Spacesuited Astronauts Climb Aboard Boeing CST-100 Commercial Crew Capsule for Key Tests

NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik prepares to enter the CST-100 spacecraft, which was built inside The Boeing Company's Houston Product Support Center. Credit: NASA/Robert Markowitz

A pair of NASA astronauts donned their spacesuits for key fit check evaluations inside a test version of the Boeing Company’s CST-100 commercial ‘space taxi’ which was unveiled this week for the world’s first glimpse of the cabin’s interior.

Boeing is among a trio of American aerospace firms, including SpaceX and Sierra Nevada Corp, seeking to restore America’s capability to fly humans to Earth orbit and the space station using seed money from NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP).

Astronauts Serena Aunon and Randy Bresnik conducted a day long series of technical evaluations inside a fully outfitted, full scale mock up of the CST-100, while wearing NASA’s iconic orange launch-and-entry flight suits from the space shuttle era.

During the tests, Boeing technicians monitored the astronauts ergonomic ability to work in the seats and move around during hands on use of the capsules equipment, display consoles and storage compartments.

The purpose of the testing at Boeing’s Houston Product Support Center is to see what works well and what needs modifications before fixing the final capsule design for construction.

“It’s an upgrade,” said astronaut Serena Aunon at the evaluation. “It is an American vehicle, of course it is an upgrade.”

This is an interior view of The Boeing Company's CST-100 spacecraft, which features LED lighting and tablet technology.  Image Credit: NASA/Robert Markowitz
This is an interior view of The Boeing Company’s CST-100 spacecraft, which features LED lighting and tablet technology.
Image Credit: NASA/Robert Markowitz

Former NASA Astronaut Chris Ferguson, the commander of the final shuttle flight (STS-135) by Atlantis, is leading Boeing’s test effort as the director of Boeing’s Crew and Mission Operations.

“These are our customers. They’re the ones who will take our spacecraft into flight, and if we’re not building it the way they want it we’re doing something wrong,” said Ferguson.

“We’ll probably make one more go-around and make sure that everything is just the way they like it.”

The CST-100 is designed to carry a crew of up to 7 astronauts, or a mix of cargo and crew, on missions to low-Earth orbit (LEO) and the International Space Station (ISS) around the middle of this decade.

Although it resembles Boeing’s Apollo-era capsules from the outside, the interior employs state of the art modern technology including sky blue LED lighting and tablet technology.

Check out this video showing the astronauts and engineers during the CST-100 testing

Nevertheless Boeing’s design goal is to keep the flight technology as simple as possible.

“What you’re not going to find is 1,100 or 1,600 switches,” said Ferguson. “When these guys go up in this, they’re primary mission is not to fly this spacecraft, they’re primary mission is to go to the space station for six months. So we don’t want to burden them with an inordinate amount of training to fly this vehicle. We want it to be intuitive.”

The CST-100 crew transporter will fly to orbit atop the venerable Atlas V rocket built by United Launch Alliance (ULA) from Launch Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

The CST-100 crew capsule awaits liftoff aboard an Atlas V launch vehicle at Cape Canaveral in this artist’s concept. Credit: Boeing
The CST-100 crew capsule awaits liftoff aboard an Atlas V launch vehicle at Cape Canaveral in this artist’s concept. Credit: Boeing

Boeing is aiming for an initial three day manned orbital test flight of the CST-100 during 2016, says John Mulholland, Boeing vice president and program manger for Commercial Programs.

The 1st docking mission to the ISS would follow in 2017 – depending on the very uncertain funding that Congress approves for NASA.

The Atlas V was also chosen to launch one of Boeing’s commercial crew competitors, namely the Dream Chaser mini shuttle built by Sierra Nevada Corp.

Boeing CST-100 capsule mock-up, interior view. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
Boeing CST-100 capsule early mock-up, interior view. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com

NASA’s CCP program is fostering the development of the CST-100 as well as the SpaceX Dragon and Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser to replace America’s capability to launch humans to space that was lost following the retirement of NASA’s space shuttle orbiters two years ago in July 2011.

Since 2011, every American astronaut has been 100% dependent on the Russians and their Soyuz capsule to hitch a ride to the ISS.

“We pay one of our [ISS] partners, the Russians, $71 million a seat to fly,” says Ed Mango, CCP’s program manager. “What we want to do is give that to an American company to fly our crews into space.”

Simultaneously NASA and its industry partners are designing and building the Orion crew capsule and SLS heavy lift booster to send humans to the Moon and deep space destinations including Near Earth Asteroids and Mars.

Ken Kremer

Interior view of Boeing CST-100 commercial crew capsule. Credit: NASA
Interior view of Boeing CST-100 commercial crew capsule. Credit: NASA

What’s Going To Happen With the NASA Budget?

 

As NASA’s fiscal 2014 budget proceeds through Congress, it’s still quite the ping-pong ball match to try to figure out where their budget numbers will fall. How do you think the budget will end up? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Also, be sure to watch the latest markup on the NASA bill occurring today when the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology meets — the webcast is here. It starts at 11:15 a.m. EDT/3:15 p.m. GMT.

Obama administration initial request – $17.7 billion: Unveiled in early April, the $17.7 billion “tough choices” NASA budget was for $50 million less than requested in 2013; the actual FY 2013 budget was $16.6 billion due to cuts and sequestration. While reducing funding opportunities for planetary science, the FY 2014 budget provided funding for a NASA mission to capture an asteroid. The asteroid mission proposal, in later weeks, did not impress at least one subcommittee.

House Appropriations Committee – $16.6 billion. Last week, the committee’s proposal chopped off $1.1 billion from the initial request. The committee passed the Commerce, Justice, and Science appropriations bill with few changes this Wednesday. The $3.6 billion allotted for exploration is $202 million below FY 2013, which critics say will push back NASA’s ability to fund its commercial crew program to bring astronauts into space from American soil. The proposal, however, shields the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle and Space Launch System from schedule changes due to budgetary levels. NASA science programs in this budget were at $4.8 billion, $266 million below FY 2013. “This includes funding above the President’s request for planetary science to ensure the continuation of critical research and development programs,” the appropriations committee stated. This document contains a detailed breakdown of its budget for NASA.

Artist's conception of NASA's Space Launch System. Credit: NASA
It appears that NASA’s proposed Space Launch System is getting budgetary support from at least some House members. Credit: NASA

– U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies – $18 billion: On Tuesday, the Senate subcommittee suggested an allocation to NASA of $18 billion. A press release says the budget level will give “better balance for all of NASA’s important missions, including $373 million more for science that helps us to better understand Earth and own solar system while peering at new worlds way beyond the stars. The Senate also provides $597 million more to let humans explore beyond low earth orbit while safely sending our astronauts to the space station on U.S. made vehicles.”

NASA’s reaction: David Weaver, NASA’s associate administrator for communications, said the agency is “deeply concerned” about the House funding levels. “While we appreciate the support of the Committee, we are deeply concerned that the bill under consideration would set our funding level significantly below the President’s request,” he wrote in a blog post, adding, “We are especially concerned the bill cuts funding for space technology – the “seed corn” that allows the nation to conduct ever more capable and affordable space missions – and the innovative and cost-effective commercial crew program, which will break our sole dependence on foreign partners to get to the Space Station. The bill will jeopardize the success of the commercial crew program and ensure that we continue to outsource jobs to Russia.”

Reaction of Commercial Spaceflight Federation: Much the same as NASA. “Less funding for the commercial

Dragon in orbit during the CRS-2 mission. Credit: NASA/CSA/Chris Hadfield
NASA fears there will not be enough money to fund commercial providers such as SpaceX  (Dragon cargo spacecraft pictured) who aim to bring astronauts to the space station themselves. Credit: NASA/CSA/Chris Hadfield

crew program simply equates to prolonged dependence on foreign launch providers,” stated federation president Michael Lopez-Alegria, who is a former NASA astronaut. “As a nation, we should be doing our utmost to regain the capability of putting astronauts in orbit on American vehicles as soon as possible.”

What’s next: The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology markup of the NASA bill takes place starting at 11:15 a.m. EDT/3:15 p.m. GMT (again, watch the webcast at this link.) We’ll keep you posted on what they say. The Planetary Society’s Casey Dreier, who said $16.6 billion is the smallest NASA budget in terms of purchasing power since 1986, points out that the House doesn’t have the final say: “The Senate still needs to weigh in, so this House budget is not the last word in the matter, but it’s deeply troubling. You can’t turn NASA on and off like a spigot. Cuts now will echo through the coming decades.”

New SpaceX Rocket Booster Completes ‘Full Mission Duration’ Firing Test

The Falcon 9-R during a 10-second test in June 2013. Credit: Elon Musk on Twitter

A new booster forming the heart of a next-generation SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket underwent a three-minute test this week ahead of another of its type launching the Canadian Cassiope satellite this fall.

“Just completed full mission duration firing of next gen Falcon 9 booster,” wrote CEO Elon Musk on Twitter on Monday. “V[ery] proud of the boost stage team for overcoming many tough issues.”

SpaceX declined to elaborate on what the issues were in a statement to Space News, saying that the testing program is preliminary. (The company rarely comments on what goes on during tests.)

The firm has been steadily ramping up testing experience on the booster, as well as the Merlin-1D engine that powers it. In early June, it ran a brief 10-second test, then increased that to a 112-second test a week later. Check out the foom factor from that test below.

We’re still waiting for SpaceX to post pictures or video from the latest full mission test, but we’ll put them up if they become available.

SpaceX uses the same engines in the Grasshopper, a 10-story Vertical Takeoff Vertical Landing (VTVL) vehicle.

One of Grasshopper’s goals is to help SpaceX figure out how to bring a rocket back to Earth, ready to lift off again. A single Merlin 1D engine is enough to power Grasshopper. The new Falcon 9-R (R means “reusable”) requires nine.

Falcon 9-R is slated to loft Cassiope, a Canadian satellite that will observe space weather, in September.

Air-Breathing Rocket Engine Gets Funding Infusion

An artist's conception of Reaction Engines' Skylon spacecraft. Credit: Reaction Engines

Air-breathing rocket engine. Need we say more?

The technology, which sounds straight out of a science-fiction movie, has enough reality to it for the United Kingdom government to offer $90.62 million (£60 million), in stages, to a company looking to develop the engine.

The money will go to Oxfordshire-based Reaction Engines, which we’ve seen on Universe Today before. They’re also developing an unpiloted and reusable spacecraft called Skylon, which is intended for low Earth orbit after leaving the planet from a conventional runway.

Skylon isn’t flight-ready yet, but so far the project did pass a United Kingdom Space Agency technical assessment. If completed, the UK Space Agency says Skylon is just one of many vehicles that could use this engine, which is called Sabre.

“The unique engine is designed to extract the oxygen it needs for low atmosphere flight from the air itself, paving the way for a new generation of spaceplanes which would be lighter, reusable and able to take off and launch from conventional airport runways,” the agency stated.

The money, stated Reaction Engines founder Alan Bond, will fund  “the next phase in the development of its engine and heat management technology.” More specifically, this is what the company plans to use the funds for:

– Engine technical design work;

– Improving lightweight heat exchanger technology and manufacturing;

– Performing wind tunnel and flight testing of engine components;

– Doing a “ground demonstration” of the engine.

If all stays to schedule, Reaction Engines expects a Sabre prototype will be ready in 2017, with flight tests commencing in 2020.

A cutaway view of the proposed Sabre engine, which is being developed by Oxfordshire-based Reaction Engines. Credit: Reaction Engines
A cutaway view of the proposed Sabre engine, which is being developed by Oxfordshire-based Reaction Engines. Credit: Reaction Engines

The major goal of Sabre is to use hot air entering the engine to obtain the required oxygen for operations, rather than carrying the gas separately on board. The engine is supposed to switch to a “rocket mode” at 26,000 feet in altitude.

“This advantage enables a spaceplane to fly lighter from the outset and to make a single leap to orbit, rather than using and dumping propellant stages on the ascent – as is the case with current expendable rockets,” the UK Space Agency stated.

Reaction Engines promises Skylon would give “reliable access to space” through carrying payloads of up to 15 tonnes, but at only 2% of the cost of more conventional launch vehicles — namely, rockets. It remains to be seen if they will achieve that cost goal, but the funding is welcome news nonetheless for the company.

Source: UK Space Agency

Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser Gets Wings and Tail, Starts Ground Testing

Sierra Nevada Corporation's Dream Chaser successfully rolls through two tow tests at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in California in preparation for future flight testing

Sierra Nevada Corporation’s Dream Chaser successfully rolls through two tow tests at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center in California in preparation for future flight testing later this year.
Watch way cool Dream Chaser assembly video below![/caption]

Sierra Nevada Corporation’s winged Dream Chaser engineering test article is moving forward with a series of ground tests at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center in California that will soon lead to dramatic aerial flight tests throughout 2013.

Pathfinding tow tests on Dryden’s concrete runway aim to validate the performance of the vehicles’ nose skid, brakes, tires and other systems to prove that it can safely land an astronaut crew after surviving the searing re-entry from Earth orbit.

The Dream Chaser is one of the three types of private sector ‘space taxis’ being developed with NASA seed money to restore America’s capability to blast humans to Earth orbit from American soil – a capability which was totally lost following the forced shutdown of NASA’s Space Shuttle program in 2011.

Dream Chaser commercial crew vehicle built by Sierra Nevada Corp docks at ISS
Dream Chaser commercial crew vehicle built by Sierra Nevada Corp docks at ISS

For the initial ground tests, the engineering test article was pulled by a tow truck at 10 and 20 MPH. Later this month tow speeds will be ramped up to 40 to 60 MPH.

Final assembly of the Dream Chaser test vehicle was completed at Dryden with installation of the wings and tail, following shipment from SNC’s Space Systems headquarters in Louisville, Colo.

Watch this exciting minute-long, time-lapse video showing attachment of the wings and tail:

In the next phase later this year, Sierra Nevada will conduct airborne captive carry tests using an Erickson Skycrane helicopter.

Atmospheric drop tests of the engineering test article in an autonomous free flight mode for Approach and Landing Tests (ALT) will follow to check the aerodynamic handling.

The engineering test article is a full sized vehicle.

Dream Chaser is a reusable mini shuttle that launches from the Florida Space Coast atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket and lands on the shuttle landing facility (SLF) runway at the Kennedy Space Center, like the Space Shuttle.

“It’s not outfitted for orbital flight. It is outfitted for atmospheric flight tests,” said Marc Sirangelo, Sierra Nevada Corp. vice president and SNC Space Systems chairman, to Universe Today.

“The best analogy is it’s very similar to what NASA did in the shuttle program with the Enterprise, creating a vehicle that would allow it to do significant flights whose design then would filter into the final vehicle for orbital flight,” Sirangelo told me.

NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center welcomes SNC’s Dream Chaser shrink wrapped engineering test article for a flight test program in collaboration with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program this summer. Winds and tail were soon joined and ground testing has now begun. Credit: NASA/Tom Tschida Read more: http://www.universetoday.com/102020/sierra-nevada-dream-chaser-gets-wings-and-tail-starts-ground-testing/#ixzz2Yw1peNRJ
NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center welcomes SNC’s Dream Chaser shrink wrapped engineering test article for a flight test program in collaboration with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program this summer. Winds and tail were soon joined and ground testing has now begun. Credit: NASA/Tom Tschida

Sierra Nevada Corp, along with Boeing and SpaceX are working with NASA in a public-private partnership using a combination of NASA seed money and company funds.

Each company was awarded contracts under NASA’s Commercial Crew Integrated Capability Initiative, or CCiCap, program, the third in a series of contracts aimed at kick starting the development of the private sector ‘space taxis’ to fly US and partner astronauts to and from low Earth orbit (LEO) and the International Space Station (ISS).

“We are the emotional successors to the shuttle,” says Sirangelo. “Our target was to repatriate that industry back to the United States, and that’s what we’re doing.”

The combined value of NASA’s Phase 1 CCiCap contracts is about $1.1 Billion and runs through March 2014.

Phase 2 contract awards will eventually lead to actual flight units after a down selection to one or more of the companies.

Everything depends on NASA’s approved budget, which seems headed for steep cuts in excess of a billion dollars if the Republican dominated US House has its way.

Dream Chaser awaits launch atop Atlas V rocket
Dream Chaser awaits launch atop Atlas V rocket

The Commercial Crew program’s goal is to ensure the nation has safe, reliable and affordable crew transportation systems to space.

“Unique public-private partnerships like the one between NASA and Sierra Nevada Corporation are creating an industry capable of building the next generation of rockets and spacecraft that will carry U.S. astronauts to the scientific proving ground of low-Earth orbit,” said William Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator for human exploration and operations in Washington, in a statement.

“NASA centers around the country paved the way for 50 years of American human spaceflight, and they’re actively working with our partners to test innovative commercial space systems that will continue to ensure American leadership in exploration and discovery.”

All three commercial vehicles – the Boeing CST-100; SpaceX Dragon and Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser – are designed to carry a crew of up to 7 astronauts and remain docked at the ISS for more than 6 months.

The first orbital flight test of the Dream Chaser is not expected before 2016 and could be further delayed if NASA’s commercial crew budget is again slashed by the Congress – as was done the past few years.

In the meantime, US astronauts are totally dependent on Russia’s Soyuz capsule for rides to the ISS. NASA must pay Russia upwards of $70 million per seat until the space taxis are ready for liftoff – perhaps in 2017.

“We have got to get Commercial Crew funded, or we’re going to be paying the Russians forever,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden at Dryden. “Without Commercial Crew, we probably won’t have exploration.”

Concurrently, NASA is developing the Orion Crew capsule for missions to the Moon, Asteroids and beyond to Mars and other destinations in our Solar System -details here.

Ken Kremer

Scale models of NASA’s Commercial Crew program vehicles and launchers; Boeing CST-100, Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser, SpaceX Dragon. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
Scale models of NASA’s Commercial Crew program vehicles and launchers; Boeing CST-100, Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser, SpaceX Dragon.
Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
Sierra Nevada Corp.'s Dream Chaser spacecraft landing on a traditional runway. Dream Chaser is being developed in collaboration with NASA's Commercial Crew Program during the Commercial Crew Integrated Capability initiative (CCiCAP).  Credit: Sierra Nevada Corp.
Sierra Nevada Corp.’s Dream Chaser spacecraft landing on a traditional runway. Dream Chaser is being developed in collaboration with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program during the Commercial Crew Integrated Capability initiative (CCiCAP). Credit: Sierra Nevada Corp.

Moon Dust Could ‘Engulf’ Lunar Rovers — Especially During Sunrise and Sunset

Apollo 17 Mission
An Apollo 17 astronaut digs in the lunar regolith to study the mechanical behavior of moon dust. Credit: NASA

That video above is perhaps the ultimate off-roading adventure: taking a rover out for a spin on the moon. Look past the cool factor for a minute, though, and observe the dust falling down around that astronaut.

The crew aboard Apollo 16 (as well as other Apollo missions) had a lot of problems with regolith. It got into everything. It was so abrasive that it wore away some equipment in days. It smelled funny and probably wasn’t all that good to breathe in, either. Many have said that when we return to the moon, dust must be dealt with for long-term survival.

Things could get worse at sunrise and sunset. One new study (not peer-reviewed yet) finds a “serious risk” that rovers “could be engulfed in dust.” That’s because lunar dust appears to have electrostatic properties that, somehow, is triggered by changes in sunlight. (NASA is already doing some serious investigation into this matter using its orbiting missions.)

What the researchers did, in conjunction with ONERA (The French Center of Aerospace Research) was conduct simulations for two types of lunar regions — the terminator (the day/night boundary) and an area experiencing full sunlight.

“Dust particles were introduced into the simulation over a period of time, when both the surface and the rover were in electrical equilibrium,” the Royal Astronomical Society stated.

“In both the test cases, dust particles travel upwards above the height of the rover, but results suggest that they move in different directions. On the day side, the particles are pushed outwards and on the terminator the dust travels upwards and inwards above the rover, regrouping in the vacuum above it. The terminator simulation began with a region void of dust which was later filled by lunar dust particles.”

The bottom line? A lunar rover could accumulate a significant amount of dust on the moon, especially if it’s sitting at or near the terminator. This could be addressed by using dome-shaped rovers that would see the dust fall off, added lead author Farideh Honary, a physicist at the University of Lancaster, in a statement.

The work was presented at the RAS National Astronomy Meeting today (July 3). A paper has been submitted to the Journal for Geophysical Research, so more details should be forthcoming if and when it is published.

Credit: Royal Astronomical Society

Morpheus Aborts, Then Recovers For a Second Go In Tether Test

Morpheus during an April 2012 test. Credit: Joe Bibby

The above video should satisfy your daily need for rocket foom. Morpheus — a NASA testbed for vertical landing systems — did two firing tests this week that produced a fair amount of the usual fire and smoke, as you can see above.

You’ll actually see two separate firings in that video. In the first one, the lander strayed out of its safety zone and did a soft abort. The second test, NASA stated, “was a complete success.”

The first lander of the program crashed and burned in a test failure in August 2012, but officials recently praised the program for the progress it has made since then.

“Although a hardware failure led to the loss of the original vehicle last August, the failure and our internal investigation gave us valuable insight into areas that needed improvement,” a Project Morpheus blog post from May stated.

“The vehicle may look largely the same as the previous version, but there are numerous changes that have been incorporated.  We have now implemented 70 different upgrades to the vehicle and ground systems to both address potential contributors to the test failure, and also to improve operability and maintainability.”

In the long run, NASA aims to use Morpheus as a “vertical test bed” for environmentally friendly propellants, as well as for automatic advances in landing and hazard detection.

The vehicle is advertised as big enough to land 1,100 pounds of cargo on the moon if it was placed nearby.

Check out more information about the program at the Project Morpheus website.

Plastic Protection Against Cosmic Rays?

The CRaTER instrument aboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter measures the effect of cosmic rays on "human tissue-equivalent" plastic. (NASA)

It could work, say researchers from the University of New Hampshire and the Southwest Research Institute.

One of the inherent dangers of space travel and long-term exploration missions beyond Earth is the constant barrage of radiation, both from our own Sun and in the form of high-energy particles originating from outside the Solar System called cosmic rays. Extended exposure can result in cellular damage and increased risks of cancer at the very least, and in large doses could even result in death. If we want human astronauts to set up permanent outposts on the Moon, explore the dunes and canyons of Mars, or mine asteroids for their valuable resources, we will first need to develop adequate (and reasonably economical) protection from dangerous space radiation… or else such endeavors will be nothing more than glorified suicide missions.

While layers of rock, soil, or water could protect against cosmic rays, we haven’t yet developed the technology to hollow out asteroids for spaceships or build stone spacesuits (and sending large amounts of such heavy materials into space isn’t yet cost-effective.)  Luckily, there may be a much easier way to protect astronauts from cosmic rays — using lightweight plastics.

While aluminum has always been the primary material in spacecraft construction, it provides relatively little protection against high-energy cosmic rays and can add so much mass to spacecraft that they become cost-prohibitive to launch.

Using observations made by the Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation (CRaTER) orbiting the Moon aboard LRO, researchers from UNH and SwRI have found that plastics, adequately designed, can provide better protection than aluminum or other heavier materials.

“This is the first study using observations from space to confirm what has been thought for some time—that plastics and other lightweight materials are pound-for-pound more effective for shielding against cosmic radiation than aluminum,” said Cary Zeitlin of the SwRI Earth, Oceans, and Space Department at UNH. “Shielding can’t entirely solve the radiation exposure problem in deep space, but there are clear differences in effectiveness of different materials.”

Zeitlin is lead author of a paper published online in the American Geophysical Union journal Space Weather.

A block of tissue-equivalent plastic (Credit: UNH)
A block of tissue-equivalent plastic (TEP) Credit: UNH

The plastic-aluminum comparison was made in earlier ground-based tests using beams of heavy particles to simulate cosmic rays. “The shielding effectiveness of the plastic in space is very much in line with what we discovered from the beam experiments, so we’ve gained a lot of confidence in the conclusions we drew from that work,” says Zeitlin. “Anything with high hydrogen content, including water, would work well.”

The space-based results were a product of CRaTER’s ability to accurately gauge the radiation dose of cosmic rays after passing through a material known as “tissue-equivalent plastic,” which simulates human muscle tissue.

(It may not look like human tissue, but it collects energy from cosmic particles in much the same way.)

Prior to CRaTER and recent measurements by the Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) on the Mars rover Curiosity, the effects of thick shielding on cosmic rays had only been simulated in computer models and in particle accelerators, with little observational data from deep space.

The CRaTER observations have validated the models and the ground-based measurements, meaning that lightweight shielding materials could safely be used for long missions — provided their structural properties can be made adequate to withstand the rigors of spaceflight.

Sources: EurekAlert and CRaTER@UNH

SpaceX Fires Up Falcon 9-R in a Long Duration Test

Falcon 9-R 112-second test fire. Via SpaceX/YouTube.

Last week, SpaceX fired up a new version of the Falcon 9 for a short 10-second test fire. Now, they’ve completed a long-duration fire, lasting 112 seconds. The test was of the first stage of the F9-R, an advanced prototype for the world’s first reusable rocket. The test took place at SpaceX’s rocket development facility in McGregor, Texas. SpaceX noted that unlike airplanes, a rocket’s thrust increases with altitude, and the F9-R generates just over a million pounds of thrust at sea level (“enough to lift skyscraper,” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said via Twitter) but gets up to 1.5 million pounds of thrust in the vacuum of space.

The rocket engines used on the test is the same as what’s used on the Grasshopper, which is the 10-story Vertical Takeoff Vertical Landing (VTVL) vehicle that SpaceX has designed to test the technologies needed to return a rocket back to Earth intact. While the Grasshopper uses just one Merlin 1D engine, the Falcon 9-R uses nine.

SpaceX hasn’t posted any details about the 9-R on their website, but they have said the Merlin 1-D’s 150:1 thrust-to-weight ratio would be the highest ever achieved for a rocket engine.

SpaceX Tests Falcon 9-R Advanced Reusable Prototype Rocket

First firing of the Falcon 9-R advanced prototype rocket. Via Elon Musk on Twitter.

Over the past weekend, SpaceX fired up a new version of the Falcon 9, known as the Falcon 9-R, with “R” being for “reusable.” It was the first-ever firing their new advanced prototype rocket. SpaceX told Universe Today the hold-down firing occurred on Saturday, and it lasted for approximately 10 seconds. Elon Musk had tweeted the image above earlier this week, but the company doesn’t normally discuss testing or results, so have not said much about it.

But SpaceX’s communications director Christina Ra did tell us that the Merlin 1D engines used on the test is the same as what’s used on Grasshopper, which is the 10-story Vertical Takeoff Vertical Landing (VTVL) vehicle that SpaceX has designed to test the technologies needed to return a rocket back to Earth intact.

While the Grasshopper uses just one Merlin 1D engine, the Falcon 9-R uses nine, which Musk said via Twitter provides over 1 million pounds of thrust, “enough to lift skyscraper.”

While most rockets are designed to burn up in the atmosphere during reentry, SpaceX’s is hoping their new rocket can return to the launch pad for a vertical landing.

At the end of April Musk had shared another image of first test of the Falcon 9-R ignition system.

Word on the street is that the next test will be a full 3-minute test firing.

Here’s the Grasshopper test flight in April: