‘Space Hackers’ Take On Citizen Science for Suborbital Spaceflight

The increasing demand for flying experiments in space was clearly in evidence over the weekend as a standing room only crowd of 100 people packed into a room here at the Hacker Dojo to hear about a new era of citizen science.

The attendees came to the first-ever Space Hacker Workshop on Saturday and Sunday (May 4 and 5) to learn about how they could build and fly experiments on a new generation of manned suborbital vehicles such as XCOR Aerospace’s Lynx space plane.

The event, which was sponsored by the Silicon Valley Space Center and Citizens in Space, attracted high-school and college students, university professors, space professionals, scientists, technology experts and others interested in this emerging field. [The Top 10 Private Spaceships]

New reusable vehicles slated to come online soon will provide affordable and repeated access to space for professional and amateur scientists and help to revolutionize microgravity research and science education, said Citizens in Space founder Ed Wright.

“With the suborbital vehicles being developed…there’s going to be an opportunity to fly many thousands of small payloads on suborbital vehicles every year,” Wright said.

Citizen Space Scientists
Citizens in Space is a program run by Wright’s Texas-based organization, the U.S. Rocket Academy, which has purchased 10 flights aboard the two-seat Lynx just for research. Ten lucky citizen scientists will get to fly in the passenger seat of the vehicle and operate the experiments that they have designed and built. Five of those slots already have been filled.

So, just how cheap will it be to fly experiments in space? Wright said that while a typical tiny CubeSat might cost between $3,000 and $5,000 to build and another $100,000 or more to launch into orbit, developing and flying scientific payloads aboard the Lynx will be many orders of magnitude cheaper.

“At the base level, you’re going to have people who are able to build an experiment for $200 or less and have an opportunity to fly in space through programs such as Citizens in Space, and I think this is just going to change everything,” Wright said.

“We may reach the point in five or 10 years where every high school science major will have the opportunity to build and fly a payload in space during the course of his academic career before he graduates,” he added.

The development of suborbital vehicles such as the Lynx and Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo is coming at a time when maker spaces are popping up all over the country. Wright said these joint work spaces are perfect places for people to build the types of do-it-yourself science experiments that Citizens in Space wants to fly.

Wright’s academy is developing the Lynx Cub Payload Carrier, a unit that can hold up to a dozen small experiments in a space behind the pilot’s seat. The carrier will give XCOR the ability to fly space tourists in the passenger’s seat while also carrying scientific experiments as secondary payloads.

A seat on Lynx costs $95,000, while a ticket to fly on SpaceShipTwo — which last week made its first-ever powered test flight — will set you back $200,000 at the moment. (Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson said recently that ticket prices would soon temporarily rise to $250,000.) [Photos of SpaceShipTwo’s Test Flights]

A Range Of Experiments
Four XCOR employees traveled 300 miles (500 kilometers) north from the town of Mojave, where they are building the first Lynx, to address the Space Hacker audience and answer questions.

Khaki Rodway, XCOR’s director of payload sales and operations, gave an overview of Lynx’s capabilities and a progress update on the assembly of the first vehicle, which could fly by the end of this year.

“We’re doing it because there’s lots of stuff to do,” Rodway said of the emerging market for experiments.

During the two-day workshop, participants heard talks about the experiments that will be carried out in the microgravity environment and vacuum of space. These experiments will range across many different fields, including materials processing, fluid dynamics, life sciences, protein crystal growth and technology demonstrations.

NASA astronaut Yvonne Cagle talked about sending odd “water bears” into space. Water bears, also known as tardigrades, are tiny organisms that are virtually impervious to heat, radiation and vacuum conditions. Cagle believes that by studying water bears, scientists can learn a great deal about how to help humans adapt to space.

Jason Reimuller, president of the company Integrated Spaceflight Services, told the audience about his Polar Suborbital Science in the Upper Mesosphere (PoSSUM) campaign, which will use a Lynx to study the dynamics of clouds over the North Pole. The vehicle will operate out of a high-altitude spaceport in either Alaska or Sweden, Reimuller said.

Ryan Gillespie, an aerospace engineer from Sunnyvale, Calif., said he is interested in pursuing Citizens in Space’s High Altitude Astrobiology Challenge, which is offering cash prizes of up to $10,000 for the development of a device that will collect micro-organisms living at the edge of space.

“I’m not so much interested in the $10,000 — it’s more the fact that when you come up with anything, it needs a purpose,” Gillespie said. “Here’s something that actually has a purpose for mankind.”

Driving Technology Forward
Richard Mains of Mains Associates, who works with the NASA Flight Opportunities Program that funds experiments on suborbital vehicles, said these new spaceships are driving technology development at a much faster rate than traditional NASA programs tend to do.

“I think what’s actually going on here with these reusable suborbital launch vehicles is kind of a whole new paradigm where you’re not putting a payload up on the space station for six months,” Mains said. “And these vehicles aren’t that big. But they are flying very often, So these payloads now have to be small, smart, autonomous — very very easy to kind of activate and deactivate, reprogram, get data out of.”

“I see all of that driving technology in a very, very interesting fashion,” Mains added, mentioning the emergence of open-source platforms as another powerful driver. “So I’m very excited about what I’ve heard here.”

Silicon Valley was a perfect location to hold the workshop given that it’s at the leading edge of technology development, Mains said.

Wright said he was extremely pleased with the workshop, which sold all of its 95 tickets and had a waiting list on Saturday morning.

“I think it’s gone very well,” Wright said. “It’s really been a great turnout. It’s been very exciting for everyone here. The people from the NASA Flight Opportunities program were very excited about this. XCOR was very excited about this.”

Wright says he hopes to conduct five or six additional workshops in cities across the country over the next year.

Watch: SpaceShipTwo’s First Powered Testflight

Private Space Travel to Make Giant Leaps in 2013

Private companies building new spaceships to soar through orbital and suborbital space are looking forward to an action-packed year in 2013, with new flight tests, launches, wind tunnel tests and rocket technology trials all planned during the new year.

image: An artistic rendition of the Dream Chaser vehicle launching into space.
CREDIT: Sierra Nevada

Of the many spacecraft being developed only one has already flown in space, the Dragon capsule built by Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) in Hawthorne, Calif.The unmanned cargo ship has flown in space three times so far, and carried supplies to the International Space Station twice in 2012 — first in May during a test and then again October.

SpaceX’s next cargo flight to the station is set for March 2013. But a new astronaut-carrying version of Dragon is also in the works. The crewed capsule will be different from its robotic predecessor in several key areas, with SpaceX set to advancing technology for the new ship in 2013.

SpaceX’s new Dragon
“Dragon Version 2 won’t look like [today’s Dragon]. I think it looks pretty cool. Dragon one, we didn’t really know what we were doing so that’s why Dragon looks similar to things that have happened in the past,” SpaceX founder Elon Musk told an audience during a talk at the UK’s Royal Aeronautical Society in London on Nov. 21. Musk described Dragon version 2 as having “legs that pop out” and added that it uses parachutes and its eight SuperDraco thrusters for a “propulsive landing”.

The SuperDraco thrusters, located around the base of the Dragon, also act as the pusher launch abort system to move the capsule (and crew) clear of its rocket during a launch emergency.

In March the company will review its Dragon pad abort test that is planned for later in the year December; in May SpaceX will perform its human certification plan review for the capsule; in June the crewed Dragon on-orbit and entry design review is expected to occur; July would then see an in-flight abort test review;

A safety review is slated for October; and before the December pad abort test, November will see a flight review of an upgraded version of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, which launches Dragon capsules into orbit.

The SpaceX Dragon commercial cargo craft makes its relative approach to the International Space Station prior to grapple by the station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm, controlled by Expedition 33 crew members. This image was taken Oct. 10, 2012.
CREDIT: NASA

NASA needs private space taxis
SpaceX is developing the seven-person Dragon 2 capsule to compete for NASA’s International Space Station (ISS) crew transportation contract. NASA’s commercial crew program is helping industry develop competing space transportation systems to win this ISS contract. Ed Mango is the commercial crew program manager.

“2013 will be a huge year for us. In the first couple of months we’ll kick off work for our certification contract and we’ll award that shortly,” Mango told SPACE.com.

Companies selected for the certification contract will get $10 million each and have 15 months to demonstrate, with data, that their rockets and spacecraft can be considered for the space station transport mission. “The [contract winners] are not just making spacecraft and launch vehicles they are also doing it to meet a NASA mission, our mission to the [ISS],” Mango said. [NASA’s Private Space Taxi Plan (Video)]

In the second half of 2013, NASA will start the bidding process for its commercial crew contract that will lead to the certification of one transportation system to take astronauts to the space station. That contract will not be awarded until early 2014, and a few years later NASA astronauts could travel to the station on the successful launch system.

Private spaceship contenders
In theory, while any U.S.company can bid for those two contracts, Mango suggested that the three companies that have won funded space act agreements under the commercial crew program will be the likely contenders. Those three companies are: SpaceX; Boeing; and Sierra Nevada Corporation.

A model of Boeing’s CST-100 space capsule shows the crew-carrying craft’s interior design. The CST-100, which can carry up to seven astronauts, could fly its first manned mission by 2015 or 2016, Boeing officials have said.
CREDIT: Denise Chow/SPACE.com

Boeing’s spacecraft is the Commercial Space Transportation 100 (CST-100) capsule and is designed to launch atop the Atlas 5 rockets built by the United Launch Alliance’s (ULA). The CST-100 capsule can carry up to seven astronauts and, like Dragon 2, it is expected to land on land. Its design includes airbags to cushion landing, as well as a pusher abort system.

Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser space plane is based on NASA’s HL-20, a spacecraft the agency studied 25 years ago. It is also designed to launch on an Atlas 5 rocket.

In 2012 a Dream Chase prototype was used for a captive carry flight test using a helicopter. In the first half of 2013 an unmanned Dream Chaser will fly low speed approaches and landing tests at NASA’s DrydenFlightResearchCenterin California. [Dream Chaser Space Plane in Photos]

“These flight tests are similar to the approach and landing tests that NASA conducted on the Space Shuttle prior to the first launch of the Shuttle. The [Dream Chaser] program is also continuing significant hardware testing throughout 2013 to continue to advance the design of our subsystems,” John Roth, Sierra Nevada Space Systems vice president of business development told SPACE.com.

Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) Space Systems’ Dream Chaser flight vehicle is lifted by an Erickson Air-Crane helicopter near the Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport in Jefferson County, Colo., on May 29, during a captive-carry test.
CREDIT: Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC)

Because the Atlas 5 is the launcher for CST-100 and Dream Chaser, the rocket’s provider ULA is heavily involved with the Boeing and Sierra Nevada work.

“We’re contracted to support Boeing and Sierra Nevadato support their milestones, we’re directly supporting almost all of them,” George Sower, ULA’s Human launch Services vice president, said in an interview.

In 2013, ULA will be continuing to develop the dual engine Centaur upper stage its Atlas 5 needs for launching these manned spacecraft. For satellite launches, the unmanned Atlas 5 has only used a single engine powered Centaur. In April and May, ULA will test ducting to provide propellant for the new Centaur’s two engines. ULA is also planning wind tunnel tests to understand the different aerodynamics of having Boeing’s capsule and Sierra’s winged Dream Chaser on top of the Atlas 5.

Rise of suborbital space planes
While the orbital commercial human spaceflight providers are aiming for operational missions after 2015, the suborbital tourism companies are seeking revenue flights well before then. These suborbital spacecraft are designed to launch beyond the Earth’s atmosphere, but not to enter orbit around the planet. Instead, they will return to Earth to be readied to fly again.

In 2013, XCOR Aerospace is building its Lynx I, which will not fly beyond the 62-mile (100 kilometers) border line between the atmosphere and space. This Lynx rocket plane is a prototype for the planned Lynx Mark 2, which will fly into suborbital space.

“We’re looking at 2013 as the time for our test flight program and in early 2013 we’ll get started. For the Lynx Mark 1, our prototype craft, we’ll be doing test fights throughout the year from early 2013 and then go into commercial flights,” XCOR spokesman Bryan Campen told SPACE.com.

After 2013, the Lynx Mark 2, which will fly higher than 62 miles, will be manufactured in Floridaat or near the KennedySpaceCenter, XCOR officials said. The company is also setting up its new headquarters and research center in Midland, Texas.

SpaceShipTwo undertook its 23rd glide flight on Dec. 19 in the pre-powered portion of its incremental test flight program. This was a significant flight as it was the first with rocket motor components installed, including tanks. It was also the first flight with thermal protection applied to the spaceship’s leading edges.
CREDIT: Luke Colby/Virgin Galactic

Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo
After 22 gliding tests between October 2010 and August 2012, Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo has been edging closer to having its hybrid solid rocket motor added and making its first rocket powered flight. In May 2012 Virgin Galactic was awarded an experimental launch permit by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees commercial human spaceflight. At the time Virgin Galactic was anticipating a rocket-powered SpaceShipTwo flight by the end of the year.

By Sept. 20, the SpaceShipTwo rocket motor had been fired on the ground 17 times. On Oct. 19, Virgin Galactic released an image of the oxidizer tank being fitted to the first SpaceShipTwo, called the VSS Enterprise.

The oxidizer flows through the hollow center of the solid fuel rocket and when ignited will burn with the fuel to generate thrust. The first rocket-powered SpaceShipTwo flight is now expected in 2013.

Note: This story was corrected to reflected the latest launch target for SpaceX’s next Dragon cargo ship bound for the International Space Station. The Dragon flight will launch in March 2013, not May, according to SpaceX.

Design of an XCOR Lynx spacecraft (XCOR Aerospace)

The United States Rocket Academy has announced an open call for entries in its High Altitude Astrobiology Challenge, a citizen science project that will attempt to collect samples of microbes that may be lurking in Earth’s atmosphere at the edge of space.

On The Hunt For High-Altitude Microorganisms

Earth’s biosphere has been discovered to extend much higher than once thought — up to 100,000 feet (30,480 meters) above the planet’s surface. Any microorganisms present at these high altitudes could be subject to the mutating effects of increased radiation and transported around the globe in a sort of pathogenic jet-stream.

Citizens in Space, a project run by the U.S. Rocket Academy, is offering a $10,000 prize for the development of an open-source and replicable  collection device that could successfully retrieve samples of high-altitude microorganisms, and could fly as a payload aboard an XCOR Lynx spacecraft.

XCOR Aerospace is a private California-based company that has developed the Lynx, a reusable launch vehicle that has suborbital flight capabilities. Low-speed test flights are expected to commence later this year, with incremental testing to take place over the following months.

Any proposed microbe collection devices would have to fit within the parameters of the Lynx’s 2kg Aft Cowling Port payload capabilities — preferably a 10 x 10 x 20 cm CubeSat volume — and provide solutions for either its retraction (in the case of extended components) or retrieval (in the case of ejected hardware.)

The contest is open to any US resident or non-government team or organization, and submissions are due by February 13, 2013. The chosen design will fly on 10 contracted Lynx flights in late 2013 or early 2014, and possibly even future missions.