Posts tagged space station

US private company SpaceX will launch its Dragon space freighter on a next resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS) in October. It will be the first of the company’s 12 commercial flights to the ISS under a 2008 contract with the NASA as the initial successful mission in May was considered a test run. NASA administrator Charles Bolden announced that SpaceX is now fully certified to deliver cargo to the orbital station.  The Dragon is a reusable spacecraft developed by SpaceX to fly cargo to the ISS after NASA retired its space shuttle fleet last year.
NASA also awarded SpaceX a commercial crew development contract in April 2011 to develop a reusable spacecraft to carry up to seven astronauts, or a combination of personnel and cargo, to and from the orbital station.  At present, NASA pays Russia $63 million for every astronaut who flies to the ISS aboard Soyuz spacecraft.

(Source: futurenow321)

“Most people on Earth would love the chance to become astronauts if they could afford it, so it’s up to us to try to make sure it’s affordable,” Sir Richard Branson told Business Insider’s Aly Weisman in an exclusive interview. “Initially $200,000 is not going to enable the average joe to go in, but we have about 500 people signed up to go into space so far. I think they will be the pioneers and in time the price will come down.”

(Source: futurenow321)

Could some really great cupcakes be enough to send Americans back to the Moon?
More than a dozen US universities are hosting events on Saturday to urge support for the cash-strapped space agency, which faces major cuts to its planetary programs in fiscal year 2013.
Ranging from shoe shines to car washes and bake sales, the events are not actually designed to raise money to send to NASA, the organizers stressed.
“Our goal is not to raise money but to raise awareness and to have people tell Congress to put the funds back to last year’s funding level,” said Cindy Conrad, an assistant at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
NASA’s planetary programs are expected to be cut by more than $300 million dollars in President Barack Obama’s next budget, and the cost-cutting has already axed a major Mars project with Europe.
The US space agency has faced harsh criticism in recent years by slashing a program to return Americans to the Moon and retiring the space shuttle fleet in 2011 without a replacement vehicle to take astronauts to space.

(Source: futurenow321)

Sierra Nevada Corp.’s (SNC) Dream Chaser Space System (DCSS) has completed its preliminary design review (PDR).  This review was the third major system-level review for the DCSS as part of NASA’s commercial crew development round 2 (CCDev2) program.

SNC’s PDR included a review of all major elements of its orbital flight program including the Dream Chaser orbital crew vehicle, the Atlas V launch vehicle, and Dream Chaser mission and ground systems.  The entire design, architecture and performance of the Dream Chaser Space System was reviewed and evaluated by NASA and the DCSS partner companies. It was determined that the SNC preliminary design for DCSS is complete.

The Program’s PDR came during the same week when the Dream Chaser vehicle began its flight test program, illustrating SNC’s approach of concurrent design and development.  On May 29, the Dream Chaser Program completed the successful first flight of Dream Chaser full scale vehicle.  The flight met all the pre-established flight test goals and is a moving towards preparing the vehicle for an autonomous approach and landing test scheduled for later this summer.

 The Dream Chaser is a crewed suborbital and orbital vertical-takeoff, horizontal landing lifting-body space plane that was developed by SpaceDev, a subsidiary of SNC. The Dream Chaser is designed to carry seven people to and from low earth orbit. The vehicle is designed to be launched vertically on an Atlas V rocket and land horizontally on conventional runways.

The Dream Chaser was publicly announced in September of 2004 as a candidate for the NASA vision for space exploration, and then for the commercial orbital transportation services program. The DCSS is being developed as part of NASA’s venture into commercially provided crew transport.

Also  Sierra Nevada will utilize Virgin Galactic to market Dream Chaser commercial services and will also use “Virgin’s WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft as a platform for drop trials of the Dream Chaser atmospheric test vehicle” in 2012

(Source: futurenow321)

Space station astronauts floated into the Dragon on Saturday, a day after its heralded arrival as the world’s first commercial supply ship.

NASA astronaut Donald Pettit, the first one inside the docked capsule, said the Dragon looks as if it carries about as much cargo as his pickup truck back home in Houston. It has the smell of a brand new car, he added.

“I spent quite a bit of time poking around in here this morning, just looking at the engineering and the layout, and I’m very pleased,” Pettit said from the brilliant white compartment.

To protect against possible debris, Pettit wore goggles, a mask and a caver’s light as he slid open the hatch of the newest addition to the International Space Station. The complex sailed 250 miles (400 kilometers) above the Tasman Sea, just west of New Zealand, as he and his crewmates made their grand entrance. The atmosphere was clean; no dirt or other particles were floating around.

“This event isn’t just a simple door opening between two spacecraft — it opens the door to a future in which U.S. industry can and will deliver huge benefits for U.S. space exploration,” the Space Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group, said in a statement.

(Source: futurenow321)

Elon Musk is the founder, chief executive and chief designer of SpaceX. The company managed to overcome a series of technical and financial crises and made history Friday by attaching the first private spacecraft to the international space station.

Amazon.com Founder Jeff Bezos runs Blue Origin, a start-up targeting space station runs. An unnamed spaceship developed by Blue Origin suffered a major failure during a test flight in the summer of 2011.

In December, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen indicated he is prepared to commit $200 million or more of his wealth to build the world’s largest airplane as a mobile platform for launching satellites at low cost. The novel, high-risk project was conceived by renowned aerospace engineer.

British billionaire and playboy Sir Richard Branson years ago entered the fray, creating Virgin Galactic, an extension of his well-known brand that intends to take well-heeled customers to the edge of space, but also foresees launching satellites and carrying experiments.

Planetary Resources Inc., a start-up with backers including Google co-founders Larry Page, left, Eric Schmidt, right, and Ross Perot Jr., not shown, unveiled in April a plan to send robotic spacecraft to remotely mine asteroids.

Robert Bigelow is the billionaire founder of the Budget Suites of America hotel chain and the president of Bigelow Aerospace. In the spring of 2012, Boeing completed a parachute drop test of the Crew Space Transportation-1000 spacecraft. Mr. Bigelow plans to use the CST-100 spacecraft for transporting people to and from his expandable modules developed for space habitation.

(Source: futurenow321)

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. docked a supply ship at the International Space Station in a breakthrough for commercial space travel.

Closely held SpaceX, controlled by billionaire Elon Musk, connected its unmanned Dragon capsule to the station at 12:02 p.m. New York time, according to Kyle Herring, a spokesman for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It is the first company to accomplish the feat.

“This is truly a momentous accomplishment for SpaceX and for the industry,” Michael Lopez-Alegria, president of the Washington-based Commercial Spaceflight Federation, said in a statement. The country is on its way to having a cost-effective space transportation system, he said, and SpaceX should be thanked for “restoring U.S. access to the space station.”

NASA retired its shuttle fleet last year and wants the private sector to take over the job of carrying supplies and eventually astronauts to the station. The U.S. currently relies on the governments of Europe, Japan and Russia for that work.

After almost three years of delays in the mission, SpaceX launched its Falcon 9 rocket, carrying the Dragon ship, on May 22 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. A previously scheduled attempt on May 19 was called off with a half-second left in the countdown because of a faulty engine valve.

(Source: futurenow321)