Fwd: X-37B Space Plane Passes 600 Days in Orbit ( in August)

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From: Bobby G Martin <bobbygmartin1938@gmail.com>
Date: December 14, 2014 at 6:33:33 PM CST
To: bobbygmartin1938.casperk@blogger.com, bobbygmartin1938.fritzer@blogger.com
Subject: Fwd: X-37B Space Plane Passes 600 Days in Orbit ( in August)

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From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: August 30, 2014 at 1:02:15 PM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: X-37B Space Plane Passes 600 Days in Orbit

 

 

US Air Force's Secretive X-37B Space Plane Passes 600 Days in Orbit

By Leonard David, Space.com's Space Insider Columnist   |   August 29, 2014 01:28pm ET

 

An artist's illustration of the U.S. Air Force's X-37B space plane in orbit. The solar-powered winged spacecraft has spent more than 620 days in orbit as part of the military's secret OTV-3 mission, which launched in December 2012. Credit: NASA Marshall Space Flight Center View full size image

The U.S. Air Force's mysterious unmanned space plane has winged beyond 600 days in orbit on a classified military mission that seems to have no end.

The X-37B space plane is carrying out the Orbital Test Vehicle-3 (OTV-3) mission, a long-duration cruise that marks the third flight for the unpiloted Air Force spaceflight program.

The Air Force launched the miniature space shuttle into orbit on Dec. 11, 2012 using an expendable Atlas 5 rocket. By the end of Friday (Aug. 29), the space plane had spent 627 days in orbit. That's one year, eight months, 19 days and counting, to be exact.

"The Air Force continues to push the envelope of the solar-powered X-37B capabilities," said Joan Johnson-Freese, a professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. [Amateur Skywatcher Spots X-37B Space Plane (Video)] 

A secretive space plane

The reusable X-37B looks like a mini version of NASA's now-retired space shuttle. This space plane is 29 feet (8.8 meters) long and 9.5 feet (2.9 m) tall, and has a wingspan of nearly 15 feet (4.6 m).

The X-37B's payload bay is the size of a pickup truck bed. In contrast, NASA's space shuttle payload bay could fit two X-37B space planes comfortably inside. At liftoff, the X-37B space plane weighs 11,000 lbs. (4,990 kilograms).

The key to the X-37B's longevity in space rests with its ability to use solar panels to generate power., the solar panels extend the craft's longevity. [How the X-37B Space Plane Works (Infographic)]

"While far above the longevity of any other reusable spacecraft, it is far below that of most U.S. satellites, which are built to last for years, even decades," Johnson-Freese told Space.com. "That certainly confirms the broad, officially stated goal of the X-37B as a test bed vehicle."

It's logical to assume that the classified payloads tucked inside the X-37B include new sensors and satellite hardware that will be tested, Johnson-Freese said. If so, then the more time on orbit, the more testing that can be done, she said.

"While the classified nature of the X-37B has raised some concerns about its intended operational purposes, technically, the program must be commended for doing something new … and successfully," Johnson-Freese said.

X-37B in flight: Three missions

The Air Force is believed to have only two X-37B space planes. These space planes have flown at otal of three missions, which are known as OTV-1, OTV-2 and OTV-3. ("OTV" is short for Orbital Test Vehicle.)

The first mission blasted off in April 2010, and the craft circled Earth for 225 days. The second X-37B vehicle launched in March 2011, performing the OTV-2 mission. This spaceflight lasted 469 days, ultimately landing at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in June 2012. That was the same landing site OTV-1 used after completing its mission.

The current OTV-3 mission is reusing the first X-37B space plane from the OTV-1 flight, showcasing the reusability aspect of the program.

The U.S. Air Force's classified X-37B space plane is prepared for its first spaceflight, OTV-1, in April 2010. The same space plane launched on the third X-37B mission, OTV-2, on Dec. 11, 2012. As of Aug. 29, 2014, the mission has reached 627 days in space and counting.
Credit: NASA

View full size image

What's the mystery mission's secret?

General William Shelton (retired), former commander of the Air Force Space Command, has been a leader in rallying support for future of U.S. military space capabilities, including the X-37B robotic space plane.
Credit: Credit: U.S. Air Force/Staff Sgt. Christopher Boitz

View full size image

Before retiring from the Air Force this month, Gen. William Shelton, commander of the Air Force Space Command, remained bullish on the X-37B's hush-hush mission. [10 Most Destructive Space Weapon Concepts]

"I'll give you my standard line on X-37," Shelton told Space.com at the National Space Foundation's 30th Space Symposium in May. "X-37 is doing great. I can't tell you what it's doing, but it's doing great."

Meanwhile, Boeing Space & Intelligence Systems, the Air Force's supplier for the X-37B space planes, told Space.com that there was nothing it could share regarding the ongoing mission.

Military interests in space

While the purpose of the X-37B space plane program remains stealthy, the U.S. military space interests are clearly visible.

In July, Shelton spoke at the Atlantic Council on the U.S. future in space, noting that "space forces are foundational to every military operation, from humanitarian to major combat operations. It really doesn't matter — space has to be there … [satellites must be] continuously deployed in place, providing communications, missile warning, navigation, space surveillance and weather services."

Traffic is building in space, as many new entrants have joined the ranks of spacefaring nations and "counter-space" capabilities (technologies to deny a nation's use of space assets) are becoming more concerning, Shelton added.

Shelton said that the U.S. Air Force Space Command is considering several space tracks, such as lowering the cost and complexity of new space capabilities.

"We're watching carefully as other nations significantly increase their investment in counter-space programs," Shelton said. "We absolutely must adjust our approach and response, and the time for those decisions is approaching very rapidly."

Will X-37B land in Florida?

The Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office carries out the clandestine missions for X-37B space planes, the 3rd Space Experimentation Squadron at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado handles mission control for OTV flights.

The first two OTV missions flew back to Earth on autopilot, each time touching down on a tarmac at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. But that could change.

Boeing Space & Intelligence Systems has announced plans to consolidate its space plane operations by using NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida as a landing site for the X-37B. Earlier this year, Boeing announced plans to expand its presence in Florida by adding technology, engineering and support jobs at the space center.

As part of that Boeing plan, investments will be made to convert the former space shuttle facility, Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF-1), to a structure that would enable the U.S. Air Force "to efficiently land, recover, refurbish, and re-launch the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV)," according to Boeing representatives.

At the time of the Jan. 3 announcement, this construction was to be completed by the second quarter of 2015, Boeing representatives said.

Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is former director of research for the National Commission on Space and is co-author of Buzz Aldrin's 2013 book "Mission to Mars – My Vision for Space Exploration" published by National Geographic.Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

 

Copyright © 2014 TechMediaNetwork.com All rights reserved. 

 

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Space capabilities at Risk

NASA Plans Put America At Risk

Unassessed Uncertainty Involved For the Future of American Human Spaceflight.
NASA now likely has much more risk to the long term sustainability and safety of its premier human spaceflight program (ISS) than the normally risk averse Agency would desire or admit to. Flight crew access to and from the ISS for the next 5 or more years is dependent on a single flight system (Soyuz), until one of the commercially developed American low earth orbit transportation systems demonstrates sufficient reliability to take on that responsibility. The widespread euphoria over the recent successes of SpaceX and the highly optimistic expectations for COTS operational readiness somewhat contrasts with the reality of the history of past rocket development programs. The cost, schedule, and program management difficulties and technical development issues associated with NASA's own Constellation program and the James Webb Space Telescope program most recently have validated that history.

After the Columbia accident, NASA was extremely fortunate that the Soyuz system could sustain the ISS until the Orbiter returned to flight status. There is no planned backup available for the Soyuz after retirement of the Space Shuttle flight system for five or perhaps even several more years.

There is a non-zero probability that a random event or a scenario comprised of a series of seemingly unconnected events could prevent the Soyuz or a reliable COTS alternate capability from being available for transporting crews safely to and from the ISS for a significant length of time perhaps resulting in abandonment of the Station. Reliance on the Soyuz for this extended timeframe is very unpopular with many Americans of all stripes for a variety of reasons. If this capability becomes unreliable or perhaps utilized as some form of political leverage, NASA now has no other options available to sustain its planned ISS operations program for perhaps a long period of time.

We know that there is tangible uncertainty and risk involved in the current strategy to rely on a single human transportation system for long term access to the ISS that is provided by a foreign entity. What is the likelihood that a random event or a here-to-fore unconsidered scenario might occur that could cause a significant impact to the ISS Program? Second, are the impacts of the potential consequences acceptable to America; and what are the best mitigation strategies to address this risk? What does NASA and the Government need to do to characterize the risks involved to provide useable information for use by the decision makers who accountable for this policy, and to provide transparency and confidence to the affected stakeholders?

What are some of these non-zero probability events that could present major risk?
1. Spacecraft systems failures/deficiencies (hardware/software) or supply chain interruptions.
2. Ground support system failures, aging institutions and facilities.
3. Political Instability or irresolvable policy differences affecting the continuity of planned arrangements
4. Fire that disrupts and disables key manufacturing, utilities, or operations capabilities.
5. Terrorist attacks to key capabilities, physical, cyber, etc.
6. Major weather disaster that impacts key manufacturing or operations capabilities, Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant as an example. .
7. Human error that initiates a scenario comprised of events which renders the Soyuz system unavailable for a lengthy period.
8. The uncertainty in performance of the potential COTS providers being able to provide a safe and reliable human transportation system to support the ISS in a reasonable time frame. In comparison, the development of the Orion led by NASA, also a capsule flight system with significant legacy utilization, was taking NASA greater than 10 years to realize a LEO capability to support the ISS.

This is a partial listing of potential causes and is not intended to be a complete list of scenarios that might result in the Soyuz and/or the COTS capability being unavailable for human access to the ISS.

What are the potential adverse consequences that might result from failure of the Soyuz system to be able to fly crews to and from the ISS for an extended period of time?
1. Loss of life.
2. Major asset loss. The U.S. has approximately $100 B invested in the ISS that is at risk for loss. Other nations have varying significant investments as well.
3. Loss of prestige for America due to failure to be able to sustain the ISS.
4. Uncontrolled decay and entry of the ISS
5. Acceleration of the wide spread perceived decline and/or actual decline of America's current world leadership in human spaceflight technology and operations.
6. Loss of confidence in NASA, its leadership; and perhaps future support for initiating new future programs.
7. Loss of momentum in the ISS based science programs including loss of the accrued sunk investments in dollars and human capital.
8. Accelerated erosion of the skills and capabilities required to move the human exploration of space forward.
9. Loss of interest in space science and space exploration by the young people who are contemplating a science or aerospace engineering career resulting in further decline in America's capability to initiate and carry out challenging spaceflight and technological programs. (This is already happening – just talk to some science and engineering majors now in college.)
Again, a partial listing.



Who are the stakeholders and policy makers that are potentially impacted by this undefined risk level?
1. The American taxpayers who are committed to American leadership in space and depend on NASA leadership and the Government to make reliable decisions for the betterment of the Nation.
2. The governing Administration.
3. The Congress who appear to be legislating the way forward for human spaceflight by their actions (e.g. Orion & SLS).
4. NASA leadership and its people who have committed their lives and careers to the continued development of human spaceflight..
5. NASA's Contractors that make up much of the skilled experience base necessary to conceive, develop, manufacture, and operate the systems that are required for space exploration..
6. The Commercial Space Transportation investors.
Again, a partial listing, but the stakeholder community is much larger than NASA alone.

How should NASA proceed?
NASA should follow its own policy and procedural directives imposed on its own programs and conduct a detailed risk assessment of its plans in order to understand the risk level associated with the decision to rely solely on the Soyuz flight system for human access and return to the ISS for the next five + years. Since the risks involved are so significant to the future of America, the risk analysis and assessment should be accomplished by an organization independent of the NASA decision makers who are involved in the planning and implementation of current the policy of long term reliance on a flight system provided by a foreign nation to sustain the ISS. In order to avoid a conflict of interest, the use of NASA's current contractors should not be utilized for such an assessment. Perhaps the risk assessment should be overseen and peer reviewed by an organization like the National Science Foundation or a select blue ribbon committee.

Based on the history of spaceflight systems development including NASA's own programs performance in meeting planned operational schedules; it would be prudent to look at the risk interval for a longer period than just the currently planned 5 years, perhaps 10 years. While there seems to be anticipation that the COTS providers will find a way to circumvent the technical, cost and schedule problems that NASA and its contractors have faced for recent development programs that hoped for result is yet to be demonstrated. NASA's heritage for its development programs and projects has relied on a benevolent Congress to supplement its budget when the inevitable cost increases come along as a result of development problems. Receiving increased appropriations to solve project development issues looks increasingly unlikely based on what is happening to the Webb Telescope Project and the National budget deficit. The potential COTS providers will similarly face a reluctant group of investors if their costs and problems escalate.



How could this risk mitigated?

The most obvious way to control the risks associated with current NASA planning is to retain the Space Shuttle capability in some form until there is demonstrated American provided capability to transport humans and cargo to and from the ISS. Retention of the Space Shuttle would provide all of the capability to protect the integrity of the Space Station and its science programs. The issue as always is cost; however, the cost model could be significantly moderated by commercializing the Space Shuttle Program. Estimates are that a commercial venture could operate the Space Shuttle for a couple flights per year at perhaps 1/3 of its current cost. The critical skills are still available at this time. This would enable America to continue the same capability to support the ISS, and even conduct other priority earth orbit missions such as American controlled human access to space to support a critical unforeseen national security need.

By establishing commercialized Space Shuttle operations, NASA can take a known and reliable flight system and use it to develop and transition the governance and oversight processes needed for the COTS era operations. In addition to mitigating the risks and uncertainties associated with current NASA plans, America would retain its prominence as a leading participant in human space flight. A professionally done peer reviewed risk assessment will define the risks with their associated uncertainties and highlight where mitigations must be taken. To do otherwise places reliance on hope over experience.


7/20/2011

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Action/Reaction: U.S. Space Weaponization and China | Arms Control Association

http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2005_12/DEC-CVR


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Space

http://t.space.com/all/28135-mars-rover-opportunity-amnesia#1


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Fwd: nasa news --my version

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Begin forwarded message:

From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: January 2, 2015 at 10:56:52 AM CST
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: nasa news --my version

Welcome to 2015 ===  have a great weekend everyone.!

 

 

LEADING THE NEWS

• ISS Experiences The New Year 16 Times.

NASA NEWS

• NASA Continues To Make Summaries Of 2014.

HUMAN EXPLORATION AND OPERATIONS

• SpaceX Booster Landing Could Change Spaceflight.

• World Conducted 92 Launches In 2014.

• FIRST Robotics Competition Starts Saturday.

• Cosmonaut Morukov Passes.

• Hadfield Skeptical About Mars Mission Right Now.

LEADING THE NEWS

ISS Experiences The New Year 16 Times.

The ABC News (12/31, 5.02M) website continued coverage of how the ISS would celebrate the new year, noting that the station would "be over midnight somewhere on earth sixteen times." ISS commander Barry Wilmore said in a video, "We plan to celebrate New Year's sixteen times with our comrades, our people down on Earth that are doing it at that very moment, so we're going to do the same thing, that's our plan."

       

NASA NEWS

NASA Continues To Make Summaries Of 2014.

The WBUR-FM Boston (12/31, 97K) "Here & Now" website continued summaries of the year 2014 in space with an interview with NPR science correspondent Geoff Brumfiel. Brumfiel was asked about the "new spacecrafts, new missions, and space triumphs and failures of 2014."

        In an article for the WTOP-FM Washington (12/31, 32K) website, Greg Redfern wrote that he almost named the launch of Orion the top space story of 2014. However, because it lacked "empathy," Redfern considered Philae's comet landing the top story.

HUMAN EXPLORATION AND OPERATIONS

SpaceX Booster Landing Could Change Spaceflight.

Quartz (12/31, Fernholz, 294K) reported that when SpaceX launches its next mission on January 6, it may "change space-flight as we know it," not by its cargo mission to the ISS, but by its attempt to land the first stage of the rocket on a barge. If the company can develop the technology to reuse its rockets, there could be a "disruptive access to orbit" because of the large amount of savings generated. According to the article, while SpaceX has been "overly optimistic" in the past, it is "likely" that SpaceX will be able to recover one stage "for re-flight during one of its 12 flights in 2015" as it now predicts.

    

World Conducted 92 Launches In 2014.

Space News (12/31, Foust, Subscription Publication, 481) continued coverage of total launch activity in 2014, which experienced "a surge of launch activity late in the year." With 92 launches, 2014 had the "highest level in 20 years," with the US coming in second for total number of launches at 23. Russia led with 32 and China came in third at 16. The US will make the first launch of the year when SpaceX conducts its mission to the ISS on January 6.

        Blog Coverage. Matt Williams at Universe Today (1/1, 9K) writes that with 2014 being a "banner year" for Russian launches of the Soyuz-2 rocket, this year could be better with 20 scheduled missions, including "holdovers from 2014."

FIRST Robotics Competition Starts Saturday.

The WTVA-TV Columbus, MS (12/31, 7K) website reported on the upcoming FIRST Robotics competition, which will feature 11 teams from Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi. The competition, "hosted by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and the U.S. Space & Rocket Center," starts on Saturday and will feature teams who will build robots using identical materials for a chance to go to the FIRST Championship in April.

Cosmonaut Morukov Passes.

collectSPACE (1/1, Pearlman) reports that yesterday, cosmonaut Boris Morukov, "who visited the International Space Station and led a 520-day simulated Mars mission," passed away. The article noted that no official cause of death was reported. John Charles, chief of NASA's international science office in its human research program, said, "[Morukov] was well known to many of us in the space life sciences community for the breadth of his knowledge and his enthusiasm for understanding the effects of space on human physiology. ... As the senior researcher in metabolism and immunology at [the Institute for Biomedical Problems...Boris was directly involved in planning the Russian component of our joint investigations on the upcoming year-long ISS expedition."

        Russia's ITAR-TASS News Agency (1/2, 1K) also covers the story.

Hadfield Skeptical About Mars Mission Right Now.

In a column for the Bristol (UK) Post (1/1, 344), Ashley Dove-Jay writes that he asked astronaut Chris Hadfield for dating tips while he was promoting his "gorgeous" book, "You Are Here," which features the images he took while at the ISS. Meanwhile, Dove-Jay notes that Hadfield is skeptical about going to Mars now, saying there is a lack of a "great compelling reason" to sustain the project's costly development.

 

Engineering Marvel-- USA needs Equivalent Operational ASAP!

Shuttle engineering marvel--- with inadequate funds & poor management!

I'm seeing a lot of misinformation in this thread. I am a young Aerospace engineer working on Orion, and i wanted to clear some things up. And honestly most of this info is easy to find with a simple Google search. I'll just give a summary. 

1. The shuttle WAS an engineering marvel, even into the 2000s, that is a fact. And it's fine to admire it as such. 

2. There was NOT anywhere near enough political will at the end of Apollo to move forward with more moon missions or a mission to Mars, etc. The US had won the race, it was over, at least in the eyes of the people making the financial decisions. 

3. Funding to NASA was drastically lowered (as a percentage of annual federal budget) PRIOR to the shuttle's final development. The shuttle had to be redesigned multiple times becoming less and less ambitious each time due to dwindling national and political interest/support and thereby funding. Eventually NASA had to cut a deal with the USAF in order to even build the shuttle. The air force put additional constraints on what the shuttle had to do, again limiting NASA.

4. The USAF ended up backing out of the deal very late in the process, leading to a shuttle with USAF constraints and requirements but no USAF missions. 

5. The end product was a vehicle that, while an impressive feat of engineering, was NOTHING like the original designs(especially in scope), didn't have a super clear purpose, had limited support from the beginning, had a fraction of the Apollo budget, and had HUGE expectations following the success of the Apollo program.

6. There were some design issues that in hind sight could have been solved better, but design flaws were NOT the primary problem with the shuttle. Ultimately, the shuttle did what it's final design intended for quite well.

7. Having studied both the engineering aspects of the shuttle, and specifically the Challenger and Colombia disasters, as well the management decisions prior to the disasters, it is my opinion that the Primary cause of BOTH disasters was far and away the poor decisions made by Non-Engineer Managers. Most of the decision making managers had little to no engineering experience, and in both cases actively ignored the concerns of the engineers. Engineers said DONT launch prior to Challenger, but managers more concerned with launching on time ignored them. In Colombia, engineers had repeatedly complained about the foam strike, but management refused to address it. Engineers knew that the foam caused damage particularly on launch of the final Colombia mission, and one Engineer tried to get access to a DoD telescope to inspect the damage, but management stifled the attept.

8. Ultimately, we did learn tons from the shuttle program, many things that are hard to quantify. True, the shuttle did not live up to many people's expectations, but they were unrealistic expectations made by people who don't understand the complexity of rocket science and or didn't realize that NASA funding (again, as a fraction of federal budget) had been dramatically reduced. 

9. The shuttle did not "hold back" progress in space exploration. People did. The American public did. They voted with a list of priorities that didn't include space exploration. I won't debate the importance of the civil rights movement, the war in Vietnam, the antiwar movents, the social welfare moments, the war on drugs, the war on terror, etc. The fact of the matter is that almost 2 full generations simply didn't care enough about space exploration. 

10. Don't quote me "per launch cost" and such, as those numbers can be manipulated in a myriad of ways. I've seen the costs and done the math. The shuttle did not reduce cost to LEO significantly but was NOT definitively cost inefficient. Saturn V could NOT have done all the things the shuttle did. We would have had to develop 2 or 3 separate systems over the 70s-00s in order to achieve what we did with the shuttle, and total cost of such undertakings would have almost certainly exceeded what was spent on the shuttle program. 

Ultimately, this popular idea that the shuttle was a failure, is unfounded. People making this claim clearly are misinformed. The people who make this claim and perpetuate it seem to have little scientific/Engineering/ or even historical knowledge, so be careful who you listen to.

The shuttle was an under-funded and under-supported program without a clear and consistent goal or purpose, and yet it still accomplished many impressive things and flew for 30 years. The public was not interested in providing support for the program, and yet had expectations higher than for Apollo. The shuttle gets a bad rap, when really is the American people (and people worldwide) who are to blame for our species stagnation in space exploration.

I just hope my generation doesn't make the same mistake.

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