It is often said that history is written by the winners. Space history is no exception.
Everyone knows that Apollo 11 that landed the first man on the Moon. Very few people know about the important role Gemini played in that accomplishment. In a very real sense, it was Gemini, not Apollo, that landed Neil Armstrong on the Moon.
The Kistler K-1 was a two-stage reusable rocket under development by Kistler Aerospace from 1994 on. The K-1 was designed to place a 10,000-pound payload in Low Earth Orbit. The K-1 was originally intended to launch constellations of Low Earth Orbit communication satellites. When the LEO communication satellite market collapsed, K-1 development lapsed into dormancy. It was briefly revived when the bankrupt Kistler Aerospace was purchased by the suborbital startup Rocketplane LLC, which became Rocketplane Kistler.
The merged company attempted to market the K-1 to NASA as an International Space Station resupply vehicle under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. This effort was unsuccessful. In 2007, NASA cancelled the K-1 COTS contract. Rocketplane Kistler declared bankruptcy a short while later.
At the time the K-1 was in development, the design raised some eyebrows among observers due to its unusual recovery mode. The K-1 was to be launched from a desert location (either the Nevada nuclear weapons test site or the Woomera launch site in Australia). Both stages were designed to land in the desert using a system of very large parachutes (six on the first stage, three on the second stage) and airbags. The stages would then be recovered with “a crew of less than 10 people,″ returned to the launch site, cleaned, and prepared for the next with, supposedly, minimal refurbishment.
Robert Staehle of JPL gave a presentation on Interplanetary CubeSats at NASA’s Institute of Advanced Concepts On March 28. The interplanetary CubeSat idea is rapidly catching on, as demonstrated by the Interplanetary CubeSat Workshop scheduled to take place at MIT on May 29-30 with NASA Chief Technologist Mason Peck as keynote speaker.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMSxBuyGoO0&w=700]
(You can view the presentation at http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/16504727 if the YouTube video is unavailable.)
The interplanetary CubeSat concept is evolving rapidly. Staehle assumes that solar sails are arequired technology for propulsion. Another option has already emerged, however. The Microsystems for Space Technologies Laboratory at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne’ has created a small ion engine for CubeSat-sized payloads. Theion drive weighs only 200 g including enough propellant to send a CubeSat from Earth orbit to the Moon or Mars
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX43Sxc7lEA&w=700]
Planetary missions may soon be within reach of citizen scientists. Just getting a CubeSat into Earth orbit remains a problem, though. NASA’s Nano-Satellite Launch Challenge prize may help. A number of companies are already working on innovative solutions to the problem, including Premiere Space Systems (Nanolaunch) and XCOR Aerospace.
Astronomy has entered a new era of mega-telescopes, where even ground-based instruments can cost upwards of a billion dollars. The James Webb Space Telescope is expected to cost more than $8 billion. Obviously, such instruments are well out of the range of citizen scientists. The future for amateur astronomy is not dim, however. Smaller, lower-cost telescopes remain relevant and useful for astronomy.
For this reason, both professional and amateur astronomers should welcome the development of reusable suborbital spacecraft which can carry small telescopes on short-duration missions. These low-cost missions will enable many astronomical experiments that benefit from access to space but do not need (and often cannot afford) a ride to orbit.
Flying telescopes on suborbital spacecraft is not a new idea. In the 1960’s, the X-15 rocketplane flew a number of telescopes for NASA. The NASA Office of Space Sciences sponsored the Ultraviolet Stellar Photography experiment, for example, which photographed Alpha Aurigue, Eta Aurigue, and Rho Aurigue from altitudes above 246,000 feet.
Professional astronomers are already starting to develop astronomical instruments for the new commercial suborbital vehicles. Among the first of these instruments is the Atsa Suborbital Observatory, designed by Dr. Faith Vilas of the Planetary Science Institute and Dr. Luke Sollitt of The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina. Dr. Vilas recently left her position as director of the MMT (Multiple Mirror Telescope) Observatory to develop Atsa.
The Atsa Observatory is based on commercial off-the-shelf components. The optical component is a 14-inch Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope, with some modifications to increase its ruggedness. The main sensor will be a commercially available Silver 220 or Thermovision SC4000 infrared camera. Visiting scientists will have the option of bringing their own sensors, however.
Atsa (the Navaho word for “eagle”) will fly on the XCOR Lynx Mark III. It will be controlled during flight by a payload operator in the Lynx’s right seat. Having a human in the loop means that researchers won’t have to spend a lot of money automating their experiments and debugging control software. The Lynx spacecraft will do the coarse pointing of the telescope using its maneuvering thrusters, but a gimbal-drive-motor assembly will do the fine pointing. Atsa will ride in the Lynx’s dorsal experiment pod and be exposed to space by a door during flight. Dr. Vilas says, “The best window is no window.”
NASA has released a a couple of e-books on the X-15 suborbital rocketplane.
X-15: Extending the Frontiers of Flight by Dennis R. Jenkins is a very complete (644-page) official history of the program. It was published in December, 2010. The paperback sells for $35 on Amazon but you can download it for free here.
X-15 Research Results (NASA SP-60) by Wendell H. Stillwell is an older technical report. It’s from 1965, so an original hardcopy is probably hard to find. You can download that one here.
As the Apollo program wound down in the late 60’s, NASA began to think about how it could reuse some of the technology and systems that had been developed for Apollo. This recycling effort was called the Apollo Applications Program. Apollo Applications led to Skylab, America’s first space station, but it was intended for the program to be more than just a one-shot. Skylab was to be followed by Skylab II , which would be more reusable and incorporate the first use of artificial gravity. NASA hoped the Skylabs would lead to a 12-man space station and then a 50-man space base. There were also concepts for a lunar Skylab in polar orbit about the Moon. One by one, all of these concepts were dropped as NASA was forced to divert funding to its priority program – the development of the Space Shuttle.
One of the more interesting concepts from this period did not come from NASA but from a model company called MPC. It may seem unusual for a realistic space-vehicle concept to come from a toy company, but it’s not too surprising given that the Pilgrim Observer was designed by the late G. Harry Stine. An aerospace engineer who learned his trade under Dr. Wernher von Braun launching V-2 rockets at White Sands, Harry Stine was one of the early advocates of commercial space and author of several books on space exploration and space development, including The Third Industrial Revolution. Although the Pilgrim Observer was not based directly on NASA concepts, Stine did incorporate much of the technology which he knew to be current at the time. Read the rest of this entry »
A new study suggests that giant stars may not be necessary for supernovae.
This is a bit discomforting. Nearby supernovae are suspects in a number of past extinction events. Scientists think that a gamma-ray burst from a supernova may have been responsible for the Ordovician extinction which killed off 60% of all marine species 450 million years ago. A supernova has also been suspected in the extinction of the mammoth just 13,000 years ago.
The gamma-ray burst from a supernova is not likely to kill off organisms from direct biological effects unless the supernova is very close by (unrealistically close). A gamma burst could damage the ozone layer, however, causing species extinctions due to increases in ultraviolet radiation. It could also trigger changes in the Earth’s climate that lead to a new ice age.
Until now, scientists thought they knew which stars were candidates for supernovae. If that is changing, we may need to take another look at the stars in our own neighborhood. The risks may be greater than we think.
Still, we’re probably at far greater risk, individually and collectively, from the star which is closest to us and sustains our lives: the sun. A solar superstorm could damage or destroy power grids, pipelines, and communication satellites, plunging us back into the dark ages. Even a much smaller storm could endanger the lives of space travelers, including spaceflight participants on the suborbital vehicles many of us hope to be flying in a few years. Fortunately, there steps that can be taken to understand and prepare for bad space weather. Citizen scientists can help improve space-weather forecasting by participating in the Royal Greenwich Observatory’s Solar Storm Watch.
Using high-performance aircraft or suborbital spacecraft as launch platforms for upper stages is an idea that’s gaining considerable attention these days. XCOR Aerospace, for example, believes that nanosatellite launches will be a big part of its Lynx business model.
The idea has considerable design history behind it. In the early 1960’s, NASA considered using the X-15 as a launch platform to place satellites up to 150 pounds in orbit:
The official NASA history X-15 Extending the Frontiers of Flight by Dennis R. Jenkins discusses the Blue Scout concept in some detail: Read the rest of this entry »
Given the recent interest in using jet fighters as launch platforms, it’s interesting to look at some past proposals.
The late Len Cormier was an old-school aerospace engineer who became involved with space just prior to Sputnik. He was also a good friend who never tired of regaling us with tales of dating Marilyn Monroe. Len worked for North American Aviation, which later became part of Rockwell International, and was involved in some of the design studies that led to the Rockwell Space Shuttle. He became convinced that the Space Shuttle would never live up to the economic benefits which Rockwell and NASA claimed for it – it was too large, too expensive, and too complex, in his view – and left to form his own company (PanAero, Inc.) to pursue his own designs. Len continued working up until his death in 2008, always championing vehicles which were small, simple, and designed to minimize development costs.
Len’s primary interest was vehicles that could carry humans to orbit (such as the Space Van) but he also worked on suborbital rockets and satellite launchers. One of his later designs was a concept to launch a 100-kilogram (220-lb) satellite from an F-14A Tomcat. The US Navy fighter was an appropriate choice for Len, who flew fighters off a Navy carrier during World War II, but it was made for sound engineering reasons. Len believed the design of the F-14 was better suited for carrying underslung payloads than other aircraft such as the F-15 Eagle. In addition, F-14 airframes were readily available (at least to the US government). The Navy was in the process of retiring F-14s from active service and good-quality airframes were filling government boneyards. Unfortunately, Len ran into some difficulty persuading the government to sell recently retired military aircraft to a civilian company.
Premier Space Systems is currently considering a similar concept for their future orbital system. PSS would use an F-15A or B model rather than the F-14.
Project NOTSNIK is one of the obscure footnotes of space history.
The MoonKAM project, administered by Sally Ride Science, allows middle-school students to photograph the Moon using digital cameras aboard NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) lunar orbiters.
Each of the two GRAIL probes, dubbed Ebb and Flow, carries four MoonKAM cameras. Three cameras with wide-angle lenses look forward, backward, and down. One camera with a telephoto lens looks down. The MoonKAM project, which began March 12, allows fifth-to-eighth-grade students to select target areas and request MoonKAM images of those areas using a web browser interface.
Details on the MoonKAM project are available here. Interested schools can register here.
Los Alamos National Laboratory has used a massively parallel supercomputer to simulate the effects of a nuclear weapon on an Earth-crossing asteroid.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOcNbAV6SiI&w=700]
Solar Storm Threat Analysis is an interesting paper on the damage potential of solar storms.
NASA’s Advanced Composition Explorer, which is critical to space-weather forecasting, is nearing its end of life. Satellite operators fear the end could come at any time, according to Irene Klotz of Discovery News.
ACE provides advanced warning of high-energy particles from solar storms and changes in the solar wind. This information is critical for space-weather predictions that help ensure the safety of ISS astronauts, high-latitude airline flights, and future suborbital space travelers as well as unmanned satellites and the terrestrial power grid. Pipelines are also vulnerable, especially those at high latitudes like the Alaska Pipeline.
There is currently no backup for the satellite. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the US Air Force are hoping to launch a replacement, the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), before ACE fails. At the moment, however, the launch its not yet scheduled and the DSCOVR satellite is in storage at NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center.
This report is especially timely. The news came just as Earth was being hit by the biggest solar storm in years.
The International Space Apps Challenge is a two-day “codeathon” to be held in the US, Great Britain, Japan, Australia, Indonesia, Kenya, Brazil, and the Dominican Republic. Astronauts onboard the International Space Station will also participate as will researchers at McMurdo Station, Antarctica. Supporting organizations include NASA, the UK Space Agency, the Internet Archives, the Yahoo Developers Network, Random Hacks of Kindness, the Open Knowledge Foundation, Joint Polar Satellite System Project, US Embassy in Jakarta, Australian National University, and the University of Tokyo.
The event takes place on April 21-22. In the US, the Challenge is led by Geeks Without Borders and will take place at TechShop San Francisco.
Participants at the event may work on a number of individual challenges centering around software, open hardware, citizen science, and data visualization. One challenge is to create plug-in hardware, such as a spectrometer or photometer, for a smartphone, which could be used in citizen-science projects. A solution might include an open-source framework to connect a variety of sensors, which might measure atmospheric conditions, radiation, electromagnetic interference, or other conditions.
Another challenge, submitted by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, is to create an educational app that allows users to measure the size of the Earth using Eratosthenes’ method. Discovered by the famous Greek astronomer 2500 years ago, Eratosthenes’ method demonstrates the use of common geometric principles for practical purposes.
NASA is also challenging participants to create apps to interface with data from the NASA Planetary Data System, Kepler satellite, and Earth Observations website.
A complete list of all challenges is available here.
When scientists someone mentions “planetary defense,” most people think about asteroid impacts. Asteroids are not the only space hazard that poses a risk to life and civilization here on Earth, however.
Space weather, caused by the unstable behavior of the sun, affects life on Earth in many ways. It creates the colorful auroras that are enjoyed in higher latitudes, but it can also interfere with communications. Space weather can create increased radiation risks for space travelers and even air travelers. Most people don’t realize that airlines routinely monitor space weather forecasts and sometimes need to reroute flights that normally go over the polar regions, due to increased solar activity.
Large solar storms could have much more serious effects. They could damage or destroy communications, weather, and GPS navigation satellites, as well as the terrestrial power grid. In 1989, a solar storm took down the Quebec power grid leaving 6 million customers temporarily without power. A larger storm could create more widespread, catastrophic damage which could take years to repair. A single storm could damage or destroy electrical power plants throughout an entire hemisphere. The economic impact of such an event is estimated at one trillion dollars per year. Fortunately, we have not seen a really large storm since 1859.
IEEE Spectrum looks at the potential effects of a solar superstorm and some measures that might be taken to protect the planet. There are some relatively simple modifications that can be made to protect power plants, but we also need better space weather forecasting and monitoring.
Rocket City Space Pioneers and its partner Spaceflight Services are offering a unique opportunity for small payload developers: a chance to share a ride to the Moon. Or at least, to lunar orbit.
L5 is an episodic video production being released on the Internet. The first episode looks very good. This appears to be “hard” science fiction – no violation of the laws of physics – and the equipment looks very believable. Even the acting is well done. It’s especially impressive considering the episode was produced on a shoestring budget of $15,000.
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/35040431 w=700]
Dr. Clark Chapman of the Southwest Research Institute Department of Space Science puts the risk of asteroid impacts in perspective:
The average American’s chances of dying as a result of an asteroid impact is about the same as an average American’s chances of dying in a tornado…. the chances of death and destruction by cosmic impact are on the same order for Americans as death by airliner crash, flood, tornado, and other hazards society takes seriously, it is reasonable that the impact hazard be taken seriously. In fact, an asteroid impact is a much more serious hazard, statistically speaking, than many other hazards we have experienced in the last few decades, including death by terrorism, by nuclear power plant accident, by shark attacks, etc. And cosmic impacts – if large enough – are nearly unique (along with nuclear war and perhaps some “Andromeda Strain” pandemic) of having the possibility of sending civilization back into a Dark Age or even exterminating our species…
Kyle Godin, a graduate student at Stevens Institute of Technology, has demonstrating a new solid-state thruster for low-cost satellites. His work has now been recognized by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, which awarded Godin the Abe M. Zarem Award for Distinguished Achievement in Aeronautics. This development will be of potential interest to citizen scientists, as the press release notes:
Thanks to the development of microsatellites, universities and independents can now launch research craft for tens of thousands of dollars, rather than the multi-million dollar price tags of traditional launches. This new class of satellite is democratizing outer space exploration and offering NASA new opportunities to study little-known regions of the Earth’s atmosphere.