Tim's Space Diary. Straight and to the point

27-29 May (29 May 2009)

Russia launched Soyuz TMA 15 on 27 May carrying the Expedition Crew 20 for the International Space Station creating the first six-crew to operate on the space base. The TMA 15 crew is commanded by Roman Romanenko - the second son of a Soviet/Russian cosmonaut - following Sergei Volkov in 2008. The other crewmembers are Belgian Frank de Winne and Robert Thirsk from Canada. They will join Russian Gennadi Padalka, American Mike Barratt and Japan’s Koichi Wakata. TMA 15 was the 267th manned spaceflight and the 34th by Russia (or 105th by the former Soviet Union).

NASA’s $2 billion Mars Science Laboratory to be launched 2011 will be called “Curiosity”, the name suggested by a 12 year old Kansas student as part of an essay competition.

Harris Corporation has won a contract worth up to $763 million to build the command, control and data processing system for the next generation NOAA meteorological satellite fleet, GOES R to begin launches in 2015.

The first test sub-orbital flight of the Ares 1 booster is scheduled late this year. The booster will comprise a four-segment first stage and a simulated upper stage replicating the shape of the Orion capsule. The Ares 1-X will be 320ft high almost as high as the 363ft Saturn 5 and its extreme slenderness will make it a unique flight from a dynamics standpoint. 

Virgin Galactic has completed the first phase of tests of the hybrid nitrous oxide rocket motor that will carry space tourists, scientists and payloads into space at speeds of 2,500mph to a height of 65 miles. The White KnightTwo mother ship, called Eva “is flying superbly” and the SpaceShipTwo will be flight tested later this year.

Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Centre are in for a busy schedule of launches during the second half of 2009 with three more Space Shuttle missions, two Atlas 5 flights carrying NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter on 17 June and the Solar Dynamics Observatory on 14 October and a Delta 4 Medium Plus flight carrying a new GOES geosynchronous orbiting weather satellite. There will be two Delta II missions carrying two Space Tracking and Surveillance System satellites for the Missile Defense Agency and the GPS-2R 21 satellite and two Delta 4 missions carrying the third US Air Force Wideband Global Satcom spacecraft and the first large GPS 2F satellite. Meanwhile at Vandenberg AFB, California an Atlas V will launch a Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellite and a Delta II will launch the DigitalGlobe Worldview 2 satellite.

The Russian Samara-based TsSKB-Progress company has started work of the development of a light-class Soyuz 1 booster to eventually replace the Tsyklon and Kosmos boosters which use toxic propellants. The Soyuz 1 will carry 1.5 tonnes and will be complemented by a light class Angara booster.

Russia has signed a $306 million contract to ferry NASA astronauts to the International Space Station on four flights in 2012.

China’s first planetary flight will be launched by a Russian rocket in the second half of 2009. The 115kg Yinghuo 1 will fly with the Russian Phobos-Grunt aerocraft to attempt to return a sample of the Mars moon after landing on the moon Phobos.


50 years ago

26 May 1959

The first static firing of the H-1 engine for the Saturn 1 booster was made at the Redstone Arsenal, Alabama.

28 May 1959

Able, a seven pound rhesus monkey and an 11 pound squirrel monkey called Baker were launched aboard a Jupiter missile to an altitude of 360 miles during a 16-minute suborbital flight. Able died four days after the flight due to an allergic reaction to an anesthetic. Baker lived until 29 November 1984 and is buties at the US Space and Rocket Centre.


40 years ago

27 May 1969

The Soviet Union launched a Cosmos booster from Plesetsk carrying Cosmos 283, a 250kg military target into a 121-932 mile, 81deg inclination orbit. The air defence and control of outer space satellite operated until November.

29 May 1969
The Soviet Union launched Cosmos 284 aboard a Soyuz booster from Baikonur on a Zenit 4 recoverable high resolution reconnaissance satellite mission.
 

26 May (26 May 2009)

Former NASA astronaut Charles Bolden has been confirmed by President Barack Obama as the space agency’s new Administrator - with his sidekick Lori Garver, an experienced space policy professional with NASA experience and a strong knowledge of the space industry and the political and communications skills that are crucial in communicating with the Administration, the Congress and the public.

Avanti Communications has been awarded a 250,000 euro Preliminary Design Review of a satellite system called Hercules to digitise 2.5 million rural homes in Britain unable to access terrestrial high speed broadband starting with a satellite called Hylas.

STS 127 Endeavour is scheduled for launch during a window lasting from 13-19 June on a mission to he International Space Station with the last four launch windows will be at “night”.  The main payload is the Japanese Exposed Facility, which will be attached to the Japanese Pressurised Module using the Space Station Remote Manipulator System. The 127 crew will be the first to join six crew already aboard the ISS and will deploy four mini-satellites from the payload bay after leaving the station. Meanwhile, STS 128 Discovery is scheduled for a launch to the ISS no earlier than 6 August, carrying the Leonardo MPLM. The 13 days mission will feature the last crew rotation using the Space Shuttle and three EVAs. The next Russian Soyuz TMA launch to the ISS, creating a six-person crew will be launched on 27 May carrying Russian commander, Roman Romanenko, Canada’s Robert Thirsk and Frank De Winne from Belgium. The space shift will mark the first featuring all five partners of the project under the command of Gennadi Padalka.


50 years ago

26 May 1959

The first static firing of the H-1 engine for the Saturn 1 booster was made at the Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. 



 

22-25 May (25 May 2009)

The Space Shuttle Atlantis STS 125 returned to Earth at Edwards AFB, California on 24 May after being waived off twice on two days from the Kennedy Space Centre due to bad weather. The mission was the last to service the Hubble Space Telescope and the flight lasted 12 days 21hrs 37mins 9secs.

As expected, the new Administrator of NASA will be former Space Shuttle commander and pilot, Charles Bolden who flew four missions, two as pilot and two as commander.

The BBC reports that Russia if the International Space Station is abandoned by the USA in 2015, Russia will use the remaining modules left Earthbound to form its own space station. However, ISS partners are confident that the ISS will continue to operate to 2020. However, RKK Energia has already started to develop a special node module for the Russian segment, which will double as the cornerstone for the future. However, this will create political problems.

A Soyuz 2 booster was launched from Plesetsk on 22 May carrying a military communications satellite, Meridian 2 into a Molniya elliptical orbit, replacing an older Molniya satellite. The satellite will also provide navigation and surveillance services.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) fears that the Global Positioning System could be disrupted by delays in modernising and deploying more US Air Force satellites. The US Air Force admitted that there is a potential risk associated with degradation in GPS performance but it has plans to mitigate risk and prevent a gap in coverage. The GPS fleet numbers 31 satellites and the US plans to invest $5.8 billion to 2013 but it does admit that older satellites will reach the end of their operational life faster than they will be replaced. The Air Force Space Command said that the system is not in danger of failing. “GPS is not falling out of the sky”, said a spokesman. 


40 years ago

22 May 1969

A Thor Delta M was launched from Pad 17A at Cape Canaveral, carrying the 654lb Intelsat 3 F4 into a near-geosynchronous orbit at 6.10deg inclination, eventually moving to 175degE.

23 May

The US Air Force launched a Titan 3C from Pad 41 at Cape Canaveral carrying 698lb Advanced Vela 9 and 10 satellites for nuclear detection activity, from 61deg in approximate 150,000-70,000km. 

22-25 May

Apollo 10 headlines:

Apollo orbits moon
Of we go round the moon
Peanuts gang go moon snooping
Apollo 10 goes into successful moon orbit
Apollo men fly eight miles off moon
Americans see surface smooth as wet clay
Moon Snoopy
We’re down among them Charlie!
It was wild baby. Spinning Snoopy shakes moon men
Snoopy Tours Moon
Moon Buzzed – Then Trouble
Drama on Snoopy as “something went wild”
Swoop over the moon at 50,000ft
That was wild baby!
Snoopy does a bucking bronco act in space
Moon spy Snoopy hits snags all the way
Apollo set for return
Fuel cell failure on Apollo 10
Apollo set for its return flight
Space men’s three-day itch
Cure for Moonmen’s Apollo itch
Apollo success a setback for the programme’s critics
Quiet! Let’s hear the voices from space (criticism of the chatter of TV pundits during critical moments)
Man on the moon day is Monday July 21
Tired Apollo 10 crew set for return trip
Now Charlie Brown heads home
Bye, Moon – Houston here we come
Rings around the moon
Way Clear for the Moon landing
Apollo Splashdown in Pacific today
Moon and Back - 25 seconds late



 

20-21 May (21 May 2009)

The 19 year-old Hubble Space Telescope has been set free to roam in orbit to continue its observations hopefully to at least 2014 after the spectacular five-EVA mission of STS 125 Atlantis.

The much delayed launch of a Minotaur 1 booster from Wallops Island, Virginia on 19 May local time carried the US Air Force Research Laboratory’s TacSat 3 and NASA PharmaSat microsatellite into a low Earth orbit. The launch was the eighth by a Minotaur booster.

The European Space Agency and Inmarsat  will launch its first Astrium-built 6 tonne Alphasat spacecraft, 1-XL aboard an Ariane 5 ECA in 2012 to be located at 25degE joining 11 other Inmarsat satellites.

Former NASA astronaut Scott Parazynski has become the first space traveller to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

The European Space Agency has selected six new astronauts to work on the International Space Station “and beyond”. They are: Samantha Crisforetti and Luca Parmitano from Italy, Timothy Peake from Britain, Andreas Mogensen from Denmark, Thomas Pesquet from France and Germany’s Alexander Gerst. There will be at least seven ESA missions to the ISS before 2020, says ESA.

NASA and Lockheed Martin have started the end of the Space Shuttle programmed with the shutdown of the New Orleans-based External Tank facility. The final Space Shuttle mission is likely to be pushed into 2011. The retirement of the Space Shuttle will result on 10,000 layoffs at the Kennedy Space Centre.

NASA and industry engineers have successfully completed the first test of the Ares 1 booster’s three main 150ft diameter parachutes weighing 2,000lb each, which will be used to recover the first stage motor - a version of the Space Shuttle SRB.

A new first in space has been marked at the International Space Station with Gennady Padalka, Mike Barratt and Koichi Wakata, joining for a toast drinking recycled water from urine and sweat. 


40 years ago
20 May 1969

The Soviet Union launched Cosmos 282 aboard a Voskhod booster from Plesetsk, on a Zenit 4 reconnaissance mission,  carrying a recoverable film capsule which returned to Earth on 28 May.

21 May 
Apollo 10 entered 110-315km lunar orbit in preparation for the simulated lunar landing to an altitude of 15km.
Apollo 10 British headlines

The command module was called Gumdrop and the Lunar Module, Snoopy
Apollo crew reports “fantastic ride” on the way to the moon
Apollo colour TV spectacular
Apollo 10 sets course for the moon
What a ride!
Apollo 10 on target for moon
What a ride…it’s fantastic babe
It’s fantastic. What a ride!
Man - this is the greatest!
What a ride to the moon!
It’s the peanuts spectacular from space
Space pop from Apollo pirates (the crew carried tape recorder)
Apollo lie in, then it’s wakey wakey!
Lie in – then reveille for the moon men
Such sweet dreams in space for Apollo
Apollo at critical stage
Space ace Snoopy near moon
Apollo 10 clears radiation
The Rip Van Winkle Spacemen
Apollo orbits Moon
Of we go round the moon!
Apollo 10 goes into successful moon orbit
Apollo 10 in orbit 
 

19 May (19 May 2009)

The 4th and 5th EVAs of the STS 125 mission at the Hubble Space Telescope were completed on 17 and 18 May. Mike Massimino and Mike Good made an 8hr 2min EVA - the six longest EVA in history - to repair the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph and installed a new outer blanket. The space duo also worked on the Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph, involving removing 11 fasteners, freeing the electronics box for repair. The final EVA featured John Grunsfield and Andrew Feustal, who replaced a second 460-battery pack and replaced one of the three fine guidance sensors and replaced some thermal insulation. Hubble will be released for the last time today and the STS 125 crew will return to Earth on 22 May.

Vladimir Putin says the Russia must strengthen in competitive positions in the global commercial space launch market, which must be strengthened by expanding launch bases and the development of new carrier rockets and the development of the Plesesk and Vostochny space centres. Putin says that Russia’s share of the international launch market by another 10%, giving Russia around a 50% share.

TerreStar Networks’ TerreStar 1, the largest commercial satellite to be launched so far has arrived in Kourou for its launched aboard an Ariane 5 booster on 24 June. The satellite is based on Space Systems Loral 1300 satellite bus.   TerreStar features an 18m unfurlable reflector and will provide integrated and terrestrial mobile services for dual mode handsets using a powerful S-band feed array, covering the Continental USA, Canada, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.


40 years ago

Three Russian scientists completed a one-year long in a “space hothouse”. Water and air was continuously recycled, packed food was supplemented by potatoes, lettuces, sugar beat, tomatoes and carrots, grown in the container.

Test pilot and Hero of the Soviet Union, Vasili Ivanov - at the time seen best candidate to be the first man in space - died of a “grave illness”. He was not a member of the Cosmonaut Group, which was formed after Ivanov had claimed fame.

“Research workers at the University of California believe its may be possible” for an astronaut to parachute back to earth from space and this summer they plan a world’s record parachute jump from 24 mile high, falling at a speed of 625 mph. 
 

16-18 May (18 May 2009)

Russia launched a Proton booster on 16 May carrying the IndoStar II/ProtoStar satellite into geosynchronous transfer orbit on 16 May. The 4,000kg Boeing 601 HP-based satellite will replace the Charawarta 1 satellite at 107.7degE and carries 27 Ku and 13 S-band transponders.

STS 125 Atlantis crewmen, Mike Good and Mike Massimino completed an EVA lasting nearly eight hours on 17 May to replace the power supply unit for the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph of the Hubble Space Telescope. This was the fourth EVA of the mission. The final sortie takes place later today.

STS 125 Atlantis crewmen, John Grunsfield and Drew Feustal completed a 6hr 36min third of five planned EVAs on 16 May to service the Hubble Space Telescope. The space duo installed the new Cosmic Origin spectrograph and serviced the Advanced Camera for Surveys, repairing the instrument’s camera, removing 32 tiny screws to access the instrument. 

STS 125 Atlantis crewmen, Mike Massimino and Mike Good conducted a 7hr 56min EVA on the second sortie to service the Hubble Space Telescope on 15 May, marking the eighth longest spacewalk in history, planning to replace all three Rate Sensor Units (RSU) and the batteries in Battery Bay 2 but RSU 1 failed to seat in place. Instead, the spacewalkers moved to a back-up plan to install an old unit from a contingency enclosure.

Orbcomm is making an insurance claim for the loss of six Orbcomm satellites that were lost in the failure of the of a Russian Cosmos 3M booster in June last year. 

The European Commission has not selected ICO Global Communications for S-band mobile services, which will be provided by Inmarsat and Solaris for 18 years across 27 European countries.

Eutelsat has selected Astrium to build the Atlantic Bird 7 to be launched in late 2011 to be stationed at 353degE covering the Middle East and North Africa. Atlantic Bird 4A will be relocated to 13degE, reverting to its orginal nbame Hot Bird 10.

China’s first Mars satellite, Yinghuo 1 will be launched by Russia because the inadequacy of China’s tracking, telemetry and command system. It will fly with Russia’s Phobos-Grunt arriving in September 2010. The two satellites will be connected through electric cables. China, which launched its first lunar orbiter, Chang’e in 2007 will uprate its TT&C in preparation for a later Mars mission, as well as the planned Chang’e 2 lunar orbiter. Further projects are a moon lander and a lunar rover.

China Satellite Communications Corporation (China Satcom) has become a fully-owned subsidiary company of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation with total assets of 6.6 billion Yuan being transferred ($965.81 million). 

NPO Energomash plans a new booster for a manned spacecraft boosted by an RD-180 engine for a Rus-M medium class booster that will replace the Soyuz. The first six engines for flight testing will be delivered in early 2010. Nine engines have been tested for more than 22,000s in 102 ground tests. A new engine, RD-191 will be used for a light class of the Angara.

The US Air Force and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has withdrawn support for the planned AirLaunch project, which was to deploy boosters from Air Force C-17 transport planes has folded.

The US Air Force GPS  11R-20 Navstar satellite launched in March is not in service due to a serious problem associated with inaccurate navigation signals.


50 years ago

13 May 1959

Britain’s Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan announces plans to launch a satellite.

14 May

The moon was used a relay station for intercontinental transmission from Jodrell Bank, England to the US Air Force Cambridge Research Centre in Bedford, Masschusetts.

15 May

Lt General Bernard Schriever, Commander of the ARDC unveiled the first re-entry vehicle to be recovered after a full intercontinental range flight.

 
40 years ago

16-17 May 1969

The Soviet Union’s Venera 5, 450kg capsule impacted on Venus at 3degS/18degL on the second successful Venus atmosphere capsule mission, followed the next day by Venera 6, which impacted at 5degS/23degL. The spacecraft measured temperatures of 530 and 400degC respectively, transmitting for 53 and 51 minutes respectively.

18 May

NASA launched Apollo 10 from Pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Centre, on a mission to do everything except land on the moon, in preparation for the attempt to land on the moon in July on the Apollo 11 mission. The crew was commanded by Tom Stafford with CMP John Young and LMP Gene Cernan.  
 

14-15 May (15 May 2009)

Arianespace launched an Ariane 5 ECA booster from Kourou, Guiana carrying the European Space Agency’s 1.9 billion Euro, Thales Alenia Space twin payloads, Herschel and Plank astronomical observatories on 14 May to be stationed individually at the L2 Lagrangian point in the sun-Earth system 1.5 million kilometres from the Earth in the opposite direction to the sun. The 1,800kg Herschel is the largest telescope of its kind to detect space radiation at far infrared and sub-millimeter wavelengths to determine how the first galaxies were created and how they evolved. The 1,800kg Planck will analyse remnants of the radiation immediately after what is been described as the “Big Bang”.

The Space Shuttle Atlantis docked to the Hubble Space Station on 13 May and the first EVA of the final service of the spacecraft started on 14 May featuring John Grunsfield and Andrew Feustal, replacing the WFPC2 camera, a science data processing computer and a mechanism that will allow a possible future spacecraft to dock with the Hubble. The EVA lasted 7hr 20min.

Former Space Shuttle pilot and commander, Marine Major general Charles Bolden is expected to be appointed the new NASA Administrator. Bolden flew four Space Shuttle missions from 1986 to 1994 before becoming Deputy Commandant of Midshipmen at the Naval Academy and held corporate positions joining the board of directors of GenCorp in 2004.

Venetia Phair, who at the age off 11 suggested the name of a planet that had been discovered by Clyde Tombaugh  in 1930 as Pluto, has died aged 90 in nearby Epsom, Surrey in England.

Eutelsat has selected Astrium to build the Atlantic Bird TM7 to be launched in 2011 to be located at 7degW, allowing TM4A to move to 13degE reverting to its original name Hot BirdTM 10. TM7 is the 18th satellite ordered from Astrium.

The US Air Force Research Laboratory plans to develop reusable launch vehicles for sub-orbital and heavy-lift missions as a first step toward X-plane flight demonstrations of a lower-cost, more-responsive launch vehicle combining a reusable first stage, aiming to fly a sub-scale liquid oxygen/hydrocarbon X-plane to fly in 2017-18, with turnaround of 24-48hrs.

Russia will charge $51 million in 2012 to fly crews to the International Space Station aboard Soyuz TMA ferries, compared with the $21.8 million charge in 2006 and the present $35 million. The great increase is Russia’s way of exploiting NASA inability to fly crews to the ISS itself until whatever the space agency comes up with one of its own. Russia plans to continue space tourist missions.

The Canadian Space Agency has selected two more astronauts, David Saint-Jaques a PhD in astrophysics and CF-18 fighter pilot Jeremy Hansen. The duo are the first new recruits since 1992.  The first group of six was selected in 1983, with four more in 1992. Robert Thirsk, a meber of the first group will fly aboard a Soyuz TMA spacecraft from Baikonur on 27 May for a six-month shift on the International Space Station.

Russia is nearly ready to start launches of Soyuz boosters from Pad 31 at Baikonur to complement the Gagarin Pad 1 which will be taken out of service for servicing.
 

12-13 May (13 May 2009)

The Space Shuttle Atlantis STS 125 was launched from Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Centre on 11 May en-route to the service the Hubble Space Telescope for the last time, with a seven-person crew commanded by veteran Scott Altman, with rookies: pilot Greg Johnson, flight engineer Megan McArthur and mission specialist-spacewalkers Andrew Feustel and Mike Good.  Mission specialist spacewalker, John Grunsfield is on his third mission to Hubble and Michael Massimino on his second. There will be five spacewalks on the mission conducted by the two teams. The mission which flies higher than the International Space Station has a higher danger risk because if there are serious problems, there is no safe haven at the International Space Station and also there is a higher risk of a catastrophic impact from space debris with 1 in 229 compared with 1-330 for an ISS mission. The five-back-to-back EVAs will hopefully install six new gyroscopes, six nickel hydrogen battery packs, a new data computer together with two new instruments, the $126 million Wide Field Camera 3 and the $81 million Cosmic Origins Spectrograph which are both equipped with corrective optics to counteract the spherical aberration which was discovered on when the Hubble reached space. Spacewalkers will attempt to repair the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph which suffered a power failure in 2004 and the Advanced Camera for Surveys which broke down in 2007. These were not designed to be repaired and  serviced but could repaired by spacewalkers to bypass the failed electronics. (There is a possibility that damage to the instruments were due to dynamic overshoot at launch, which was inherent on the design of the Space Shuttle and resulted in many instrument and payload problems on several missions up to Challenger). On 12 May inspections of the orbiter by a camera on the RMS revealed damaged on the starboard chine area but mission control did not think that focussed inspection was required - yet.

Russia’s Progress M-02M tanker docked to the International Space Station on 12 May.

The venerable Mars rover Spirit is stuck in a patch of soft ground and it might be stuck there for “many weeks” says NASA. Spirit’s twin, Opportunity got stuck in a sand dune several years ago but is freed itself after several weeks. It is hoped that Spirit will do also.

Russia’s space agency has added an extra 63 billion roubles to the Glonass navigation satellite network within a three year period. The development of Glonass began in 1976, with the first satellite launch on 12 October 1982. “A fully operational Glonass constellation consists of 24 satellites, with 21 used for transmitting signals and three for on-orbit spares, deployed in three orbital planes. The three orbital planes' ascending nodes are separated by 120° with each plane containing eight equally spaced satellites. The orbits are roughly circular, with an inclination of about 64.8°, and orbit the Earth at an altitude of 19,100 kilometers, which yields an orbital period of approximately 11 hours, 15 minutes. The planes themselves have a latitude displacement of 15°, which results in the satellites crossing the equator one at a time, instead of three at once. The overall arrangement is such that, if the constellation is fully populated, a minimum of five satellites is in view from any given point at any given time. There are about 20,000 civilian satellite navigation gadgets in Russia, and about 15,000 gadgets have been purchased by the Defense Ministry. The civilian gadgets have been installed in planes, ships and trains, and about 10,000 are either privately owned or belong to regional authorities”.


40 years ago
The Soviet Union launched a Soyuz booster from Plesetsk carrying a 4,720kg Voskhod-based Zenit 2 reconnaissance satellite with a recoverable film capsule, which returned to Earth eight days later. 
 

8-11 May (11 May 2009)

Russia launched Progress M-12M (called Progress 33) late on 7 May to dock with the Pirs module at the International Space Station.

NASA’s budgets through 2013 will be cut by more than $3 billion as Norman Augustine, the former CEO of Lockheed Martin starts work on the Review of the United States Human Space Flight Plans for President Barack Obama. “I think what it boils down to is we're being told there's no sense in being unrealistic and putting together a program that can't possibly be afforded, and we've been given some guidance," Augustine said. "I think one of the chronic problems NASA's encountered over the years has been that it usually had more programs than it had money. That can be dangerous when you're doing something as difficult as NASA does”.
“President Obama recognizes the important role that NASA’s human space flight programs play in advancing scientific discovery, technological innovation, economic strength and international leadership,” said John P. Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. “The President’s goal is to ensure that these programs remain on a strong and stable footing well into the 21st Century, and this review will be crucial to meeting that goal.”
“The review panel will assess a number of architecture options, taking into account such objectives as: 1) expediting a new U.S. capability to support use of the International Space Station; 2) supporting missions to the Moon and other destinations beyond low Earth orbit; 3) stimulating commercial space flight capabilities; and 4) fitting within the current budget profile for NASA exploration activities. Among the parameters to be considered in the course of its review are crew and mission safety, life-cycle costs, development time, national space industrial base impacts, potential to spur innovation and encourage competition, and the implications and impacts of transitioning from current human space flight systems. The review will consider the appropriate amounts of R&D and complementary robotic activity necessary to support various human space flight activities, as well as the capabilities that are likely to be enabled by each of the potential architectures under consideration. It will also explore options for extending International Space Station operations beyond 2016”.
 
The 106th Rescue Wing at Cape Canaveral/KSC will mark its 100th support of a Space Shuttle mission when STS 125/Atlantis is launch today.

South Korea’s 502.5 billion won Korea Space Launch Vehicle (KSLV 1), which will be launched in July has been named “Naro” after the name of the launch base in Goheung in the South Jeolla Province after a competition, which involved 34,143 submissions. Highly original! The 140 ton, 33m tall, 3m wide KSLV has a thrust of 170 tons and can place satellites into elliptical orbits of 300-1,500km.
 

7-8 May (8 May 2009)

Three cosmonauts from the European Space Agency, the Canadian Space Agency and Roskosmos will be launched to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard Soyuz 15 on 27 May to establish the first six-person crew of the space station. Russia’s commander Roman Romanenko, Robert Thirsk from the Canadian Space Agency and the flight engineer Frank de Winne of the European Space Agency. The 20th Expedition Crew will join the 19th aboard the ISS also comprising of an another international crew, Russia’s commander Gennadi Padlaka, NASA flight engineer, Mike Barratt and Japanese Koichi Wakata. The full crew will be together for 180 days, during which the first Japanese HTV cargo craft will deliver cargo together with three Russian Progress cargo craft. There will also be two EVAs.    

Russia launched Progress M-02M aboard a Soyuz booster from Baiknour to the International Space Station on 8 May.

The final “scheduled” Space Shuttle mission, STS 132 Atlantis will be launched no earlier than 13 May 2010 to the International Space Station with a crew of commander Ken Ham, pilot Tony Antonelli and mission specialists Karen Nyberg, British-born Piers Sellars and Garrett Reisman.

NASA says that the STS 119 Boundary Layer Transition Detailed Test Objective was a success, measuring the effects of increased heating from an early boundary layer transition during re-entry with temperatures of 2000-3000degF.  

NASA's revealed a $18.7 billion fiscal 2010 budget on 7 May. The Obama administration had ordered an independent review of NASA's plans to replace the Space Shuttle with unmanned Ares rockets, Apollo-style Orion capsules and manned lunar landers on the moon by the early 2020s.

Russian engineers hope to replace the venerable manned Soyuz spacecraft with a DC-X-type spacecraft, Advanced Crew Transportation System (ACTS), which will land using rocket engines. Although the Soyuz uses thrusters to cushion the final moments of landing, a parachute is the main descent method. Russia wants to open a new cosmodrome, called Vostochny in the Far East for Russia and manned missions operating from the new site by 2018 will utilise rocket-assisted system using environmentally-friendly liquid propellant. Relying on just 12-rocket engines for landing, which would start firing at 800-600m, with retractable landing legs, sounds extremely risky.

Russia’s Zvezda agency plans to introduce new Orlan MKS spacesuits made of synthetic coating of polyurethane with a service life of 20 spacewalks compared with 12 and 15 spacewalks with Orlan M and MK suits. Russia has established a space reconnaissance company, Vega which will also provide civilian navigation systems.

Britian’s Surrey Satellite Technology Limited, SSTL space company based in Guildford has won a 300,000 Euro contract to provide radiation testing of the charged-coupled devices for the Euclid spacecraft which will map the geometry of the dark universe. Partners in the project are the UK Open University, CEA France and Britain’s Mullard Science Laboratory.

Using data from the ROSAT X-ray satellite, the Villanova University of Pennsylvania reports that ‘the best real estate for life may be around orange dwarfs a little smaller than our sun”. Thank goodness the report said “MAY” , unlike the OTT reports we seem to read every day. Scientist: “As modern cosmologists rely more and more on the ominous "dark matter" to explain otherwise inexplicable observations, much effort has gone into the detection of this mysterious substance in the last two decades, yet no direct proof could be found that it actually exists. It is conceivable that we have completely failed to comprehend the actual physics underlying the force of gravity". How about, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” Simple.


40 years ago
7-8 May 1969

Twenty-three mission veteran Mercury 9, Gemini and early Apollo mission NASA commentator in Cape Canaveral and Houston, Paul Haney, whose voice became world famous came to London to work for either the BBC or ITV after resigning from NASA after refusing to be posted to Washington DC. Haney was fed up with the interference of his boss, Julian Sheer, head of Public Affairs. Haney, who was replaced by Brian Duff, arrived at Heathrow London with no passport, nor birth certificate! Haney joined ITV whose Apollo chief was Nigel Ryan who said, “this will probably be the greatest story of the century. We hope to bring the whole drama live to British viewers”.

Britain’s Daily Express writes “six-o’clock shadows are giving space scientists a headache”. The beatnik hairy look might be fine for some but a space boffins’ ideal is a Yul Brynner cut - totally bald. Because hair is a fire hazard as it will become highly inflammable in the oxygen-rich atmosphere in the Apollo spaceceraft is worrying chemical engineer Dr R.L. Durfee. 

Britain’s Daily Telegraph science correspondent, Adrian Berry reports “unexpected physical and psychological dangers face American astronauts landing on the moon, according to US and Soviet scientists. NASA astronauts’ doctor Charles Berry warned that it was “almost certain that at least one astronaut on the first moon landing would be ill, possibly with some unknown lunar sickness”. The Soviet’s Dr Nikolai Kozyrev warned NASA that “parts of the moon are covered with highly poisonous prussic acid gas”.
 















 

 

5-6 May (6 May 2009)

Space Systems/Loral has won a contract from Asiasat to provide a new communications satellite, AsiaSat 5C to be located at 100.5degE as a replacement for Asiasat 2. The other satellites are 3S and 4 located at 105.5 and 122degE.  

The Orlando Sentinel reports that President Obama will order a review of the Ares rocket and Orion manned spacecraft projects because White House advisors do not have confidence that the Constellation project “is the best way to go”. The first step must be to name a new administrator but there do not seem to be many takers for the poisoned chalice, despite the planned announcement of a $18.7 billion NASA budget for 2009-10.

A Delta 2 booster was launched on 5 May from Vandenberg AFB carrying the Space Tracking and Surveillance System Advanced Technology Risk Reduction (STSS-ATRR) technology pathfinder satellite for a planned operational fleet of satellites, the first of two of which will be launched later this year.

NASA has cleared the launch of STS 125, the final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope for May 11 at 2.01 local time at the Kennedy Space Centre. 

NASA may leave a Multi-Purpose Logistics Module at the International Space Station after the final Space Shuttle missions to the space base. The final Shuttle missions are likely to be STS 133 and 134.

Fifty years ago it was first thought that radio signals from space could have been indications that there were extraterrestrial civilisations in deep space, which could be able to send signals to the Earth. Nothing has yet been found after 50 years, so ET freaks think that they have been looking for the wrong type of signals or may be we have not been looking long enough. The ET freaks have been looking long enough. They are wasting their time.

Gerta Keller, a Princeton University geoscientist has challenged the popular theory that an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs, proposing instead that Earth volcanoes were the cause. It was neither. It was a world-wide flood that was reported and described in the Bible. Dinosaurs were roaming the Earth with all the other creatures that were created, many of whom were wiped out. The creation is by far the most sensible scenario of Origins. 

The University of Texas has developed a 10lb nanosatellite called PharmaSat, which is designed to study how yeast responds to anti-fungal drugs in the hope that new data could yield better understanding of the susceptibility of microbes to antibiotics. PharmaSat will be launched as a secondary payload with the TacSat 3 satellite aboard a Minotaur 1 booster.   


40 years ago
5 May 1969

Britain’s Daily Telegraph reported that six new mascons - concentrations of dense material below the surface of the moon - have been discovered since the findings of mascons as a result of the Apollo 8 lunar orbital mission and the Lunar Orbiter 5 mission. It was thought that mascons could interfere with the orbital track of Apollo 11 as it starts its descent to its planned landing site, causing a landing near cliffs or craters.   


 

2-4 May (4 May 2009)

It’s the beginning of the end of the Space Shuttle programme as Lockheed Martin has stopped making any more External Tanks for the Space Shuttle programme, releasing 160 employees at New Orleans and Utah – the first of an expected 900 redundancies. Job losses at the Kennedy Space Centre will number 6,500 after the final Space Shuttle mission in 2010. With great timing NASA celebrated a Space Day on 1 May. 

In a final attempt to continue with the Space Shuttle programme after 2010, NASA has proposed that the gap between the retirement of the Shuttle and the first flight of a manned Orion spacecraft could be filled with a few further Shuttle missions to 2012 - or even 2015.

Professor Ted Bergin of the University of Michigan will “use the European Space Agency’s Herschel Space Telescope to “search for precursors of life”. Bergin says “many organic molecules that make up life on Earth have also been found in space.”  That of course is just a theory - called evolution. There is no actual proof that all life came out of organic molecules. Creation makes much more sense.

The European Space Agency and NASA plans to launch a 1.2 billion euro Mars sample-return mission in 2016, returning samples 2020. The mission will involve a lander-return sample craft, a rover called Pasteur, a geophysics/environment and a “weather” station. NASA is expected to be involved and possibly Russia. Samples could be housed and analysed by Britain’s Harwell laboratory in Oxfordshire. ESA has already awarded a team led by aerospace and defence contractor SEA Group with a contract worth 500,000 euros to define the requirements and initial concepts for a bio-containment facility capable of handling rocks from Mars. One of the activities of the UK Cosmo-chemical Analysis Network (UK CAN) will be to prepare for the study and analysis of samples returned by future missions.

NASA’s Messenger Mercury orbiter has revealed that the planet’s atmosphere, the interaction of its surrounding magnetic field with the solar wind and its geological past display greater levels that first suspected, while the spacecraft has discovered a large impact basin 430 miles in diameter. 

The International Space Station’s first six-person crew will start work on 29 May after the arrival of a three-crew Soyuz spacecraft commanded by the Russian Roman Romanenko, the European Space Agency’s Frank De Winne and Canada’s Bob Thirsk, joining Russia’s Gennady Padalka, NASA’s Mike Barratt and Japan’s Koichi Wakata, representing all five ISS partner countries as the Expedition Crew 20. Meanwhile, The first Japanese H-II cargo Transfer Vehicle will fly to the ISS in September.

Croatia hopes to establish an Agency for Space Exploration with the hope first to create a 1,000 gramme, 100x100x100 picosat to be launched in 2012-14, to educate citizens about space technology. Meanwhile, Spaceport America and the New Mexico Space Grant Consortium launched a UP Aerospace SpaceLoft XL rocket equipped with student payloads, which fell short of its target on 62 miles, with the motor shutting down at T+10s, hitting the Earth in the desert town aptly called Truth or Consequences.

Virgin Galactic plans to build a spaceport for its SpaceShipTwo tourist spacecraft in Dubai or Abu Dhabi, while discussions are under way with other regional states including Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia - and the USA, Australia and later from RAF Lossiemouth, Scotland. Two hundred and fifty space tourists have already booked for the $200,000 for the six-minute weightless sub-orbital flight in space. The construction of the first Virgin Galactic spaceport has begun in New Mexico. Virgin could also provide scientific, atmospheric, Earth observation and microgravity missions - and even small satellite deployments. An Emirates and international consortium plan to launch four Earth imaging satellites by 2013.

The legendary NASA test pilot Joseph Algranti - the first person to fly the Apollo Lunar Lander Training Vehicle (LLTV) - has died aged 84. The ex-Navy pilot began flight testing for NACA and NASA Langley and in 1962 became the chief of aircraft operations and then chief test pilot. Algranti ejected from an LTTV before the more famous ejection by Neil Armstrong.  

40 years ago
2 May 1969

The US Air Force launched a Thorad Agena D from Vandenberg AFB, California carrying a National Reconnaissance Office KH4 satellite into a 64deg inclination orbit with a recoverable film capsule, which returned to Earth on 23 May. The mission also included radar monitoring and signal intelligence satellites.

A Hughes Aircraft Corporation scientist, John Bagby writing in the Icarus magazine, said that the Earth “has at least 10 natural satellites or “moonlets” up to 100ft across which may have been formed from a larger moonlet that used too orbit the Earth until it broke up in December 1955”.


 

30-31 April-1 May (1 May 2009)

30-31 April-1 May

The third stage engine of the European Space Agency’s Vega booster completed its final qualification test firing at Salto di Quirra, Sardinia on 30 April, while in the USA, Aeroject completed the first series of vibration and altitude hot fire tests of NASA’s Orion crew module’s mono-propellant rocket thruster.

Writing in the Orlando Sentinel, Glenn Smith, a former manager of Space Shuttle Systems Engineering at NASA’s Johnson Space Centre says, “"It is time to reconsider whether we want to go ahead with the Constellation program to place a base on the moon. Many of us in the space community would be eager to recreate the thrill of Apollo. However, from the public's standpoint, going back to the moon in 2020 would not invoke the same sense of awe and inspiration it did 51 years earlier when it was a seemingly impossible task."

Space Shuttle managers have created a contingency plan for the STS 125 crew being placed into quarantine as early as this weekend due to the threat of Swine Flu. Meanwhile, engineers plan to repair two cracks in Atlantis’ left radiator panel. Meanwhile, inspections have been called on both Atlantis and Endeavour, after a broken stud was found on a Forward Reaction Control System (FRCS) thruster on the orbiter Discovery.

The US Department of Defense’s Space Surveillance Network is tracking over 19,000 objects larger than 10cm in orbit but there are over 300,000 objects smaller items. In 1980 the figures were 4,700 with 2,600 smaller items – in 29 years space traffic has quadrupled.

Russia launched Cosmos 2450, a Kobalt reconnaissance satellite with re-entry film capsule aboard a Soyuz booster from Plesetsk into a 208-105 miles, 67deg inclination orbit on 29 April.

NASA will provide $150 million out of the Constellation programme to fund the COTS cargo programme to provide services to the International Space Station. It is possible that one of the COTS programmes might be eventually man-rated.

Ducommun Inc’s subsidiary, Miltec Corporation has delivered nanosatellites to the US Army Space and Missile Defense.

Japan plans to launch a missile early warning satellite into orbit in 2013. Under the new plan, Japan will launch a total of 34 satellites between 2009 and 2013, double the number it launched over the past five years. Japan aims to expand the market for its satellites, including for GPS and natural disaster monitoring services. The space plan also includes the launch of an unmanned lunar probe around 2020.