rockets – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Stories filed under: "rockets"

DailyDirt: 3, 2, 1… Liftoff

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Re-usable spacecraft sound like a good idea — if they actually saved any costs and refurbishing them was economical. There are only a few examples of re-usable space vehicles so far, and NASA retired its space shuttle program in 2011, narrowing the field a bit. SpaceX seems to be getting closer to demonstrating a re-usable rocket system, but it still needs to re-launch one of its rockets (and it currently only has one rocket for such an attempt).

• India has an incredibly frugal space program which has just launched a mini reusable shuttle called the Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV-TD). This shuttle was developed for about $14 million and looks like a smaller X-37B, but it has a lot more testing to undergo before performing the same kind of tricks. [url]
• SpaceX’s latest rocket to successfully land may not be able to be re-used because it sustained “max damage” from its re-entry path. Still, this rocket stage will provide plenty of data to benchmark future re-usable rocket stages — or perhaps inspire modifications that could make the journey less damaging. [url]
• NASA is working on high altitude balloons to study the upper atmosphere. Okay, this isn’t exactly space, but NASA could also get a telescope to fly above a lot of atmosphere for a few months (or longer?) — and that would be a lot cheaper than a satellite. [url]

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Filed Under: balloons, re-usable rockets, rockets, spacecraft, suborbital, x-37b
Companies: boeing, nasa, spacex

DailyDirt: Another Golden Era Of Spaceflight Ahead..?

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Successfully re-using a rocket seems to be on the cusp of being an economically practical technology. The traditional aerospace industry is going to see a bit more competition from cheaper rockets that can still launch satellites into high orbit. Private space companies are starting to catch up with NASA’s experience, but the business is still tricky because there’s always a chance a very expensive rocket will just explode on the launchpad.

• Being a test pilot for a private space flight company requires flying skills most pilots don’t pick up flying a Cessna. Military pilots know how to fly in a tight formation and might have experience flying upside down or in other extreme situations. More civilian pilots are going to need to train to get the “right stuff” in order to fly spaceships. [url]
• At the 32nd Space Symposium, plenty of aerospace companies were present, competing to build next generation rockets to get into orbit and beyond. SpaceX, Blue Origin and others are trying new fuels and 3D printing techniques to make rockets cheaper and more quickly, so that rockets can be re-used or replaced within weeks, instead of months. [url]
• A crowdfunded Russian satellite could become the brightest “star” in the sky soon. The Mayak (Beacon) satellite project is planning to put a 16-square-meter tetrahedron-shaped reflector in orbit, and it could be launched before the end of the year. Larger versions of such a reflector could do some crazy things like direct sunlight to parts of the earth — for longer days or other Bond-villain-esque schemes. [url]

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: crowdfunding, leo, manned missions, mayak, rockets, satellite, space, space exploration
Companies: blue origin, nasa, spacex

DailyDirt: Looking Forward To More Space Exploration

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

We’ve seen space travel getting cheaper over time, but it’s still pretty expensive to get a person into low earth orbit. Some billionaires are optimistic that space travel will be accessible to more than just astronauts and other billionaires, and we’re seeing some progress. Reusable rockets and more affordable space stations could lead to some pretty cool space-based vacations — if you remember to bring your SPF infinity sunblock.

• SpaceX has successfully landed one of its rockets on a barge at sea. This is only the second time the company has been able to land a rocket safely, but it shows that it can be done. The next step is actually reusing one of these rockets (for less than the cost of building a new one). [url]
• The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) is going to be added to the International Space Station, and this inflatable habitat might point the way towards cheaper space stations. There are only a few ways to build space stations: launch large spaceworthy structures into orbit (say, in the bay of a space shuttle or actually on top of a rocket), bring up the pieces and put them together in space, or some combination of pre-fab structures and in-space construction. Inflatable space stations make it slightly easier to construct large structures in space — and we’ll see how spaceworthy they are. [url]
• A metal composite foam material might be lightweight and strong enough to protect people from dangerous radiation — AND bullets, too. These materials can block X-rays, gamma rays and neutron radiation better (compared to bulk metals of the same weight), but they’re not ready for trips to Mars just yet. [url]

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Filed Under: bigelow expandable activity module, falcon 9, iss, manned missions, re-usable rockets, rockets, space exploration
Companies: bigelow aerospace, nasa, spacex

DailyDirt: Actually Getting People Into Space…

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

There are only a handful of vehicles that have launched people into space (or even just provided shelter) for space-faring people. A few more ships and space stations would be nice to see, and there are a few in various stages development (unfunded proposals, ahem). If you’re interested in people (not just robots) exploring outer space, here are just a few links on some of the ships that might transport more folks to at least the edge of space.

• Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin spaceflight company just launched and landed a rocket — again — and this particular rocket was actually re-used. This accomplishment is still not quite on par with SpaceX’s feat, but it’s a solid step towards cheaper spaceflight for human passengers. [url]
• Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser spacecraft has a NASA contract to become yet another backup way to deliver cargo to the International Space Station. The lifting body design of the Dream Chaser can be traced back to Soviet-era experimental space planes — and maybe someday we’ll see this vehicle transporting astronauts. [url]
• Perhaps you’ve seen comparisons of the sizes of various fictional spaceships (eg. NCC-1701 vs. Firefly class transport ship), but a size comparison of actual (or proposed) space vessels compared to the International Space Station is pretty cool. All the real spacecraft (and even the ones that are still very much in development, like Skylon) are much smaller than the original Starship Enterprise, but the ISS is probably a bit more sprawling than you might think. Oh, and if you haven’t seen the size comparisons of fictional ships, check it out. [url]

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Filed Under: dream chaser, elon musk, jeff bezos, lifting body, manned missions, re-usable rockets, rockets, space, space exploration, spacecraft, suborbital
Companies: blue origin, nasa, sierra nevada, spacex

DailyDirt: Cheaper Rockets Taking Off

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Rocket science is difficult, but as technology gets better, it looks like more and more people are capable of launching pretty powerful rockets. Private companies are semi-routinely shooting satellites into space, and that capability could be useful for all kinds of applications ranging from scientific exploration… to intercontinental missiles. If hobbyist drones seem like a problem now, wait until more hobbyist rockets are launching into space.

• New Zealand-based Rocket Lab has a partially 3D-printed rocket engine scheduled to launch later this year. Its Electron rocket powered by 9 Rutherford rocket engines can get small satellites into orbit — for just 5million(versusa5 million (versus a 5million(versusa60 million SpaceX rocket or even more expensive competitors). [url]
• NASA has successfully tested several components of a 3D-printed rocket engine, and it’s well on the way to making an entire rocket engine from 3D printed parts. Nearly every rocket maker is using 3D printed parts — SpaceX uses additive manufacturing for its Merlin rocket engines, and more traditional aerospace giants are no strangers to 3D printing. [url]
• The Portland State Aerospace Society (PSAS) is a student organization that has already launched an amateur rocket 3 miles high. We’ve mentioned other student rocket projects before (USC reached an altitude of 4 miles a while ago), and the Civilian Space eXploration Team (CSXT) made it to 72 miles up in 2004. [url]

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: 3d printing, civilian space exploration team, csxt, portland state aerospace society, rockets, space, space exploration, usc
Companies: nasa, rocket lab, spacex, ula

DailyDirt: How Will Anyone Get To Mars?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Traveling to mars is going to be a really, really long term project. We had some fun on the moon and drove around up there in a nifty moon buggy, but we didn’t have a commitment to stay there for very long — or even plans to keep going there once we knew it could be done. Getting astronauts to mars requires a completely different level of planning than going to the moon. Current technology won’t get us there (well, at least not alive and healthy), but maybe we’re still making some progress with a few untested propulsion systems.

• Russia’s national nuclear company Rosatom could build a nuclear-powered engine to get to mars in 90 days — if it had the funding. The technology was first developed in the 1960s, but no one has really continued to work on various kinds of nuclear-powered propulsion for manned spacecraft (hmm, wonder why..?). Launching radioactive materials on a ship that might not make it into outer space could end in a spectacular disaster, but maybe if someone could build it in space from several small payloads of fissionable material? (Or better yet, build it from fissionable materials already in space….) [url]
• It’s possible to send something to mars in just 30 minutes with a (proposed) laser propulsion system. Chemical rockets to mars will take months, but using photonic propulsion could accelerate a small (lightweight, perhaps wafer-thing) object to very high speeds. One catch would be that there wouldn’t really be a way to slow it down, unless there was a decelerating laser on the other side. [url]
• It’s not beyond the imagination to think that people might someday be able to move asteroids around at will. Getting more water to mars by sending an icy asteroid there might be possible someday, and if we’re able to do that we might as well hitch a ride on it. [url]

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: astronauts, fission, laser propulsion, lightsail, manned missions, mars, nuclear energy, propulsion, rockets, space, space exploration, spacecraft
Companies: nasa, rosatom

DailyDirt: Getting Back Into Space

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Despite a few mishaps with rockets headed for the International Space Station (eg. SpaceX, Orbital Sciences and the Russian space agency all failed to deliver re-supply cargo ships), there have also been some interesting space-faring developments in the last year or so. Fortunately, none of the lost spacecraft were manned missions, and the ISS also has the Japanese HTV as another backup cargo ship. And with SpaceX’s awesome recovery with a successful launch, it looks like re-supply missions are getting back on track — so the ISS will probably keep going until at least 2020 (and maybe a few years more? 2024? 2028?).

• The International Space Station has been re-supplied using the Cygnus spacecraft from Orbital Sciences — on top of a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket. Orbital Sciences is still working out the bugs for its Antares rocket, but it’s looking to restart Antares launches in 2016. [url]
• NASA has a contract with SpaceX for a manned mission to the ISS. With SpaceX getting its re-usable rockets into operation, trips to the International Space Station could get significantly cheaper, but obviously SpaceX has to prove its re-usable rockets are really re-usable (by re-launching one, not just saying it’s possible). [url]
• Another private space company, Intuitive Machines, could provide “next day” shipping to the ISS with its Terrestrial Return Vehicle (TRV). Optimistically, this spacecraft could even provide “same day” delivery to the space station if everything works exactly as planned. This spacecraft is much smaller than other cargo ships that can dock with the space station, but it could be useful for time-sensitive supplies and experiments. [url]

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Filed Under: antares, atlas 5, cygnus, htv, international space station, iss, manned missions, rockets, space, space exploration, trv
Companies: intuitive machines, nasa, orbital sciences, spacex, united launch alliance

DailyDirt: Who Wants To Go To Space?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Reusable rocket technology has been a ‘holy grail’ of sorts for space exploration. Building reusable components is supposed to make space travel more affordable, but the Space Shuttle is the prime example of how that’s not necessarily true, as it cost over an order of magnitude more than originally planned. Still, it should be possible to make reusable rockets that are cheaper to operate, and some private companies are figuring out how to do it. SpaceX hasn’t quite gotten reusable rockets perfected yet (though, it has done it more than a few times with its Grasshopper vehicle). And depending on how you define a “rocket” — Virgin Galactic & Scaled Composites have also developed reusable space vehicles.

• Blue Origin has successfully landed a rocket after it launched to a suborbital altitude. Elon Musk rightly points out that this isn’t exactly the first time a suborbital rocket has landed in reusable condition, but it’s still nice to see rocket technology improving and getting cheaper to operate. [url]
• Jeff Bezos is moving his space company to Florida to build and launch its rockets near NASA’s government facilities — the Kennedy Space Center and the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Blue Origin will be making its rocket engines in the good ol’ USA, and its BE-3 engine is the one that will be reusable. (note: The BE-3 isn’t as powerful as Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine which is more comparable to SpaceX’s reusable rocket.) [url]
• Lots of people credit Jules Verne for inspiring spaceflight, but the first proposal of rocket-based spaceflight actually comes from Canadian William Leitch in 1861. Leitch’s paper was written 4 years before Verne’s book “From the Earth to the Moon” — and decades before plausible rocket-powered space plans from Russian Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and American Robert Goddard were written. But does it matter who thought of something first, or who actually executes it? [url]

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Filed Under: elon musk, grasshopper, jeff bezos, jules verne, kennedy space center, konstantin tsiolkovsky, new shepard, re-usable rockets, robert goddard, rockets, space, space exploration, suborbital, william leitch
Companies: blue origin, nasa, spacex

DailyDirt: Rocket Science Is Still Pretty Hard…

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Rockets fail all the time. There are just a lot of things that can go wrong, and if everything doesn’t go right, the usual result is that the rocket and its payload self-destructs to prevent further damage (or just explodes all on its own). Fortunately, the hardware is getting cheaper with time, and more and more people are able to play with launch systems to get beyond Earth’s gravity well. Here are just a few more examples of rocket projects that are trying to do more with less.

• Building a 22-ton rocket to reach the moon isn’t easy, and a Kickstarter project to get some seed funding just ended. The Moonspike project didn’t achieve its Kickstarter goal, but it’s not totally dead yet. They still have their rocket designs, and the moon isn’t going anywhere…. [url]
• Moon Express is a private moon landing mission to get a robot on the moon in 2017. The company has teamed up with Rocket Labs and received over $1 million in funding from Google/Xprize to get its mission off the ground and into space. [url]
• Smaller teams building rockets (instead of huge aerospace companies) are becoming a trend — making innovative delivery systems for less than “billions and billions” of dollars. The Northwest Indian College Space Center didn’t have the resources to actually get anything into space, just a grandiose name. That was enough, though, to get some additional funding. The school now participates in national competitions with some NASA guidance, and it’s possible that a student-built rocket could make it into space someday. [url]

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Filed Under: lunar robots, moonspike, northwest indian college space center, propulsion, rockets, space, space exploration
Companies: kickstarter, moon express, nasa, rocket labs

DailyDirt: It *IS* Rocket Science, Actually…

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Getting stuff into space is difficult. There are a bunch of different rockets that have been used over the last few decades, but the odds of a launch failure isn’t quite zero yet. A few companies are making cheaper launch systems, but a perfect track record is hard to maintain over more than a handful of launches. Perhaps that’s why sentient robots in the movies never think about leaving the Earth behind.

• SpaceX’s recent Falcon 9 failure is a huge setback for SpaceX — because the exact problem hasn’t been identified yet. This incident will delay future launches until the cause of the explosion can be reasonably explained. [url]
• NASA’s development of its Space Launch System (SLS) is going through its own delays, as reviewing committees are concerned that NASA is wasting $150 million on an interim rocket stage that will not be used again — instead of putting that money towards a more powerful Exploration Upper Stage (EUS). Building an unmanned rocket stage that will need to be replaced someday by a stage that is rated for a crew doesn’t seem to be a great use of limited NASA funding, but lacking the full funding to directly build an astronaut-friendly, Beyond Earth Orbit (BEO) vehicle forces NASA to create interim test stages. Our tax dollars at work…. [url]
• Three failed resupply missions to the International Space Station (ISS) have occurred over the last 8 months. Orbital Sciences is shifting away from using 1960s-era Soviet rocket engines that were probably the cause of its launch failure last October. In May, a Russian re-supply mission put its cargo in the wrong orbit. And SpaceX’s investigations are ongoing for its recent Falcon 9 explosion. There are actually a few other options for getting supplies to the ISS, and Orbital Sciences will be employing alternative launch systems to fulfill its contract while it works on its replacement engines. [url]
• The idea of using reusable rockets isn’t unique to SpaceX. Blue Origin’s New Shepard is being tested for its re-usability. The United Launch Alliance (ULA) has plans for a reusable Vulcan rocket that is recovered by helicopter. Airbus has also unveiled its reusable Adeline design which could start test launches in 2025. [url]

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Filed Under: adeline, beo, eus, falcon 9, iss, new shepard, re-usable rockets, rocket technology, rockets, sls, space, space exploration, vulcan
Companies: airbus, blue origins, nasa, orbital sciences, spacex, ula