source: Xinhua)
Supercomputer Skyeye-1, capable of a quadrillion computing operations
per second, will support space exploration by the world's largest radio
telescope based in southwest China's Guizhou Province. Assembly of the
telescope, with a dish the size of 30 football fields and located deep
in the mountains of Guizhou, has got underway, according to Dawning
Information Industry Co., which participates in its construction.
When it is completed in 2016, the five hundred meter aperture spherical
telescope (FAST) will be the world's largest, overtaking Puerto Rico's
Arecibo Observatory, which is only 300 meters in diameter. A radio
signal as far as tens of billions of light years away could possibly be
caught by the telescope, which will extend China's space tracking scope
from moon's orbit to the outside edge of the solar system upon its
completion next year. (7/28)
Russia to Carry Out 10 Test Launches
of Angara Heavy Lift Rocket by 2020 (Source: Tass)
Russia will test launch around 10 Angara heavy carrier rockets in the
next few years, the general designer of the rocket’s manufacturer,
Khrunichev Center, Alexander Medvedev, told TASS. "We plan to complete
test launches of the carrier rocket from the Plesetsk cosmodrome by
2020 and to start the serial Angara production after that," Medvedev
said. He stressed that Angara rockets will carry spacecraft during
test-launches. The first test launches of Angara heavy and light
rockets were held in 2014 with simulated payloads. (7/28)
Spaceship Pilot Describes Harrowing
Free Fall After Breakup (Source: ABC)
Free-falling miles above the desert, his test spaceship ripped to
pieces and the frigid air hard to breathe, pilot Peter Siebold
struggled through crippling injuries to turn on his oxygen and just to
stay conscious. Siebold was aware that Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo
had violently disintegrated but then blacked out. When he awoke, still
far above the California desert, he repeatedly tried in vain to
activate his backup oxygen.
He next remembered the jolt of his parachute automatically opening and
the sensation of just having woken up. His account came from a written
summary of a January interview done by accident investigators as part
of their inquiry. Though bad, his injuries were not life-threatening —
his right leg broke in four places, as did his collarbone. He was cut
up, extensively bruised and had trouble seeing. (7/28)
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