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[ariane] 02/9/2006 08:04

The Times September 02, 2006


Market for space odysseys growing astronomically
By David Robertson

The private-sector space industry is enjoying strong growth as investers look to the future


AFTER the destruction of America's Columbia space shuttle three years ago, the final frontier was in danger of becoming a frontier too far.



The shuttle programme began to be wound down, aspirations for the International Space Station were scaled back and scientific projects such as the Hubble telescope were decommissioned.

However, beyond the shuttle, space is a booming market and, for the first time, much of the drive is coming from the private sector. The multibillion-dollar satellite business continues to be very important to companies including Boeing, Lockheed Martin and EADS, which builds the Ariane rocket.

Russia, China and Japan also have growing commercial satellite launch systems.

Manned flight is also making a comeback, with Lockheed Martin winning a $4 billion (£2.1 billion) contract from Nasa to build the next generation of manned spacecraft for the United States.

The Orion project, which was announced two days ago, will replace the space shuttle from about 2014. According to Lockheed Martin, Orion will transport "a new generation of human explorers to and from the International Space Station, the Moon, and eventually to Mars and beyond".

However, while these giant aerospace corporations soak up government-funded projects, there are dozens of small companies, often backed by successful and famous entrepreneurs, that are already aiming for the stars.

The highest-profile of these is Virgin Galactic, which has signed up about 200 people for suborbital flights starting in 2008, including the Superman director Bryan Singer.

Galactic's space ship is being built by Paul Allen, the Microsoft co-founder, and Burt Rutan, an aerospace designer. Sir Richard Branson is providing the commercial power and the company has already taken $16.8 million in deposits from customers.

The five proposed Virgin Galactic ships will be launched from a carrier aircraft at about 55,000ft and then rocket up to 70 miles above the Earth.

The passengers will be on the very edge of space before gliding back to Earth.

However, tourism is only the start of Virgin's plans. Will Whitehorn, president of Virgin Galactic, said: "In time, we want to be launching orbital craft, science ships and transport ships, but we think that to get there we need to develop the tourism market first. That is where the demand is at the moment and we are telling our customers that they are helping us to invest in the future of space travel."

The Russians were the first to recognise that tourism could be used to fund other space activities and in two weeks they will carry their fourth paying customer to the International Space Station. Anousheh Ansari, who lives in Texas, has paid $20 million for the trip on the Soyuz rocket. She is indulging part of her $750 million fortune, which she made by setting up an American telecoms company, on the eight-day trip.

Other high-tech entrepreneurs are also moving from the digital world to out-of-this world. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, has set up Blue Origin to build a three-man suborbital rocket ship.

John Carmack, developer of Doom and Quake, the computer games, has set up Armadillo Aerospace to build liquid oxygen and ethanol rocket ships. Elon Musk, who founded PayPal, has just won a $278 million contract from Nasa to build a cargo spaceship.

Mr Whitehorn said: "Space has been a government monopoly for 50 years and it will take people like us to prove that we can make it work in the private sector too."

ROUTE TO MARS

Nasa and the European Space Agency (ESA) are focusing on Mars as the medium-term goal of their exploration programmes. Both intend to send a flotilla of unmanned craft there over the next decade and a half, and the Americans are also planning manned missions to the Moon to test technologies that would be required for a Martian voyage.


2007

Nasa will launch the Phoenix, a relatively cheap landing probe, to Mars.


2008

Nasa will launch the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which will survey potential landing sites for manned missions.


2009

Launch date for Mars Science Laboratory, which will be the most sophisticated lander sent to the Red Planet. The nuclear-powered rover will be twice the size of the Spirit and Opportunity probes that landed there in 2004 and will look for signs of life. It is to arrive in the autumn of 2010.


2010

The scheduled completion date for the International Space Station (ISS). Atlantis, Discovery and Endeavour, the remaining Nasa shuttles, are to be retired, leaving Nasa without its own manned spaceflight capacity until Orion becomes operational. Until then Nasa will rely on Russian Soyuz modules to launch astronauts.


2011

Proposed launch date for ESA's ExoMars rover. ESA's member states have pledged €650 million to the project, which may enable the agency to launch a dedicated Mars orbiter at the same time. Instruments will seek life.


2014

Proposed date for the launch of Orion. A crew of six will go into low Earth orbit and visit the ISS. The same module is designed to take four to the Moon. Nasa intends that it will form a key part of a Mars mission, possibly transferring astronauts to a staging post on the Moon.


2016


ESA and Nasa are planning return missions to Mars; unmanned probes would land, collect samples and return to Earth. The agencies may end up collaborating on a single project.


2020

Nasa proposes to send Orion astronauts to the Moon.


2025 to 2035

Likely period in which Nasa and/or ESA will embark on a manned mission to Mars.

[rabbit16] 01/9/2006 14:22

I wasn't too impressed with what she'd done with her hare to be honest.


I've got to go back out, but I can see that site taking up a fair bit of my time.


Cheers,


Rupes.

[scuba doo] 01/9/2006 14:19

It'd be interesting to see what she could do with a (Real) Rabbit .

[rabbit16] 01/9/2006 14:10

I found a star, albeits she's got a couple of cracks that need sorting:





LOL!!




Rabbit.

[scuba doo] 01/9/2006 12:08

Thanks Mad .



Rgds

Q

[ariane] 01/9/2006 10:51

Lockheed to build Nasa 'Moonship'

Orion will make its first flight no later than 2014
The Lockheed Martin Corporation will build the next US spaceship to take humans to the Moon.
Nasa has awarded a multi-billion-dollar contract to the group to develop the Orion vehicle, which will replace the space shuttle when it retires in 2010.

The agency is dropping the shuttle's winged, reusable design and is going back to the capsule-style ships that first carried Americans into orbit.

Lockheed Martin beat a joint bid from Northrop Grumman and Boeing.

The US space agency wants to fly the Orion vehicles no later than 2014. Initially, they will go to the International Space Station, but Nasa plans to send one to the Moon in 2020.

The capsules will launch atop one-time-use, "single stick" rockets, called Ares, that Nasa is developing.



Click to see plans for Moon travel
Two versions are on the drawing board: one to lift Orion and its up-to-six astronauts, the other to loft a service module and other equipment that would be needed to support a mission to the lunar surface.

The idea is that the components would be joined in Earth orbit before being despatched to the Moon.



Orion will ride atop a single five-segment solid rocket booster

Although reminiscent of the Apollo design, the 16.5ft-wide, 25-tonne Orion spacecraft will incorporate the latest advances in technology in computers, electronics, life support, propulsion and heat protection systems.
Nasa wants the new spacecraft to be versatile workhorses.

"Our intent is to keep the destination focusing the design but we are not excluding the possibility of using Orion for other things, such as de-orbiting the Hubble Space Telescope in the 2020s or making a trek to an asteroid," said Jeff Hanley, who manages the agency's Constellation Program.

The Lockheed Martin Corporation is the US's largest defence contractor. It also builds commercial and military satellites, and the Atlas series of rockets.


A Moon mission is planned for 2020
Its Orion team includes booster-rocket maker Orbital Sciences, Honeywell, United Space Alliance and Hamilton Sundstrand, which makes space suits, life support and power management systems.

The Nasa contract in its initial phase is worth $3.9bn. This covers the design, development, testing and evaluation of the new spacecraft. Further options could be worth up $3.5bn to Lockheed.

US space policy has shifted in the wake of the 2003 shuttle disaster. President George W Bush has called for a new vision that will take humans beyond low-Earth orbit and the International Space Station, to aim to go back to the Moon and on to Mars.

Russia and Europe, too, are looking to develop a new human space-transportation system.

They are currently engaged in a joint feasibility study that could eventually lead to a rocket and capsule programme that evolves the best aspects of their Soyuz and Ariane technologies.


Nasa has earmarked next Wednesday for the launch of the Atlantis shuttle to International Space Station. The mission has been on hold this past week because of stormy weather in Florida, the site of Nasa's Kennedy spaceport.


(1) The heavy-lift Ares 5 rocket blasts off from Earth carrying a lunar lander and a "departure stage"
(2) Several days later, astronauts launch on an Ares 1 rocket inside their Orion vehicle (CEV)
(3) The Orion docks with the lander and departure stage in Earth orbit and then heads to the Moon
(4) Having done its job of boosting the Orion and lunar lander on their way, the departure stage is jettisoned
(5) At the Moon, the astronauts leave their Orion and enter the lander for the trip to the lunar surface
(6) After exploring the lunar landscape for seven days, the crew blasts off in a portion of the lander
(7) In Moon orbit, they re-join the waiting robot-minded Orion and begin the journey back to Earth
(8) On the way, the service component of the Orion is jettisoned. This leaves just the crew capsule to enter the atmosphere
(9) A heatshield protects the capsule; parachutes bring it down on dry land, probably in California

[ariane] 24/8/2006 07:46

Fortune smiles on space race sponsor
By Irene Klotz
Cape Canaveral, Florida



It is all systems go for Anousheh Ansari
A young Iranian-born American woman who rallied her wealthy family to underwrite a $10m (£5.3m) competition for the first private spaceflight will soon get to experience for herself the thrill of being a space tourist.

On Tuesday, Anousheh Ansari was confirmed as the replacement for Japanese businessman Daisuke Enomoto as a fare-paying passenger onboard the next Russian rocket mission to the International Space Station (ISS).

Lift-off for the Soyuz capsule that will carry Mrs Ansari and two members of the next ISS crew is scheduled for 14 September from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan.

In her quest to fly in space, Mrs Ansari, co-founder of Texas-based Telecom Technologies, helped seed the development of a private spaceflight industry by donating $10m for the X-Prize competition, which was awarded in 2004 for the first pair of suborbital manned flights.

The winning vehicle, called SpaceShipOne, was built by aircraft designer Burt Rutan and funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

A commercial version of the ship is under development by Rutan's Mojave, California-based firm in partnership with Sir Richard Branson's newly created Virgin Galactic spaceflight enterprise.


Daisuke Enomoto's feet are back firmly on the ground... for now
The company has sold about 200 tickets for flights, which are scheduled to begin in 2008 from the Mojave Desert. Mrs Ansari holds a reservation.

She also spearheaded a new family venture called Prodea to develop a line of air-launched suborbital vehicles in partnership with Virginia-based Space Adventures, as well as spaceports in the United Arab Emirates and Singapore to launch them.

More recently, she jumped at the chance to train as a reserve for Mr Enomoto in the hope of clinching the grand prize of spaceflight: a 10-day trip to the space station.

"Anyway you can fly me, I'll go," she said in an interview last month in Houston.

In the end, her wait may be far shorter than expected. Mr Enomoto, 35, was stripped of flight privileges earlier this week for undisclosed medical reasons.

It was not immediately known if he would remain eligible to fly on a future mission.

If he is, Mr Enomoto may be just as happy to wait. Russia recently added a $15m (£7.9m) option to its basic $20m (£10.6m) fare - a 90-minute spacewalk outside the ISS.

As for Mrs Ansari, she will have to fly without the projects she wanted to do in space and she may end up having to eat the meals ordered by Mr Enomoto.

Hopefully, though, she will be able to bring along some of her own clothes.

The Japanese businessman - a young-at-heart science-fiction fan - had sent ahead his spacesuit: an outfit modelled after cartoon pilot hero Char Aznable from the Gundam animation series.

[knowing] 23/8/2006 22:49

scuba doo,the hick from hull,that poster from the pennines,the nancy of the north,has stopped posting regularly.
there has been much speculation as to why this is:

1)school has broken up,and his access to computers is limited.
2)he's got himself a proper job.
3)he's run out of 50ps to feed the meter.
4)he's been smashed over the head with a baseball bat.

[ariane] 23/8/2006 14:01

Last Updated: Wednesday, 23 August 2006, 11:54 GMT 12:54 UK

Nasa names new spacecraft 'Orion'

The vehicle will make its first flight no later than 2014
The US space agency (Nasa) has named its new manned exploration craft Orion.
The vehicle is being developed to take human space explorers back to the Moon and potentially then on to Mars.

It is hoped the name Orion could eventually mean as much for manned space exploration as Apollo did in the 1960s and 1970s.

Its first manned flight - to the International Space Station - will take place no later than 2014 and its first flight to the Moon no later than 2020.

"One of the things we get into at Nasa is we run around and call things by technical names and acronyms," project manager Skip Hatfield said. "This allows us to have an identity that we can use."

One small slip for man

The name surfaced on a website last month, but Nasa was trying to keep it out of general circulation until 31 August, when it plans to select either Lockheed Martin or Northrop Grumman/Boeing to build the spacecraft that replaces the shuttle fleet.


The vehicle borrows from the Apollo era
US astronaut Jeff Williams, floating 354km (220 miles) above Earth at the ISS, was taping a message in advance for the space agency that was transmitted accidentally over space-to-ground radio.

"We've been calling it the crew exploration vehicle for several years, but today it has a name - Orion," he said.

Orion will be 5m (16.5ft) in diameter and have a mass of about 25 tonnes. Inside, it will have more than 2.5 times the volume of an Apollo capsule.

The spacecraft will return humans to the Moon to stay for long periods as a testing ground for the longer journey to Mars.

Reliable shape

The vehicle will be capable of transporting cargo and up to six crew members to and from the International Space Station. It can carry four astronauts for lunar missions. Later, it is expected to support crew transfers for Mars missions.

Orion borrows its shape from the Apollo capsules of the past, but Nasa says giant leaps have since been made in computer technology, electronics, life support, propulsion and heat protection systems.

Nasa considers the capsule's conical shape to be the safest and most reliable for re-entering the Earth's atmosphere, especially at the velocities required for a direct return form the Moon.

The crew exploration vehicle will replace the space shuttle programme after it comes out of service in 2010.

Earlier this summer, Nasa announced the names of the rockets that will propel into orbit the crew exploration vehicle and a cargo vehicle. These launchers will be called Ares I and Ares V respectively.


(1) A heavy-lift rocket blasts off from Earth carrying a lunar lander and a "departure stage"
(2) Several days later, astronauts launch on a separate rocket system with their Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV)
(3) The CEV docks with the lander and departure stage in Earth orbit and then heads to the Moon
(4) Having done its job of boosting the CEV and lunar lander on their way, the departure stage is jettisoned
(5) At the Moon, the astronauts leave their CEV and enter the lander for the trip to the lunar surface
(6) After exploring the lunar landscape for seven days, the crew blasts off in a portion of the lander
(7) In Moon orbit, they re-join the waiting robot-minded CEV and begin the journey back to Earth
(8) On the way, the service component of the CEV is jettisoned. This leaves just the crew capsule to enter the atmosphere
(9) A heatshield protects the capsule; parachutes bring it down on dry land, probably in California

[good ol beeksy] 23/8/2006 11:41

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[mad3it] 23/8/2006 10:55

I saw Gwynneth Paltrow last night, though she was in my bed at the time.

Also bumped into Bruce Lee walking down the local high street recently, but I killed him with one flick of my wrist, cos I'm well ard.

Bumped into Darryll Hair at the Oval on sunday, and he asked me to takeover umpiring the test, but I couldn't, as I was playing for England at the time.

This is my thread, I'm the daddy, and I will be back.

mad3it
ADVFN
At my computer.

[grupo guitarlumber] 22/7/2006 10:52

Space tourists offered walkabout
By Jonathan Fildes
Science and technology reporter, BBC News



Space walkers will spend 1.5 hours circling the Earth
A company that blasted the first space tourists into orbit is offering future clients the chance to do a space walk.

Space Adventures say the optional excursion will cost $15m (£8m) on top of the $20m cost for the flight.

For that, private space explorers will get a 1.5 hour accompanied extra-vehicular-activity (EVA) outside the International Space Station (ISS).

The EVA would lengthen a stay on the ISS from 10 days to between 16 and 18 and would require additional training.

Eric Anderson, president of and CEO of Space Adventures said they already had "potential clients" for the spacewalks.

Those with enough money would get to "hang out" outside the space station with a trained cosmonaut as a guide, he said.

"One and a half hours in about one orbit of the earth so they'd see the entire planet," said Mr Anderson. "They'd experience complete day-time and night-time and watch the planet in its beauty and splendour."

Rigorous training

Space Adventures has previously sent three private explorers to space.




Commercial Spaceflight

In 2001, American Dennis Tito was the first space tourist. He was followed by South African Mark Shuttleworth the year after and American Greg Olsen last year.

Japanese entrepreneur Daisuke Enomoto is currently training for his spaceflight scheduled for September.

All flights to the ISS are on board Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

Training for the flight takes six months at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre in Star City, Russia.

Private space explorers hoping to complete a spacewalk will also have to undergo an additional 190 hours of training including underwater EVA simulations, spacesuit training and altitude chamber training sessions.

Space adventures says the amount of training is less than a typical astronaut.

Professor Jeff Hoffman, an ex-Nasa astronaut who has spent over 24 hours doing spacewalks, completed 400 hours of underwater training before a spacewalk to fix the Hubble Space Telescope.

We're not going to do it if it jeopardises the crew or the person doing it

Eric Anderson

"On top of that there are also numerous other simulators where we practice space suit malfunctions, to say nothing of the physical work we do just looking at the guts of the space suit," he told the BBC News website.

"Then we did a fair amount of work in vacuum chambers wearing our space suits - so it was a huge amount of work.

"But if you just wanted to take someone and throw them in a spacesuit so they survive outside you wouldn't need nearly that much training. For us it was so we could do useful work."

Moon gazing

Alexei Krasnov, director of the manned spaceflight department at the Russian Federal Space Agency said that the decision to take space tourists outside the ISS had been made after "careful consideration".


Space walkers will be accompanied by a Russian cosmonaut

In addition to training, he said, potential candidates would also have meet "physical and psychological capabilities" before being considered for an EVA.

However, even meeting strict criteria and with money up front there are no guarantees that they will definitely step outside the space station.

"If everything goes to plan then we can go ahead and do it," said Mr Anderson.

"But we're not going to do it if it jeopardises the crew or the person doing it".

Although no one has signed up for a space walk yet, Space Adventures has a "number of potential clients" who could blast off in 2007 or 2008.

The following year, the firm plan to go one stage further launch the first commercial trip around the moon.

The flight will cost an estimated $100m.

[grupo guitarlumber] 19/7/2006 07:53

Satellite System


by Staff Writers
Toulouse and Paris, France (SPX) Jul 19, 2006
CNES, Orange France and Alcatel announced Tuesday they have selected Toulouse and the Midi-Pyrenees region for the first trial outside their laboratories of the main technical characteristics of a new mobile broadcasting system transmitted via a hybrid satellite and a terrestrial transmission system using the S-band.
This system is central to Alcatel's new Unlimited Mobile TV solution, the company said in a news release. The technical trial is focusing on the space aspects of the project, is preliminary to the research and development efforts for the terrestrial aspects of the project, which is being conducted with support from the French Industrial Innovation Agency.

CNES has financed and overseen the design and development of the demonstrator, set the trial schedule and is leading the trial. Orange, the leader in mobile broadcasting, is providing terrestrial repeater sites and contributing its expertise for analyzing results.

Alcatel is conducting all trial measurements and preparing the result analysis. In in addition, Eutelsat and SES Astra are supplying the satellite resources needed for feeding the repeaters.

The trial was initially scheduled to continue through September, but based on initial results, project managers have decided to extend the technical trial through the end of the year.

As part of the extended trial period, Eutelsat will partner with CNES, Orange France and Alcatel to pursue the validation of the technical choices of the hybrid satellite and terrestrial broadcasting system to provide S-band services.

The trial is part of permanent ongoing projects being conducted by CNES on space applications for the consumer market, and part of continuing preparatory work being conducted jointly by CNES and Alcatel on architectural concepts and the feasibility of a variety of technical alternatives.

The trial is designed to provide a technical assessment of certain key parameters of hybrid satellite and terrestrial S-band broadcasting, such as the impact of wave form on transmission quality, link budget, antenna diversity, error-correcting codes and frequency sharing.

The demonstrator includes all elements of the proposed solution. The satellite is simulated using an S-band transmitter on board a helicopter at high altitude.

The system is completed by terrestrial repeaters installed in 10 or so locations belonging to Orange France, alongside its GSM and UMTS service transmitters.

A test terminal and instruments on board a vehicle are used to measure and record the signal in real time.

The test area covers southeastern Toulouse and suburbs, but also will be conducted outside of the Toulouse area in order to evaluate reception conditions in population centers of variable size, simulating complete coverage within mainland France.

[grupo] 13/7/2006 05:42

Spacecraft launched in technology test

(AFX) - An experimental inflatable spacecraft bankrolled by real estate
magnate Robert Bigelow rocketed into orbit Wednesday to test technology that
could be used to fulfill his dream of building a commercial space station.
The Genesis I satellite flew aboard a converted Cold War ballistic missile
from Russia's southern Ural Mountains at 6:53 p.m. Moscow time. It was boosted
about 320 miles above Earth minutes after launch, according to the Russian
Strategic Missile Forces.
The launch was a first for the startup Bigelow Aerospace, founded by
Bigelow, who owns the Budget Suites of America hotel chain. Bigelow is among
several entrepreneurs attempting to break into the fledging manned commercial
spaceflight business.
Mission controllers began communicating with Genesis about seven hours after
liftoff. Early indication showed that the spacecraft was behaving as planned,
according to a statement by the company.
The spacecraft's internal battery was at full charge, meaning that it had
deployed its solar panels, the statement said.
Despite the successful launch, significant hurdles remain.
Mission controllers will continue to download information from the
spacecraft over the next several hours to determine its health. Once that's
confirmed, it will begin the tricky job of ballooning itself to twice its
pre-launch width in a process that could last several hours.
Bigelow hopes to use inflation technology to build an expandable orbital
outpost made up of several Genesis-like modules strung together like sausage
links that could serve as a space hotel, science lab or even a sports arena.
"We're ecstatic. We're just elated," Bigelow said in a telephone interview
from Las Vegas. "We have a sense of being on a great adventure."
Bigelow has committed $500 million toward building a commercial space
station by 2015. So far, $75 million has been spent on the project.
Because Wednesday's unmanned mission was experimental, Bigelow said he was
prepared for problems.
"I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if we have a number of different
systems fail," he said on the eve of the launch. "I would hope that we have some
success."
The watermelon-shaped Genesis I is a one-third scale prototype of the
commercial space station to which the company eventually hopes to fly humans.
Unlike the rigid aluminum international space station, Genesis I consists of
a flexible outer shell and is layered with tough material such as Kevlar, which
is found in bulletproof police vests, to withstand flying space debris.
The 2,800-pound Genesis I measured 14 feet long and 4 feet wide at launch
and was to inflate to twice that width in orbit. It carried photos of Bigelow
employees and insects that scientists hope to study to determine how well they
survive the flight.
Equipped with a dozen cameras to be aimed at the Earth, the spacecraft will
circle the planet for at least five years while scientists study its durability.
Bigelow Aerospace plans to launch several prototypes this decade. Future
missions will test docking among spacecraft, but the maiden Genesis flight will
primarily focus on the inflation process.
In the 1990s, NASA studied inflatable technology for a possible trip to
Mars, but later dropped the idea after deciding inflatable modules were too
expensive. Bigelow Aerospace then licensed the technology from NASA.
This fall, the company hopes to launch Genesis II. Over the next several
years, the company plans to test larger prototype spacecraft, including a
full-scale mock-up slated to launch in 2012.

AP Writer Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.

[Abuse team] 07/7/2006 10:55

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[scuba doo] 05/7/2006 11:36

That's the spirit CL ....

Whilst we're on the subject; I bumped into Nadine from Girls Aloud in Dublin last weekend. She asked for my number but I was having none of it (Great legs though)

I dunno , some bl00dy women eh .

[Abuse team] 28/6/2006 21:48

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