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.Swiss Space Systems (S3), a Swiss company that develops, er, space systems, has managed to pull together $265 million to build a prototype of a small, autonomous spaceplane that would be able to quickly and efficiently launch satellites into orbit. For just $10.5 million, you'd be able to send a 250kg satellite payload into a 700km orbit, which is about four times cheaper than it costs right now.
To make this work, S3 is relying on the recently popular first-stage aircraft, using an Airbus A300 to hoist the spaceplane up to 33,000 feet. The spaceplane then pops off, and fires up its rocket engine to make it up to 260,000 feet (80km) or so. This seems like a long way from the 700km target orbit, but it's above Earth's problematic atmosphere and at orbital velocity already, so all that's necessary to travel the remaining 620km is to release the payload along with a small, expendable upper stage
SpaceX's next-generation rocket engine is ready to fly and will likely power a commercial space launch for the first time this summer, company officials announced Wednesday (March 20).
The Merlin 1D engine was judged flight-ready after firing for a total of nearly 33 minutes over the course of 28 different tests at SpaceX's rocket-development facility in McGregor, Texas. The new engine will soon be incorporated into the company's Falcon 9 rocket, officials said.
Company officials say the Merlin 1D will provide a big boost for the Falcon 9, which until now has been powered by Merlin 1C engines in its first stage (nine of them, hence the name).
"The Merlin 1D has a vacuum thrust-to-weight ratio exceeding 150, the best of any liquid rocket engine in history," SpaceX officials wrote in a press release Wednesday. "This enhanced design makes the Merlin 1D the most efficient booster engine ever built, while still maintaining the structural and thermal safety margins needed to carry astronauts."
The Merlin 1D already powers SpaceX's Grasshopper rocket, an experimental booster that the company hopes will pave the way for a fully reusable launch system. Earlier this month, the Grasshopper lifted off on its fourth test flight, rising 263 feet (80 meters) into the Texas skies before returning to Earth and making a soft landing.
Planck's most detailed map ever reveals an almost perfect Universe(Phys.org) �Acquired by ESA's Planck space telescope, the most detailed map ever created of the cosmic microwave background � the relic radiation from the Big Bang � was released today revealing the existence of features that challenge the foundations of our current understanding of the Universe.
The image is based on the initial 15.5 months of data from Planck and is the mission's first all-sky picture of the oldest light in our Universe, imprinted on the sky when it was just 380 000 years old. At that time, the young Universe was filled with a hot dense soup of interacting protons, electrons and photons at about 2700ºC. When the protons and electrons joined to form hydrogen atoms, the light was set free. As the Universe has expanded, this light today has been stretched out to microwave wavelengths, equivalent to a temperature of just 2.7 degrees above absolute zero.
The next version of the Dragon spacecraft built by the private spaceflight company SpaceX will look like something truly out of this world, according to Elon Musk, the company's billionaire founder and CEO.
Musk detailed some of the high points of the firm's much-anticipated Dragon Version 2 to reporters Thursday during a briefing with NASA to celebrate the firm's second successful cargo mission to the International Space Station. SpaceX's unmanned Dragon capsule returned to Earth Tuesday with a successful splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.
But according to Musk, Dragon Version 2 landings won't be so … wet. But it may look weird.
"There are side-mounted thruster pods and quite big windows for astronauts to see out," Musk told SPACE.com. "There are also legs to pop out at the bottom. It looks like a real alien spaceship."
WASHINGTON, March 28 (By Sasha Horne for RIA Novosti) – From wealthy American technology executives to British billionaires, entrepreneurs are betting big on the emerging US private spaceflight industry. While some ventures claim to forge the path to US dominance, others aim to level the playing field for countries that lack space exploration programs.
“The private sector is more efficient than the government and can do the same thing at a lower cost,” said John Logsdon, professor emeritus at the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University.
Historically, Logsdon said, the US space agency NASA partnered with private companies for semi-routine cargo transport to space, but it was the decommissioning of NASA’s shuttle program in 2011 that really offered a platform for independent companies.
“As the shuttles retired, the decision was made by NASA to contract private companies to not just transport cargo, but also to carry crew,” Logsdon told RIA Novosti.
With NASA’s space shuttles grounded, it now relies solely on Russia's Soyuz spacecraft to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS). The price tag for each roundtrip is $62 million, the US space agency said.
Pluto Could Have Ten Moons : Discovery News
A recent simulation predicts that NASA’s New Horizons probe could slam into a rocky killing field encircling the “binary planet” Pluto-Charon, during its 2015 flyby.
That’s according to a new theoretical dynamical simulation that predicts there could be as many as 10 moons circling the distant world — plus one or more ring systems.
Nasa plans to launch an enormous, ultra-thin sail into space to see whether it is possible to use the pressure of the sunlight to provide propellant-free transport capabilities.
Solar sails have been mooted for centuries. In 1610, Johannes Kepler observed that comet tails always point away form the Sun and suggested that "provide ships or sails adapted to the heavenly breezes, and there will be some who will brave even that void". In 2010, Jaxa launched a solar sail called Ikaros, which measured 200 square metres and travelled to Venus.
Think about it- a one way ticket to Mars. There's a fucking movie here.
2019 Technology | Gateway Spacecraft 2019 | Galileo 2019 | Exaflop Supercomputer | Exaflop Barrier | Timeline | Future | Predictions | Events | 2010 | 2012 | 2015 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2050 | 2100 | 21st centurySolar sail propulsion is a new method of space travel that requires no fuel, but instead captures the Sun's energy in the form of high-speed gas particles and photons. Known as the "solar wind", this stream of charged particles can be harnessed so that it strikes large mirrors, gradually accelerating a craft to extremely high speeds.
It was first demonstrated in 2010 with a 14m (46 ft) Japanese experimental probe called IKAROS. This passed by Venus at a distance of 80,800 km (50,200 mi). It was followed by two NASA spacecraft – NanoSail-D2 in 2011 and the much larger Sunjammer in 2014, the latter with sails reaching 38m (124 ft).
Later in this decade, an even larger spacecraft is deployed, again by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). This measures 50m (164 ft) and is shaped like a flower. It features a hybrid propulsion method that combines sailing with an ion-propulsion engine, powered by embedded solar cells. The craft is sent to explore Jupiter and the nearby Trojan asteroids that share the planet's orbit.**
Apr. 4, 2013 — Human travel to Mars has long been the unachievable dangling carrot for space programs. Now, astronauts could be a step closer to our nearest planetary neighbor through a unique manipulation of nuclear fusion, the same energy that powers the sun and stars.
University of Washington researchers and scientists at a Redmond-based space-propulsion company are building components of a fusion-powered rocket aimed to clear many of the hurdles that block deep space travel, including long times in transit, exorbitant costs and health risks.
"Using existing rocket fuels, it's nearly impossible for humans to explore much beyond Earth," said lead researcher John Slough, a UW research associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics. "We are hoping to give us a much more powerful source of energy in space that could eventually lead to making interplanetary travel commonplace."
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FILE - In this Jan. 13, 2013 file photo, the Orion Exploration Flight Test 1crew module is seen in the Operations and Checkout building during a media tour at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Senate Science and Space subcommittee Chairman Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. says President Barack Obama and NASA are planning for a robotic spaceship to lasso a small asteroid and park it near the moon. Then astronauts would explore it in 2021. Nelson said the plan would speed up by four years an existing mission to land astronauts on an asteroid by bringing the space rock closer to Earth. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
WASHINGTON (AP) — NASA is planning for a robotic spaceship to lasso a small asteroid and park it near the moon for astronauts to explore, a top senator said Friday.
The ship would capture the 500-ton, 25-foot asteroid in 2019. Then using an Orion space capsule, a crew of about four astronauts would nuzzle up next to the rock in 2021 for spacewalking exploration, according to a government document obtained by The Associated Press.
Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said the plan would speed up by four years the existing mission to land astronauts on an asteroid by bringing the space rock closer to Earth.
Nelson, who is chairman of the Senate science and space subcommittee, said Friday that President Barack Obama is putting $100 million in planning money for the accelerated asteroid mission in the 2014 budget that comes out next week. The money would be used to find the right small asteroid.
"It really is a clever concept," Nelson said in a press conference in Orlando. "Go find your ideal candidate for an asteroid. Go get it robotically and bring it back."
This would be the first time ever humanity has manipulated a space object in such a grand scale, like what it does on Earth, said Robert Braun, a Georgia Institute of Technology aerospace engineering professor who used to be NASA's chief technology officer.
"It's a great combination of our robotic and human capabilities to do the kind of thing that NASA should be doing in this century," Braun said.
Last year, the Keck Institute for Space Studies proposed a similar mission for NASA with a price tag of $2.6 billion. There is no cost estimate for the space agency's version. NASA's plans were first reported by Aviation Week.
Ice cloud heralds fall at Titan's south poleApr. 11, 2013 — An ice cloud taking shape over Titan's south pole is the latest sign that the change of seasons is setting off a cascade of radical changes in the atmosphere of Saturn's largest moon. Made from an unknown ice, this type of cloud has long hung over Titan's north pole, where it is now fading, according to observations made by the Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) on NASA's Cassini spacecraft.
This is one of the best ideas I have seen so far. Once parked, an analysis can be made of what the asteroid is made of. Bet we find that there are enough valuable minerals to make going for the big boys even in their present orbits a desirable economic objective. A fifty year program that would have huge payoffs. Not without historical precedents, either. After all, it was forty years after the Corps of Discovery made it's journey before the wagons started rolling.
