Chinese engineers are working on a hydrogen-fueled rocket engine almost three times the size of their current largest powerplant in that category. But the work is only at an early stage. The engine, which would develop thrust of 200 metric (440,000 lb.) thrust, exists as a concept or preliminary design. So far, developers are tackling critical technologies and have not built parts of a serviceable engine, says Zhang Nan, president of the Beijing Aerospace Propulsion Institute.
With the successful debut of its Epsilon rocket last week, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is advancing incremental improvements to the new solid-fueled launcher with commercial customers in mind. “We are taking a two-step development plan to launch a low-cost, high-performance Epsilon,” says Yasuhiro Morita, Epsilon program manager at JAXA. “We are aiming at the commercial market after the establishment of the next-generation Epsilon, and I hope to be very competitive.”
China is eager to collaborate with Russia or Europe to use its Shenzhou human spacecraft and perhaps a planned cargo carrier to support the International Space Station, even as it works toward starting a Mir-class station of its own by 2020.
Orbital Science Corp.’s Cygnus resupply capsule will loiter in orbit until at least Sept. 28, permitting Russia to proceed with an upcoming three-man Soyuz crew transport mission to the International Space Station, before making a second attempt at a NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems (COTS) program rendezvous and grapple demonstration, NASA and the Dulles, Va., based company announced Sept. 23.
An Australian research team hoping to conduct a free flight Mach 8 test of a novel inlet-fueled scramjet is investigating what prevented the hypersonic flight experiment from reaching the correct test conditions.
While NASA’s engineers plot the next steps in human spaceflight and Congress struggles with the cost, the 100 Year Starship nonprofit is focused on an aggressive interstellar journey with the best humanity has to offer. Launched with a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Project Agency in early 2012, the group, led by former NASA astronaut and physician Mae Jemison, is now reaching out on its own with a cultural and socially inclusive vision of human daring that echoes the themes that Star Trek and Star Wars sounded generations ago.
Measurements of methane in the Martian atmosphere made by the Tunable Laser Spectrometer aboard NASA’s Curiosity rover since the August 2012 landing in Gale Crater find surface concentrations of the gaseous hydrocarbon much too low to support subsurface biological activity as a source.
When the nearest hardware store is 350 mi. straight down, tool control takes on a whole new dimension. Take away gravity, and air, and it gets even harder. Just ask Jill McGuire, a private pilot who was also the engineer in charge of crew aids and tools for the last servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope in May 2009. “You have to take everything with you,” she says. “You don't get a chance to run to Home Depot.”
Boeing satellite engineers continue preparing the first Inmarsat-5 mobile broadband satellite for launch on a Russian Proton before the end of the year, after the spacecraft made it through thermal-vacuum testing without a hitch. The 702HP-based satellite and two more are designed for Inmarsat's Global Xpress network of broadband links for mobile users on land, sea and in the air.
Controllers are preparing another Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF-3) spacecraft for operation after an early morning launch Sept. 18 on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V flying from Cape Canaveral. Liftoff came at 4:10 a.m. EDT; Lockheed Martin Space Systems—builder of the satellite—acquired its signal 51 min. later.
NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) has run into some heavy political flack on Capitol Hill, but inside the agency there is a clear understanding that it can be the nucleus of a lot of advanced-technology developments needed for expansion of human spaceflight into the Solar System, regardless of the objective.
WALLOPS FLIGHT FACILITY, Va. – Orbital Sciences Corp. has enough hardware on hand for the 10 commercial cargo missions it has contracted with NASA, and is already looking ahead to the day when it runs out of the surplus Soviet-era Russian engines it uses to power its new Antares launch vehicle.
Sierra Nevada is conducting flight readiness reviews for the first drop test of the Dream Chaser lifting body at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards AFB, Calif., amid wider preparations for the company’s first Commercial Crew critical design review (CDR).
Conditions are good for the first flight to the International Space Station of the Orbital Sciences Corp. Antares rocket with a Cygnus commercial cargo carrier, which would give NASA two ways to resupply station crews with food, clothing and hardware.
Boeing and Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), the competitors proposing capsule-based concepts for NASA’s Commercial Crew program, are approaching an intense period of key test and development milestones, made busier by new targets added by the space agency.
BEIJING — A Japanese program to develop a cheaper solid-propellant space launcher has achieved successful first launch, with the Epsilon rocket putting a planetary observation satellite into orbit. The first Epsilon launch cost ¥5.3 billion ($53.6 million), compared with a ¥3.8 billion target quoted for the rocket’s initial version by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in 2011.
