SpaceX landing on floating platform in the ocean CONFIRMED! =P && Antares (by Orbital Sciences) explodes. =( UPDATED

SpaceX landing on floating platform in the ocean CONFIRMED! =P

So Elon Musk has confirmed SpaceX will attempt to land on a floating platform 90m*50m for their next Falcon 9 flight. YAY!

Florida Today:

He estimated no better than a 50-50 chance of a successful platform landing on the first attempt.
[...]
"So I think we're quite close," he said.

SpaceNews.com:

“We actually have a huge platform that’s being constructed in a shipyard in Louisiana right now,” Musk said in the interview, which was webcast live. He described the platform as about 90 meters long by 50 meters wide. “We’re going to try and land on that on the next flight.

“There’s at least a dozen launches that will occur over the next 12 months,” Musk said. “I think it’s quite likely — probably 80 to 90 percent likely — that one of those flights will be able to land and refly.”

Space.com coverage: www.space.com/27538-spacex-reusable-rocket-test.html


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Antares (by Orbital Sciences) explodes. =(

Sadly, the Antares rocket has exploded seconds after launch for their CRS-3 mission:


From simple visual inspection of this video, it seems like an engine failure for one or both engines - from the small engine flash and subsequent smoke; (or other failure causing engine flame-out or automatic shutdown). Subsequently, with no thrust, the rocket fell back to earth and the impact caused the big explosion.

Cargo carried included normal CRS foodstuffs, experiments, etc, and the Arkyd3 - a testbed for Planetary Resources' telescope satellites, including one which was Kickstarted (including a contribution from yours truly). 

According to Wikipedia, Orbital Sciences hasn't had that many failures, with successes in all Minotaur vehicles and the Pegasus with 3 outright failures and 2 partial successes (on primary payload) early in their launch history.Note that this is in line with many launch vehicle companies including SpaceX, whose Falcon 1 platform was their testbed which failed 3 out of 5 times.

However, SpaceX's Falcon 9 has had no failures except 1 secondary payload failure over its 13 total launches these last 4 years. Add to that: NASA pays $1.6 billion to SpaceX to deliver cargo over 12 missions while they have to pay $1.9 billion to Orbital Sciences for only 8 missions. Add to that each mission delivering more cargo in the Dragon by mass than Orbital Sciences' Cygnus spacecraft. The Cygnus is only superior in delivering more pressurized volume than the Dragon, and can't return cargo to Earth like the Dragon does.

Talk about SpaceX cutting costs and competition savings! (The citizens of USA should be glad SpaceX is now able to compete for USAF/DoD/NRO contracts.) I'm glad it's SpaceX that won the CCDev contract, and has a really cool Dragon V2 crewed spacecraft coming out, designed for reusability and landing by thruster functionality. Hurray for SpaceX reusability - providing sustainable and cheaper access to space!

Dailymail's coverage, in-depth: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2810128/Ready-liftoff-Nighttime-rocket-launch-International-Space-Station-visible-East-Coast.html
Space.com's coverage, editor promises updates on this page:
www.space.com/27576-private-orbital-sciences-rocket-explosion.html

UPDATE:

More about the accident and engine here: http://www.spacenews.com/article/launch-report/42340antares-rocket-explodes-after-liftoff includes spectator video and sound of explosion:


Press conference at 9pm ET (12pm AEDT, now) on Nasa TV

Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream

More updates to follow probably; from conference:
Emphasis of launch/rocket science and space science being hard (obviously). No injuries, only lost hardware.
Orbital Sciences - will investigate what's wrong, solve the problem and prevent future problems.
Investigation includes evaluating debris (like aircraft investigations [like ATSB]!) - don't touch debris, could be dangerous.
Wallops - good range clearing of safety area.
ISS - incl crew in good shape, have supplies for at least 4-6months always, Progress spacecraft tomorrow, SpaceX on Dec 9, quite a bit of research hardware lost and spare hardware.

Investigation data and everything locked down until investigation process goes through; wait for daytime for debris collecting. Solid propellant burning in area. Contract - provides for ability to eventually get hardware lost on this flight to orbit, Orbital compensates NASA if they don't reach orbit. Launchpad could be damaged, tank pressure sensor readings still available and holding pressure - extent of damage not known until fully investigated.
Engine failure observed in telemetry and visually ~T+10s and range then sent the destruct command ~T+20s, before it hit the ground.
Investigation: Orbital in command, supported very well by NASA and MARS (@Wallops), debris in morning, cameras, telemetry/data. Orbital obviously won't fly until they know and correct the problem.
Insurance - Orbital does have various/some amounts of insurance on their launches.
Engines - Orbital chose to go with this (Russian) engine as there weren't many choices for powerplants of this size, especially in USA, and it was extensively tested and has proved robust. They've also chosen another engine for future Antares, according to the link above providing the video of spectator view. Wonder if they considered using SpaceX's engines =P

Making fuel from seawater, FOSS, USPTO and copyright

The US navy is researching methods to make fuel from seawater and have a working prototype!
This has been a many-year effort.
Basically CO2 is extracted from sea-water by acidifying seawater with HCl and using electrolysis to extract CO2 and H2.
Then, using a Fischer-Tropsch catalyst and high temperatures (190C) long-chain hydrocarbons can be formed. 

Both main reactions/processes are obviously endothermic and require energy, so you wouldn't expect a ship to make their own hydrocarbon fuel and run on it, so ships can't be self-sufficient and not need to dock for fuel. However, it also means a whole new supply chain can be opened up which don't require traditional shipping/supply of oil from oil rigs and mines around the world.

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Yay for Linux on military drones courtesy of Raytheon! It might be a smart move to do stuff like open API for cost redundancy reduction and inefficiency reduction. Security through obscurity is not real security, so it's arguable no less safe than a proprietary *nix system like Oracle.
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2014/05/us-military-drones-are-going-to-start-running-on-linux/

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Speaking of open APIs, wtf is this:
Oracle granted API copyright, wins vs Google.
I mean, we've been down this road before with software patents and all their predicted detriments, and now you can copyright an API. Not sure how closely your API can resemble another's but this is treading deep into the patenting an idea. Maybe in 10 years time I can patent the idea of mining asteroids, even though Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries would have been going at it for 10+years. Then I'll just receive royalties from any enterprising new-space company or project and live in luxury while drowning my guilt and shame and morality in loads of ice-cream. Also, everyone will have to hire more lawyers and the ratio of lawyers to engineers, scientists and other staff would be 50-50 in any technology company. And all the lawyers will be busy doing nothing but harming everyone.

And speaking of horrible copyright and patent rulings, if you know me you should know how much I look down on the USPTO - I have no hope in it. I mean, they just let Amazon patent taking photos against a white background! Watch out, passport photo takers! - That Star Trek double face-palm image is quite apt, so is "credibility reaching zero".

ARKYD Funded & Apple buys Samsung products?

So ARKYD, the Space Telescope for everyone was successfully funded at $1.5mil, and they hosted a livestream broadcasted by spacevidcast (woot!), I'm sure you can see my comments during the livestream if you look hard enough =P

You can still join in the fun (pledge & get rewards) with the grace period: http://www.planetaryresources.com/arkyd-newsletter-signup/
I wonder if I'll actually get time on this telescope (without pledging enough for reward on time) as a student ... Was hopeful about Ardusat (1st kickstarter for me). 

Also, check out the sweet $99 pledge deal, you get planetary annihilation (a previous kickstarted game) and Richard Garriot/Lord British was backing it too! (He's so well connected, space tourist, Star Citizen friend, etc.)

Wish DSI did something like this. They seemed like the ones who would do something like this ... good thing PR got the ball rolling =)

- Break -

So I didn't know this before, but apparently Apple uses Samsung chips in their devices. As Samsung's biggest (read $billions/year) customer. Lol. #USPO&IPsucks

At first I thought astroid mining companies were laughable..

but then I was convinced from their business cases.
Mind you, they're still going to be like at least 50 years before massive monies get raked in, and it all depends on someone getting those earth to orbit vehicles cheap and accessible. Personally I reckon 20 years before real profit gets raked in.

Planetary Resources website doesn't have much in depth info, though they were first, and do have 'le google executive investor', if that means anything.

If everything the sleek Deep Space Industries website says is true, then the business case for one of these really will be alright, but it all depends on increased customers in space, in the long-term. Which if humanity should expand, would be the logical necessary step. DSI seems a bit more open than PR and heck, it reminds me of RSI which is always a good thing (positive reinforcement ftw). Props to them for making the "Firefly" their first spacecraft =P And if that isn't an obvious enough reference, 300+m asteroids are apparently useful for hiding from Darth Vader and Reavers". Sign me up =)

Nice surprise to see Daniel Faber is actually part of the team, heard a talk when he introduced the project he's behind - Antarctic Broadband, which in the process of their main goal, will put a "A satellite ground station capability at ANU Mt Stromlo." and also use the new space R&D space (lol) that they built for projects like these.

It's interesting to note that they are both USA companies, and will most likely be subject to Space Export laws, which means I need that citizenship if I ever work there. But I'll worry about that later.

I wonder what people would think if you meet an 'asteroid miner' and if companies like BHP will invest.
"So what do you do?"
"I mine asteroids."
"Oh, you mean on EVE? I've heard that's like, boringly grindy and tedious."
"No, like Armageddon Bruce Willis style. Except, I do the electronics and software, and no nukes... yet."


Vod:
Lol, the space colony animations reminded me of Macross and Gundam. Let's hope Gundam Earth VS Colonies wars never happens.