Virgin Galactic Spaceship Crash Caps Terrible Week for Commercial Spaceflight

As reported by Space.com: The burgeoning field of commercial spaceflight suffered two serious blows this week.

The bad news began on Tuesday (Oct. 28), when Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Antares rocket exploded just seconds after blasting off on an unmanned cargo mission to the International Space Station for NASA. Then, on Friday (Oct. 31), Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo crashed during a test flight; one of the two pilots aboard was killed and the other injured, apparently seriously.

The causes of the two accidents are unclear at the moment, and so are the consequences. But the fallout could be huge for Orbital Sciences, Virgin Galactic and the entire private spaceflight industry, which has been building up some serious momentum over the past several years. [Photos: SpaceShipTwo's Test Flights]

Virginia-based Orbital Sciences holds a $1.9 billion contract with NASA to make eight robotic cargo runs to the space station using Antares and the company's Cygnus spacecraft. Orbital had completed two such missions without incident before Tuesday's rocket explosion.

Another company, California-based SpaceX, also signed a deal to ferry cargo to the space station for NASA. The agency is paying SpaceX $1.6 billion to fly 12 unmanned supply missions to the orbiting lab using the firm's Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket. So far, SpaceX has flown four of these missions, and all have been successful.

NASA is also looking to the private sector to take astronauts to and from low-Earth orbit. Last month, the agency awarded SpaceX and Boeing multibillion-dollar contracts to continue developing their crewed vehicles — a manned version of Dragon in SpaceX's case and a capsule called the CST-100 for Boeing.

NASA officials hope at least one of these spaceships is up and running by 2017. The agency has been dependent on Russian Soyuz spacecraft to ferry American astronauts to and from the space station since 2011, when NASA's space shuttle fleet retired.

NASA officials expressed confidence in Orbital Sciences after Tuesday's launch mishap, citing the company's two successful supply missions to the space station. The agency also seemed to affirm its commitment to private cargo delivery.

"Launching rockets is an incredibly difficult undertaking, and we learn from each success and each setback," Bill Gerstenmaier, head of NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Directorate, said in a statement Tuesday. "Today's launch attempt will not deter us from our work to expand our already successful capability to launch cargo from American shores to the International Space Station."

Meanwhile, Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites — the company that built the six-passenger, two-pilot SpaceShipTwo — are dealing with a tragedy that claimed a life.

Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson has previously expressed hope that commercial operations of SpaceShipTwo will begin sometime in 2015. Friday's crash, which occurred during the suborbital space plane's fourth rocket-powered flight and 55th overall test flight, will almost certainly push that timeline back.

But Virgin Galactic representatives vowed that they will continue their work to get SpaceShipTwo up and running. And the entire industry will bounce back as well, said Stuart Witt, CEO of Mojave Air and Space Port in California, which hosts SpaceShipTwo's test flights.

"It hasn't been an easy week. It's certainly been a challenge," Witt said during a post-crash news conference Friday. "But where I'm from, this is where you find out your true character."

Spooky Action at a Distance: How Entanglement Generating Satellites Will Make the Quantum Internet Global

Sending entangled photons to opposite sides of the planet will require a small fleet of orbiting satellites, say physicists.

As reported by MIT Technology Review: One of the challenges that physicists face in creating a quantum Internet is to distribute entangled photons around the planet. The idea is that a user in Tokyo could use this entanglement to send a perfectly secure message to somebody in Moscow or Johannesburg or New York.

The problem is that entangled photons are difficult to send over these distances because optical fibers absorb then. This process of absorption limits the distance that physicists can distribute entanglement to about 100 kilometers.

One solution is to place quantum repeaters along a fiber that pass on the entanglement without destroying it. Physicists are currently developing these kinds of devices and expect to have them operating in the next few years.

However, quantum repeaters will operate at temperatures close to absolute zero and require their own power and cooling infrastructure. That is all possible on land but is much harder to make work for transoceanic cables. Which is why physicists are looking for alternative ways to distribute entanglement over long distances.

Today, Kristine Boone at the University of Calgary in Canada and a few pals outline a plan to distribute entanglement around the planet from satellites orbiting a couple of hundred kilometers above the Earth. “Our proposed scheme relies on realistic advances in quantum memories and quantum non-demolition measurements and only requires a moderate number of satellites equipped with a tangled photon pair sources,” they say.

One feature of quantum technology is that it is rapidly changing as advances are made in laboratories all over the planet. But any technology aboard a satellite cannot be changed once it is launched. So a potential danger with a satellite-based network is that it would be unable to take advantage of important advances.

Boone and co get around this by keeping much of the most advanced technology on the ground. Their proposed satellites will be little more than vehicles for producing entangled photons, a process that is relatively well understood and straightforward to achieve.

Each satellite will generate a constant stream of entangled pairs. Each member of the pair will be sent to separate stations on the ground, where it will be stored in quantum memories. In this way, the satellites will entangle quantum memories across the globe.

The ground stations will consist of relatively small one-meter telescopes, aimed at the satellites as they pass overhead. These will collect photons and direct them towards quantum memories. It is the quantum memories that are likely to advance rapidly in the coming years.

Once the entanglement is stored on the ground, it can then be used as needed to send secure messages, or even sent locally across the quantum Internet using short optical fibers.

Simon and co perform various calculations to show that their proposal is well founded. “We have argued that quantum repeaters based on LEO satellite links are a viable approach to global quantum communication,” they say.

An interesting question is whether the system they propose would be better than the one we discussed last week in which entanglement is transported around the world in quantum memories on containerships. At first glance, that seems to have the potential to be cheaper given that the transport infrastructure is already in place and known to be cost-effective. By contrast, rocket launches, and the satellites they carry, are hugely expensive.

One thing is clear. Entanglement is set to become a valuable resource that is likely to be bought and sold, much like oil and gas today. Just how the incipient market for entanglement emerges will be interesting to watch.

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1410.5384 : Entanglement Over Global Distances via Quantum Repeaters with Satellite Links

ULA Atlas V Successfully Launches with GPS IIF-8 Satellite

As reported by NASA Spaceflight: 
In what is proving to be a dramatic week for space flight, United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket made its fiftieth flight on Wednesday, tasked with orbiting the GPS IIF-8 satellite for the US Air Force. Liftoff from SLC-41 at Cape Canaveral was on schedule at the start of an eighteen minute window that opened at 13:21 local time (17:21 UTC).

Atlas V Launch:
Introduced in 2002, the Atlas V was originally developed by Lockheed Martin for the US Air Force’s Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program, along with Boeing’s Delta IV.

Based loosely on the earlier Atlas-Centaur series of rockets, the Atlas V is a two-stage rocket with a Common Core Booster (CBC) first stage and a Centaur upper stage.

Early Atlas V launches were conducted by International Launch Services (ILS), however Lockheed withdrew in 2006 ahead of the formation of United Launch Alliance (ULA) that December.
A partnership between Lockheed Martin and Boeing, ULA is responsible for the manufacture and operation of both EELVs and the older Delta II, as well as marketing them to US Government customers.

ULA has also conducted commercial missions under contract to Lockheed Martin for the Atlas V, and Boeing for the Delta II. The Delta IV is not offered for commercial launches.

Both the Atlas V and Delta IV were designed to be adaptable to all of the US Air Force’s payload requirements, with multiple configurations depending on the required capacity.
For the Atlas V this meant a Light configuration with a modernised Agena upper stage, a series of medium to intermediate configurations with varying numbers of solid rocket boosters to increase performance, and a Heavy configuration with two additional Common Core Boosters to provide the maximum capacity. The Light and Heavy configurations were cancelled and never flew.

The first flight of the Atlas V took place successfully in August 2002, carrying Eutelsat’s Hot Bird 6 spacecraft (since renamed Eutelsat 8 West C).

All of the rocket’s early flights carried commercial communications satellites, with the next few launches orbiting HellasSat-2, Rainbow 1, AMC-16 and Inmarsat-4F1. In August 2005 the sixth Atlas V embarked on the type’s first mission for the US Government, deploying NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on the first leg of its mission to the Red Planet.

The next launch in January 2006 carried the New Horizons probe, which is currently en route to Pluto with a flyby expected next July.

In April 2006 the Atlas flew its last mission for International Launch Services, carrying SES Astra’s Astra-1KR spacecraft. Eleven months later ULA flew its first Atlas mission, carrying six small satellites for the Space Test Program.

The only blemish on the Atlas V’s launch record to date occurred during the rocket’s tenth flight, in June 2007. Carrying a pair of Intruder ocean surveillance satellites, designated NROL-30 or USA-194, for the National Reconnaissance Office, the Atlas injected its payload into a lower than planned orbit after the upper stage ended its final burn prematurely.

The fault was later traced to a liquid hydrogen leak caused by a faulty valve. Despite the shortfall both satellites were able to maneuver themselves into a usable orbit.

The Atlas returned to flight in October 2007 with the launch of the first Wideband Global Satcom spacecraft for the Air Force, finishing the year with the deployment of a Quasar communications satellite for the NRO in December.

In 2008 two Atlas V launches occurred, including the type’s first mission from Vandenberg Air Force Base in March – using a pad which had previously been used by the Atlas II. This launch carried a signals intelligence satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office, while the other launch, in April, deployed ICO Global Communications’ ICO-G1 satellite.

Despite the satellite being deployed successfully, concerns regarding the performance of the first stage on the ICO mission kept the Atlas grounded for the rest of 2008. A year later the rocket returned to flight, again deploying a Wideband Global Satcom communications satellite.

This was the first of five launches in 2009, including NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), which were deployed in June. As part of the LCROSS mission the Atlas’ upper stage was intentionally impacted into the south pole of the Moon.

The three other launches in 2014 carried the PAN communications satellite for an undisclosed government agency, a Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) weather satellite and the Intelsat 14 communications spacecraft.

Four Atlas launches in 2010 carried NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, the first flight of the recoverable X-37B spacecraft, an Advanced Extremely High Frequency military communications satellite and a Topaz radar imaging spacecraft.

Five launches in 2011 included NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter and the Curiosity rover bound for Mars as well as three military payloads – one of which was a further X-37B mission.

In 2012 six launches were made, including the third X-37B – which landed earlier this month after nearly two years in orbit – three military communications satellites, a pair of Intruder ocean surveillance satellites and NASA’s Van Allen Probes to study Earth’s radiation belts.

Last year the Atlas made eight flights; deploying NASA’s TDRS-11 data relay satellite, Landsat 8 Earth imaging spacecraft and the MAVEN probe to study Mars. The remaining launches carried military payloads; a SBIRS-GEO missile defence satellite, a GPS navigation spacecraft, MUOS and AEHF communications satellites and a Topaz radar reconnaissance bird for the NRO.

Wednesday’s launch is the eighth Atlas launch of 2014.
For Atlas, the year began with the launch of NASA’s TDRS-12 in January, before a launch from Vandenberg carried a DMSP weather satellite into orbit in early April.

Seven days after the DMSP launch another Atlas flew from Cape Canaveral carrying the NROL-67 payload – believed to be a successor to the Mercury signals intelligence satellites launched in the 1990s. In May an Atlas V carried an NRO Quasar satellite, NROL-33, into orbit.

Early August saw the launch of the previous GPS satellite – GPS IIF-7 – from the Cape, followed by a commercial launch from Vandenberg with the WorldView-3 Earth imaging satellite. The most recent Atlas launch occurred in mid-September with the CLIO satellite. Like 2009’s PAN, CLIO is a communications satellite launched for an undisclosed government agency.

The Atlas that launched on Wednesday had the tail number AV-050.

Wednesday’s payload, GPS IIF-8, is the eighth Block IIF satellite in the Global Positioning System (GPS) constellation. Used to provide navigation data to both military and civilian users, the GPS programme began in the 1970s with the first demonstration satellite launching in February 1978.

The first-generation GPS constellation consisted of ten test satellites – an eleventh was launched by failed to achieve orbit – operating in more highly inclined orbits than those which would later be used for operational missions.
Begun as a military programme, US President Ronald Reagan ordered that the system be made available to civilian users once complete after the Soviet Union shot down a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747 which strayed into its airspace in 1983.

The first operational, or Block II, GPS satellite was launched on the maiden flight of the Delta II rocket in 1989, with all operational spacecraft until 2009 riding to orbit atop Delta IIs. In late 1990 the Block II spacecraft were replaced with the upgraded Block IIA, which itself gave way to the Block IIR (Replenishment) series in 1997.

The current-generation GPS satellites, the Block IIF, are an interim series designed to bridge the gap between the IIR and the new Block III spacecraft which will replace them.

Constructed by Boeing the new satellites are lighter than the previous generation, achieved in part by eliminating the solid apogee motor used to inject the satellites into their final orbit.
The Atlas V and Delta IV, being far more powerful than the Delta II, are able to place the spacecraft directly into their operational medium Earth orbits.

The first Block IIF satellite was deployed by a Delta IV in May 2010. Of the seven launched to date, two have flown aboard Atlas Vs and the remaining five atop Delta IVs.

Wednesday’s launch took place from Space Launch Complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, a former Titan launch pad which was converted for the Atlas V in the late 1990s. The complex was originally built in the 1960s for the Titan IIIC, with the Titan IIIE and Titan IV rockets later launching from it.

During the 1970s Complex 41 was the launch site for both of NASA’s Viking missions to Mars and both Voyager missions to the Outer Planets, which made use of the Titan IIIE with its Centaur upper stage.

The final Titan IV launch from Complex 41 occurred in 1999, and was an unsuccessful attempt to place a Defense Support Program missile detection satellite into geostationary orbit. Demolition work on pad structures began later the same year to set the facility up for the Atlas V’s “clean pad” approach.

Atlas rockets are assembled off-pad in the Vertical Integration Facility, before being rolled to the launch complex atop a mobile launch platform. By contrast the Atlas pad at Vandenberg, SLC-3E, uses a traditional assembly-on-pad approach.

The launch on Wednesday began with ignition of the Atlas’ RD-180 main engine 2.7 seconds before the countdown reached zero. Liftoff occurred at the +1.1 second mark as the thrust the vehicle is producing exceeds its weight.

For GPS launches the Atlas V flies in the 401 configuration, with a four-meter payload fairing, a single engine Centaur upper stage and no solid rocket motors attached to the first stage. As a result all thrust during the early stages of flight comes from the RD-180 burning RP-1 propellant in liquid oxygen.

The RD-180, which is derived from the RD-170 developed for the Soviet Union’s Zenit and Energia rockets, is a two-chamber engine which was first introduced on the Atlas III, a short-lived rocket which served as a test-bed for the Atlas V development program.

Around 17.2 seconds into flight AV-050 will began a series of pitch and yaw manoeuvres to establish the trajectory it required to reach its target orbit.

The rocket flew downrange on an azimuth of 45.8 degrees, reaching a speed of Mach 1 at around the one minute, 18.5 second mark.

The vehicle passed through Max-Q, the area of maximum dynamic pressure, 90.3 seconds after liftoff.

First stage flight lasted four minutes and 3.8 seconds, with separation of the spent Common Core Booster occurring six seconds after its engine cut off.

Following staging the second stage, the Centaur, entered its prestart phase with ignition of its RL10A-4-2 engine taking place ten seconds later. The payload fairing separated from the nose of the rocket eight seconds into second stage flight.

The Centaur burned for twelve minutes, 49.6 seconds, entering an elliptical transfer orbit. Three hours, one minute and 7.3 seconds later, after coasting to its apogee, the Centaur restarted for a brief second burn. Lasting 89.7 seconds, this burn circularised the spacecraft’s orbit ready for deployment.

The satellite separated four minutes and 45.7 seconds after the burn ended, or three hours, 24 minutes and 17.5 seconds after lifting off. The target orbit for spacecraft separation is a circular semi-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 20,448 kilometres (12,705 miles, 11,041 nautical miles) and an inclination of 55.0 degrees.

Once operational GPS IIF-8 will broadcast pseudo-random noise (PRN) code 03. The satellite will operate in slot 1 of plane E of the GPS constellation, replacing the GPS IIR-4 satellite which was launched in May 2000. IIR-4, which is also known as USA-150, will then be re-phased into a reserve slot in the A plane of the constellation to replace GPS IIA-19, the final Block IIA satellite to launch, which is being decommissioned.

The seventieth orbital launch attempt of 2014, Wednesday’s mission comes less than twenty four hours after the failure of the United States’ previous launch.

An Orbital Sciences Antares rocket flying from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island, Virginia, appeared to suffer a failure seconds after launch, crashing in flames close to the launch pad. The Antares had been carrying a Cygnus spacecraft intended for a resupply mission to the International Space Station.

The GPS launch is the twenty-first US launch of the year, with the Antares the only failure. AV-050 is the eighth Atlas V to fly in 2014, and the twelfth mission for United Launch Alliance, who have also launched three Delta IVs and a Delta II.

ULA’s next mission is scheduled to be the 4 December launch of a Delta IV Heavy with NASA’s Exploration Flight Test 1 (EFT-1), which will be the first test flight for the Orion spacecraft. The next Atlas V will launch a week later from Vandenberg with the NROL-35 payload for the National Reconnaissance Office.

Two GPS launches are scheduled to occur next year, with the next launch being of a Delta IV with GPS IIF-9 in March. GPS IIF-10 will ride an Atlas into orbit in June.

'Ambulance Drone' Prototype Unveiled in the Netherlands

As reported by Yahoo News: A Dutch-based student on Tuesday unveiled a prototype of an "ambulance drone", a flying defibrillator able to reach heart attack victims within precious life-saving minutes.

Developed by Belgian engineering graduate Alec Momont, it can fly at speeds of up to 100 KM per hour (60 miles per hour).

"Around 800,000 people suffer a cardiac arrest in the European Union every year and only 8.0 percent survive," Momont, 23, said at the TU Delft University.

"The main reason for this is the relatively long response time of emergency services of around 10 minutes, while brain death and fatalities occur with four to six minutes," he said in a statement.

"The ambulance drone can get a defibrillator to a patient within a 12 square KM (4.6 square miles) zone within a minute, reducing the chance of survival from 8 percent to 80 percent."

Painted in emergency services yellow and driven by six propellers, the drone can carry a four kilogram load -- in this case a defibrillator.

It tracks emergency mobile calls and uses the GPS to navigate.

Once at the scene, an operator, like a paramedic, can watch, talk and instruct those helping the victim by using an on-board camera connected to a control room via a livestream webcam.

The prototype has already attracted the interest of emergency services including that of Amsterdam, the Dutch daily Algemeen Dagblad said.

The Dutch Heart Foundation also applauded the idea, the newspaper added.

Momont however wants his drone to become a "flying medical toolbox" able to carry an oxygen mask to a person trapped in a fire or an insulin injection to a diabetes sufferer.

However, the drone is still in its infancy as far as developing its steering mechanism and legal issues regarding its use are concerned, Momont said.

He said he hopes to have an operational emergency drone network across the Netherlands in five years.

The drone is expected to cost around 15,000 euros ($19,000) each.

"I hope it will save hundreds of lives in the next five years," Momont said.

Drones Could 3D Map Large Areas of Land in just a Few Hours

As reported by ScienceMag.org: Unmanned drones aren't just for warfare. In recent years, they’ve been used to map wildlife and monitor crop growth. But current software can’t always handle the vast volume of images they gather. Now, researchers have developed an algorithm that will allow drones to 3D-map scores of hectares of land in less than a day—an advance that is important for cost-effective farming, disaster relief, and surveillance operations. “It is revolutionary for the problem of mosaicing large volumes of imagery,” says computer scientist Dalton Rosario of the U.S. Army Research Laboratory in Adelphi, Maryland, who was not involved with the study.

Camera-equipped, autonomous, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can fly low to the ground and take high-resolution images of crops that tell farmers exactly where to plant their seeds or add fertilizers—at a tenth the cost of flying a plane or purchasing satellite images. To stitch the photos together into a mosaic, a computer program needs to figure out the exact angle and position of the camera for each picture taken in order to build a 3D model of the land.  

Conventional software does that by looking at common features in neighboring photos—for example, the same corn plant that appears in two images—and marking them with points called tie points. The software then tweaks its calculation of the camera positions for all the photos at once, so that when it projects the tie points onto a 3D model, points from different images match up to form a coherent projection of the corn plant. This method works well for a few hundred photos, but once the number of images exceed a thousand—typical for mapping a 40-hectare farm—the process can take 1000 hours, an impossible load for desktop computers.

So computer scientist Mark Pritt and colleagues at Lockheed Martin in Gaithersburg, Maryland, took a different route. Their computer program directly projects the points from each photo onto a 3D space without knowing the exact shape of the land or the camera positions. As a result, the tie points don’t necessarily match up, which means the same corn plant can have two projections on the model. When that happens, the algorithm automatically takes the middle point between the two projections as the more accurate location and adjusts the camera position accordingly, one image at a time. Because the algorithm tweaks far fewer things at each step, the shortcut drastically speeds up calculations. Once the software has adjusted the camera positions for all the photos, the software repeats the entire process—starting from projecting the points to the 3D space—to correct for any errors.

With the new algorithm, the researchers can produce a map from a thousand images in just 4 hours, they reported this month at the annual IEEE Applied Imagery Pattern Recognition Workshop. That means it can render a map of the land within 24 hours after the drones fly, giving farmers a head start on taking care of their crops and enabling them to use drones routinely to monitor crop health.

The image-mosaicing algorithm can also speed up applications of drone imaging such as surveillance and disaster relief, says computer scientist Kannappan Palaniappan of the University of Missouri, Columbia, who was not involved with the study. When an earthquake strikes, for example, rescue teams could survey the affected area with drones and create a detailed 3D map of the damage in less than a day. The next step for researchers, Palaniappan says, is to improve the algorithm so that it can produce a map within minutes.