Oops...There Goes Our Lifeline

The recent failure of Russia's Soyuz-U rocket five minutes into its mission just ripped a hole in plans to rely on other countries to supply the International Space Station (ISS).  Not that the U.S. has many choices right now while it waits for private cargo missions (see previous article).  The six astronauts on the ISS were awaiting these supplies, though NASA stated the station is well-stocked for now.  This was the first failure of the Russian resupply missions in the last three decades and could not come at a worse time given the lack of redundancy in the space program.  NASA is looking at all contingencies, including delaying the rotation of the crew.  Russia was planning to ship up three replacement crew members in September.  The US kept the shuttle program running just long enough to complete the ISS.  It would be a tragedy if we find we cannot get back and forth to this $100 billion space station.  The last thing we need is more space junk circling the earth.  Keep your fingers crossed.

Update:  An August 29th news story noted Russia planned to delay the return of the current ISS crew (from September 8 to September 16) and delay the launch of a new crew (from September 22 to sometime in October or November).  This is not a good sign. "If for any reason we will not be able to deliver the crew before the end of November we will need to review all possibilities, including leaving the station unmanned," stated the article quoting Alexei Krasnov, who leads the manned flights at Roskosmos.  Slate magazine had an interesting article titled "The Space Station Without Us."  The positive news is the ISS can last in orbit for some time without us.  The negative news is that the ISS would become a white elephant right at the point it is fully functional.

Who is NASA Betting on for Cargo Flights?

The other week NASA awarded $10 million in contracts to seven firms to support the development of cargo flights to the International Space Station.  These seven firms are:

-- Virgin Galactic in Mojave, California;
-- Armadillo Aerospace in Heath, Texas;
-- Near Space Corp. in Tillamook, Oregon;
-- Masten Space Systems in Mojave, California;
-- Up Aerospace Inc. in Highlands Ranch, Colorado;
-- Whittinghill Aerospace LLC in Camarillo, California; and
-- XCOR in Mojave, California.

The maximum amount that can go to any one contractor over the 2-year contract period is $5 million. While this is not a significant amount of money for budding space companies, it is still an incentive to develop the next generation of cargo missions.
 
California is certainly well represented on this list of companies.  And I find the names of companies that I do not often see in the news, such as Masten Space Systems (see image for their reusable launch vehicle).  Back in May, Masten announced plans to perform a series of demonstration flights of a Vertical Takeoff Vertical Landing (VTVL) reusable suborbital launch vehicle from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.  While the company's website is silent on a date for this launch, earlier media stories indicate it was to happen sometime in 2011.

Masten Space Systems has other goals in addition to cargo.  For example, the company was also the winner of the 2009 Northrup Grumman Lunar Lander X Challenge.  You can see a video of their entry here.  Armadillo Aerospace took second place in this contest.  The X PRIZE Foundation has done a lot of great work over the years encouraging new ideas and inventions. 

NASA is also hopeful.  "The government's ability to open the suborbital research frontier to a broad community of innovators will enable maturation of the new technologies and capabilities needed for NASA's future missions in space"  said NASA Chief Technologist Bobby Braun at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Let's hope these private sector ventures get off the ground super quick - America's ability to continue as a space-faring nation depends upon it.

NASA's Robotic Efforts

With the human role in space being curtailed by the last Shuttle mission, we will need to keep interest alive through a variety of robotic missions.  Fortunately, this has not been a problem.  Here are some of the most recent adventures and plans for later this year:

-- Vesta Visit:  The spacecraft Dawn approached the asteroid Vesta last month and will later visit the "dwarf planet" Ceres.  Dawn will spend the next year studying Vesta and returning plenty of data to keep scientists busy for years to come.  Both visits will help NASA to better understand how the solar system was formed. 

-- Jupiter Mission:  Earlier this month NASA launched Juno for its 5-year journey to the giant planet.  As with the Vesta/Ceres visits, NASA is trying to glean more information about the early solar system.  For instance, through mapping Jupiter’s gravitational and magnetic fields, NASA expects to discover more about the planet’s interior structure and mass of the core. Juno will arrive at Jupiter in August 2016, probe the planet and its moons for about a year, and eventually crash into its surface (or clouds). 

-- New Mars Rover:  NASA recently selected the landing site for the next Mars rover, which is part of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) and known as Curiosity (remember, we still have Opportunity roving around the Red Planet, while Spirit is now just that).  Our next martian visit will be touring the Gale Crater, a 96-mile-wide depression close to the planet's equator (see below).  And its not all depression since this crater has a three-mile high mountain at its center.  And NASA scientists are particularly interested in some of the colored material in the crater since it could offer information on organic molecules.  Talk about varied terrain.  The launch of the MSL and rover are planned for November.