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Excalibur Almaz To Offer Commercial Orbital Flights
xp65 alerts to the plans of an international consortium called Excalibur Almaz Limited to open up a new era of private orbital space flight for commercial customers. The group, consisting of Russian, US, and Japanese companies, will use a formerly top-secret Soviet re-entry vehicle called Almaz to carry paying research crews on one-week missions into Earth orbit by 2013. This ambition represents a large step beyond the sub-orbital flight market so far targeted by most other private space companies. "Excalibur has raised 'tens of millions of dollars' to initiate what will become a several hundred million dollar program, [CEO] Dula tells Spaceflight Now. He has spent more than 20 years eying this specific Almaz program... He also says 'the business plan closes' generating profits within a few years. His surveys have found research and science customers for space missions that are not tourist hops, but less demanding than ISS operations."
Reviving a 30-year-old Russian capsule which lost out to Soyuz sounds risky.
Bruce Perens.
They're displaying their craft at the MAKS Air Show in Russia. They must be hoping to inveigle some multi-million dollar passengers. How many passengers do you suppose they need to break even with that price tag? Too bad they can't demonstrate it at the MAKS too.
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Is it easier to get something in a CIRCULAR orbit around earth, or is it easier to launch something to impact the moon.
Getting to the moon seems like just getting escape velocity and proper aiming, but getting a proper circular orbit means achieving velocity AND THEN adjusting to get a proper orbit.
If this is true, why aren't we seeing more moon shots?
Nice submission, although here's a few more details from my own submission:
Excalibur Almaz has come out of stealth mode and unveiled their reusable spacecraft capable of carrying a crew of three and/or cargo to orbit for up to a week. According to VP (and former NASA astronaut) Leroy Chiao, the spacecraft are designed to be launched on a variety of rockets, and are modernized versions of vehicles developed and flight-tested for the Soviet Union's military space station program (the company has also purchased some of the space stations for potential future use). EA plans to begin flight tests in 2012, with revenue flights starting in 2013. The company will likely be competing with the SpaceX Dragon and Bigelow Aerospace's recently-announced "Orion Lite" for a chunk of the emerging commercial orbital transportation market.
An interesting bit of trivia is that the original Soviet Almaz space station carried a rapid-fire cannon and performed a successful test-firing on a target satellite. I'm assuming the space stations which Excalibur Almaz bought don't have the cannons anymore. :(
Is there any particular reason though why it would need to take until 2015? I imagine the development process is much simplified since the basic hardware they're using has already been developed and flight-tested, and they're just inserting in modern electronics and redesigning the service module. I'm guessing they (like SpaceX's Dragon) will probably want a few cargo flights before manned flights, of course, but I can't think of any show-stoppers.
Is there any particular reason though why it would need to take until 2015? I imagine the development process is much simplified since the basic hardware they're using has already been developed and flight-tested, and they're just inserting in modern electronics and redesigning the service module.
Most "formerly top-secret Soviet re-entry vehicles" were designed to sit on top of ICBMs, and provide a ride that only a nuke would tolerate (heating, deceleration, no atmosphere, etc). On the plus side I heard some were lightly armored to discourage the star wars missile defense plan, provide some limited maneuverability on re-entry, and they are probably very reliable and stable.
So, they don't have to bother with the aerodynamics, materials science, and control/navigation/guidance systems. Well maybe the guidance systems will need updating, unless you want to end every mission with a landing on the whitehouse lawn, downtown NYC, or Montana.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Excalibur Almaz To Offer Commercial Orbital Flights" - perhaps more like Excalibur Almaz *hopes* to offer commercial orbital flights. Early days of space exploration and all that but more hype than activity right now. Wake me up when they've done their first test flights with their own technical staff.
Excalibur Almaz has apparently already raised a significant amount of money, which they've used to purchase several Almaz reentry capsules and have contracted with the Russian manufacturer to make the necessary modifications. They're well past the vaporware stage by this point, with flight-tested hardware in their possession.
I wonder, what science do they think people will be using this for? I guess it could replace some of the Shuttle-only payloads we used to fly, but for anything else the ISS is a much more capable research laboratory. I should know, keeping them doing science is my job these days.
I guess it might have better downmass? Usually, though, you only want to bring it home if you think the long term exposure effects are interesting. This won't be very long term.
My understanding is that a large part of the problem is that it takes a terribly long time to get anything launched to the ISS and you have to go through a substantial amount of red tape. Currently, you need a lead time of years to fly an experiment on the ISS, which makes it really difficult to do meaningful science in the fast-paced scientific environment. Heck, a grad student putting together an experiment would be lucky to have the experiment results back before they finished their PhD. Hopefully the more rapid access from commercial providers (SpaceX Dragon, Bigelow Aerospace's Orion Lite, and now Excalibur Almaz) will help change that picture.
Just because some watery tart lobs a spaceship at you is no basis for a space program.
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