MOJAVE, Calif.--Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson and legendary aircraft designer Burt Rutan, whose SpaceShipOne took the $10 million Ansari X Prize in 2004, unveiled the VSS Enterprise Monday, a sleek commercial rocket plane that represents the ultimate thrill ride for well-heeled space tourists and amateur astronauts.
Seating six passengers and two pilots, Virgin Space Ship Enterprise--also known as SpaceShipTwo--will begin test flights next year with commercial launchings carrying paying customers starting after government regulatory requirements are met. More than 300 people have already put down deposits or paid the full $200,000 cost of a ticket for future sub-orbital up-and-down flights aboard the new spacecraft.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Virgin founder Richard Branson, right, inspect a model of SpaceShipTwo Monday before the craft's roll-out. Designer Burt Rutan looks on from the left.
(Credit: William Harwood)Most of those ticket holders, along with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, were on hand for the SpaceShipTwo unveiling Monday at Mojave airport, braving rain, high winds and frigid temperatures to witness the long-awaited roll-out.
Branson told the enthusiastic crowd that safety was Virgin Galactic's No. 1 priority and that "we will not be putting anybody into space until the test pilots have done many, many, many trips on this spaceship."
"Only when we are absolutely certain we can safely to space will we go into space," he said. "I promise you, it will be well and truly tested before we go into space."
Schwarzenegger said attending the unveiling was "one of the coolest things I've ever done." Describing Branson as "an extraordinary visionary," he called Rutan "one of the greatest space engineers of our time."
"Space is our next great frontier," he said. "When it comes to space enterprise, California is and always has been at the forefront and leading the way."
Virgin Galactic reportedly plans to spend some $400 million to build a fleet of five or six rocket planes. Commercial flights will be launched from taxpayer-funded spaceport under construction in New Mexico. Assuming test flights go well and government requirements are met, commercial launchings could begin by 2011.
"My state is energized and raring to go," Richardson said. "We're proud to be on the ground floor of the second space age...I call on the Obama administration to embrace commercial space travel. We're opening up an opportunity that before now was only available to a select few, a chance to travel in space. Three hundred have already jumped at the chance, signing up to be among the first space tourists."
Turning to Schwarzenegger, Richardson said, "Governor, you should join me in going into space. But I want you to go first."
Construction of SpaceShipTwo, carried out in near-total secrecy at Rutan's Scaled Composites facility in Mojave, began in 2007. The first spacecraft, named VSS Enterprise on Monday, is a scaled-up version of the three-seat SpaceShipOne Rutan designed, with funding from Microsoft founder Paul Allen, to compete for the $10 million Ansari X Prize.
A comparison showing the relative sizes of SpaceShipOne, which won the Ansari X Prize in 2004, and the scaled-up SpaceShipTwo, designed for commercial sub-orbital flights.
(Credit: Virgin Galactic)The X Prize required competitors to complete two manned flights to an altitude of 100 kilometers, or 62 miles, the somewhat arbitrary "boundary" of space. After Rutan won the X-Prize, Branson launched Virgin Galactic and announced plans to build a fleet of larger spacecraft to carry space tourists on sub-orbital flights.
Looking to the future, Rutan said "I believe, to satisfy this market, there will need to be between 40 and 50 spaceships. Assuming we have enough spaceports and assuming we work the cost numbers appropriately we can attract that large number of people. That's what will be required" for the long-term success of commercial manned spaceflight.
Peter Diamandis, who directed the Ansari X Prize program, hailed SpaceShipTwo as an "incredible milestone" and said the industry will flourish despite the high initial cost.
"There is definitely a business model," he said in an interview. "We've got more billionaires on the planet and millionaires than ever before in the history of humanity. It's the same thing with every new technology, whether it's cell phones or airplanes, the wealthy step up first, they pay the higher ticket price and eventually it becomes available to everybody. We need to demonstrate the market and the technology will follow."
SpaceShipTwo will be carried aloft by a futuristic-looking mothercraft called WhiteKnightTwo, a four-engine jet-powered aircraft unveiled last year that features twin fuselages mounted on either side of a huge wing.
For the unveiling Monday, WhiteKnightTwo, with the rocket plane attached to the center of the wing, was rolled into view amid soaring music and floodlights.
SpaceShipTwo, carried by the WhiteKnightTwo carrier plane, rolls out Monday in Mojave, Calif.
(Credit: William Harwood)SpaceShipTwo will be released at an altitude of 50,000 feet. A hybrid rocket motor burning solid propellant with nitrous oxide then will boost SpaceShipTwo onto a steep trajectory to an altitude of more than 62 miles.
The roomy cabin of SpaceShipTwo, about the same size as a large executive jet, features multiple portholes to give its passengers a spectacular view of Earth and space.
After about five minutes of weightlessness as the spaceplane arcs through the top of its ballistic trajectory, the rocket plane will fall back into the atmosphere, pivoting its wings upward in a technique invented by Rutan to ease the stress or re-entry. From there, with the wings back down in their normal orientation, the spacecraft will glide to a runway landing.
An artist's rendering of SpaceShipTwo with its wings pivoted up to reduce the stress of re-entry.
(Credit: Virgin Galactic)Rutan said the spacecraft is being built with a design philosophy that requires a much greater factor of safety than government standards for manned space flight.
"I believe it's not enough, in terms of developing something for the public, to say we'll just do the best that we can," he said. "I believe you also have to have a goal. And clearly the goal of meeting the safety of government manned spaceflight is not anywhere near acceptable, where 4 percent of the people who have left the atmosphere have died. I believe we need to set our sights more on the goal of the safety of the early airliners, and that's an extremely difficult goal.
"That's what we're shooting for, that's what has (guided) our decisions on redundancy and on quality and on training," he said. "What we will achieve now is based on how well we do in our best efforts. But at least we have a proper goal. Making sure spaceflight can attract customers and can fly safely is a much bigger job than doing a research program like we've done before."
How the budding commercial space market might react to a failure early in the program remains to be seen. But Diamandis said he is optimistic.
"If anybody can, Scaled can build a vehicle that's robust and highly reliable," he said.
Updated at 8 p.m. PST with comments from SpaceShipTwo participants.
Updated December 8 at 7:20 a.m. PST to clarify re-entry technique.
A United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket roared to life and thundered away from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Friday, successfully boosting a pair of experimental missile-tracking satellites into orbit for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency.
A United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket blasts off from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Friday carrying two Missile Defense Agency tracking satellites, part of a $1.5 billion technology demonstration mission.
(Credit: NASA TV)With its roots in the old "Star Wars" program, the goal of the $1.5 billion Space Tracking and Surveillance System mission is to demonstrate the ability to detect and track enemy missiles from launch, through the so-called mid-course phase of flight to atmospheric entry, providing more accurate targeting data for interceptors.
"The purpose of these satellites is to enable acquisition and precision tracking from space, tracking of a sufficient quality to enable an interceptor to close the fire control loop, that is, to be able to determine a fire control solution based on information from space," said Rear Adm. Joseph Horn, deputy director of the Missile Defense Agency.
The results of the demonstration mission, he added, "will guide our decisions on the development of an affordable, continuously available, operational, precision-track space sensor constellation."
Running two days late because of bad weather and a small ground system fuel leak, the Delta 2 blasted off at 8:20 a.m. EDT from launch complex 17B at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, 20 minutes late because of morning rain showers. NASA managed the launching for the Missile Defense Agency.
Built by Northrup Grumman Aerospace Systems, the two solar-powered satellites boosted into space by the Delta 2 trace their heritage to President Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, which envisioned a constellation of missile-tracking satellites in low-Earth orbit.
The original tracking satellite concept evolved into the "Brilliant Eyes" program, which later was transferred to the Air Force and ultimately became part of the Space-Based Infrared System, or SBIRS.
SBIRS had two components: satellites in geosynchronous orbit intended to replace aging Defense Support Program - DSP - early-warning spacecraft, and a constellation of tracking satellites in low-Earth orbit. Brilliant Eyes was redesigned to become the lower-altitude component of the system.
Work on two demonstration satellites was started under the Brilliant Eyes program and later put on hold in favor of a different approach. In 2002, mission managers decided to press ahead with the demonstration satellites under management of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency.
A schematic showing how new missile-tracking satellites, working with gound- and sea-based sensors, can track an enemy missile through all phases of flight, providing precision targeting data for interceptors.
(Credit: Missile Defense Agency)The 2,200-pound satellites are equipped with horizon-to-horizon missile detection sensors and a narrow-angle tracking telescope that can follow an enemy missile in flight, even during the mid-course phase of flight when it is most difficult to detect. The sensors were built by Raytheon.
By combining tracking data from two spacecraft, computers can assemble a three-dimensional view of a missile's trajectory and quickly provide targeting information to future interceptors.
At least that's the idea. The new spacecraft will spend two to four years carrying out a series of tests to demonstrate the effectiveness of the technology, working in concert with two earlier experimental satellites. Whether the STSS demonstration program will spur funding and development of an operational constellation remains to be seen.
"The greatest hedge against missile defense threats of all ranges remains a highly available, early missile-tracking capability from space," Horn said. "With the successful launch of these two demonstrator satellites, we enter into an orbit checkout period after which we plan to use both targets of opportunity and dedicated targets to demonstrate STSS capabilities."
The requirements for an operational constellation are not yet defined, Horn said, but "what we expect to learn from these two demonstrators is exactly that, the (number) of satellites necessary to support a constellation and provide that continuous precision tracking information."
Streaking through space at 5 miles per second, the International Space Station is the largest satellite ever built, massing 670,000 pounds and stretching 357 feet--longer than a football field--from one end of its main solar power truss to the other.
An hour or two before sunrise and after sunset, when you are in Earth's shadow and the space station--orbiting 220 miles up--is still illuminated by the sun, the ISS outshines Jupiter and rivals Venus as it sails across the sky.
The International Space Station.
(Credit: NASA)The space station is by far the easiest satellite to see--it's impossible to miss if you're looking up when it's passing over--and occasionally, a truly jaw-dropping sight.
If the solar arrays catch the sun just right, it can flare and outshine anything in the sky but the moon. And if you're really lucky, you can watch a space shuttle approach or depart, a second, slightly dimmer "star" moving in lockstep with the station.
In years past, amateur satellite trackers relied on desktop software to predict when a satellite might be visible from a given location, manually plugging in or downloading NASA two-line elements--a string of numbers that defines a spacecraft's orbit--to generate sighting opportunities.
Later, NASA and other services automated that process and put it on the Internet. Chris Peat's Heavens-Above is the most sophisticated and widely used satellite tracking resource, allowing enthusiasts anywhere in the world to find passes for virtually any satellite in orbit.
With the introduction of Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch, satellite tracking entered a new era of convenience and ease of use. Now, you can check on the space station, the Hubble Space Telescope or any other satellite while watching a football game, camping out or doing just about anything at all.
Apple's App store carries several inexpensive satellite tracking programs, but GoSatWatch from Canada's GoSoftWorks is in a class by itself (App store link).
At $9.99 it costs more than the typical app, but as my father used to say, "you get what you pay for." This powerful, beautifully rendered program has become my satellite tracking software of choice. Compared to .99 apps, it's relatively expensive but believe me, it's a genuine bargain.
GoSatWatch map page, showing the current location of a selected satellite.
(Credit: GoSatWatch screen grab)GoSatWatch allows you to manually load multiple viewing sites--my home, my parent's house, towns I frequently visit--or you can rely on the iPhone's GPS.
Once the program knows where you are, you tell it which satellites you're interested in and make sure you've got the latest two-line elements. You do that by touching the update button (a circular arrow) on the Satellites page.
I reload elements every three or four days to ensure accuracy. An Internet connection is required for updating, but not for in-between use.
GoSatWatch comes pre-loaded with the space station and about 150 other satellites. The station and the shuttle are listed separately to make them easier to find and update. When new spacecraft are launched, they show up in the "visible satellites" tab on the Satellites page.
The program remembers your selections and will auto-load them the next time it's launched.
A drawing of the local sky, showing the selected satellite's path.
(Credit: GoSatWatch screen grab)With your targets selected, program operation is virtually automatic. On the main Map page, the selected satellites are shown in their actual locations on a live map of the world. Touch one, and its next three obits are shown. Turn the iPhone or Touch sideways and the view rotates into landscape mode.
The map normally runs in real time, but you can speed it up or slow it down if wanted. A red view circle around a satellite indicates when it is above the horizon. If you're location is inside the circle, the satellite is visible in your sky.
The Passes screen lets you see if your selected satellites will be visible that night or any upcoming night. As with all satellite tracking applications, GoSatWatch gives you the time the satellite rises (or leaves Earth's shadow), when it reaches maximum elevation and when it sets (or moves into shadow), along with compass headings for each.
When a pass is found, just touch it and GoSatWatch will draw the satellite's path across your sky, showing the moon and stars in their actual positions. If you check the Sky page in the daytime, it shows the current position of the sun and moon.
The portability of GoSatWatch really shines when you go outside for an upcoming pass. When the satellite climbs above your horizon, a small image of the spacecraft appears on the Sky track that moves in concert with the real thing. A quick glance at the screen shows you exactly where to look.
GoSatWatch is on the home screen of my Touch and it's one of my most frequently used apps. I can't find any significant flaws in the program or its execution. It will occasionally warn of a "low memory" condition and ask for the Touch to be restarted, but I just dismiss the warning and press on. All in all, this is a near-perfect app.
If you've never seen the space station or used a tracking program, you'll enjoy GoSatWatch's ease of use. If you're a veteran satellite watcher, you'll love the portability. On top of all that, it's a great way to impress the neighbors.
But the real payoff is watching the space station fly over. If GoSatWatch does nothing else, it will encourage you to get off the couch, go outside and take in one of the modern wonders of the world.
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