New round of suborbital tourism activity
After a long break, activity on the front of suborbital tourism is growing again. Breaking ahead with the New Shepard ship, Blue Origin has built a third flying specimen and intends to continue the test program. And Virgin Galactic, seriously lagging behind after the 2014 crash with SpaceShipTwo, three years later added a new ship to replace the crashed and is about to begin testing with the engine turned on.
Who flew the first step of the New Shepard and the layout of the ship at the exhibition, Blue Origin photo
The latest Blue Origin news is a talk by Clay Mowry, vice president of sales and marketing for Blue Origin. According to him, the third flight copy of the New Shepard suborbital carrier rocket is currently being prepared for flights. The rocket has already been delivered to the cosmodrome and is expected to fly by the end of the year. New Shepard is a reusable rocket, the second flight copy made five flights, the last of which took place on October 5, 2016. Based on the experience gained, changes are made to the rocket, for example, several hatches will appear for access to the units, which should reduce and reduce the cost of inter-flight maintenance. It is also planned to improve the heat protection.
The interior of the New Shepard capsule, centered solid-fuel engine rescue system,
photo Blue Origin
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Despite the fact that previous flights were successful and even better than expected (for example, the rescue system was tested in the fifth launch and the first stage was lost, but it passed the test), however, Blue Origin is not in a hurry. The first tests with people are planned to be held only in 2018, and for this the next, fourth, flight instance of the stage, which is still under construction, will be used. Due to the annual gap in flights, it may seem like Blue Origin has lost a year in vain, but this is hardly true. First of all, a new capsule was made (in the fly there were not even windows), which also needs to be tested before launch. It is necessary to modify the design of the rocket on the basis of the experience gained. Plus, obviously, Bezos (head of Amazon and Blue Origin) does not want to pour in more money to speed up the work - according to Clay, they have learned a lot, and only for 1/50 of the cost of the orbital mission.
New Glenn missile in comparison with existing, historical and developed missiles, drawing Blue Origin
Formally, this has nothing to do with suborbital tourism, but do not forget that both companies are working on orbital projects. The Blue Origin is a New Glenn, heavy rocket (payload estimated at 45 tons) with a reusable first stage. The project has already invested $ 2.5 billion of personal funds from Bezos. Clay Mowri said that the rocket will be installed seven-meter fairing instead of the originally planned 5.4-meter. It is also known that the rocket already has contracts - one launch bought by Eutelsat and five - OneWeb.
Tests of SpaceShipTwo, photo Virgin Galactic
The second flight copy of the SpaceShipTwo was in the process of production at the time of the 2014 crash and was completed in spring 2016. In the summer of the same year, a space plane with the personal name of VSS Unity began testing flights. Until now, all flights were carried out without turning on the engine. Here, a separate drama - the engine of the first version of the ship, SpaceShipOne, on which suborbital flights were performed at the beginning of zero, did not scale to the heavier SpaceShipTwo. I had to change the solid fuel. Until now, the new engine with new fuel has not been tested in flight, and it remains to be hoped that over the past years it has been able to fully test it on the ground. However, George Whiteside, executive director of Virgin Galactic, is full of enthusiasm. According to him , they conducted many tests and are now "on the border of the flight with the engine turned on." The last flight planner took place in August of this year, and it is expected that there will be another one before switching on the engine. Also, according to Whiteside, there are two more SpaceShipTwo ships in production, which are planned to be completed in a year or two.
VSS Unity test frames:
Towing without uncoupling:
Flight planning:
Braking system tests:
In parallel, the company is working on means of launching payloads into orbit. Like SpaceShipTwo, this will be an air launch system, only the carrier in it will be the Boeing-747, which was used by the sister company Virgin Atlantic. A rather big LauncherOne rocket will be launched from under his wing, which will have to output 200 kg into a sun-synchronous orbit.
Richard Branson and the staff against the background of LauncherOne, according to the people, you can estimate the size of the rocket. Virgin Galactic Photos
After some subsiding of the news, the leaders of suborbital tourism began to move again, and it will be interesting to see new challenges. The closest (dates not yet named) - New Shepard with a "full-fledged" capsule, planning to fly SpaceShipTwo and test its engine.
Who flew the first step of the New Shepard and the layout of the ship at the exhibition, Blue Origin photo
Blue origin
The latest Blue Origin news is a talk by Clay Mowry, vice president of sales and marketing for Blue Origin. According to him, the third flight copy of the New Shepard suborbital carrier rocket is currently being prepared for flights. The rocket has already been delivered to the cosmodrome and is expected to fly by the end of the year. New Shepard is a reusable rocket, the second flight copy made five flights, the last of which took place on October 5, 2016. Based on the experience gained, changes are made to the rocket, for example, several hatches will appear for access to the units, which should reduce and reduce the cost of inter-flight maintenance. It is also planned to improve the heat protection.
The interior of the New Shepard capsule, centered solid-fuel engine rescue system,
photo Blue Origin
')
Despite the fact that previous flights were successful and even better than expected (for example, the rescue system was tested in the fifth launch and the first stage was lost, but it passed the test), however, Blue Origin is not in a hurry. The first tests with people are planned to be held only in 2018, and for this the next, fourth, flight instance of the stage, which is still under construction, will be used. Due to the annual gap in flights, it may seem like Blue Origin has lost a year in vain, but this is hardly true. First of all, a new capsule was made (in the fly there were not even windows), which also needs to be tested before launch. It is necessary to modify the design of the rocket on the basis of the experience gained. Plus, obviously, Bezos (head of Amazon and Blue Origin) does not want to pour in more money to speed up the work - according to Clay, they have learned a lot, and only for 1/50 of the cost of the orbital mission.
New Glenn missile in comparison with existing, historical and developed missiles, drawing Blue Origin
Formally, this has nothing to do with suborbital tourism, but do not forget that both companies are working on orbital projects. The Blue Origin is a New Glenn, heavy rocket (payload estimated at 45 tons) with a reusable first stage. The project has already invested $ 2.5 billion of personal funds from Bezos. Clay Mowri said that the rocket will be installed seven-meter fairing instead of the originally planned 5.4-meter. It is also known that the rocket already has contracts - one launch bought by Eutelsat and five - OneWeb.
Virgin galactic
Tests of SpaceShipTwo, photo Virgin Galactic
The second flight copy of the SpaceShipTwo was in the process of production at the time of the 2014 crash and was completed in spring 2016. In the summer of the same year, a space plane with the personal name of VSS Unity began testing flights. Until now, all flights were carried out without turning on the engine. Here, a separate drama - the engine of the first version of the ship, SpaceShipOne, on which suborbital flights were performed at the beginning of zero, did not scale to the heavier SpaceShipTwo. I had to change the solid fuel. Until now, the new engine with new fuel has not been tested in flight, and it remains to be hoped that over the past years it has been able to fully test it on the ground. However, George Whiteside, executive director of Virgin Galactic, is full of enthusiasm. According to him , they conducted many tests and are now "on the border of the flight with the engine turned on." The last flight planner took place in August of this year, and it is expected that there will be another one before switching on the engine. Also, according to Whiteside, there are two more SpaceShipTwo ships in production, which are planned to be completed in a year or two.
VSS Unity test frames:
Towing without uncoupling:
Flight planning:
Braking system tests:
In parallel, the company is working on means of launching payloads into orbit. Like SpaceShipTwo, this will be an air launch system, only the carrier in it will be the Boeing-747, which was used by the sister company Virgin Atlantic. A rather big LauncherOne rocket will be launched from under his wing, which will have to output 200 kg into a sun-synchronous orbit.
Richard Branson and the staff against the background of LauncherOne, according to the people, you can estimate the size of the rocket. Virgin Galactic Photos
Conclusion
After some subsiding of the news, the leaders of suborbital tourism began to move again, and it will be interesting to see new challenges. The closest (dates not yet named) - New Shepard with a "full-fledged" capsule, planning to fly SpaceShipTwo and test its engine.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/370817/
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