OrbitalHub

December 18, 2010

Soyuz TMA-20 Docks to ISS

Posted by dj

Soyuz TMA-20 docked to the International Space Station on Friday, December 17, 2010. Cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratyev, NASA astronaut Catherine Coleman, and ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli complete the Expedition 26 crew.

Orbital’s Space Plane

Posted by dj

Credits: Orbital Sciences Corporation

Orbital Sciences Corporation is proposing a blended lifting body vehicle that will launch atop an expendable launch vehicle in response to NASA’s Commercial Crew Development-2 contract solicitation. The proposed configuration will provide safe and affordable transportation services to and from the International Space Station. The vehicle will carry a crew of four astronauts, and will reenter the Earth’s atmosphere and land on a conventional runway similar to a Space Shuttle.

The launch vehicle proposed for the launch stack is the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. Orbital’s press release mentions that the whole configuration is flexible enough to accommodate other launch vehicles as well.

Orbital is leading a team of world-class space system manufacturers. The pressurized crew compartment will be provided by Thales Alenia Space, the human-rated avionics will be the responsibility of Honeywell and Draper Laboratory, and the United Launch Alliance will supply the launch vehicle. Northrop Grumman will be the airframe structures designer.

International Space Station, Space Exploration

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December 16, 2010

Soyuz TMA-20 Launch

Posted by dj

Soyuz TMA-20 lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Wednesday, December 15, 2010. The Soyuz spacecraft carries Cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratyev, NASA astronaut Catherine Coleman, and ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli. Soyuz TMA-20 is expected to dock with the International Space Station on Friday, December 17.

Cygnus Mission Animation

Posted by dj

The Orbital COTS demonstration mission is scheduled to take place in the second half of 2011. Orbital Sciences will provide eight pressurized cargo missions beginning in late 2011 or early 2012.

Soyuz TMA-20 Rollout

Posted by dj

Soyuz TMA-20 is scheduled to launch on December 15, 2010. Cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratyev, NASA astronaut Catherine Coleman, and ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli will join the rest of the Expedition 26 crew, cosmonauts Oleg Skripochka and Alexander Kaleri, and NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, already at the Internation Space Station.

Houston, The Cheese Has Landed!

Posted by dj

Credits: NASA/Tony Gray and Kevin O’Connell

… or to be more exact, the cheese re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere and performed a successful splashdown in the Pacific Ocean onboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft on December 8, 2010. The same day, roughly three and a half hours earlier, the Dragon spacecraft was placed into low Earth orbit by a Falcon 9 launch vehicle, which lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Space Launch Complex 40 on COTS Demo Flight 1.

On this flight, several key components of the Dragon spacecraft were tested: the Draco thrusters, which control the spacecraft throughout flight and reentry; the PICA-X heat shield, which is the SpaceX variant of NASA’s phenolic impregnated carbon ablator (PICA) heat shield; avionics; telemetry; and the drogue and main parachutes used for stabilization and landing.

The Dragon spacecraft is capable of fully autonomous rendezvous and docking, can carry over three metric tons in each of the pressurized and unpressurized sections, and it supports five to seven passengers in crew configuration. SpaceX’s primary goal for this demo flight was to collect as much data as possible.

Before the launch, Elon Musk, SpaceX CEO and CTO, made the following statement:

“When Dragon returns, whether on this mission or a future one, it will herald the dawn of an incredibly exciting new era in space travel. This will be the first new American human capable spacecraft to travel to orbit and back since the Space Shuttle took flight three decades ago. The success of the NASA COTS/CRS program shows that it is possible to return to the fast pace of progress that took place during the Apollo era, but using only a tiny fraction of the resources. If COTS/CRS continues to achieve the milestones that many considered impossible, thanks in large part to the skill of the program management team at NASA, it should be recognized as one of the most effective public-private partnerships in history.”