Universe Today

October 29, 2009December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

What’s Next for the Ares Rocket?

Launch day. Photo credit: NASA/Sandra Joseph and Kevin O'Connell

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After Wednesday’s picture perfect launch of the Ares I-X test rocket — which revealed no real showstoppers or issues as of yet for the vehicle — the obvious next question is: now what? Much of what comes next for the Ares program, and Constellation in general, hinges on any decisions the Obama administration and Congress make in regards to NASA’s budget and the options put forth by the Augustine Commission. But if the Ares program is given the green light, here’s an overview of the next steps, future test flights and milestones. First on the list? We won’t hear the word “triboelectrification” ever again.

No more trouble with triboelectrification.

At Wednesday’s press briefing following the launch, program managers said they didn’t realize what a big issue the triboelectrification rule would be. Flying through high-level clouds can generate “P-static” (P for precipitation), which can create a corona of static around the rocket that interferes with radio signals sent by or to the rocket. This would create problems when the rocket tries to transmit data down to the ground or if the Range Safety Officer at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station needed to send a signal to terminate (blow up) the rocket in the event of a problem.

“We can coat the vehicle with something to dissipate the charge, or you certify the vehicle to show it is not sensitive to that effect,” said Bob Ess, Ares I-X mission manager. “We’ve done analysis that our vehicle isn’t sensitive, but we didn’t go and get it certified with the Range. This was a bigger implication to us than we expected.”

Constellation program manager Jeff Hanley said had there been a lengthy delay of the test flight, for whatever reason, they likely would have had the time and opportunity to do the certification. But from now on, Hanley said, all rockets will be certified before launch to avoid the “trouble with triboelectrification.”

In-flight anomaly.

Image from NASA TV showing the Ares I-X stage separtion.

The only initial anomaly during the test flight was some unusual dynamics on the dummy second stage after separation. It went into a flat tumble, and appeared as if it might hit the first stage as it turned. The reason for the tumble wasn’t initially known, and will be of interest to the team as they analyze data from over 700 sensors. “We know all the motors fired, but it might be the aerodynamics,” said Ess, “perhaps a higher aerodynamic pressure than what we expected. It was interesting, and interesting is good. It wasn’t dramatically different from what we expected, though”.

As far as the future, Hanley said the flight test program is constantly under review as far as what budget and schedule allows but here’s the current plan:

Spring 2010: Launch Abort System Test.

The Ares’ Orion crew capsule includes a launch abort system, which is scheduled to undergo the first of three tests early next year. The abort system involves three separate motors to move the capsule away from the rocket and/or launchpad. It will have directional control to separate and jettison the entire launch abort system so the capsule can parachute back to Earth.

The test will take place at the White Sands Missile with a “boiler plate capsule,” a mock-up the Orion capsule outfitted with several instruments to measure how the abort motors work. “This is a key part of any human launch system as far as safety is concerned,” Hanley said.

Summer 2010: First Stage Motor Testing

ATK has just started casting the second Ares I first stage motor that will be test fired summer 2010. “We have more first stage recovery parachute testing as well, schedule for April,” Trina Patterson from ATK told Universe Today. She is the Senior Manager Media Relations for ATK Space Systems.

2010: Mobile launcher completed.

The new Ares mobile launcher, as it looked under contruction in Sept. 2009. Credit: NASA

The new mobile launcher, currently under construction, will be the base for the Ares rocket to launch the Orion crew exploration vehicle and the cargo vehicle. “Two tiers are up, and the third tier is ready to go up later this week,” Hanley said. The base will be lighter than space shuttle mobile launcher platforms so the crawler-transporter can pick up the added load of the 345-foot tower and taller rocket. When the structural portion of the new launcher is complete, umbilical lines, access arms, communications equipment and command/control equipment will be installed.

Late 2010: Design review for the Orion capsule.

“At the end of next year, there is a critical design review for the Orion capsule,” said Hanley. “Progress is underway to build components. The first copy of Orion is being welded together at the Michoud Assembly Facility (in New Orleans). We will go through bunch of testing through the next couple of years, getting everything designed. It had a successful PDR (preliminary design review) in August and has the CDR (critical design review) next year. The Orion factory is actually here KSC, it is coming together, and as soon as all the parts come, they can put it together.”

Hanley said the program is paced by the current budget on when they can order parts for both Orion and Ares. “We’re under a continuing resolution, and that puts pressure on a program that want to be ramping up to its peak at this time,” he said. “More money sooner is would be good – that gets the parts purchased and into the supply chain. It takes about 3 years to actually get the parts you need. To build parts, you have to get the design done and know what you want to buy and then get your parts to assemble the rocket.”

A J-2 engine undergoes static firing. Image Credit: NASA

Early 2011: J2X engine initial test.

The Ares I second, or upper, stage is propelled by a J-2X main engine fueled with liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen.

The J-2X is an evolved variation of two historic predecessors: the powerful J-2 engine that propelled the Apollo-era Saturn IB and Saturn V rockets, and the J-2S, a simplified version of the J-2 developed and tested in the early 1970s but never flown.

March 2014: Arex 1Y test flight.

Artist concept of Ares I. Image Credit: NASA

This will be a suborbital flight of the five-segment first stage reusable solid-rocket first with a flight-production upper stage, but containing a dummy J-2X engine. It will also conduct a high altitude test of the launch abort system. Hanley said they have studied putting an actual J-2X engine on that flight to prove that it will start at that altitude, but that is still under review.

“We’d all like to fly sooner; I would have liked to see Orion in completed in 2012 or 13, but the funding didn’t materialize for that, so we adjusted,” Hanley said. “That’s what we have to to do budget cycle to budget cycle. And that’s what we have to continue to do. But we’re making progress on the system, and the flight test schedule, we look for the opportunity to do more flight testing, but that is predicated on the budget.”

October 29, 2009December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Where In The Universe #77

Here’s this week’s image for the WITU Challenge, a spooky Halloween version, to test your visual knowledge of the cosmos. You know what to do: take a look at this image and see if you can determine where in the universe this image is from; give yourself extra points if you can name the spacecraft responsible for the image. An added “bonus round” this week: name the circular feature in the image, too. We’ll provide the image today, but won’t reveal the answer until tomorrow. This gives you a chance to mull over the image and provide your answer/guess in the comment section. Please, no links or extensive explanations of what you think this is — give everyone the chance to guess.

UPDATE: The answer is now posted below.

This is a picture of auroras over Earth, specifically Canada with the large Manicouagan impact crater in the foreground. Clouds and Earth’s surface are illuminated by moonlight. The image was taken from the International Space Station by Mr. Wizard himself, astronaut Don Pettit. Read more about Pettit and his photography and wizardry at Science@NASA

Check back next week for another WITU challenge!

October 29, 2009December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Telescopes Open Up the Jewel Box

A Snapshot of the Jewel Box cluster with the ESO VLT

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Nothing in my jewelry box compares to the Kappa Crucis Cluster, also known as NGC 4755 or simply the “Jewel Box.” This object is just bright enough to be seen with the unaided eye, but a combination of images taken by three exceptional telescopes, the Very Large Telescope, the 2.2-meter telescope at the La Silla observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope, has allowed the stunning Jewel Box star cluster to be seen in a whole new light. Above is the image from ESO’ Very Large Telescope, which zooms in for a close look at the cluster itself. This new image is one of the best ever taken of this cluster from the ground, taken with an exposure time of just 5 seconds.

A Hubble gem: the Jewel Box. Credit: NASA/ESO

The Hubble Space Telescope can capture light of shorter wavelengths than ground-based telescopes can, and this new HST image of the core of the cluster represents the first comprehensive far ultraviolet to near-infrared image of an open galactic cluster. It was created from images taken through seven filters, allowing viewers to see details never seen before. It was taken near the end of the long life of the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2, Hubble’s workhorse camera up until the recent Servicing Mission, when it was removed and brought back to Earth, and replaced with an new and improved version. Several very bright, pale blue supergiant stars, a solitary ruby-red supergiant and a variety of other brilliantly colored stars are visible in the Hubble image, as well as many much fainter ones. The intriguing colors of many of the stars result from their differing intensities at different ultraviolet wavelengths.

Wide Field Image of the Jewel Box. Credit: ESO

A new image taken with the Wide Field Imager (WFI) on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile shows the cluster and its rich surroundings in all their multicolored glory. The large field of view of the WFI shows a vast number of stars. Many are located behind the dusty clouds of the Milky Way and therefore appear red.

Composite image of the Jewel Box. Credit: ESO

Star clusters are among the most fascinating objects in the sky. Open clusters such as NGC 4755 typically contain anything from a few to thousands of stars that are loosely bound together by gravity. Because the stars all formed together from the same cloud of gas and dust their ages and chemical makeup are similar, which makes them ideal laboratories for studying how stars evolve.

Source: ESO

October 29, 2009December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Ares I-X Launch Image Gallery

A bowshock forms around the Arex I-X rocket. Credit: NASA

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There are some great images of Wednesday’s Ares I-X launch. Most notable is this one of the Prandtl–Glauert singularity ~~bow shock~~ that formed around the 327-foot-tall rocket as it went supersonic at about 39 seconds into the flight. Liftoff of the 6-minute flight test from Launch Pad 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida was at 11:30 a.m. EDT Oct. 28. This was the first launch from Kennedy’s pads of a vehicle other than the space shuttle since the Apollo Program’s Saturn rockets were retired. See more great images below.

With more than 12 times the thrust produced by a Boeing 747 jet aircraft and 23 times the power output of the Hoover Dam, the Ares I-X test rocket produces 2.96 million pounds of thrust at liftoff. Interestingly, the Ares I-X booster was put together with parts from shuttle boosters that flew on 30 different shuttle missions ranging from STS-29 in 1989 to STS-106 in 2000. Ares I-X weighed 1.8 million pounds, almost twice that of a full 747 airliner.

The space shuttle and Ares I-X. Credit: NASA/Scott Andrews

KSC is a busy spaceport, with the Ares I-X launching and space shuttle Atlantis poised on Launch Pad 39A for liftoff, targeted for Nov. 16. The Ares 1-X is nearly 143 feet taller than the space shuttle stack.

Another view of the launch. Credit: NASA/ Scott Andrews

The data returned from more than 700 sensors throughout the rocket will be used to refine the design of future launch vehicles and bring NASA one step closer to reaching its exploration goals.

View from inside mission control. Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

NASA Ares I-X mission managers watch from mission control as the Ares I-X rocket launches.

Here’s the full shot from the lead image showing the Prandtl–Glauert singularity, and here’s Wikipedia’s definition:

“The Prandtl–Glauert singularity or P.G. singularity is sometimes referred to as a vapor cone, shock collar, or shock egg.

The point at which a sudden drop in air pressure occurs is generally accepted as the cause of the visible condensation cloud that often surrounds an aircraft traveling at transonic speeds, though there remains some debate. It is an example of a mathematical singularity in aerodynamics.”

NASA's Ares I-X rocket is seen on Launch Pad 39B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Photo Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

This is a gorgeous shot of the Ares I-X on the pad on an evening before launch.

For information on the Ares I-X vehicle and flight test, visit NASA’s website.

October 28, 2009December 24, 2015 by Tammy Plotner

Supernova 2009js… Another One Bites The Dust!

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Far away in the constellation of Aries, in a 14th magnitude barred spiral galaxy designated as NGC 918… a star exploded with enough candlepower to briefly outshine its home. Discovered independently by Lick Observatory Supernova Search (LOSS) and Koichi Itagaki (Japan) on October 11, 2009, this Type II supernova might be hiding in the intergalactic dust, but it isn’t hiding from Joe Brimacombe.

So who is to blame for this poor intergalactic housekeeping condition, eh? Just exactly where did this film of dust come from that dims distant galaxies and cloaks supernova events? Try our own Milky Way. We’ve known since the first Palomar Sky Surveys that we’re looking through clouds and filaments of dust at high galactic latitudes. But it isn’t just our galaxy either… It’s our whole family! Chances are the entire local group is puffing out enough hydrogen to send up a smoke screen – possibly even with higher redshift extragalactic objects. And just who is the smoker of our group?

The Andromeda Galaxy – M31…

“Finally we come to the aspect which could most shake conventional beliefs about the Local Group and the nature of near space. Deep prints of a red sensitive Schmidt plate (Arp and Sulentic 1991) show unmistakable filamentary dust features reaching back along the minor axis direction toward M31.This filament is repeated in the blue photographs and 100 the hundred micron infra red scans. They have to be real. Although no one has cared to take a spectrum there is no hint of gaseous emission.” says Halton Arp.

“The ejection path across the whole Local Group sky from M31 to 3C120 must have carried material either dusty or capable of forming dust from the ejecting M 31. But that means dust and obscuration within the Local group of galaxies – a point which has never before been seriously advanced. But how can one escape the mult-iwavelength evidence? The most provocative object in the M31 minor axis line is NGC 918. The nebulous dust is most concentrated at the position of the galaxy but a region has been cleared on either side of the minor axis of the galaxy. Higher resolution images would give invaluable information on the process whereby ejections come out along the minor axis of galaxies. In addition the nebulosity is of such long extent across the sky and so coincident with the alignment along the M31 minor axis that it must be in the Local Group. Therefore interaction with the dust filament would represent direct evidence for a distance much smaller than NGC 918’s conventional redshift distance.”

“The filamentary features surrounding NGC 918 are well shown in this image. The outer features appear to be dust illuminated by the galaxy. Immediately around the galaxy the dust appears to cleared away. By either outflow of matter or radiation pressure from the galaxy.” explains Arp, “If the galaxy is not interacting with the nebulosity but just shining through a serendipitous hole we still have the remarkable inference that material has been ejected along the minor axis of M31 into the middle of the Local Group of galaxies. The question then arises as to how many other nearby galaxy groups contain intergalactic material and what this would do to our view of purportedly more distant galaxies.”

If dust is to blame for a clouded view here, is it possible that NGC 918 could be just as guilty of ignoring the Swiffer? Darn right it could. According to research done by E. E. Martinez-Garcia (et al), NGC 918 has its share of spiral density waves that present azimuthal color gradients that even an infrared passband won’t fully penetrate. “We believe that this effect may be due to the position of the dust lanes and stars with respect to the observer.” says Garcia, “More research needs to be done to understand the origin of this effect.”

In the meantime, we’ll thank Joe Brimacombe of Northern Galactic for being on watch and capturing this distant supernova within 24 hours of its discovery. Cuz’ another one bites the dust!

October 28, 2009December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

LRO Takes Closer Look at Apollo 17 Landing Site

The Apollo 17 Lunar Module Challenger descent stage comes into focus from the new lower 50-km mapping orbit, image width is 102 meters [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].

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The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter maneuvered into its 50-km mapping orbit on September 15, which enables it to take a closer look at the Moon than any previous orbiter. This also allows for comparing previous images taken by LRO when it was at its higher orbit. Here’s the Apollo 17 landing site: just look at what is all visible, especially in the image below! These images have more than two times better resolution than the previously acquired images.

Region of Taurus-Littrow valley around the Apollo 17 landing site. NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University.

At the time of this recent pass, the Sun was high in the sky (28° incidence angle) helping to bring out subtle differences in surface brightness. The descent stage of the lunar module Challenger is now clearly visible, at 50-cm per pixel (angular resolution) the descent stage deck is eight pixels across (four meters), and the legs are also now distinguishable. The descent stage served as the launch pad for the ascent stage as it blasted off for a rendezvous with the command module America on December 14, 1972.

Also visible is the ALSEP, the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments, which for Apollo 17 included 1) Lunar Seismic Profiling Experiment (geophones), 2) Lunar Atmospheric Composition Experiment (LACE) to measure the composition of the Moon’s extremely tenuous surface bound exosphere, 3) Lunar Ejecta and Meteorites (LEAM) experiment, 4) central station, 5) Heat Flow Experiment, 6) all powered by a Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG). Below is how it looked from the surface, taken by the Apollo astronauts.

View of the ALSEP looking south-southeast. Credit: NASA

Compare these most recent images to one taken previously.

See more images from LRO’s previous looks at the Apollo landing sites

See more at the LROC site.

October 28, 2009April 26, 2016 by Nancy Atkinson

More Observations of GRB 090423, the Most Distant Known Object in the Universe

This image shows the afterglow of GRB 090423 (red source in the centre) and was created from images taken in the z, Y and J filters at Gemini-South and VLT (credit: A. J. Levan).

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This image shows the afterglow of GRB 090423 (red source in the centre) and was created from images taken in the z, Y and J filters at Gemini-South and VLT (credit: A. J. Levan).

On April 23, 2009 the Swift satellite detected a gamma ray burst and as we reported back in April, scientists soon realized that it was more than 13 billion light-years from Earth. GRB 090423 occurred 630 million years after the Big Bang, when the Universe was only four percent of its current age of 13.7 billion years. Now, continued observations of the GRB by astronomers around the world have yielded more information about this dramatic and ancient event: the GRB didn’t come from a monster star, but it produced a fairly sizable explosion.

Several of the world’s largest telescopes turned to the region of the sky within the next minutes and hours after Swift’s announcement of the GRB’s detection, and were able to locate the faint, fading afterglow of the GRB. Detailed analysis revealed that the afterglow was seen only in infrared light and not in the normal optical. This was the clue that the burst came from very great distance.

The Very Large Array radio telescope first looked for the object the day after the discovery, detected the first radio waves from the blast a week later, then recorded changes in the object until it faded from view more than two months later.

Images of the afterglow of GRB 090423 taken (left to right) with the Y, J, H and K filters. The absence of any flux in the Y filter is a strong indication that the GRB is very high redshift (Credit: A. J. Levan & N. R. Tanvir)

Astronomers have thought that the very first stars in the Universe might be very different — brighter, hotter, and more massive — from those that formed later.

“This explosion provides an unprecedented look at an era when the Universe was very young and also was undergoing drastic changes. The primal cosmic darkness was being pierced by the light of the first stars and the first galaxies were beginning to form. The star that exploded in this event was a member of one of these earliest generations of stars,” said Dale Frail of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

Universe Today spoke with Edo Berger with the Gemini Telescope shortly after the GRB was detected, and he said the burst itself was not all that unusual. But even that can convey a lot of information. “That might mean that even these early generations of stars are very similar to stars in the local universe, that when they die they seem to produce similar types of gamma ray bursts, but it might be a little early to speculate.”

“This happened a little more than 13 billion years ago,” said Berger. “We’ve essentially been able to find gamma ray bursts throughout the Universe. The nearest ones are only about 100 million light years away, and this most distant one is 13 billion light years away, so it seems that they populate the entire universe. This most distant one demonstrates for the first time that massive stars exist at those very high red shifts. This is something people have suspected for a long time, but there was no direct observational proof. So that is one of the cool results from this observation.”

The scientists concluded the explosion was more energetic than most GRBs, but was certainly not the most energetic ever detected. The blast was nearly spherical that expanded into a tenuous and relatively uniform gaseous medium surrounding the star.

Antennas of the Very Large Array CREDIT: NRAO/AUI/NSF

“It’s important to study these explosions with many kinds of telescopes. Our research team combined data from the VLA with data from X-ray and infrared telescopes to piece together some of the physical conditions of the blast,” said Derek Fox of Pennsylvania State University. “The result is a unique look into the very early Universe that we couldn’t have gotten any other way,” he added.

Sources: NRAO, University of Leicester

October 28, 2009December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Einstein Still Rules, Says Fermi Telescope Team

In this illustration, one photon (purple) carries a million times the energy of another (yellow). Some theorists predict travel delays for higher-energy photons, which interact more strongly with the proposed frothy nature of space-time. Yet Fermi data on two photons from a gamma-ray burst fail to show this effect. The animation below shows the delay scientists had expected to observe. Credit: NASA/Sonoma State University/Aurore Simonnet

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While the Fermi Space Telescope has mapped the gamma ray sky with unprecedented resolution and sensitivity, it now has been able to take a measurement that has provided rare experimental evidence about the very structure of space and time, unified as space-time. Einstein’s theory of relativity states that all electromagnetic radiation travels through a vacuum at the same speed. Fermi detected two gamma ray photons which varied widely in energy; yet even after traveling 7 billion years, the two different photons arrived almost simultaneously.

On May 10, 2009, Fermi and other satellites detected a so-called short gamma ray burst, designated GRB 090510. Astronomers think this type of explosion happens when neutron stars collide. Ground-based studies show the event took place in a galaxy 7.3 billion light-years away. Of the many gamma ray photons Fermi’s LAT detected from the 2.1-second burst, two possessed energies differing by a million times. Yet after traveling some seven billion years, the pair arrived just nine-tenths of a second apart.

“This measurement eliminates any approach to a new theory of gravity that predicts a strong energy dependent change in the speed of light,” Michelson said. “To one part in 100 million billion, these two photons traveled at the same speed. Einstein still rules.”

“Physicists would like to replace Einstein’s vision of gravity — as expressed in his relativity theories — with something that handles all fundamental forces,” said Peter Michelson, principal investigator of Fermi’s Large Area Telescope, or LAT, at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. “There are many ideas, but few ways to test them.”

Artist concept of Fermi in space. Credit: NASA

Many approaches to new theories of gravity picture space-time as having a shifting, frothy structure at physical scales trillions of times smaller than an electron. Some models predict that the foamy aspect of space-time will cause higher-energy gamma rays to move slightly more slowly than photons at lower energy.

GRB 090510 displayed the fastest observed motions, with ejected matter moving at 99.99995 percent of light speed. The highest energy gamma ray yet seen from a burst — 33.4 billion electron volts or about 13 billion times the energy of visible light — came from September’s GRB 090902B. Last year’s GRB 080916C produced the greatest total energy, equivalent to 9,000 typical supernovae.

More images and videos about the Fermi Space Telescope.

Lead image caption: In this illustration, one photon (purple) carries a million times the energy of another (yellow). Some theorists predict travel delays for higher-energy photons, which interact more strongly with the proposed frothy nature of space-time. Yet Fermi data on two photons from a gamma-ray burst fail to show this effect. The animation below shows the delay scientists had expected to observe. Credit: NASA/Sonoma State University/Aurore Simonnet

Source: NASA

October 28, 2009December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Arex I-X Launches Successfully

After waiting out weather and triboelectrification issues, the Arex I-X rocket thundered and crackled away from the launch pad at 11:30 am EDT with a successful (and beautiful) launch. The vehicle ran through the entire 2-minute test flight with no obvious problems or issues, ending with the stages separating and parachuting down to the Atlantic Ocean. This marks the first time a new vehicle has launched from Kennedy Space Center since the first space shuttle launch in 1981. “The only thing we were waiting for was weather,” said a jubilant test flight director Ed Mango to his team after the flight, “and that means all of you did fricking fantastic!”

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“I can’t tell you how unbelievable that was,” said former astronaut Bob Cabana, who is now the director of Kennedy Space Center. “I got tears in my eyes. That was one of the most beautiful rocket launches I’ves seen. Given that three years ago this program was a blank piece of paper, it shows what we can do with common goal and common vision, I just couldn’t be more pleased.”

Constellation program manager Jeff Hanley said, “How impressive is that? You have all accomplished a great step forward for Constellation.”

Ares I-X during the flight. Credit: NASA TV

Despite ongoing problems with the clouds and possible rain, the launch team worked closely with weather personnel to find a break in the clouds.

At the T+2 minute point in the flight, the upper stage simulator and first stage separated approximately 130,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean. The unpowered simulator splashed down in the ocean, and the first stage was fired for a controlled ocean landing with parachutes so that it could be recovered.

Data collected from over 700 sensors on board the Ares I-X will help with the development of future missions as well as the design and modeling of future vehicles.

More images and video will be posted as they become available.

October 28, 2009December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Will Russia’s Next Rocket be Nuclear?

RD-0410 NTP Engine developed by Russia in the 1960's. Credit - Dietrich Haeseler

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Russia’s space agency chief is proposing to build a new spaceship with a nuclear engine. Reportedly,
Anatoly Perminov told a government meeting Wednesday that the preliminary design could be ready by 2012. It would take about nine more years and 17 billion rubles (about $600 million or 400 million euros) to build the ship. This ambitious proposal is a stark contrast to the current state of the Russian space program.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev urged the Cabinet to consider providing the necessary funding. Russia is currently using 40-year old Soyuz booster rockets and capsules to send crews to the International Space Station.

Source: Yahoo News