Musk Reports on Falcon 9 Status

 

SpaceX founder Elon Musk announced on New Year's Eve that the Falcon 9 rocket that carried satellites to orbit last month and the returned safely to Cape Canaveral is, after inspection and was found free of damage is in Musk's words "ready to fire again." This, rather than falling into the Atlantic Ocean as so many space program rockets have ended for decades.

Musk tweeted that the “Falcon 9 back in the hangar at Cape Canaveral. No damage found, ready to fire again.”

Space X Falcon Failure

Now I know the falcon failed, but you watch just how close they come. Space X is not to far away from from perfecting something NASA spent billions and never quite got right, which is a bit unfair but think about it......

SNC Questions NASA Selection of Boeing and Space X for Commercial Crew Program Prize.

 Hey have you heard of this?
SNC (The Sierra Nevada Corporation) has filed a legal challenge to NASA's recent selection for the contract for the Commercial Crew Program prize.

NASA selected Boeing and its CT-100 and Space X with it's Dragon 2. 

SNC, in spite of not challenging any contract selection in over 50 years of doing business with NASA but felt justified in this case, when  NASA's own documents, "indicate there are serious questions and inconsistencies in the source selection process."

Sierra Nevada stated that the $6.8 billion in contracts announced for Boeing and SpaceX will cost taxpayers "up to $900 million more" than a choice that included Sierra Nevada.  


Gizmodo article HERE       AL News from Huntsville HERE

No More American Astronauts on the ISS?!!!

Yep you read that correctly.  I first started hearing about this from my science guy.  He stated that he had heard that the Russians were threatening to ban American astronauts from the International Space Station due to our reaction to their annexation of the Ukraine’s Crimea. 

This sounded so very bizarre that I had to Google it to see what the skinny was and there it was on Extreme Tech's web site:

• Russia is threatening to ban the US from using the International Space Station. Furthermore, and perhaps more significantly in the short term, Russia will ban the US from buying the Russian RD-180 rocket engines that are currently used by the ULA’s Atlas V launcher to put the US military’s satellites into space.   

Now here is where it gets a bit confusing for me.  Sure they can stop the U.S. from getting RD-180s and certainly refuse passengers after 2020, but how can they physically or legally prevent U.S. astronauts from entering the ISS?

Right now, since the retirement of the Shuttle fleet,  we do no have the ability to ferry personnel to the station.  However, after 2020, I can not imagine that the man rated version of Space X's Dragon capsule will not be be in service, by that time.  

To that end, Elton Musk of Space X presented Dragon V2 that will be able to carry seven astronauts for several days, visit the ISS and land where-ever needs to under its own power.   Check it out HERE

Next Space X Dragon Mission

SpaceX's next cargo mission launch to the International Space Station from Cape Canaveral in Florida, will be at 10:50 p.m. EDT, Sunday, March 30.  This according to the NASA site HERE

This will be SpaceXs third mission of the Dragon module to the ISS.

NASA TV  launch coverage begins at 9:45 p.m.

From the article:

• A March 30 launch would result in SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft arriving at the station on Wednesday, April 2 at approximately 7 a.m. NASA TV coverage of rendezvous and berthing will begin at 5:45 a.m. for a 7 a.m. capture. Coverage of Dragon's installation will begin at 9:30 a.m.

The complete NASA article HERE

NASA Wants to Return to Flying Astronauts to the ISS by 2017

NASA wants to restore American capability to launch astronauts from U.S. soil to the International Space Station and do so by the end of 2017. The agency's Commercial Crew Program  requested proposals from U.S. companies to complete development of crew transportation systems and begin conducting crewed flights to the space station.

The system envisioned would be for a commercially operated transport to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station, a taxi if you would.   NASA has been without crew transport since 2011 when the shuttle fleet was retired due to the high cost of operating them and serious safety concerns. 

 NASA feels that it would be much more economical if the agency was  able to purchase rides on a commercial basis and to fly four crewmembers to and from the station about every six months.

Check out the Business Insider article HERE

Grasshopper Leaps to 820 Feet

And of course, Space X is not sitting on its' thumbs either. Test flights of the VTOL system designation "Grasshopper" continues to operate in a stellar fashion. Space X's Grasshopper out did its March 7th flight by flying to 820 feet, tripling the performance of March 7th flight. Check out the video of Grasshopper's latest test flight.

Space X's Grasshopper Demoed

The Dragon supply capsule has proved itself very successful. But Space X is not about to set back on its' laurels. Recent tests of the Grasshopper are very encouraging. The most recent flight of Grasshopper had the rocket fly to a height of 263 feet, hovering for 34 seconds then returning to the launch pad. This goes a long way towards proving the viability of the reusable system. The Grasshopper consists of a Merlin 1D engine, a Falcon 9 tank and four legs. Though no plans as of yet include a space launch, the Grasshopper has made great strides since its' first 8 foot test flight. And yes that is a cowboy on the side of the rocket.....

Space X Dragon Resupply Launches

Kallamis noted that Space X's Friday launch of the Dragon resupply vehicle had problems. 

Space X Founder Elon Musk reported a that three out of the four sets of thrusters did not fire. 

Elon stated, as controllers tried to override the Dragon's automated system, that he wants at least two of the thruster pods functional before he oks deployment of Dragon's solar panels. 

The initial launch went according to plan and it wasn't until nine minutes after launch when Dragon separated from the upper stages of the launch vehicle.   This is the first problem that Space X has had since it started launching supplies to the ISS.  Two previous deliveries, last year, went according to plan. 

For more information

SpaceX: http://www.spacex.com

NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

BMU # 282 Online Mr. Bronze by Phil Voyd & Kit St. Germain

Once again we get into the scaring season in Episode 282.

This week’s story is a true horror piece produced for radio by Kit St. Germain as well as a very talented acting troupe performing- Mr. Bronze from a short story written by Phil Voyd. Heather Brown engineers. And the narrator in the story is Mark Oliver. Ben, the “star” of tonight’s outing is a consummate body builder, working all the way from a literal 90 lb weakling to wining the Mr. Bronze trophy. Everything was going right in his world, that was until he found this weird photo album, then things got decidedly worse.

From the Blog I review Rio the Movie. Unfortunately this Plot-line for this film is something you have seen over and over again, especially in animal based animation. How did I rate it? Well animation is good but the plot is soulless and the studio flips you off with no extras. 6…I suspect everyone was in for a payday on this one. Next I found something interesting in Dvice…..a Princeton Grad Student has created a device that is wired with a complex system of electrical sensors to make the plastic sheet fly?!

Is SpaceX up to picking up space missions of resupply and service in effect privatizing many of the low Earth orbit projects… Antipodean issue 160 is out…. and have you see where Mars Curiosity Rover is going to land? Yeah, inside the Gale crater, this bad boy has a central mountain over 3 miles high and the crater itself is 90 miles across, but still…it is quite a feat of programming.

Of course I could not resist starting the program with news of the October sky and a new song from Anealio called I want a Stormtrooper for Halloween….

Can the Private Sector do it Faster & Cheaper than NASA?

Just in case you live in a cave somewhere and were not up to speed as to what SpaceX has up it's sleeve - below is a short animation of their Dragon / Falcon 9 heavy, reusable launch system. What makes this interesting again is a recent report from NASA where they admit that the private sector can accomplish mission critical launches far cheaper than NASA can do it on it's own.

With the system shown here from SpaceX - the estimate is that from build to launch, they can - with the reusable vehicle - launch at roughly $60 million for launch and construction.


Here is the complete Dvice article

Space X Dragon May Be First Man Rated Capsule

I was reading in a Daily Galaxy post that Space X has petitioned NASA to combine two upcoming missions, one to rendezvous with the ISS and next to dock with it. But following the successful test flight SpaceX asked that NASA put both missions into a single rendezvous and docking flight.

NASA has tentatively agreed and is proceeding with planning the mission as though it were combined, even though they have not yet given Space X a formal go ahead.

From the article:

• The SpaceX Dragon capsule will launch aboard a Falcon 9 rocket on 30 November then rendezvous and dock with the ISS on 7 December

But here is the tidbit I found hiding in the text.

• US astronauts will still be reliant on lifts from the Russian Soyuz craft until the private vehicle is human-rated by NASA.

- and Space X doesn't think that will be much of a problem. Hummmm it would seem that the next American astronauts returning to space on anything other than a Soyuz will be on a commercial vehicle.

Space X launches Falcon 9

Whoooooooo hooooooo talk about a great launch! Here we have Space X launching their Falcon 9 two stage rocket into Earth orbit. According to Dvice the launch from Cape Canaveral was a picture-perfect liftoff. The Falcon 9 launch vehicle carried a payload called the Dragon cargo module. The system is being built by SpaceX with a mission to deliver supplies to the international space station and bring back equipment and experiment samples to Earth. With this successful launch Space X now has a contract of 12 flights first of which is a resupply mission. The system is unique as it is largely reusable which in theory should keep the cost down. Below is the launch with a dummy payload that did make it into orbit.



ABH news article

Dvice article

Space X

Wiki on the Falcon 9 launch system

NASA Begins Outsourcing ISS Supply Missions

From Gizmodo: Following (some) successful launches NASA has given SpaceX and Orbital massive contracts to send supplies to the ISS. The contracts, for $1.6 billion and $1.9 billion, contract these two companies to deliver about 20 tons of cargo to the International Space Station. This
will serve as a temporary holdover during the period between NASA's Shuttle and Constellation programs, sending supplies from 2010 until 2016, at least.

As a little side comment, I hope I am not the only one that sees problems here. It's a situation that even under the most beneficial light makes the space agency look inept. You mean to tell me that when these ships where first conceptualized that no one saw a time when they would have to be retired and make allowances and provisions for such an inevitability? Now they are building hope onto a six year plan mind you that is based on a system that has yet to even prove itself viable!

SpaceX Finally Gets Into Orbit

From Gizmodo: SpaceX wrote history Sunday September 28th - as the first private financed company to achieve orbit with a rocket. The next launch on SpaceX’ launch manifest will be a Falcon 1 carrying RazakSat for Malaysia. This launch if successful will be followed then by the maiden flight of the much larger Falcon 9 rocket in the second quarter of 2009.

Company representatives say they are looking to a new era of significantly lower launch costs that will allow for more flights

Click here for a video of the launch

The International Space Fellowship Via Gizmodo