Rob Wilson / 8:10 am June 11th, 2005

The European Space Agency has pledged its support for the Russian Kliper spacecraft, intended to replace the Soyuz for International Space Station crew transport around 2011.

Rob Wilson / 7:32 am June 11th, 2005

NASA’s plan to deal with a space shuttle damaged on launch is to keep the crew at the International Space Station until a rescue shuttle can be launched. In this scenario, the station, which currently has the capacity to house three permanent residents, would need to keep its own crew of three plus seven shuttle astronauts alive for six to eight weeks while the rescue shuttle was prepared. The current space station commander, Sergei Krikalev, voiced some concerns about this plan before launching. Now he is on orbit, he seems to have toned down his delivery, but he still has the same concerns. It doesn’t help that equipment such as the Elektron oxygen generation system seems to be in need of constant repair. What happens if it breaks while a stranded Shuttle is crew on board?

Rob Wilson / 7:12 am June 10th, 2005

As noted earlier, NASA is sponsoring a $50,000 prize to encourage development of a process to extract oxygen from Lunar regolith. But they are also spending $1.8 million directly to develop the same technology. Seems a bit unfair on those going after the prize. Did the prize purse need to be bigger (NASA has yet to get authority from congress to post prizes above $50,000), or does NASA have no faith that the MoonRox prize will deliver what they want? Perhaps a bit of both?

Rob Wilson / 8:43 pm June 8th, 2005

The latest update is now out from Space Exploration Technologies Corporation.

Rob Wilson / 11:23 am June 8th, 2005

NASA Watch is reporting that Exploration Systems Mission Directorate head Craig Steidle has resigned. Apparently, Michael Griffin is about to set in motion a major reorganization of NASA’s upper management.

Rob Wilson / 10:34 am June 8th, 2005

NASA is deactivating its Morocco Transoceanic Abort Landing site for the space shuttle, in favor of a new one at Istres Air Force Base in France. The new site is better suited to launches to the orbital inclination of the International Space Station - the destination of all currently scheduled shuttle flights. If, as seems likely, a shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope is reinstated, the Morocco TAL site may be reactivated just for that flight. Read more at Discovery.com.

Rob Wilson / 1:29 pm June 7th, 2005

Aerojet is working on a new ion drive technology demonstrator for the exploration vision.

Rob Wilson / 11:47 am June 7th, 2005

Reversing a trend to out-source research to private industry, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin intends to look at insourcing.

Rob Wilson / 9:05 am June 6th, 2005

Florida Today has a good article on NASA’s MoonRox Centennial Challenge. The basic idea is that they will award a $250,000 prize to the first team to extract 5 kilograms of oxygen from simulated Lunar regolith, given some specific time and power consumption constraints. Like the X-Prize, this challenge has a time limit - the prize must be won before 1 June 2008.

NASA is sounding increasingly serious about utilizing local resources on its trips back to the Moon. The concept (In-Situ Resource Utilization, or ISRU in NASA-speak) is not new, but it is more or less mandatory if the exploration goal is something more than flags-and-footprints. If ISRU were to quietly fall off NASA’s radar at some future point, that would be a clear indicator that the exploration vision is heading off the rails.

Rob Wilson / 11:45 am June 5th, 2005

NASA Mars rover Opportunity, which recently became stuck in a sand drift on the Meridiani Planum, has managed to slog its way free. Details at Steve Squyres’ Mission Update. Thanks to Alan Boyle at Cosmic Log for pointing this out.

Rob Wilson / 9:30 pm June 4th, 2005

NASA tested a new capability at the International Space Station today, testing for the first time the ability to operate the station’s robotic arm from the ground.

Rob Wilson / 8:07 am June 4th, 2005

NASA Watch is reporting that the decision to go with a shuttle-derived heavy lift launch vehicle is all but made.

Rob Wilson / 10:35 pm June 3rd, 2005

Robert Zimmerman provides an excellent roundup of the promise and pitfalls of this pivotal point in humanity’s journey out of the cradle.

Rob Wilson / 9:15 pm June 3rd, 2005

NASA administrator Mike Griffin has just visited the Michoud Assembly Facility, where Space Shuttle external tanks are manufactured. He repeated earlier statements from Kennedy Space Center director Jim Kennedy that NASA is leaning toward building a heavy lift cargo rocket from modified shuttle components, and that as a result of this, Michoud features prominently in his plans for implementing the Vision for Space Exploration.

Griffin seems to be visiting all the NASA centers and declaring that each one is an integral part of the vision. The clear message is that the way to be a relevant and useful center in Mike Griffin’s NASA is to come on board with the vision. Each center has a unique part to play - but each center’s activities must be justified by their relevance to NASA’s new core goals.

The decision to utilize the non-orbiter parts of the Space Shuttle architecture to develop a heavy lift cargo capability is an interesting one. Although it’s not a done deal yet, its clear that Griffin is heavily in favor of it, and his influence in the final decision will be considerable. Until recently, I shared the view of many alt.spacers that building a heavy lift launch vehicle to implement the vision was not a good idea. I still think there is a real danger that the time and expense of building this Shuttle-derived HLLV could bog the exploration vision down in cost and schedule over-runs. I also think it is a dead end in terms of providing a path to cheap space flight, because like the shuttle it is unlikely to ever reach flight rates that would make it economic to operate. Having said that, it will have real utility for the exploration vision, if not as cheaply as I would like, and building it will bring on board the political support base of the shuttle, which would be otherwise alienated by the retirement of the orbiters in 2010.

While building a Shuttle-derived HLLV might not be the cheapest or most efficient or most commercial-space-promoting way to implement the vision, it might be the best one in terms of building political support - and lets face it, without that, no amount of rocket technology is going to get NASA back to the Moon.

Rob Wilson / 2:43 pm June 3rd, 2005

The Space Shuttle orbiters may be headed for retirement in 2010, but it looks increasingly likely that the Exploration Vision’s heavy lifting will be done by the remaining elements of the Shuttle infrastructure.

Rob Wilson / 2:10 pm June 3rd, 2005

Looks like Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) is serious about developing a human spaceflight capability. They’ve signed a Space Act agreement with NASA “regarding development of human spaceflight hardware.” More
here.

Rob Wilson / 1:55 pm June 3rd, 2005

The world’s first spaceport turned fifty years young today. Both the first artificial satellite (Sputnik) and the first human to orbit the Earth (Yuri Gagarin) were launched from there. It’s still busy today, launching commercial and military satellites, as well as crews and cargo to the International Space Station.