NASA and the Private Sector - Page 151

On January 25 2018 02:20 Sn0_Man wrote:
I don't pretend to understand very much about how spacecraft fueling actually works, but it seems to me that leaking giant plumes of LOX into the atmosphere (where it's extremely flammable) is a recipe for explosion, even with great care taken to avoid potential ignition sources.

On January 25 2018 03:14 JumboJohnson wrote:


Isn't LOX just liquid oxygen? It should just instantly turn to gasous oxygen under atmospheric pressure.

On January 25 2018 03:36 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Date set:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/956233892637286400

Geologists hoping to study the past climate history of Mars — and visionaries planning future visits by astronauts — got some great news with the discovery that exposures of water ice have been spotted on cliff faces.

The widely scattered outcrops, seven in the southern hemisphere and one in the north, lie at latitudes of 55° to 58° — far from the planet's polar caps of water (and carbon-dioxide) ice.

Colin Dundas (U.S. Geological Survey, Flagstaff) led the team that made the discovery using two instruments aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. First, detailed images from the spacecraft's HiRISE camera revealed banded layers in the scarps' steep faces that had a bluer color than their surroundings. Then near-infrared maps from the CRISM spectrometer confirmed that the layers were strongly enriched in water ice.

On January 25 2018 02:20 Sn0_Man wrote:
I don't pretend to understand very much about how spacecraft fueling actually works, but it seems to me that leaking giant plumes of LOX into the atmosphere (where it's extremely flammable) is a recipe for explosion, even with great care taken to avoid potential ignition sources.

SpaceX rolled out the Falcon Heavy to Launch Complex 39A earlier this month in advance of the test fire, amidst reports that SpaceX’s previous satellite delivery, Zuma, may have not made it to orbit. (The Air Force has since confirmed that the company is not responsible.) The Falcon Heavy remained at 39A over the last two weeks, as SpaceX planned and then pushed back the test, day by day.

First, sensors picked up an issue with ground equipment during a dress rehearsal. Then further delays pushed the static fire to January 19, but SpaceX competitor ULA first had to launch a mission for the Air Force from a nearby pad at Cape Canaveral. When that launch was scrubbed, SpaceX was pushed and then delayed again due to the government shutdown. No launch providers can operate at the Cape without personnel and assistance from the Air Force’s 45th Space Wing—who finally returned to work after after President Trump signed a bill on Monday ending the government shutdown. Soon after, sources confirmed that SpaceX would run a full wet dress rehearsal on Wednesday at pad 39A followed by a static fire of the Falcon Heavy.

Launch Complex 39A has a legacy of hosting the world’s most powerful rockets—at least the most powerful of their eras. The Saturn V was launched from the pad with the crew of Apollo 11, and later would host flights of the Space Shuttle program. But because previous vehicles were primarily test-fired elsewhere, Cape Canaveral has never seen a hold-down fire as powerful as the one conducted with Falcon Heavy.

The engine test was contained to pad 39A’s flame trench, built to withstand the acoustics, heat, and vibration produced by the rocket. (SpaceX compared the Falcon Heavy’s power to that of 18 Boeing 747s taking off at the same time.) Musk claims that the world’s next-most powerful rocket, the United Launch Alliance Delta-4 Heavy, is dwarfed by the Falcon Heavy’s capability by a “factor of two,” and SpaceX advertises as much on their website. According to ULA, the Delta-4 Heavy can generate up to 2.13 million pounds of thrust at liftoff.

Musk has been publicizing the Falcon Heavy since 2011, when he unveiled plans for the rocket at a press conference in Washington, DC, floating the idea that SpaceX could launch as soon as 2013. But development delays, a failure of the Falcon 9 during a NASA launch in 2015, and the disaster at Pad 40 in September 2016 set the company’s plans back.

After leasing what Musk calls the “Times Square” of launch pads, SpaceX built a large hangar at the base of Launch Complex 39A to house its boosters and began manufacturing a new strongback—the device that transports, erects, and launches rockets—that could manage the 230-foot-tall Falcon Heavy. The facility also required upgrades to electrical systems and the water-based sound suppression system to accommodate the enormous vibration created by a heavy-lift vehicle.

Last summer, at the ISS R&D conference in Washington, Musk attempted to manage expectations for the Falcon Heavy’s maiden flight, which is planned before the end of the month. Simply not destroying Pad 39A would be a “win” for SpaceX, he said, let alone making it to orbit. Even just firing the Falcon Heavy’s 27 engines was going to be complex despite its makeup of proven hardware. “It actually ended up being way harder to do Falcon Heavy than we thought,” Musk said. “At first it sounds real easy. You just stick two first stages on as strap-on boosters. How hard can that be? But then everything changes.”

The Falcon Heavy demo vehicle is comprised of a brand-new central core booster and two previously flown Falcon 9 boosters. About eight minutes after the rocket’s anticipated liftoff from pad 39A, if all goes according to plan, SpaceX hopes to fly back the core booster to Of Course I Still Love You, a robotic landing ship parked in the Atlantic ocean. The two side boosters will be flown back almost simultaneously to Cape Canaveral for touchdowns at Landing Zone 1 and the newly completed Landing Zone 2. The event will be a reminder of the Space Shuttle era when loud back-to-back sonic booms jolted Cape Canaveral during both launch and landing.

Blue Origin is currently talking with NASA about constructing a new, large launch facility for their New Armstrong rocket north of 39B, where the original Pad 39C would have been located. This new facility, if built, would be named Launch Complex 49. The Environmental Impact Study for the planned launch site is currently underway.

Since LC-39C won’t be used until after the first SLS launch, KSC is also designing a new dedicated light-lift vehicle launch complex, named LC-48. This new launch site will feature two pads and will be used by small launchers, such as the Electron rocket. LC-48 will be located between LC-39A and SLC-41, but on KSC property.

SpaceX is also considering building their own new facilities, although this will not be a launch complex but rather a factory to build their future BFR vehicle. The company is talking with NASA and Space Florida about obtaining land for the new factory, likely be located near or right next to Blue Origin’s existing New Glenn factory.

Such work would take place after the completion of the company’s future South Texas Launch Site. Progress on the Brownsville site has seen the construction of a large solar farm, the addition of communication dishes for tracking and communicating with future Crew Dragon missions and bringing in construction equipment for building the launch site.

In 2011, SpaceX began talks with various state and local officials, exploring proposals for a new and private launch site located away from their current facilities – SLC-40 at the Cape and SLC-4E at Vandenberg. With their launch cadence and manifest rapidly growing, SpaceX predicted that their current launch pads at the time would be overwhelmed with the number of launches.

From 2012 to 2014, SpaceX began exploring submitted proposals for the new launch site. The primary considered locations in “competition” to host the site were in Alaska, California, Florida, Texas, Virginia, Georgia and Puerto Rico. The proposed Texas site, located near the town of Brownsville, was the leader in the “competition”.

SpaceX began buying and leasing land at the proposed Brownsville site in 2012 and started investigating the environmental impact of launches from the site in the same year, which concluded in late 2013.