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! =)

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

Elon Musk Unveils the 'D' and something else

I really like it when Elon talks nerdy. So Elon Musk unveiled the 'D' - dual motor version of the Model S which means it actually now has better fuel/battery efficiency than the single motor version! The weight is offset by the efficiency gained by dynamically shifting power between front and rear motors during the drive! Check out his reveal below.



But the highlight has to be the autopilot! I've been wanting a car with significant driver assist features like those introduced in the video above. I mean, it's like a bat-mobile (ultrasonics anyone?)! I'm surprised they didn't put the rear-view camera into the sensor mix for autopilot, but I guess the ultrasonics is a much more reliable input, and they could always add in the extra sensor input via software updates. Every car for the past 2 weeks has come from the Tesla factory with all the autopilot hardware!

Features like full computer control, driving to where you want on your private property via your synced calendar (e.g. main entrance to pick you up for work/[LAN] party). He made a Metal Gear Solid pun too!! While telling his engineers of a new feature he'd like!! xDDD Now I'm thinking - forget the Model 3 as my future car purchase when I actually earn full-time, I'm going for the Model S with autopilot second hand haha.

Here are the Autopilot Sensors:
Radar - see through stuff like fog, I'm thinking because of the larger wavelength.
Forward Camera -  CV ftw.
360 Ultrasonar - apparently senses soft material like flesh really well
Satellite/Nav - Includes traffic info (like the creepy Google ones)

Here's Tesla's blogpost. Also, the video below shows the test-drive ride inside:


On the stock note, it dropped a bit after the hype from the twitter post, but Elon's not worried and neither am I. Elon's in this for the sustainability standpoint of long-term sustainable energy use and transportation. Fossil fuels will never be sustainable nor clean.

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!

Tesla Confirms Bluestar as Model III, not E

Yes! Name of Tesla's Bluestar finally confirmed
Haha, didn't know Elon Musk wanted to spell SEX with his model "numbers" but Ford sued them for the E. 
This coming from the company that recently open-sourced its patents (for the good of sustainability and EVs)! 

Quick update, so obligatory iframe:

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. =)

EVs and Coding upstream/downstream

Prime example of using data/paper references to deliberately misconstrue understanding:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/currency/2013/10/why-electric-vehicles-have-stalled.html
Sure petrol releases half as much CO2 than the electric grid, (direct energy - e.g. burning petrol or coal) not including the LCA stuff for mining, obtaining and transporting the fuels or energy (transmission grids).
But petrol engines are around 20% efficient but with electric transmission and electric motors like Tesla's car, they have an efficiency of about 90% - that's around 4* as much, meaning even with coal-burning electricity generation, you're only releasing half as much CO2 per energy to the wheels with electricity than petrol. And with green power or nuclear, you can drastically reduce CO2 output, so transferring the fuel into energy is best done en-masse, instead of inside everyone's individual car 'generators' =P

Also nice link about dependencies, which relates to last post's project release: Ubuntu chapter 8 on dependences! =)
http://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2013/10/how-code-flows-about-upstream-and-downstream/

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.

Tesla's Model S does it again: tops safety rating in the US

Way too many posts on Elon Musk but this guy's doing stuff! =P

http://www.teslamotors.com/about/press/releases/tesla-model-s-achieves-best-safety-rating-any-car-ever-tested
A pro and badass post including the Model S breaking test equipment and Apollo reference. =P

Also, if you wanted that side crash in detail:


Something funny:
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2013/08/a-tesla-model-s-crashed-into-an-electric-pole-and-caused-a-blackout/

Also, if you haven't seen these old EV safety training videos for first responders:

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