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Space Science

Falcon 1 Ready to Launch 107

Posted by CowboyNeal from the third-time's-a-charm dept.
DarkNemesis618 writes "SpaceX's new rocket, the Falcon 1 is set to launch February 8. Twice now it has been delayed for technological problems and then for structural. It's payload is set to be the FalconSat-2 satellite. What's interesting is that this satellite was built by the cadets at the USAF Academy. The satellite is going to be studying the effects of space plasma. It appears NASA & the shuttle are not the only ways for the government to launch satellites anymore."
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Falcon 1 Ready to Launch More

Falcon 1 Ready to Launch

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  • Could Have been called (Score:5, Funny)

    by captjc ( 453680 ) on Thursday February 02, 2006 @08:26PM (#14631268)
    I guess if it launched 4 years ago, it could have been called the New-Millenium Falcon

    • Re:Could Have been called (Score:5, Informative)

      by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) <akaimbatman AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday February 02, 2006 @10:05PM (#14631812) Homepage Journal
      I'm just glad they're getting it off the ground. The Falcon I is mostly just a technology test. It can't fly payloads of any real interest as it simply doesn't have enough cargo capacity. The Falcon V [wikipedia.org], OTOH, could outright replace the Delta II for a fraction of the price. And if the proposed Falcon 9 [wikipedia.org] ever happens (don't hold your breath), we could be looking at Space Shuttle sized cargos for only $78m! That's about as much as you pay for a Delta II once ground support, insurance, and payload integration costs are figured in. (SpaceX claims their prices include all these costs.)
      • More important about the Falcon 9 is that it is being designed from the ground up as a manned lanuch platform. Sure, the primary market is still going to be for satellite launches, but for less than $200 m you can put a manned spacecraft platform into orbit is going to be a neat thing to see. With multiple passengers as well.

        If you are ambitious enough and have the money burning a hole in your pocket, you can even start designing the spacecraft, but you are right that I would like to see if SpaceX can eve
      • Careful with saying things like "This planned spacecraft could cost only $x!".

        I show myself to be an Old Fart when I admit that I remember NASA claiming spectacularly low costs for the space shuttle, once it gets off the ground. Turns out that they were a bit, well, over-optimistic.
        • Thus my "don't hold your breath" sarcasm. I honestly do think that SpaceX will manage to produce cheaper rockets. The multi-million dollar question is, how much cheaper? Will they end up costing only slightly less than their competitors, or will they hit somewhere near their promised price range? Only time will tell.
        • NASA were not over-optimistic. They were outright lying. Recent evidence reveals that the development of the shuttle wasn't really over budget - it cost about as much as internal NASA estimates said it would. It did cost quite a bit more than what they promised to the congress, though. In other words - they lied so the project wouldn't get cancelled and relied on getting more money down the road.
          • Poppycock. NASA never lied about the cost. What happened was that they constantly had to revise their figures as money was doled out piecemeal. The original estimates were based on a least-time to completion track for a technology that was very different from what finally flew. Nixon told NASA to meet the military's needs as well, and throw in the kitchen sink for good measure. The price went up. Then the funding was shifted around several times to stretch it out over more fiscal years. Since NASA couldn't

            • Poppycock. NASA never lied about the cost. What happened was that they constantly had to revise their figures as money was doled out piecemeal. The original estimates were based on a least-time to completion track for a technology that was very different from what finally flew.

              To put is simply, bullshit. NASA based their cost estimated on a very rosy vision of what could be done, even though almost no development had been done. (NASA is historically very bad at estimating costs.)

              The original estimates

              • Cripes. Are you still spreading this nonsense? Look, go read some history [astronautix.com], will you? A quick rundown:
                • The famous Mathematica report *was* rosy on the savings from a reusable craft, but that was hardly the extent of NASA's reports. NASA's cost figures changed as the design changed. The goal that Nixon wanted was all the needs of NASA and the Military for $8 billion a year or less.
                • While NASA did a study into 20 tonnes of payload or more just before Nixon took office, it actually pushed heavily for 6 tonnes of

                • Cripes. Are you still spreading this nonsense?

                  Nope, I'm continuing to counteract your drooling fanboy fantasies about how the history of NASA played out.

                  Look, go read some history, will you?

                  I have read some real history. My personal library contains about 45 volumes devoted to the history of space and strategic missile development, and I'm a regular participant on a space history newsgroup. I've spent 25 years studying the issues.

    • Millenium Falcon (Score:2, Informative)

      by GNUThomson ( 806789 )
      This rocket (the whole family) was named Falcon after Millenium Falcon. See http://www.spacex.com/media21.php [spacex.com] That's what happens when geeks go into space business. Go, Falcon, go!
  • It is good to see the cost of deploying satellites dropping. Maybe this will free the astronauts to do what they were meant to do, explore space.

    • Re:No more satellite jockeys (Score:4, Insightful)

      by susano_otter ( 123650 ) on Thursday February 02, 2006 @08:44PM (#14631383) Homepage
      I thought astronauts were meant to gather valuable research data about humans living and working in space.

      Space exploration is a job for probots, not people.
      • Space exploration is a job for probots, not people.

        I unlike some people actually dream of someday flying into space. It may be just a dream right now, but so was the idea of man flying 250 years ago (keep in mind balloons.)
      • I thought astronauts were meant to gather valuable research data about humans living and working in space.

        Space exploration is a job for probots, not people.

        The thing is, "space exploration" really refers to two different things: space science and preparing for space settlement. Humans tend to be quite useful for the latter.
    • The space shuttle was only used for satellite launches when disposable rockets lacked the payload capacity. Falcon 1's tiny size changes nothing with regards to the shuttle's use with satellites. It does mean though that Titan and Atlas aren't the only solutions for smaller launches.

      • Re:Not really. (Score:4, Informative)

        by Rei ( 128717 ) on Friday February 03, 2006 @12:10AM (#14632485) Homepage
        And Zenit, and Proton, and Soyuz, and Long March, and Pegasus, and Shavit, and Ariane... (need I keep going?) Even if you're only going to count US launch systems, there are half a dozen *families* of launch vehicles that we can use.

        Seriously, Slashdot: quit adding ignorant taglines to your articles.

  • Huh? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Locke2005 ( 849178 )
    What's interesting is that this satellite was built by the cadets at the USAF Academy. That must be where the term "space cadet" comes from...
    • As anyone could tell you, they're called smurfs, because of the blue flight suits they wear.

      GI Joes don't like Smurfs.

  • Other Alternatives (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cyclone96 ( 129449 ) on Thursday February 02, 2006 @08:36PM (#14631339)
    It appears NASA & the shuttle are not the only ways for the government to launch satellites anymore

    Ever hear of Lockheed Martin, Boeing, or Orbital Sciences? The government hasn't launched any major satellite besides ISS on the Shuttle for a decade. Satellite launches are contracted out.

  • Military (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ZachPruckowski ( 918562 )
    Anyone else worried about militaries getting even more involved in space?

    • Re:Military (Score:3, Insightful)

      by susano_otter ( 123650 )
      Anyone else worried about militaries getting even more involved in space?

      No more worried than I am about the military getting involved in any other area of human endeavor.

      Might as well ask if I'm worried about people getting involved in space.
    • Military in space has been on the drawing board since times creation. Think about the Star Wars program that sank billions of dollars and never did anything? Its only inevitable that militaries will have a space presence.

      Does it worry me? No.. It would make me feel better protected against possible upcomming nuclear threats from agressive nations.
    • How do you think we got to space to begin with. The first astronauts were ALL military test pilots. And the military was involved in an advisroy role to help NASA get off the ground (pun not intended).
      • Nonsense - that pun must be intended! After all there's so many other things you could have said:

        An advisory role to launch NASA
        An advisory role to propel NASA to sucess
        An advisory role to help NASA start with(out) a bang
        etc
    • Nope, they have deep pockets and a sustained space program based off military money is much better than no space program and more bombs being dropped on Iraq. Imagine the world without any affordable launch vehicle... the military provides a market to keep is partially self-sustaining.
    • I, for one, welcome our new satellite launching cadet overlords.
    • No, we are not. The military has ALWAYS been involved in space, in fact, much less now than before. Lets look:

      1960's
      - space race between the US Military and USSR Military. The astronauts and cosmonauts
      were/are military pilots.
      - ALL space missions are military, and much of what is aboard the various satilites and
      manned flights is secret until decades later.
      - We launch DOZENS of spy satillites, and I assume the USSR had just as many.

      Now
      - NASA hasn't actually flew anything in qu
    • Well you know why george bush wants to goto the moon again right?
      It's to set up a military base on the moon, which would be the ideal place to put one. Virtually impossible to attack from earth, and insanely easy to strike precisely at any point on the planet with minimal energy exausted.

    • Re:Military (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Brett Buck ( 811747 )
      >Anyone else worried about militaries getting even more involved in space?

      Wow. Clearly, you don't understand the space business - at all. Military and other related agencies are *the primary users* of space resources, and have been from the beginning. NASA, commercial, and other civilian users are very minor players in aerospace. Only during the mid-60's with Apollo was it even comparable in any terms.

      Point being, military/related users ARE the space business. Cadets tossing togeth

    • Re:Military (Score:3, Insightful)

      by stlhawkeye ( 868951 )
      Anyone else worried about militaries getting even more involved in space?

      No, not really. I'd rather have our military involved than somebody else's.

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday February 02, 2006 @08:58PM (#14631468)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Wrong again. (Score:3, Informative)

    by DerekLyons ( 302214 ) <fairwater@@@gmail...com> on Thursday February 02, 2006 @09:07PM (#14631515) Homepage
    It appears NASA & the shuttle are not the only ways for the government to launch satellites anymore.
    "NASA & the Shuttle" were the only way to launch goverment birds for only a very brief period of time in the 80's. Other than that, NASA is the launch provider for the goverment - with the exception of military birds.
    • I think you are also wrong again.

      The only satellites that NASA has launched recently are the Chandra Space Telescope and the ISS itself.

      The most recent US Government non-NASA, non-Military satellite was NOAA-18, launched May 20, 2005 on a Boeing Delta Rocket.

      If you don't believe me, check the Launch Log [planet4589.org].

      There is no requirement that NASA must launch all US government payloads. The parts of the ISS, unfortunately, were designed to fit exactly in the Shuttle Cargo Bay. There is no law stating that

      • Prior to the Reagan administration, NASA was the only game in town for just about everything that went into space, incuding private payloads as well. Or you had to renouce your American citizenship (if you were American) and try the Russians. Sure, there were private contractors who did the actual construction of the vehicles and even largely ran the lanuch operations, but there was a NASA official at just about every other step along the way.

        As an example of private payloads launched through NASA, the Te [wikipedia.org]
      • The launch log you reference only goes up to May 31 of last year. Don't forget Pluto New Horizons that just launched. NASA truly launches nothing. Contractors do all the launching, USA (United Space Alliance, a Boeing and Lockheed Martin combined effort) preparesthe Shuttle, and their joint efforts with NASA put the Shuttle into orbit. Also NASA places a lot of science satellites on Boeing and Lockheed rockets (Delta and Atlas) and occasionally Pegasus (Orbital Sciences) Likewise, the US military doesn

  • Space Plasma? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by d474 ( 695126 ) on Thursday February 02, 2006 @09:08PM (#14631523)
    "The satellite is going to be studying the effects of space plasma."
    I find this aspect of the article a lot more interesting than who is launching it and from where. WTF is "space plasma"? From the sun or intergalactic space? I've heard of plasma, but I thought it was only near the surface of stars and other bright burning objects, not hanging out or going past earth.

    Secondly, we've had satellites, space stations, and an assortment of space probes out in space for over 40 years, so why are they only sending one up now? Wouldn't the "effects" of this space plasma already have made itself obvious with it's impact on military satellites already in existence? So what are they really testing, hmm?

    Obviously I have a lot of questions, but something seems out of place with this mission. Shouldn't they have done this before they sent up human beings to the moon? I'm obviously totally uninformed or totally paranoid. Maybe both!
    • Never mind - I guess "space plasma" is another word for solar winds colliding with the ionosphere. *removes tinfoil hat*

    • Re:Space Plasma? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Ghost_3k ( 521943 )
      Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] has a clearer description:
      "used to sample plasma in the upper atmosphere. The data will be used to correlate the effect of ionospheric plasma on trans-ionospheric radio communications."

    • I think the most interesting thing about FalconSAT-2 is that it's a cadet project. In other words, a bunch of kids in their late teens or early 20s put this thing together.

      The Air Force Academy's newspaper will probably have some information about it when it launches. They had a short article in Page 4 of their Dec. 2 [csmng.com] issue after one of the delays.

    • Re:Space Plasma? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Plasma comprises about 99% of the volume of the Universe, and locally, about 99% of the volume of the Solar System. Even though the interplanetary (and interstellar) medium is nearly vacuum, it is still technically a very diffuse plasma as it is filled with the charged gases discharged by the sun.

      The point at which the Sun's ejected plasma slows below the speed of sound (in the plasma) is the Termination Shock (the Voyagers reached this point a while back), the point at which the pressure of the Sun's plasm
    • Scientists have been actively studying "space plasma" for almost 50 years, starting with the International Geophysical Year in 1957. It involves the Sun, its corona, the Earth's magnetic field, and the upper parts of the Earth's atmosphere. There are many things that are still not understood. The effects of the solar wind on spacecraft is a substantial field of study by itself. Spacecraft can be damaged or destroyed by static electrical charges and arcing caused by charged solar particles.

    • Re:Space Plasma? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Markus Registrada ( 642224 ) on Thursday February 02, 2006 @11:31PM (#14632272)
      Surely you're joking. Profound effects of space plasma on satellites have been well-known (by engineers) for decades.

      There's practically nothing up there but plasma. The only places in the universe that aren't practically all plasma are planets and bits of space junk, a negligible fraction of the universe's (observable) mass. Maybe you're confused because you think plasma is some sort of exotic substance. Compositionally, the only difference between a gas and a plasma is that some fraction of the atoms in a plasma are ionized. That just means one or more of the electrons that, at lower temperatures, would be bound closely in orbit around the nucleus are instead banging around loose.

      That seems like a small difference, but oh! what a difference. In a familiar gas, the atoms only interact when they collide, so at very low pressures nothing much happens. In a plasma, particularly at very low pressure, the particles interact with immediate neighbors, via the electric force, at distances of centimeters, and with large masses, via magnetic forces, at distances up to light years.

      Plasma dynamics, the description of how masses of plasma behave, is fiendishly complex, largely because the positive particles (nuclei) are all at least 2000 times more massive than the negative particles (electrons). As a result, anything that accelerates a nucleus at X cm/s/s blasts any electrons at more than 2000X cm/s/s the other way. Furthermore, plasmas can be neutral, or biased positive, or biased negative. When a biased plasma moves, it produces a magnetic field, and any magnetic fields it moves in affect the its motion.

      Even an ionization of one in 10 000 particles is enough to make celestial stuff behave by plasma-dynamical rather than ordinary gas laws. Under rather weak electric fields, the ions accelerate enough to ionize and re-ionize the neutral atoms, a process called "entraining". Motion of biased plasma amounts to an electric current, which self-generates a magnetic field that, in turn, concentrates the current (and particles of the conductive medium) into flux tubes, called "Birkeland currents", that span solar systems (e.g. producing the Aurora) and galaxies.

      The equations that describe real plasma dynamics are fiendishly complicated, and the observed behavior exhibits so many fundamental instabilities, that nobody can solve typical problems mathematically. Serious researchers fall back on computer simulations and extrapolation from vacuum-lab observations. Most fall back, instead, on a (usually) distinctly unphysical approximation known as "MHD".

      Typical astronomers and astrophysicists have had a semester of MHD, where they were misled about how little it resembles any phenomenon they will ever observe. As a result, most astronomers are ill-equipped to evaluate such observations. They tend to ignore them, instead, and to discount explanations that depend on awareness of actual plasma-dynamical phenomena. This causes them two problems: they have to explain what they see using only gravitation, stellar-core fusion, and shock waves; and they have to explain why plasma dynamics has no effect on the system. Their colleagues generally give them a pass on the latter. Such common plasma-dynamical phenomena as ultraviolet and x-ray emission have traditionally been easy to ignore.

      Most of the working plasma dynamicists are not involved in astrophysics, and their contribution isn't generally welcome in astrophysical journals. Of course the most vocal of the ones interested in astronomy, and thus most easily found in web searches, are highly-motivated and ... interestingly quirky. Nonetheless, there's a lot to learn even from those of the catastrophism cultists [thunderbolts.info] who are also working physicists.

      • So, could plasma dynamics help explain the velocities of stars at varying distances from galactic centers that has been ascribed to dark matter?
        • ... could plasma dynamics help explain the velocities of stars at varying distances from galactic centers that has been ascribed to dark matter?

          Sort of... the velocities measured at varying distances from galactic centers are not actually, as is commonly implied, velocities of stars, but of hydrogen "gas" (plasma) in the ISM, the interstellar medium. Astronomers assume the stars move the same way as the ISM, which they might if gravitation were the only force acting on the ISM. However, since a galaxy i

    • Re:Space Plasma? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Bad D.N.A. ( 753582 )
      As another reply pointed out there have been many space plasma instruments launched over the last decades. Think of the Voyager spacecraft. Voyager 1 passed the termination shock last year and has a plasma instrument (unfortunately not functional). Voyager 2 which is approaching the termination shock has a fully functional plasma instrument and the results are at worst astounding.

      It would be silly to try to name all of the spacecraft that have flown plasma instruments during the space age as many woul
    • Plasma is just a soup of atoms with the electrons stripped off (see Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] entry.

      Space plasma is plasma which is located in open space (most of the plasma in the universe, I guess).
    • I've heard of plasma, but I thought it was only near the surface of stars and other bright burning objects, not hanging out or going past earth.

      Lately, my university library has been using plasma to display a boring slide show of "events" in the library that everyone ignores. Every time I see one of those, I see a $3000 bulletin board that I could be watching movies on. Interior decorators are evil.
  • SpaceX is attempting to clone Falcon-7!
  • And let the next space race begin. Except this time it's domestic.
  • What's interesting is that this satellite was built by the cadets at the USAF Academy. The satellite is going to be studying the effects of space plasma. It appears NASA & the shuttle are not the only ways for the government to launch satellites anymore.

    cadets :: government as
    feet :: kitchens
  • This gives now meaning to "Hand Luggage".

    "Please safely stow your sattelites in the compartments above your heads"
  • "Secondly, we've had satellites, space stations, and an assortment of space probes out in space for over 40 years, so why are they only sending one up now? Wouldn't the "effects" of this space plasma already have made itself obvious with it's impact on military satellites already in existence? So what are they really testing, hmm?"

    Whatever this space plasma is, the testing is probably to find the less significant effects of it. Just because it's there doesn't mean that we don't know exactly how it works.

    Be
  • Third time is the charm, as they say.

  • Pre-launch comments from SpaceX's Elon Musk (Score:5, Interesting)

    by FleaPlus ( 6935 ) on Friday February 03, 2006 @01:36AM (#14632842) Journal
    I'm a big fan of Elon Musk [wikipedia.org], who started SpaceX with the money he got from selling PayPal to eBay. He's a pretty good example of someone who grew up with dreams about space who's trying to make those dreams a reality. I think his efforts with towards dramatically decreasing the cost of space launch are quite important, and crucial for his (and my) long-term goal of making humanity a multi-planet species.

    This set of notes by Michael Belfiore from their pre-launch press conference [michaelbelfiore.com] for their launch attempt last year is a pretty interesting read and gives great insight into what Musk wants to do with SpaceX. Some excerpts:

    SpaceX's second Gen rocket engine will be the biggest rocket engine in the world, though not the biggest in history. The F1 engine that sent people to the moon is no longer in production, so Musk doesn't count that. ...

    Q: What customers will you put on Falcon 9?
    A: We haven't thought a lot about it because it's speculative, but big customers would be NASA, Bigelow Aerospace, which is launching its first subscale space station module next year, and potentially people who just want to go to orbit and just spend some time on orbit. Also we could do a loop around the moon, which actually wouldn't require a huge rocket. [Space Adventures recently cut a deal with the Russian Space Agency to do just that, so that may be what inspired Musk to say that.] ...

    Q: When will you go to space?
    A: I'm not doing this to go into space myself, per se. I want to help build a space faring civilization. It would have been very easy for me to pay to go to the International Space Station myself. I want to help other people get to space. ...

    Musk: The expansion of life on earth to other places is arguably the most important thing to happen to life on earth, if it happens. Life has the duty to expand. And we're the representatives of life with the ability to do so. ...

    Q: When will you fly cargo missions to the space station?
    A: I hope in the next 3 to 4 years. ...

    Another question from me: Are you developing a manned vehicle right now, or have you thought that far ahead yet?
    A: I can't comment on that right now. ...

    Q: What's next in the entreprenurial space field?
    A: Lots of people doing things--Paul Allen [who funded SpaceShipOne], Jeff Bezos with Blue Origin, John Carmack with Armadillo Aerospace...Musk thinks we're heading toward a Netscape moment, when someone turns a profit, and hopefully it'll be SpaceX, and then investment capital will start to flow in.
  • English is not my mother tongue, so forgive me for asking: shouldn't it be "its payload"..?
    • Actually is should be "its'" IIRC. It's translates to "it is". Take for example Joe, Joe's and Joes'. If I'm not totally screwing up the English language it works like this;

      Joe = Singular
      Joe's = Joe is - as he is doing something: Joe's going home.
      Joes' = The car belongs to Joe, therefore it's Joes' car.

      If I'm wrong either someone will correct me or they could completely ignore this as "off-topic".

      HTH
      • Not quite right. Joe = Singular Joes = Plural Joe's = Singular possesive, i.e. Joe's car, but can also be used for contraction i.e. Joe's happy = Joe is happy. Joes' = Plural possesive, i.e. when you have more that one Joe that own stuff, i.e. Joes' wives, the wives of more than one joe. It's is the contaction of it is i.e. it's raining, in the case of the possesive for it [so it is a pronoun] the apostrophy is lost so it's just its, its car.

  • Never were the only ways to launch (Score:3, Informative)

    by gatkinso ( 15975 ) on Friday February 03, 2006 @09:46AM (#14634221)
    There are a plethora of other launch vehicles out there.

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