Atlas 5 Rocket Launches $400 Million NASA Satellite Into Space (spaceflightnow.com)

A new communications hub has been successfully deployed in space today thanks to the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket. "TDRS is a critical national asset have because of its importance to the space station and all of our science missions, primarily the Hubble Space Telescope and Earth science missions that use TDRS," said Tim Dunn, NASA's TDRS-M launch director. Spaceflight Now reports: With its main engine running at full throttle, the Atlas 5 booster lifted off at 8:29 a.m. EDT (1229 GMT) from Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral. The 191-foot-tall rocket, generating 860,000 pounds of thrust, aimed eastward and accelerated out of the atmosphere with NASA's TDRS-M spacecraft. Within just five minutes, the rocket had shed 92 percent of its liftoff weight and transitioned to the high-energy Centaur upper stage. An elliptical parking orbit was achieved within 18 minutes of takeoff, beginning a 90-minute quiescent coast higher through space to reach the optimum conditions for the second burn by Centaur. That minute-long boost over the Indian Ocean propelled the 7,610-pound payload into a customized high-perigee geosynchronous transfer orbit. The spacecraft was deployed by the launcher at T+plus 1 hour, 53 minutes to cheers and handshakes all around.

The $408 million TDRS-M was built and launched with the sole purpose to extend the useful life of NASA's constant communications infrastructure, supporting the astronauts around-the-clock aboard the International Space Station, supplying contact with the Hubble Space Telescope and transmitting the data from almost 40 science spacecraft studying Earth's environment and space.

Comments

Re:USA! USA! USA!

[Kjella]

They're unable to launch humans given their own red tape and far-beyond-Shuttle safety requirements which again were far beyond Apollo. If Bruce Willis had to go up there to save us from Armageddon I bet within three weeks you'd have something ready to launch on top of an Atlas, Delta and Falcon 9 rocket. Most of the active space probes are NASAs, there's some from Japan, China, India and ESA but the list would have been much shorter. Don't forget that the ISS supply missions to SpaceX and the Commercial Crew program are also part of the NASA budget.

The SLS and the proposed missions are pork, but they do a lot of non-pork science too. If the Falcon Heavy (finally) successfully launches in November with the new LEO fully expendable payload of 63,8 tons vs the SLS's 70 tons (in its Block 1 configuration) the SLS is pretty much a non-starter. I suspect to keep the pork barrel rolling they'll go directly for the Block 1B/2 configurations even though they're currently planned for 2022+ but at least they'd still have an unique launch capability. They certainly don't got much else going for them.

Remember that NASA is far from being just a rocket company, even if Musk takes the whole Earth-surface-to-Mars-surface transport you're not going to see SpaceX develop space telescopes, deep space probes, Mars habitats etc. any time soon. It's not that NASA needs less money, it's that they need less money for pork so they got more money for their actual mission. They'll have plenty to do designing missions that sit on top of rockets, once they get out of the launch business.

Re:Competition

[LostMyBeaver]

Ok... let before I dispute pretty much everything you believe in. Let me explain this.

I hate most of what Elon Musk does. I think if he and I were in the same room at a party, I wouldn't bother with him. I love having pictures taken with important people in tech. His dependence on lithium without a long-term cleanup plan. His cars that are inconsiderately large. Well, whatever... lots of stuff like that.

Now that I've bashed him, let me say what I like about him. NY Times, Washington Post, News.com, Slashdot, keep going and going and going. The news these days is so completely filled with negativity everywhere. I won't even watch the news anymore. When it comes to politics, it's one non-stop journey of who do we hate most today.

Then comes the story about an Elon Musk vision for an exciting and brighter future. We see something that lets us dream and we see something that makes us truly believe that if we reach for the stars... we might just touch one.

So while I have no use for him... I'd like to think that the energy and excitement he's bringing to at least the press is something special.

Now let's talk about your whole rant.

The United States Space Program is bought and paid for by the United States which whether through tax money or financial print your own money magic is paid for by the American people. In a capitalistic country, the government should NEVER compete with private industry. However it can develop the initial businesses and share that information with private industry once it is positioned to take it over.

ULA is made up of Lockheed and Boeing. Lockheed has never once in history wanted to run their own space program. They are a company which primarily specializes in consuming government money. Most projects given to Lockheed are designed to be cancelled to avoid a mess related to actually needing to deliver anything. Lockheed employs massive numbers of people so the US government can provide jobs. Oh... and sometimes they actually make something that actually works... and they sell those for a REALLY long time since manufacturing is something they are pretty good at.

Boeing is the company who wants to make the plane, not own the airline. They do lots of stuff, but they spend decades doing it and they also have mastered the art of doing things like getting government funding to build things which no one really needs but we see to not be able to live without. The 787 was great, but for how long it took to make, it should have been so much more. But, all that really mattered was that they eventually delivered. Now that the Chinese are getting into the game, they and Airbus are going to be totally screwed, but at least everyone responsible for their lack of agility will have retired by then.

So... since neither Lockheed or Boeing wanted to own their own launch company... here comes SpaceX and others who do. They make use of technology that was designed with help from NASA to provide the US with their own launch capabilities. SpaceX and BlueOrigin are working hard to take American technology and build American businesses out of them. In addition, Boeing and Lockheed were forced to modernize and become more agile otherwise they'd have lost out to SpaceX and BlueOrigin.

Now, after about 20 years, we have two launch capable American companies with a third one coming. We will soon have at least one launch company capable of flying manned missions. We have completely reinvented the space industry and moved from thinking in terms of billions of dollars to do anything new to thinking in terms of hundreds of millions or less.

Musk delivered on the reusable rocket. Blue Origin is going that way too. Armadillo did a lot of work that way too. There are rockets being built that will not just get us to the moon or Mars, but will allow us to do it over and over and actually consider leaving colonizing eventually.

Yes... none of the space companies would have been able to pull this off if the US and Russia space programs as well as the wea