Space & Tech newsdump

Busy with uni work and yes, projects! =P
[need to finish an Android app in two 1-week sprints that allows year 10 students to learn functional programming by doing it!]
So as pointed out already, I'll abandon the idea of posting news items as blog articles regularly. This doesn't mean I'll stop posting all news type articles though!

Because I don't want to spend the time regurgitating news articles in nice English, here's a link dump of noteworthy articles in the past few weeks: (it also serves as a personal favourite/bookmarker =P) =D

http://www.sciencealert.com/australian-researchers-have-converted-sunlight-into-electricity-with-more-than-40-efficiency

http://garethhayes.net/hackrf-blue/

http://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/2014/11/22/private-cubesat-start-ups-join-the-space-race/14165748001263

www.space.com/27588-nasa-asteroid-capture-mission-mars.html

http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/factory-upgrade

Why CSIRO is important:
http://csironewsblog.com/2014/11/20/megans-seven-reasons/

gmailblog.blogspot.com.au/2014/11/going-under-hood-of-inbox.html

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/01/penniless_and_desperate_wikipedia_sits_on_60m_cash/

http://lunar.xprize.org/news/blog/lunar-mission-one-takes-crowd-funded-route-moon

www.space.com/27936-nasa-orion-spaceship-survives-test-flight.html

http://www.space.com/27833-nasa-orion-capsule-first-test-flight-infographic.html

https://www.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/wiki/faq

www.space.com/27944-nasa-orion-spaceship-textbook-spaceflight.html

http://www.csoonline.com/article/2853027/malware-cybercrime/report-hacker-group-fin4-stealing-insider-info-to-exploit-significant-changes-in-stock-prices.html

http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2014/09/when-adding-bike-lanes-actually-reduces-traffic-delays/379623/

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2014/12/08/jaxa-testing-deep-space-microsat-with-asteroid-flyby/

http://www.livescience.com/49028-farthest-quantum-teleportation.html

www.space.com/27955-spacex-rocket-ocean-landing-platform.html

http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-tesla-plugs-into-australia-20141209-story.html
Tesla finally updates their website to show superchargers on the Hume Hwy in 2015! YESS!! Can't wait to drive a Tesla from MEL-CBR! =)

Space and Tech update - This week in Space! & Tech!

Had the webpages going for a blog post, decided now that I'm on holiday (for a week) I've gotta work on actual stuff including projects instead of blogging news. So here's a list of somewhat outdated links/quick rundown.

www.space.com/27741-google-leases-nasa-moffett-field.html
- yay for Google acquisitions and diversifying into hardware tech =) I might actually want to work for google's hardware subsidiaries if I could =D

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30026398
- we landed on a comet
www.space.com/27756-comet-landing-google-doodle.html
- technically a robot did but whatever, also got great pics
http://xkcd1446.org/
- and xkcd did live updates on it

www.space.com/27684-orion-space-capsule-test-flight.html
 - wow, I thought we were behind on this project, oh wait, that was the horribly executed SLS. How did they manage to screw up everything in both the analysis and design phases? I mean they wrote the book on Systems Eng and SDLC.

www.space.com/27669-orbital-sciences-rocket-explosion-soviet-engines.html
 - they're not gonna use the 40 year old (built) engines anymore. yay.


EDIT: Forgot Virgin Galactic news
http://xfinity.comcast.net/articles/news-science/20141106/US-Space-Tourism-Virgin-Galactic/ - looks to resume tests in 2015
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/analysis-ntsb-will-have-no-quick-answers-after-virgin-galactic-405675/
www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/06/us-space-crash-virgin-new-idUSKBN0IQ02920141106
http://www.betawired.com/ntsb-theorizes-miscommunication-may-have-led-to-virgin-galactic-crash/1415503/
- Feathering system deployed early 
http://www.ntsb.gov/news/2014/141112.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOSNVJzZn90
- NTSB last daily briefing

TECH:

http://news.microsoft.com/2014/11/12/microsoft-takes-net-open-source-and-cross-platform-adds-new-development-capabilities-with-visual-studio-2015-net-2015-and-visual-studio-online/
- Interesting ... open source big leagues now?
http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-to-open-source-more-of-net-and-bring-it-to-linux-mac-os-x-7000035716/
- Still wouldn't trust them with my dev environment though. Even after all those great trust building things they've done in the past. /sarcasm

Virgin Galactic spacecraft crashes with a test pilot killed.

Unfortunately, more sad news this week, this time all the more sadder with a death and another in hospital.

No doubt this disaster will take a toll on the Virgin Galactic team as it did on Burt Rutan in 2007.

Looks like another engine failure for this week, this time with a solid rocket that apparently exploded. They have already tested powered flights 3 times and unpowered - gliding flights over 20 times.
I've always liked liquid engines more with their increased capabilities including throttling and manual engine stop, which is obviously a plus for safety.

With SpaceX making things look so easy (including soft-landings on the ocean) with their in-house manufactured and tested Falcon 9 (and Merlin engines), these recent events have reminded us all of how dangerous the frontier of space can be, especially with rocket engines being in a whole different class compared to conventional combustion engines or even turbojet engines you'd get in airplanes.

BBC has more coverage. (with eye witnesses)

and so does Space.com (warning, Space.com's 2nd video has slightly graphic description of the aftermath).

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


_________________________________________________________

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

Footage of the inside of the LOX tank on a SpaceX F9

So while I was watching the recent Falcon 9 (CRS-4) launch by SpaceX (video embed below),

I saw this image but did not know what it was:

This happens at 24mins in the above video (or T+9:15)

Nerdist says it's actually the insides of the LOX tank. SpaceX has outdone my expectations - attaching a camera inside the cryogenic fuel tank at hardcore pressures and temperatures below −182.96 °C or 90K.

More videos of things like the capture by ISS and berthing of the mission can be found on the livestream event page (also the first link in this post). The only thing we didn't see this mission? The reusability videos of the 1st stage booster soft-landing on water like in previous launches.

Again, another job well done by SpaceX. (We still have Dragon capsule recovery, to go though).

SpaceX and Boeing win the Commercial Crew contracts as expected

The spacecraft will be SpaceX's Dragon and Boeing's CST-100 flying on the companies' own launch vehicles Falcon 9 and Atlas V (by ULA - with Lockheed) respectively. 

Sierra Nevada's mini-shuttle atop an Atlas V proposal did not win, but they want to continue to develop it, even without the NASA contract. 

USAtoday.com link:

Worth up to $6.8 billion combined, the contracts include at least one crewed test flight to the station, then two to six operational flights of four-person crews.

"Today we're one step closer to launching our astronauts from U.S. soil on American spacecraft and ending the nation's sole reliance on Russia by 2017."

NASA awarded Boeing significantly more money, up to $4.2 billion compared to $2.6 billion for SpaceX. That apparently reflects the higher cost of Boeing's proposal, as NASA said the proposals covered the same amount of work.

The savings in launch costs already seen in SpaceX even without the reusable program's cost reductions seems to have been translated into commercial crew costs as well.

"Boeing has been part of every American human space flight program, and we're honored that NASA has chosen us to continue that legacy," said John Elbon, Boeing vice president and general manager for Space Exploration, in a statement.
Added SpaceX CEO Elon Musk: "SpaceX is deeply honored by the trust NASA has placed in us. We welcome today's decision and the mission it advances with gratitude and seriousness of purpose."

NASA would not say how many proposals it received or discuss their details, saying it was still debriefing the companies.
The agency would not confirm if the new commercial spacecraft offer a significantly better value per seat than the $70 million NASA is paying for Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

 In a surprise to many, Boeing has partnered with Blue Origin, the startup founded by Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos, to develop an engine that could potentially replace the Atlas V's Russian-made main engine, whose continued availability is considered a risk.

Video of announcement:

Information on the spacecraft:

I've already posted about the Dragon one here before (video of reveal with both physical mockup, animations of launch cycle included and Elon Musk - it's really cool!). 

Space.com link - includes videos of both launch vehicle and spacecraft's launch cycle as well as interior/layouts.

SpaceX news updates (external video of F9R landing!)

So a rocket basically exploded, hasn't happened to my knowledge since Falcon 1 series. It was only a test vehicle (grasshopper with 3 merlin engines) and it was according to system definitions - auto-terminated once parameters weren't right.

Three engine F9R Dev1 vehicle auto-terminated during test flight. No injuries or near injuries. Rockets are tricky …
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 23, 2014

.@SpaceX statement on 8/22 F9R test in McGregor, Texas: pic.twitter.com/p7JL5VoQlP
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 23, 2014

Here's the video of it exploding:

Failure is good, helps them make their rockets better and more reliable! =) Having played KSP I'm surprised this hasn't happened in a while (in a test vehicle for SpaceX) haha.

The "Failsafe" reminds me of that in the requirements in the autopilot for the UAV Outback Challenge. Recently joined the Monash team, one of the many advantages of a university with a larger cohort - enough people to make teams for this kind of stuff! =)

Video of Falcon 9 first stage landing on water. Extra cool!


Previously I reported on an on-board video of the landing, check it out at this link!

SpaceX reusable rocket video (SpaceX does it again!)

So reusability landing footage from last week's successful SpaceX-Orbcomm mission has been released by SpaceX! Apparently this time no file repairing was needed like last time when they crowd-sourced help for repairing their mpeg via reddit =P.
There is however, icing, which blurs/obscures the video quite a bit.



SpaceX's full blog/news post (quoted at the end) has more information, including that they touched down at close to 0 velocity, and the next 2 flights they will not attempt reusability tests since they are higher orbits (GTO). However, after that on flights 13,they will test landing on water and (flights 14, 15) on solid ground with increased chance of success. Apparently it's easier to land on land than on water?! (It could however, be just a platform in the ocean.)
I'm guessing they have great control over where they're able to land. (It's harder to gauge when and how to burn by eye/hand when landing from orbit to KSC in KSP -which was recently 40% off on Steam and now features contracts and rewards for recovery of things like boosters/stages =P)

Here's the full quote from the SpaceX blog (because the info is so juicy):

Following last week's successful launch of six ORBCOMM satellites, the Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage reentered Earth’s atmosphere and soft landed in the Atlantic Ocean. This test confirms that the Falcon 9 booster is able consistently to reenter from space at hypersonic velocity, restart main engines twice, deploy landing legs and touch down at near zero velocity.

After landing, the vehicle tipped sideways as planned to its final water safing state in a nearly horizontal position. The water impact caused loss of hull integrity, but we received all the necessary data to achieve a successful landing on a future flight. Going forward, we are taking steps to minimize the build up of ice and spots on the camera housing in order to gather improved video on future launches.

At this point, we are highly confident of being able to land successfully on a floating launch pad or back at the launch site and refly the rocket with no required refurbishment. However, our next couple launches are for very high velocity geostationary satellite missions, which don’t allow enough residual propellant for landing. In the longer term, missions like that will fly on Falcon Heavy, but until then Falcon 9 will need to fly in expendable mode.

We will attempt our next water landing on flight 13 of Falcon 9, but with a low probability of success. Flights 14 and 15 will attempt to land on a solid surface with an improved probability of success.

Space Age, here we come!!! =D

Space Update 16/7/2014

Quick Space Update =D

 

AITC installs Wombat XL

Close to (my) home, Australia is finally moving along in the space industry with our first satellite testing facility at the Australian National University! The last time I was there they didn't have the Wombat vacuum tank in the big testing room. Let's see if I can upload a picture of what I saw (great view!): on second thought, he's some pics from the AITC from when we toured there!

The room where the Wombat XL Space Simulation Facility now sits

Dang, that view (Canberra's pretty!)

Crane in the clean room

Clean room

soon-to-be vibration platform

Sometimes moving images around is so difficult, even in this WYSIWYG blogger editor I would rather LaTeX. (html layout formatting is horrible imho)
ANU hopes to test their HDLT plasma thruster there. (Past research students in the group have said their previous conclusions were "need bigger vacuum chamber", so here it is! =P)

SpaceX launches 6 OrbComm satellites, gets aproval for Texas private launch site, and passes 3 flights EELV requirement

100% mission success. Reusability testing was good (again) up until splashdown.

Flight 10 of Falcon 9 was good. All six ORBCOMM satellites deployed on target.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 14, 2014

Rocket booster reentry, landing burn & leg deploy were good, but lost hull integrity right after splashdown (aka kaboom)
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 14, 2014

Detailed review of rocket telemetry needed to tell if due to initial splashdown or subsequent tip over and body slam
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 14, 2014

They got approval for their first private spaceflight facility. It even has a wiki page! This allows SpaceX to"provide SpaceX an exclusive launch site that would allow the company to accommodate its launch manifest and meet tight launch windows." Especially that rapid reusability time - land on your own launchpad, recover, reintegrate, refuel, launch without worrying about range clearance blocking you because it'd be planned already.

Also, USAF certifies SpaceX's Falcon9 3 successful flights, amid the legal battles they have had.

UK Spaceport and user roundup

Astronomy Agregator does a good UK Spaceport and reusable/SSTO/Sub-orbital round-up of the Spaceport's users and critique.
Speaking of my favourite space outlets (apart from the big ones like NASAspaceflight, spaceflightnow, space.com) I haven't been on AA or ParabolicArc or Spacevidcast in a while. I'll be happy to get back into it! =)
Spacevidcast's new show is now called TMRO ("tomorrow") and are on Patreon, so support them, because they do really great weekly shows!

Space Games

Space genre games have seen a resurgence, imho in no small part due to Star Citizen's rocketing success, and a lot of them are on Linux =D Here's updates from the biggest 2 (and my personal favourites) space games!

CIG at RSI.com on StarCitizen surpasses $48 million in funding and has almost 500k Star Citizens at time of writing! All the stretchgoals!! It doesn't look like we'll get the bagel carrier mentioned in an old WMH episode xP but we do get complete alien languages with the hiring of linguists!!!

Kerbal Space program is releasing 0.24 soon and has prepped this FAQ for us. After the NASA-partnered 0.23.5 Asteroid Redirect Mission update (with a stock asteroid grapler/claw), this is a welcome update with funds, reputation and contract functionality to further enhance the career mode! No longer will you build with unlimited money and have no repercussions of killed kerbonauts! =P I hope those interstellar mods and life support, real communication link, KOS and MFD mods still work ... Would love to do a full mission in first person!


Hurray for indies and startups! (All news items today have had a connection to this theme). Especially newspace! =)

Dragon V2 Unveil and All Tesla's Patent Are Belong To Us!

Back from a hiatus, we have news which may be a bit outdated, but interesting nonetheless!



SpaceX unveils Dragon V2, a manned spacecraft with the significant difference from V1 of being both manned and having Super Draco thrusters, with over 100 times the thrust. These are required for both the LES (Launch Escape System) built into the vehicle (as opposed to an LES tower ala Apollo), as well as propulsion based landing from orbit (it includes parachutes but isn't planned to normally use them).

It has massive 4*17" touch screen array powered by multiple redundant Tegra chips from nVidia, with technology shared from Tesla's own touchscreens on the Model S. In the middle of the array are a variety of hardware buttons for critical functions in case the touchscreens fail. Rest assured, Musk says (while laughing) the rest of the ship's systems aren't powered by Tegras. A lot more juicy info can be found at this arstechnica article.

Also, rodents (live animals!) will be flying on CRS-4, for SCIENCE! =D Because we know from KSP having a lab in space process science and recovering science module data gives you more science! =)


_______________________________________handmade_break__________________________________________

Tesla has released all of its patents as open in the spirit of open source and rapid development of Electric Vehicles to stop the evil and unsustainable oil pollutions! =P Go Tesla and Elon Musk!! Great FOSS philosophy. While some people may spell doom for the company, I don't see any specific licence they're releasing it under, and since they still hold the patents, they can enforce any at will if someone oversteps and abuses their limited rights. Also, the example of AT&T's decline is wrongly used, since Tesla will only fail if it fails to continue to innovate and capitalise on their innovations with the rest of the competition. Also, as we can see from AT&T releasing their patents, the global telecoms industry has grown so much, and this is the same goal of Musk and the reason he made Tesla in the first place.

Apparently, lots of confused media inquiries about blog title. Look, we just to make sure they don't set us up the bomb.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 12, 2014

Incidentally, one of the ranks of the Linux Users Group - an org in Star Citizen is AYBABTU. =)

P.S. I should be able to do that Model S test drive post soon, holidays are good. =)

Falcon 9 v1.1 Maiden Launch!

Wanted to watch this live to get booster info but was someplace with no reception. 
Vid here:

Also this article is pretty cool. Here's the bit about the attempt at recovering the first stage:

Once it was back in the atmosphere, it lit its central engine to slow itself further. That's where things went wrong, though, as the booster started spinning. According to Musk, this "centrifuged the propellant"—spun it to the tank's walls and kept it from feeding into the engine. As a result, it hit the water hard, leaving the company's employees with pieces to recover. (This rocket didn't have landing gear anyway, and Musk said that the added hardware would act like fins to stabilize the spin.)
With the information they gained from this flight, however, Musk said that SpaceX has "all the pieces to do full recovery of the boost phase," which he expects to be attempted early next year. In the intervening time, the company plans to gather data on re-entry during two more flights.
Recovery won't be cheap. In response to a question, Musk estimated that saving the fuel to perform a controlled landing on water requires sacrificing 15 percent of the potential payload; returning to land will take a 30 percent cut. But Musk said the boost stage is about three-quarters of the total cost of the rocket, so being able to reuse it would provide a substantial net gain.
Beyond these findings, not everything was rosy about today's launch. SpaceX also tried to restart its second stage engine (which is necessary on some flight trajectories but not for today's launch). The engine "encountered a condition it didn't like during repressurization," though, and the process was shut down. Musk said that the company has a good idea of what went wrong, and will address it before the next flight.

Hand Gesture Design and Visualization

So Elon Musk does it again with this video from SpaceX:


Using the Leap Motion, Oculus Rift, some glass projection thing like in Iron Man apparently. 3D printing gets a mention too.

While this is really wow and pro, I would definitely like to see if they use hand gestures beyond visualising to do some designing work.

Hyperloop - Finally! (by Elon Musk & co)

http://www.spacex.com/hyperloop
http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/hyperloop

Actual white paper linked to in those two identical blogs.

It's basically like the Alcubierre Warp Drive in a low pressure air tube.. haha. Sub-sonic, solar panels on top, sky-mono-rail so tube lifted by pylons to reduce ground impact and earth movement problems. Propulsion is by electromagnetic linear induction motor acceleration powered through the tube. (Think sub-orbital railgun).

2 lovely things - One Piece & Startups

http://www.techinasia.com/3-startups-learn-reading-piece-manga/
Yep, 2 lovely things I thought had no relation to each other xP

SpaceX Software

Here's some interesting stuff. Apparently they use Linux in almost everything, including their rockets (Falcon) and spacecraft (Dragon). Cool stuff.