More from Bigelow. So far, so good:
Bigelow Aerospace Confirms Space Module has Successfully Expanded and Functioning Well
Las Vegas, NV 06/28/07 – Bigelow Aerospace has established contact with its second pathfinder spacecraft, Genesis II. Launched earlier Thursday from Yasny, Russia, Mission Control in North Las Vegas, Nev., made first contact at 2:20 p.m. PDT.
Initial data suggests sufficient voltage powering up Genesis II’s batteries as well as expected air pressure. While the actual confirmation of solar panel deployment and spacecraft expansion are expected later, the data suggests that deployment and expansion have been successful.
Before contact, successful communication was considered a long shot on Genesis II’s first pass over the ground station in Fairfax, Va. Elevation for the pass was considered low for a successful contact.
“We don’t even talk to Genesis I that low,” Program Manager Eric Haakonstad said.
READ MORE…
This just arrived from Bigelow Aerospace. Congratulations, guys!
Genesis II Successfully Launched
Bigelow Aerospace Still Awaits Confirmation of Spacecraft Health and Expansion
Las Vegas, NV 06/28/07 – Genesis II, the second experimental pathfinder spacecraft by Bigelow Aerospace, has been successfully launched and inserted into orbit. The privately-funded space station module was launched atop a Dnepr rocket at 8:02 a.m. PDT from the ISC Kosmotras Yasny Cosmodrome located in the Orenburg region of Russia.
READ MORE…
Popular Science describes a collaboration between Armadillo Aerospace and Orbital Outfitters that hopes to kick-start the sport of space-diving.
Apparently by some big players:
Somewhat to his surprise, three major aerospace companies are talking to Armadillo Aerospace about flying sensor systems on Armadillo vehicles, using them as high-altitude platforms, Neil Milburn, program manager for Armadillo Aerospace, said in a June 15 interview: Those flights are expected to begin in 2008. While not identifying the customers, Milburn said one of those companies is not a domestic U.S.company.
“So we have finally crossed over into the realm of providing actual value that people care about,” Carmack added.
For years now, John Carmack and his team have been following the mantra of “build a little, test a little” and it looks like they have learned a lot from it. All this with only relatively modest outlays in terms of money and people’s time, by aerospace standards. Maybe there’s something there that the Big Aerospace crowd could learn from that.
Wild Ties
Moon craters tie
Publisher’s Web Site
Librarian’s Note: Hat tip to the Moon Miner’s Manifesto for the heads up on this one.
…because there isn’t a shower.
“Sweat doesn’t fall of you. The water just accumulates until it gets too big and agitated and falls off like a sphere of water. It then floats around until it hits something. It takes a lot of water to fall off.” Imagine huge water balls of sweat bouncing and crashing around mid-air.
Um, yuk. Especially when you take into account that the station crews have to spend an appreciable portion of each day exercising to keep healthy in zero-g. I’m sure the mechanics of making a shower work in microgravity are tricky (the toilet is bad enough), but this sure sounds like a human factors problem waiting for a solution. I wonder what floating globs of sweat do to station electronics?
Good to see that construction on the ISS is continuing, although not without some hiccups. There was a problem with the command and control computers in the Russian segment - all six crashed simultaneously, a failure that must have really gotten the attention of everybody on board, and everybody in mission control. Four days of troubleshooting led to a work-around that has the computers back up and operational, but the work-around leaves me a little uneasy. The exact source of the problem is still under investigation, but the immediate symptom was that the surge protection on the computers’ power supply would trip. The ‘fix’ was to have the ISS crew use jumper cables to bypass the surge protectors.
I’m sure that’s a configuration they wont want to stay in for very long.
In the meantime, the visit by shuttle Atlantis and the installation of the new s3/s4 truss and solar array wing went pretty smoothly. Atlantis had a problem with a thermal protection blanket on one of the orbital maneuvering system pods peeling back, but with a little ingenuity and a medical stapler, spacewalking astronaut Danny Olivas has tacked it back down again. Luckily, the problem was in a place where there is not enough thermal heating on re-entry to place the shuttle in danger.
This photo of the ISS, taken by the departing shuttle, gives a good overview of the changed station layout. It sure looks bigger and better with that new solar array wing on board.
Josh Bach Ltd.
Moonphases tie
Publisher’s Web Site
Librarian’s Note: Happy Fathers Day, everyone!
Carlowicz, Michael
“the moon”
Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
06/2007
ISBN: 0-810-99307-4
Publisher’s Web Site
Rutgers University School of Engineering
Rutgers Symposium on Lunar Settlements
Center for Structures in eXtreme Environments (CSXE)
June 3-8, 2007
Conference Home
Conference Presentations
Librarian’s Note: Harrison Schmitt’s presentation will be on “Return to the Moon - Expanding the Earth’s Economic Sphere”.
