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Mars Base

Commercial Spaceship Builders Ponder Future Without NASA Funding | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/-space-taxis-nasa-funding.html

scibyte47 SpaceX iss PrivateSpaceTravel

shared by Mars Base on 16 May 12 - No Cached
  • SpaceX is one of several aerospace firms who are competing for NASA funding under the third and final phase of NASA's commercial crew development program
  • Proposals for this stage of the competition, called Commercial Crew integrated Capability(CCiCap), require companies to present a complete launch system — rocket and vehicle — for consideration
  • company is facing some stiff competition from other aerospace firms, including Boeing and Sierra Nevada Corp
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • NASA is expected to announce at least two recipients for CCiCap funding awards in August.
  • even if SpaceX is not selected for the final round of NASA funding, a crewed version of the Dragoncapsule will not be mothballed
  • Boeing
  • willing to continue that at that level? I doubt it — maybe at some lower level, but I really don't know."
  • Alliant Techsystems (ATK)
  • the company will not stop developing the launch system if they are not selected by NASA.
Mars Base

Doubly Historic Day for Private Space: Cygnus docks at Station & Next Gen Falcon 9 Soars - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...tation-next-gen-falcon-9-soars

scibyte105 PrivateSpaceTravel Cygnus SpacecraftUpdae

shared by Mars Base on 30 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • Sept. 29
  • Cygnus commercial cargo ship docked at the International Space Station (ISS)
  • a few hours later the Next Generation commercial SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • demonstration test flight from the California coast carrying a Canadian satellite to an elliptical earth orbit
  • Both Cygnus and Falcon 9 were developed with seed money from NASA in a pair of public-private partnerships between NASA and Orbital Sciences and SpaceX
  • docking was delayed a week due to an easily fixed communications glitch
  • The Cygnus spacecraft
  • Hatches to Cygnus
  • opened on Monday, Sept. 30 after completing leak checks
  • second commercial partner’s demonstration mission reaches the ISS
  • Cygnus delivers about 1,300 pounds (589 kilograms) of cargo, including food, clothing, water, science experiments, spare parts and gear to the Expedition 37 crew
  • SpaceX Falcon 9 blasted off from Space Launch Complex 4 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California
  • deployed Canada’s 1,060 pound (481 kg) Cascade, Smallsat, and Ionospheric Polar Explorer (CASSIOPE) weather satellite and several additional small satellites.
Mars Base

Race is on to lure new SpaceX launchpad - 0 views

phys.org/...-06-lure-spacex-launchpad.html

scibyte52 SpaceX

shared by Mars Base on 22 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • A record-breaking mission to the International Space Station has triggered another space race back on Earth, with Florida competing against Texas and Puerto Rico for the chance to land a new launchpad for Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, and its ambitious line of Falcon rockets.
  • none of the rivals has made public the incentives each is offering, the numbers are certain to be in the millions of dollars.
  • The stakes are high: hundreds of good-paying jobs at SpaceX and supporting companies that would pop up around its operation, as well as the prestige - at a time when NASA is no longer flying its own rockets - of serving as home to the commercial space industry's most successful startup.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • Musk met last week with Texas Gov. Rick Perry to discuss locating a launchpad at the southernmost tip of the Lone Star State.
  • SpaceX has not disclosed what incentives it has been offered or the timing of its decision
  • Musk recently indicated that Texas might have the inside track
  • Florida officials acknowledge the competition is keen. They're hoping to leverage the fact that SpaceX already has one launchpad at Cape Canaveral
  • SpaceX officials said the one Florida pad isn't enough to handle both its government work and flights for commercial customers
  • d a deal with Intelsat, a major satellite operator, for a future launch aboard a massive new rocket that is still under developmen
  • manifest already shows more than a half-dozen commercial flights through 2014 in which SpaceX will carry satellites to orbit.
  • Florida officials also note they have a track record of helping the company. Space Florida, the state's aerospace booster, has invested more than $8.5 million so far to help establish the company at Cape Canaveral.
  • Florida faces one obstacle that has no immediate solution. The Air Force and NASA already use Cape Canaveral for launches - of government satellites and space probes - and SpaceX at times could be forced to wait its turn until the range is clear.
  • autonomous as possible, having
  • Puerto Rican officials are making geography a core argument in their pitch.
  • Puerto Rico is closer to the equator than Cape Canaveral or Brownsville, which means SpaceX rockets would use less fuel (and thus cost less to launch to orbit) because rockets get more of a "boost" from Earth's rotation near the equator.
Mars Base

SpaceX Launches Falcon 9 Rocket On High-Stakes Commercial Satellite Mission | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/mark-commercial-satellite.html

scibyte111 SpaceX

shared by Mars Base on 04 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • The liftoff at 5:41 p.m. EST (2241 GMT) marked SpaceX's first entry into the large commercial satellite market and its first launch into a geostationary transfer orbit needed for such a mission.
Mars Base

SpaceX Launching Student Experiments & Emblems on ISS Flight | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/aunch-student-experiments.html

scibyte47 SpaceX dragon iss PrivateSpaceTravel

shared by Mars Base on 17 May 12 - No Cached
  • then the 15 experiments comprising "Aquarius"
  • will be among the first payloads delivered to the station on a commercial cargo craft.
  • competition among students to fly experiments
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • to design their mission patches
  • A total of 779 student teams submitted proposals for the 15 science slots and nearly 5,000 students offered 2,299 insignia ideas from which just 22 were chosen.
  • Ironically, none of the almost two dozen student mission patches that were selected to fly depict the vehicle that their experiments are riding on.
  • The designs, which range from crayon-colored creations to computer-assisted drawings, also include representations of the Earth, moon and Mars and the American flag.
  • Aquarius, which utilizes liquid mixing tube assemblies that function similar to commercial glow sticks
  • two similar student flight opportunities
  • on NASA's final two space shuttle missions
  • was first slated to fly on a Soyuz spacecraft.
  • When the students' experiments were re-manifested, they went from launching on the Russian rocket to the SpaceX Dragon.
  • The Aquarius package will stay in space for just under six weeks before coming back to Earth on Soyuz TMA-03M, the same spacecraft returning three ISS crew members on July 1.
  • The students' patches will also make the round trip, and will be embossed with a certification stating that they flew in space.
Mars Base

Faster, less expensive device gives lab test results in 15 minutes at point-of-care - 0 views

phys.org/...ensive-device-lab-results.html

scibyte54 MedicalDevice

shared by Mars Base on 12 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have developed a lab-on-a-disk platform that they believe will be faster, less expensive and more versatile than similar medical diagnostic tools
  • seeking industry partners to license and commercialize the SpinDx technology
  • can determine a patient's white blood cell count, analyze important protein markers, and process up to 64 assays from a single sample, all in a matter of minutes.
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • Patients merely have to provide a pin-prick sample of blood.
  • The device uses a spinning disk, much like a CD player, to manipulate a sample. The disks contain commercially available reagents and antibodies specific to each protein marker.
  • envisions a "plug and play" approach whereby the physician chooses among a "cardiac disk," "immune disk" and similar options.
  • The disks
  • cost pennies to manufacture
  • Results can be delivered to the physician's computer in 15 minutes.
  • recently led a National Institutes of Health grant
  • to adapt the lab-on-a-disk platform for toxin diagnostics
  • device could be the most accurate method available to detect the botulinum toxin
  • despite scientific advances, laboratory mice remain the only reliable way to test for botulism
  • mouse bioassay is primitive, but remains the gold standard due to its sensitivity
  • SpinDx botulinum assay vastly outperformed the mouse bioassay in head-to-head tests, and requires absolutely no animal testing. Plus there are a lot of cost and speed advantages
  • botulism is quite rare — only about 145 cases are reported in the United States each year
  • lethality of the toxin makes it an attractive candidate for bioterrorism
Mars Base

Victoria's Secret Designer is Giving Private Spaceflight a Makeover | Popular Science - 0 views

www.popsci.com/...g-private-spaceflight-makeover

GrabBag PrivateSpaceTravel

shared by Mars Base on 19 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • employee
  • former Roscosmos
  • designer famous for crafting the Victoria’s Secret angel wings are teaming to create next-generation space suits for the commercial spaceflight industry in Brooklyn
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • cleared its funding goal on Kickstarter by more than $7,000, and is on its way to developing a new breed of intra-vehicular space suit.
  • designed with the space tourism market in mind
  • Kickstarter pitch, FFD is trying to construct their suit and put it on the way toward NASA certification by the end of the
  • 3G suit could be skirting the heavens aboard commercial space vehicles within the next few years
  • Building on earlier iterations of spacesuits they’ve designed
  • focusing on extending the operating pressure envelope, reducing weight, and--perhaps most importantly--trimming the per suit price
  • trying to bring a suit to market for $50,000
Mars Base

Private Rocket Launch Heralds New Commercial Space Era | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/spaceflight-spacex-launch.html

scibyte47 SpaceX iss PrivateSpaceTravel

shared by Mars Base on 16 May 12 - No Cached
  • the firm and NASA warn against placing too much importance on one test flight.
  • flight is part of NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) Program,
  • The program is aimed at spurring the development of private spacecraft to replace the cargo-carrying capacity of the retired space shuttles.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Dragon is designed to need only relatively minor modifications to house humans
  • NASA has contracts with additional companies such as Blue Origin, Boeing, Sierra Nevada and United Launch Alliance to develop man-rated vehicles to transport astronauts to the space station.
Mars Base

Desert Farming Experiment Yields First Results | Science/AAAS | News - 0 views

news.sciencemag.org/...xperiment-yields-first-results

scibyte110 Farming

shared by Mars Base on 17 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • A project to “green” desert areas with an innovative mix of technologies—producing food, biofuel, clean water, energy, and salt
  • A pilot plant built by the Sahara Forest Project (SFP) produced 75 kilograms of vegetables per square meter in three crops annually, comparable to commercial farms in Europe, while consuming only sunlight and seawate
  • The heart of the SFP concept is a specially designed greenhouse. At one end, salt water is trickled over a gridlike curtain so that the prevailing wind blows the resulting cool, moist air over the plants inside
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • This cooling effect allowed the
  • facility to grow three crops per year, even in the scorching summer
  • At the other end of the greenhouse is a network of pipes with cold seawater running through them
  • Some of the moisture in the air condenses on the pipes and is collected, providing a source of fresh water
  • One of the surprising side effects of such a seawater greenhouse, seen during early experiments, is that cool moist air leaking out of it encourages other plants to grow spontaneously outside
  • Qatar plant took advantage of that effect to grow crops around the greenhouse, including barley and salad rocket (arugula), as well as useful desert plants
  • The pilot plant accentuated this exterior cooling with more “evaporative hedges” that reduced air temperatures by up to 10°C.
  • The third key element of the SFP facility is a concentrated solar power plant
  • This uses mirrors in the shape of a parabolic trough to heat a fluid flowing through a pipe at its focus. The heated fluid then boils water, and the steam drives a turbine to generate power
  • the plant has electricity to run its control systems and pumps and can use any excess to desalinate water for irrigating the plants
  • The fact that this small greenhouse produced such good yields,
  • suggests that a commercial plant—with possibly four crops a year—could do even better
Mars Base

SpaceX Aborts Thanksgiving Rocket Launch Due to Engine Trouble | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/hanksgiving-rocket-launch.html

scibyte111 SpaceX

shared by Mars Base on 01 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket fired its engines and was moments away from liftoff from Cape Canaveral
  • but the commercial booster aborted the launch after computers detected the engines were too slow building up thrust.
  • Engineers raced to understand and resolve the problem, but they could not get comfortable enough to attempt the launch again
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Officials had not announced a new target launch date
  • SpaceX was targeting liftoff of the 22-story rocket at 5:39 p.m. EST (2239 GMT) Thursday, aiming to achieve the first Thanksgiving Day launch from Florida's Space Coast since 1959
  • The launch was pushed back to Thursday after multiple technical problems thwarted an initial launch attempt Monday
  • The rocket's mission is to place the SES 8 television broadcasting satellite into orbit
  • e highest altitude ever achieved by a SpaceX launch.
  • the flight is critical to SpaceX's future in the commercial launch market, in which it competes against stalwart launch vehicles from Europe and Russia to haul large telecommunications satellites into orbit.
  • The Falcon 9 pressurized its propellant tanks, switched to internal power and ignited its nine Merlin 1D first stage engines a few seconds before the appointed launch time
  • the Falcon 9's computer-controlled countdown sequencer recognized a problem and called off the launch
  • As engineers continued to study the problem, SpaceX elected to restart the countdown to preserve a chance to launch Thursday
  • Ultimately, however, SpaceX said they could not get comfortable with the issue in time and ordered another hold with less than a minute left in the day's second countdown.
Mars Base

SpaceX Successfully Completes First Mission to Geostationary Transfer Orbit | SpaceX - 0 views

www.spacex.com/...n-geostationary-transfer-orbit

scibyte111 SpaceX

shared by Mars Base on 04 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • December 03, 2013
  • SpaceX
  • completed its first geostationary transfer mission, delivering the SES-8 satellite to its targeted 295 x 80,000 km orbit
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • launch pad and the first commercial flight from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in over five years
  • SpaceX has nearly 50 launches on manifest, of which over 60% are for commercial customers
  • This launch also marks the second of three certification flights needed to certify the Falcon 9 to fly missions for the U.S. Air Force under the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program
  • When Falcon 9 is certified, SpaceX will be eligible to compete for all National Security Space (NSS) missions
Mars Base

Teams Working Cooling System Issue; Station Crew Carries on With Research | NASA - 0 views

www.nasa.gov/...-crew-carries-on-with-research

scibyte113 iss

shared by Mars Base on 13 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • Dec. 12, 2013
  • suspect a flow control valve actually inside the pump module itself might not be functioning correctly
  • hat flow control valve regulates the temperature of the ammonia in the loop so that when the ammonia is re-introduced into the heat exchanger on the Harmony node it does not freeze the water also flowing through the exchange
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • Mission managers have deferred the decision on whether to proceed with or postpone the launch of the Orbital Sciences’ Cygnus commercial cargo craft until more is known about the flow control valve issue
  • Cygnus is currently scheduled to launch Dec. 18 from Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia and rendezvous with the station on Dec. 21
  • Wednesday, the first of two reboosts of the station took place to raise the station’s orbit and set up
  • for Russian vehicle launches and dockings in 2014
  • also places the station in position for the arrival of Orbital Sciences’ Cygnus commercial cargo vehicle this month
  • e 7-minute, 41-second firing
  • Expedition 38 crew members also tackled a variety of other tasks Thursday, including maintenance work and scientific research
  • work on the Advanced Resistive Exercise Device, or ARED, which allows the crew to perform a wide range of weightlifting exercises in the weightless environment of the station
  • installed a jumper in the Quest airlock to provide contingency power to the airlock’s secondary shell heaters
  • prepared the U.S. spacesuits for some upcoming scheduled maintenance
  • deployed eight bubble detectors for the RaDI-N experiment, which seeks to characterize the neutron radiation environment of the station
  • removed and stowed a NanoRacks platform. NanoRacks provides lower-cost microgravity research facilities for small payloads utilizing a standardized “plug-and-play” interface
  • spoke with students in Kyoto, Japan, via the amateur radio aboard the station
  • unloading cargo from the Progress 53 cargo vehicle that docked to the station on Nov. 29
  • collected micro-accelerometer data for the Identification experiment, which examines the station’s dynamic loads during events such as dockings and reboosts
  • continued the replacement of fans in the Zvezda service module with low-noise units and used a sound level meter to measure the results.
  • conducted routine maintenance on the life support systems in the Zvezda service module
Mars Base

SpaceX Launches Six Commercial Satellites on Falcon 9; Landing Test Ends in "Kaboom" - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...-9-landing-test-ends-in-kaboom

scibyte136 SpaceX

shared by Mars Base on 15 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • SpaceX successfully launched six ORBCOMM advanced telecommunications satellites into orbit on Monday, July 14, to significantly upgrade the speed and capacity of their existing data relay network.
  • SpaceX also used this launch opportunity to try and test the reusability of the Falcon 9′s first stage and its landing system while splashing down in the ocean
  • However, the booster did not survive the splashdown. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk reported that the rocket booster reentry, landing burn and leg deployment worked well, the hull of the first stage “lost integrity right after splashdown
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Musk tweeted. “Detailed review of rocket telemetry needed to tell if due to initial splashdown or subsequent tip over and body slam.”
  • SpaceX wanted to test the “flyback” ability to the rocket, slowing down the descent of the rocket with thrusters and deploying the landing legs for future launches so the first stage can be re-used
  • The previous test of the landing system was successful, but the choppy seas destroyed the stage and prevented recovery
  • the six satellites launched
  • are the first part of what the company hopes will be a 17-satellite constellation. They hope to have all 17 satellites in orbit by the end of the 2014
Mars Base

SpaceX's capsule arrives at ISS - 0 views

phys.org/...013-03-spacex-capsule-iss.html

scibyte84 dragon

shared by Mars Base on 03 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • 5:31 am EST (1031 GMT)
  • The capsule named Dragon was captured
  • The craft,
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • will now be inspected via cameras, brought to the Earth-facing port of the ISS's Harmony module and bolted into place by commands from mission control
  • SpaceX says it has 50 launches planned—both NASA missions and commercial flights—totaling about $4 billion in contracts
  • NASA also has a $1.9 billion resupply contract for the station with Orbital Sciences Corporation, which will launch the first test flight of its Antares rocket from a base in Virginia in the coming weeks
Mars Base

Private Groups Set Sights on Deep Space | Mars, the Moon & Asteroids | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/ht-deep-space-exploration.html

scibyte84 PrivateSpaceTravel

shared by Mars Base on 28 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • The nonprofit Inspiration Mars Foundation announced
  • (Feb. 27) that it aims to launch two people on a 501-day Mars flyby mission in January 2018
  • main goals are to generate excitement about space travel and test out technologies that will be needed to put boots on Mars in the future
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • mission would combine a commercial space capsule and inflatable module into a single spacecraft that will carry a man and a woman, possibly a married couple, to Mars and back. 
  • A number of companies and nonprofit organizations are developing plans to visit Mars, the moon and asteroids, for a variety of purposes
Mars Base

Space Telescope Crowdfunding Project Raises $167,000 | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/e-telescope-raises-167000.html

scibyte96 CrowdSourcing

shared by Mars Base on 30 May 13 - No Cached
  • A commercial asteroid-mining company aiming to launch a crowdfunded space telescope raised more than $200,000 on the first day of its campaign
  • Planetary Resources, a private venture aiming to mine near-Earth space rocks
  • announced
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • May 29) that it would build and launch a space telescope for public use if it could raise at least $1 million in 33 days.
  • The telescope will be a twin copy of the Arkyd spacecraft the company is developing to detect, track and study asteroids in preparation for its mining mission
  • A test version of the spacecraft is set for its maiden trial flight in April 2014, while the crowdfunded model would launch in early 2015
  • public backers would use it to study celestial objects of their choice
  • also have the option of sponsoring research projects at schools, universities or museums that could use the instrument.
  • The telescope will also take
  • self portraits that show the telescope in orbit, with a user-submitted photo displayed on the instrument's screen
  • A camera mounted on the hull of the spacecraft will snap the photo.
  • Already more than 200 backers have ordered selfies for $25 and above.
  • But if the crowdfunding campaign fails to reach its $1 million goal by June 30, the company will receive none of the money it has raised
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