NASA and the Private Sector - Page 49

On November 01 2014 07:05 Sub40APM wrote:
And thats why SpaceX is the best space company, because they are actually trying to design a brand new rocket instead of recycle tired old crap on the cheap.

(Dulles, VA 5 November 2014) – Orbital Sciences Corporation (NYSE: ORB), one of the world’s leading space technology companies, today announced comprehensive plans to fulfill its contract commitments under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program as well as to accelerate an upgrade of the Antares medium-class launcher’s main propulsion system. Under the new approach and in line with Orbital’s existing CRS contract, all remaining cargo will be delivered to the International Space Station (ISS) by the end of 2016. There will be no cost increase to NASA and only minor adjustments will be needed to the cargo manifest in the near term.

Orbital’s Antares launch failure Accident Investigation Board (AIB) is making good progress in determining the primary cause of last week’s failure. A preliminary review of telemetry and video data has been conducted and substantial debris from the Antares rocket and its Cygnus payload has been collected and examined. While the work of the AIB continues, preliminary evidence and analysis conducted to date points to a probable turbopump-related failure in one of the two Aerojet Rocketdyne AJ26 stage one main engines. As a result, the use of these engines for the Antares vehicle likely will be discontinued.

To maintain the CRS program’s critical ISS supply line, Orbital plans an early introduction of its previously selected Antares propulsion system upgrade in 2016. This will be preceded by one or two non-Antares launches of the company’s Cygnus cargo spacecraft to the ISS in 2015-2016, employing the spacecraft’s compatibility with various launch vehicles and its flexibility to accommodate heavier cargo loads as launcher capacity permits. In addition, the company expects repairs to the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) launch complex at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility to be undertaken quickly, allowing launch operations to continue at Wallops Island with the upgraded Antares beginning in 2016.

On November 04 2014 17:17 Ota Solgryn wrote:
Can anyone explain to me how they are using old Russian engines? Did Russia have some sort of amazing genious that was the only one who could make them or just too expensive to make new ones?

On November 06 2014 03:05 Rassy wrote:



Not just one amazing genious,hunderds of them!
Rusian space technology is and always has been the best in the world.

On November 04 2014 17:17 Ota Solgryn wrote:
Can anyone explain to me how they are using old Russian engines? Did Russia have some sort of amazing genious that was the only one who could make them or just too expensive to make new ones?

I can tell you a little about the NK-15 engines that powered this thing, and the NK-33 which came later.
They were a real design innovation as they were what's called a 'staged combustion cycle' engine.
Rocket engines have a second, small combustion chamber (pre combustion chamber I believe it's called) which is used to power the turbopumps that shift the fuel and oxidizer around the engine to pump it into the primary combustion chamber.
The pre combustion chamber... well it combusts reaction mass and drives the pumps with the pressurized exhaust. This exhaust is then dumped out of the rocket via an exhaust pipe. You can see it modeled in the basic LV rockets
This configuration is called a gas generator cycle and it's reliable and effective. The only problem is all that fuel you're wasting in the pre combustion chamber.
Now, Baikonur was, as mendahu has said, a nightmare to ship parts to. As such the soviets needed a small, powerful engine with a great TWR- and lots of them.
Korolev (who is a fascinating figure by the way, he WAS the Soviet space program- he has no analogue in NASA) and his team eventually thrashed out the design for the staged combustion cycle.
The idea was simple. Dump the exhaust from the pre combustion chamber into the main combustion chamber and profit.
NASA thought this idea was impossible. So did the first engineers that Korolev approached. Production ended up falling to a bureau (whose name slips my mind*) that had previously only made jet engines. *Kuznetsov.
Anyway, what happens next is very Kerbal. They built the engine and launched it, then waited for something to go wrong. Something did. So they fixed it. Then they launched another one and waited for something to go wrong. Then they fixed that problem. Rinse and repeat.
This sort of iterative design was totally alien to NASA, who preferred a research based approach in which the engine was designed, simulated, redesigned, researched, passed around the office party, re designed and engineered a little more, researched and so on. The idea was to build the 'perfect' engine on the first try. But of course they did still do testing, they just didn't consider testing a part of the core design process, it was something that came after. Or to put it another way the Soviets had no problem launching something they knew wasn't ready if they could get practical data from it. NASA attempted to get the designs as good as they could before actually putting rockets on pads.
Anyway, the design grew and eventually became the NK-33. This monster took the idea of a staged combustion cycle one step further. In both a gas generator cycle and staged combustion cycle, some fuel and oxidizer are diverted to the pre combustion chamber to power it.
In the NK33, ALL the oxidizer went through the pre combustion chamber before reaching the main combustion chamber, but only a small ammount of fuel was injected into the pre combustion chamber, with the main flow going into the main combustion chamber (by way of the engine bell, gotta love regenerative cooling). What did this accomplish? It meant the oxidizer was already very, VERY hot by the time it entered the main combustion chamber. This has two effects. The first is that hotter exhaust= better specific impulse, and the second is that it could pretty much reduce any other engine to molten slag.
Oxygen is really reactive. Heat it to a few thousand degrees and it will destroy pretty much anything. Overcoming this was a big feature of the engine. But the result was something like a 15% increase in thrust to weight- a considerable factor.
So what happened to these miracle engines? Well, the Soviets having lost the space race ordered them scrapped. Yes.
But this story has a happy ending. The staff at OKB1 conspired and managed to save a large number of the engines at a warehouse in a secret location.
Years pass, the wall falls- as does the USSR.
In America, rumors begin to circulate of a Russian made engine with performance specifications well beyond anything an American company has cooked up. Aerojet investigate, and after greasing a few palms and being introduced to the correct people they are eventually shown to a warehouse- stacked full of NK-33 engines. They buy some, modify them and change the name to AJ-26. Presumably there were some red faces that the soviets developed about 20 years ago, technology that America still hadn't got working.
The engines end up with NASA, who mount them on a rocket and try them out.
And as the AJ-26 they are still being used today, mainly in the Antares system, but they are also going to be used in the SLS too.

The official FBI New York Twitter account just confirmed the seizure of the Silk Road, claiming that the site's operator Blake Benthall, was arrested in San Francisco. A Facebook profile matching the FBI's description lists his current job as a software engineer at SpaceX, Elon Musk's rocket startup.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/fbi-silk-road-seized-arrests-2014-11#ixzz3IJAycMbV

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk shook up the automotive and aerospace industries with electric cars and cheap rockets. Now, he is focused on satellites, looking at ways to make smaller, less-expensive models that can deliver Internet access across the globe, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Musk is working with Greg Wyler, a satellite-industry veteran and former Google Inc. executive, these people said. Mr. Wyler founded WorldVu Satellites Ltd., which controls a large block of radio spectrum.

In talks with industry executives, Messrs. Musk and Wyler have discussed launching around 700 satellites, each weighing less than 250 pounds, the people said. That is about half the size of the smallest communications satellites now in commercial use. The satellite constellation would be 10 times the size of the largest current fleet, managed by Iridium Communications Inc.

To be sure, the venture would face large financial, technical and regulatory hurdles, and industry officials estimate that it would cost $1 billion or more to develop the project. The people familiar with the matter cautioned the venture is in its formative stages, and Mr. Musk’s participation isn’t certain.

PARIS — WorldVu Satellites Ltd., which has secured regulatory approval for the use of Ku-band spectrum in a nongeostationary-orbit constellation of hundreds of satellites for a global broadband Internet service, has issued requests for bids to satellite manufacturers for 640 125-kilogram satellites, industry officials said.

The system, which has been variously described as affiliated with Google and more recently with Space Exploration Technologies Corp. founder Elon Musk, is estimated to cost about $1.5 billion, including launch, for satellites that would each have 14 gigabits per second of throughput and orbit at 1,200 kilometers in altitude. The satellites would have a design life of seven years or more.

One official said the bid request asks for responses by mid-December and features a requirement that the prospective manufacturers agree to creating a joint-venture company in which WorldVu would co-own the satellite production facility.

On November 13 2014 06:55 rebuffering wrote:
Holy fuck we landed on a fucking comet!!! WTF!!!!

Amazing picture from before it landed-- 3km out.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B2Qm0T-IMAErh5H.png:large

Also, why aren't people freaking out right now! This is an incredible fucking moment! aghh!!

On November 13 2014 07:29 Yurie wrote:


I am not freaking out since I don't really care about it. Sure it is nice but we could have done it any time in the past 20 years or in the future. I don't see the big deal. Kind of like sending another rover to the moon. It's nice but doesn't mean anything unless you actually get anything worthwhile from it. What we confirm or might discover is the interesting part, not the act itself.

On November 13 2014 07:36 rebuffering wrote:


Well, take the wind out of my sails why dontya.....But yeah i understand what your saying, and i am referring the project as a whole, not just the act of landing on the comet, were going to digging n shit and i cant wait to see what we find!