spaceyard

The Search for Life

2010-03-17T02:27:00.000-07:00

Artist's impression of Beagle 2 on Martian surface

Life on other planets is always going to be an exciting subject for debate. But how do we find out if life really exists elsewhere in the Universe?

One way is to travel to the planets, either with remotely operated probes or with manned spacecraft.
Mars is currently the only planet in our Solar System on which there is a strong possibility of finding life, either past or present. ESA’s Mars Express is Europe’s first mission to the Red Planet, and its Beagle 2 lander will perform on-the-spot experiments to search for signs of this life.

In 2004, ESA's Huygens probe to Titan, a moon of Saturn, could provide vital information towards the great mystery of how life began on Earth. Later, Rosetta will be the first spacecraft to land on a comet, analysing its surface for organic compounds that could be the building blocks of life. This will help us to understand if life on Earth began with the help of 'comet seeding'.

First, find the stars with planets...

However, these missions are only looking for life within our own Solar System. But how do we find life on planets around other stars? ESA has a plan for searching for this life in other solar systems.

First you have to find the stars that have planets. There are too many stars to analyse them all, so you have to choose a small part of the sky as your starting point. Next you have to decide what kind of planets you are looking for.

Constellation of Lacerta

With Earth-based telescopes, the only planets we have detected around other stars have been giant gaseous worlds, like Jupiter, over 10 times the diameter of the Earth. Scientists believe we should be looking for rocky, Earth-like planets, because a solid surface is needed on which organic molecules can form and develop into life.

then decide what kind of planets...

The joint CNES/European mission Corot will be the first spacecraft capable of detecting large rocky planets in short-period orbits around nearby stars.

It will use its 30-centimetre telescope to look at few thousand stars, monitoring changes in their brightness caused by planets crossing in front of them.

...then identify signs of life

Artist's impression of Corot

When we have found some suitable planets, then we can look for signs of life. ESA will continue the search into the second decade of the century with the Darwin mission. Darwin's main objective is to find the most likely places for life to develop - at least as we know it!

Darwin will make observations in the infrared since life on Earth leaves its mark in our atmosphere at these wavelengths. On Earth, biological activity produces gases that mingle with our atmosphere.

For example, plants give out oxygen and animals expel carbon dioxide and methane. This flotilla of eight spacecraft will survey 1000 of the closest stars, looking for rocky planets and analysing their atmospheres for this evidence of possible life.

Artist's impression of Darwin

Signatures of Life

2010-03-17T02:24:00.000-07:00

Mars may have lost much of its atmosphere during asteroid impacts early in its history

Where there's water, there could be life. "Meteorites from Mars that have landed on Earth show clear evidence that conditions appropriate to life did exist on the planet, including in the recent past," said Colin Pillinger, Consortium Leader for the Beagle 2 lander at the Open University, Milton Keynes, UK. "However, features in the meteorites which have been described as nanofossils are highly controversial. Unfortunately, we cannot be sure that organic matter found in the meteorites is the remnant of organisms that lived on Mars and not due to contamination on Earth. We need to repeat the experiments on rocks that never left the Red Planet."

The Beagle 2 lander would have looked for signatures of life on Mars, whether long-dead or still-living, by measuring the ratio of two different types of carbon in the rock. Biological processes on Earth favour the lighter isotope of carbon, carbon-12, over the heavier carbon-13. Hence, a high carbon-12 to carbon-13 ratio is taken as evidence of life and has been found in rocks up to 4000 million years old, even where geological processing has occurred.

On Earth, some life that is still active produces another signature - methane. The simplest biological sources, such as those associated with peat bogs, rice fields and ruminant animals, continuously supply fresh gas to replace that destroyed by oxidation.
Methane also has a very short lifetime on Mars because of the oxidising nature of the atmosphere, so its presence would indicate a replenishing source, which may be life, even if it is buried beneath the surface. If this methane exists, the Mars Express orbiter's PFS intrument will be able to detect this gas in the atmosphere.

The only previous landers to look directly for evidence of life on Mars were NASA's Vikings in 1976. However, Mars's harsh, oxidising atmosphere would almost certainly have destroyed any such evidence on the surface.

The Highest Volcano in the Solar System

2010-03-17T02:21:00.000-07:00

Olympus Mons, 25 kilometres high, is the highest volcano in the Solar System
It has the highest volcano in the solar system, Olympus Mons which stands at 26 kilometres above the surrounding plain: Mount Everest is only one third as high.

Olympus Mons lies at the western edge of another gargantuan feature, the Tharsis dome which is a 10 kilometre-high, 4000 kilometre-wide bulge in the Martian surface.

Size comparison between Earth and Mars

2010-03-17T02:20:00.000-07:00

Then there is the Hellas Basin in the southern hemisphere, which is an enormous impact crater 2300 kilometres in diameter and more than nine kilometres deep.

But perhaps most striking of all is the general difference in height and surface roughness between the northern and southern hemispheres. The northern hemisphere is smooth and flat and on average six kilometres lower than the rugged highlands of the south.

Geography of Mars

2010-03-17T02:18:00.001-07:00

Although Mars is a small planet – its radius is just a little over half of Earth's – we now know that it boasts scenery on a scale that makes Mount Everest and the Grand Canyon seem unimpressive by comparison.

Running from the eastern flanks of the rise, roughly along the equator, is Valles Marineris.
This is a split in the Martian crust 4000 kilometres long (about a fifth of the distance around the whole of Mars), up to 600 kilometres wide and seven kilometres deep. The Grand Canyon is a mere 450 kilometres long, up to 29 kilometres wide and 1.6 kilometres deep.

The Valles Marineris hemisphere of Mars

Was There Water On Early Mars?

2010-03-17T01:59:00.000-07:00

Valley Networks

Not only does Mars have the largest volcanoes and deepest canyons in the Solar System, it also shows evidence for the most catastrophic floods. Large channels carved by these floods drain into the northern plains, lending support for the existence of an ancient ocean over most of the northern hemisphere. Valley networks that criss-cross the southern highlands were also probably formed by water. And many craters, especially at high latitudes, are surrounded by fluidise ejecta resembling the ring of splattered debris around a stone dropped in soft mud. This suggests that there was underground water or ice in early times, and possibly more recently.

Water sees

If water was largely responsible for these features, however, it has long since disappeared: most of the evidence is more than 3800 million years old. When Mars was a mere infant (like Earth, the planet is 4500 million years old) much of its atmosphere and all of any surface water vanished. Today, atmospheric pressure at ground level is only about one hundredth that on Earth. So where did the atmospheric gases and water go and why? Each of the seven instruments on board the Mars Express orbiter will contribute towards the answer.

Artist’s impression of water under the martian surface.

The water could have been lost to space, trapped underground, or both. Four of the instruments on Mars Express (ASPERA, SPICAM, PFS and MaRS) will observe the atmosphere and reveal processes by which water vapour and other atmospheric gases could have escaped into space. Two instruments (HRSC, OMEGA) will examine the surface and in the process add to knowledge about where water may once have existed and where it could still lie underground. One (MARSIS) will actually look for underground water and ice.

Perceptions have changed about how much water may have existed on early Mars

Behind The Lens

2010-03-17T01:57:00.000-07:00

The High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC)

This is the camera behind the stunning European imagery from Mars. The High Resolution Stereo Camera on ESA’s Mars Express is now mapping most of the Martian surface with unprecedented detail.

The HRSC was originally designed for the Russian Mars ’96 space mission. After an unsuccessful launch in November 1996, the back-up model of the camera was modified for use on the European Mars Express mission. Another version, the HRSC-AX, has been built for airborne high-resolution 3D Earth reconnaissance and has already been used in a large number of projects.

The main part of the HRSC, the Camera Head, has a resolution of 10 metres per pixel at an altitude of 250 kilometres, the point of closest approach to Mars. The Super Resolution Channel (SRC) part is the high resolving channel with a resolution of down to 2.3 metres per pixel. The whole unit measures only 515 mm by 300 mm. SRC images will provide the most detailed information about areas of special interest, for example the examination of future landing sites.
The imaging electronics of the HRSC are based on the principle of a ‘linescan’ camera. This means only a line is exposed to the light, and not an area (like on ordinary 35 mm film). One CCD line of the HRSC consists of 5184 light-sensitive cells (pixels). The HRSC has nine of these lines, one for each imaging channel. The CCD exposure time is adjusted to match the ground velocity of the spacecraft.

Three channels are sensitive to the spectral ranges of red, green and blue. Another one obtains data in near-infrared. Then there are three stereo channels which are used to the digital terrain models – these take angled views to get a downward, backward and a forward-view of the surface.

From these different views, you can derive three-dimensional images. The last two channels are two photometric channels, giving data for the physical analysis of the Martian surface.

The SRC is the second part of the HRSC camera system and uses an area sensor. This means the light intensity is measured by a matrix of 1024 by 1032 elements. This produces a picture of 1024 x 1032 pixels and, from an altitude of 250 kilometres, this corresponds to a square on the Martian surface with sides of length 2.35 kilometres, each pixel representing 2.3 metres.

Normally, the main camera and the SRC work simultaneously, because of the difficulty in locating the SRC images on the Martian surface. The high-resolution SRC images are nested in the HRSC strips, giving very detailed information about areas of special interest.

The Visual Impact of Space

2010-03-17T01:36:00.000-07:00

ESA participates in a certain number of exhibitions throughout its Member States, including the major international air shows in Europe and conferences and congresses within the space community.

Different levels of information are required for a varied audience – from the specialist to the uninitiated - and a range of material is produced and regularly updated that is geared towards the general public.

This material can be downloaded from this site free of charge for use in exhibitions for the public. We hope that you will find it interesting and useful.

Below are some images of ESA exhibits.

Ariane 5 upper stage at ILA 2006

A preliminary design concept of ExoMars at ILA 2006

The Columbus Laboratory model at ILA 2006

Galileo at Farnborough International 2006

The ESA pavilion at the 45th International Air and Space Show

Searching for life in the Solar System

2010-03-17T01:19:00.000-07:00

New exhibition material

3 February 2010 ESA has updated an interactive demo and visuals on its space missions that are studying the origins and evolution of life in the Universe.

How did life appear on Earth?

For life to appear on Earth, the presence of water was certainly necessary. Scientists are currently studying three possible sources of life:

-Deep-sea vents: In an environment where light and oxygen do not exist, methane is often a key element for life to form, such as in underwater hot springs in the oceans.

- Icy oceans: Simple life forms capable of photosynthesis could have evolved in the oceans, protected from the deadly effects of ultraviolet radiation by icy crusts in the colder regions.

- Space: Bacteria almost certainly travelled on comets and meteorites between planets, and thus could also have been brought to Earth in this way.

Description
The HRSC on ESA's Mars Express obtained this perspective view on 2 February 2005 during orbit 1343 with a ground resolution of approximately 15 metres per pixel.
It shows an unnamed impact crater located on Vastitas Borealis, a broad plain that covers much of Mars's far northern latitudes, at approximately 70.5° North and 103° East.

The crater is 35 kilometres wide and has a maximum depth of approximately 2 kilometres beneath the crater rim. The circular patch of bright material located at the centre of the crater is residual water ice.

The colours are very close to natural, but the vertical relief is exaggerated three times. The view is looking east.

the Apollo Lunar Module

2008-08-26T16:13:00.000-07:00

The Apollo Lunar Module was the lander portion of the Apollo spacecraft built for the US Apollo programme by Grumman to achieve the transit from cislunar orbit to the surface and back. The module was also known as the LM from the manufacturer designation (often pronounced "lem," from NASA's early name for it, Lunar Excursion Module).

The module was designed to carry a crew of two and rested on four landing legs. It consisted of two stages—the descent stage module and the ascent stage. The total mass of the module was 15,264 kg, with the majority (10,334 kg) in the descent stage. Initially unpopular because the many delays in its development significantly stretched the projected timeline of the Apollo programme, the LM eventually became the most reliable component of the Apollo/Saturn system, the only one never to suffer any failure that significantly impacted a mission, and in at least one instance (LM-7 Aquarius) greatly exceeded its design requirements.

Article of the Week

2008-08-26T16:09:00.000-07:00

SPACEYARD: A white dwarf, also called a degenerate dwarf, is a small star composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. As white dwarfs have mass comparable to the Sun's and their volume is comparable to the Earth's, they are very dense. Their faint luminosity comes from the emission of stored heat. They comprise roughly 6% of all known stars in the solar neighborhood. The unusual faintness of white dwarfs was first recognized in 1910 by Henry Norris Russell, Edward Charles Pickering and Williamina Fleming; the name white dwarf was coined by Willem Luyten in 1922.
White dwarfs are thought to be the final evolutionary state of all stars whose mass is not too high—over 97% of the stars in our Galaxy. After the hydroge-fusing lifetime of a main-sequence star of low or medium mass ends, it will expand to a red giant which fuses helium to carbon and oxygen in its core by the triple-alpha process. If a red giant has insufficient mass to generate the core temperatures required to fuse carbon, an inert mass of carbon and oxygen will build up at its center. After shedding its outer layers to form a planetary nebula, it will leave behind this core, which forms the remnant white dwarf. Usually, therefore, white dwarfs are composed of carbon and oxygen. It is also possible that core temperatures suffice to fuse carbon but not neon, in which case an oxygen-neon-magnesium white dwarf may be formed. Also, some helium white dwarfs appear to have been formed by mass loss in binary systems.

source: wikipedia encyclopedia

Article of the Week

Did you Know?

2008-08-26T16:05:00.000-07:00

SPACEYARD:

that the US National Reconnaissance Office includes clues to the identity of their classified satellites in their mission patches (pictured)?

…that the record for the most people on a single spacecraft for the duration of its flight is eight, aboard Space Shuttle Challenger on STS-61-A in 1985?

…that the first two SpaceShipTwo spacecraft will be named VSS Enterprise and VSS Voyager, reportedly after spacecraft in Star Trek?

source: wikipedia

Did you Know?

Remembering On this Day: "Spaceflight"

2008-08-26T16:03:00.000-07:00

SPACEYARD: Remembering On this D A white dwarf, also called a degenerate dwarf, is a small star composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. As white dwarfs have mass comparable to the Sun's and their volume is comparable to the Earth's, they are very dense. Their faint luminosity comes from the emission of stored heat. They comprise roughly 6% of all known stars in the solar neighborhood. The unusual faintness of white dwarfs was first recognized in 1910 by Henry Norris Russell, Edward Charles Pickering and Williamina Fleming; the name white dwarf was coined by Willem Luyten in 1922.
White dwarfs are thought to be the final evolutionary state of all stars whose mass is not too high—over 97% of the stars in our Galaxy. After the hydroge-fusing lifetime of a main-sequence star of low or medium mass ends, it will expand to a red giant which fuses helium to carbon and oxygen in its core by the triple-alpha process. If a red giant has insufficient mass to generate the core temperatures required to fuse carbon, an inert mass of carbon and oxygen will build up at its center. After shedding its outer layers to form a planetary nebula, it will leave behind this core, which forms the remnant white dwarf. Usually, therefore, white dwarfs are composed of carbon and oxygen. It is also possible that core temperatures suffice to fuse carbon but not neon, in which case an oxygen-neon-magnesium white dwarf may be formed. Also, some helium white dwarfs appear to have been formed by mass loss in binary systems.

source: wikipedia encyclopedia

ay: "Spaceflight"

CURRENT "MOON PHASE" LOOK

2008-07-22T23:22:00.000-07:00

Spacesuit Requirements

2008-07-15T19:22:00.000-07:00

a. A space suit must perform several functions to allow its occupant to work safely and comfortably. It must provide:
A stable internal pressure. This can be less than earth's atmosphere, as there is usually no need for the spacesuit to carry nitrogen. Lower pressure allows for greater mobility, but introduces the requirement of pre-breathing to avoid decompression sickness.

b. Mobility. Movement is typically opposed by the pressure of the suit; mobility is achieved by careful joint design. See the Theories of spacesuit design section.

c. Breathable oxygen. Circulation of cooled and purified oxygen is controlled by the Primary Life Support System.

d. Temperature regulation. Unlike on Earth, where heat can be transferred by convection to the atmosphere, in space heat can only be lost by thermal radiation or by conduction to objects in physical contact with the space suit. Since the temperature on the outside of the suit varies greatly between sunlight and shadow, the suit is heavily insulated, and the temperature inside the suit is regulated by a Liquid Cooling Garment in contact with the astronaut's skin, as well as air temperature maintained by the Primary Life Support System.

e. Shielding against ultraviolet radiation
f. Limited shielding against particle radiation
g. Protection against small micrometeoroids, provided by a Thermal Micrometeoroid Garment, which is the outermost layer of the suit

h. A communication system
i. Means to recharge and discharge gases and liquids
j. Means to maneuver, dock, release, and/or tether onto spacecraft
k. Means of collecting and containing solid and liquid waste (such as a Maximum Absorbency Garment)

SPACESUIT

2008-07-15T19:15:00.000-07:00

A space suit is a complex system of garments, equipment and environmental systems designed to keep a person alive and comfortable in the harsh environment of outer space. This applies to extra-vehicular activity (EVA) outside spacecraft orbiting Earth and has applied to walking, and riding the Lunar Rover, on the Moon.

Some of these requirements also apply to pressure suits worn for other specialized tasks, such as high-altitude reconnaissance flight. Above Armstrong's Line (~63,000 ft/~19,000 m), pressurized suits are needed in the sparse atmosphere. Hazmat suits that superficially resemble space suits are sometimes used when dealing with biological hazards.

American Model Spacesuit

2008-07-15T18:22:00.001-07:00

Extravehicular Mobility Unit used on both the Space Shuttle and International Space Station. The EMU is an independent anthropomorphic system that provides environmental protection, mobility, life support, and communications for a Shuttle or ISS crew member to perform extra-vehicular activity (EVA) in earth orbit.

Advance Crew Escape System Pressure Suit used on the Space Shuttle. The Advanced Crew Escape Suit or ACES suit, is a full pressure suit currently worn by all Space Shuttle crews for the ascent and entry portions of flight. The suit is a direct descendant of the U.S. Air Force high-altitude pressure suits worn by SR-71 Blackbird and U-2 spy plane pilots, X-15 and Gemini pilot-astronauts, and the Launch-Entry Suits worn by NASA astronauts starting on the STS-26 flight, the first flight after the Challenger Disaster

Apollo/Skylab A7L EVA and moon suits. The A7L Apollo & Skylab spacesuit is the primary pressure suit worn by NASA astronauts forProject Apollo, the three manned Skylab flights, and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project between 1968 and the termination of the Apollo program in 1975

Manned Orbiting Laboratory MH-7 space suits

Gemini spacewalk suits, used for Project Gemini

Navy Mark V high-altitude/vacuum suit used for Project Mercury

American suit Model

2008-07-15T18:18:00.000-07:00

In the early 1950s Siegfried Hansen and colleagues at Litton Industries designed and built a working hard-shell suit, which was used inside vacuum chambers and was the predecessor of hard space suits used in NASA missions.

1. Navy Mark V high-altitude/vacuum suit used for Project Mercury
2. Gemini spacewalk suits, used for Project Gemini
3. Manned Orbiting Laboratory MH-7 space suits
4. Apollo/Skylab A7L. EVA and moon suits. The A7L Apollo & Skylab spacesuit is the primary pressure suit worn by NASA astronauts for Project Apollo, the three manned Skylab flights, and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project between 1968 and the termination of the Apollo program in 1975.

5. Advance Crew Escape System Pressure Suit used on the Space Shuttle. The Advanced Crew Escape Suit or ACES suit, is a full pressure suit currently worn by all Space Shuttle crews for the ascent and entry portions of flight. The suit is a direct descendant of the U.S. Air Force high-altitude pressure suits worn by SR-71 Blackbird and U-2 spy plane pilots, X-15 and Gemini pilot-astronauts, and the Launch-Entry Suits worn by NASA astronauts starting on the STS-26 flight, the first flight after the Challenger Disaster

6. Extravehicular Mobility Unit used on both the Space Shuttle and International Space Station. The EMU is an independent anthropomorphic system that provides environmental protection, mobility, life support, and communications for a Shuttle or ISS crew member to perform extra-vehicular activity (EVA) in earth orbit.

Russian Spacesuit model

2008-07-15T17:51:00.000-07:00

SK-1
The space suit of Yuri Gagarin
The first man in space

Berkut (Беркут = "golden eagle")
The space suit of Alexei Leonov
The cosmonaut who first made a spacewalk

Krechet (Кречет = "gyrfalcon") suit
Designed for the cancelled
Soviet manned moon landing

Orlan (Орлан = "sea-eagle" or "bald eagle")
suits for extra-vehicular activity

Sokol (Сокол = "falcon") suits worn
by Soyuz crew members during lift-off and re-entry

Russian Spacesuit Model

2008-07-15T17:26:00.000-07:00

SK-1 the space suit of Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space
Berkut (Беркут = "golden eagle"), the space suit of Alexei Leonov, the cosmonaut who first made a spacewalk
Krechet (Кречет = "gyrfalcon") suit, designed for the cancelled Soviet manned moon landing
Yastreb (Ястреб = "hawk") space suit for extra-vehicular activity, based on the Krechet
Orlan (Орлан = "sea-eagle" or "bald eagle") suits for extra-vehicular activity
Sokol (Сокол = "falcon") suits worn by Soyuz crew members during lift-off and re-entry
Strizh (Стриж = "swift (bird)") spacesuit developed for pilots of the Buran space shuttle
Link:http://spaceyard.blogspot.com/2007/07/Russian-Spacesuit-Model.html

List of Spacewalk Record

2008-07-15T16:48:00.000-07:00

List of cumulative spacewalk records
Astronaut Agency Total EVA's Hours/Minute
1. Anatoly Solovyev RSA* 16 82:22
2. Michael Lopez-Alegria NASA 10 67:40
3. Jerry L. Ross NASA 9 58:32
4. Steven L. Smith NASA 7 49:48
5. Scott E. Parazynski NASA 7 47:05
6. Joseph R. Tanner NASA 7 46:29
7. Robert L. Curbeam NASA 7 45:34
8. Nikolai Budarin RSA 8 44:25
9. James H. Newman NASA 6 43:13
10. Yuri Onufrienko RSA 8 42:33
11. Talgat Musabayev RSA 7 41:13
12. Piers Sellers NASA 6 41:10
13. Sergei Krikalev RSA 8 41:08
14. Sergei Avdeyev RSA 8 41:00
15. Peggy Whitson NASA 6 39:46
16. Viktor M. Afanasyev RSA 7 38:04
17. John Grunsfeld NASA 5 37:32
18. Vladimir Dezhurov RSA 9 37:02
19. Leroy Chiao NASA 6 36:04
20. Musa Manarov RSA 7 34:03
21. Anatoli Artsebarsky RSA 6 31:58
22. Aleksandr Serebrov RSA 10 31:49
23. Vladimir A. Solovyov RSA 8 31:38
24. Leonid Kizim RSA 8 31:38
25. James F. Reilly NASA 5 30:43
26. Yury Usachev RSA 6 30:31
27. Thomas Akers NASA 4 29:40
28. Sunita Williams NASA 4 29:17
29. Story Musgrave NASA 4 26:19
30. David Wolf NASA 4 26:19
This list is current as of December 18, 2007.
RSA designation includes spacewalks
under the earlier Soviet space program.

The Space Station

2008-07-14T09:57:00.001-07:00

The International Space Station

A space station is an artificial structure designed for humans to live in outer space. So far only low earth orbit (LEO) stations are implemented, also known as orbital stations. A space station is distinguished from other manned spacecraft by its lack of major propulsion or landing facilities — instead, other vehicles are used as transport to and from the station. Space stations are designed for medium-term living in orbit, for periods of weeks, months, or even years. The only space station currently in use is the International Space Station. Previous ones are the Almaz, Salyut series, Skylab and Mir
Space stations are currently (as of 2007) used to study the effects of long-term space flight on the human body as well as to provide platforms for greater number and length of scientific studies than available on other space vehicles. Since the ill-fated flight of Soyuz 11 to Salyut 1, all manned spaceflight duration records have been set aboard space stations. The duration record for a single spaceflight is 437.7 days, set by Valeriy Polyakov aboard Mir from 1994 to 1995. As of 2008, three astronauts have completed single missions of over a year, all aboard Mir.

Uses
Space stations have been used for both military and civilian purposes. The last military-use space station was Salyut 5, which was used by the Almaz program of the Soviet Union in 1976 and 1977.

source: wikipedia encyclopedia

The Monolithic

2008-07-14T09:52:00.000-07:00

Broadly speaking, the space stations so far launched have been of two types; the earlier stations, Salyut and Skylab, have been "monolithic", intended to be constructed and launched in one piece, and then manned by a crew later. As such, they generally contained all their supplies and experimental equipment when launched, and were considered "expended", and then abandoned, when these were used up. Starting with Salyut 6 and Salyut 7, a change was seen; these were built with two docking ports, which allowed a second crew to visit, bringing a new spacecraft with them (for technical reasons, a Soyuz capsule cannot safely spend more than a few months in orbit, even powered down). This allowed for a crew to man the station continually. Skylab was also equipped with two docking ports, like second-generation stations, but the extra port was never utilized. The presence of a second port on the new stations allowed Progress supply vehicles to be docked to the station, meaning that fresh supplies could be brought to aid long-duration missions. This concept was expanded on Salyut 7, which "hard docked" with a TKS tug shortly before it was abandoned; this served as a proof-of-concept for the use of modular space stations. The later Salyuts may reasonably be seen as a transition between the two groups.

The Salyut Program

2008-07-14T08:31:00.000-07:00

The Salyut program (Russian: Салют; lit. Salute or Fireworks) was the first space station program undertaken by the Soviet Union, which consisted of a series of nine single-module space stations launched over a period of eleven years from 1971 to 1982. Intended as a project to carry out long-term research into the problems of living in space and a variety of astronomical, biological and Earth-resources experiments, the program allowed space station technology to evolve from the engineering development stage to long-term research outposts in space. Ultimately, experience gained from the Salyut stations went on to pave the way for multimodular space stations such as Mir and the International Space Station, with each of those stations possessing a Salyut-derived core module at its heart.
The program consisted of a series of six scientific research stations (DOS-type) and three military reconnaissance stations (OPS-type) launched as part of the highly secretive Almaz program, and during its development saw a number of spaceflight records broken, including several mission duration records, the first ever orbital handover of a space station from one crew to another and various spacewalk records. By the time the program concluded in 1991, it had seen space station technology evolve from basic, single-docking port stations to complex, multi-ported orbital outposts with impressive scientific capabilities, whose technological legacy continues to the present day.

The Soyuz 1

2008-07-14T08:26:00.000-07:00

Soyuz 1 (Russian Союз 1, Union 1) was part of the Soviet Union's space program and was launched into orbit on April 23, 1967, carrying a single cosmonaut, Colonel Vladimir Komarov, who was killed when the spacecraft crashed during its return to Earth.

This was the first in-flight fatality in the history of spaceflight.

Launched at 03:35 local time, this was also the first night launch of a human space vehicle. Salyut 1 (DOS-1) (Russian: Салют-1; English translation: Salute 1) was launched April 19, 1971. It was the first space station to ever orbit earth. Its first crew launched in Soyuz 10 but were unable to board it due to a failure in the docking mechanism; its second crew launched in Soyuz 11 and remained on board for 23 productive days. Unfortunately, a pressure-equalization valve in the Soyuz 11 reentry capsule opened prematurely when the crew returned to Earth, killing all three. Salyut 1 reentered Earth's atmosphere October 11, 1971.

The Soyuz 2

2008-07-14T08:05:00.000-07:00

Soyuz 2 was an unpiloted spacecraft in
the Soyuz family intended toperform
a docking maneuver with Soyuz 3.
Although the two craft approached,
closely, the docking did not take place.

Salyut 2 (OPS-1)(Russian:Салют-2; English translation: Salute 2) was launched April 4, 1973. It was not really a part of the same program as the other Salyut space stations, instead being the highly classified prototype military space station Almaz. It was given the designation Salyut 2 to conceal its true nature. Despite its successful launch, within two days the as-yet-unmanned Salyut 2 began losing pressure and its flight control failed; the cause of the failure was likely due to shrapnel piercing the station when the discarded Proton rocket upper stage that had placed it in orbit later exploded nearby. On April 11, 1973, 11 days after launch, an unexplainable accident caused the two large solar panels to be torn loose from the space station cutting off all power to the space station. Salyut 2 re-entered on May 28, 1973.
Station statistics
Call sign: Salyut 2
Crew: 3
Launch: April 4, 1973 09:00:00 UTC
Launch pad: Baikonur Cosmodrome, USSR
Reentry: May 28, 1973
Mass: 18,500 kg
Length: 14.55 m
Width: 4.15 m
Living volume: 99 m³
Perigee: 257 km (138.8 nmi)
Apogee: 278 km (150.1 nmi)
Orbit inclination: 51.6 degrees
Orbital period: 89.8 minutes
Days in orbit: 54 days
Days occupied: 0 days
Number of orbits: 866
Distance travelled: 35,163,530 km(18,986,787.3 nmi)

The Soyuz 3

2008-07-14T08:01:00.000-07:00

Soyuz 3 was the first manned launch of a Soyuz spacecraft since the accident that killed cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov on Soyuz 1. That ill-fated flight had been intended to rendezvous and dock with Soyuz 2; now Soyuz 3 with cosmonaut Georgi Beregovoi would attempt this goal. Ground controllers were able to bring the two spacecraft within 200 m of one another before Beregovoi took control of the Soyuz to complete the maneuver. Unfortunately, while he was able to close the gap to only one metre, three successive attempts to dock failed. Eventually, almost all of the maneuvering fuel was expended and the objective had to be abandoned. The failure was blamed on Beregovoi's piloting.The plane crash that killed Yuri Gagarin occurred during Beregovoi's training for this mission.

Salyut 3 (OPS-2) (Russian: Салют-3; English translation: Salute 3) was launched on June 25, 1974. It was another Almaz military space station, this one launched successfully. It tested a wide variety of reconnaissance sensors, returning a canister of film for analysis. On January 24, 1975 trials of the on-board 23 mm Nudelmann aircraft cannon (other sources say it was a Nudelmann NR-30 30 mm gun) were conducted with positive results at ranges from 3000 m to 500 m. Cosmonauts have confirmed that a target satellite was destroyed in the test. The next day, the station was ordered to deorbit. Only one of the three intended crews successfully boarded and manned the station, brought by Soyuz 14; Soyuz 15 attempted to bring a second crew but failed to dock. Nevertheless, it was an overall success. The station's orbit decayed, and it re-entered the atmosphere on January 24, 1975.

The Soyuz 4

2008-07-14T07:56:00.001-07:00

Soyuz 4 launched January 14, 1969. On board was the cosmonaut Vladimir Shatalov on his first flight. The aim of the mission was to dock with Soyuz 5, transfer two crew members from that spacecraft and reenter. The last three Soyuz flights had attempted to do this but had all failed for various reasons.
The radio callsign of the crew was "Amur"; that of Soyuz 5, with which it was to dock, was "Baikal". This referred to the trans-Siberian railway project called the Baikal-Amur Mainline, which was under construction at the time. Hence the docking served as encouragement to the
workers on that project.

Salyut 4 (DOS-4) (Russian: Салют-4; English translation: Salute 4) was launched on December 26, 1974. It was essentially a copy of the DOS-3, and unlike its ill-fated sibling it was a complete success. Three crews made stays aboard Salyut 4 (Soyuz 17, Soyuz 18 and Soyuz 21), including one of 63 days duration, and an unmanned Soyuz capsule remained docked to the station for three months, proving the systems' long-term durability. Salyut 4 was deorbited February 2, 1977, and re-entered the Earth's atmosphere on February 3.

The Soyuz 5

2008-07-14T07:50:00.000-07:00

The Soyuz 5 was a Soyuz spacecraft launched by the Soviet Union on January 15, 1969 that docked with Soyuz 4 in orbit.

Salyut 5 (OPS-3) (Russian: Салют-5; English translation Salute 5) was launched on June 22, 1976. It was the third and last Almaz military space station. Its launch and subsequent mission were both completed successfully, with three crews launching and two (Soyuz 21 and Soyuz 24) successfully boarding the craft for lengthy stays (the second crew on Soyuz 23 was unable to dock and had to abort). Salyut 5 reentered on August 8, 1977. Following Salyut 5 the Soviet Military decided that the tactical advantages were not worth the expense of the program and withdrew. The focus for the later missions was research and prestige.

The Soyuz 6

2008-07-14T07:46:00.000-07:00

Soyuz 6 was part of a joint mission with Soyuz 7 and Soyuz 8 that saw three Soyuz spacecraft in orbit together at the same time, carrying seven cosmonauts. The crew of Georgi Shonin and Valeri Kubasov were meant to take high-quality movie photography of Soyuz 7 and Soyuz 8 docking but the rendezvous systems on all three spacecraft failed.
It is still not known exactly what the actual problem was, but it is often quoted as being a helium pressurization integrity test. The version of Soyuz spacecraft used for the missions (7K-OK) carried a torus shaped docking electronics equipment housing surrounding the motor assembly on the back of the service module. This is thought to have been pressurized with helium to provide a benign environment for the electronics. It was then jettisoned after docking to lower the mass of the spacecraft for reentry. What went wrong with the electronics on all three spacecraft is still not known.The crew was made up of Georgi Shonin and Valeri Kubasov, who carried out important experiments in space welding. They tested three methods: using an electron beam, a low pressure plasma arc and a consumable electrode. The apparatus was designed at the E. O. Paton Electric Welding Institute, Kiev, Ukraine. The weld quality was said to be in no way inferior to that of Earth based welds. After 80 orbits of the Earth they landed on October 16, 1969, 180 km northwest of Karaganda, Kazakhstan. The radio call sign of the spacecraft was Antei, referring to the Greek hero 'Antaeus,' but also a common diminutive of a Russian given name for boys. More important, at the time of the flight, however, it was also the name of the largest practicable aircraft, the Soviet Antonov 22, made in Ukraine. But unlike the call signs of Soyuz 7 and Soyuz 8, this was not the name of a squadron in Soviet military training, of uncertain role, for the one that begins with the letter 'a' is Aktif, meaning 'Active'.

Salyut 6 (DOS-5) (Russian: Салют-6; English translation: Salute 6) was launched on September 29, 1977. Although it resembled the previous Salyut stations in overall design, it featured several revolutionary advances including a second docking port where an unmanned Progress cargo spacecraft could dock and refuel the station. From 1977 until 1982 Salyut 6 was visited by five long-duration crews and 11 short-term crews, including cosmonauts from Warsaw Pact countries. Some unconfirmed reports say the station was functionally capable of even more missions and years, but combating the ever-increasing mold in living quarters was becoming impossible, and in practice caused the retirement decision. The very first long-duration crew on Salyut 6 broke a record set on board Skylab, staying 96 days in orbit. The longest flight on board Salyut 6 lasted 185 days. The fourth Salyut 6 expedition deployed a 10-meter radio-telescope antenna delivered by a cargo ship. After Salyut 6 manned operations were discontinued in 1981, a heavy unmanned spacecraft called TKS and developed using hardware left from the canceled Almaz program was docked to the station as a hardware test. Salyut 6 was deorbited July 29, 1982.

The Soyuz 7

2008-07-14T07:35:00.000-07:00

Soyuz 7 was part of a joint mission with Soyuz 6 and Soyuz 8 that saw three Soyuz spacecraft in orbit together at the same time, carrying seven cosmonauts.
The crew consisted of commander Anatoli Filipchenko, flight-engineer Vladislav Volkov and research-cosmonaut Viktor Gorbatko, whose mission was to dock with Soyuz 8 and transfer crew, as the Soyuz 4 and 5 missions did. Soyuz 6 was to film the operation from nearby.
However, this objective was not achieved due to equipment failures. Soviet sources later claimed that no docking had been intended, but this seems unlikely, given the docking adapters carried by the spacecraft, and the fact that the Soyuz 8 crew were both veterans of the previous successful docking mission. This was the last time that the Soviet manned Moon landing hardware was tested in orbit, and the failure seems to have been one of the final nails in the coffin of the programme.
The radio call sign of the spacecraft was Buran, meaning 'blizzard', which years later was re-used as the name of the entirely different spaceplane Buran. This word is apparently used as the name of an active or aggressive squadron in Soviet military training, and, just like the Soyuz 4, it was constructed and trained to be the active or male spacecraft in its docking. Further, the word was probably chosen as it begins with the second letter of the alphabet.

Salyut The Salyut program: 7 (DOS-6) (Russian: Салют-7; English translation: Salute 7) was launched on April 19, 1982. It was the back-up vehicle for Salyut 6 and very similar in equipment and capabilities, though several more advanced features were included. It was aloft for four years and two months, during which time it was visited by 10 crews constituting 6 main expeditions and 4 secondary flights (including French and Indian cosmonauts). Aside from the many experiments and observations made on Salyut 7, the station also tested the docking and use of large modules with an orbiting space station. The modules were called "Heavy Cosmos modules." They helped engineers develop technology necessary to build Mir. Salyut 7 deorbited on February 7, 1991.

Spacecraft, Rockets, Modules, Sattelite

2008-07-12T21:24:00.000-07:00

Saturn INT-21
Saturn V
Space shutle Enterprice

Jules verne - automatic transfer vehicle
Luna 9- Landing capsule
Phoenix Landing Spacecraft
Russian soyus
MilStar

Apoolo 15 command module
Armadillo Aerospace
Venture Star
JSC 2000
Columbia STS I

Canadian Arrow - vehicle flight
MIR
STS 124
Atlantis - docked to MIR

Milstar

Space One

Ares 1 - Launch
Genesis I -top
STS-117
Kistler-cots
Nautilus module 2

Satellite Iridium
Miro Atlas- Launch
Space shuttle Columbia
Delta II
Phoenix Landing Spaceceaft

The Space Shuttle Columbia

2008-07-10T15:39:00.000-07:00

The first " SPACEWORTHY " space shuttle

VIDEO TO WATCH HERE:

1.) The Columbia Disaster
2.) STS-107 Space Shuttle Columbia recovery mission
3.) STS-115 Space shuttle Atlantis backflip
4.) Space shuttle Columbia reentry landing video
5.) STS-117 Space shuttle Atlantis rollover
6.) STS-117 Space shuttle Atlantis flies on the back of A747
7.) Space shuttle Columbia disaster from NASA TV
8.) The Space Shuttle " CRASH "
9.) " GOD, NO! " Space shuttle challenger " EXPLOSION TV VAN no.2
10.) The shuttle Launch from inside ORBITOR
11.) The space shuttle " COLUMBIA MEMORIAL "
12.) JUPITER sounds ( so strange )NASA-VOYAGER recording
13.) Space shuttle Breaks Sound Barrier

*Space Shuttle Columbia*
Columbia launches on its final mission, STS-107

OV Designation: OV-102
Country: United States
Contract award: July 26, 1972
Named after: Robert Gray’s Columbia Rediviva
First flight: STS-1 April 12, 1981 - April 14, 1981
Last flight: STS-107 January 16, 2003 – February 1, 2003
Number of missions: 28
Crews: 160
Time spent in space: 300.74 days
Number of orbits: 4,808
Distance travelled: 125,204,911 miles (201,497,772 km)
Satellites deployed: 8
Mir dockings: 0
ISS dockings: 0
Status: Destroyed February 1, 2003

Space Shuttle Columbia (NASA Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-102) was the first spaceworthy space shuttle in NASA's orbital fleet. Its first mission, STS-1, lasted from April 12 to April 14, 1981.
On February 1, 2003, Columbia disintegrated during re-entry over Texas, on its 28th mission, killing all seven crew members.
source of history; wikipedia encyclopedia

Carolyn Porco's favourite Photos

2008-07-10T04:34:00.000-07:00

The almost-perfect alignment of Earth's line of sight
with the orbital plane of the double pulsar
PSR J0737-3039A/B gives rise to an
eclipse of pulsar A once.

First, thank you to Ms. Carolyn Porco and the team.
It was a great honor to watch this video film.
The exciting moments very few can experience.
The beauty of planet Earth "ours" never seen
by a naked eye. And because of you, the people like you,
looking forward to the future, shown to the world
" The almost-perfect alignment of the Earth "

Video to watch here:
a.) The iceberg movements create eerie song.
b.) Pulsar's wooble provides new Einstein test.
c.) Sound from the Arctic.
d.) Brain implant helps stroke victim speak again.

Part 1 The Rings of Saturn
Part 2 The Titan
Part 3 The Icy Moon
Part 4 In Saturn Shadow
........." The Rings of Saturn ".........

Living in Space

2008-07-09T22:40:00.000-07:00

exiting experience " SPACE SLEEP "

After a long day at work, there is nothing like a good night's sleep! Just like on Earth, a worker in space goes to bed at night then wakes up the next day and prepares for work all over again. There are a few differences, though.
In space there is no up or down and there is no gravity. As a result, astronauts are weightless and can sleep in any orientation. However, they have to attach themselves to a wall, a seat or a bunk bed inside the crew cabin so they don't float around and bump into something.

Space shuttle and space station crews usually sleep in sleeping bags. On the space shuttle, astronauts can also sleep in the commander's seat, the pilot's seat or in bunk beds. There are only four bunk beds in the space shuttle. So that means on missions with five or more astronauts, the other crewmembers have to sleep in a sleeping bag attached to their seats or to a wall.

On the space station there are two small crew cabins. Each one is just big enough for one person. Inside both crew cabins is a sleeping bag and a large window to look out in space. Currently, space station crews have three astronauts living and working in space for months at a time. Where does the third astronaut sleep? If it's okay with the commander, the astronaut can sleep anywhere in the space station so long as they attach themselves to something.
Expedition Two Commander Yury Usachev and Flight Engineer James Voss slept in the crew quarters inside the Zvezda Service Module. Flight Engineer Susan Helms slept inside the Destiny Laboratory.

Astronaut Susan Helms slept in the huge Destiny Laboratory Module by herself while she was living aboard the International Space Station. This is on the opposite side of the station from the Service Module where her crewmates slept. The length of the International Space Station during that mission was 52 meters (171 feet) long.

Generally, astronauts are scheduled for eight hours of sleep at the end of each mission day. Like on Earth, though, they may wake up in the middle of their sleep period to use the toilet, or stay up late and look out the window. During their sleep period, astronauts have reported having dreams and nightmares. Some have even reported snoring in space!

The excitement of being in space and motion sickness can disrupt an astronaut's sleep pattern. Sleeping in close quarters can also be disruptive since crewmembers can easily hear each other. Sleeping in the shuttle's cockpit can also be difficult since the Sun rises every 90 minutes during a mission. The sunlight and warmth entering the cockpit window is enough to disturb a sleeper who is not wearing a sleep mask.

When it is time to wake up, the Mission Control Center in Houston, Texas, sends wake up music to the crew. Usually, Mission Control will pick a song for a different astronaut each day. Sometimes a family member will request a favorite song for their particular loved one. Depending on the astronaut, Mission Control will play all types of music such as rock and roll, country and western, classical, or Russian music. However, only a shuttle crew receives wake up music while a space station crew uses an alarm clock.
source: (NASA)
National Aeronautics
& Space Administration

Fun in the Space

2008-07-09T22:15:00.000-07:00

Happy moments in the " SPACE FUN "

Living in space is not just all work and no play. Astronauts like to have fun, too. If you're going to work on the space shuttle for a week or two, it is certainly okay to look out the window, play with your food or tease your crewmates once in awhile. If you're staying on the International Space Station for a few months, fun is an essential ingredient to the quality of life.
Astronauts need a break from their busy schedules when they are orbiting Earth. Days or even months of straight work is certain to cause stress among space workers. That is why flight planners on Earth schedule time during each day so astronauts can relax, exercise and have some fun. Shuttle and station crewmembers even manage to have fun while working. Experiments in space sometimes involve ordinary toys and how microgravity affects them.

A popular pastime while orbiting the Earth is simply looking out the window. Astronauts onboard the space shuttle can look out the cockpit windows and watch the Earth below or the deep blackness of space. Inside the International Space Station, crewmembers have numerous windows they can look out. Astronauts often comment on their fascination and awe as they look at the Earth spin beneath them with its multiple shades and textures. Sunsets and sunrises are also very spectacular, occurring every 45 minutes above the Earth's atmosphere.

Onboard the space station, crewmembers have many opportunities to relax and play. Like most people who work full time, they get weekends off. On any given day, crewmembers can watch movies, read books, play cards and talk to their families. They have an exercise bike, a treadmill and various other equipment to help keep their bodies in shape. During their off time, they certainly take time out to play games and generally have a good time.

source: (NASA)

National Aeronautics

& Space Administration

Foods they eat while in the Space shuttle

2008-07-09T21:52:00.000-07:00

TASTY SPACE FOODS

Imagine going camping for over a week with several of your close friends. You would make sure you have plenty of food and the gear to cook and eat it with. The food would have to be stored properly and nonperishable to avoid spoilage. After finishing your meal, or at the end of your camping trip, you would then stow all your gear and dispose of your trash properly just before the ride home.

Astronauts basically do the same thing when they go to space. Preparation varies with the food type. Some foods can be eaten in their natural form, such as brownies and fruit. Other foods require adding water, such as macaroni and cheese or spaghetti. Of course, an oven is provided in the space shuttle and the space station to heat foods to the proper temperature. There are no refrigerators in space, so space food must be stored and prepared properly to avoid spoilage, especially on longer missions.

Condiments are provided such as ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise. Salt and pepper are available but only in a liquid form. This is because astronauts can't sprinkle salt and pepper on their food in space. The salt and pepper would simply float away. There is a danger they could clog air vents, contaminate equipment or get stuck in an astronaut's eyes, mouth or nose.

Astronauts eat three meals a day - breakfast, lunch and dinner. Nutritionists ensure the food they eat provides them with a balanced supply of vitamins and minerals. Calorie requirements differ for astronauts. For instance, a small woman would require only about 1,900 calories a day, while a large man would require about 3,200 calories. There are also many types of foods an astronaut can choose from such as fruits, nuts, peanut butter, chicken, beef, seafood, candy, brownies, etc... Drinks range from coffee, tea, orange juice, fruit punches and lemonade.

As on Earth, space food comes in packages that must be disposed. Astronauts must throw their packages away in a trash compactor inside the space shuttle when they are done eating. Some packaging actually prevents food from flying away. The food packaging is designed to be flexible, easier to use, as well as maximize space when stowing or disposing food containers.

source: (NASA)

National Aeronautics

& Space Administration

Space Station ( ISS )

2008-07-09T21:23:00.000-07:00

Breathing Easy on the Space Station

Life support systems on the ISS provide oxygen, absorb carbon dioxide, and manage vaporous emissions from the astronauts themselves. It's all part of breathing easy in our new home in space.

A http://science.nasa.gov/

story by Patrick L. Barry

An artist's rendering of the ISS as it currently appears.
November 13, 2000 --

Many of us stuck on Earth wish we could join (at least temporarily) the Expedition One crew aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Floating effortlessly from module to module, looking down on Earth from a breathtaking height of 350 kilometers.... It's a dream come true for innumerable space lovers.

But be careful what you wish for! Living on the Space Station also means hard work, cramped quarters, and... what's that smell? Probably more outgassing from a scientific experiment or, worse yet, a crewmate.

With 3 to 7 people sharing a small enclosed volume on the still-growing Space Station, air management is critical.

Life support systems on the ISS must not only supply oxygen and remove carbon dioxide from the cabin's atmosphere, but also prevent gases like ammonia and acetone, which people emit in small quantities, from accumulating. Vaporous chemicals from science experiments are a potential hazard, too, if they combine in unforeseen ways with other elements in the air supply.
So, while air in space is undeniably rare, managing it is no small problem for ISS life support engineers.

In this second article in a series about the practical challenges of living in space, Science@NASA examines how the ISS will provide its residents with the breath of life.

Most people can survive only a couple of minutes without oxygen, and low concentrations of oxygen can cause fatigue and blackouts.
To ensure the safety of the crew, the ISS will have redundant supplies of that essential gas.

"The primary source of oxygen will be water electrolysis, followed by O2 in a pressurized storage tank," said Jay Perry, an aerospace engineer at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center working on the Environmental Control and Life Support Systems (ECLSS) project. ECLSS engineers at Marshall, at the Johnson Space Center and elsewhere are developing, improving and testing primary life support systems for the ISS.

The Expedition One crew -- Bill Shepherd, Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko -- aboard the Space Station. During their four-month stay, the crew will relied on the station's hardware to provide breathable air.

Most of the station's oxygen will come from a process called "electrolysis," which uses electricity from the ISS solar panels to split water into hydrogen gas and oxygen gas.
Each molecule of water contains two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. Running a current through water causes these atoms to separate and recombine as gaseous hydrogen (H2) and oxygen (O2).

The oxygen that people breathe on Earth also comes from the splitting of water, but it's not a mechanical process. Plants, algae, cyanobacteria and phytoplankton all split water molecules as part of photosynthesis -- the process that converts sunlight, carbon dioxide and water into sugars for food. The hydrogen is used for making sugars, and the oxygen is released into the atmosphere.

"Eventually, it would be great if we could use plants to (produce oxygen) for us," said Monsi Roman, chief microbiologist for the ECLSS project at MSFC. "The byproduct of plants doing this for us is food."

However, "the chemical-mechanical systems are much more compact, less labor intensive, and more reliable than a plant-based system," Perry noted. "A plant-based life support system design is presently at the basic research and demonstration stage of maturity and there are a myriad of challenges that must be overcome to make it viable."

source: (NASA)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Vision, building in motion endorsment

2008-07-08T18:36:00.000-07:00

"the new space race"
Neil Armstrong uttered unforgetable world's, but the next vicitors on the moon may send back e-mail instead.

"shape-shifting skycrapers, tower spins and twists "
Dubai's skyline is set to gain a spectacular new addition:
"The World's First building in motion"

"billionaire oilman endorses Wind Power"
T. Boone Pickins is putting his clout behind renewable energy resources like wind power. "we are going to have to do something different in America". "you can't keep paying out $600 billion a year for oil"

visit: CNN. news update.
July. 9, 2008

Hubble Ultra Deep Field "HUDF"

2008-07-02T10:09:00.000-07:00

The "HUBBLE"

2008-07-02T09:34:00.000-07:00

CASSINI HUYGENS
entering saturn orbit THE SOLAR SYSTEM
The HUBBLE

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST; also known colloquially as "the Hubble" or just "Hubble") is a space telescope that was carried into orbit by a Space Shuttle in April 1990. It is named for American astronomer Edwin Hubble. Although not the first space telescope, the Hubble is one of the largest and most versatile, and is well known as both a vital research tool and a public relations boon for astronomy. The HST is a collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency, and is one of NASA's Great Observatories, along with the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Spitzer Space Telescope.Space telescopes were proposed as early as the 1940s. The Hubble was funded in the 1970s, with a proposed launch in 1983, but the project was beset by technical delays, budget problems, and the Challenger disaster. When finally launched in 1990, scientists found that the main mirror had been ground incorrectly, severely compromising the telescope's capabilities. However, after a servicing mission in 1993, the telescope was restored to its intended quality. Hubble's position outside the Earth's atmosphere allows it to take extremely sharp images with almost no background light. Hubble's Ultra Deep Field image, for instance, is the most detailed visible-light image of the universe's most distant objects ever made. Many Hubble observations have led to breakthroughs in astrophysics, such as accurately determining the rate of expansion of the universe.
The Hubble is the only telescope ever designed to be serviced in space by astronauts. To date, there have been four servicing missions. Servicing Mission 1 took place in December 1993 when Hubble's imaging flaw was corrected. Servicing missions 2, 3, and 4 repaired various sub-systems and replaced many of the observing instruments with more modern and capable versions. However, following the 2003 Columbia Space Shuttle disaster, the fifth servicing mission was canceled on safety grounds. After spirited public discussion, NASA reconsidered this decision, and administrator Mike Griffin gave the green light for one final Hubble servicing mission. This is now planned for October 2008.
The planned repairs to the Hubble will allow the telescope to function until at least 2013, when its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), is due to be launched. The JWST will be far superior to Hubble for many astronomical research programs, but will only observe in infrared, so it would complement (not replace) Hubble's ability to observe in the visible and ultraviolet parts of the spectrum.
souce: wikipedia

The International Space Station

2008-07-02T08:30:00.000-07:00

as seen from the departing Space Shuttle Discovery on STS-124

Station statistics
Call sign: Alpha (only by NASA)
Crew: 3
Launch: 1998-Present
Launch pad: KSC LC-39,Baikonur LC-1/5 & 81/23
Mass: 277,598 kg(612,000 lb)(2008-06-14)419,600 kg (925,000 lb) upon completion
Length: 58.2 m (191 ft)along truss(2007-02-22)
Width: 44.5 m (146 ft)from Destiny to Zvezda73.15 m (240 ft)span of solar arrays(2007-02-22)
Height: 27.4 m (90 ft)(2007-02-22)
Living volume:424.75 m³(15,000 ft³)
Atmospheric pressure: 1013 hPa (29.91 inHg)
Perigee: 331.0 km (183.2 nmi)(2008-02-15)
Apogee: 341.9 km (184.6 nmi)(2008-02-15)
Orbit inclination: 51.6410 degrees(2008-02-15)
Typical orbit altitude: 340.5 km (183.86 nmi)
Average speed: 27,743.8 km/h(17,239.2 mi/h, 7706.6 m/s)
Orbital period: 91.34 minutes
Orbits per day: 15.78224218(2008-02-15)
Days in orbit: 3512 (2 July 2008)
Days occupied: 2801 (2 July 2008)
Number of orbits: 55427 (2 July 2008)
Distance travelled: 2,000,000,000 km(1,100,000,000 nmi)
Statistics as of November 20, 2007 (unless noted otherwise).
Configuration (photo) on top.

The International Space Station (ISS) is a research facility being assembled in space. Its on-orbit assembly began in 1998. The space station is in a low Earth orbit and can be seen from Earth with the naked eye: it has an altitude of about 350 km (217 mi) above the surface of the Earth, and travels at an average speed of 27,700 km (17,210 statute miles) per hour, completing 15.77 orbits per day.
The ISS is a joint project among the space agencies of the United States (NASA), Russia (RKA), Japan (JAXA), Canada (CSA) and eleven European countries (ESA). The Brazilian Space Agency (AEB, Brazil) participates through a separate contract with NASA. The Italian Space Agency similarly has separate contracts for various activities not done in the framework of ESA's ISS works (where Italy also fully participates). China has reportedly expressed interest in the project, especially if it is able to work with the RKA. though it is not currently involved.
The ISS is a continuation of several other previously planned space stations: Russia's Mir 2, the U.S. Space Station Freedom, the European Columbus, and Kibo, the Japanese Experiment Module. The projected completion date is 2010, with the station remaining in operation until around 2016. As of 2008, the ISS is larger than any previous space station.
The ISS has been continuously staffed since the first resident crew entered the station on November 2, 2000, thereby providing a permanent human presence in space. The crew of Expedition 17 are currently aboard. At present the station has a capacity for a crew of three. In order to fulfill an active research program it will eventually hold 6 crew members. Early crew members all came from the Russian and U.S. space programs. German ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter joined the Expedition 13 crew in July 2006, becoming the first crew member from another space agency. The station has, however, been visited by astronauts from 16 countries. The ISS was also the destination of the first five space tourists.
The station is serviced primarily by Russian Soyuz and Progress spacecraft and by U.S. Space Shuttle orbiters. On March 9, 2008, the European Space Agency ESA launched an Ariane 5 with the first Automated Transfer Vehicle, Jules Verne, toward the ISS carrying over 8,000 kilograms of cargo. Successful docking took place at 14:40 GMT on April 3, 2008.

source: wikipedia

Early attempts at Human Spaceflight

2008-07-02T02:49:00.000-07:00

In the early Christian era, a Greek satirist named Lucian wrote a book on space flight called True Histories. The book was full of tall, unbelieveable tales and travelogues on visits to the sun and the moon. Today, the book could easily be discarded as the fantasy of a people of a bygone era. But it was significant in the sense that it kindled the curiosities of the people of the day and stimulated interest in outer space and space travel.
In 1638, a Christian writer from England named Wilkins wrote a book on moon travel and suggested four methods to accomplish it. Firstly, he said, the divine soul could take man to the moon; secondly, some large and powerful birds could transport man to the moon; thirdly, man himself could make the journey by tying wings to his arms and fourthly, he said, a flying machine could transport man to the moon.
American author Herbert S. Zim claimed in 1945 that there is a Chinese legend where a scientist named Wan Hu in the early Ming dynasty attempted to travel through space with the help of rockets. In the story, Wan tied 47 rockets filled with explosives to the chair in which he was sitting and ignited them. There was a large explosion, but when the smoke cleared Wan Hu was gone and never seen again.

List of Spaceflight Records

2008-07-02T02:01:00.000-07:00

Longest human single flight
Valeri Polyakov, launched 8 January 1994 (Soyuz TM-18), stayed at Mir LD-4 for 437.7 days[1], during which he orbited the earth about 7,075 times and traveled 300,765,000 km, (186,887,000 miles) returned March 22, 1995 (Soyuz TM-20). This record has stood for 13 years, 100 days.

Sunita Williams holds the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman at 195 days set on the International Space Station Expedition 15 in 2007. She landed with STS-117, June 22 2007.

Longest continuous occupation of space
The Soviet Union and Russia, its successor, kept a continuous manned presence in space from the launch of Soyuz TM-8 on 5 September 1989 to the landing of Soyuz TM-29 on 28 August 1999, a span of about 3,644 days, or about eight days short of 10 years. The Soviet Union and Russia launched 22 manned Soyuz spacecraft during the time span, all of which docked with the orbiting Mir space station. The United States additionally docked the space shuttles Atlantis, Endeavour and Discovery with Mir nine times between 1995 and 1998, dropping off and/or picking up passengers eight times. This record has stood for 8 years, 307 days.

The United States and Russia
have jointly maintained a continuous manned presence in space since 31 October 2000 when Soyuz TM-31 was launched on a mission to dock with the International Space Station. The International Space Station has been in continuous use for 7 years, 243 days. Should the ISS occupation continue as planned, it will break the Mir record on 23 October 2010.

Longest solo flight
Valery Bykovsky flew for 4 days and 23 hours solo in Vostok 5, 14-19 June 1963. The flight set a space endurance record which was broken in 1965 by the Gemini 5 crew, but the solo endurance record has stood for 45 years, 11 days.

Longest canine single flight
Veterok (Ветерок, "Little Wind") and Ugolyok (Уголёк, "Ember") were launched on February 22, 1966 on board Cosmos 110 and spent 22 days in orbit before landing on March 16. This record has stood for 42 years, 06 days.

Longest time on lunar surface
Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt of the Apollo 17 mission stayed for 74 hours 59 minutes 40 seconds on the lunar surface after they landed on 11 December 1972. This record has stood for 35 years, 202 days.

Farthest humans from Earth
Apollo 13 crew; Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, John Swigert while passing over the far side of the moon at an altitude of 254 km (158 miles) from the lunar surface, were 400,171 km (248,655 miles) from earth. This record breaking distance was reached at 0:21 UTC on April 15, 1970. This record has stood for 38 years, 76 days.

Highest altitude for manned non-lunar mission
Gemini 11 fired its Agena Target Vehicle rocket engine on September 14, 1966, at 40 hours 30 minutes after liftoff and achieved an apogee of 1374.1 km (854 miles). This record has stood for

Fastest
The Apollo 10 crew; Thomas Stafford, John W. Young and Eugene Cernan achieved the highest speed relative to earth ever attained by humans; 39,896 km/h (11.1 km/s, 24,790 mph, approx 0.000037 times the speed of light). The record was set May 26, 1969 and has stood for 39 years, 35 days.

Oldest
John Glenn at age 77, October 29, 1998. This record has stood for 9 years, 245 days.

Youngest
Gherman Titov, aged 25 years, 329 days, on Vostok 2 on August 6, 1961. This record has stood for46.years, 329 days.

Most flights
7 Flights
Franklin Chang-Diaz- Costa Rica/USA*
Jerry L. Ross- USA
* Costa Rican-born and honorary citizen of Costa Rica

6 Flights
Curtis Brown - USA
Michael Foale - Britain/USA*
Sergei Krikalev - Russia
Story Musgrave - USA
Gennady Strekalov - Russia
James Wetherbee - USA
John W. Young - USA
* Dual citizen.

Most time in space
Sergei Krikalev has spent 803 days, 9 hours and 39 minutes, or 2.2 years in space over the span of six spaceflights on Soyuz, the Space Shuttle, Mir, and International Space Station.
Peggy Whitson has spent 376 days, 17 hours and 22 minutes in space over the span of two spaceflights to the International Space Station.

Most spacewalks
Anatoly Solovyev, 16 spacewalks for total of 77 hours, 41 minutes (which is also the duration record).
Peggy Whitson, 6 spacewalks for a total time of 39 hours and 46 minutes (the women's spacewalk and duration records).

Most spacewalks during a single mission
Michael Lopez-Alegria, five spacewalks during Expedition 14 on the ISS
source: wikipedia

The Ansari X PRIZE

2008-07-02T00:54:00.000-07:00

The Ansari X PRIZE was a space competition in which the X PRIZE Foundation offered a US$10,000,000 prize for the first non-government organization to launch a reusable manned spacecraft into space twice within two weeks. It was modeled after early 20th-century aviation prizes, and aimed to spur development of low-cost spaceflight. The prize was won on October 4, 2004, the 47th anniversary of the Sputnik 1 launch, by the Tier One project designed by Burt Rutan and financed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, using the experimental spaceplane SpaceShipOne. $10 million was awarded to the winner, but more than $100 million was invested in new technologies in pursuit of the prize.
The second X PRIZE, the Archon X PRIZE, was announced in October 2006 by the X PRIZE Foundation. The third X Prize, the Automotive X Prize, was announced shortly thereafter. The fourth X Prize, the Google Lunar X Prize, was announced in September 2007

Motivation
The X PRIZE was first proposed by Dr. Peter Diamandis in an address to the NSS International Space Development Conference in 1995. The competition goal was adopted from the SpaceCub project, demonstration of a private vehicle capable of flying a pilot to the edge of space, defined as 100 km altitude. This goal was selected to help encourage the space industry in the private sector, which is why the entries were not allowed to have any government funding. It aimed to demonstrate that spaceflight can be affordable and accessible to corporations and civilians, opening the door to commercial spaceflight and space tourism. It is also hoped that competition will breed innovation, introducing new low-cost methods of reaching Earth orbit, and ultimately pioneering low-cost space travel and unfettered human expansion into the solar system. The X PRIZE was modeled after many prizes from the early 20th century that helped prod the development of air flight, including most notably the $25,000 Orteig Prize that spurred Charles Lindbergh to make his solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. NASA is developing a similar prize program called Centennial Challenges to generate innovative solutions to space technology problems.
Created in May 1996 and initially called just "X PRIZE", it was renamed "Ansari X PRIZE" on May 6, 2004 following a multi-million dollar donation from entrepreneurs Anousheh Ansari and Amir Ansari.

Contestants
Twenty-six teams from around the world participated, ranging from volunteer hobbyists to large corporate-backed operations:
Acceleration Engineering
Advent Launch Services
Aeronautics and Cosmonautics Romanian Association (ARCASPACE)
Armadillo Aerospace
American Astronautics Corporation
Bristol Spaceplanes, Ltd
Canadian Arrow
The da Vinci Project
Pablo de Leon & Associates
Discraft Corporation
Flight Exploration
Fundamental Technology Systems
HARC
IL Aerospace Technologies
Interorbital Systems
Kelly Space and Technology
Lone Star Space Access Corporation
Micro-Space, Inc.
PanAero, Inc.
Pioneer Rocketplane, Inc. (now Rocketplane Kistler)
Scaled Composites' Tier One project (Winning Team)
Space Transport Corporation
Starchaser Industries
Suborbital Corporation
TGV Rockets
Vanguard Spacecraft
Whalen Aeronautics Inc.
This contestant list notably did not include traditional space access companies like Boeing and Lockheed, which many in the industry believe to be incapable of replacing their present space transportation vehicles with low-cost alternatives. These critics claim as evidence the companies' several failed attempts to do so, such as the X-33 project, on contract from NASA and other U.S. government agencies. However, the X PRIZE Foundation itself did not ban these companies from applying, so long as they could prove their efforts on this project would be free of government funding.

Competition status
Representatives of the X PRIZE Foundation symbolically presented the ten million dollar prize to Burt Rutan and Paul Allen of Mojave Aerospace Ventures on November 6, 2004. The Ansari X PRIZE trophy is on the left.
The Tier One project made two successful competitive flights, X1 on September 29, 2004 piloted by Mike Melvill and X2 on October 4, 2004 piloted by Brian Binnie. They thus won the prize, which was awarded on November 6, 2004. (Note: the winning team is referred to by several names at various times: Tier One, Scaled Composites, and Mojave Aerospace Ventures.)
The trophy is currently on display in the St. Louis Science Center in St.Louis,Missouri.

Flight attempts by teams that did not win
Although only the Tier One team actually launched a spacecraft into suborbital space, several other teams have conducted low-altitude tests or announced future plans to launch into space:
The da Vinci Project originally announced that their first flight would be on October 2, 2004, but this was postponed indefinitely on September 23, 2004, as they were unable to obtain a few necessary components in time. They have not announced a revised timetable.
The Canadian Arrow team conducted a successful full-power engine test in 2005 and announced on June 2, 2005, that it had received permission from the Canadian government to use Cape Rich as a future launch site.
On August 8, 2004, Space Transport Corporation's Rubicon 1 and Armadillo Aerospace's test vehicle, in two separate unmanned test launches, both crashed and were destroyed.
On February 1, 2005, AERA Corporation (Formerly American Astronautics) announced its plans to send seven paying passengers into space as early as 2006, a full year before the first announced speculative Virgin Galactic flight.

List of major donors by order of donation
Anousheh Ansari and Amir Ansari
First USA (J.P. Morgan Chase), $1,000,000 USD
New Spirit of St. Louis Organization
Danforth Foundation, $500,000 USD
Tom Clancy, $100K–$500K
J.S. McDonnell (McDonnell Douglas)
Andrew Taylor (Enterprise Rent-A-Car)
Andrew Beal (Beal Bank)
St. Louis Science Center

Spinoffs
The success of the X PRIZE competition has spurred spinoffs that are set up in the same way. There have been two major spinoffs at this point, the first of which is the M Prize (short for Methuselah Mouse Prize), which is a prize set up by University of Cambridge biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey which will go to the scientific team that successfully extends the life or reverses the aging of mice, which would then eventually be available to humans. The second is the NASA Centennial Challenges, which consist of (among others) the Tether Challenge in which teams compete to develop superstrong tethers as a component to space elevators, and the Beam Power Challenge which encourages ideas for transmitting power wirelessly. An independent spinoff called the N-Prize was started by Cambridge Microbiologist Paul H. Dear in 2008, designed to foster research into low-cost orbital launchers.
The X PRIZE foundation itself is developing additional prizes, including one around genomics, and another around energy -- the Automotive X PRIZE. There is also a possible "H-Prize", focused on hydrogen vehicle research, although this goal has already been addressed by H.R. 5143, an X-Prize-inspired bill passed by the House of Representatives.
source: wikipedia

The Personal Spaceflight Federation

2008-07-02T00:19:00.000-07:00

A private spaceflight industry group, incorporated as an industry association for the purposes of establishing ever higher levels of safety for the commercial human spaceflight industry, sharing best practices and expertise, and promoting the growth of the industry worldwide.

Current members
Person Company affiliation
Eric Anderson- CEO of Space Adventures
John D. Carmack -President of Armadillo Aerospace
Peter Diamandis -CEO of XPRIZE Foundation
Art Dula -CEO of Excalibur Almaz
Jeff Greason -CEO of XCOR Aerospace
David Gump -President of t/Space
Gary Hudson -Chairman of Airlaunch LLC
Steve Kohler -President of Space Florida
Steve Landeene -Executive Director of Spaceport America
Rob Meyerson -Program Manager of Blue Origin
Elon Musk -CEO of SpaceX
Mark Sirangelo -CEO of SpaceDev
Will Whitehorn -President aof Virgin Galactic
Stu Witt -General Manager of Mojave Spaceport

The PSF staff :
Bretton Alexander -(President)
John Gedmark- (Executive Director)
James Muncy -(Senior Advisor).

Space technology and applied Science

2008-07-01T05:39:00.000-07:00

Hubble Ultra Deep Field

Universe

Satellite

Space technology is technology that is related to entering space, maintaining and using systems during spaceflight and returning people and things from space.
Space technology has a huge impact on the everyday lives of people; and something as simple as checking the weather or watching satellite television or receiving a parcel guided by satellite, it touches most people's lives on any given day.
The universe, exclusive of Earth, is such an alien environment that attempting to work in it requires new techniques and knowledge. New technologies originating with or accelerated by space-related endeavors are often subsequently exploited in other economic activities. This has been widely pointed to as beneficial by space advocates and enthusiasts favoring the investment of public funds in space activities and programs. Political opponents counter that it would be far cheaper to develop specific technologies directly if they are beneficial and scoff at this justification for public expenditures on space-related research.
Technologies such as weather station satellites and GPS systems, satellite television, and some long distance communications systems critically rely on space infrastructure and these technologies touch the vast majority of lives in the Western world and very many people elsewhere, every single day.
Computers and telemetry were once leading edge technologies that might have been considered "space technology" because of their criticality to boosters and spacecraft. They existed prior to the Space Race of the Cold War but their development was vastly accelerated to meet the needs of the two major superpowers' space programs. While still used today in spacecraft and missiles, the more prosaic applications such as remote monitoring (via telemetry) of patients, water plants, highway conditions, etc. and the widespread use of computers far surpasses their space applications in quantity and variety of application.

Communication Sattelite

2008-07-01T01:27:00.000-07:00

Telephony

The first and historically most important application for communication satellites was in intercontinental long distance telephony. The fixed Public Switched Telephone Network relays telephone calls from land line telephones to an earth station, where they are then transmitted to a geostationary satellite. The downlink follows an analogous path. Improvements in Submarine communications cables caused a decline in the use of satellites for fixed telephony in the late 20th century but they still serve remote islands such as Ascension Island and Saint Helena where no submarine cable is in service.
Satellite phones connect directly to a constellation of geostationary or low earth orbit satellites. Calls are then forwarded to a teleport connected to the PSTN network or another satellite phone.

Television

became the main market, its demand for simultaneous delivery of relatively few signals of large bandwidth to many receivers being a more precise match for the capabilities of geosynchronous comsats. Two satellite types are used for North American television and radio: Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS), and Fixed Service Satellite (FSS)
The definitions of FSS and DBS satellites outside of North America, especially in Europe, are a bit more ambiguous. Most satellites used for direct-to-home television in Europe have the same high power output as DBS-class satellites in North America, but use the same linear polarization as FSS-class satellites. Examples of these are the Astra, Eutelsat, and Hotbird spacecraft in orbit over the European continent. Because of this, the terms FSS and DBS are more so used throughout the North American continent, and are uncommon in Europe.

Fixed Service Satellite

Fixed Service Satellites use the C band, and the lower portions of the Ku bands. They are normally used for broadcast feeds to and from television networks and local affiliate stations (such as program feeds for network and syndicated programming, live shots, and backhauls), as well as being used for distance learnin by schools and universities, business television (BTV), Videoconferencing, and general commercial telecommunications. FSS satellites are also used to distribute national cable channels to cable television headends.
Free-to-air satellite TV channels are also usually distributed on FSS satellites in the Ku band. The Intelsat Americas 5, Galaxy 10R and AMC 3 satellites over North America provide a quite large amount of FTA channels on their Ku band transponders.
The American Dish Network DBS service has also recently utilized FSS technology as well for their programming packages requiring their SuperDish antenna, due to Dish Network needing more capacity to carry local television stations per the FCC's "must-carry" regulations, and for more bandwidth to carry HDTV channels.

Direct broadcast satellite

A direct broadcast satellite is a communications satellite that transmits to small DBS satellite dishes (usually 18 to 24 inches in diameter). Direct broadcast satellites generally operate in the upper portion of the microwave Ku band. DBS technology is used for DTH-oriented (Direct-To-Home) satellite TV services, such as DirecTV and DISH Network in the United States, Bell ExpressVu in Canada, and Sky Digital in the UK, Republic of Ireland and New Zealand.
Operating at lower frequency and power than DBS, FSS satellites require a much larger dish for reception (3 to 8 feet (1 to 2.5m) in diameter for Ku band, and 12 feet (3.6m) or larger for C band). They use linear polarization for each of the transponders' RF input and output (as opposed to circular polarization used by DBS satellites). FSS satellite technology was also originally used for DTH satellite TV from the late 1970s to the early 1990s in the United States in the form of TVRO (TeleVision Receive Only) receivers and dishes. It was also used in its Ku band form for the now-defunct Primestar satellite TV service.
Satellites for communication have now been launched that have transponders in the Ka band, such as DirecTV's SPACEWAY-1 satellite, and Anik F2. NASA as well has launched experimental satellites using the Ka band recently.

Mobile satellite technologies

Initially available for broadcast to stationary TV receivers, by 2004 popular mobile direct broadcast applications made their appearance with that arrival of two satellite radio systems in the United States: Sirius and XM Satellite Radio Holdings. Some manufacturers have also introduced special antennas for mobile reception of DBS television. Using GPS technology as a reference, these antennas automatically re-aim to the satellite no matter where or how the vehicle (that the antenna is mounted on) is situated. These mobile satellite antennas are popular with some recreational vehicle owners. Such mobile DBS antennas are also used by JetBlue Airways for DirecTV (supplied by LiveTV, a subsidiary of JetBlue), which passengers can view on-board on LCD screens mounted in the seats.

Amateur radio

Amateur radio operators have access to the OSCAR satellites that have been designed specifically to carry amateur radio traffic. Most such satellites operate as spaceborne repeaters, and are generally accessed by amateurs equipped with UHF or VHF radio equipment and highly directional antennas such as Yagis or dish antennas. Due to the limitations of ground-based amateur equipment, most amateur satellites are launched into fairly low Earth orbits, and are designed to deal with only a limited number of brief contacts at any given time. Some satellites also provide data-forwarding services using the AX.25 or similar protocols.

Satellite Internet access

After the 1990s, satellite communication technology has been used as a means to connect to the Internet via broadband data connections. This can be very useful for users who are located in very remote areas, and cannot access a wireline broadband or dialup connection.

Military uses
Communications satellites are used for military communications applications,such as Global Command and Control Systems.

source: wikipedia

Communication sattelite

2008-07-01T01:15:00.000-07:00

Satellites

As mentioned, geostationary satellites are constrained to operate above the equator. As a consequence, they are not always suitable for providing services at high latitudes: for at high latitudes a geostationary satellite may appear low on the horizon, affecting connectivity and causing multipathing (interference caused by signals reflecting off the ground into the ground antenna). The first satellite of Molniya series was launched on April 23, 1965 and was used for experimental transmission of TV signal from Moscow uplink station to downlink stations, located in Siberia and Russian Far East, in Norilsk, Khabarovsk, Magadan and Vladivostok. In November of 1967 Soviet engineers created a unique system of national TV network of satellite television, called Orbita, that was based on Molniya satellites.
Molniya orbits can be an appealing alternative in such cases. The Molniya orbit is highly inclined, guaranteeing good elevation over selected positions during the northern portion of the orbit. (Elevation is the extent of the satellite’s position above the horizon. Thus a satellite at the horizon has zero elevation and a satellite directly overhead has elevation of 90 degrees).
Furthermore, the Molniya orbit is so designed that the satellite spends the great majority of its time over the far northern latitudes, during which its ground footprint moves only slightly. Its period is one half day, so that the satellite is available for operation over the targeted region for eight hours every second revolution. In this way a constellation of three Molniya satellites (plus in-orbit spares) can provide uninterrupted coverage.
Molniya satellites are typically used for telephony and TV services over Russia. Another application is to use them for mobile radio systems (even at lower latitudes) since cars travelling through urban areas need access to satellites at high elevation in order to secure good connectivity, e.g. in the presence of tall buildings.

source: wikipedia

Geostationary Orbit

2008-07-01T00:49:00.000-07:00

A satellite in a geostationary orbit appears to be in a fixed position to an earth-based observer. A geostationary satellite revolves around the earth at a constant speed once per day over the equator.
The geostationary orbit is useful for communications applications because ground based antennas, which must be directed toward the satellite, can operate effectively without the need for expensive equipment to track the satellite’s motion. Especially for applications that require a large number of ground antennas (such as direct TV distribution), the savings in ground equipment can more than justify the extra cost and onboard complexity of lifting a satellite into the relatively high geostationary orbit.

The concept of the geostationary communications satellite was first proposed by Arthur C. Clarke, building on work by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and on the 1929 work by Herman Potočnik (writing as Herman Noordung) Das Problem der Befahrung des Weltraums - der Raketen-motor. In October 1945 Clarke published an article titled “Extra-terrestrial Relays” in the British magazine Wireless World. The article described the fundamentals behind the deployment of artificial satellites in geostationary orbits for the purpose of relaying radio signals. Thus Arthur C. Clarke is often quoted as being the inventor of the communications satellite.
The first truly geostationary satellite launched in orbit was the Syncom 3, launched on August 19, 1964. It was placed in orbit at 180° east longitude, over the International Date Line. It was used that same year to relay television coverage on the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo to the United States, the first television transmission sent over the Pacific Ocean.
Shortly after Syncom 3, Intelsat I, aka Early Bird, was launched on April 6, 1965 and placed in orbit at 28° west longitude. It was the first geostationary satellite for telecommunications over the Atlantic Ocean.

On November 9, 1972, North America's first geostationary satellite serving the continent, Anik A1, was launched by Telesat Canada, with the United States following suit with the launch of Westar 1 by Western Union on April 13, 1974.
On December 19, 1974, the first geostationary communications satellite in the world to be three-axis stabilized was launched : the franco-German Symphonie.
After the launchings of Telstar, Syncom 3, Early Bird, Anik A1, and Westar 1, RCA Americom (later GE Americom, now SES Americom) launched Satcom 1 in 1975. It was Satcom 1 that was instrumental in helping early cable TV channels such as WTBS (now TBS Superstation), HBO, CBN (now ABC Family), and The Weather Channel become successful, because these channels distributed their programming to all of the local cable TV headends using the satellite. Additionally, it was the first satellite used by broadcast TV networks in the United States, like ABC, NBC, and CBS, to distribute their programming to all of their local affiliate stations. Satcom 1 was so widely used because it had twice the communications capacity of the competing Westar 1 in America (24 transponders as opposed to Westar 1’s 12), resulting in lower transponder usage costs. Satellites in later decades tended to even higher transponder counts.
By 2000 Hughes Space and Communications (now Boeing Satellite Development Center) had built nearly 40 percent of the satellites in service worldwide. Other major satellite manufacturers include Space Systems/Loral, Lockheed Martin (owns former RCA Astro Electronics/GE Astro Space business), Northrop Grumman, Alcatel Space, now Thales Alenia Space, with the Spacebus series, and EADS Astrium

source: wikipedia

Communication satellite

2008-06-30T23:54:00.000-07:00

A communications satellite (sometimes abbreviated to comsat) is an artificial satellite stationed in space for the purposes of telecommunications. Modern communications satellites use a variety of orbits including geostationary orbits, Molniya orbits, other elliptical orbits and low (polar and non-polar) Earth orbits.
For fixed (point-to-point) services, communications satellites provide a microwave radio relay technology complementary to that of fiber optic submarine communication cables. They are also used for mobile applications such as communications to ships, vehicles, planes and hand-held terminals, and for TV and radio broadcasting, for which application of other technologies, such as cable, is impractical or impossible.

Early missions
The first satellite equipped with on-board radio-transmitte that worked on two frequences, 20.005 and 40.002 MHz was the Soviet Sputnik 1, launched in 1957. The first American satellite to relay communications was Project SCORE in 1958, which used a tape recorder to store and forward voice messages. It was used to send a Christmas greeting to the world from U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower. NASA launched an Echo satellite in 1960; the 100-foot aluminized PET film balloon served as a passive reflector for radio communications. Courier 1B, (built by Philco) also launched in 1960, was the world’s first active repeater satellite.
Telstar was the first active, direct relay communications satellite. Belonging to AT&T as part of a multi-national agreement between AT&T, Bell Telephone Laboratories, NASA, the British General Post Office, and the French National PTT (Post Office) to develop satellite communication, it was launched by NASA from Cape Canaveral on July 10, 1962, the first privately sponsored space launch. Telstar was placed in an elliptical orbit (completed once every 2 hours and 37 minutes), rotating at a 45° angle above the equator.
An immediate antecedent of the geostationary satellites was Hughes’ Syncom 2, launched on July 26, 1963. Syncom 2 revolved around the earth once per day at constant speed, but because it still had north-south motion, special equipment was needed to track it.

A Low Earth Orbit (LEO)
typically is a circular orbit about 400 kilometres above the earth’s surface and, correspondingly, a period (time to revolve around the earth) of about 90 minutes. Because of their low altitude, these satellites are only visible from within a radius of roughly 1000 kilometres from the sub-satellite point. In addition, satellites in low earth orbit change their position relative to the ground position quickly. So even for local applications, a large number of satellites are needed if the mission requires uninterrupted connectivity.
Low earth orbiting satellites are less expensive to position in space than geostationary satellites and, because of their closer proximity to the ground, require lower signal strength (Recall that signal strength falls off as the square of the distance from the source, so the effect is dramatic). So there is a trade off between the number of satellites and their cost. In addition, there are important differences in the onboard and ground equipment needed to support the two types of missions.
A group of satellites working in concert thus is known as a satellite constellation. Two such constellations which were intended for provision for satellite phone services, primarily to remote areas, were the Iridium and Globalstar. The Iridium system has 66 satellites. Another LEO satellite constellation known as Teledesic, with backing from Microsoft entrepreneur Paul Allen, was to have over 840 satellites. This was later scaled back to 288 and ultimately ended up only launching one test satellite.
It is also possible to offer discontinuous coverage using a low Earth orbit satellite capable of storing data received while passing over one part of Earth and transmitting it later while passing over another part. This will be the case with the CASCADE system of Canada’s CASSIOPE communications satellite. Another system using this store and forward method is Orbcomm.
source: wikipedia

Making Space for you

2008-06-30T22:34:00.000-07:00

Canadian Arrow
Type : Corporation
Founded: 1999
Headquarters : Corunna, Ontario, Canada
Area served : North America
Industry : Aerospace
Products : Rockets, Spacecraft services

The Canadian Arrow

is a privately funded rocket and space travel project founded by London, Ontario, Canada entrepreneurs Geoff Sheerin, Dan McKibbon and Chris Corke. The project's objective is to take the first civilians into outer space, on a vertical sub-orbital spaceflight reaching an altitude of 112 km.
Canadian Arrow was considered one of the top three candidates for the X-Prize competition, along with Scaled Composites (Burt Rutan), and Armadillo Aerospace (John Carmack). Scaled Composites won the competition on October 4, 2004.
The Canadian Arrow team's motto is "making SPACE for you". They have completed the first series of tests on their 57,000 lbf (254 kN) thrust engine and have built a space training centre and a full scale mock-up of their rocket. After an open nomination process, they also recruited an impressive team of six astronauts from around the world, including several seasoned military pilots and a NASA trained astronaut from Ukraine.

Design
A rendering of a Canadian Arrow vehicle in flight.
The Canadian Arrow is a 16.5 m tall two-stage rocket, where the second stage is a three-person space capsule. The Canadian Arrow team's somewhat conservative approach has been to base the design of their rocket engine and aerodynamics on the well proven V-2 design from WWII.

First stage
The rocket's first stage is 10.2 m long and 1.7 m in diameter. It is propelled by a single liquid fuel rocket engine. It produces a thrust of 254 kN. Graphite jet vanes are used for stabilisation before the rocket has reached a velocity high enough for the four fins to be effectual. About one minute after ignition, the fuel is depleted and the engine shuts off.

Second stage
The rocket's second stage is 6 m long and 1.7 m in diameter at the base. It carries three astronauts and is propelled by four JATO-type solid rocket engines. These are ignited immediately after stage separation, and will carry the capsule to an altitude of ~112 km. Cold gas jets are used for attitude control.

Crew Cabin Escape System
The four solid rocket engines in the second stage can be fired at any time, even when the rocket stands on its launch pad. This constitutes an escape system, which can, in a case of an emergency, quickly separate the second stage from the rocket and propel it to an altitude of 1.5 km, where its parachutes can be deployed.

Rocket engine
"Alchemy" Canadian Arrow Rocket Engine development. (pictured)
The rocket engine uses alcohol and liquid oxygen as propellants, and produces a maximum thrust of 254 kN, and burns for 55 s. It is constructed of low carbon steel, with propellant injectors made out of brass.

Flight profile
The Canadian Arrow rocket will launch vertically from the ground. Initial thrust is ~75.5 kN, but the rocket quickly reaches maximum thrust. After 55 s, the propellant is depleted and stage separation occurs. The solid fuel rockets in the second stage are ignited and boosts it up to an altitude of ~112 km, where the crew and passengers will experience a few minutes of "zero-G", or weightlessness.
After stage separation the first stage reaches an apogee of over 80 km before descent begins. Four parachutes slow the Canadian Arrow's first stage down before splashdown occurs at a speed of ~9 m/s, after which recovery of the spacecraft can take place.
During descent, the crew cabin (the second stage) will use a ballute to reduce its speed. When its velocity becomes subsonic, the second stage's ballute is released and pulls out the three parachutes before splashdown.

Testing
Summer, 2002: Single burner cup engine test.
October 5, 2002: The rocket test stand complete.
November 7, 2003: First engine tests conducted.
August 14, 2004: Canadian Arrow carries out a successful drop test of the crew cabin, to test the parachutes and recovery routines.

Funding, commercial aspects and the future
Canadian Arrow started as a team competing in the international X-Prize competition, with the ultimate goal of continuing past the X-Prize into the commercial sector providing private access to space. Funding during the X-Prize was provided by sponsorship and private investment. In early 2003 the company would receive a major infusion of financial support by Canadian Arrow partner and Director of Spacecraft Development - Lou van Amelsvoort. As a result, during the next two years The Company would also proceed to open the world’s first private Astronaut training facility, continue vehicle development, and test propulsion and recovery systems.

Canadian Arrow founders:

Dan McKibbon

Chris Corke

Geoff Sheerin

Geoff Sheerin, President and CEO of Canadian Arrow, and Dr. Chirinjeev Kathuria announced on May 17, 2005, the creation of PlanetSpace Corporation. It is through this enterprise that Canadian Arrow will complete the construction of their space craft, and within 24 months offer suborbital space flight to aspiring space tourists. Planetspace expects to fly about 2,000 new astronauts within five years of operation. The price is expected to be $250,000 for each flight, including fourteen days of training. Cape Breton Island, in Nova Scotia is being considered as a launch site, and a contract has been signed with the government of Nova Scotia to provide 120 acres (0.49 km²) of land for the project.

A requirement of the X-Prize for each participating company was to propose other possible markets for their spacecraft. Canadian Arrow coined the term "Spacediving", while investigating the possible use of Canadian Arrow spacecraft for an high altitude version of skydiving.
On November 11, 2005 Canadian Arrow teamed up with former X-Prize competitor Romanian aerospace company, ARCASPACE, to develop privately built spacecraft.

On December 15, 2005 PlanetSpace Corporation unveiled plans for an orbital commercial vehicle

capable of carrying eight passengers. This vehicle to be called the Silver Dart is based on the U.S. Air Force's Flight Dynamics Laboratory-7 lifting body program from the 1970s.

source: wikpedia

Previews discussions about Human spaceflight

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Discussion

Hopefully "human spaceflight" strikes a balance between
being gender-neutral and still sounding elegant enough.
Rlandmann 23:37, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

As an article name it is fine, but the bad thing is that it don't fit into a sentence,
like e.g. Soyuz TM-2 was a humaned spaceflight, so it always needs a redirect.
andy 08:31, 11 Nov 2003 (UTC)

To make it even more gender-aware, I'd like to see the "first human in space" supplemented with the first woman, and first black. We minimize the struggles they had to go through to get there if we do not mention them. I know we're being "PC" to call Yuri Gagarin the first "human" in space, but the bald fact is that he was a man and women couldn't go to space then, and we should unfortunately acknowledge that. I don't know the actual names
and dates myself, or I'd've been bold. --
zandperl 03:24, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

First Woman, Valentina Tereshkova (Vostok 5, june 16, 1963), the four others selected for the Female Cosmonaut Corps did not fly;
the second one was also a USSR citizen, Svetlana Savitskaya (flew the Soyuz T-7 in 1982,
was part of the crew of Salyut 7 in 1984, where she became the first woman in EVA)
--
How about "inhabited spacecraft" for those that contain people, and "uninhabited spacecraft" for those that don't? This looks forward to the (distant?) future when today's puny space station might be replaced by sizable permanent residences in space.
--
I changed the list of countries that has performed spacetravel to: soviet, usa, instead of usa, soviet, of the following reasons:

The order should be either historical or alphabetical - in both cases soviet comes before usa. The old ordering (usa, soviet, etc) is biased IMO.

sorry, but "human spaceflight" is an absolute nonsense term. The flight isn't human, the passengers are. The term is "manned spaceflight", and no, that's already gender-neutral, see mannaz. what's wrong with you people? go find some actual discrimination instead of butchering the English language.
213.3.64.145 18:39, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

If I may be equally rude for a moment, go find something productive to do rather than butchering the article on some anti-PC crusade. The English language is an living, evolving language. Deal with it. --
Robert Merkel 00:46, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

The world used in aerospace industry is human spaceflight, so title of the article seems ok for me.
Hektor 18:50, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Moved discussion of the term

If you look up the article Human spaceflight, it seems likely that you are more interested in the concept of human spaceflight and its history than the term itself. I have thus moved the discussion of the term to the end of the article.
Bergsten 14:45, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Confused Sentence.

"The only destination of human spaceflight missions beyond Earth orbit has been the Moon, which is itself in Earth orbit." It's the only place humans have gone outside our orbit but it's in our oribt. Yes that makes a ton of sense.
Zazaban 23:38, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

This is a good point, which the article wording now finesses. It isn't fully correct to say the spaceflights to the Moon went beyond Earth orbit, because the spacecraft hadn't left the Earth's Hill sphere. But the Moon missions did enter the Hill sphere of -- and take up orbit around -- the Moon. From an orbital mechanics perspecitve, the question of leaving Earth orbit is one of escape velocity. If you can work this into the Human spaceflight article, great!
Sdsds 15:11, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

source: wikipedia

Manned Spaceflight

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A human spaceflight

is a spaceflight with a human crew, and possibly passengers. This makes it unlike robotic space probes or remotely-controlled satellites. Human spaceflight is sometimes called manned spaceflight, a term now deprecated by major space agencies in favor of its gender-neutral alternative.
As of 2008, only the American Space Shuttle program, the Russian Soyuz programme and the Chinese Shenzhou program are actively launching human spaceflights.

Early attempts at human spaceflight
In the early Christian era, a Greek satirist named Lucian wrote a book on space flight called True Histories. The book was full of tall, unbelieveable tales and travelogues on visits to the sun and the moon. Today, the book could easily be discarded as the fantasy of a people of a bygone era. But it was significant in the sense that it kindled the curiosities of the people of the day and stimulated interest in outer space and space travel.
In 1638, a Christian writer from England named Wilkins wrote a book on moon travel and suggested four methods to accomplish it. Firstly, he said, the divine soul could take man to the moon; secondly, some large and powerful birds could transport man to the moon; thirdly, man himself could make the journey by tying wings to his arms and fourthly, he said, a flying machine could transport man to the moon.
American author Herbert S. Zim claimed in 1945 that there is a Chinese legend where a scientist named Wan Hu in the early Ming dynasty attempted to travel through space with the help of rockets. In the story, Wan tied 47 rockets filled with explosives to the chair in which he was sitting and ignited them. There was a large explosion, but when the smoke cleared Wan Hu was gone and never seen again.

History
The first human spaceflight was undertaken on April 12, 1961, when cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin made one orbit around the Earth aboard the Vostok 1 spacecraft launched by the Soviet Union. Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space on board Vostok 6 on June 16, 1963. Both spacecraft were launched by Vostok 3KA launch vehicles. Alexei Leonov made the first spacewalk when he left the Voskhod 2 on March 8, 1965. Svetlana Savitskaya became the first woman to do so on July 25, 1984.

The United States became the second nation to achieve manned spaceflight with the suborbital flight of astronaut Alan Shepard aboard Freedom 7, carried out as part of Project Mercury. The spacecraft was launched on May 5, 1961 on a Redstone rocket. The first U.S. orbital flight was that of John Glenn aboard Friendship 7, which was launched February 20, 1962 on an Atlas rocket. Since April 12, 1981 the U.S. has conducted all its huan spaceflight missions with reusable Space Shuttles. Sally Ride became the first American woman in space in 1983. Eileen Collins was the first female Shuttle pilot, and with Shuttle mission STS-93 in July of 1999 she became the first woman to command a U.S. spacecraft.

The People's Republic of China became the third nation with human spaceflight when astronaut Yang Liwei launched into space on a Chinese-made vehicle, the Shenzhou 5, on October 15, 2003. This flight made China the third nation capable of launching its own manned spacecraft using its own launcher. Previous European (Hermes) and Japanese (HOPE-X) domestic manned programs were abandoned after years of development, as was the first Chinese attempt, the Shuguang spacecraft.

The furthest destination for a human spaceflight mission has been the Moon, and as of 2007 the only missions to the Moon have been those conducted by NASA as part of the Apollo program. The first such mission, Apollo 8, orbited the Moon but did not land.

The first Moon landing mission was Apollo 11, during which -- on July 20, 1969 -- Neil Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the Moon. Six missions landed in total, numbered Apollo 11–17, excluding Apollo 13. Altogether twelve men reached the Moon's surface, the only humans to have been on an extraterrestrial body.

The Soviet Union discontinued its program for lunar orbiting and landing of human spaceflight missions on June 24, 1974 when Valentin Glushko became General Designer of NPO Energiya.

The longest single human spaceflight is that of Valeriy Polyakov, who left earth on January 8, 1994, and didn't return until March 22, 1995 (a total of 437 days 17 hr. 58 min. 16 sec. aboard). Sergei Krikalyov has spent the most time of anyone in space, 803 days, 9 hours, and 39 seconds altogether.

Mankind has had a presence in space for as long as 3,644 days in a row, eight days short of 10 years, spanning the launch of Soyuz TM-8 on September 5, 1989 to the landing of Soyuz TM-29 on August 28, 1999.

For many years beginning in 1961, only two countries, the USSR (later Russia) and United States, had their own astronauts. Later, cosmonauts and astronauts from other nations flew in space, beginning with the flight of Vladimir Remek, a Czech, on a Soviet spacecraft on March 2, 1978. As of 2007, citizens from 33 nations (including space tourists have flown in space aboard Soviet, American, Russian, and Chinese spacecraft.

Space programs
As of 2007, human spaceflight missions have been conducted by the Soviet Union, the United States, Russia, the People's Republic of China and by the private spaceflight company Scaled Composites.

Several other countries and space agencies have announced and begun human spaceflight programs by their own technology, including Japan (JAXA), India (ISRO), Iran (ISA), Malaysia (MNSA) and Turkey.

Currently the following spacecraft and spaceports are used for launching human spaceflights:

Soyuz with Soyuz launch vehicle—Baikonur Cosmodrome

Space Shuttle—Kennedy Space Center
International Space Station (ISS)—Assembled in orbit; crews transported by

the previous two spacecraft

Shenzhou spacecraft with Long March rocket—Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center

Historically, the following spacecraft and spaceports have also been used for

human spaceflight launches:

Vostok— Baikonur Cosmodrome
Mercury— Kennedy Space Center
Voskhod— Baikonur Cosmodrome
X-15— Edwards Air Force Base, (two internationally recognized suborbital flights in program)
Gemini— Kennedy Space Center
Apollo— Kennedy Space Center
Salyut space station— Baikonur Cosmodrome
Almaz space station— Baikonur Cosmodrome
Skylab space station— Kennedy Space Center
Mir space station— Baikonur Cosmodrome
SpaceShipOne with White Knight— Mojave Spaceport

Numerous private companies attempted human spaceflight programs in an effort to win the $10 million Ansari X Prize.

The first private human spaceflight took place on June 21, 2004, when SpaceShipOne conducted a suborbital flight. With its second flight within one week, SpaceShipOne captured the prize on October 4, 2004.

Most of the time, the only humans in space are those aboard the ISS, whose crew of three spends up to six months at a time in low Earth orbit.

NASA and ESA now use the term "human spaceflight" to refer to their programs of launching people into space. Traditionally, these endeavors have been referred to as "manned space missions".

Adverse effects of radiation
The effect of radiation on space travelers depends on two main factors: the intensity of the radiation, and the time over which the exposure occurs. Astronauts in low earth orbit are exposed to radiation of relatively low intensity for long periods of time. The Apollo astronauts were exposed to much more intense radiation, but only for a matter of days. Astronauts on hypothetical future interplanetary missions would be exposed to high intensities for long periods, causing the accumulation of very large doses; this is currently one of the most important unsolved problems facing planners of such efforts.

Adverse effects of the microgravity environment
Medical data from astronauts in low earth orbits for long periods, dating back to the 1970's, show several adverse effects of a microgravity environment: loss of bone density, decreased muscle strength and endurance, postural instability, and reductions in aerobic capacity. Over time these deconditioning effects can impair astronauts’ performance or increase their risk of injury

In human spaceflight

the life support system is a group of devices that allow a human being to survive in outer space. NASA often uses the phrase Environmental Control and Life Support System or the acronym ECLSS when describing these systems for its human spaceflight missions. The life support system may supply: air, water and food. It must also maintain the correct body temperature, an acceptable pressure on the body and deal with the body's waste products. Shielding against harmful external influences such as radiation and micro-meteorites may also be necessary. Components of the life support system are life-critical, and are designed and constructed using safety engineering techniques

Life support functions

Human physiological & metabolic needs
A crewmember of typical size requires approximately 5 kg (total) of food, water, and oxygen per day to perform the standard activities on a space mission, and outputs a similar amount in the form of waste solids, waste liquids, and carbon dioxide.

The mass breakdown of these metabolic parameters is as follows: 0.84 kg of oxygen, 0.62 kg of food, and 3.52 kg of water consumed, converted through the body's physiological processes to 0.11 kg of solid wastes, 3.87 kg of liquid wastes, and 1.00 kg of carbon dioxide produced.

These levels can vary due to activity level, specific to mission assignment, but will correlate to the principles of mass balance. Actual water use during space missions is typically double the specified values mainly due to non-biological use (i.e. personal cleanliness).

Additionally, the volume and variety of waste products varies with mission duration to include hair, finger nails, skin flaking, and other biological wastes in missions exceeding one week in length. Other environmental considerations such as radiation, gravity, noise, vibration, and lighting also factor into human physiological response in space, though not with the more immediate effect that the metabolic parameters have.

Atmosphere
Space life support systems provide atmospheres composed primarily of oxygen, nitrogen, water, carbon dioxide, and other trace gases. The partial pressures of each component gas additively combine to the overall barometric pressure, typically 101.3 kPa (Earth standard atmospheric pressure at sea-level). However, atmospheric pressure can be significantly lower (25-26 kPa for EVAs) given a corresponding increase in the partial pressure of oxygen. Lower atmospheric pressures are advantageous for designing spacecraft with less structural mass and reduced atmospheric loss. The two primary ways of achieving this are by reducing atmospheric pressure while keeping the percent of oxygen the same (~21%) or through allowing the oxygen concentration to remain at sea-level pressure while reducing the overall barometric pressure.

source: wikipedia

rockets, missions, satellites, space shuttle, etc.

2008-06-30T18:52:00.000-07:00

Saturn INT-21
Space Shuttle Enterprice
Shuttle Endeavour
Assembly Building
MISSION PATCH

Ares-l
Delta ll
Saturn V

Space Shuttle Columbia Launching

List of Rocket

...That it can take up to twenty minutes for communications from spacecraft on
Mars to reach Earth?
…That the Delta II rocket (pictured) is the most reliable carrier rocket currently in service?
…That the Soviet Union ran two different space programmes with the name Prognoz, a scientific
research programme, and a missile defence programme?

Fortnight
5 January 2006 - 2
January 2008
And 2008
Fortnight 1
...that the Saturn V rocket (pictured) was 365 feet (111 metres) tall?
...that the USSR had its own Space Shuttle, Buran?
...that Pluto has 3 known natural satellites: Hydra, Nix, and Charon?

2008 Fortnight 2
...that less than half of missions sent to Mars have failed, leading some people to think
that Mars is cursed?
...that Galileo probe (pictured) discovered the first binary asteroid, 243 Ida/Dactyl?
...that the New Horizons probe will pass within 10,000 kilometres of Pluto in 2015?

2008 Fortnight 3
…that the Vehicle Assembly Building is so large that rain clouds are reported
to form inside it on humid days?
…that when investigating the Challenger accident, Richard Feynman threatened to
remove his name from the report unless it included his personal observations
on the reliability of the shuttle?
…that the Cassini spacecraft has discovered four new moons of Saturn?

2008 Fortnight 4
…that the rocket that launched Skylab was a Saturn INT-21 (pictured),
not a Saturn V, as is commonly believed.
…that the N1 rocket had 30 engines just to power its first stage.
…that Space Shuttle mission STS-8 was the first night launch and night landing in 1983
for the shuttle program.

2008 Fortnight 5
…that Space Shuttle Enterprise (pictured) was originally to be called Constitution,
but was renamed after the Starship Enterprise from Star Trek.
…that Explorer 1, the first American satellite, was launched just 84 days after
the programme was started.

…that the Vostok 4 mission was shortened because cosmonaut Pavel Romanovich Popovich
accidentally told flight controlers that he was "observing thunderstorms"
This was a coded signal requesting an abort because the cosmonaut was feeling ill, however
Popovich was actually trying to inform ground controllers that he could see
thunderstorms from space.

2008 Fortnight 6
…that the Phoenix spacecraft (pictured) will investigate water ice at the North Pole of Mars.
…that the Kennedy Space Center is built on the site of a nature reserve.
…that there were 68 orbital launches in 2007, an increase of two from 2006.

2008 Fortnight 7
...that an Atlas V rocket (pictured) is 58.3 m (191 ft) tall?
...that in 1971 the USSR launched Salyut 1, the first space station?
...that 2060 Chiron, the first centaur planetoid, was discovered in 1977?

2008 Fortnight 8
...that engineers claim the Ares I rocket (pictured) would be more aerodynamically
stable if flying backwards than in the normal direction?
...that STS-80, a mission flown by the Space Shuttle Columbia, lasted 17 days, 15 hours,
53 minutes and 18 seconds, making it the longest Shuttle mission to date?
...that the Ocean Odyssey launch platform, used by Sea Launch, was originally
built as an oil rig?

2008 Fortnight 9
…that the oldest person to fly in space was John Glenn (pictured),

aboard Space Shuttle Discovery mission STS-95 (29 October-7 November 1998),

at the age of 77.

…and that the youngest person to fly in space was Gherman Titov,

on Vostok 2 (6-7 August 1961), aged 25.
…that Soyuz TMA-13, currently scheduled to launch on 12

October 2008, will be the 100th manned Soyuz flight.

2008 Fortnight 10
…that Space Shuttle Endeavour (pictured) was built from spare parts

left over from the construction of other Space Shuttle orbiters?
…that the Little Joe was a rocket built to conduct boilerplate tests of Mercury spacecraft?
…that the 100th Long March rocket was launched on 1 June 2007?

2008 Fortnight 11
…that a CubeSat (pictured) is a cube, 10 centimetres in all dimensions,
weighing less than one kilogram?
…that to date 90 Explorer satellites have been launched, the most recent being AIM in 2007?
…that Luna 1 became the first object to enter a heliocentric orbit after a guidance
failure led to it missing its planned lunar impact?

2008 Fortnight 12
…that to date, Britain has launched only one satellite, Prospero X-3, using a Black Arrow
rocket (pictured)?
…that the crew of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project Apollo spacecraft nearly died
during re-entry due to a nitrogen tetroxide leak?
…that SpaceShipOne was the first manned spacecraft to be powered by a hybrid rocket motor?

2008 Fortnight 1
…the record for the longest manned spaceflight stands at 437.7 days, which was set by
Valeriy Polyakov aboard Mir (pictured)?
…the Voskhod spacecraft was so cramped that the crew of Voskhod 1 were unable
to wear spacesuits?
…the upper stage of the GX rocket will be fuelled by liquid natural gas?

2008 Fortnight 14
…That it can take up to twenty minutes for communications from spacecraft
on Mars to reach Earth?
…That the Delta II rocket (pictured) is the most reliable carrier rocket currently in service?
…That the Soviet Union ran two different space programmes with the name Prognoz,
a scientific research programme, and a missile defence programme?

2008 Fortnight 15
…that the US National Reconnaissance Office includes clues to the identity of their
classified satellites in their mission patches (pictured)?
…that the record for the most people on a single spacecraft for the duration of its flight is eight,
aboard Space Shuttle Challenger on STS-61-A in 1985?
…that the first two SpaceShipTwo spacecraft will be named VSS Enterprise and VSS Voyager,
reportedly after spacecraft in Star Trek?
source: wikipedia

Spaceflight

2008-06-30T17:58:00.000-07:00

Details may change
as the launch dates approach
or more information becomes available.

Launches
Two spaceflight scheduled
to be launched in 2008:

The next scheduled launch is an
Ariane 5ECA
with the Badr-6 andProtoStar-1
satellites for Arabsat and ProtoStar.
Liftoff, from ELA-3 at the Guiana Space Centre
planned for 22:01 GMT on 3 July.

The next scheduled manned launch will be of the
Space Shuttle Atlantis
on mission STS-125
the final mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope.
Launch from LC-39A at KSC is scheduled for 8 October.
A webcast can be viewed on NASA TV.

For a full launch schedule, see 2008 in spaceflight
source: wikipedia

Space Technology and applied science

2008-06-30T16:09:00.000-07:00

Spaceflight

is the use of space technology to fly a spacecraft into and through outer space.
Spaceflight is used in space exploration, and also in commercial activities like space tourism and satellite telecommunications. Additional non-commercial uses of spaceflight include space observatories, reconnaissance satellites and other earth observation satellites.
A spaceflight typically begins with a rocket launch, which provides the initial thrust to overcome the force of gravity and propels the spacecraft from the surface of the Earth. Once in space, the motion of a spacecraft -- both when unpropelled and when under propulsion -- is covered by the area of study called astrodynamics. Some spacecraft remain in space indefinitely, some disintegrate during atmospheric reentry, and others reach a planetary or lunar surface for landing or impact.

IS the movement of spacecraft into and through outer space, primarily using rocket technology for propulsio. Spaceflight is used in space exploration, the endeavour to reach, explore, and exploit the space outside the Earth's atmosphere, and also in commercial activities like space tourism and satellite telecommunications. It is generally based on the use of rockets to transport machines, animals, and humans to, and subsequently through, space. Additional non-commercial uses of spaceflight include space observatories, reconnaissance satellites and other earth observation satellites. Objects launched into space may follow a sub-orbital trajectory and return to Earth immediately, stay in orbit around Earth, travel in the space between the planets, or aim to leave the space dominated by the Sun completely.

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket

2008-06-30T01:26:00.000-07:00

Scheduled to be first launched in mid 2008, is designed to be man-rated. This would be the first American orbital vehicle since the Space Shuttle to receive this designation, in principle allowing the vehicle to transport paying customers to orbit. Plans and a full-scale prototype for the SpaceX Dragon, a manned capsule carrying up to 7 passengers, were announced on March 6, 2006. An early flight of the Falcon 9 is planned to carry the prototype expandable space complex module (based on the formerly NASA-owned Transhab design) constructed by Bigelow Aerospace. Bigelow Aerospace expects such modules to be used for activities like microgravity research, space manufacturing, and space tourism (with modules serving as orbital hotels). To promote private manned launch efforts, Bigelow has offered the $50M America's Space Prize for the first US-based privately funded team to launch a manned reusable spacecraft to orbit on or before

January 10, 2010.
XCOR Aerospace plans to initiate a suborbital commercial spaceflight service with the Lynx rocketplane in 2012. First test flights are planned for 2010.
Excalibur Almaz plans to launch a modernized Almaz space station, for tourism and other uses. It will feature the largest window ever on a spacecraft.

Future plans
Many have speculated on where private spaceflight may go in the near future. One possibility is for paid suborbital tourism on craft like SpaceShipOne. Additionally, suborbital spacecraft have applications for faster intercontinental package delivery and passenger flight.

On-orbit propellant depots
In a presentation given 2005-11-15 to the 52nd Annual Conference of the American Astronautical Society, NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin suggested that establishing an on-orbit propellant depot is, "Exactly the type of enterprise which should be left to industry and to the marketplace." At the Space Technology and Applications International Forum in 2007, Dallas Bienhoff of Boeing made a presentation detailing the benefits of propellant depots

source: wikipedia

Failed spaceflight venture

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In the 1990s the projection of a significant demand for communications satellite launches attracted the development of a number of commercial space launch providers. The launch demand largely vanished when some of the largest satellite constellations, such as 288 satellite Teledesic network, were never built. The historic tendency of NASA to compete against the private sector and the Department of Defense's preference for the traditional military industrial complex has discouraged many new space launch ventures.

VentureStar
In 1996 NASA selected Lockheed Martin Skunk Works to build the X-33 VentureStar prototype for a single stage to orbit (SSTO) reusable launch vehicle. In 1999, the subscale X-33 prototype's composite liquid hydrogen fuel tank failed during testing. At project termination on March 31, 2001, NASA had funded $912 million of this wedge shaped spacecraft while Lockheed Martin financed $357 million of it. The VentureStar was to have been a full-scale commercial space transport operated by Lockheed Martin.

Beal Aerospace
In 1997 Beal Aerospace proposed the BA-2, a low-cost heavy-lift commercial launch vehicle. In March 4, 2000, the BA-2 project tested the largest liquid rocket engine built since the Saturn V In October 2000, Beal Aerospace ceased operations citing a decision by NASA and the Department of Defense to commit themselves to the development of the competing government-financed EELV program.

Rotary Rocket
In 1998 Rotary Rocket proposed the Roton, a Single Stage to Orbit (SSTO) piloted Vertical Take-off and Landing (VTOL) space transport. A full scale Roton Atmospheric Test Vehicle flew three times in 1999. After spending tens of millions of dollars in development the Roton failed to secure launch contracts and Rotary Rocket ceased operations in 2001

Emerging Personal Spaceflight

2008-06-30T00:53:00.000-07:00

Before 2004 no privately operated manned spaceflight had ever occurred. The only private individuals to journey to space went as space tourists in the Space Shuttle or on Russian Soyuz launch vehicle flights to Mir or the

International Space Station.
All private individuals who flew to space before Dennis Tito's self-financed International Space Station visit in 2001 had been sponsored by their home governments. Those trips include US Congressman Bill Nelson's January 1986 flight on the Space Shuttle Columbia and Japanese television reporter Toyohiro Akiyama's 1990 flight to the Mir Space Station.

The Ansari X PRIZE was intended to stimulate private investment in the development of spaceflight technologies. The June 21, 2004 test flight of SpaceShipOne, a contender for the X PRIZE, was the first human spaceflight in a privately developed and operated vehicle.
On 27 September 2004, following the success of SpaceShipOne, Richard Branson, owner of Virgin and Burt Rutan, SpaceShipOne's designer, announced that Virgin Galactic had licensed the craft's technology, and were planning commercial space flights in 2.5 to 3 years. A fleet of five craft is to be constructed, and flights will be offered at around $200,000 each, although Branson has said he plans to use this money to make flights more affordable in the long term.
In December 2004, United States President George W. Bush signed in to law the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act. The Act resolved the regulatory ambiguity surrounding private spaceflights and is designed to promote the development of the emerging U.S. commercial human space flight industry.

On July 12, 2006, Bigelow Aerospace launched the Genesis I, a subscale pathfinder of an orbital space station module. Genesis II was launched on June 28, 2007, and there are plans for additional prototypes to be launched in preparation for the production model BA 330 spacecraft.
On September 28, 2006, Jim Benson, SpaceDev founder, announced he was founding Benson Space Company with the intention of being first to market with the safest and lowest cost suborbital personal spaceflight launches, using the vertical takeoff and horizontal landing Dream Chaser vehicle based on the NASA HL-20 Personnel Launch System vehicle.

Transportation Services

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Computer rendering of

Rocketplane-Kistler K-1

approaching ISS (RpK)

Commercial Orbital Transportation Services
On January 18, 2006 NASA announced an opportunity for commercial providers to demonstrate orbital transportation services. NASA plans to spend $500 million through 2010 to finance development of private sector capability to transport payloads to the International Space Station (ISS). This is more challenging than extant commercial space transportation because it requires precision orbit insertion, rendezvous and possibly docking with another spacecraft. The commercial vendors will compete in specific service areas. NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin has stated that without affordable commercial orbital transportation services (COTS), the agency will not have enough funds remaining to achieve the objectives of the Vision for Space Exploration.
On August 18, 2006, NASA announced that Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and Rocketplane Kistler (RpK) are the two winners for Phase I of the COTS program. NASA anticipates that COTS services to ISS will be necessary through at least 2015. The NASA Administrator has suggested that space transportation services procurement may be expanded to orbital fuel depots and lunar surface deliveries should the first phase of COTS prove successful

Commercial Launchers

2008-06-30T00:42:00.000-07:00

Space transport
The space transport business serves primarily national government and large commercial customer segments. Launches of government payloads, including military, civilian and scientific satellites, is the largest market segment at nearly $100 billion a year. This segment is dominated by domestic favorites such as the United Launch Alliance for U.S. government payloads and Arianespace for European satellites. The commercial payload segment, valued at under $3 billion a year, is dominated by Arianespace, with over 50% of the market segment, followed by Russian launchers. See a complete list of launch systems.

Private Spaceflight

2008-06-30T00:35:00.000-07:00

IS flight above 100 kilometres (62 mi) Earth altitude conducted by and paid for by an entity other than a government. In the early decades of the Space Age, the government space agencies of the Soviet Union and United States pioneered space technology in collaboration with affiliated design bureaus and private enterprises. Later on, large defense contractors began to develop and operate space launch systems, derived from government rockets, and commercial satellites. Private spaceflight in Earth orbit includes communications satellites, satellite television, satellite radio and orbital space tourism. Recently, entrepreneurs started designing and flying suborbital spaceplanes. Planned private spaceflights beyond Earth orbit include solar sailing prototypes, deep space burial and personal spaceflights around the Moon. A private orbital habitat prototype is already in Earth orbit, with larger versions to follow.

The Space Tourism society

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The Space Tourism Society

(STS) is a new not-for-profit society specifically focused on space tourism based in USA. STS have chapters in Japan, Norway, and the United Kingdom.
The Space Tourism Society is a California 501 (c)3 nonprofit organization whose mission is to encourage as many people to travel into Earth orbit as soon as possible for the space experience. STS aims to provide the vision and voice for the evolution of humanity off-world in a humane, fun, and beautiful direction. STS was created to inspire people to build real products for future use in space.

Offering to walk in the space

2008-06-30T00:28:00.000-07:00

Spacewalk

On July 21, 2006 the company announced that they would begin offering a spacewalk option to their clients traveling to the ISS. The addition of the spacewalk, which would allow participants to spend up to 1.5 hours outside of the space station, would cost about $15 million and would lengthen the orbital mission approximately six to eight days. The spacewalk would be completed in the Russian designed Orlan space suit. The training for the spacewalk would require an extra month of training on top of the six months already required.

Developing a SubOrbital space transfortation

2008-06-30T00:23:00.000-07:00

Explorer suborbital vehicle

Space Adventures C-21
Space Adventures Explorer

The company, along with Prodea and FSA, is currently developing a suborbital space transportation system, called Explorer.
The vehicle has been designed by Myasishchev Design Bureau, a Russian aerospace organization which has developed a wide-array of aircraft and space systems.

The Explorer aerospace system
will consist of a flight-operational carrier aircraft, the M-55X, and a rocket spacecraft. It will have the capacity to transport up to five people to space

The Space Adventure, LTD.

2008-06-30T00:03:00.000-07:00

Type: Private
Founded: 1998
Headquarters: Vienna, Virginia, USA
Industry: Commercial Spaceflight
Products: space tourism

Space Adventures, Ltd.

is a space tourism company

that provides access to space to private citizens.

Background
Eric C. Anderson is the president and CEO of Space Adventures. He co-founded Space Adventures in 1998 with several other entrepreneurs from the aerospace, adventure travel and entertainment industries and has managed the company over the past several years, selling more than $120M in space tourist flights.
The company sells a variety of flights such as Zero-Gravity flights, cosmonaut training and actual spaceflights.

May 2001, it sent American businessman Dennis Tito to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a Soyuz spacecraft for a reported $20 million payment, making him the first space tourist in history. South African businessman Mark Shuttleworth did the same in April 2002,becoming the 'First African in Space'. Gregory Olsen became the third private citizen to travel to the ISS in October 2005, followed by the first female space tourist, Anousheh Ansari, who completed her 10-day orbital mission in September 2006. Charles Simonyi, an ex-executive at Microsoft who managed the Office product group became the world's fifth space tourist in April 2007. In 2008, two people are expected to travel to the ISS: Russian parliament member Vladimir Gruzdev, and Richard Garriott, the son of scientist and astronaut Owen K. Garriott. Originally scheduled first, Garriott's trip is expected to be postponed to give priority to Gruzdev's flight. In March of 2008 made acquisition of Zero Gravity Corporation

Prototype New Shepard design

2008-06-29T23:45:00.000-07:00

During 2006 the company built a prototype of their New Shepard design. The New Shepard is controlled entirely by on-board computers, without ground control. The fuselage is roughly conical, with a rounded base, and roughly bullet-shaped overall. It is powered by a cluster of nine engines powered by high test peroxide (HTP) and RP-1 kerosene, arranged in a 3 by 3 grid on the bottom. Four landing legs containing shock absorbers also extend from the edges of the bottom.
The first example, christened the Goddard, first flew on November 13, 2006. The flight was a complete success, and pictures and movies from the launch form a major part of the company's spartan web site. However, a second test flight filed for December 2nd never launched. Two successful flight tests have been recorded since then.
In an interview with Charlie Rose on November 19, 2007, Bezos reported that the construction of a second test vehicle was in progress and that a third development vehicle would be built after that before any commercial flights would begin

2008-06-29T23:42:00.000-07:00

Headquarters

The company is headquartered in a warehouse situated on 25 acres of industrial land in the Seattle, Washington suburb of Kent, where its research and development is located. The spaceport facility was set up at the "Corn Ranch", a 165,000 acre (670 km²) spread north of Van Horn and 15 miles south of the Guadalupe Mountains, nearly 120 miles east of El Paso

2008-06-29T23:38:00.000-07:00

History

Since its founding the company has been notoriously tight-lipped about its plans. Although the company was formally incorporated in 2000, its existence only became public in 2003, when Bezos started buying land in Texas and interested parties followed up on the purchases. This was a topic of some interest in local politics, and his rapid aggregation of the lots under a variety of whimsically named shell companies was referred to as a "land grab". In January 2005, Bezos told the editor of the Van Horn Advocate that Blue Origin is developing a sub-orbital space vehicle that will take off and land vertically and carry three or more astronauts to the edge of space. The spacecraft is based on technology like that used for the McDonnell Douglas DC-X and derivative DC-XA. Bezos told Reuters in November 2004 that his company hopes to progress to orbital spaceflight. As of January 2005, the company's website announced that it hopes to establish an "enduring human presence in space", but the 2007 version talks instead of aiming to "patiently and step-by-step, to lower the cost of spaceflight so that many people can afford to go and so that we humans can better continue exploring the solar system".
Employees of Blue Origin include Rob Meyerson (program manager) and science fiction author Neal Stephenson (part-time advisor).

2008-06-29T22:51:00.000-07:00

Honors

Bigelow Aerospace has received several honors for its spaceflight efforts. On October 3, 2006, Bigelow Aerospace received the Innovator Award from the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation. The award recognizes "initiatives or new inventions that have had recent impact on or hold particular promise for satellite communications and society, and stand as distinguished examples of innovative thinking." Robert Bigelow was presented the award at the Arthur C. Clarke Awards in Washington D.C. alongside Walter Cronkite, who was honored on the same night with the Arthur C. Clarke Lifetime Achievement Award.

On January 26, 2007, the Space Foundation advocacy group announced that Bigelow Aerospace would be the recipient of its 2007 Space Achievement Award. Bigelow Aerospace joins a list of previous winners that include the Titan Launch Vehicle team; The Inertial Upper Stage team, the SpaceShipOne team; the Arianespace-CNES Ariane 4 launch team; the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) teams; the NASA/Industry Galileo space probe team; the Hubble Space Telescope team; Sea Launch; and the NASA/Boeing International Space Station team. The award was presented to Robert Bigelow on April 9, 2007 at the 23rd National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

2008-06-29T22:47:00.000-07:00

Fly your stuff program
Bigelow Aerospace ran a Fly Your Stuff program for the Genesis II launch. The cost to launch pictures or small items was around US$300. Bigelow plans to photograph each item with internal cameras as the items float inside the craft, to be displayed on the company website.
The first image of the interior of Genesis II appeared on the company's website on June 29, 2007. Some of the pictures and other items placed aboard Genesis II as part of the Fly Your Stuff program are clearly visible. Another interior image, apparently taken with more of the spacecraft's internal lights activated, was posted on July 2, 2007. Articles from the Fly Your Stuff program are also visible in this image.
Test items, supplied by Bigelow Aerospace employees, were sent into orbit on Genesis I. No new images of items floating inside Genesis I have been released since shortly after the launch and initial activation of the spacecraft due to problems with a computer which controls several of the internal cameras

The Atlas V

2008-06-29T22:19:00.000-07:00

Fact sheet
Function EELV/Medium-heavy launch vehicle
Manufacturer United Launch Alliance
Country of origin United States
Size
Height 58.3 m (191.2 ft)
Diameter 3.81 m (12.49 ft)
Mass 546,700 kg (1,205,200 lb)
Stages 2
Capacity
Payload to LEO 10,300 - 20,050 kg
Payload toGTO 4,100 - 8,200 kg
Launch History
Status Active
Launch sites LC-41, CCAFS SLC-3E, Vandenberg AFB
Total launches 14 For breakdown by variant, see text
Successes 13
Partial failures 1 (401) Maiden flight 21 August 2002
Notable payloads Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter New Horizons
Boosters (Not Heavy) - Aerojet
No boosters 1 to 5 (see text)
Engines 1 Solid
Thrust 1,270 kN (285,500 lbf)
Specific impulse 275 sec
Burn time 94 seconds
Fuel Solid
Boosters (Atlas V Heavy (5HX)) - Atlas CCB
No boosters 2
Engines 1 RD-180
Thrust 4,152 kN (933,406 lbf)
Specific impulse 311 sec
Burn time 253 seconds
Fuel RP-1/LOX
First Stage - Atlas CCB
Engines 1 RD-180
Thrust 4,152 kN (933,406 lbf)
Specific impulse 311 sec
Burn time 253 seconds
Fuel RP-1/LOX
Second Stage (Atlas V XX1) - Centaur
Engines 1 RL-10A
Thrust 99.2 kN (22,290 lbf)
Specific impulse 451 sec
Burn time 842 seconds
Fuel LH2/LOX
Second Stage (Atlas V XX2) - Centaur
Engines 2 RL-10A
Thrust 147 kN (41,592 lbf)
Specific impulse 449 sec
Burn time 421 seconds
Fuel LH2/LOX

2008-06-29T22:06:00.000-07:00

Launch of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

11:43:00 AM GMT August 12, 2005 on

the first Atlas V rocket used by NASA.

The rocket is in the 401 configuration

The Atlas V rocket

IS an expendable launch vehicle formerly built by Lockheed Martin and now built by the Lockheed Martin-Boeing joint venture United Launch Alliance. Aerojet develops and manufactures the Atlas V boosters. The rocket, built in Decatur, Alabama, consists of a first stage powered by kerosene and liquid oxygen, which uses a Russian made RD-180 engine, and a liquid hydrogen–liquid oxygen powered Centaur upper stage. Some configurations also use strap-on booster rockets. Together these components are referred to as the Atlas V launch vehicle.

In its 12 launches, from its maiden launch in August 2002 to March 2008, the Atlas V has had a near perfect success rate. On one flight, NRO L-30 on June 15, 2007, an upper-stage anomaly occurred when the engine in the vehicle's Centaur upper stage shut down early, leaving the payload -- a pair of ocean surveillance satellites -- in a lower than intended orbit. However, the customer, the National Reconnaissance Office, categorized the mission as a success. The anomaly was thoroughly investigated. Atlas V has made four successful flights since the anomaly.

2008-06-29T20:48:00.001-07:00

Genesis II launch

On June 28, 2007, Genesis II launched on a converted SS-18 ICBM from Yasny Launch Base in Siberia. Launched at 8:02 a.m. PDT Genesis II was inserted into orbit at 8:16 a.m. PDT at an inclination of 64 degrees.

Although Genesis I and Genesis II are identical in size and similar in appearance there are several notable differences. Firstly, Genesis I contains 13 video cameras whereas Genesis II contains 22. Secondly, Genesis II includes a suite of additional sensors and avionics that is not present in Genesis I.

2008-06-29T20:44:00.001-07:00

Genesis I Launch

An image from one of the seven exterior cameras on Genesis I.
On July 12, 2006, Genesis I launched on a Dnepr booster from Yasny Launch Base in Siberia. The launch was conducted by Bigelow and ISC Kosmotras. Despite ground-side difficulties during launch, the spacecraft performed as expected upon reaching orbit, inflating, deploying solar arrays and starting internal systems. The mission is planned to last for five years and include extensive observation of the craft's performance including testing packing/deployment procedures and resistance to radiation and space debris, among other space hazards and conditions. Mike Gold, corporate counsel for Bigelow Aerospace, stated in relation to this mission and the next, "Our motto at Bigelow Aerospace is 'fly early and often'. Regardless of the results of Genesis 1, we will launch a follow-up mission rapidly."

2008-06-29T19:56:00.000-07:00

Module launch timeline
On July 12, 2006 and June 28, 2007, Bigelow launched the Genesis I and II modules, respectively. In 2008, Bigelow Aerospace will complete the Galaxy module but will not launch it due to rising launch costs, testing it on the ground at its North Las Vegas facility instead.

Additionally, Bigelow has reserved a 2011 launch on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Bigelow has not yet announced the payload for the launch, but this timeframe roughly coincides with the launch of the Sundancer module. However, the Falcon 9 is also capable of launching the BA 330 module. Bigelow is also in talks with Lockheed Martin to contract launch services on its Atlas V - 401 vehicle.

Note:
Dates of upcoming launches are proposed and are subject to change.

Module Type:
Genesis Pathfinder
Genesis Pathfinder
Galaxy
Sundancer
BA 330

Module Name
Genesis l
Genesis ll
Galaxy
unknown
unknown

Flight Date
July 12, 006 14:53 UTC
June 28, 2007 15:12 UTC
Canceled
2010 2012
2010 2014

Launch Vehicle
Dnepr
Dnepr
none
unknown
unknown

Mission Status
Launch successful on orbit
Launch successful on orbit
Launch canceled, test on ground
Proposed
Proposed

source: wikipedia

2008-06-29T19:37:00.000-07:00

Module design and business plans

Model of the proposed BA 330 module.

The company intends to develop a family of prototype and production space station modules, including:

Genesis I

A one-third scale prototype module launched on July 12,2006 weighing approximately 3,000 pounds (1,360 kg), with approximate dimensions of 14.5 feet (4.4 meters) in length and 5.25 feet (1.6 meters) in diameter, expanding to nearly twice the diameter once in orbit;

Genesis II

with the same dimensions as Genesis I but with additional systems to be tested and items being sent up by paying members of the public;

Galaxy

A 45% scale prototype module designed to bridge the development gap between the Genesis modules and the eventual manned complex modules; the first manned test module

Sundancer; and the BA 330

A full-scale production module weighing approximately 50,000 pounds (23,000 kg) when fully loaded, with dimensions of approximately 45 feet (13.7 meters) in length and 22 feet (6.7 meters) in diameter when expanded.

The BA 330

was formerly referred to as the Nautilus. Contrary to many expectations, Bigelow Aerospace anticipates that its inflatable modules will be more durable than rigid modules. This is partially due to the company's use of several layers of vectran, a material twice as strong as kevlar, and also because, in theory, flexible walls should be able to sustain micrometeorite impacts better than rigid walls.

Expected uses for Bigelow Aerospace's expandable modules include microgravity research and development and space manufacturing. Other potential uses include space tourism, such as modules for orbital hotels, and space transportation, such as components in spaceships for Moon or Mars manned missions. The company plans to sell BA 330 modules for US$100 million apiece. Bigelow also plans to launch by 2010 an orbital resort, tentatively called the CSS (Commercial Space Station) Skywalker.

The company though is working for the launch much ahead of 2010.
On April 10, 2007, Bigelow Aerospace announced business plans to offer (by 2012) a four-week orbital stay for US$15 million, with another four weeks for an additional US$3 million. An entire orbital facility could also be leased for US$88 million a year, or half a facility for US$54 million a year

Future Reseach

2008-06-29T18:45:00.000-07:00

John Carmack

Future research

Carmack has stated in his monthly reports and in forum posts that he expects his path to an orbital vehicle to include modular rockets similar to OTRAG technology. Lutz Kayser, the founding engineer of OTRAG, visited Armadillo in May, 2006 and loaned Carmack some of their original research hardware.

"I have been corresponding with
Lutz for a few months now, and I
have learned quite a few things.
I seriously considered an OTRAG
style massive-cluster-of-cheap-
modules orbital design back when
we had 98% peroxide (assumed to
be a biprop with kerosene), and I
have always considered it one of
the viable routes to significant
reduction in orbital launch costs.
After really going over the trades
and details with Lutz, I am quite
convinced that this is the lowest
development cost route to
significant orbital capability.
Eventually, reusable stages will
take over, but I actually think that we
can make it all the way to orbit on
our current budget by following this path.
The individual modules are less complicated
than our current vehicles, and
I am becoming more and more
fond of high production methods over
hand crafter prototypes."
June 2006 Armadillo Aerospace Update

2008-06-29T18:36:00.000-07:00

Staff and funding

Widget
Armadillo is headed and has been largely funded by John Carmack, a developer of computer games including the Doom and Quake series. All of its employees (including Carmack) have other, full-time jobs and contribute their efforts twice weekly to Armadillo on a voluntary basis. Armadillo has a relatively small budget and is not supported by aerospace companies or agencies like NASA, ESA, or Boeing. Armadillo Aerospace has publicly declared itself fully self-funded.

In February 2006

Carmack stated that the program so far had cost slightly over $2 million.Even by the standards of X-Prize candidates, this is a low budget. Scaled Composites is estimated to have spent $25 million on its SpaceShipOne development program.

On August 8, 2006

Armadillo Aerospace announced that it had reached a sponsorship deal with NVIDIA. While details were sparse, John Carmack said, "There is a chance at this point that I may have written the last personal check I need to for Armadillo."

On April 2, 2008

Carmack offered an updated figure of "total cost to date, about $3.5 million". He estimated that another $2 million would be needed to achieve a manned flight to 100 km using Armadillo's modular design in a "six-pack" configuration.

The company has a mascot armadillo named Widget.

2008-06-29T18:32:00.000-07:00

Wirefly X-Prize Cup 2007
Armadillo Aerospace competed in the 2007 Lunar Lander Challenge event.

. Competition
In the level 1 events, Armadillo's craft MOD (actually, module #1) logged several attempts, including several successful first leg flights, but was unable to complete the return trip during any attempt.

On its first attempt, a clogged igniter orifice prevented ignition. On the second attempt, the first leg flight was perfect; increased guidance and control capabilities allowed the module to, in Carmack's words, 'burn the X-mark off the target pad'. The return leg was delayed slightly, because the igniter had clogged again. When the second leg was attempted, a 'hard start' cracked the graphite combustion chamber. As the vehicle was still flying, Carmack flew the crippled vehicle through the course as quickly as possible and hovered 2-3 meters above the landing pad. With only a few seconds remaining in the required flight time, the damaged combustion chamber cracked again, which caused the vehicle to tilt enough to trigger a computer abort. the vehicle performed an auto-land, but the tilt caused the module to tip over on landing after only 82 seconds in the air.

The second attempt began with another perfect first leg, but the return was marred by another hard start. Seeing that the engine was badly damaged (although flying), the team commanded an abort. The module landed back on the pad after only a few seconds.
On the final attempt, MOD suffered a violent "hard start", resulting in engine explosion. The violence of the explosion embedded a piece of the graphite chamber in the ground 64 meters from the launch pad, and ended the attempts for this year's prize.

The Quad Vehicle designed

2008-06-29T18:12:00.000-07:00

Quad vehicle

The specification for Pixel/Texel for level 1
Width: ~75 inches
Height: ~75 inches
Dry weight: 650 pounds
Gross Lift Off Weight (GLOW): ~1500 pounds (360 pounds ethanol, ~500 LOX)
Payload: 55 pounds
Engines: 1 (+ 4 cold gas attitude jets)
Thrust (sl): ~3000 pounds Engine (XPC-06):
thrust: ~3000 pounds (throttleable to 25%)
chamber pressure: 300 psi
Nozzle area ratio: 2:1
Isp (sl): ~140-~200 seconds (low-high throttle)
length: 20 inches
diameter: 8 inches
chamber: carbon fiber reinforced graphite built by Cesaroni aerospace
Burn time: >100 seconds, expected >180 for level 2, with approximately double the propellant mass.

The quad vehicle design is pressure fed in blow down mode from an initial pressure of 320 psi for level 1 (400 psi level 2). The roll thrusters are cross-fed by gas drawn from ullage space of the opposite tank. The vehicle is able to transfer propellant through connecting pipes between opposite tanks by controlling ullage pressures with the thrusters; this helps it balance, minimizing gas use. The main engine has two-axis thrust vectoring. The vehicle is fully computer controlled; with guidance from GPS and fiber optic gyros.

Armadillo 2006 Mission Patch

2008-06-29T18:03:00.000-07:00

Armadillo Aerospace competed in the 2006 Wirefly X PRIZE Cup. Armadillo Aerospace was the only competitor in the Lunar Lander Challenge. The company took two similar vehicles, Pixel and Texel, to the event. The vehicles narrowly failed to win the Level 1 prize, after making three dramatic attempts totalling over 5 minutes in the air,finally crashing out on the final attempt. Persistent landing problems were the main cause of failure, with the undercarriage breaking several times, and landing slightly off the pad on one occasion due to guidance issues. These flights were a highlight of the Wirefly X-prize cup.

Wirefly X-Prize Cup 2006

2008-06-29T17:53:00.000-07:00

Pixel attempting level 1- white tanks are insulated and contain liquid oxygen, grey tanks contain ethanol

Commercial Space Company

2008-06-29T17:23:00.000-07:00

MirCorp

was a commercial space company created in 1999 by space entrepreneurs and involving the Russian space program that successfully undertook a number of firsts in the business of space exploration by utilizing the aging Russian space station Mir as a commercial platform. Its actions were highly controversial and angered many as it created a roadblock to the planned International Space Station in creating a viable, low cost alternative.

The company achieved the following:

First commercial lease agreement for orbiting manned space station (December, 1999)
First privately funded manned expedition to a space station (launch April 4, 2000, return 16 June, 2000)
First privately funded cargo resupply mission in space (April 27, 2000)
First privately funded spacewalk (May 12, 2000)
First contract for space tourist (Dennis Tito, June 19, 2000)

In terms of business development, the company was able to launch the era of space tourism by signing American businessman Dennis Tito to his launch contract. It also signed with television producer Mark Burnett (producer of the Survivor reality show) and with NBC, to produce a reality show “Destination Mir,” where the winner would travel to space. And it also was able to sign other media, entertainment and commercial space research projects. MirCorp’s CEO Jeffrey Manber later stated “ we failed to survive but proved the business model, and in the long-term that will be just as important.”

The company came to an end for a variety of reasons. It seems to have been a combination of the financial backers inability to continue funding the venture, a business model that made little sense, and pressure by NASA to de-orbit the station. NASA viewed the station as a threat to their own plans for the International Space Station. The station existed until 23 March 2001, at which point it was deliberately de-orbited, breaking apart over the Pacific Ocean.

Background:

The company was formed as an idea by telecommunications and space investor Walt Anderson and space advocate Rick Tumlinson. Russia lacked the funds to upgrade and save the space station, and had concluded it had no choice but to deorbit the station. Several ideas were floated, some absurd and some interesting, including one to hand over the Mir to the United Nations. The idea proposed by Anderson and Tumlinson was to save the Mir space station by raising it to a higher orbit to gain time and developing a “space tether” to supply power to keep the space station in orbit while further funds were raised. This plan was never implemented by the MirCorp team, as the United States government barred the export of the space tether technology until after the deorbit of the space station was announced. It was just one of many obstacles placed in front of the venture by the American government.
The founders recruited well known space entrepreneur Jeffrey Manber, who had helped negotiate the first contract between the Soviet Union and NASA on space interests, and had also represented the huge Russian space company RSC Energia in its American dealings during the 1990’s. Manber created the business model for the venture which involved proving that space could be a platform for media and entertainment, as well as serious space research.
In February, 2000, the agreement between the Russian space company RSC Energia, which had the commercial rights to the space station, and MirCorp, was announced in London. Present at the press conference was MirCorp CEO Jeffrey Manber and RSC Energia General Director Yuri P. Semenov. Also present at the press conference was co-investor Dr. Cherinjeev Kathuria, and Andrew Eddy, recruited from the Canadian Space Agency.
The news took senior NASA officials by surprise, and thus began the roller-coaster ride of the MirCorp efforts. Their efforts were criticized by many as a private interference with international space policies. Their desire to sell ticket to space as part of a “citizen explorers” program was ridiculed by NASA and its supporters.
Yet, as a result of the company’s backing, the RSC Energia officials boosted the Mir into a higher orbit, thus postponing the deorbit that had been agreed to by the Russian Space Agency in discussions with NASA. Manber later explained that the business model for the venture was modeled after that of air travel, where Boeing may build the planes but commercial agents such as United or British Airways sells the tickets. The intent was to have marketing experts sell the space program, and let the space manufacturer, RSC Energia, focus on the safe operations of the station. Manber explained that in the aviation world it was not the manufacturers who sold the tickets, it was the marketing companies. MirCorp and RSC Energia were the first to use this strategy for space exploration, which has emerged again more recently with Sir Richard Branson’s announcement to market Scaled Composites StarShip suborbital flights.
It was also unusual as an international venture with Russia in the 1990’s in that the Russians were given the operating control of the venture, reflecting the political realities of the importance of the Mir to the Russian society. RSC Energia owned 60% of MirCorp, whereas the financial investors controlled 40%. Investor Anderson explained that he was comfortable letting the Russians run the space component, and his team would run the business. “A lot of this venture is based on trust, pure and simple.” Anderson explained. Anderson was not so sanguine regarding NASA and used the media interest in the venture to launch many critical comments towards NASA, the planned International Space Station and even the foreign policies of the American government. This could not have but solidified opposition to the venture inside the Administration. Indeed, Anderson selected Holland as the headquarters for the company since he believed the country was far more ethical than that of his own.
Regardless of the controversy, a new era in space exploration was inaugurated on April 4, 2000, when the Soyuz TM-30, known as the MirCorp mission carried two crew members, Sergei Zalyotin and Alexandr Kaleri, to the shut Mir space station.
The two man crew returned the dormant Mir space station to life, located the source of the leak, repaired the leak, and carried on a number of commercial and basic research. Zalyotin admitted to being nervous when the hatch door was opened, not sure what exactly would be found in the station. While the mission was being undertaken, the management of MirCorp was able to announce a number of commercial contracts, including that of the agreement with NBC and Mark Burnett. NBC even began running commercials promoting its upcoming “Destination Mir” reality show.
On June 16th, on schedule, the mission came to an end. It had lasted 73 days and the crew returned in good health. Behind the scenes, the MirCorp management and Energia space officials were both surprised at the technical and commercial success, but worried that the Mir would soon have to be shut for good. On June 19th, 2000, a press conference was held at the Russian Mission Control Center TSUP, at which the MirCorp president, along with RSC Energia head of International Development Alexander Derechin, announced that Dennis Tito, a former US space program engineer, who founded Wilshire, Associated—the Santa Monica, California-based company that revolutionized the filed of investment management consulting, was MirCorp’s first “Citizen Explorer.”
Mr. Tito would subsequently withstand intense pressure brought on him and on Russian space officials, by NASA not to undertake his mission. NASA administrator Daniel Goldin publicly rebuked MirCorp for their efforts during Congressional hearings. Tito went forward with his training and eventually, with the deorbit of the Mir, he transferred his efforts to fly on the International Space Station. With the help of RSC Energia, MirCorp and later Space Adventurers, he became the first space tourist to visit the International Space Station.

The End Days
By the end of the 73 day MirCorp mission, the company enjoyed a $70 million dollar backlog in customer orders. But the decision was made by Russia to yield to the American pressures and deorbit the station; in addition, the two financial investors were late on their payments and new investors were frightened off by the negative publicity from NASA.
The company remained in business even after the Mir was destroyed. It handled the efforts of *NSync boy band Lance Bass’s unsuccessful effort to fly to space, as well as that of former NASA official Lori Garver, who also sought to use advertising as a means to be a space tourist, before finally closing the doors. MirCorp attempted to demonstrate that a private company could manage a manned space station; that a business model could be developed around an orbiting space station. However, its failure to produce sufficient revenue to pay its modest expenses and the imprisonment of one of its founders for tax evasion indicate that its efforts were unsuccessful. Today the situation has changed. NASA’s administrator Michael Griffin has voiced full support for commercialization of manned space activities and the Russian operated space tourist program is fully accepted by the United States.
The space tourism program has continued in Russia, which today enjoys far more robust funding than a decade ago. It does seem to reflect the view of the Russians that involvement of everyday people is good for the future of space exploration, and not an act of desperation, as many implied at the onset.

source: wikipedia

2008-06-29T17:13:00.000-07:00

Full List of Aerospace

Ad Astra Rocket Company
AERA Corporatio
Andrews Space
ARCASPACE
Arianespace
Armadillo Aerospace
Astrobotic Technology
Beal Aerospace (now defunct)
Benson Space Company
Bigelow Aerospace
Blue Origin
Canadian Arrow/PlanetSpace
Da Vinci Project
EADS Astrium Space Tourism Project
Frontier Astronautics
International Launch Services
Interorbital Systems
JP Aerospace
Masten Space Systems
Orion Propulsion Incorporated Ext. link
Rocketplane Kistler
Rocketplane Limited, Inc.
Rotary Rocket (defunct)
Scaled Composites/Mojave Aerospace Ventures/The Spaceship Company
Space Adventures
SpaceDev
SpaceQuest, Ltd.
SpaceX
Starchaser Industries
Starsys (merged with SpaceDev)
T/Space
UP Aerospace
Thortek Laboratories, Inc.
Venturer Aerospace
Virgin Galactic
XCOR
Reaction Engines Limited

2008-06-29T17:11:00.000-07:00

A launch loop
or Lofstrom loop is a design for a belt based maglev orbital launch system that would be around 2000 km long and maintained at an altitude of up to 80 km (50 mi). A launch loop would be held up at this altitude by momentum of the belt as it circulates around the structure, in effect it transfers the weight of the structure onto magnetic bearings at each end which support it.
Launch loops are intended to provide a way for non-rocket spacelaunch of vehicles weighing 5 metric tons by electromagnetically accelerating them so that they are projected into Earth orbit or even beyond. This would be achieved by the flat part of the cable which forms an acceleration track above the atmosphere.
The published cost estimates for a working launch loop are significantly lower than a space elevator, but additionally with a greater launch capacity, lower payload costs and similar or greater payload masses. Unlike the space elevator no new materials need to be developed.
The system is designed to be suitable for launching humans for space tourism, space exploration and space colonization

2008-06-29T17:10:00.000-07:00

A commercial astronaut
is a person trained to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a privately-funded spacecraft. Until 2003, professional space travelers were sponsored and trained exclusively by governments, either by the military or by civilian space agencies. However, with the first sub-orbital flight of the privately-funded Scaled Composites Tier One in 2004, a new category of professional astronaut was created - the commercial astronaut.

The Blue Origin

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This image is the logo of Blue Origin.

The logo can be found on the company's official

website: BlueOrigin.com.

Blue Origin
is a privately-funded aerospace company set up by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos. Initially focused on sub-orbital spaceflight, the company has built and flown a testbed of their New Shepard spacecraft design at their Culberson County, Texas facility. According to company statements, they plan on placing the New Shepard in commercial suborbital tourist service in 2010 with flights about once a week.

Test flights

First Test Flight: 13 November 2006

Time: 06:30

name of vehicle: Goddard

Second Test Flight: 22 March 2007

name of vehicle: Goddard

Third Test Flight : 19 April 2007

name of vehicle: Goddard

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Bigelow Aerospace

Type Private
Founded 1999
Founder Robert Bigelow (Founder and President)
Headquarters North Las Vegas, Nevada, United States
Industry Aerospace
Products Orbital facilities, commercial space stations
Employees 120 (2006)
Website BigelowAerospace.com

Bigelow Aerospace
is a North Las Vegas, Nevada space technology startup company that is pioneering work on expandable space station modules. It was founded in 1999 by hotelier Robert Bigelow.
An expandable module is a space structure that has a flexible outer shell, allowing conservation of diameter for launch and weight overall. Once in orbit, the module is inflated to allow for greater work, play and living area for astronauts. Expandable modules initially were proposed and designed by the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under the Transhab program. After cancellation of the Transhab program, Bigelow Aerospace entered into three Space Act agreements whereby Bigelow Aerospace is the sole commercializer of several of NASA's key expandable module technologies.

Background
Bigelow Aerospace was founded by Robert Bigelow and is funded in large part by the fortune Bigelow gained through his ownership of the hotel chain Budget Suites of America. As of 2006, Bigelow had invested US$75 million in the company. Bigelow has stated that he is prepared to fund Bigelow Aerospace with about US$500 million through 2015.

Armadillo Aerospace

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Armadillo Aerospace

Type Privately held
Founded 2000
Headquarters Mesquite, Texas
Key people John D. Carmack
Industry Aerospace
Products Rocket vehicles/Space Tourism
Revenue Not disclosed
Website www.armadilloaerospace.com

Aerospace

Is an aerospace startup company based in Mesquite, Texas. Its initial goal is to build a manned suborbital spacecraft capable of space tourism, but it has stated long-term ambitions of orbital spaceflight. The company was founded in the year 2000, and was incorporated on January 1, 2001.

Research and development principles
Armadillo's 'quad' Pixel hovering under rocket power during tethered testing
The company places a strong emphasis on a rapid build and test cycle. Armadillo Aerospace has designed and built a number of different vehicles using a variety of propellants. Each design has several features in common. One is the use of modern computer technologies and electronics to simplify rocket control and reduce development costs. Another is the use of liquid propellants and VTOL to facilitate short launch-to-launch times.

X-Prize competition
The company was a competitor for the Ansari X-Prize. Armadillo's X-Prize vehicle was unorthodox among modern rockets in that instead of using stabilization fins, which complicate the design and increase drag, Armadillo used an aerodynamically unstable design, where the computer controlled jet vanes based on feedback from fibre optic gyroscopes. Armadillo has also stated a preference for simplicity and reliability over performance, which was evident in its choice of hydrogen peroxide (50% concentration in water) and methanol as a mixed monopropellant for the vehicle. A monopropellant-based engine requires only a single tank, as well as greatly simplified plumbing and other hardware. Since the completion of the X-Prize, however, they have opted to switch to liquid oxygen because of difficulties with peroxide catalysts and the lack of availability of high-concentration peroxide in the United States for small companies.
In June 2004, Armadillo successfully demonstrated a computer-controlled Vertical Take-Off and Landing, (VTOL) flight of its prototype vehicle, becoming the third unmanned rocket in history to have done so, after the McDonnell Douglas DC-X and Japan's Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) Reusable Vehicle Test (RVT).

The objection to Space tourist terminology

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Objection to "Space Tourist" terminology

Dennis Tito, Mark Shuttleworth, Gregory Olsen and Anousheh Ansari have all preferred to be called something other than "space tourist". In each case, they explained their preferences by pointing out that they carried out scientific experiments as part of their journey. Tito has asked to be known as an "independent researcher". Shuttleworth proposed "pioneer of commercial space travel".Olsen preferred "private researcher." Ansari prefers the term "private space explorer". Alone among those who have paid to go to orbit so far, Charles Simonyi seems to have no concerns about calling it "space tourism", even in reference to his own experience. Asked in an interview "Do you foresee a day when space tourism is not just the province of billionaires - when it will be as affordable as plane travel?", he did not object to the implicit categorization of his own trip, but rather answered "Yes, the only question is when ...." Although many space enthusiasts subscribe to the notion of space tourism as a potential burgeoning industry that could further the development and settlement of space, some of these same enthusiasts object to the use of the term "space tourist". Rick Tumlinson of the Space Frontier Foundation, for example, has said

"I hate the word tourist, and I always will ....
'Tourist' is somebody in a flowered shirt
with three cameras around his neck."

Others with perhaps less enthusiasm for space development seem to agree. Alex Tabarrok has categorized it as a kind of "adventure travel". The mere fact of people paying for a travel experience does not, in his view, make that activity "tourism".

At best and for the foreseeable future space travel
will remain akin to climbing Everest,
dangerous and uncommon. Yes,
we might see 100 flights a year but that's not
space tourism - tourism is fat guys
with cameras

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Opinions of commercial space tourism

A web-based survey suggested that over 70% of those surveyed wanted less than or equal to 2 weeks in space; in addition, 88% wanted to spacewalk (only 74% of these would do it for a 50% premium), and 21% wanted a hotel or space station.The concept has met with some criticism from social commentators and politicians, notably Guenter Verheugen, vice-president of the European Commission, who said of the EADS Astrium Space Tourism Project "It's only for the super rich, which is against my social convictions".

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Advocacy, education, and industry organizations

Several organizations have been formed to promote the space tourism industry, including the Space Tourism Society, and others. More information about the future of Space Tourism can be found at Space Tourism Lecture, which is a free online Space Tourism Lecture handout collection. Since 2003 Dr. Robert A. Goehlich teaches the world's first and only Space Tourism class at Keio University, Yokohama, Japan.

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Orbital flights, space stations and space hotels

EADS Astrium
a subsidiary of European aerospace giant EADS, announced its space tourism project on June 13, 2007.

Space X
is a private space company which develops their own rocket family called Falcon and a capsule named Dragon, capable of sending up to 7 people to any space station, either ISS or a possible station by Bigelow Aerospace. Falcon 1 has already undertaken testflights and is on the way to its first commercial flight, Falcon 9 (which would be the rocket for the Dragon capsule) is currently at the test facility and will take its first testflight later that year. The Dragon capsule is slated to enter service 2009.

Constellation Services International
(CSI) is working on a project to send manned spacecraft on commercial circumlunar missions. Their offer would include a week-long stay at the ISS, as well as a week-long trip around the Moon.

Space Adventures Ltd.
have also announced that they are working on circumlunar missions to the moon, with the price per passenger being $100,000,000.They are currently developing spaceports at the United Arab Emirates (Ras al-Khaima) and in Singapore.

Orbital space
tourist flights are also being planned by Excalibur Almaz, using modernized TKS space capsules.

Several plans have been proposed for using a space station as a hotel. American motel tycoon Robert Bigelow has acquired the designs for inflatable space habitats from the Transhab program abandoned by NASA. His company, Bigelow Aerospace already launched the first inflatable habitat module named Genesis I in 12 July 2006. The second test module, Genesis II was launched 28 June 2007. It is also currently planning to launch a prototype space station module by late 2008, and plans to officially launch the first commercial space station by 2010 (tagged Nautilus) which will have 330 cubic meters (almost as big as the ISS's 425 cubic meters of usable volume). Bigelow Aerospace is currently offering the America's Space Prize, a $50 million prize to the first US company to create a reusable spacecraft capable of carrying passengers to a Nautilus space station.
Other companies have also expressed interest in constructing "space hotels". For example, Excalibur Almaz plans to modernize and launch its Soviet-era Almaz space stations, which will feature the largest windows ever on spacecraft. Virgin's Richard Branson has expressed his hope for the construction of a space hotel within his lifetime. He expects that beginning a space tourism program will cost $100 million. Hilton International announced the Space Islands Project, a plan to connect together used Space Shuttle fuel tanks, each the diameter of a Boeing 747 aircraft. A separate organization, Space Island Group. announced their distinct Space Island Project (note the singular "Island"), and plans on having 20,000 people on their "space island" by 2020, with the number of people doubling for each decade. British Airways has expressed interest in the venture. If and when Space Hotels develop, it would initially cost a passenger $60,000, with prices lowering over time.Fashion designer Eri Matsui has designed clothing, including a wedding gown, intended to look best in weightless environments.

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Project Enterprise

Project Enterprise was launched by the German TALIS Institute in 2004 and is the first project of its kind in Europe. The goal is to develop a rocket propelled spaceplane by 2011 that will carry one pilot and up to five passengers into suborbital space. The plane will launch from the ground using rockets, and will return in an unpowered flight like Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo. The prototypes and finished spaceplane will be launched from an airport near Cochstedt (Germany; Saxony-Anhalt).
Since 2004, the TALIS Institute has gained many industrial partners, including XtremeAir , who will manufacture the airframe, and Swiss Propulsion Laboratory SPL, who will deliver the propulsion components. XtremeAir is well known for their acrobatic airplanes and SPL has designed and tested liquid propellant rocket engines since 1998.
Current work is focusing on the first prototype, the "Black Sky": An existing acrobatic airplane will be fitted with a single rocket engine and a new wing. The rocket engine will deliver a thrust of 10 kN. The test program for this engine started in 2007 at SPL.

Legality
In December 2005, the U.S. Government released a set of proposed rules for space tourism.
Under current US law, any company proposing to launch paying passengers from American soil on a suborbital rocket must receive a license from the Federal Aviation Administration's Office of Commercial Space Transportation (FAA/AST). The licensing process focuses on public safety and safety of property, and the details can be found in the Code of Federal Regulations, Title 14, Chapter III. This is in accordance with the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act passed by Congress in 2004.