None of orbiter replacements have its capabilities!

Fwd: Rosatom to develop nuclear reactor for long-range space missions

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Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: September 15, 2015 at 6:56:32 PM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Rosatom to develop nuclear reactor for long-range space missions

 

Rosatom to develop nuclear reactor for long-range space missions

 

September 14, 20:49 UTC+3
Russian civilian nuclear power corporation is scheduled to complete a prototype of a megawatt-class nuclear reactor for space flight in 2018

 

© Vladimir Smirnov/TASS

VIENNA, September 14. /TASS/. Russian civilian nuclear power corporation Rosatom will manufacture a prototype megawatt-class nuclear reactor by 2018 for long-range space flights, Rosatom Deputy CEO for Innovation Management Vyacheslav Pershukov said on Monday.

"We are scheduled to complete a prototype of a megawatt-class nuclear reactor for space flight in 2018, and we will do so," Pershukov told journalists on the sidelines of the 59th session of the IAEA General Conference.

"We shall meet our commitments. A solution in principle will be developed, it will be a working example, and Rosatom is hopeful that Roscosmos [Federal Space Agency] will find an application for a useful product like that."

© EPA/NASA/ESA

Russia drops plans to create nuclear space engine — source

 

Roscosmos is said to have pondered abandoning the development of a megawatt-class reactor.

The development of a transport power module based on such a power plant started in 2010, with the engineering design completed in 2012. The completion of the development of the power plant itself was expected in 2015, and transport power module flight tests were anticipated by late 2018. The program's implementation was reported to call for 20 billion rubles ($295 million at the current exchange rate), including 17 billion rubles ($251 million) of governmental funds.

Nuclear power engineering has been repeatedly used by this country in space exploration. The Soviet Union had launched 32 spacecraft equipped with thermoelectric nuclear power plants from 1970 to 1988 and had developed a nuclear engine for space rockets and tested it at the Semipalatinsk nuclear proving ground from 1960 to 1980.

 

© 2015 TASS

 

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Fwd: Kelly and Kornienko Head Into Second Half of Year-Long Mission; Two U.S. EVAs on Tap in October-November

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Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: September 16, 2015 at 4:09:10 PM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Kelly and Kornienko Head Into Second Half of Year-Long Mission; Two U.S. EVAs on Tap in October-November

 

 

AmericaSpace

For a nation that explores
September 15th, 2015

Kelly and Kornienko Head Into Second Half of Year-Long Mission; Two U.S. EVAs on Tap in October-November

By Ben Evans

 

The current Expedition 45 crew of the International Space Station (ISS) comprises (from left) Commander Scott Kelly and Flight Engineers Sergei Volkov, Mikhail Kornienko, Kjell Lindgren, Oleg Kononenko and Kimiya Yui. Photo Credit: NASA

With the International Space Station (ISS) now back at six-person strength, following last week's return to Earth of Soyuz TMA-16M and its crew of record-setting Russian cosmonaut Gennadi Padalka, Kazakhstan's Aidyn Aimbetov and Denmark's first astronaut, Andreas Mogensen, a key milestone will be passed today (Tuesday, 15 September) when Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko officially pass the halfway mark of their (almost) year-long mission. Launched last 26/27 March, aboard Soyuz TMA-16M, alongside Padalka, the two men have now accrued 171 days in orbit and will hit 342 days—or almost 49 weeks—by the time they return to Earth with fellow cosmonaut Sergei Volkov on 2 March 2016. In doing so, Kelly and Kornienko will complete the first mission of close to a full year in duration ever attempted in the 21st century and will join a small cadre of only four other humans to have spent such an extreme period away from the Home Planet on a single voyage.

Passage of the halfway mark of their long mission comes only days after last Saturday's safe return of Soyuz TMA-16M and Padalka, Mogensen and Aimbetov. Since Kelly and Kornienko will effectively spend the duration of two half-year increments aboard the ISS, and with Padalka always due to come home after a standard six months, it was recognized that a replacement crew member would be needed to join them for the second stage of their long voyage. As a consequence, Soyuz TMA-18M was tasked to deliver Russia's Sergei Volkov—a veteran cosmonaut, with two long-duration missions already under his belt—to replace Padalka and form the "new" third member of Kelly and Kornienko's crew. The opportunity was also taken to fly two other individuals for a short, ten-day "changeover" period, with Andreas Mogensen selected on behalf of the European Space Agency (ESA) and English soprano Sarah Brightman as a paying Spaceflight Participant (SFP). However, amid speculation of family and other issues, Brightman withdrew from training earlier in 2015 and was replaced in June by the third ethnic Kazakh cosmonaut, Aidyn Aimbetov.

With Soyuz TMA-18M scheduled to rise from Site 1/5 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on 2 September, there already existed a pair of piloted vehicles—Soyuz TMA-16M, which delivered Padalka, Kelly and Kornienko in March, and Soyuz TMA-17M, which delivered their Expedition 44/45 crewmates Oleg Konenenko, Kjell Lindgren and Kimiya Yui on 22/23 July—at the international outpost. Soyuz TMA-16M was docked at the station's space-facing (or "zenith") Poisk module, whilst Soyuz TMA-17M occupied the Earth-facing (or "nadir") Rassvet module, both of which project radially from the multiple docking adapter of the Zarya module. It is always preferable for long-duration piloted craft to occupy these radial-projecting ports, in order that the aft port of the Zvezda service module is free for unpiloted Progress vehicles to accomplish periodic reboosts of the station's orbit through its longitudinal axis. However, with Zvezda aft having been vacated by Progress M-26M on 14 August and its next resident, Progress M-29M, not due to arrive until early October, the port was temporarily empty. Since Soyuz TMA-16M had spent the longest period aloft, and was due to return to Earth on 11/12 September, it was temporarily relocated in late August to the Zvezda aft interface, thereby retaining the Poisk/Rassvet radial ports for Soyuz TMA-17M and Soyuz TMA-18M and the ongoing long-duration crews.

Soyuz TMA-16M approaches the International Space Station (ISS) on 26/27 March, as viewed by Expedition 43 Commander Terry Virts. After more than 5.5 months docked to the station, Soyuz TMA-16M safely brought Gennadi Padalka, Andreas Mogensen and Aydin Aimbetov back to Earth on 11/12 September. Photo Credit: Terry Virts/NASA/Twitter

At length, Soyuz TMA-18M and its crew of Volkov, Mogensen and Aimbetov roared into orbit from Baikonur on 2 September. Unlike most previous missions, which typically follow a four-orbit "fast rendezvous", lasting about six hours, theirs was required to revert to a longer, two-day approach regime, due to the ISS orbit having recently been raised in response to a Micrometeoroid Orbital Debris (MMOD) avoidance maneuver. "Because of the station's higher altitude, reaching the weightless research facility is now more difficult," ESA noted, "and Roscosmos decided to allow the Soyuz TMA-18M more time to rendezvous and dock."

At length, the spacecraft docked smoothly at the Poisk module on 4 September and, after standard safety briefings, the crews pressed directly into their respective tasks, including Mogensen's full plate of research experiments, primarily executed in Europe's Columbus laboratory, as part of his "iriss" mission. The longer than anticipated transit time and shorter period aboard the ISS had necessitated significant replanning of his science program, which included tests of a new water-cleansing membrane, the demonstration of hands-free goggles, wearing a tight-fitting "Skin Suit" to alleviate astronaut back pain and telerobotically driving two rovers on Earth, as part of efforts to prepare for future deep-space exploration.

During the course of these joint operations—and with the ISS crew having expanded to nine members for the first time since November 2013—command of the station was handed over from the outgoing skipper, Gennadi Padalka, to his replacement, Scott Kelly. Padalka, who became the world's most seasoned spacefarer on 28 June, when he surpassed fellow cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev's cumulative 803-day career total, had also become the first human to command as many as four ISS expeditions. In taking command, and thus passing the torch from Padalka's Expedition 44 to his own Expedition 45, Kelly also became the first U.S. astronaut to lead as many as two discrete ISS expeditions.

On 5 September, from within the voluminous expanse of Japan's Kibo laboratory—the largest single ISS pressurized module—the nine astronauts and cosmonauts gathered for the customary change of command ceremony. With Padalka clad in a bright red shirt, the new Expedition 45 crew of Kelly, Kornienko, Volkov, Kononenko, Lindgren and Yui in navy shirts, Aimbetov in a sky-blue shirt, honoring the national flag of Kazakhstan, and Mogensen in a dark blue shirt, both incoming and outgoing commanders lauded the ISS as having provided them with an outstanding home and workplace. Padalka thanked Kelly and Kornienko for being on his crew and for working well together.

The last six months, clearly, did not run according to plan in many aspects, following the loss of Russia's Progress M-27M cargo ship in April-May and the destruction of SpaceX's CRS-7 Dragon on 28 June, the very same day that Padalka broke the record for the world's most experienced spacefarer. These two losses came atop the failure of Orbital Sciences' ORB-3 Cygnus cargo ship, last 28 October, which effectively put both of NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) cargo providers out of service for a period of several months, as well as marking only the second outright failure of a Progress in more than 37 years of operations. Padalka noted, understatedly, that this was "not a good time" for the ISS, but stressed that his crew had responded by "giving space station a great operational condition".

Expedition 45 Commander Scott Kelly (with microphone, front left) accepts command of the space station from outgoing Expedition 44 Commander Gennadi Padalka (in red shirt), as their crewmates look on. Photo Credit: NASA

Thanking the various Mission Control Centers (MCCs) around the world, he expressed how much he was looking forward to seeing his crewmates on the ground, some sooner and—with a knowing grin and wave to Kelly—"some later". Padalka then handed the microphone to Kelly, whose Navy background led him to describe the change of command ceremony as "a time-honored tradition". He thanked his crewmates, but noted that they were "just the figurehead up here" and that "it takes a team to make this space station run". He highlighted that he was "fortunate to have the wisdom and experience" of a previous ISS command, as well as "a leader like Gennadi to learn from and to see how I could do this job better the second time". Kelly then briefly passed the microphone back to Padalka, who—in just a few words—officially ended his post as Expedition 44 Commander. "I am ready to relinquish command to Scott Kelly," he said, before the oft-transferred microphone went back to the hands of the new Expedition 45 Commander. "And I assume command of the International Space Station," Kelly began, "a great ship and one that not only serves us very well, but serves our various countries very well."

Less than a week later, on the late evening of 11 September, Padalka, Mogensen and Aimbetov boarded Soyuz TMA-16M and undocked from the Zvezda aft port, touching down in central Kazakhstan about three hours later. In doing so, Padalka accrued a total of 878 days, 11 hours and 31 minutes—or about 2.4 years of his life—in space, spread across five long-duration missions to the ISS and to Russia's Mir space station. Completing their first flights, Mogensen and Aimbetov each spent nine days, 20 hours and 14 minutes aloft.

With Expedition 45 under Kelly's command, he and Kornienko today officially enter the second half of their (almost) year-long mission, which is due to conclude with the landing of Soyuz TMA-18M on 2 March 2016. In total, they will have spent 342 days in orbit, whilst Volkov—who will join them for the return journey—will have added 182 days to his own tally of long-duration ISS experience. Rounding out Expedition 45 are Kononenko, Lindgren and Yui, who today pass their 55th day aboard the orbital outpost. They become the first long-duration crew of the ISS era in which none of its members will rotate to command the next consecutive expedition, with Soyuz TMA-16M's Padalka and Kelly having led both the first and second halves of their increment.

The remainder of Expedition 45 carries much promise, despite the loss of SpaceX's CRS-7 Dragon in June and the destruction of the critical first International Docking Adapter (IDA-1) for Commercial Crew support. Original plans called for IDA-1 to be robotically installed onto the Pressurized Mating Adapter (PMA)-2 interface at the forward port of the Harmony node, after which Kelly and Lindgren would have supported an EVA in August to hook up power and data cables and associated utilities. The loss of IDA-1 threw many of those plans into disarray, such that the second adapter—IDA-2, previously manifested aboard SpaceX's CRS-9 Dragon and scheduled for launch in September—will likely not reach space until early 2016 at the soonest. Despite several reports that the CRS-8 mission, carrying the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), might be in a position to launch as soon as mid-November, SpaceX has previously told AmericaSpace that no decisions have been made and that the Hawthorne, Calif.-based launch services company is "still a ways from locking in exact dates/manifest".

Stunning view of an Earth-based lightning strike of such intensity that its glow is reflected by the solar arrays of the International Space Station (ISS). This view was acquired on 2 September by NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren. Photo Credit: NASA

Originally planned to serve as a backup Commercial Crew docking port, affixed to the Pressurized Mating Adapter (PMA)-3 at the space-facing (or "zenith") interface of Harmony, IDA-2 will likely now be retasked as the "new" primary port at PMA-2. It is understood that a replacement adapter, known as IDA-3, is being fabricated from structural spares, although the launch date for this "new" backup port remains unclear.

At present, PMA-3 is situated at the port-facing "end" of the Tranquility node, a position it has occupied for more than five years. Launched aboard shuttle Discovery on STS-92 in October 2000, PMA-3 was originally installed on the Earth-facing (or "nadir") interface of the Unity node and, a few weeks later, in early December, it supported the docking of shuttle Endeavour on STS-97. PMA-3 was used on only one more occasion for a shuttle docking, when it supported the arrival of Atlantis on STS-98 in February 2001. Subsequently, it was robotically relocated by the STS-102 crew in March 2001 from the nadir to the port side of Unity, in order to permit the temporary installation of the Leonardo Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM). With the rapid expansion of the ISS, and the addition of new pressurized modules, PMA-3 was moved back to the Unity nadir port in August 2007, ahead of the arrival of the Harmony node on STS-120, and in early 2009 returned again to Unity nadir. Its most substantial move, however, came in January 2010, when it was transferred from Unity to a temporary spot on the zenith interface of Harmony, where it waited for the arrival of the Tranquility node. During the course of the STS-130 mission in February 2010, PMA-3 was moved to its current position at the port-facing end of the new node. It was noted by NASA that this position would "provide an additional docking port for visiting spacecraft, as well as provide additional debris shielding for Tranquility".

With Commercial Crew now on the horizon, PMA-3 was originally planned to move again in October 2015, being robotically detached from Tranquility and transferred for the second time in its 15-year operational lifetime to the zenith interface of Harmony. However, according to NASA's Rob Navias, the PMA-3 relocation has been indefinitely delayed and the planned EVA by Kelly and Lindgren to hook up utilities and cables has also been canceled. "There will be no PMA-3 relocation in the near future since IDA-3 doesn't exist yet," he told AmericaSpace, "and the Program decided to put it on indefinite hold." That said, the pair will still conduct a pair of EVAs on 28 October and 6 November, for a wide range of other ISS maintenance and get-ahead tasks.

Kjell Lindgren performs routine maintenance on Extravehicular Mobility Units (EMUs) in the Quest airlock, last month. In October-November, Lindgren and Scott Kelly will perform the first two EVAs of their respective careers. Photo Credit: NASA

For the first excursion (U.S. EVA-32) on 28 October, Kelly and Lindgren—both first-time spacewalkers—are tasked with myriad activities. They will install a thermal cover onto the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), which resides at the Upper Inboard Payload Attach Site on the S-3 element of the starboard-side Integrated Truss Structure (ITS), and tie down some Multi-Layered Insulation (MLI) on a 220-pound (100 kg) Main Bus Switching Unit (MBSU). Four MBSUs act as distribution hubs for the station's Electrical Power System (EPS), whilst the unit to be tended by Kelly and Lindgren was delivered to the ISS as a replacement spare aboard Japan's HTV-4 Kounotori cargo ship in August 2013 and is located on a Flight Releasable Attach Mechanism (FRAM) on the ExPRESS Logistics Carrier (ELC)-2 at the interface between the S-3 and S-1 truss segments. "We just want to tie it down so that the [Mobile Base System of Canadarm2] has a clear path for movement," Mr. Navias told AmericaSpace.

In addition to their work on the AMS and MBSU tasks, Kelly and Lindgren will perform lubrication work on the Latching End Effector (LEE) of the 57.7-foot-long (17.6-meter) Canadarm2 robotic arm, which was previously tended by Expedition 42 spacewalker Terry Virts during U.S. EVA-30 in February 2015. They will also install a Non-Propulsive Valve (NPV) onto the exterior of the United States' Destiny laboratory and begin the process of routing cables in anticipation for the PMA-3/IDA-3 installation at some point in the future. Labeled as an "ISS Upgrades EVA", Mr. Navias told AmericaSpace that EVA-32 will see Kelly as "EV1", with red stripes on the legs of his Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) space suit for identification, and Lindgren in a pure-white suit as "EV2".

A week later, on U.S. EVA-33, the spacewalkers will switch roles, with Lindgren assuming the EV1 role and Kelly serving as EV2 on the United States' fifth spacewalk of 2015, following on the heels of the trio of EVAs performed by Expedition 42 astronauts Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Terry Virts in the February-March timeframe to prepare the station's U.S. Orbital Segment (USOS) for Commercial Crew, the IDA installations and the PMA-3 relocation. The primary objective of EVA-33 can trace its ancestry back to November 2012, when Expedition 33 spacewalkers Suni Williams and Aki Hoshide attempted to isolate an ammonia leak in the cooling system of the P-6 port-side element of the ITS. It was speculated at the time that the leak possibly arose following an MMOD strike to its Photovoltaic Radiator (PVR) or perhaps age-induced cracking, but by mid-2012 the leak had increased to 5.2 pounds (2.4 kg) per year, which represented about 10 percent of P-6's original ammonia load. This, in turn, raised the alarming risk that the critical 2B power channel—which carries major electrical loads across the whole ISS—could have been forced to shut down before the end of 2012.

Williams and Hoshide's EVA isolated the 2B coolant loop and used the Trailing Thermal Control Radiator (TTCR) for subsequent cooling, allowing engineers to pinpoint the exact location of the ammonia leak. However, six months later, in May 2013, ammonia "snow" was seen emanating from the 2B power channel, which necessitated a contingency EVA by Expedition 35 spacewalkers Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn. The pair were unable to locate the source of the leakage, but removed, replaced and tested a suspect Pump Flow Control Subassembly (PFCS), which was expected to yield additional clues for investigators in their search for a solution. More than two years later, Kelly and Lindgren's task on U.S. EVA-33 will be "to restore the P-6 truss cooling system to the original state it was in prior to the Williams/Hoshide EVA". Mr. Navias noted that no timelines are available yet with regard to U.S. EVAs 32 and 33.

Dovetailed into the U.S. EVA manifest, Japan's H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV)-5 Kounotori ("White Stork") cargo ship is expected to be robotically unberthed from Harmony's nadir interface and depart the station on 28 September, after which Russia's Progress M-29M will arrive on 1/2 October and dock at the Zvezda aft port. Another Russian cargo craft, Progress M-28M—which has been docked at the Pirs module since early July—will depart on 19 November, to be replaced a few days later by the first flight of a new vessel, Progress-MS. Orbital Sciences is expected to launch its next Cygnus cargo mission, ORB-4, no sooner than 4 December, atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V 401 booster from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

In the meantime, Kelly and Kornienko will press on with the second half of their long mission. As detailed recently by NASA, the two men have focused on a series of scientific and biomedical experiments, with a focus upon seven key areas of human research: functional, behavioral health, visual impairment, metabolic, physical performance, microbial and Human Factors. Described as "one of the most ambitious studies undertaken so far", Fluid Shifts—which forms part of the visual impairment group of experiments—investigates the process of fluid shifting into astronauts' upper bodies when exposed to weightlessness. "This shift may cause changes in vision through increased intracranial pressure and is a major issue that scientists are looking to resolve before humans being exploring beyond Earth's orbit," NASA reported. "The study uses the Russian Chibis device to draw fluids back into the legs, while measurements of the subject's eyes are taken to track any changes. NASA and Roscosmos are already looking at continuing the Fluid Shifts investigation with future space station crews, beyond the one-year mission."

For the second time in 2015, a "direct rotation" of crew members will take place just prior to Christmas, with Soyuz TMA-19M expected to launch from Baikonur on 15 December, carrying Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, NASA astronaut Tim Kopra and Britain's Tim Peake. This will boost the Expedition 45 crew up to nine members. A second direct handover of crews was not originally planned for 2015, but was added in order to maximize the time spent in orbit by Soyuz TMA-17M's Kononenko, Lindgren and Yui, the beginning of whose six-month flight was postponed from May to July, and whose landing date is being correspondingly extended from 5 November to 22 December. In anticipation of the Soyuz TMA-19M arrival, Kononenko, Lindgren and Yui will relocate their Soyuz TMA-17M spacecraft to the Zvezda aft port, opening up Rassvet for the new arrivals. Soyuz TMA-17M will then return to Earth three days before Christmas, marking the dawn of Expedition 46—also under Kelly's command—which will run through the end of the (almost) one-year mission on 2 March 2016.

 

Copyright © 2015 AmericaSpace - All Rights Reserved

 

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Halfway Home: One-Year Space Crew Rallies for 6 More Months Off Earth

by Calla Cofield, Space.com Staff Writer   |   September 15, 2015 08:21am ET

 

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly is spending a year in space during his Expedition 44 mission to the International Space Station. Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko are flying the yearlong space mission to study the effects of long-term spaceflight on the human body. Credit: NASA View full size image

Two space travelers on the International Space Station are entering rarely tread territory as they pass the six-month mark in a yearlong stay in orbit. The mission will help scientists understand how humans might cope with a journey to Mars.

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly on the International Space Station (via video at top) waves while talking with reporters at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 14, 2015 during a discussion of his one-year space mission. Kelly's identical twin brother Mark Kelly (a former NASA astronaut) sits at center, with National Press Club president John Hughs at left and astronaut Terry Virts at right.
Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

View full size image

American astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko have been living on the space station for about six months and won't be going home for another half-year. Their yearlong space mission is about twice as long as a typical extended stay on the station, so compared to typical astronauts, they're spending twice the time away from friends and family, twice the time in weightlessness, and twice the time exposed to space radiation — and experiencing twice the dose of physical and mental stress.

"I expected this to not be easy. A year is a long time," Kelly told reporters during an in-flight interview on Sept. 8. Kelly and Kornienko are undergoing a swarm of scientific studies that may shed light on the mental and physical changes the human body undergoes during long spaceflight missions. The long-term goal of the one-year mission is to help develop better ways to prepare and protect astronauts as they take the next big leap beyond Earth — possibly on a journey to the Red Planet. [NASA's One-Year Space Mission in Pictures]

NASA astronaut Mark Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko are taking the ultimate space trip: one year in space on the International Space Station. See how their epic yearlong space station mission works in this infographic.
Credit: By Karl Tate, Infographics Artist

View full size image

"I feel pretty good overall," Kelly said Monday (Sept. 14) in an in-flight interview on NASA TV. "I definitely recognize that I've been up here a long time and have just as long ahead of me. But I feel positive about it."

Kelly added that he has consciously paced himself more slowly on this mission than on his last trip into orbit, which put him on the orbiting laboratory for 159 days.

"I intentionally thought about ways for me to get to the end of this with as much energy as I had in the beginning," Kelly said. "I intentionally don't work at the same pace I did last time I was up here, when I felt like I could go at 100 percent speed for the full six months. I can't do that. So I consciously try to throttle myself back at certain times and have a really good balance between work and rest. And that's what I would encourage anyone who attempts to spend this amount of time in this type of environment, is you just have to pace yourself."

If humans were to take a trip to Mars using near-future technology, the journey would likely take more than one year each way. While Kelly and Kornienko are not the first astronauts to surpass six months in space — five Russian cosmonauts have spent more than a year in orbit — relatively little scientific study has been done on those long-term space travelers. With the one-year mission, scientists will get their hands on a massive haul of data revealing the physical effects of long-duration spaceflight. Ultimately, this may help scientists understand how to assist and protect astronauts going to Mars or beyond.

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly (right) and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko on the International Space Station speak with members of the press via a video link on Monday, Sept. 14, 2015. Tuesday (Sept. 15) marks the halfway point of their one-year mission, which will keep them on the station until March 2016.
Credit: NASA TV

View full size image

"Physically, I feel good […] but there are a lot of effects of this environment that we can't see or feel, like bone loss, effects on our vision, effects on our genetics — DNA, RNA and proteins — and that's why we're studying myself and [Mikhail Kornienko] on this one-year flight," Kelly said Monday. "I think right now the jury's out on [what those effects are]. We're going to have to get all the data and have the scientists analyze it […]. Hopefully, we'll find out some great things about me and my colleagues spending a year in space." [The Human Body In Space: 6 Weird Facts]

While the results of the scientific studies on Kelly and Kornienko will not be revealed until after the mission is over, Kelly said he has taken note of how his body has adjusted to life in microgravity. He said spending a long time aboard the station means that he continues to adapt.

"So far, I've found that it is a continuous thing," Kelly said. "It gets less significant over time, but I do notice that I can do things now that I couldn't do right when I first got up here, even though I had flown 180 days in space before. My ability to move around is really improved over time and continues to improve. And, you know, you just get more comfortable. Your clarity of thought is greater. Your ability to focus. Things like that. I have found that the adaptation has not stopped. And it'll be interesting to see where I'm at six months from now."

While a one-year mission on the International Space Station is no easy task, it is certainly very different from a trip to Mars. Space travelers on a journey to the Red Planet would travel through millions of miles of empty space, far from home and locked up with the same group of people for the entire trip. The astronauts on the orbiting station have it somewhat easier: They can see Earth. They have a relatively quick way to get home if the need arises, and their crewmates change from time to time.

But Kelly and Kornienko will experience some of the mental strain of a Mars mission while they are on the station, including not being able to go outside (except during spacewalks, which aren't exactly a walk in the park).

"This is a very closed environment. We can never leave. The lighting's always pretty much the same — the smells, the sounds, everything's the same," Kelly said yesterday. "I think even most prisoners can get outside occasionally in a week. But we can't. And that's what I miss, after people."

A year in space means a year away from the supermarket. Here, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly poses with a delivery of fresh fruit on the International Space Station that arrived in late August on a Japanese cargo ship.
Credit: NASA

View full size image

In the Sept. 8 interview, Kelly was asked what he thought might be the difference between his mindset at the halfway point of the one-year mission, and the mindset of some future crew reaching a halfway point on a journey to Mars.

"I think for the folks who go to Mars, especially the first time, that's going to be such an incredible destination and event that they're going to be really psyched up for getting there," Kelly said. "And I'm not saying I'm not psyched up for the rest of this, but in some ways, almost being halfway through, a lot of what we're going to be doing is going to be similar to what we've already done. And we have a person here […] who is getting ready to leave us — Gennady [Padalka]. And that obviously wouldn't happen on [a journey to] Mars. That makes it a little bit different — people coming and going. So I think it's hard to compare the two experiences, but man I'm excited for the folks who get to go to Mars someday."

 

Copyright © 2015 TechMediaNetwork.com All rights reserved. 

 

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20 technologies that will keep the US Air Force flying high - AEI

https://www.aei.org/publication/20-technologies-that-will-keep-the-us-air-force-flying-high/


Sent from my iPad

Fwd: How Jeff Bezos and Other Billionaires Are Transforming Space Travel

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: September 17, 2015 at 10:18:03 AM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: How Jeff Bezos and Other Billionaires Are Transforming Space Travel

How Jeff Bezos and Other Billionaires Are Transforming Space Travel

by Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer   |   September 16, 2015 02:55pm ET

 

Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos unveils the company's plans to launch a fleet of reusable rockets and spacecraft from Cape Canaveral in Florida during a media event on Sept. 15, 2015. Credit: Blue Origin View full size image

Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos isn't the only billionaire who wants to put his stamp on spaceflight.

Bezos announced Tuesday (Sept. 15) that Blue Origin, the private spaceflight company he established in 2000, will manufacture and launch a fleet of reusable vehicles from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, with the first flights scheduled to begin by the end of the decade.

The news is creating quite a stir. But so are the activities of spaceflight companies headed by Elon Musk, Richard Branson and Paul Allen — all billionaires themselves. Here's a brief rundown of how the megarich are helping shape the exploration and exploitation of space. [Watch Blue Origin Announce Its Florida Launch Plans]

Jeff Bezos: Blue Origin

Blue Origin is developing reusable rockets and spacecraft to launch astronauts to both suborbital and orbital space. Reusability could spur the next big leap in crewed space exploration by dramatically cutting the cost of flight, advocates of the technology say.

Blue Origin launched a successful test flight of its New Shepard suborbital vehicle this past April from a facility in West Texas, which will also host future launches of the craft. The company's biconic orbital vehicle, by contrast, will lift off from Cape Canaveral, atop a new rocket that Jeff Bezos (who is worth $34.8 billion, according to a recent estimate by Forbes magazine) and his colleagues are calling "Very Big Brother."  

Very Big Brother will launch and land vertically and reuse its first stage. The rocket will be powered by the new BE-4 engine, which Blue Origin is developing with launch provider United Launch Alliance (ULA). The BE-4 will also be incorporated into ULA's reusable Vulcan rocket.

Elon Musk: SpaceX

PayPal co-founder Elon Musk (who has a net worth of $12 billion) set up SpaceX in 2002, with the explicit aim of helping humanity colonize Mars. Like Bezos, Musk is a big proponent of reusable rockets, saying a fully and rapidly reusable launch system could make a Red Planet settlement economically feasible.

So SpaceX is working hard to develop reusable rockets; the company has made two attempts to land the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean following cargo launches to the International Space Station. (SpaceX holds a $1.6 billion deal to fly at least 12 robotic resupply missions to the orbiting lab for NASA using the Falcon 9 and the company's Dragon capsule.)

Both of these landing attempts, which occurred in January 2015 and April 2015, nearly succeeded; the Falcon 9's first stage hit the ship on both occasions but toppled over and exploded. A June launch of a Falcon 9 rocket also exploded just after liftoff, with SpaceX has traced the failure to a faulty strut. The company plans to return to flight in the fall. [Watch SpaceX's near-miss April 2015 rocket-landing attempt]

SpaceX also won a $2.6 billion NASA contract to fly astronauts to and from the space station using a crewed version of Dragon. The agency awarded Boeing $4.2 billion as well to finish developing its CST-100  capsule, which is now known as Starliner; NASA hopes that one or both private space taxis will be up and running by 2017.

SpaceX is also working on a powerful rocket called the Falcon Heavy, which will handle weighty payloads destined for Earth orbit and also send spacecraft toward Mars and other distant destinations. The Falcon Heavy's maiden flight should take place in 2016, company representatives have said.

Richard Branson: Virgin Galactic

British entrepreneur Richard Branson ($4.8 billion) founded Virgin Galactic in 2004, with an eye toward creating a new tourism industry in suborbital space.

The company is developing a six-passenger vehicle called SpaceShipTwo, which will be lofted to an altitude of about 50,000 feet (15,000 meters) by a carrier aircraft known as WhiteKnightTwo. At that point, SpaceShipTwo will be dropped and turn on its rocket engine, blasting itself upward to suborbital space.

Customers will experience a few minutes of weightlessness and see Earth against the blackness of space before coming back down for a runway landing, Virgin Galactic representatives have said. A ticket to ride the space plane currently sells for $250,000.

SpaceShipTwo is in the test phase and experienced a tragic setback last year during the vehicle's fourth rocket-powered flight. SpaceShipTwo broke apart in mid-air on Oct. 31, killing co-pilot Michael Alsbury and injuring pilot Peter Siebold. The accident occurred because Alsbury unlocked the space plane's "feathering" re-entry system too soon, investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board have determined.

Paul Allen: Stratolaunch Systems

Paul Allen ($17.5 billion), who co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates, is another billionaire with a longstanding interest in space. Allen helped bankroll SpaceShipOne, an experimental vehicle that won the $10 million Ansari X Prize in 2004 after getting to space and back twice within the span of five days.

SpaceShipOne, which became the basis for Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, was designed by Scaled Composites, a California-based company led by famed aerospace engineer Burt Rutan. Allen and Rutan teamed up again in 2011 to form Stratolaunch Systems, which aims to launch satellites (and, eventually, crewed vehicles) beneath an enormous airplane — a setup designed to make spaceflight cheaper and more efficient.

That plane, in fact, will be the largest aircraft ever built, with a wingspan of 385 feet (117 meters), Stratolaunch representatives have said. The company aims to fly the huge plane for the first time in 2016.

Stratolaunch Systems is a subsidiary of Vulcan Aerospace, a company Allen unveiled in 2015. Vulcan Aerospace oversees the space projects of Vulcan, Inc., which Paul Allen founded with his sister Jody in 1986.

Asteroid mining, too

Billionaires are also making a splash by investing in, rather than creating, space companies.

For example, the asteroid-mining company Planetary Resources, which announced its existence in 2012, counts five billionaires among its investors — Google executives Larry Page ($29.7 billion) and Eric Schmidt ($9.1 billion), former Google board member K. Ram Shriram ($1.9 billion), real-estate developer Ross Perot, Jr. ($1.75 billion) and software architect Charles Simonyi ($1.4 billion).

Another Planetary Resources investor, filmmaker James Cameron, is worth about $700 million.

 

Copyright © 2015 TechMediaNetwork.com All rights reserved. 

 

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NASA Completes Key Milestone for Orion Spacecraft in Support of Journey to Mars -- WASHINGTON, Sept. 16, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nasa-completes-key-milestone-for-orion-spacecraft-in-support-of-journey-to-mars-300144280.html


Sent from my iPad

Fwd: China conducts two space launches in short span

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: September 15, 2015 at 6:53:44 PM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: China conducts two space launches in short span

 

 

China conducts two space launches in short span

September 14, 2015 by Stephen Clark

A Long March 2D rocket launched Monday with the Gaofen 9 remote sensing satellite. Credit: Xinhua

Two space launches from China in a 37-hour span have placed an experimental communications satellite and a sharp-eyed Earth-viewing craft into orbit, according to Chinese state media reports.

Neither launch was officially announced ahead of time by Chinese authorities.

The first mission blasted off from the Xichang space center in southwestern China's Sichuan province, where a Long March 3B rocket streaked into orbit with an experimental satellite to test communications technologies, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Fitted with four strap-on liquid-fueled boosters, the Long March 3B lifted off at 1542 GMT (11:42 a.m. EDT) Saturday, or 11:42 p.m. Beijing time.

The rocket's third stage released the secretive payload about 27 minutes later, dropping the satellite in a geostationary transfer orbit with a high point of approximately 35,800 kilometers (22,245 miles) and a low point of about 200 kilometers (124 miles), according to U.S. military tracking data.

No other information about the spacecraft was released by China — including its name — leading some observers to speculate it might be an intelligence-gathering satellite or a platform to give early warning to Chinese leaders of a missile strike.

A Long March 3B rocket lifted off Saturday from the Niching space center. Credit: Xinhua

Another liftoff Monday from the Jiuquan launch base in the Gobi Desert of northwest China put up a new Earth observation satellite, officials said.

A two-stage Long March 2D booster fired away from Jiuquan at 0442 GMT (12:42 a.m. EDT) Monday, according to Xinhua.

Its payload was the Gaofen 9 remote sensing satellite, a civilian-operated asset designed to collect imagery of Earth with a resolution better than 1 meter (3.3 feet), Xinhua reported.

Xinhua said the Gaofen 9 satellite "will be used in land survey, urban planning, road network design, agriculture, and disaster relief."

U.S. satellite tracking information indicated Gaofen 9 was flying around Earth in a nearly circular orbit averaging about 639 kilometers, or 397 miles, in altitude at an inclination of 98 degrees.

"Developed by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology, Gaofen 9 can also serve key national strategies such as the Belt and Road Initiative and national defense," Xinhua reported.

Previous satellites in the Gaofen series — Gaofen 1, Gaofen 2 and Gaofen 8 — launched from China in 2013, 2014 and earlier in 2015.

 

© 2015 Spaceflight Now Inc.

 

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