Most of the U.S. is at least dimly aware of Richard Branson's plan to sell seats to sub orbital space on spaceship 2. Virgin Galactic has not been shy about promoting their business venture with Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites team. The same populace also has a vague notion that some very wealthy folks have been able to buy their way to the International Space Station via Russian Rockets.
There are other games in town, however, with the latest and most exciting being an agreement between Armadillo Aerospace and Space Adventures. Space Adventures is the VA based company that brokered all those flights to the space station. They also own the parabolic flight outfit, Zero-G, to give folks a shot at some weightless fun without leaving the atmosphere.
The agreement with Armadillo allows them to offer a service between those two end points. They are signed up to be the sole provider of suborbital trips on Armadillo rockets. It is not clear at this point how the agreement is structured. Will Space Adventures Own and operate the rockets or simply broker the flights? My guess is that they will form a subsidiary company to do the former or perhaps as a branch of Zero-G.
While pure speculation, I assume that in exchange for the exclusive rights to sell flights on Armadillo craft, Space Adventures would front some money for development in addition to a signed purchase agreement. They would be invaluable for market research and aiding Armadillo in clearing regulatory issues as well.
The intrepid Pixel rocket went from a napkin sketch to a flying craft in three months. This next vehicle shares many design elements with a scaled up Pixel. Hopefully they can have the propulsion system hovering by fall.
Showing posts with label rocket. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rocket. Show all posts
Friday, April 30, 2010
Monday, April 26, 2010
New Armadillo Aerospace video
Armadillo Aerospace has posted a nice video of their activities this past year. The video was prepared by Matt Ross for Space Access 2010. Space Access is an annual meet-up of commercial space insiders. A NASA moves toward heavier reliance on commercial services Space Access is seeing growth as ever bigger players pay attention.
Some of the highlights of the film are seeing, Armadillo's stalwart performer, pixel fly again. It has indeed been converted to Methane/Lox and sold to NASA. And some concepts of a larger quad vehicle sporting a manned capsule.
Some quick dimensions grabbed from the video for the new quad are; 100 inches wide and eight feet tall for the capsule. It is not clear if those are internal or exteral dimensions. It appears as though they are going from a 3ft tank to a 4ft tank giving 2.37 times the fuel and lox capacity. There does not appear to be any helium pressurization tank in the design from the simple drawings shown. They will probably end up in any final design however.
Some of the highlights of the film are seeing, Armadillo's stalwart performer, pixel fly again. It has indeed been converted to Methane/Lox and sold to NASA. And some concepts of a larger quad vehicle sporting a manned capsule.
Some quick dimensions grabbed from the video for the new quad are; 100 inches wide and eight feet tall for the capsule. It is not clear if those are internal or exteral dimensions. It appears as though they are going from a 3ft tank to a 4ft tank giving 2.37 times the fuel and lox capacity. There does not appear to be any helium pressurization tank in the design from the simple drawings shown. They will probably end up in any final design however.
Friday, February 12, 2010
New room and hardware delivered
Tranquility is officially attached to the International space station! I stayed up last night watching Canada Arm2 slowly arc from the Endeavor's payload bay to the common berthing mechanism on Node 1. Beautiful stuff.
In other wondrous news. SpaceX has now moved all the necessary pieces of the Falcon 9 puzzle to the cape launch complex 40. Let the assembly begin. The inaugural launch should be showing up on a monitor near you (and hopefully me) sometime in the next 1 to 4 months. I wish they could be a little more specific. Actually they are. They report launch 1 - 3 months after hardware integration is complete, but they completely neglect to project how long that integration might take.
In the mean time head over to Russel Blink's Photo stream on flickr an see if you can figure out just what Armadillo Aerospace is up to with it's trusty pixel craft. From the looks of it, they have modified the craft from an alcohol / lox rocket to a methane / lox configuration. The give-away is the new application of insulation on all four propellant tanks. Methane is cryogenic. Alcohol is not. They also added more robust landing gear. My assumption is that Armadillo is under contract with NASA to demonstrate a methane powered lander and is looking to pixel to fulfill that requirement while they use their modular vehicles for in-house differential throttling and multi-engine work.
In other wondrous news. SpaceX has now moved all the necessary pieces of the Falcon 9 puzzle to the cape launch complex 40. Let the assembly begin. The inaugural launch should be showing up on a monitor near you (and hopefully me) sometime in the next 1 to 4 months. I wish they could be a little more specific. Actually they are. They report launch 1 - 3 months after hardware integration is complete, but they completely neglect to project how long that integration might take.
In the mean time head over to Russel Blink's Photo stream on flickr an see if you can figure out just what Armadillo Aerospace is up to with it's trusty pixel craft. From the looks of it, they have modified the craft from an alcohol / lox rocket to a methane / lox configuration. The give-away is the new application of insulation on all four propellant tanks. Methane is cryogenic. Alcohol is not. They also added more robust landing gear. My assumption is that Armadillo is under contract with NASA to demonstrate a methane powered lander and is looking to pixel to fulfill that requirement while they use their modular vehicles for in-house differential throttling and multi-engine work.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Why we need a successful Falcon 9 Launch soon
The real excitement in the face of Obama's budget changes at NASA is the opportunity for privet companies to fill the void with launch services and destinations. The premier destination at the moment is obviously the International Space Station or ISS, but with two successful pathfinder projects on orbit, there is little reason to doubt that Bigelow aerospace will be able to build it's own working space station for hire.
What is not as clear is whether there will transportation available to get to either location. The big source of excitement under NASA's new direction is the possibility that America may get a transportation solution soon in the form of a COTS D option in SpaceX's contract. Many pardons to the other companies looking at various solutions to deliver crew to orbit, but Space Exploration technologies is the only serious player at this point. No one else has demonstrated a wish to do more than get funding for studies at this point. Not that I doubt Boeing's or Orbital's ability only that they have not demostrated a willingness to forge ahead with or without a solid contract from NASA. SpaceX on the other hand built from day one with goal of transporting astronauts. They are quite simply our current best hope, not just because they already have hardware, but because as a company they are committed.
Now here is the rub. While it is fun to hear Elon Musk make bold claims as to what his company is capable, they have zero launch history on their proposed rocket. I have every reason to believe that they will succeed but it is hard to get a nation and funding behind you when you only have calculations and ground tests to point to. I am an engineer and mathematician. I believe the calculations and SpaceX has no bigger fan, but it is time to do away with that nagging feeling of "what if it does not work." As NASA plans out it's (and our) future it would help if they had something from the commercial sector to hang their hat on.
A successful Falcon 9 launch would shush the naysayers (although I am sure some will still play the safety card early and often) and instill a sense of excitement in the public, those that pay attention at any rate. I am sure that the COTS D option or some equivalent will follow a successful launch within a few months. Unless of course they send up an other round of bidding, which in my view would be a waste of time.
I am sure SpaceX realizes what is riding on their maiden launch and are doing their very best to balance timeliness with being fully prepared. Failure would be an anchor we don't need. But failure would allow for a confident turn around to the next launch. Here's to a quick and successful launch. All the best to SpaceX and Falcon 9
What is not as clear is whether there will transportation available to get to either location. The big source of excitement under NASA's new direction is the possibility that America may get a transportation solution soon in the form of a COTS D option in SpaceX's contract. Many pardons to the other companies looking at various solutions to deliver crew to orbit, but Space Exploration technologies is the only serious player at this point. No one else has demonstrated a wish to do more than get funding for studies at this point. Not that I doubt Boeing's or Orbital's ability only that they have not demostrated a willingness to forge ahead with or without a solid contract from NASA. SpaceX on the other hand built from day one with goal of transporting astronauts. They are quite simply our current best hope, not just because they already have hardware, but because as a company they are committed.
Now here is the rub. While it is fun to hear Elon Musk make bold claims as to what his company is capable, they have zero launch history on their proposed rocket. I have every reason to believe that they will succeed but it is hard to get a nation and funding behind you when you only have calculations and ground tests to point to. I am an engineer and mathematician. I believe the calculations and SpaceX has no bigger fan, but it is time to do away with that nagging feeling of "what if it does not work." As NASA plans out it's (and our) future it would help if they had something from the commercial sector to hang their hat on.
A successful Falcon 9 launch would shush the naysayers (although I am sure some will still play the safety card early and often) and instill a sense of excitement in the public, those that pay attention at any rate. I am sure that the COTS D option or some equivalent will follow a successful launch within a few months. Unless of course they send up an other round of bidding, which in my view would be a waste of time.
I am sure SpaceX realizes what is riding on their maiden launch and are doing their very best to balance timeliness with being fully prepared. Failure would be an anchor we don't need. But failure would allow for a confident turn around to the next launch. Here's to a quick and successful launch. All the best to SpaceX and Falcon 9
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