I couldn’t say it any better myself so I’m just pulling the report from SpaceX own website.
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The SpaceX launch scrubbed today. We anticipate a new launch attempt in mid-December, depending on the timing of LOX resupply from Hawaii (our LOX plant on Omelek can only produce about one ton per day). As SpaceX CEO Elon Musk stated during a pre-launch press conference, the likelihood of an all new rocket launching from an all new launch pad on its first attempt is low.
The reason for the delay was an auxiliary liquid oxygen (LOX) fill tank had a manual vent valve incorrectly set to vent. The time it took to correct the problem resulted in significant LOX boiloff and loss of helium, and it was the latter that caused the launch abort. LOX is used to chill the helium bottles, so we lose helium if there is no LOX to cool the bottles.
Although we were eventually able to refill the vehicle LOX tanks, the rate at which we could add helium was slower than the rate at which LOX was boiling away. There was no way to close the gap, so the launch had to be called off. In addition, we experienced an anomaly with the main engine computer that requires further investigation and was arguably reason in and of itself to postpone launch.
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All things considered, when a new launch date is firmed up I’ll most likely return to the mad adventures of live blogging so stay tuned, this young bird will fly yet.
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SpaceX have announced that the maiden launch of Falcon-1 has been bumped to Saturday at 21:00 GMT:
In order to facilitate preparations for a missile defense launch, the Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC) has bumped the SpaceX Falcon 1 maiden flight from its officially scheduled launch date of Friday, November 25 at 1 p.m. PST (9 p.m. GMT). The new launch time is Saturday, November 26 1 p.m. PST (9 p.m. GMT).
Oh, the joys of range scheduling! We’ll still be blogging the launch live here at Out of the Cradle.
A quick note to let you know that intrepid OotC reporter Mark Trulson will be dialled in to the Falcon-1 launch coverage press conference during Friday’s launch, and he’ll be live blogging the proceedings right here at Out of the Cradle.
Mark’s been busy: we also have interviews with David Livingston, host of the Space Show, and Dick Rutan, pilot of the XCOR EZ-Rocket among many other amazing things, in the final stages of preparation.
Stay tuned.
SpaceDev has just completed a study showing that a robust commercial lunar return could be implemented for $10 billion, and considerably sooner than NASA’s target of 2018.
The rocket chair concept for lunar landing looks like a pretty exciting ride.
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Asteroid Hopping Part II
In the early morning hours of November 20th in Japan that featured several highs, a major low was announced. In a news conference, project leader Junichiro Kawaguchi uttered the words, “I don’t think it landed.” Initially, the attempt at a soft touchdown and soil sample grab went as planned.
Designed to abort the decent if any number of events appeared to put the probe in danger, the self-navigating system, would then switch to auto-control, storing data about itself and later transmitting it to ground control to be analyzed. JAXA spokesman Toshihisa Horiguchi said, scientists were in communication with the probe and analyzing data to try to calculate its exact position, but it was unclear whether there had been a technical problem.
The exact location of the probe was unknown, Horiguchi said, but it was believed to be within 60 miles of the asteroid.
At approximately 4:30 am on the 20th (all times listed in Japan Standard Time) the probe Hayabusa, (Japanese for Falcon) after closing within 500 meters of the asteroid Itokawa, started its vertical decent toward a touchdown and soil sample gathering attempt.
At 5:46 a.m. JAXA received a signal from the asteroid explorer, that it had released the target marker from an altitude of about 40 meters, leaving the mission control team almost certain that the target marker reached the surface of the Itokawa. Falcon continued its decent to about 17 meters (just under 56 feet), it was at that point ground control lost communications with the probe for nearly 3 hours.
Officials still plan to make the second scheduled landing attempt on Friday.
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Hey everyone - lets stop bitching about “Apollo on steroids” for a minute or two, and listen to what the NASA administrator actually has to say about space commerce and NewSpace participation in the Vision for Space Exploration. We may not agree with everything, but we might be pleasantly surpised:
NASA and the Business of Space
American Astronautical Society 52nd Annual Conference
Michael D. Griffin NASA Administrator
15 November 2005
When President Bush announced the Vision for Space Exploration in January 2004, he made many specific points, including one which has been little noted, but which we here all believe; that the pursuit of the Vision will enhance America’s economic, scientific and security interests.
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Michael Belfiore has live blogged the SpaceX Falcon-1 launch announcement press conference, and has a pile of good questions and answers from that with Elon. Well worth a read.
Some snippets:
Q: Are you developing a manned vehicle right now, or have you thought that far ahead yet?
A: I can’t comment on that right now.
That’s a very interesting I’m-not-prepared-to-say-no response from Elon. Then on competing with Big Aerospace:
Boeing and Lockheed can’t win on a level playing field. The only way we can fail is if we’re stupid. If we build a good rocket and we launch it and it’s reliable, then we have a very bright future and there’s very little a competitor can do to stop us.
There are already six Falcon-1 launches on the manifest, and the rocket hasn’t even been proven in flight yet. I would suggest that the manifest is only going to look better after a few successes. If things go well, then SpaceX, like the Falcon, is on the way up.
And on current goings-on in NewSpace:
Q: What’s next in the entreprenurial space field?
A: Lots of people doing things–Paul Allen [who funded SpaceShipOne], Jeff Bezos with Blue Origin, John Carmack with Armadillo Aerospace…Musk thinks we’re heading toward a Netscape moment, when someone turns a profit, and hopefully it’ll be SpaceX, and then investment capital will start to flow in.
Lots on the boil - and Paul Allen is still up to stuff. I haven’t heard much about him since SpaceShipOne. Wonder what he’s up to?
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That’s the date, folks - or 4pm EST for those in the US - that Space Exploration Technologies Corporation’s inaugural Falcon-1 rocket will fly from its launch pad on Omelek island in the Kwajalein atoll. The launch window lasts for four hours. Thanks to Spaceflight Now for the early info.
The payload is FalconSat-2, a DARPA and Air Force satellite designed to measure space plasma phenomena.
All the hopes and wishes of the Out of the Cradle crew will be riding along with Falcon-1 on this groundbreaking flight. Here’s why:
On launch day, Falcon 1 will make history for several reasons:
- It will be the first privately developed liquid-fueled rocket to reach orbit and the world’s first all new orbital rocket in over a decade.
- The main engine of Falcon 1 (Merlin) will be the first all new American hydrocarbon booster engine to be flown in forty years and only the second new American booster engine of any kind in twenty-five years.
- The Falcon 1 is the only rocket flying 21 st century avionics, which require a small fraction of the power and mass of other systems.
- It will be the world’s only semi-reusable orbital rocket apart from the Shuttle (all other launch vehicles are completely expendable). When the Shuttle stops flying in 2010, Falcon 1 will be the only semi-reusable launch vehicle.
- Most importantly, Falcon 1, priced at $6.7 million, will provide the lowest cost per flight to orbit of any launch vehicle in the world. Despite the low cost, SpaceX has received a design reliability rating equivalent to that of the best launch vehicles currently flying in the United States.
All good reasons to hope Elon’s bird flies true.
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Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, maker of the Falcon 1 rocket, have just issued a press release about a news conference tomorrow at which they will announce the launch date and time for the maiden Falcon 1 flight from the Kwajalein atoll.
Who: SpaceX Founder and CEO Elon Musk will announce the T-Zero liftoff time of the historic maiden flight of Falcon 1 at a pre-launch press conference tomorrow afternoon. Please note that this will be the last time Mr. Musk will be available to the media before launch due to his travel to the Kwajalein launch site. Following the press conference, interested media will also have the opportunity to tour the SpaceX facilities.
SpaceX is the third company founded by Elon Musk. Previously he co-founded PayPal, the world’s leading electronic payment system, which sold to online auction giant eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002. In 1995, Mr. Musk co-founded Zip2, which sold to Compaq Computer Corporation for more than $300 million.
When: Friday, November 18, 2005 at 2:00 p.m. (PDT). Media should arrive by 1:30 p.m. (PDT).
Where: SpaceX Headquarters in El Segundo, CA – five minutes south of the Los Angeles International Airport.
This is starting to look seriously like an immanent flight. Good luck, guys!
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Michael Griffin is talking up the need for private enterprise in space - without which, he says, NASA cannot afford the human exploration program it envisions.
I’m just not sure how that gels with his “We’ll build it all, we’ll launch it all” ESAS architecture.
Stephen Hawking drew a crowd at gathering in Oakland Calif. Sadly the crowd included news reporters…
The following quote from the article sums up the total content on Hawking’s reaction to VSE yet it is catching headlines in several places.
When asked about his thoughts on President Bush’s proposal to put a man on Mars within 10 years, Hawking simply replied: “Stupid.”
I believe he was referring to the reporter that asked the question, not VSE, since the plan does not call for a manned Moon mission within 10 years, let alone a manned Mars landing.
This fellow agrees…and made his point before I could.
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Observant OotC readers will have noticed that Mark has been holding the fort for the last week or so. I’ve been off doing day-job work in Australia. I’m back now though, and I thought that might be a good excuse for a Great Big List-O-Links Roundup:
- Leonard David at Space.com talks about Neil Armstrong’s recent 60 Minutes interview.
- NASA’s budget for implementing the vision for space exploration is coming up a little short. (Robert Zimmerman had some interesting thoughts on this at The Space Show recently. The archived program is here. He was contrasting Griffin’s approach of being upfront and honest about implementation costs with that of previous administrators who were happy to low-ball project costs to get things started, and then pay the price of bailing them out later. It will be interesting to see how this plays out).
- SpaceShot have announced their management team. (You can read OotC’s interview with SpaceShot CEO Sam Dinkin here).
- NASA now has legal cover to purchase Russian Soyuz and Progress flights to ISS. And they don’t seem to have wasted any time raising a purchase order. (Thanks to NASA Watch for the RIA Novosti link).
- Boy band singer Lance Bass once tried to play a gig on the ISS. Sir Paul McCartney may have been less inclined to travel to orbit, but recently played a gig broadcast live to the ISS.
- The CEO of Northrop Grumman waxes poetic about the promise of space exploration. It’s all good stuff, but given the current CEV competition, it all seems a little self-interested to this (slightly cynical) space observer. It would be more encouraging if we also heard this kind of speech from Big Aerospace when there were not multi-billion dollar NASA contracts up for grabs.
- Rocketplane is looking for more money. (Link via HobbySpace).
Space agency confirms robotic probe fails to land on asteroid
TOKYO, Nov. 13 — KYODO
A small probing robot released by a Japanese space probe Saturday toward an asteroid orbiting the sun between Earth and Mars may have failed to land and has likely drifted away from the asteroid, Japan’s space agency announced.
The probe, named Hayabusa, released the hopping robot called Minerva toward the asteroid Itokawa at 3:24 p.m. as part of a rehearsal for its own planned descents later this month, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency officials said earlier.
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I may be jumping the gun a little bit. This is pretty much, breaking news. But it appears Minerva missed the asteroid and is adrift. At the moment the tiny probe is in radio contact Hayabusa, (Falcon) but the transmissions will probably give out soon.
Between the Ion Engine propulsion system, landing not one but two landers on the asteroid, and returning samples from the asteroid to earth, this mission profile is groundbreaking to the extreme. Another facet of the mission that is unique would be Minerva’s method of moving around on the asteroid.
With an estimated gravity of 1/100,000th of Earth’s, landing on the asteroid was predicted to be very difficult, let alone move around on its surface once landing was achieved. So they devised a system that might do the trick.
As described at JAXA’s website…
The robot Minerva will detach from HAYABUSA, land on Itokawa, and survey it while moving around its surface.
Moving around on wheels works only when gravity is present, so a probe with wheels is of no use on Itokawa. Minerva travels by leaping, using its own momentum by accelerating a weight inside itself. This is an entirely new idea.
Minerva will use its camera to take images of Itokawa’s surface and also read its temperature.
Even with additional stories coming in, it obviously will be a while before the reasons the landing attempt failed are known. Although initial “guesses” fall on a failure of the probe to recognize the surface of the asteroid as it was attempting to locate its intended landing area.
The brass ring of the mission of course is the sample return, which is still out there to be had.
However, win, loose or draw, the entire mission is producing valuable data that engineers and scientists will be poring over for quite a while, making it hard not to call it a success, no matter what the outcome.
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I’m trying to put together an interview with Dick Rutan, but if I can’t get it ready for posting in time I wanted to be sure to make folks aware of this up coming program on the History Channel.
25,000 Miles Non-Stop: Voyager Aircraft.
Airs on Saturday, November 12 at 4:00pm ET
In the pre-dawn darkness of December 14, 1986, a peculiar aircraft lumbers down an immense runway in the California high desert. With a wingspan larger than a 727, it weighs scarcely 2000 pounds when empty. Maverick aircraft designer Burt Rutan has designed this plane to fly nonstop around the globe. With his brother, decorated fighter pilot Dick Rutan at the controls, this is the moment of truth–the culmination of six years of work. The bizarre craft, Voyager, is like no flying machine ever built. When Voyager does get airborne, there are nine more days of perilous near-death experiences as it attempts to set the last great aviation record. TVPG — from The History Channel
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On the heels of Global Flyer’s successful solo efforts to fly around the world non-stop and without refueling, it would be good to review the accomplishments of the adventurous pair that did it nearly 19 years ago.
Stay tuned for the interview with Dick and his views on the Global Flyer event, what new record breaking attempts he has in store in a just a few weeks and a whole lot more.
The crack of the starting gun for the new space race that is…and I think it was, loud and clear.
Not to put words in his mouth but, it appears Fred Kiesche posting over at Lunar Soil agrees in his article, Slow and Steady Wins the Race.
And the announcements keep rolling in, another Reuters article dated November 4th, 2005, announced China’s plan to land a man on the moon around 2017. We could play all day trying to decide what “around” means but the mentioning of 2017 is very interesting.
The article also outlines their immediate plans once they arrive at the moon…
The project also includes setting up a moon-based astronomical telescope, measuring the thickness of the moon’s soil and the amount of helium-3 on the moon — an element some researchers say is a perfect, non-polluting fuel source.
So now they officially admit they are going.
When are they going?
Sometime “around” 2017, which is a year before the earliest NASA say it can get there, in 2018.
What are they going for?
They say to do a little science by placing a telescope and surveying for energy resources in the form of helium-3.
Some scientists believe there is enough helium-3 on the moon to power the world for thousands of years. – the article stated
I guess they believe they can figure how to recover the astronauts from the surface of the moon safely in time for that launch date. By then they plan to have an orbiting space station, manned and fully functional, along with a new launch vehicle with a 25 ton payload capacity.
China’s first lunar orbiter could blast off as early as 2007, coinciding with its third manned space trip in which possibly three men would orbit Earth in Shenzhou VII and conduct a space walk.
That lunar orbiter launch date is also a year prior to the expected, Fall of 2008 launch of NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). I’m sure all these dates are coinciding by random chance and are not intentional.
Ironically, there is a bit of role reversal going on at the same time. When it was the Soviets that were involved, they had jumped out to a head-start with several early successes but the US eventually earned the final success of landing a manned mission on the moon. Russian officials denying they were ever in a space race all along.
Now we have the Chinese, starting way back in the pack making decidedly good strides, and it is the US denying there is a space race. Apparently the US is hoping the reverse of the lottery slogan “you can win if you don’t play” is true as well.
“If you don’t race you can’t loose…?”
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Mark Whittington put it succinctly in his Curmudgeon post when he said, “Shenzhou 7 will orbit three men. Then things are going to pick up just a bit.”
The article datelined November 3rd, 2005 and accredited to China Daily/Reuters, outlines the plans for the next four flights Shenzhou VII through X, (7 – 10 – dang Roman numerals anyway.) Other than a vague, sometime in 2007 for the next flight no time frames have been provided. However it was noted that due to the nature of flights 8 and 9 which will carry equipment for their proposed space station and 10 which will carry a work crew to the station, those launches might occur all with in a month of each other.
Accompany that with the continuing plans to design a rocket that can deliver 25 tons to orbit (within 7 years) and landing a man on the moon, (still needing to work out a few details, like getting them back off the moon and home again), China does appear to be picking up the pace a bit.
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Five years of crewed operations, and the ISS is still half finished, understaffed, gutted of science, and headed for even more descoping. Along with the Shuttle, it has become a dead end in terms of future US space exploration goals.
That’s what you get when you design by committee, and without an over-riding vision. Let’s not do it again.
Regardless of how NASA is choosing to implement it - the Vision for Space Exploration, at its core - the bit that says “Extend a human presence across the solar system” - is a good thing. We need a strong vision to guide us out of the mess that NASA is in today.
When we take potshots at NASA’s ESAS, we end up weakening the vision as well. Don’t get me wrong - I think that ESAS sends us down the same path as Shuttle and ISS. But the way to make that apparent is not to tear down NASA’s (current) implementation plan, but instead to build up the vision. When we highlight the problems with ESAS directly, we pay a high price in collateral damage, and ultimately frustrate our real goals.
What are our actual, long term goals here? If they are to begin the long process of settling the solar system - as Griffin himself has said in congressional testimony - then we should put our efforts into saying so, loudly and confidently. In the light of a well articulated and widely held vision, the suitability or otherwise of NASA’s current approach will quickly become apparent.
The Vision for Space Exploration unveiled in January 2004 provides a core that we can build around. Attacking NASA’s exploration architecture is premature and counterproductive when we haven’t firmly established in the minds of the nation what our long-term goals in space should be. And “go back to the Moon, on to Mars and beyond” is not a vision, it’s a mission - the vision is what you get when you answer the question “why go back to the Moon, on to Mars and beyond?” Finding that answer, and gaining a degree of consensus, is hard. Getting it out there, into the public unconscious, into our culture, will be even harder.
It’s much easier to just build something, without all that mucking around getting people to agree about what, or why. It’s much easier to sit on the sidelines and criticize whatever comes along.
Which is how we got the ISS, and got where we are now. Let’s not do that again.
Happy Birthday ISS - five years of crewed operations. If only we could figure out what it was that we built you for.
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Tumlinson, Rick & Erin Medlicott
“Return to the Moon”
Apogee Books
2005
ISBN: 1-894-95932-9
Out of the Cradle Review
Publisher’s Web Site
The Space Review review
Space Pragmatism review
Burnham, Robert
“Shoot the Moon”
Astronomy Magazine
11/2005
| You can bet I plan to be intimately involved in the emerging space tourism industry. . . –Dick Rutan
Read this not-to-be-missed interview with Dick Rutan, pilot extraordinaire. Dick circumnavigated the globe with Jeana Yeager in the Voyager around-the-world plane designed by his brother Burt, then did it again in homebuilt LongEZ, on a […]
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