(Beijing) Last Thursday the Chinese launched into space the the core module of its Tianhe space station a project that is expected to be completed by 2022 with an outpost about a
quarter of the size of the International Space Station (ISS).
In order to get the 22 tonne core module into low orbit the Chinese used the biggest rocket in their inventory , the Long March 5. which left the 30-metre high core of the Long March 5B floating in space awaiting reentry back to earth . The thing is since since 1990 nothing over 10 tonnes has been deliberately left
in orbit to re-enter uncontrolled. The Long March 5B core stage is thought to
be about 21 tonnes and the Chinese have left it to chance where it lands and there lies the problem, because due to its size, it's heat resistant engine parts and its flight path which takes it over as far north as New York, Madrid and Beijing and as far
south as southern Chile and Wellington, New Zealand, and could make its
re-entry at any point within the dark blue area in the graphic below
(Jerusalem) Israel is hoping to become the 4th Nation to send a spacecraft to the moon with the launching of the Beresheet robotic lunar lander. But what makes this mission different from all the rest is:
It is privately funded as opposed to state funded
It has piggybacked onto another launch in which to get into Space
SpaceIL the company behind this endeavour is an Israeli
organization, established in 2011, in which to compete in the Google Lunar X Prize (GLXP) which was a competition to see a privately funded spacecraft land on the Moon. After the
contest declared no winner, SpaceIL decided to continue with the project resulting in
them paying Space X to allow them to piggyback the finished Beresheet lander onto one of its
flights into Space.
Once Beresheet is in Earth orbit and separated from the
Falcon 9 launcher, it will undergo several orbits around Earth, taking around 2.5 months before it reaches the Moon's area of influence. Once there,it will attempt to be captured by the Moons gravity placing it into a lunar orbit where upon it will decelerate until for a landing on the lunar surface.
If all goes according to plan, the 5-foot-tall (1.5 meters)
Beresheet — whose name means "in the beginning" in Hebrew — will land
on the moon on April 11. Onboard will be an Israeli flag, a time capsule,
which includes a "Lunar Library." -The library is a project of the
nonprofit Arch Mission Foundation, which seeks to archive human knowledge for
millions or billions of years. The Lunar Library will carry, among other
things, the entirety of the English-language version of Wikipedia and keys to
5,000 languages, -The lander will study craters and the local magnetic
field (unlike Earth, the moon doesn't have a global magnetic field) during its
lunar approach and two-Earth-day surface mission. But the main goal is to
inspire young people around the world, especially those in Israel.
(US) Blue Origin-the space firm owned by Amazon owner Jeff Bezos-
successfully launched eight NASA research and technology payloads into space on
the 23rd January , The reusable new
Shepard rocket's mission lasted just over 10 minutes and culminated in a
successful touchdown at Blue Origin's west Texas facility.
What’s so exciting about Blue Origin is it is a direct competitor
to Space X, which with their reusable space rockets have pushed the boundaries
of space travel to the very edge. Whilst the media waxes lyrical about China,
India and Russia regards their own space programs, the fact remains private US
companies such as Space X , Blue Origin and even the likes of Richard Bransons Virgin Galactic
are leading the race into space, a
race I should add where they are doing it a lot cheaper than the rest. Which is the direction we need to go in, if we are to leave this planet in search of a new life in space.
(Florida) During the 60s, the space race between the US and the USSR took man to the moon and advanced science 10 fold. However it cost the earth, even the space shuttle was prohibitively expensive to use and the Russian Shuttle after making only one unmanned flight in 1988 is rotting away in an abandoned hanger and the irony here is, it was actually superior to the NASA version.
Currently the big players are all country based, NASA from the US, ROSCOSMOS for Russia, CNSA for China and the European space agency (which hasn't yet launched a man into space) There are others, but only the big 3 have sent a man into space from their own soil, the main reason behind that is the disposable nature of sending anything into space. (Whilst the Space shuttle was reusable, the rockets that carried it into orbit weren't.) which as mentioned above costs.
However everything changed in 1984 when President Reagan signed into law the Commercial Space Launch Act Prior to the signing of this law, all commercial satellite launches in the United States were restricted by Federal regulation to NASA's Space Shuttle. This was followed in 1990 by President Bush senior signed into law the Launch Services Purchase Act: Which was a complete reversal of the earlier Space Shuttle monopoly, requiring NASA to purchase launch services for its primary payloads from commercial providers whenever such services are required in the course of its activities. However until 2004 it was illegal in the US for private enterprise to go into space but that was scrapped by Bush Jr when he signed the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act (anybody else notice the trend here) which allowed civilian companies to make going into space affordable.
Companies such as Space X and Blue Origin have revolutionised space travel with their rockets which can return to base after launch, thus allowing them to be reused. However whilst Blue Origin managed to launch a booster into space and return it to Earth under a powered landing,
SpaceX is the company which has made a name (And profit) for itself in reusable space flight.
Well next week SpaceX is going to resupply the International space station and it is not only going to reuse a Falcon 9 rocket, it is going to reuse a dragon capsule as well. The mission, will carry 4,800 lbs of food, water, and science experiments to the station in Earth orbit.
The Dragon capsule to be used went into orbit in April 2015. After it was retrieved from the Pacific, it was shipped back to SpaceX for a full refit. This reusing of equipment ensures that space travel will become affordable to a lot more people and that can only benefit us all.
