Really Rocket Science

Set for tonight at 10:21pm PST via Sea Launch:

Long Beach, Calif., July 14, 2008 – The Sea Launch team arrived at the launch site in the Equatorial Pacific over the weekend and initiated a 72-hour countdown, in preparation for the launch of the EchoStar XI satellite on Tuesday, July 15. Liftoff is planned at 10:21pm PDT, July 15 (5:21 GMT, July 16), at the opening of a two-hour launch window.

Upon arrival at the launch site, at 154 degrees West Longitude, the team ballasted the Odyssey Launch Platform to launch depth. A final series of tests on all systems is now underway. Prior to fueling operations, the platform will be evacuated, with all personnel safely positioned on the ship, about four miles from the platform. One hour after liftoff, a Zenit-3SL vehicle will insert the 5,511 kg (12,150 lb) EchoStar XI satellite into geosynchronous transfer orbit, on its way to a final orbital location of 110 degrees West Longitude.

Built by Space Systems/Loral (SS/L), the powerful 20-kW spacecraft, carries a Ku-band payload that will support DISH Network’s direct broadcast television service for its customers throughout the United States. This spacecraft is designed for a 15-year service life on orbit. This is the 3rd mission Sea Launch is executing for DISH Network and the 8th mission with a spacecraft built by SS/L.

Check out a live still webcam from the platform here and here. If you’re going to stay up late, you can watch live coverage of the launch here. And Sea Launch has extensive coverage of the mission and satellite here.

With DISH Network promising 130 HD channels by the end of 2008, this satellite launch is, like all of them, very important. And this launch couldn’t be mre timely, as DISH just surpassed 100 channels just a few days ago. And this means that DISH may have just surpassed DirecTV.

Conveniently for the American rocket scientists, Arianespace postponed the Ariane 5 ECA launch from Friday, 4 July 2008, to today. The launch window opens at 21:47 GMT and closes at 22:21. More about the payload:

The Ariane 5 ECA will deliver a payload performance of 8,639 kg. – which includes 7,537 kg. for the mission’s ProtoStar I and BADR-6 spacecraft passengers, along with their integration hardware and the SYLDA 5 multiple satellite dispenser system.

ProtoStar I is the first in a fleet of relay platforms that Asian satellite services company ProtoStar will deploy for advanced satellite television services and powerful two-way broadband communications access. It is based on Space Systems/Loral’s 1300 spacecraft bus, and will provide K-band/C-band relay capacity over Asia for the needs of both emerging and existing direct-to-home (DTH) operators, as well as other broadband communication requirements in the region.

Arabsat’s BADR-6 satellite will open up new video broadcasting and telecommunications services for the entire Middle East and North Africa region, along with a large part of sub-Saharan Africa. Built by EADS Astrium, the Ku/C-band relay platform is designed for a lifetime of about 15 years, and will operate from Arabsat’s 26 deg. E geostationary orbital location.

Voir la vidéo ici. Watch the video here, too.

Gasoline prices don’t have much affect on hydrazine, the primary fuel used for spacecraft propulsion. Demand for ethanol has had a remarkable affect on corn prices (up 21%), however, with far-reaching implications on chemical processes that use it during fermentation. But there is new research showing a promising reduction in cost.

Doesn’t have much direct affect on the cost to design, build, launch and operate a communications satellite. But, as with other markets, pricing is based on supply and demand. With the recent change in ownership of International Launch Services, there could be changes afoot. When United Launch Alliance was formed, most of their launch manifest was taken up by the U.S. Air Force, leaving the commercial market scrambling for alternatives.

Good thing Arianespace is moving right along — their next launch is at the end of next week, only 3 weeks after their last (de continuer d’avancer).We blogged about the controversy surrounding the Protostar-1 satellite last month, which naturally turned up again during CommunicAsia last week, via Telecom TV:

Interviewed at the Communicasia 2008 summit in Singapore yesterdaym by our sister publication Commsday, the president of ProtoStar Asia, Dr Eui K. Koh said that while co-ordination issues with the two other birds remain a problem, the company has no plans to delay the launch of its first satellite. 

“We are doing it [co-ordination] diligently. These things take time,” Dr Koh said. “The co-ordination will continue after the launch. As a satellite operator, you have to respect your customers, as well as the customers of other satellite operators.” 

According to Mr. Koh, the company has had several meetings with the owners of the two adjacent satellites and will continue to have negotiate going forward. 

ProtoStar One will be launched onboard an Ariane 5 ECA heavy-lift launcher version from Arianespace. The satellite will feature a C-band foot- print over most of South East Asia, India and the Middle East as well as two Ku-band beams covering India and an area stretching from Singapore northward to the southern border of China. 

In an earlier media report, it was reported that ProtoStar has come under fire from rival operators because it did not co-ordinate with the industry to avoid possible interference on nearby satellites before finalising its launch plans. The Chinese government’s Ministry of Information and Industry has reportedly protested about the launch, as has AsiaSat. 

According to industry sources, the situation is further complicated because ProtoStar has already signed up a customer in India and has a deadline and schedule for the delivery of services.

Well, it looks like we’re in for a show for the 4th of July:

Arianespace has taken delivery of the fourth Ariane 5 in 2008, maintaining its accelerated flight pace during the busiest year of commercial mission activity for this workhorse launch vehicle.

The handover occurred with Ariane 5’s transfer from the Launcher Integration Building at Europe’s Spaceport – where its build-up was performed under responsibility of prime contractor EADS Astrium, to the Final Assembly Building – where Arianespace will oversee integration of the mission’s ProtoStar I and BADR-6 payloads.

In its trademark dual-passenger configuration, the heavy-lift Ariane 5 ECA will carry ProtoStar I in the upper payload position, with BADR-6 riding below it inside the SLYDA 5 dispenser system.  Liftoff is scheduled for an evening launch window on July 4.

ProtoStar I is the lead satellite in a fleet of relay platforms that Asia’s ProtoStar plans to launch for advanced satellite television services and powerful two-way broadband communications access.  Built by Space Systems Loral, the spacecraft was designed to meet the needs of both emerging and existing direct-to-home (DTH) operators in Asia, as well as other broadband communication requirements in the region.

The BADR-6 spacecraft was built jointly by EADS Astrium and Alcatel Alenia Space, and will be used for video broadcasting services over the Middle East and North Africa regions.   To be operated by Saudi Arabia-based Arabsat, BADR-6 carries a mixed payload of 24 C-band and 20 Ku-band transponders, and is designed for a lifetime of about 15 years.  The spacecraft will be located at Arabsat’s 26 deg. E geostationary orbital position.

Watch it live, from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. Launch window:

GMT: From 9:54 p.m. to 10:43 p.m. on June 12, 2008
Local time in Kourou: From 6:54 p.m. to 7:43 p.m. on June 12, 2008
New York: From 5:54 p.m. to 6:43 p.m. on June 12, 2008
Paris: From 11:54 p.m. to 00:43 a.m. on June 12/13, 2008

The update, via Arianespace:

Arianespace’s third mission of 2008 is ready for liftoff tomorrow evening following the roll-out of Ariane 5 to the Spaceport’s ELA-3 launch zone this morning.

Emerging from the Final Assembly Building at 11:00 a.m., the heavy-lift Ariane 5 ECA’s transfer was completed in 1 hr. 15 min.  It rode atop one of two mobile launch tables developed for the workhorse vehicle, and moved along a 2.8-km. section of the dual-rail track that links the Spaceport’s major launch infrastructure elements.

This flight will be another of Ariane 5’s trademark dual-satellite missions, carrying the Skynet 5C and Turksat 3A spacecraft.  Its upper passenger is Skynet 5C, which was installed atop the SYLDA 5 dispenser system, and then encapsulated in Ariane 5’s ogive-shaped payload fairing. 

The mission’s payload “stack” places Turksat 3A in the lower passenger position, with this satellite being released in the final phase of Ariane 5’s 32-minute fight. 

Earlier this year, the USS Erie successfully shot down an errant satellite in a real-world mission.

And, later today, the ship and its sea-based missle defense system will get a chance to prove itself again:

The test, off Kauai, is the latest test of the military’s sea-based missile defenses, called the Aegis ballistic missile defense program.

The military will fire a Scud-like missile, which has a range of a few hundred miles, from a decommissioned amphibious assault ship, the USS Tripoli.

USS Lake Erie, a Pearl Harbor-based Navy cruiser, will fire two interceptor missiles at the target with the intention of shooting it down in its final seconds of flight.

If all goes well, the intercept should occur within the Earth’s atmosphere, or within 100 miles of the Earth’s surface.

The Aegis system accomplished a similar task once before: two years ago, the Lake Erie shot down a missile fired from the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai in its final stage of flight.

In February, the ship successfully shot down a U.S. spy satellite in the Aegis’ system’s first real-world mission.

The satellite had lost power and become uncontrollable, creating worries it would break up and spread debris over several hundred miles if it fell to earth.

The Hawaii-based, Star Bulletin has more details.

The Navy said yesterday that on Tuesday the mission, named Stellar Scorpion, was blessed at the Barking Sands missile facility by "Uncle Tom" Takahashi, who named the Lake Erie’s two interceptor missiles "the crashing sound of the ocean" and "the ear of the earth," respectively.

Being a decommissioned helicopter-carrier, the USS Tripoli (photo above) seems like a pretty odd choice to be involved in this exercise. The "Semper Princeps" (Always First), as they call it, has been around since 1964, and decommissioned (but strangely still very active) since 1995:

She was decommissioned in 1995 and as of 2004, she was on loan to the Army, but remained laid up at Mare Island Naval Shipyard. In December 2006, the ship was towed to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, where it now has a high-tech role as a launch platform with the nation’s developing ballistic missile defense program. Three times the ship was towed some 100 miles off shore and used to launch small ballistic missiles, which are then intercepted by Terminal High Altitude Area Defense Missiles, test-fired from the Pacific Missile Range Facility. The last test in the series was performed October 26, when the ship fired a "scud-like" missile, which was successfully intercepted. The ship will be towed back to the San Francisco Bay Area for the winter. Kaua’i lacks a suitable land-based launch site, and the costs of building one would far exceed the approximately $600,000 per year it costs to use the old warship, so the vessel will return to Pearl Harbor for a second series of tests in late spring 2008.

With the launch of STS-124, a great site for kids from NASA, featuring Buzz Lightyear, is up. And Buzz Lightyear’s in space, too:

Seven astronauts who will fly into orbit aboard space shuttle Discovery will have comfortable seats for the climb into space. An eighth space ranger won’t have a seat at all. In fact, he will be packed tight inside a box and won’t even get to enjoy the ride up.

But it’s nothing veteran spaceman Buzz Lightyear can’t overcome.

The good news is that he’ll have some sports shows to listen to, along with a host of jerseys that have been to the Champs Elysees in Paris for the Tour de France and to the Super Bowl.

More accustomed to soaring among the galaxies on fold-out wings and a backpack rocket, Lightyear will take to space on Discovery’s STS-124 mission stowed inside a locker in Discovery’s crew compartment. The 12-inch-tall action figure is flying as part of a partnership between NASA and Disney Parks to encourage students to pursue studies in science, technology and mathematics, one of NASA’s main educational goals.

Disney’s Youth Educational Series and NASA have developed an online program known as the Space Ranger Education Series. It includes fun educational games for students, as well as materials for educators to download and integrate into their classroom curriculum.

And the interview with Buzz Aldrin is priceless.

That’s the live view from the Odyssey platform’s web cam. The Zenit-3SL rocket will launch Galaxy 18 for Intelsat. Two-hour launch window opens at 09:43 GMT).

Watch the live Webcast here. 

Or downlink the live broadcast yourself.

Yeah, beetle juice. Turns out that the spray of the Bombardier Beetle’s toxic fluid may hold the key to new fuel-injection jet engines. I didn’t expect that.

A beetle’s chemical warfare against marauding ants, birds and frogs has provided the inspiration for a European effort to design more efficient fire extinguishers, reliable pharmaceutical sprays and fuel-injection engines.

The bombardier beetle’s toxic blasts of boiling-hot poison could even provide the impetus for mini rocket boosters to keep a spacecraft on the right trajectory, according to Andy McIntosh, a professor of thermodynamics and combustion theory at University of Leeds in the United Kingdom.

Science Daily explains the biology:

Quantities of hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide gases build up in the beetle’s abdomen but, when necessary for defence, get mixed together in a connected ‘combustion chamber’ to produce toxic benzoquinone. This hot fluid is then fired off at force in the face of enemy predators.

The key to the beetle’s powerful defensive trick is in its combustion chamber’s inlet (or entry) and exit valves. The inlet valve opens to receive the chemicals, which begin to boil as soon as they meet, and closes when a sufficient amount of gas has been received.

As the gases react together, they generate heat and increase the pressure in the closed chamber. When the pressure reaches a critical point, the end of the exit valve is forced open and the hot fluid is ejected as a powerful burst of toxic steam in a process known as “flash evaporation”.

Once the gas is released, the exit valve closes, the inlet valve opens and the chamber fills again, preparing for the next venomous ejection.

Check out pictures of the process here.

The mechanism has been replicated by a research team at the School of Process, Environmental and Materials Engineering at Leeds University. They were able to spray distances of up to four meters and precisely control the size of the droplets.

In the short term, the technology appears to have the most promise for fire extinguishers and drug delivery tools (like inhalers). But more efficient fuel-injection car engines and, even, precise jet engines are possible in the future.

A species of beetle, that squirts its predators with a high-pressure spray of boiling liquid, could provide the key to significant improvements in aircraft engine design.

The bombardier beetle’s unique natural combustion technique is being studied to see if it can be copied for use in the aircraft industry.

Scientists studying the bombardier beetle’s jet-based defence mechanism hope it will help to solve a problem that can occasionally occur at high altitude – re-igniting a gas turbine aircraft engine which has cut out, when the outside air temperature is as low as minus 50 degrees Centigrade!

Due to start early next year, this innovative 3-year project at the University of Leeds is being funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

The little bug has got my respect.

Matching all of the beetle’s natural talents could still be a mean feat. “If we can think of a mechanism, nature has already done it, and better,” Eisner said. He’s found, for example, that the beetle can discharge its toxic bursts more than 20 times in a row before depleting its glands. Not that such repeated blasts are usually necessary. “After firing once, he can walk through a crowd of ants, and they just literally part and let him pass,” he said.

Mrs. Voorhees is dead, and Camp Crystal Lake is shut down, but a camp next to the infamous place is stalked by an unknown assailant. Is it Mrs. Voorhee’s son Jason who didn’t drown in the lake some 30 years before?

No, this post is not about the Friday the 13th / Jason Part 2 horror movie (and April fools day was April, not May 1st). The real story is about the Jason-2 spacecraft and the Ocean Surface Topography Mission to launch on Sunday, June 15th (not Friday, June 13th):

PASADENA, Calif. – A NASA and French Space Agency (CNES) spacecraft designed to continue a long-term survey of Earth’s oceans has arrived at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., for final launch preparations. The new satellite will study ocean circulation and the effect oceans have on weather, climate and how Earth is responding to global climate change.

The Ocean Surface Topography Mission, called OSTM for short, will be flown on the Jason-2 spacecraft, which was transported on April 24 from its manufacturer, Thales Alenia Space, in Cannes, France, to Toulouse, France. It was loaded onto a Boeing 747 aircraft for its trans-Atlantic journey and after refueling in Boston, it arrived April 29 at Vandenberg Air Force Base. Following final tests, it will be integrated onto a United Launch Alliance Delta II launch vehicle in preparation for a planned launch in June.

With the launch of this satellite, the science of precisely measuring and studying the height of the sea surface across Earth’s oceans will come of age. Continuous collection of these measurements began in 1992 with the NASA/CNES Topex/Poseidon mission and continued in 2001 with NASA/CNES’s Jason-1 mission, which is currently providing near-real-time data to a variety of users. The addition of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) as partners on OSTM/Jason-2 begins transitioning the responsibility for collecting these data to weather and climate forecasting agencies, which will use them for short-range and seasonal-to-long-range ocean forecasting.

The Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason-2 is an international and interagency mission developed and operated as a four-party collaboration among NASA; NOAA; the French Space Agency, Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales; and EUMETSAT.

And this may have one of the more practical applications among NASA projects:

The 15-plus-year climate data record that this mission will continue is the only one capable of addressing how ocean circulation is linked to climate change and how global sea level, one of the most important consequences and indicators of global climate change, is changing.

Satellite observations of Earth’s oceans have revolutionized our understanding of global climate by improving ocean models and hurricane forecasts, and identifying and tracking large ocean/atmosphere phenomena such as El Niño and La Niña. The data are used every day in applications as diverse as, for example, routing ships, improving the safety and efficiency of offshore industry operations, managing fisheries and tracking marine mammals.

After this spacecraft launches, Jason fans can start anticipating their next event – the launch of the next Jason flick. When does it launch? You guessed it – Friday, 13 February 2009.

The ISRO had a nice launch this morning, via Press Trust of India:

India today created history, launching ten satellites in one go with its Polar launch vehicle carrying the heaviest payload of 824 kg.

The ten-pack launch of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) saw the 230-tonne Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C9) put into orbit an Indian Mini Satellite and eight foreign nano satellites besides the Cartosat-2A remote sensing satellite.

This is for the first time that ISRO has put ten satellites into orbit in a single launch.

A Russian rocket last year delivered 16 satellites in the outer space but the Russian launch vehicle carried a lesser payload of only around 300 kg.

However, ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair told reporters that Russia had tried to launch 13 satellites in a single launch.

"We have showed the world we can have multiple launches carried out in a precise manner. We have set a record. Only Russia had so far tried to launch 13 satellites in a single launch and I am not sure whether that was successful," he told reporters here.

He said there was some anxious moments due to some unusual weather condition over the Bay of Bengal off Andaman coast. "Only at 11 pm last night we decided to go ahead with the launch." Nair expressed happiness that all the mission objectives were achieved with precision and all systems functioned very well.

During the press announcement, the ISRO revealed they’re planning for a manned mission:

India will be in a position to carry out a manned space mission within seven years from now, said a top official of the Indian space agency in Sriharikota on Monday.

Addressing the media after the successful launch of 10 satellites in one go, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman G Madhavan Nair said: "The government has given us pre-project funding of Rs 950 million (for the manned mission) and we have initiated necessary activities."

Asked about the need for a manned mission when tests could be conducted remotely, he said: "Today the US, Russia and China have a capability to have a manned mission. We cannot be left behind in the space race. Further, man’s presence is absolutely necessary in a spacecraft for conducting some experiments."

The manned mission will be in ISRO’s second and more powerful rocket geo synchronous launch vehicle (GSLV).

"We have to study issues like crew module, emergency escape system, provision of all-round outside view from the spacecraft for the crew. These are complex systems that ISRO has to tackle," said K Radhakrishnan, director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, on the complexities involved.

ISRO will first put out three unmanned rockets to test the systems before sending a rocket with a man.

Here’s the launch video: