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NASA Awards Space Cargo Grant

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Sat Feb 23, 2008 03:30 AM
from the fedex-unavailable-for-comment dept.
Space NASA
pha7boy writes "NASA has made a recent award of 171 million dollars to Orbital Sciences Corp. of Virginia in order to aid the company in developing a feasible space cargo delivery service. 'The US space agency intends to hold an open competition in the years ahead for actual space station cargo-delivery contracts, but Orbital of Dulles, VA, is one of two companies receiving financial help from NASA to develop their proposed systems. The other is Space Exploration Technologies of El Segundo, CA.'"
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Submission: NASA awards space cargo grant.. Space FedEx soon by pha7boy (1242512)
[+] European Space Agency Launches New Orbital Supply Ship 129 comments
erik.martino brings us a story about the European Space Agency's successful launch of a new type of cargo ship to resupply the ISS. The first Automated Transport Vehicle (ATV), named after Jules Verne, is the "very first spacecraft in the world designed to conduct automated docking in full compliance with the very tight safety constraints imposed by human spaceflight operations." Among other things, it carries water, oxygen, and propellant to help boost the ISS to a higher orbit. We recently discussed NASA's need for a new cargo transport system. Quoting: "Beyond Jules Verne, ESA has already contracted industry to produce four more ATVs to be flown through to 2015. With both ESA's ATV and Russia's Progress, the ISS will be able to rely on two independent servicing systems to ensure its operations after the retirement of the US space shuttle in 2010. It incorporates a 45-m3 pressurised module, derived from the Columbus pressure shell, and a Russian-built docking system, similar to those used on Soyuz manned ferries and on the Progress re-supply ship. About three times larger than its Russian counterpart, it can also deliver about three times more cargo."
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  • Amazing.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by stox (131684) on Saturday February 23 2008, @03:33AM (#22525356) Homepage
    what those campaign contributions can do.
    • I assume you're joking, but just in case anyone else doesn't know, the contracting approach NASA is using with the COTS cargo/crew delivery program is actually rather less vulnerable to corruption/politicking than the usual cost-plus contracts (see ATK and the Ares launcher)

      • This is one of many (Score:5, Funny)

        by wasted (94866) on Saturday February 23 2008, @07:45AM (#22526132)
        NASA has several grants for COTS technologies planned in this area. The one discussed in the article is the least specific, or the "General Grant". There is another payload specific version ("Carry Grant"), the supporting technologies version ("Foster Grant"), a southwestern cuisine delivery version ("Flay Grant"), a version to improve color definition in delivery vehicle cameras ("Hue Grant"), and probably many others.

        Okay, I'll stop for now.

        • NASA has several grants for COTS technologies planned in this area. The one discussed in the article is the least specific, or the "General Grant". There is another payload specific version ("Carry Grant"), the supporting technologies version ("Foster Grant"), a southwestern cuisine delivery version ("Flay Grant"), a version to improve color definition in delivery vehicle cameras ("Hue Grant"), and probably many others.

          Okay, I'll stop for now.

          That was very punny, I'll grant you that...

  • Can my dreams of being an astronaut come true? (Score:4, Funny)

    by erroneus (253617) on Saturday February 23 2008, @03:35AM (#22525370) Homepage
    Can I just put in my application at UPS to be a cargo handler? :)
    • I wasn't thinking of UPS, I was thinking of FedEx. In Michael Flynn's future history beginning with the novel Firestar [amazon.com] , FedEx becomes a major investor in the private space industry because of the possibility of delivering something anywhere on Earth in just a couple of hours. Interesting how in real life this company hasn't yet decided to expand up into space.
      • Mostly because the market for sending physical things long distances quite quickly died with the invention of the fax machine, and it's brief zombie form was given the silver bullet by the widespread adoption of the internet.
         
        Or, in short, there is simply no significant market for sending things around the globe in the a couple of hours. (At least not a market that would support the billions of investment required to create the infrastructure.)
    • "Alright, I'm a delivery boy!"
  • I thought the whole idea of an *international* space station was that we didn't have to duplicate technology efforts between the partners? ESA developed the ATV [esa.int] for the express purpose of resupplying the ISS, so what's this duplicate piece of tech doing?

    • Re:What's wrong with ATV? (Score:5, Informative)

      by PeterBrett (780946) on Saturday February 23 2008, @04:09AM (#22525494) Homepage

      I thought the whole idea of an *international* space station was that we didn't have to duplicate technology efforts between the partners? ESA developed the ATV for the express purpose of resupplying the ISS, so what's this duplicate piece of tech doing?

      It's not duplicate of the ATV: AFAIK, it's intended for very urgent deliveries of small amounts critical supplies to ISS, where the ATV is designed for long-term scheduled deliveries of large amounts of day-to-day supplies.

      The two problems are similar, but complementary.

    • Wow, I was glancing around and there appears to be multiple duplications of effort here. The Russians have Progress [wikipedia.org], the EU has the ATV above, and the Japanese have the H-II Transfer Vehicle [wikipedia.org]. These are all vehicles that already dock or are planned to dock with the ISS. My take is that the US needs something similar in order to reduce costs. The COTS program seems to be a rather effective way to do that. It doesn't replace any of the other vehicles, but it reduces dependence on them and that in turn reduces

  • Superguns (Score:5, Interesting)

    by edwardpickman (965122) on Saturday February 23 2008, @03:53AM (#22525446)
    Superguns were the coolest idea I ever heard of for low cost launching systems. The cargo would need to be able to survive a 100G excelloration but that's not a problem with raw materials and even electronics can be hardened for that force. The cost would be a fraction of current rocket technologies and they could launch far more often. It's a brilliant system so I can't believe no one has pushed it since the inventor died.

    http://www.astronautix.com/lvfam/gunnched.htm [astronautix.com]

    • but the word is acceleration.

      And yes. Guns could be great for this.
    • >since the inventor died.

      Murdered, he was murdered. Propably Mossad or CIA.
    • A much better one is in development (to a degree). Basically, a circular rail, to slowly accelerate the load, and then finally release it at high speeds. Then you combine that with a small rocket. Far less G forces on it, and cheap.
    • Sure it's brilliant - but it doesn't actually work all that well. It turns out that orbital mechanics demands a largish second stage to circularize the orbit... And that strengthening that second stage to withstand the stress of the gun launch means you end up with something far more expensive than a conventional rocket. (The same is true of a linear accelerator BTW.)

  • 1960s called they want their space program back (Score:5, Interesting)

    by clarkkent09 (1104833) on Saturday February 23 2008, @04:04AM (#22525480)
    $171 million to build and demonstrate a launch system capable of delivering cargo to the international space station.

    You mean they are getting paid to demonstrate something like the 42 year old Soyuz? And once we have a way of delivering something to the earth's orbit, we can get ready for the big push to fly to the moon over the next 20 years or whatever. If someone in the 1960 predicted this would be the state of the US space program 50 years later, people would laugh at how ridiculously pessimistic that prediction was.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Protonk (599901)
      Soyuz is a great piece of engineering, and so are most of the other russian rocket systems, and the Airiane 5, and the Titan, etc. They aren't what this is for. OSC does novel, small payload, cheap LEO launch vehicles. This is something that NASA is looking for, a low overhead means to get supplies into LEO without sending an eleventy billion ton, 4 stage behemoth up there.

      Oh, and do I have to mention the CONSIDERABLE advantage that comes from not dealing with the russians?

      • Re:1960s called they want their space program back (Score:5, Insightful)

        by moderatorrater (1095745) on Saturday February 23 2008, @04:25AM (#22525550)

        Oh, and do I have to mention the CONSIDERABLE advantage that comes from not relying on the russians?
        There's a (corrected) statement that I can agree with. Cooperating in our respective space programs is one of the most visible signs that the cold war is behind us (at least for now). While it may be a pain to work with them sometimes, I for one am very glad that our countries have reached the point where we do.
        • Take a look at my screen name. Dealing with the russians is a GIGANTIC pain in the ass. Relying on them is a related pain in the ass. Any plan that allows us to deal with the russians less in terms of putting launches up on their hardware is good.

          I'm glad we are at the point where we are. I'm glad that companies like SeaLaunch and ILS are there to broker private deals on russian launch vehicles. That doesn't mean that it is an unvarnished 'good thing' to deal with them.
          • That's a sign that Disney hasn't been completely effective in turning the Russians into Americans by stealing their culture and selling it back to them in the form of animations and theme parks.

            Don't worry, with enough time we'll have people in Moscow going to a theme park where they can visit a fantastic land called "Russia."

    • Re:1960s called they want their space program back (Score:5, Insightful)

      by aix tom (902140) on Saturday February 23 2008, @05:20AM (#22525730)
      Ah, but the 60s were about faster!, higher!, stronger!

      Today it's about cheaper!, cheaper!, cheaper! (no matter what the cost)
    • The point isn't to demonstrate some sort of fancy cutting-edge World of Tomorrow technology. Rather, the point is to make access to space more affordable. Right now exorbitant launch costs are the largest barrier to most in-space activities, and a big part of why many of the space-related predictions of the past never came to fruition. Personally I think the COTS approach is one of the best ideas NASA has ever had -- I only which they had done this decades ago.
  • Anywhere in the world in 45 minutes or it's free.
    • Anywhere in 45 minutes or it's free.
    • It gets cooked in flight too!
    • They need to get earthbound delivery right first. I ordered from them last night -- it took them almost an hour to deliver, and I live less than a mile away.

    • Anywhere in the world in 45 minutes or it's free.

      And if you throw them down from the LEO, they won't cool on their way down. Coming to think of it: you could simply take the prepared raw pizza, throw it down, and let the heat of re-entry cook it. That's some time saved right there.

  • SpaceX (Score:3, Informative)

    by Eukariote (881204) on Saturday February 23 2008, @04:36AM (#22525608)

    One would have expected NASA to opt for SpaceX http://www.spacex.com/ [spacex.com] had they really been serious about engaging private space efforts. SpaceX has made lots of progress http://www.spacex.com/updates.php [spacex.com] and has a range of boosters in the works including ones for heavy payloads http://www.spacex.com/falcon9_heavy.php [spacex.com].

    But then, making a suboptimal choice seems to be in-line with NASA history. It is almost as if NASA is trying is doing its best to go slow and waste as much money in the process as possible.

    • SpaceX has yet to launch something successfully into orbit. Yes, I know a lot of people consider the last launch a partial success because they did to the second stage and test the entire system. But it failed to deliver the payload to orbit. As long as that remains the case, NASA can't use SpaceX. Incidentally, SpaceX has been promised $278 million from 2006 through 2010 by NASA. So NASA is taking the risk on SpaceX. But OSC has proven it can put payload in orbit. And it did so in a manner similar to Space

      • Re:SpaceX (Score:4, Informative)

        by Eukariote (881204) on Saturday February 23 2008, @05:38AM (#22525784)

        OSC has proven that it can put small payloads into LEO using solid fuel boosters. For cargo delivery to the ISS, you need a system that can match orbits rather well. That means advanced avionics and more flexibility in the upper stage. For that kind of capability, SpaceX seems to be rather better positioned as their liquid-fuel engines have restart capability.

        Yes, the last Falcon I launch did not deliver payload to orbit. But the failure mode was fairly innocuous: slosh in the upper-stage fuel tank together with some positive feedback. Throughout the oscillating burn the risky parts of the system (pumps, engines, guidance) performed well enough to indicate that had the engine not run dry a bit too soon because of the propellant being centrifuged to the tank sides, the burn would have been complete and on target.

        The slosh issue looks like an easy fix: baffles in the tank and some changes to the thrust-vectoring software.

        • Re:SpaceX (Score:4, Interesting)

          by khallow (566160) on Saturday February 23 2008, @06:11AM (#22525876)

          OSC has proven that it can put small payloads into LEO using solid fuel boosters. For cargo delivery to the ISS, you need a system that can match orbits rather well. That means advanced avionics and more flexibility in the upper stage. For that kind of capability, SpaceX seems to be rather better positioned as their liquid-fuel engines have restart capability.

          I'd put money on OSC's avionics. And the Minotaur IV and V use the axial thrust vectoring of the Peacekeeper missile [wikipedia.org]. Frankly, if true, that'd make the Minotaur the best rocket on the planet for placing things accurately since the Peacekeeper remains the most precise ICBM ever built. Turning Peacekeepers into space vehicles has been tried before. E'Prime [eprimeaerospace.com] attempted that in the early 90's. They got blocked by US Congress, probably at the behest of competitors.

          Yes, the last Falcon I launch did not deliver payload to orbit. But the failure mode was fairly innocuous: slosh in the upper-stage fuel tank together with some positive feedback. Throughout the oscillating burn the risky parts of the system (pumps, engines, guidance) performed well enough to indicate that had the engine not run dry a bit too soon because of the propellant being centrifuged to the tank sides, the burn would have been complete and on target.

          While that is true, it is also true that SpaceX needs to put something in orbit if it wishes to stay in business.

    • The more I think about it, the more optimistic I am. Orbital Science is a serious competitor. This looks to me like NASA is going to at least support COTS through the end of the Bush administration rather than let it wither.
    • It's a little confusing because they aren't often. Referred to by their full name, but SpaceX is just the abbreviated name for "Space Exploration Technologies," the company mentioned in the summary. They were awarded a NASA COTS contract a couple years ago, and have been steadily meeting NASA's milestones. Their competitor, Rocketplane-Kistler, didn't do such a great job meeting the milestones, which is why those funds were switches to Orbital.

    • Re:SpaceX (Score:4, Informative)

      by Nyeerrmm (940927) on Saturday February 23 2008, @08:51AM (#22526382)
      This is the second part of the COTS contract. The first already went to SpaceX, while originally Rocketplane/Kistler won the second part, but failed to meet agreed upon fundraising milestones and lost the contract. Now they are reawarding that second part to Orbital Sciences, while maintaining SpaceX as the first COTS partner.
  • Just call Planet Express!

  • Unbalanced? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If a large projectile is being fired, and a "spin" isn't put on it (like with rifling) then wont the distribution of mass of the projectile cause it to veer off angle?

    In other words, the cargo inside the projectile would need to be balanced just right, or spun. Check out the rifling wikipedia article.

  • Hmmmm Ok so here are some questions:

    • How much of the total propellant weight of the booster is used to:
      • Overcome inertia from say 0mph and accelerate to say 300mph?
      • Accelerate from 300mph to 1000mph?
      • Accelerate from 1000mph to escape velocity?
    • If we know those weights, how much can we then reduce the weight and cost of the booster?
    • What is the best acceleration rate of a say a 20 car MAGLEV train?
    • How much distance of MAGLEV track would one need to accelerate the space craft to a sufficient rate to redu
  • Ok so suppose we got private space cargo going to the ISS by 2010 and they only plan on keeping the ISS around till 2015? How is this usefukll, unless Deuce Bigelow, Space Gigelow sends up his sweedish inflatible space station.

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