NASA & World Space Exploration...News, Views, Photos & videos

Jeff Head

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dragon-pad-test.jpg

Universe Today said:
Restoring America’s ability to once again launch US astronauts to
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(ISS) from US soil on US rockets took another significant step forward when NASA ordered the first the agency’s first
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rotation mission from the Hawthorne, California based-company
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. NASA and SpaceX hope that the blastoff with a crew of up to four astronauts will take place by late 2017.

The new Nov. 20 award from NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP) office to launch the
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Crew Dragon capsule follows up on an earlier commercial crew rotation mission
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of Houston to launch its
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to
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.

Since the retirement of NASA’s Space Shuttle orbiters in 2011, all American and ISS partner astronauts have been forced to hitch a ride on the Russian Soyuz capsule for flights
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and back, at a current cost of over $70 million per seat.

“The authority to proceed with Dragon’s first operational crew mission is a significant milestone in the Commercial Crew Program and a great source of pride for the entire SpaceX team,” said Gwynne Shotwell, president and chief operating officer of SpaceX, in a statement.

“When Crew Dragon takes NASA astronauts to the space station in 2017, they will be riding in one of the safest, most reliable spacecraft ever flown. We’re honored to be developing this capability for NASA and our country.”

However, actually achieving crew launches by both Boeing and SpaceX before the end of 2017 is completely contingent on whether the companies can satisfactorily meet all of NASA’s human spaceflight certification milestones specifying the vehicles are fully capable and safe for astronauts to fly.

Both companies also plan to conduct unmanned and manned orbital test flights of their crew capsules earlier in 2017, paving the path to orbit prior to initiating the commercial crew rotation missions.

This is the second in a series of four guaranteed orders NASA will make under the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contracts.

NASA is making the awards now to both SpaceX and Boeing since it’s expected to take a lead time of about 2 or 3 years to assemble all the hardware required to manufacture the Crew Dragon and Starliner CST-100, respectively, into fully functioning spaceships.

Boeing and SpaceX were
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worth $6.8 Billion to complete the development and manufacture of the privately developed Starliner CST-100 and Crew Dragon astronaut transporters under the agency’s Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) program and NASA’s Launch America initiative.

“It’s really exciting to see SpaceX and Boeing with hardware in flow for their first crew rotation missions,” said Kathy Lueders, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.

“It is important to have at least two healthy and robust capabilities from U.S. companies to deliver crew and critical scientific experiments from American soil to the space station throughout its lifespan.”

Crew Dragon will launch atop a SpaceX
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rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida from NASA’s historic Launch Pad 39A where American astronauts shot to space and the Moon atop America’s Saturn V Moon rockets and the Space Shuttle orbiters.

At a later date NASA will decide which company will fly the first commercial crew rotation mission to the ISS.

Both the CST-100 and Crew Dragon will typically carry a crew of four or five NASA or NASA-sponsored crew members, along with some 220 pounds of pressurized cargo. Each will also be capable of carrying up to seven crew members depending on how the capsule is configured.

Very glad to see this. Space-X is a decent company with a great design.
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
Congrats to Jeff Bezos (CEO of Amazon and Blue Origiin) on their return rocket accomplishment. I've heard Elon Musk of Space X was livid and jealous.;)


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Not Sure about Livid or quite Jealous, but he did respond
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Elon Musk Calls Out Jeff Bezos on Twitter Over Rocket Launch
The SpaceX founder wasn't impressed when Bezos boasted about a "rare" feat accomplished by his rocket company, Blue Origin.

Musk wants to go to mars and Use a Reusable Orbital booster system. Blue Origin has made a impressive feat but they were still Sub orbital even at the 62 miles they achieved

Why you shouldn't compare Blue Origin's rocket landing to SpaceX
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For a Mars manned Trip you need a Rocket that can be launched and orbited then land.
 

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
To put it in perspective the Falcon9 booster that landed yesterday is 2 meters taller in height to the Stature of Liberty in New York harbor @ 48 meters. The New shepard is equal to that same statures Knee @ 16 meters.
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Well, what Blue Origin did is amazing and we should not discount it.

Just the same, it cannot really be compared to Space X And the Falcon 9.

Falcon 9 is lifting packages into true orbit, therefore it goes a lot higher and a lot faster. The booster is a lot taller and much hared to land.

I believe space X will ultimately do it...but what Blue Origin did was also amazing.

it looks similar to what Space X is trying to do...but the devil is in the details and they make Space X's tasks a LOT harder.

Either way, it is GREAT to see these private companies doing this stuff.
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
and from the hight of spaceX the lows...
ISRO's RLV-TD Project Likely to be Delayed
By Express News Service

Published: 28th December 2015 05:08 AM

Last Updated: 28th December 2015 05:08 AM

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Technical snags have forced the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to put off the first test on a scaled-down prototype of India’s futuristic space shuttle.

Sources said on Sunday that the Reusable Launch Vehicle-Technology Demonstrator (RLV-TD), under development at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) here at Thumba, developed a minor leak during a test, forcing the ISRO to postpone the mission. The ambitious RLV-TD, the first small step to building a ‘space shuttle’ which can return to earth after accomplishing space missions, is likely to be delayed up to April 2016. ISRO had originally planned a mid-2015 launch for the RLV-TD. It had later been postponed to January 2016.



ISRO.JPG

VSSC Director Dr K Sivan said that some of the components had to be re-assembled. ‘’If things go as planned, we can launch the mission in the first week of February. Otherwise, the test will be conducted in the first week of April,’’ he said. ISRO has three missions lined up for January and March, which is another reason why the RLV-TD could be delayed up to April. ISRO plans to launch the three remaining IRNSS satellites - which will complete the seven-satellite Indian Regional Navigational Satellite System - by March 31. The first of the three is to be launched on January 20, and the remaining two in March using the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). “The missions will be launched from the first launch pad, which is also to be used for the RLV-TD,’’ Sivan said.


The RLV-TD consists of a winged space plane-like part rigged atop a booster rocket. The rocket will go up to a height of 70 km and release the space plane portion which will glide down to earth.

In the first test, the space plane will glide into a landing in the Bay of Bengal. RLV-TD will be the first of a series of tests planned by ISRO before venturing to build the actual vehicle.
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but india is probubly a billiontimes better off then the Russian space program.
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The Russian space agency Roscosmos will give up on manned flights to the Moon and related activities at least until 2025, the Russian Izvestia newspaper reported Tuesday, citing the updated version of the Federal Space Program (FSP).

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — According to the FSP for years 2016-2025, the Russian space industry will refrain from creating a lunar landing complex, a lunar orbital station, a lunar space suit and the system of robotic software for Moon flights, the newspaper said.



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In 2012, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who oversees the country’s space industry, suggested setting up space research base on the Moon, and pledged to personally control and manage all the processes related to its construction and functioning in the future.


Roscosmos also decided to suspend the project, and the Federal Space Program does not include expenses for it.

The suspension of the so-called Moon Program allowed to save the budget some 88.5 billion rubles ($1.2 billion at the current exchange rate), the newspaper notes.

Earlier this year, the Russian Space Agency Energia said that the the first Russian unmanned lunar mission would be performed by 2025, while a manned moon landing was planned for 2029.



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Basically the Russian Space Agency was so corrupt that Putin can no longer consider it solvent and he is now dismantling it and transferring it into the state owned corporation in hopes of more directly controlling and gutting the Graft. This is going to be extensive restructuring however meaning, that the Russians are placed in a position of simply maintaining programs and not launching ambitious operations for at least a decade or more. This could be good then again.... Good in that hopefully it will fix the Quality control issues we have seen with recent russian launches bad because it re-entrenches Russia into a government owned government run corporation with as Putin as Oligarch in Chief.

More and more It makes me wish the US could return to manned space flight.
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
Private-sector space rocket industry heads toward launch in Japan

KYODO


The government is to create a framework to promote private-sector investment in the space rocket industry while protecting the public interest, setting rules on technical specifications and on operators’ liability in the event of an accident, Kyodo News has learned.

Draft bills for the Space Activities Act and Satellite Remote Sensing Act, to be submitted to the regular Diet session from Jan. 4, will require the government to scrutinize launch plans before granting case-by-case permission.

Under the Basic Plan on Space Policy set in early 2015, the government aims to expand the size of the space industry to around ¥5 trillion over the next decade.

The government would also oblige companies to pay compensation in the event of accidents. Victims would receive government compensation if private operators are unable to cover all the damages, according to the drafts.

Currently, the only entity that has a space program is the state-sponsored Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

Meanwhile, under the Satellite Remote Sensing Act, the government can limit usage of high-precision images captured by satellites to address security concerns.
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