NASA and the Private Sector - Page 122

but it's not because they're just soooooo popular, it's because they're a lower cost, lower reliability option.

On May 02 2017 04:11 LegalLord wrote:
You have an annoying habit of strawmanning points to inject the context you want them to have. I wonder why I waste my time with you.

A powerhouse communications satellite owned by Inmarsat has been fueled for liftoff on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Monday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a mission to provide broadband links for passengers and crews aboard ships and airplanes, while technicians are loading space station-bound supplies into a commercial Dragon cargo capsule and preparing a Bulgarian telecom for launch on two other SpaceX boosters by mid-June.

The launch for London-based Inmarsat on Monday is the first of four SpaceX missions slated to blast off by the end of June from launch pads in Florida and California. The quick launch cadence, if achieved successfully, put a dent in SpaceX’s backlogged manifest, which officials say stands at 70 missions worth more than $10 billion, figures that apparently include the company’s lucrative contract to develop a human-rated spaceship to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station.

Since arriving at the Florida launch base last month, the Boeing-built Inmarsat 5 F4 communications station was filled with 5,372 pounds (2,437 kilograms) of hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide propellants during a four-day procedure inside SpaceX’s payload processing facility at Cape Canaveral.

Technicians lifted the spacecraft on the Falcon 9’s payload adapter, made by Ruag Space in Sweden, ahead of encapsulation this week inside the rocket’s composite payload fairing. The adapter is fitted with a ring connecting the Inmarsat 5 F4 spacecraft to the Falcon 9’s second stage.

Meanwhile, SpaceX workers inside the Falcon 9 hangar at nearby launch pad 39A were mounting the two-stage booster on a mobile transporter-erector Wednesday. SpaceX intends to roll out the rocket to pad 39A for a customary fueling test and a hold-down engine firing as soon as Thursday.

The Falcon 9’s Merlin 1D main engines will ignite for more than three seconds as clamps keep the rocket grounded. Engineers plan to analyze the performance of the rocket before clearing it for liftoff Monday.

Ever since the first successful suborbital flight of its New Shepard spacecraft and rocket, Blue Origin has been leading a charmed life. The company, founded by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, has launched and safely landed its reusable vehicle five times. It has splashily announced a forthcoming orbital rocket, New Glenn. And Bezos himself has racked up a number of aerospace awards for his accomplishments.

But on Sunday Blue Origin announced a setback. "We lost a set of powerpack test hardware on one of our BE-4 test stands yesterday," the company tweeted. "Not unusual during development." The company declined to provide more information about the accident to Ars, but most likely the powerpack—that is, the turbines and pumps that provide the fuel-oxidizer mix into the combustion chamber of the rocket engine—exploded.

It is not clear whether the test stand itself sustained serious damage (the company has at least two stands at its rocket engine testing facilities near Van Horn, Texas), nor whether the engine hardware was being pushed to some kind of limit, or whether this was part of routine testing as Blue Origin moves toward a full-scale engine test. Also, while no details were released, Blue Origin added that it expects engine testing to resume "soon."

The fact that Blue Origin, a relatively secretive company, shared this information at all is a bit revealing. Notably, it suggests the company continues to take steps toward openness. This is the first time it has ever publicly shared information about technical problems during the development of any hardware.

This appears unlikely to be a major stumbling block for Blue Origin, unless the failure has exposed some fundamental flaw with the BE-4 engine design—which seems a low probability. Rather, such accidents are a common part of engine testing. High pressures and combustible fuels are inherently an explosive mix. And as the company is well capitalized due to Bezos' deep pockets, it has redundant sets of engine hardware both at the test site and in development at its Washington-based headquarters, which means it can fix the problem and move forward.

Additionally, this accident should have no bearing on the company's plans to move forward with test flights of New Shepard later this summer or early this fall. That launch vehicle uses the smaller BE-3 engine, which is well-tested. Commercial suborbital flights of New Shepard could begin as early as 2018.

On Monday, SpaceX had yet another successful launch. The Falcon 9 that took off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida carried a record-breaking 13,500-pound satellite for Inmarsat’s Global Xpress network.

We didn’t get a cool landing of the first-stage booster on a droneship Monday because the satellite was so heavy. In fact, it was the heaviest load a Falcon 9 has ever taken to geostationary orbit, about 22,000 miles above Earth’s surface. There simply wasn’t enough propellant left after the launch for the first stage booster to return to Earth.

SpaceX’s next launch will be on June 1, when a Falcon 9 will take the eleventh Cargo Resupply Mission to the International Space Station. The rocket will deliver a Dragon capsule of 7,000 pounds of scientific equipment and supplies to crew members.

Beyond this mission, SpaceX is truly completing its goal of launching every two to three weeks, with an expected nine launches by August. Getting a routine schedule down is the first step in ensuring that SpaceX can colonize Mars properly with a safe and reliable transportation system that can deliver cargo and humans. Elon Musk has already named it the Interplanetary Transport System.

It was also recently announced that SpaceX will be unveiling a new version of the Falcon 9, called the Block 5. The Block 5 will be the first rocket that is capable of a complete turnaround and re-flight in 24 hours. This new rocket is also in line with Musk’s goals for the Interplanetary Transport System because it allows for frequent, inexpensive, and efficient travel. Musk’s goal is for a ticket to Mars to be about $100,000 per person.

The Block 5 will inspire the mechanics for the Falcon Heavy, the most powerful operational rocket in the world. This behemoth will carry 119,000 pounds of cargo into orbit, about ten times more than the typical load a Falcon 9 takes to the International Space Station. The Falcon Heavy is expected to have its debut launch in late summer or early fall of this year.

But, beyond the Falcon Heavy, is something even more grand. The BFR, or Big Fucking Rocket. This rocket will be about the height of a skyscraper at 400 feet tall. It will be able to generate four times the thrust of the Saturn V, Musk said during a recent TED talk. Musk says the BFR will offer “the thrust equivalent of 120 747s with all engines blazing.” This ship will be a colonizing vessel, capable of carrying a small population of humans and everything they will need to survive on the red planet.

The BFR is truly the last step before Mars travel, which doesn’t have a time stamp just yet. But, Elon Musk is determined to get there in the next decade. Earlier this month, it was announced that SpaceX would be sending two Dragon capsules to Mars in 2020 to collect data. This will give them double the chance of landing successfully on the planet, which is about 34 million miles away. At the pace SpaceX is going, Mars is getting less and less difficult to fathom. Now, the only question that remains is when will we be able to buy our tickets?