Space FTW

Back in a September post I mentioned it was likely a Dragon launch planned by SpaceX for November would be delayed, due to (Soyuz-related) problems getting a properly-trained team aboard the ISS. That has since been borne out, and today I checked the very useful resource maintained at SpaceFlight Now’s Tracking Station webpage to learn that currently the next Falcon9/Dragon launch is scheduled for 7 January 2012. This is the COTS 2 contract flight that will now apparently include both rendezvous and docking with ISS, which will be quite a big deal for SpaceX if fully successful.

Note that the page linked above is regularly updated by Spaceflight Now’s staff, and future changes in the launch schedule will be reflected there.

After the tremendous disappointment of Phobos-Grunt earlier this month, NASA has used the present launch window to Mars to send the long-awaited Curiosity (Mars Science Laboratory) rover on its way. This is the largest, most sophisticated rover ever sent, and if it reaches its landing site intact, Curiosity should build upon the wonderful successes of the Spirit and Opportunity rovers in delivering exciting new data about the Red Planet.

The biggest concern I have is the fact that NASA and its contractors chose to use a complex and unproven landing-delivery system, rather than proven systems used for the various prior successful landers and rovers NASA has placed on Mars. I hate the fact that such a valuable and expensive piece of engineering is intended to be placed by a sky-crane landing system, which when you think about it, seems absolutely crazy. Apparently, this approach was the “most feasible solution” to getting such a heavy rover onto the surface intact.

Well, we’ll see in about nine months. I just really hope all the huge investment in the rover and its instruments hasn’t been wasted due to mistakes in choosing or implementing its delivery engineering.

On a slightly happier note, Curiosity is powered by plutonium batteries, expected to offer power for about 14 years (i.e. plenty, for more than long enough), so there will be no concerns about dust on the solar panels this time around. Oddly, I have seen nothing whatsoever in the media about protests regarding the launch of these batteries, unlike the scene back when Cassini was launched with radioactives aboard. Perhaps the Luddites have grown up, but since we’re certainly going to need these kinds of power sources, as well as better ones, on other probes in the future, I suppose the acid test will be the amount of protest when we finally launch something with a working reactor aboard.

Just last week it occurred to me to look at when this mission was due to launch, but in the press of events I failed to do so. Thus it’s pleasant news today that this long-planned mission has successfully launched, and is expected to reach Mars in September next year.

Phobos-Grunt is an exciting mission for several reasons, one being it’s a resurgence of Russian efforts at Mars. They’ve had a lot more success at Venus… I think not one Soviet/Russian attempt to get a probe to Mars has succeeded. This is a huge disappointment, because the Russian space program is generally quite competent, and because international efforts generally deliver a lot more science: more countries can either fund better-equipped probes, or more of them, and the missions tend to arrive over time, rather than all at once. With international sharing of the data among researchers, the result tends to be that we all get a much better picture of the target.

Phobos-Grunt is an ambitious mission – it’s not actually headed for Mars proper. Its target is Phobos, the larger of Mars’ two moons. The main goal is to determine whether Phobos is fairly solid, or a rubble-pile held together by gravity. That’s a question that could be asked about many main belt or near-Earth asteroids, as well. Making the mission technically challenging, it’s a sample-return mission. After approaching Phobos, landing, and collecting a sample, a portion of the lander will take off and head for Earth, returning home in 2014.

One further fun fact about Phobos-Grunt. Besides cooperation and instrumentation from ESA members, and a life-sciences payload from the Planetary Society, this mission also carries a piggyback probe. When Phobos-Grunt arrives at Mars this year, Yinghou-1, China’s very first Mars probe, will independently enter orbit.

UPDATE (9 Nov 11): And, very unfortunately, the Russians’ Mars “curse” continues. Phobos-Grunt launched OK to Earth orbit, but never fired its transfer engine to head for Mars.

Now if ONLY we had the technology for on-orbit repairs.. oh, wait, we do. Now if only we had cheap launch vehicles available on short notice to send a manned crew to its orbit to MAKE those repairs….

I don’t know about NASA, the ESA, or Roscosmos, but I’d spend a few tens of millions to salvage a mission that cost ten or a hundred times that. SpaceX, there’s another market waiting if you build the capability to get there.

Well, this sucks in about five ways.

In the news today we learn that the seals have opened on the habitat in Moscow, and the participants in this 520-day isolation experiment have been allowed to rejoin the rest of the seven billion of us. Some may argue that these experiments are a waste of research funds, and that the money is better spent developing hardware for the “real” missions, which are certainly within our technological capability.

On the other hand, experiments such as this – even if mainly medical and psychological – help satisfy the lobby that will insist on no Mars missions at all if there is serious risk to the crew (that whole “and return them safely to Earth” bit). I do think that counts for something. I also think that any visible work, both experiments like this, and like the arctic and desert-based research conducted every year by the Mars Society, help build knowledge and enthusiasm for the projects that will get us there. The more people believe that “We know how to get to Mars. It’s not that hard.”, then I hope the more people will be willing to ask “Just why haven’t we gone yet?” And it’s asking that, loudly and often, that might coax some politicians into trying to look good by helping make it happen.

Or, well, we can await the Chinese program to accomplish this for humanity. Because after all, what makes anyone expect they’ll be satisfied with repeating a Moon landing and calling it quits, like we effectively did? They’ll realize perfectly well they also have the ability to go to Mars, and more than enough pride to want to be first at something.

As a quick follow-up to noting Tiangong-1′s launch in September, let’s observe that China has now launched an unmanned Shenzhou mission (Shenzhou-8) to rendezvous and dock with their new space station.

China’s space program is testing rendezvous and docking capabilities, as a precursor to manned operations. Again, this is stuff both the Russians and Americans gained experience doing in the 1960′s, so it seems like old hat. However, the Chinese program is building its capability systematically, and very rapidly.

NASA’s Gemini program, as an example, was used to test some of these same capabilities (Gemini 6 and 7 specifically, a manned rendezvous mission pair 46 years ago, in 1965). Only about four years later the Apollo 11 mission placed the Eagle lander safely on Mare Tranquilitatis. In the 60′s we proved how fast you can move from where the Chinese program is right now, to a moon landing, if you have a properly motivated and funded organization.

NASA may have a launch vehicle capable of proper moon launches again around 2020, if the SLS is even funded. We should contemplate where China’s program will be sending taikonauts by then, while cheering them on, and hoping fervently that other governments, agencies, and new space launch companies will follow suit.

I admit there are a number of things that disturb me about the Chinese space program: its opacity, its connections to the Chinese military, its use of technology not necessarily obtained in an above-board manner. However, I love it for one specific reason: it presents a delightful boogeyman for those American politicians susceptible to the need for a boogeyman. These are politicians usually very unlikely to push for funding for NASA or any space-related effort at all. They are uninterested in progress, unless it lines their pockets, and certainly uninterested in science, engineering, or human achievement. Spirit of Exploration? Advancement of the Frontier? Progress? Ha. To these people, that comes from bailing out banks.

Yet present them with the spectre of some “foreign power” owning orbit and the military high ground, or possessing (gasp) a technological advantage, and most of them line right up to complain that NASA isn’t doing its job and express anger about the lack of a U.S. manned launch capability right now, and so on and so forth. Most of these same reactionary political geniuses, of course, think that spending literally stupid amounts of national treasure to reverse recent policy decisions and de-mothball the aged Shuttle fleet should be the solution to these fears… but I digress.

The good news here of course is that China has apparently successfully (that opacity again) orbited Tiangong-1, a small manned orbital laboratory, and intended to be the precursor in a program which will soon have the Chinese with their own 60-ton space station, a fine goal for any spacefaring nation. Let it be noted that they worked to construct this capability because we rejected their participation in our International Space Station program (that paranoia about military involvement again) – possibly also out of concerns regarding misappropriated technology…. Well, although they are “only” now on the level of 1973′s Skylab (or similar Salyut or Almaz stations), what again have we really done ourselves in terms of manned astronautics since then? They too could build a reusable system like we’ve spent the last 30 years playing with if they like, probably by renting a rusting Buran from Russia to examine for a month. Frankly, I expect them to be wiser, building on their existing capabilities, and avoiding that dead-end. Good for them!

A few years ago, China was accomplishing things the Soviets and Americans accomplished in the 60′s. Everyone except the alarmists yawned. Today they accomplished something done in the 70′s. We’re failing right now to duplicate our own accomplishments of the 60′s and 70′s, such as lunar missions, of course. Since our manned space capabilities have varied little since the 80′s, the Chinese program will match or exceed the U.S. program imminently. Very soon, we can expect they will show themselves perfectly capable of carrying the torch further than we ever have. In many ways, this is a good thing.

China’s advancing capabilities should be a cause for celebration for the human race (again, if it weren’t for those little quibbles of mine). But with technological jobs, new resources, and an expanding frontier as the carrot for recalcitrant American politicians, the Chinese push into space does make a lovely stick.

How about that funding for building NASA’s proposed SLS launcher, Congressmen? Perhaps even a fast-track budget?

Psst: Boo!