Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

NASA Awards Space Cargo Grant

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the fedex-unavailable-for-comment dept.

pha7boy writes "NASA has made a recent award of 171 million dollars to Orbital Sciences Corp. of Virginia in order to aid the company in developing a feasible space cargo delivery service. 'The US space agency intends to hold an open competition in the years ahead for actual space station cargo-delivery contracts, but Orbital of Dulles, VA, is one of two companies receiving financial help from NASA to develop their proposed systems. The other is Space Exploration Technologies of El Segundo, CA.'"

17 of 43 comments (clear)

  1. Amazing.... by stox · · Score: 2, Funny

    what those campaign contributions can do.

    --
    "To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
  2. Can my dreams of being an astronaut come true? by erroneus · · Score: 3, Funny

    Can I just put in my application at UPS to be a cargo handler? :)

    1. Re:Can my dreams of being an astronaut come true? by CRCulver · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I wasn't thinking of UPS, I was thinking of FedEx. In Michael Flynn's future history beginning with the novel Firestar , FedEx becomes a major investor in the private space industry because of the possibility of delivering something anywhere on Earth in just a couple of hours. Interesting how in real life this company hasn't yet decided to expand up into space.

  3. What's wrong with ATV? by sunbeam60 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I thought the whole idea of an *international* space station was that we didn't have to duplicate technology efforts between the partners? ESA developed the ATV for the express purpose of resupplying the ISS, so what's this duplicate piece of tech doing?

    1. Re:What's wrong with ATV? by PeterBrett · · Score: 4, Informative

      I thought the whole idea of an *international* space station was that we didn't have to duplicate technology efforts between the partners? ESA developed the ATV for the express purpose of resupplying the ISS, so what's this duplicate piece of tech doing?

      It's not duplicate of the ATV: AFAIK, it's intended for very urgent deliveries of small amounts critical supplies to ISS, where the ATV is designed for long-term scheduled deliveries of large amounts of day-to-day supplies.

      The two problems are similar, but complementary.

      --
      Pirate Party UK
  4. Superguns by edwardpickman · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Superguns were the coolest idea I ever heard of for low cost launching systems. The cargo would need to be able to survive a 100G excelloration but that's not a problem with raw materials and even electronics can be hardened for that force. The cost would be a fraction of current rocket technologies and they could launch far more often. It's a brilliant system so I can't believe no one has pushed it since the inventor died.

    http://www.astronautix.com/lvfam/gunnched.htm

  5. 1960s called they want their space program back by clarkkent09 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    $171 million to build and demonstrate a launch system capable of delivering cargo to the international space station.

    You mean they are getting paid to demonstrate something like the 42 year old Soyuz? And once we have a way of delivering something to the earth's orbit, we can get ready for the big push to fly to the moon over the next 20 years or whatever. If someone in the 1960 predicted this would be the state of the US space program 50 years later, people would laugh at how ridiculously pessimistic that prediction was.

    --
    Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
    1. Re:1960s called they want their space program back by Protonk · · Score: 2, Informative

      Soyuz is a great piece of engineering, and so are most of the other russian rocket systems, and the Airiane 5, and the Titan, etc. They aren't what this is for. OSC does novel, small payload, cheap LEO launch vehicles. This is something that NASA is looking for, a low overhead means to get supplies into LEO without sending an eleventy billion ton, 4 stage behemoth up there.

      Oh, and do I have to mention the CONSIDERABLE advantage that comes from not dealing with the russians?

    2. Re:1960s called they want their space program back by moderatorrater · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Oh, and do I have to mention the CONSIDERABLE advantage that comes from not relying on the russians? There's a (corrected) statement that I can agree with. Cooperating in our respective space programs is one of the most visible signs that the cold war is behind us (at least for now). While it may be a pain to work with them sometimes, I for one am very glad that our countries have reached the point where we do.
    3. Re:1960s called they want their space program back by aix+tom · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Ah, but the 60s were about faster!, higher!, stronger!

      Today it's about cheaper!, cheaper!, cheaper! (no matter what the cost)

  6. Dominos Space Pizza by iminplaya · · Score: 2, Funny

    Anywhere in the world in 45 minutes or it's free.

    --
    What?
  7. SpaceX by Eukariote · · Score: 2, Informative

    One would have expected NASA to opt for SpaceX http://www.spacex.com/ had they really been serious about engaging private space efforts. SpaceX has made lots of progress http://www.spacex.com/updates.php and has a range of boosters in the works including ones for heavy payloads http://www.spacex.com/falcon9_heavy.php.

    But then, making a suboptimal choice seems to be in-line with NASA history. It is almost as if NASA is trying is doing its best to go slow and waste as much money in the process as possible.

    1. Re:SpaceX by Eukariote · · Score: 3, Informative

      OSC has proven that it can put small payloads into LEO using solid fuel boosters. For cargo delivery to the ISS, you need a system that can match orbits rather well. That means advanced avionics and more flexibility in the upper stage. For that kind of capability, SpaceX seems to be rather better positioned as their liquid-fuel engines have restart capability.

      Yes, the last Falcon I launch did not deliver payload to orbit. But the failure mode was fairly innocuous: slosh in the upper-stage fuel tank together with some positive feedback. Throughout the oscillating burn the risky parts of the system (pumps, engines, guidance) performed well enough to indicate that had the engine not run dry a bit too soon because of the propellant being centrifuged to the tank sides, the burn would have been complete and on target.

      The slosh issue looks like an easy fix: baffles in the tank and some changes to the thrust-vectoring software.

    2. Re:SpaceX by khallow · · Score: 3, Interesting

      OSC has proven that it can put small payloads into LEO using solid fuel boosters. For cargo delivery to the ISS, you need a system that can match orbits rather well. That means advanced avionics and more flexibility in the upper stage. For that kind of capability, SpaceX seems to be rather better positioned as their liquid-fuel engines have restart capability.

      I'd put money on OSC's avionics. And the Minotaur IV and V use the axial thrust vectoring of the Peacekeeper missile. Frankly, if true, that'd make the Minotaur the best rocket on the planet for placing things accurately since the Peacekeeper remains the most precise ICBM ever built. Turning Peacekeepers into space vehicles has been tried before. E'Prime attempted that in the early 90's. They got blocked by US Congress, probably at the behest of competitors.

      Yes, the last Falcon I launch did not deliver payload to orbit. But the failure mode was fairly innocuous: slosh in the upper-stage fuel tank together with some positive feedback. Throughout the oscillating burn the risky parts of the system (pumps, engines, guidance) performed well enough to indicate that had the engine not run dry a bit too soon because of the propellant being centrifuged to the tank sides, the burn would have been complete and on target.

      While that is true, it is also true that SpaceX needs to put something in orbit if it wishes to stay in business.

    3. Re:SpaceX by Nyeerrmm · · Score: 3, Informative

      This is the second part of the COTS contract. The first already went to SpaceX, while originally Rocketplane/Kistler won the second part, but failed to meet agreed upon fundraising milestones and lost the contract. Now they are reawarding that second part to Orbital Sciences, while maintaining SpaceX as the first COTS partner.

  8. Unbalanced? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If a large projectile is being fired, and a "spin" isn't put on it (like with rifling) then wont the distribution of mass of the projectile cause it to veer off angle?

    In other words, the cargo inside the projectile would need to be balanced just right, or spun. Check out the rifling wikipedia article.

  9. This is one of many by wasted · · Score: 4, Funny

    NASA has several grants for COTS technologies planned in this area. The one discussed in the article is the least specific, or the "General Grant". There is another payload specific version ("Carry Grant"), the supporting technologies version ("Foster Grant"), a southwestern cuisine delivery version ("Flay Grant"), a version to improve color definition in delivery vehicle cameras ("Hue Grant"), and probably many others.

    Okay, I'll stop for now.