Fwd: US announces tender to replace Russia’s RD-180 space rocket engines

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Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: June 3, 2015 at 7:24:01 PM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: US announces tender to replace Russia's RD-180 space rocket engines

 

US announces tender to replace Russia's RD-180 space rocket engines

 

June 03, 8:23 UTC+3
The US Congress has allocated funds and adopted a bill under which the new US engine has to be developed by 2019

 

RD-180 engine at the manufacturing site (archive)

© ITAR-TASS/Yuri Mashkov

 

WASHINGTON, June 3. /TASS/. The Pentagon has formally kicked off a competition to develop an engine to replace Russia's RD-180 mounted on Atlas-5 rockets.

Lieutenant General Samuel Greaves, who heads the Air Force's Space and Missiles Systems Center, told reporters on Tuesday that the companies that will win the contest are to receive $160 million. The results will be announced in September.

Last year, the United States said it decided to not to use the RD-180 engines during the launches of its military and intelligence satellites citing national security reasons and the escalation of relations with Russia amid the Ukrainian crisis.

The US Congress has allocated funds to this aim and adopted a bill under which the new US engine has to be developed by 2019. Until that time, the United Launch Alliance created by the Lockheed Martin and Boeing companies will continue using Atlas-5 with the Russian engine manufactured by the Energomash plant.

© 2015 TASS

 

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The greatest most powerful country should regain shuttle capabilities with the boeing x37b by modifying it as required. America must remain preeminent in space & in other areas. NASA leadership & potus do not want the USA to be preeminent in space or in other areas. Preeminence is critical to the survival of this great nation! Wake up America, get the word out!

 

 

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 spaceinterests 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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Fwd: Google Alert - keep the shuttle flying

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Begin forwarded message:

From: Google Alerts <googlealerts-noreply@google.com>
Date: June 3, 2015 at 12:04:12 PM CDT
To: bobbygmartin1938@gmail.com
Subject: Google Alert - keep the shuttle flying

	keep the shuttle flying Daily update ⋅ June 3, 2015
	WEB
	USA needs this capability Keep the shuttle flying Posted by keeptheshuttleflying.com at 4:21 AM ... Bob Thompson Observations---Essentially said Keep The Shuttle Flying · Automated Shuttle--Space ... Flag as irrelevant
	Fwd: X-37B. What the greatest & most powerful country on Earth should be utilizing as a shuttle ... Keep the shuttle flying 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 ... Flag as irrelevant
	Fly Back Vehicle Keep the shuttle flying What is missing are the grand strategists and visionary leaders of the earlier generations. In the beginning there was Tsiolkovsky. Later Noordung ... Flag as irrelevant
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Fwd: Edwards Air Force Base: History & Missions

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: June 2, 2015 at 9:57:07 PM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Edwards Air Force Base: History & Missions

 

 

Edwards Air Force Base: History & Missions

by Elizabeth Howell, Space.com Contributor   |   June 02, 2015 01:20am ET

 

Despite its robotic nature, the X-37B space plane received a warm welcome from Air Force crews at Vandenberg. Here, the vehicle appears to be undergoing safing procedures after landing on Dec. 3 at 1:16 a.m. PST (0916 GMT). Significant weathering, or discoloration, can be seen on the spacecraft's upper thermal blanket insulation. Credit: USAF/Vandenberg Air Force Base View full size image

Edwards Air Force Base is a U.S. military facility full of aerospace firsts. It was where the sound barrier was broken, where X-planes eventually flew more than six times the speed of sound, and where the first space shuttle mission landed.

Perhaps Edwards' best-known feature is a dry lakebed that dominates the base, which is located in the northwestern Mojave Desert in California. The lake is about 65 square miles, with an unusually flat and hard surface that is ideal for aircraft, according to the National Park Service. The lakebed is a playa, or pluvial lake, according to the base's website, and is the largest such geological formation in the world.

"Today, our combined workforce is still at the cutting edge of aviation technology, developing, testing and evaluating the newest weapon systems and aircraft to ensure reliability for America's war-fighters," according to the base's website. "Edwards is the test bed for today's premiere aerospace technology programs, including the Global Hawk, Hypersonic flight, and of course the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter."

Early history

The Edwards site was mostly unpopulated desert until the arrival of the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1876, according to Edwards' website. In 1882, the lakebed of Edwards (called Rodriguez Dry Lake at the time) was host to a water stop for the Santa Fe Railroad.

"Rodriguez" was later changed to "Rodgers" and then "Rogers." Around 1910, the Corum family settled on the edge of the lakebed and began organizing the scattered settlers. When the Corums opened a post office, the region was called "Moruc," or Corum spelled backward, to avoid confusion with Coram, Calif.

The area remained a collection of quiet homesteads until Lt. Col. H.H. "Hap" Arnold saw the lakebed and figured it would be a great spot for aircraft. He established the Muroc Bombing and Gunnery Range in 1933, which was upgraded to a military base during World War II. 

Combat flight crews trained there in B-24 bombers and P-38 fighter planes. Top-secret airplanes were also tested at Muroc Army Air Base; work that continued well past the conflict's end in 1945.

Renaming and reframing

The base underwent a name change in 1949 to honor an airman who died the year previously, Capt. Glen W. Edwards. Quickly, the natural lakebed and the talent of the local pilots attracted high-powered research to Edwards, providing a location where highly experimental aircraft could be tested. All of the United States' first generation of jets underwent testing at the base, according to Edwards' website.

"The success of these programs attracted a new type of research activity to the base in late 1946," the website states. "The rocket-powered Bell X-1 was the first in a long series of experimental airplanes designed to prove or disprove aeronautical concepts – to probe the most challenging unknowns of flight and solve its mysteries."

It also was a location where many aviation records were broken. A few major waypoints:

Breaking the sound barrier: On Oct. 14, 1947, Chuck Yeager exceeded the speed of sound in an aircraft for the first time. He broke the barrier inside a Bell X-1 aircraft called "Glamorous Glennis," named after his wife. The milestone was kept secret for some time out of fear that the Soviets or others would take advantage.

X-plane research: The series of experimental planes (which began with the X-1 that Yeager piloted) has continued for many more generations, with most of the research taking place at Edwards, according to NASA. This included a series of flights to go far as much as six times beyond the sound barrier, culminating in the X-15 program that flew so high that some of its pilots went into space.

Landing the space shuttle: The space shuttle was an unusual spacecraft, in that it never flew an unpiloted flight in space. That was the job of John Young and Bob Crippen, two NASA astronauts who tested it out between April 12 and 14, 1981. Edwards was used as a backup landing facility and hosted dozens of other space shuttle landings.

The North American X-15 settles to the lakebed after a research flight from what is now the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif.
Credit: NASA

View full size image

Modern days

Much of Edwards' work today remains under wraps due to the secret nature of its mission, but the base's website acknowledges that it has helped with efforts such as the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the war of terrorism more generally.

One notable program was the single-seater Lockheed Martin X-35, which was tested at Edwards Air Force Base and is now used by the military under the name Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II.

"The turbojet revolution, the space revolution, the systems revolution and now the unmanned aircraft systems revolution have imposed seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Each barrier, however, has been overcome through a combination of technical aptitude, daring ingenuity and skillful management," according to Edwards' website.

Copyright © 2015 TechMediaNetwork.com All rights reserved. 

 

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Lacking a Strategy

The last attempt at a strategy was George Mueller's shuttle, the concept for which originated with Noordung in WWII, but which Mueller started talking about in 1968; virtually all of the great 60s leaders in manned space flight, by 1968 or 69, were in agreement that a flyback vehicle which could be reused in order to save on manufacturing costs was a necessity. It was a necesity because they needed something to replace Saturn and Apollo, which were unaffordable, and it was a necessity because they needed something to loft the modular components of space platforms since without a Saturn they had no other way. The Shuttle that was built wound up being pretty close to what was envisioned in terms of functionality, but the big problem was that it was too expensive and took too much time to turnaround between missions. In large measure because of the expense and preparation time, Shuttle never turned into the DC-3 it was intended to be. It was more like a Boeing 247; not really practical. The Vision of 2004 was an attempt at a strategy, and it is the best thing we have, but noone ever laid out the requisite steps within the Vision. The first step NASA should have turned to was an R&D effort, to use and improve upon what was learned on the Shuttle; the big strategic mistake was in not trying to improve on Shuttle's performance and reduce its expense by moving towards an improved Shuttle 2. I think that Admiral Steidle may have been on that path, but when Griffin came in he tossed it all aside in an effort to try and re-create Apollo. Apollo was never sustainable or affordable and it wasn't with Constellation either.

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Astronomy and Space News - Astro Watch: India to Test Its Reusable Spacecraft

While the USA goes to capsules!!!

http://www.astrowatch.net/2015/05/india-to-test-its-reusable-spacecraft.html


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Although I don't agree with capsule approach, if we are going that way let us get it done. We are going nowhere fast. Why is nasa commercial ignoring boeing x37C proposal?? Need to regain shuttle capabilities ASAP!