Soyuz Underway

Yesterday, Expedition Crew 16 were shot into space onboard a Soyuz rocket for their two day rendezvous with the International Space Station.

This marks the start of a quite busy fall onboard the ISS.

First the crew is changed, additionally an Malaysian Cosmonaut visiting the station. Later in October Space Shuttle Discovery will deliver Node 2 to the ISS.

This will be followed by a reconfiguration of the station, so that the European lab Columbus can be delivered in December.

Hillary Clinton's Space Plans

I just read about Hillary Clinton's space plans and I must say, that I'm really surprised.

She at least promises increased budgets for NASA and also an accelerated Ares/Orion schedule. Perhaps after all it won't end with an minimalistic version of an Ares I rocket carrying the Orion capsule to the ISS and no further.

Of course there are other candidates or potential candidates too but with this statement of Hillary now, the others I assume are forced to present their own plans.

A good mixture with governmental spaceflight and private spaceflight (including governmental orders like COTS) are the way to go. NASA should return to their task of expanding frontiers, in spaceflight as well as in normal flight.

The day-by-day business then should be done by private companies like in other businesses too.

Rocketplane Kistler vs. NASA

The Space Fellowship has an interview with Rocketplane Kistler about a protest letter to the NASA about the cancellation of the COTS contract.

I wonder what they expect. NASA won't reconsider the situation imo.

NASA made the COTS contract so they can basically do what they want. On the other hand, it seemed that NASA made that COTS under public and Congress pressure without really wanting it.

The Space Race – First Part

In 1952, the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) announced the International Geophysical Year (IGY), a time span between July 1957 to December 1958. This period was to be filled with numerous scientific experiments and studies about Earth. It was in 1955 that the Soviet Union surprised the world by announcing the plan to orbit a satellite in the International Geophysical Year. As this was the time of great rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, US President Eisenhower promised that the United States would orbit a satellite in this period themselves. This was the start of the Space Race.

Both countries had missiles in development, Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs). Their mission was the same on both sides: To deliver a single nuclear warhead over an intercontinental distance. But as the Soviet warhead was much heavier than the US one, the Soviets developed, from the beginning on, a stronger rocket, which showed very useful later in history for use as a space launcher. In the United States, the satellite should have been orbited by an all-civil rocket, the Vanguard.

Sputnik 1 was launched by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957. It was a shock for the western hemisphere, all forth the United States. Not only that the Soviets had orbited a satellite, it was the mass that shocked the governmental authorities. Though the Sputnik itself weighed only 84 kilograms, the third stage of the rocket orbited the Earth as well. And this stage alone weighed about 7.5 tonnes. In contrast, the US satellite, named like its launcher Vanguard, had a mass of only 1.36 kilograms and the rocket was more like a patchwork. Tauntingly said, the Americans put every kind of rocket together they could find. Not that surprising that the maiden launched failed only a few seconds after lift-off.

But in the progress of developing the first satellites, the United States slowly recognized their shortfall in rocket technology and allowed Wernher von Braun and his Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) to reinforce a military Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM), the Redstone, with two additional stages, so that this launcher, now called Jupiter-C, was able to deliver a small payload into orbit. The first US satellite, Explorer 1, was successfully put into orbit on January 31, 1958. In the meantime, the Soviets had launched a dog onboard Sputnik 2, a satellite with a mass of 508 kilograms. But already in this very early phase, one difference showed up.

While the Soviets were able to put large payloads into orbit, their scientific payloads often suffered under the backlog in electronics and the kind of the academic landscape. Explorer 1, for example, although weighing only a bit more than a kilogram, gave valuable information about a radiation belt around the Earth, later called the Van-Allen Belt after the professor who developed the instrument onboard the satellite. In contrast the Soviets had problems to exchange data and information as the whole space program was highly classified.

It soon became clear for both sides, that space flight was a perfect environment to show their assumed technological supremacy over each other. Both thought that they could document the superiority of their respective administrations. That’s why both of them early envisaged a manned space flight. The Soviets approached their goal with a relatively simple solution. A sphere-shaped capsule with no possibility for the spaceman to control or steer the craft.

On the other side of the Earth, the Americans had two concepts under investigation. They had a very successful experimental flight program, the X-15. One option was to develop a next evolutionary step of this craft, the reusable like a plane X-20. First to be carried under a Mach-3 bomber, the B-70, up the atmosphere to fly ballistic flight profiles. Later the craft should have been fitted onto a Titan rocket in order to fly orbital missions. As the realisation of this program would have taken a long time, it was decided to initiate the “Man in Space Soonest” program, that later became the Mercury project. The X-20 was kept alive for a few years as an Air Force program but was then cancelled. One can only speculate how space flight would have developed if the United States had chosen a fully reusable craft from the beginning on.

After these initial competitions between the two Superpowers about the firsts, like first satellite, first man in space, first “space walk”, both states soon targeted a new major goal: the moon. Although the Soviets denied until its decline in 1991 all the time that they had a moon program, the whole program is clear today. Both countries depended with their ambitious programs on large boosters: the Saturn V on the US side and the N-1 on the Soviet side. Today one can say, that the N-1 was the only major failure of the Soviet or today Russian space program (beside the point, that not a single Mars probe ever functioned as intended, if ever reaching Mars).

But it was a very serious duel. Both rivals took great risks in achieving their goals. And as no one has luck for all times, both had to mourn about first victims. Vladimir Komarov died on the first manned flight of a new capsule, the Soyuz 1. The United States lamented about the crew of Apollo 1, Ed White, Roger Chaffee and Virgil “Gus” Grissom.

But nonetheless the United States landed on the moon in 1969 and after a third failure in trying to launch their super-rocket N-1 the Soviets cancelled their moon program. But this was not the end of the Space Race. It seemed that the United States had won, but the Soviets had an ace in the hole. They switched from the exploration of the moon to a completely different goal: manned space stations. Salyut 1 was launched on April 19, 1971. The first crew that docked with the station, Soyuz 11, directly achieved a new endurance record of 23 days, the obviously new goal of the Space Race. Sadly, the crew of Soyuz 11 died at re-entry due to an open valve.

As the United States launched their first space station, Skylab, in 1973, the Soviet Union already had Salyut 2 in orbit and gained a lot of experience in long time stays in microgravity and about operating space stations. But Salyut 2 was still a small station compared to Skylab and had much in common with the first one of its name. So it was not very surprising that the first crew of Skylab set a new endurance record in 1973. After the United States stopped their Apollo-based flights with the Apollo-Soyuz-Test-Project (ASTP) in 1975 to wait for their new Space Transportation System or Space Shuttle, the Soviet Union continued their space station program with a steady pace. In regular intervals, new stations were orbited and each of them incorporated improvements and new features. With Salyut 6, launched in 1977, the Soviets entered a new phase. This was the first station that had two docking ports, so it could be replenished by unmanned cargo transports as well as receiving guests on an additional Soyuz ferry.

The Space Race practically ended with the mothballing of Skylab but still both states walked somewhat side by side: both opened their spacecrafts to international guests. The Soviet Union started their Intercosmos program in 1978 with the first flight of a Czech cosmonaut, Vladimir Remek, the Space Shuttle saw the first non-American to fly in 1983, German Ulf Merbold. Although during the first half of the 1980s the rivalry between both countries grew over again, the signs of a new Space Race were only a short flame up: Neither the United States with their space station Freedom, nor the Soviet Union with their Shuttle-craft Buran had the will or money to push these programs through.

With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, a new era was to become reality. US-built rockets like the Atlas flew with Russian-built engines. The Space Shuttle docked with the Mir space station and Americans stayed for 6 months onboard the station while Russian cosmonauts flew on the Shuttle. And today we have the International Space Station ISS.

But this was only the end of the first part: A new Space Race already waited on the horizon. To be more precise, not only one, but instead three Space Races would soon become reality.

Watch out for the next parts of the Space Race.

ESA’s Future Launcher Systems

Which will be the future launcher systems for Europe? To answer this question ESA started in 2004 the Future Launcher Preparatory Program (or FLPP). But let us first look at the current situation.

Currently ESA has access to space through the Ariane-5 launcher, operated by its commercial offset Arianespace. Developed as a cheaper and more powerful successor of the very successful launcher family Ariane-4, the Ariane-5 is available in three models. The generic version GS, the heavy-lift model ECA and a modified vehicle for transporting the ISS supply craft ATV, called Ariane-5 ES-ATV.

Through the alliance, called Starsem, of Arianespace, EADS, and Russian partners, ESA can and does also use the Soyuz launchers, especially for interplanetary probes. Currently, the Kourou spaceport gets an additional launch pad for the Soyuz rocket, so in future it will possible to launch the Soyuz from the equator-near Kourou with an increased payload.

For smaller payloads ESA develops the Vega launcher, consisting of three solid propellant stages and one liquid propellant stage. The solid rocket engines are based on the Ariane-5 booster engines. It is planned to first-launch the Vega in 2008.

Recently ESA announced a cooperation with the Russian Space Agency to build a new spacecraft together. As this craft needs a new launcher or at least a modified launcher, ESA could also use that launcher for future payloads. The rockets currently in consideration are a modified Soyuz launcher, called Soyuz-3, a further improved Ariane, or another launcher currently in development, the Angara-3.

These launchers will give Europe space access for the next several years. As the private launcher business is yet unclear, Europe will need a new launcher family around 2015 to 2020.

The FLPP calls for a future launcher to be operational around 2020. Currently the first studies are conducted. Now we will take a look at the potential launchers, reusable and expendable both.

One important condition for the whole program is the use of matured technologies and concepts. Designs like Single Stage to Orbit (SSTO) vehicles or air-breathing propulsion systems like scramjets are not considered because they are not yet proven and sufficiently developed.

The most conservative concepts are expendable launchers. Aside from a payload increase, they would incorporate better and especially cheaper manufacturing and components like low cost engines. But as the launchers would be rather conventional, the launch costs would be not very different from today’s.

If that would be (on the background of a potential emerging private rocket market) enough to compete with others, that is likely to be a question. The advantages clearly would be no dependancies on new breakthrough technologies and a manageable budget.

On the other side, reusable concepts are investigated. The first idea are semi-reusable rockets with so called Liquid Fly-Back Boosters (LFBBs) or Reusable First Stage (RFS). As the Russians explore the capabilities of Fly-Back Boosters since several years, a cooperation between Europe and Russia is considered from the start on.

As these designs, mainly the Fly-Back Boosters, are somewhat conventional, the cost reduction is not for sure. In contrast, the more complex reusable technology is still a major barrier. That’s why ESA will also investigate and test technologies to reduce this complexity. For example there are already structures in evaluation and testing with embedded fiber-optic health monitoring systems.

The most advanced concepts are certainly fully reusable Two Stage to Orbit (TSTO) concepts. Especially for this kind of launchers, as also for a Reusable First Stage for a semi-reusable concept, investigation in high performance reusable engines are seen as a key objective.

Up to today, only the Space Shuttle and the Energia/Buran spacecrafts used reusable engines. Both are seen as robust but also as technically demanding and relatively expensive.

If SpaceX with its Merlin engine, which also should be reusable, can achieve a successful complexity and cost reduction, time will still have to tell. An analysis of the possible cost reductions is underway at the Space Fellowship Forum. The potential cost reduction is surely the highest but the development costs will also be the highest.

Another key objective would be the development (and maturing) of light-weight reusable stage structures with cryogenic propellant tanks. Also the second stage would need a reentry system, which would add structural mass. Additionally reentry systems showed to be complex and very labor-intensive for reuse.

Structural mass and additional operational costs for inspection and re-qualification of the system after a launch are the main difficulties to handle with reusable systems, as compared to an expendable vehicle.

As the reusability adds structural mass, e.g. increasing the structural and engine robustness for withstanding several launches or adding health monitoring systems, it’s necessary to focus on materials and systems science. Inspection and particularly re-qualification of the hardware is an expensive area as this work is very labor-intensive.

Also new procedures are necessary to be developed. How much of damage to a certain part is tolerable before it will be necessary to replace it? In aviation we have this expertise today, we can predict for example how a small crack will develop and when it’s necessary to replace or repair it. In the aerospace sector we nearly have no such experience yet.

The clear advantage if all these challenges are mastered is a low-cost high-performance launcher system which will strengthen Europe’s future role in spaceflight.

So ESA has a lot of work to do, they have to investigate several concepts and must predict how the technologies will develop in the next 15 years. As private spaceflight stands on the swell, cooperation with not only governmental agencies but also private companies will be needed. Arianespace already took a first step by admitting interest in talks with SpaceX.

Nice Rocket Launch Video

There's a really nice rocket launch video under http://www.space-blog.com/index.php/content/view/146/38/.

Turn on your speakers and plug your subwoofer in. It has some real nice rumbling.

It shows the launch of a Boeing Delta 2 rocket.

It reminds me of my live experience with Ariane 5's main engine tests. A Vulcain 2 engine under full thrust produces an immense amount of rumbling.

In case you ever get the chance to visit a rocket launch (or an engine test where you are a lot closer ;)) use it!

Creating a new Blog

I was really surprised how easy it was to create this Blog, although I had to switch to Firefox because Google had problems with my standard browser, Opera, concerning Cookies.