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Privately Built Antares Test Flight Successfully Launched From Virginia
After high winds (up to 140mph) delayed yesterday's scheduled launch (itself a re-do because of a cabling problem), Orbital Science's Antares rocket has made it to space. This launch was a test run, but Antares is intended to launch supplies to the ISS. Space.com reports: "The third try was the charm for the private Antares rocket, which launched into space from a new pad at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, its twin engines roaring to life at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT) to carry a mock cargo ship out over the Atlantic Ocean and into orbit. The successful liftoff came after two delays caused by a minor mechanical glitch and bad weather." Congratulations to all involved.
Congrats for Antares.
The more ways to get to orbit, the better!
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
While it's a nice achievement, I'm not sure this has much to do with a new space age. Orbital Sciences already has a number of working launch options, which they regularly use to launch both commercial and NASA payloads. This is adding one which can launch larger payloads than their current options (such as the Minotaur) are able to do, but it's not for going to Mars or anything like that.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I like this:
Antares also carried three coffee cup-size Phonesat satellites - called Alexander, Graham and Bell - into orbit as part of a space technology experiment for NASA's Ames Research Center in California. The tiny 4-inch-wide satellites use commercial smartphones as their main computers.
I wish you were right.. but the answer is no. What those rockets are used for has not changed. The missions are still the same; the customers are still the same.
We have to discover something valuable in space.. then the space age will begin as everyone capable goes into space to claim their share of whatever it is.
The engines used for the Antares are refurbished Russian NK-33's, originally built for use on the N-1 booster. These engines are pretty much 40+ years old.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Basically because they wouldn't allow the ship anywhere near the space station as is, and the Antares/Cygnus stack just isn't useful for much other than station resupply. If there's anything like the confidence that there was in SpaceX they might be allowed to dock on the next launch, and almost certainly on the third. Whether they deserve that confidence could be argued both ways, but I tend to think they'll get it.
Congrats to orbital, even though launching a new rocket assembled from parts built by Russians by a company that is already working in the space business for many years seems a small accomplishment compared to what SpaceX pulled off. As is common on a first flight, the main payload is an instrumented dead weight. The coolest thing about this mission is IMO some small cubesats they launched as secondary payloads. These are some super cheap phonesats built by NASA, which are powered by a Nexus One or Nexus S. Data packets that could be received via amateur radio should hopefully appear here soon.
karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
Why not? It would be nice if sending a rocket into space was easy.
Not to denigrate the fine contribution of lobbying and paperwork to any successful endeavor, but you might find that turning a collection of components into an integrated system - even for something as trivial as a space launch - is a little more complicated than clicking Legos together. Besides, only the first and second stages were delivered as components. That still leaves the fairing, separation systems, launch vehicle interface to the ground systems, the ground systems themselves (1st stage is liquid), etc. etc. etc.
My friend Debbie Ann is so promiscuous, instead of an appointment book she needs a package manager
And I was hoping that one day rocket science might not be "rocket science."
Nope. They did not lobby for this. NASA approached them. BUT, you are right that OSC outsourced it all. All they did was assemble this. Heck, Cygnus was done 100% in Europe. And Antares will carry 5 tonnes to LEO for about 50-60 million. Right now, the Falcon 9 carries 13 tonnes to LEO for 50 million and shortly the FH will take 54 tonnes for 100 million. So for 2x the price of Anteres, you can carry 10x the cargo. Pretty scary.
And all of that will be destroyed when SpaceX is successful with Grasshopper In about 2 years. At that time, the price of an F9 wll be less than 20M and possibly less than 10M. FH will likewise drop in half, possibly 1/4.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The fairing has had a lot of issues with OSC. In fact, NASA will only use OSC for finishing this contract and will no longer use OSC's launch group. Worse, OSC not only did not build the fairing, but they have not built the seperation system, the avionics, etc. They have done little to nothing.
As such, they one of the most expensive launch costs going, as well as zero control. Within 4 years, OSC will be out of the launch industry. Instead, we are likely to see Aerojet and possibly Rocketdyne merging with one of the smaller builders and then building a tug/depot, or perhaps their own form of a land-able launch system.
But as for OSC, with 20 years worth of launch, they have control over next to NO technology. They outsourced it to Europe, Russia, Aerojet, ATK, and a few others. IOW, they are finished.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Instead, we are likely to see Aerojet and possibly Rocketdyne merging with one of the smaller builders and then building a tug/depot, or perhaps their own form of a land-able launch system.
Not sure if you were implying that Aerojet or Rocketdyne merging independetly with a small builder, or if you meant the combined Aerojet/Rocketdyne merging with a small builder. Aerojet (parent company Gencrop) is actually in the process of closing on the purchase of Rocketdyne.
http://www.aerojet.com/media/InvestorPresentation_GenCorpAcquisition.pdf
A couple of corrections:
1) Dragon has berthed 3 times. The first was under COTS, and then they have done 2 successful CRS missions. As you can see by the link, that SpaceX has 5 more launches for this year, with 1 of them for another CRS.
2) The next flight is the COTS for cygnus which is June.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Rockets are very complicated machines, and we have much still to learn.
They're complicated when the design criteria includes maximizing performance regardless of cost, which was the general design rule in the 1950s and 60s. (In the 70s and 80s, that morphed to maximizing NASA jobs and the number of congressional districts the work is done in, almost regardless of cost.)
As an above poster mentioned, the Saturn F1 (for example) has been redesigned as the F1-B with different design goals, reducing the parts count (hence complexity, at the same time simplifying manufacturability) by two orders of magnitude and increasing thrust (at a very slight drop in Isp -- performance).
So I'd say we're learning.
-- Alastair
May we never get to thinking that sending up a rocket into space is easy...
We may never get to thinking that buliding a mechanical computation device is easy... However, regardless of how difficult that very complex engineering task is, you can't deny it's down right affordable now.
The whole second stage is from ATK, made using the same factories where they usually build ICBMs. The first stage engines are 1970ies Soviet relics. The rest of the first stage (tanks, thrust structures etc.) was build by Yuzhmash a state-owned Ukranian rocket builder. The Cygnus spacecraft will be provided by Tahles Alenia Space, which itself stretches the definition of "private".
Cause u know how cool it would be to have Galaxy III satellites.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.