Really Rocket Science

Japan Times reports a Japanese H-IIA rocket carrying two satellites blasted off from the Tanegashima Space Center (see web cam) in Kagoshima Prefecture:

JAXA used an H-IIA rocket Saturday to successfully place a radar satellite in orbit to complete Japan’s spy system for full global coverage.

The rocket also carried an experimental optical satellite.

Both satellites were placed in orbit about 20 minutes after the 1:40 p.m. launch from the Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said.

They began functioning and their solar-battery panels are open, JAXA said.

If the radar satellite continues to perform as planned, Japan’s compliment of four spy satellites will be able to photograph any point on Earth once a day for intelligence-gathering, the agency said.

The government decided to launch spy satellites after North Korea fired a Taepodong-1 ballistic missile in 1998, part of which flew over Japan into the Pacific Ocean. Pyongyang maintains it was for sending a satellite into orbit.

The launch of the radar satellite enhances a multibillion dollar, decade-old plan for Japan to have round-the-clock surveillance of the secretive North and other areas Japan wants to peer in on.

In the spy project, two optical satellites and one radar satellite have already been placed into orbit.

But weaknesses in the satellites’ capabilities have led to criticism that the program is a waste of money and, with better data available on the commercial market, that the government will continue to be dependent on Washington for its core intelligence.

The launch also comes just a month after China demonstrated its ability to shoot satellites out of orbit with ground-based missiles. Japan and other countries, including the United States, have strongly protested Beijing’s antisatellite test.

China has defended the test as peaceful, and said it presents no country with a threat.

JAXA officials say the satellites provide an important means for the country to independently collect intelligence, and say improvements in the satellites’ capabilities are in the works.

The experimental optical satellite launched Saturday features higher-resolution optics that can be used in the future to improve the quality of orbital photographs taken by Japanese satellites.

The two optical satellites already in orbit are reportedly capable of detecting objects about 1 meter in size. The plan is to work toward a satellite capable of detecting objects half that size.

JAXA had originally intended to launch the rocket Feb. 15 but postponed it three times due to thunder and poor weather conditions.

Friends, Earthlings, ETs — lend me your sensory organs!

I send you greetings and good wishes at the beginning of another year. I’ll be celebrating (?) my 90th birthday in December – a few weeks after the Space Age completes its first half century.

When the late and unlamented Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 on 4 October 1957, it took only about five minutes for the world to realise what had happened. And although I had been writing and speaking about space travel for years, the moment is still frozen in my own memory: I was in Barcelona attending the 8th International Astronautical Congress. We had retired to our hotel rooms after a busy day of presentations when the news broke — I was awakened by reporters seeking comments on the Soviet feat. Our theories and speculations had become reality!

Notwithstanding the remarkable accomplishments during the past 50 years, I believe that the Golden Age of space travel is still ahead of us. Before the current decade is out, fee-paying passengers will be experiencing sub-orbital flights aboard privately funded passenger vehicles, built by a new generation of engineer-entrepreneurs with an unstoppable passion for space (I’m hoping I could still make such a journey myself). And over the next 50 years, thousands of people will gain access to the orbital realm – and then, to the Moon and beyond.

During 2006, I followed with interest the emergence of this new breed of ‘Citizen Astronauts’ and private space enterprise. I am very encouraged by the wide-spread acceptance of the Space Elevator, which can make space transport cheap and affordable to ordinary people. This daring engineering concept, which I popularised in The Fountains of Paradise (1978), is now taken very seriously, with space agencies and entrepreneurs investing money and effort in developing prototypes. A dozen of these parties competed for the NASA-sponsored, US$ 150,000 X Prize Cup which took place in October 2006 at the Las Cruces International Airport, New Mexico.

The Arthur Clarke Foundation continues to recognise and cheer-lead men and women who blaze new trails to space. A few days before the X Prize Cup competition, my old friend Walter Cronkite received the Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award. I have known Walter for over half a century, and my commentary with him during the heady days of the Apollo Moon landings now belong to another era. A space ‘pathfinder’ of the Twenty First Century, Bob Bigelow, was presented the Arthur C. Clarke Innovator Award for his work in the development of space habitats. With the successful launch of Bigelow Aerospace’s Genesis 1, Bob is leading the way for private individuals willing to advance space exploration with minimum reliance on government programmes.

Meanwhile, planning and fund raising work continued for the Arthur C. Clarke Center "to Investigate the Reach and Impact of Human
Imagination", to be set up in partnership with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Objective: to identify young people with robust imagination, to help their parents and teachers make the most of that talent, and to accord imagination as much regard as high academic grades in the classroom – anywhere in the world.  The Board members of the Clarke Foundation, led by its indefatigable Chairman Tedson Meyers, have taken on the challenge of raising US$ 70 million for this project. I’m hopeful that the billion dollar communications satellite industry I founded 60 years ago with my Wireless World  paper (October 1945), for which I received the astronomical sum of £15, will be partners in this endeavour.

I’ve only been able to make a few encouraging noises from the sidelines for these and other worthy projects as I’m now very limited in time and energy owing to Post Polio. But I’m happy to report that my health remains stable, and I’m in no discomfort or pain. Being completely wheel-chaired helps to concentrate on my reading and writing – which I can once again engage in, with the second cataract operation restoring my eyesight.

During the year, I wrote a number of short articles, book reviews and commentaries for a variety of print and online outlets. I also did a few carefully chosen media interviews, and filmed several video greetings to important scientific or literary gatherings in different parts of the world.

I was particularly glad to find a co-author to complete my last novel, The Last Theorem, which remained half-written for a couple of years. I had mapped out the entire story, but then found I didn’t have the energy to work on the balance text. Accomplished American writer Frederik Pohl has now taken up the challenge. Meanwhile, co-author Stephen Baxter has completed First-born, the third novel in our collaborative Time Odyssey series, to be published in 2007.

Members of my adopted family — Hector, Valerie, Cherene, Tamara and Melinda Ekanayake — are keeping well. Hector has been looking after me since 1956, and with his wife Valerie, has made a home for me at 25, Barnes Place, Colombo. Hector continued to rebuild the diving operation that was wiped out by the Indian Ocean Tsunami of December 2004. Sri Lanka’s tourist sector, still recovering from the mega-disaster, weathered a further crisis as the long-drawn civil conflict ignited again after more than three years of relative peace and quiet. I remain hopeful that a lasting solution would be worked out by the various national and international players engaged in the peace process.

I’m still missing and mourning my beloved Chihuahua Pepsi, who left us more than a year ago. I’ve just heard that dogs aren’t allowed in Heaven, so I’m not going there.

Brother Fred, Chris Howse, Angie Edwards and Navam Tambayah look after my affairs in England. My agents David Higham Associates and Scovil, Chichak & Galen Literary Agency deal with rapacious editors and media executives. They both follow my general directive: No reasonable offer will even be considered.

I am well supported by my staff and take this opportunity to thank them all:
Executive Officer: Nalaka Gunawardene
Personal Assistant: Rohan De Silva
Secretary: Dottie Weerasooriya
Valets: Titus, Saman, Chandra, Sunil
Drivers: Lalith & Anthony
Domestic Staff: Kesavan, Jayasiri & Mallika
Gardener: Jagath

Let me end with an extract from my tribute to Star Trek on its 40th anniversary – this message is more relevant today than when the series first aired in the heady days of Apollo: “Appearing at such a time in human history, Star Trek popularised much more than the vision of a space-faring civilisation. In episode after episode, it promoted the then unpopular ideals of tolerance for differing cultures and respect for life in all forms – without preaching, and always with a saving sense of humour.”

Colombo, Sri Lanka
28 January 2007

From USA Today, a great piece on space tourism being used as prizes:

There are no free rides to outer space

Brian Emmett’s childhood fantasy came true when he won a free trip to outer space. He was crushed when he had to cancel his reservation because of Uncle Sam.

Emmett won his ticket to the heavens in a 2005 sweepstakes by Oracle Corp., in which he answered a series of online questions on Java computer code. He became an instant celebrity, giving media interviews and appearing on stage at Oracle’s trade show.

For the self-described space buff who has attended space camp and watched shuttle launches from Kennedy Space Center, it seemed like a chance to become an astronaut on a dime.

Then reality struck. After some number-crunching, Emmett realized he would have to report the $138,000 galactic joy ride as income and owe $25,000 in taxes. Unwilling to sink into debt, the 31-year-old software consultant from the San Francisco Bay area gave up his seat.

"There was definitely a period of mourning. I was totally crestfallen," Emmett said. "Everything you had hoped for as a kid sort of evaporates in front of you."

With commercial spaceships still under development, it’s uncertain when the infant space tourism industry will actually get off the ground. Still, ultra-rich thrill-seekers are already plunking down big — though refundable — deposits to experience a few minutes of weightlessness 60 miles above Earth.

And in recent years, space tourism companies have teamed with major corporations to stage contests with future suborbital spaceflights as the grand prize.

The partnerships have interstellar hype — but as Emmett found out, they can get mired in that most earthbound hassle: taxes.

"From a consumer perspective … I’d be wary," said Kathleen Allen, director of the University of Southern California’s Marshall Center for Technology Commercialization. "I’d check to see the fine print."

Since the Internal Revenue Service requires winnings from lottery drawings, TV game shows and other contests to be reported as taxable income, tax experts contend there’s no such thing as a free spaceflight. Some contest sponsors provide a check to cover taxes, but that income is also taxable.

"I don’t see how an average person can swing that kind of tax payment. It’s a big, big bite," said tax attorney Donna LeValley, contributing editor for J.K. Lasser’s annual tax guide.

To reduce the financial burden, winners can argue that they don’t owe any taxes until their flight lifts off. Another option is working out an installment plan to pay taxes over time, said Greg Jenner of the American Bar Association.

The IRS declined to comment, saying it does not talk about individual matters.

Despite Emmett’s cancellation, Oracle said its contest was a success. The software giant is in the process of naming his replacement and still has two other winners on board from Asia and Europe.

That spaceflight will be provided by Space Adventures Ltd., the same company that brokers deals for trips on Russian rockets to the orbiting international space station for a reported $20 million per customer.

Eric Anderson, the company’s chief executive, insists that contests are the best way for most people to get into space. He said Space Adventures has given away about 20 reservations through competitions, and the majority of winners are satisfied.

Space contest rules vary widely but generally require winners to undergo astronaut training before the trip and sign a waiver freeing the sponsors from any liability if there’s an accident.

Microsoft Corp. is the latest company to dangle a free space ride. This month it launched an elaborate online puzzle game as part of its promotional campaign for its new Vista PC operating system. The grand prize winner — to be named this week — gets a seat with Rocketplane Ltd., which is building a souped-up Lear jet it hopes will ferry passengers to space in late 2009.

The $50,000 check that comes with the prize, which is valued at $253,500, should cover the winner’s taxes, said Brian Marr, group marketing manager for Vista.

It’s common for contest winners to have to play a waiting game.

Virgin Galactic customer Doug Ramsburg won his ticket in a Volvo sweepstakes during the 2005 Super Bowl. His family and friends often hound him about when he’ll reach the cosmos. After all, Virgin Galactic doesn’t have any spacecraft yet.

Even without an itinerary, Ramsburg says he’s not worried. He said he’s confident in the man tasked to build Virgin’s commercial spacecraft — aerospace designer Burt Rutan, whose SpaceShipOne became the first privately manned rocket to reach space in 2004.

Ramsburg considers the prize a "blessing" but declined to talk about the financial arrangements, except to say the $100,000 check that came with the prize should make him the first free Virgin Galactic passenger.

"You don’t have to be a superhero in order to go to space," said Ramsburg, 43, who works in the admissions office of the University of Colorado at Denver.

Back on Earth, Emmett said he has no regrets about turning down his trip and doesn’t blame anyone.

"I was, however briefly, a potential astronaut," he wrote last fall in a blog entry titled "Clipped Wings."

The NSS-8 satellite is set to launch from a converted oil platform anchored on the equator in the Pacific Ocean, approximately 1,500 miles south of Hawaii. The launch video will be streamed live via the Sea Launch Web site.

The satellite itself is impressive:

The high-power, state-of-the-art NSS-8 satellite is a Boeing 702 spacecraft that carries 56 C-band and 36 Ku-band transponders designed to replace the existing NSS-703 satellite as the centerpiece of NEW SKIES’ strategic Indian Ocean contribution to SES’ global communications network. The successful launch of NSS-8 will subsequently also allow for NSS-703 to be re-deployed to the Atlantic Ocean region at 340° East, further boosting the global coverage and connectivity provided by the 40 plus strong fleet of satellites in the SES Group. NSS-8 will support a wide range of functions, including corporate communications, government and military operations, Broadband Internet services and broadcast applications.

The satellite will provide coverage to two-thirds of the world’s population, serving countries in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and Asia. Designed for a 15-year lifespan, NSS-8 will have 18 kilowatts of total power at the beginning of life on orbit.

The NSS-8 satellite is set to launch from a converted oil platform anchored on the equator in the Pacific Ocean, approximately 1,500 miles south of Hawaii. The launch video will be streamed live via the Sea Launch Web site. Here’s an image from the launch platform’s live webcam (remember to refresh often for changes):

The satellite itself is impressive:

The high-power, state-of-the-art NSS-8 satellite is a Boeing 702 spacecraft that carries 56 C-band and 36 Ku-band transponders designed to replace the existing NSS-703 satellite as the centerpiece of NEW SKIES’ strategic Indian Ocean contribution to SES’ global communications network. The successful launch of NSS-8 will subsequently also allow for NSS-703 to be re-deployed to the Atlantic Ocean region at 340° East, further boosting the global coverage and connectivity provided by the 40 plus strong fleet of satellites in the SES Group. NSS-8 will support a wide range of functions, including corporate communications, government and military operations, Broadband Internet services and broadcast applications.

The satellite will provide coverage to two-thirds of the world’s population, serving countries in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and Asia. Designed for a 15-year lifespan, NSS-8 will have 18 kilowatts of total power at the beginning of life on orbit.

The Hindustan Times reports…

India has for the first time successfully brought a space capsule back to earth. Until now, only the United States, Russia and China had similar expertise in re entry technology. The success also takes the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) a step closer to its goal of putting an Indian in space some years from now.

On Monday, ISRO officials said the 550-kg recoverable space capsule — called Space capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE-1) — that was launched on January 10 had returned to the earth’s atmosphere, splashing down in the Bay of Bengal, about 140 km east of the Sriharikota coast at 9.46 am, exactly as planned.

It demonstrated ISRO’s ability to build a capsule that could endure temperatures of more than 1,200 degrees Celsius while re-entering the earth’s atmosphere after a space expedition.

Retrieved by a Coast Guard team, SRE-1 will be taken to the Sriharikota Range by road on Tuesday for ISRO scientists to take a close look at the heat-resistant tiles that protected it during the re-entry phase.

ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair said, “SRE-I is an important beginning for providing a low-cost platform for micro-gravity experiments in space science and technology and the return of specimen from space.” Dr SC Chakravarthy, programme director (space science), ISRO, who monitored the touchdown from ISTRAC (ISRO’s Telemetry, Tracking & Command Network) station on the outskirts of Bangalore, said, “We are very happy with the outcome of this experiment because it will lead to new things — certainly to a manned mission into space.”

Every been curious about what comes after rockets? While the explosive lift-offs are awesome and have been helping NASA (and pretty much everyone else) do heavy lifting at incredible speeds throughout all of the space race, rockets require a great deal of hevy fuel (and Oxygen) to get up into space and don’t allow the manuverability we expect in a next generation space craft. For these reasons (and a bunch of others typically tied to safety), NASA has tied its plans for future superfast, ultrasonic transportation Scramjet (Super Combustion Ramjet) technology.

Current scramjet test vehicals reach over 7,000 mph (10x the speed of sound), going from 0 to 165 mph in .75 seconds. Check out the following video for even more information (note the selection of background music here):

The problem? While Scramjets may be able to overcome manuverability obstacles, it doesn’t seem likely that they’re going to be able to do it without rockets. In order to reach their ultrasonic speeds, most scramjets that have been tested, plagued with supersonic minimum speeds, need to be rocketed to 2.5-5 times the speed of sound by rockets in order to start their engines and reach their top speeds. Unless, of course, those electromagnetic catapults can start getting scramjets to their required speeds.

Read the Reuters report via the Irish Examiner earlier today and was relieved to see the target satellite they smacked into was only 500 miles away, prompting the U.S. to object:

"The U.S. believes China’s development and testing of such weapons is inconsistent with the spirit of cooperation that both countries aspire to in the civil space area," National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said. "We and other countries have expressed our concern regarding this action to the Chinese."

Using a ground-based medium-range ballistic missile, the test knocked out an aging Chinese weather satellite about 537 miles above the earth on January 11 through "kinetic impact," or by slamming into it, Johndroe said.

For those of us who watch TV, we need not be alarmed. Communications satellites that provide video services, either direct-to-home or to cable systems, operate in the geosynchronous or Clarke orbit. That’s 22,236 miles up. Can’t smack that down.

That snowy rocket you see is a Russian Soyuz rocket at Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome, which is set to launch tonight at 9:12 p.m. EST (0212 Jan. 18 GMT) and which sheds a light on the chores that go into keeping the International Space Station running.

Space.com explains what goes into a space station shopping list:

Riding aboard the Progress 24 space freighter will be more than 1,720 pounds of propellant, 110 pounds of oxygen and about 3,285 pounds of dry cargo – which includes new equipment, experiments and spare parts. The fresh supplies are expected to arrive at the space station’s Russian-built Pirs docking compartment Friday at 10:03 p.m. EST (0303 Jan. 20 GMT) .

 To prepare for Progress 24’s ISS arrival, the station’s Expedition 14 crew and their flight controllers on Earth will cast off an older cargo ship – Progress 22 – from its berth at the Pirs compartment at about 6:29 p.m. EST today (2329 GMT).

As for the trash — well, it looks like someone took it out a bit early:

Fragments of a Russian cargo ship carrying garbage and used equipment from the international space station (ISS) have crashed into the southern Pacific Ocean ahead of the arrival of a new cargo ship, a Russian official said.

Engineers undocked the Progress M-57 at around 2.29am (1029 AEDT) and sent it hurtling toward Earth, said Vera Medvedkova, a spokesman for the Federal Space Agency.

Much of the ship burnt up as it re-entered the atmosphere, and fragments crashed in a vast area of the Pacific, some 4,200 kilometres east of New Zealand, just under four hours later, she said.

Funny. It seems like it takes more than four hours just to get my trash out to the curb.

Is 2007 going to be the year of the moon?

In one respect, yes. A slate of robotic lunar explorers are set to head for our lone satellite in 2007 — though not from the United States.

Space.com reports: 

This year, China is set to launch its first lunar orbiter, followed by the summer sendoff of a mega-powerful mooncraft from Japan.

Both nations are kick-starting a barrage of robotic survey ships that shoot for the Moon, including lunar missions by India and the United States in 2008.

As global interest in the Moon grows, so too does the call for multi-nation collaboration in robotic and future human exploration of Earth’s neighboring natural satellite.

China is wrapping up fabrication next month of Chang’e I to be sent spaceward atop a Long March 3A rocket.

The lunar orbiter design—based on their Dongfanghong III satellite platform—is reportedly headed for an April departure from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan Province.

According to Chinese news services, once Chang’e I circles Earth for nearly 8 hours, the spacecraft will then depart on its journey, taking 114 hours to reach Moon orbit.

While precise specifications about onboard science gear is not widely known, Chinese space planners have explained in broader terms the goals of the mission. The craft will yield 3D images of the Moon’s surface, probe the distribution of 14 “usable elements” on the Moon, gauge the temperature of the Moon, estimate the depth of the lunar crust, as well as study the space environment between the Earth and the Moon. The lunar orbiter is designed to carry out a one-year mission.