Private SpaceX Capsule Brings Big Science to Space Station

The International Space Station is now home to more than 1,200 pounds (544 kilograms) of supplies delivered by an unmanned, privately built space capsule that reached the orbiting science laboratory on Sunday (March 3).

Among the goods SpaceX's Dragon capsule transported to the station were science experiments primed and ready for the six international residents of the space station.

"Dragon is scheduled to return to Earth on March 25, bringing home nearly double the amount of supplies it brought up, about 2,668 pounds (1,210 kilograms)," NASA officials said in a statement. "Returning investigation samples will demonstrate how life in microgravity affects the growth of plant seedlings, changes to the human body, the behavior of semiconductors and detergents, and more."

Some of the experiments will only stay on board for three weeks, making a round trip back to Earth with Dragon when the capsule detaches from the station. One of those experiments involves thale cress, a plant used in many experiments because of its small, relatively easy-to-map genome.

Scientists affiliated with NASA and the European Space Agency sent up one experiment called "Seedling Growth-1," designed to investigate how well plants grow amid stresses such as low oxygen. [See video of SpaceX's Dragon docking in orbit]

"The experiment will study how plants adapt to micro- and low-gravity environments," NASA officials wrote in a statement. "Researchers hope to determine the ability of vegetation to provide a complete, sustainable, dependable and economical means for human life-support in space."

Beyond helping scientists learn how to grow food in space, the research might contribute to better agricultural practices back on Earth. Understanding how these plants react to a stressful environment could lend insight into how farmers could mitigate those taxing situations back on the planet's surface.

Some of the experiments sent to the International Space Station will play a role in education, as well.

"Students from several California schools developed investigations to study bacteria, iron corrosion, battery performance and carbon dioxide levels aboard the station, all of which will be delivered by Dragon," NASA officials wrote in a statement.

Personal product manufacturer Procter & Gamble sent up another experiment that will study how to better preserve toothpaste, gels and creams.

"Particle additives can make a product last longer by maintaining its consistency, but they sink and clump together after a certain amount of time, which can spoil a product," NASA officials said. "It's difficult to study these dynamics on Earth because gravity gets in the way, making the space station an ideal research platform for these important industrial processes."

Although Dragon's launch went flawlessly, once the capsule parted from the Falcon 9 rocket used to boost it into orbit, one glitch became apparent. A thruster problem delayed Dragon's approach to the space station by a day. The spacecraft is expected to return to Earth with experiment results and other gear on March 25.

Dragon also brought a few treats for the astronauts, with bananas and apples among the first items unloaded to the space station.

Follow Miriam Kramer @mirikramer and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. This article was first published on SPACE.com.

Copyright 2013 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Asteroid hunters want to launch private telescope

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Who will protect us from a killer asteroid? A team of ex-NASA astronauts and scientists thinks it's up to them.

In a bold plan unveiled Thursday, the group wants to launch its own space telescope to spot and track small and mid-sized space rocks capable of wiping out a city or continent. With that information, they could sound early warnings if a rogue asteroid appeared headed toward our planet.

So far, the idea from the B612 Foundation is on paper only.

Such an effort would cost upward of several hundred million dollars, and the group plans to start fundraising. Behind the nonprofit are a space shuttle astronaut, Apollo 9 astronaut, former Mars czar, deep space mission manager along with other non-NASA types.

Asteroids are leftovers from the formation of the solar system some 4.5 billion years ago. Most reside in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter but some get nudged into Earth's neighborhood.

NASA and a network of astronomers routinely scan the skies for these near-Earth objects. And they've found 90 percent of the biggest threats — asteroids at least two-thirds of a mile across that are considered major killers. Scientists believe it was a 6-mile-wide asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs.

But the group thinks more attention should be paid to the estimated half a million smaller asteroids — similar in size to the one that exploded over Siberia in 1908 and leveled more than 800 square miles of forest.

"We're playing cosmic roulette. We're flying around the solar system with these other objects. The laws of probability eventually catch up to you," said foundation chairman and former shuttle astronaut Ed Lu.

Added former Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart: "The current priority really needs to be toward finding all of those asteroids which can do real damage if they hit or when they hit. It's not a matter of if; it's really a matter of when."

Asteroids are getting attention lately. NASA nixed a return to the moon in favor of a manned landing on an asteroid. Last month, Planetary Resources Inc., a company founded by space entrepreneurs, announced plans to extract precious metals from asteroids within a decade.

Since its birth, the Mountain View, Calif.-based B612 Foundation — named after the home asteroid of the Earth-visiting prince in Antoine de Saint-Exupery's "The Little Prince" — has focused on finding ways to deflect an incoming asteroid. Ideas studied include sending an intercepting spacecraft to aiming a nuclear bomb, but none have been tested.

Last year, the group shifted focus to seek out asteroids with a telescope.

It is working with Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., which has drawn up a preliminary telescope design. The contractor developed NASA's Kepler telescope that hunts for exoplanets and built the instruments aboard the Hubble Space Telescope.

Under the proposal, the asteroid-hunting Sentinel Space Telescope will operate for at least 5 1/2 years. It will orbit around the sun, near the orbit of Venus, or between 30 million to 170 million miles away from Earth. Data will be beamed back through NASA's antenna network under a deal with the space agency.

Launch is targeted for 2017 or 2018. The group is angling to fly aboard SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, which made history last month by lifting a cargo capsule to the International Space Station.

Experts said the telescope's vantage point would allow it to spy asteroids faster than ground-based telescopes and accelerate new discoveries. NASA explored doing such a mission in the past but never moved forward because of the expense.

"It's always best to find these things quickly and track them. There might be one with our name on it," said Don Yeomans, who heads the Near-Earth Object Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which monitors potentially dangerous space rocks.

Aside from the technological challenges, the big question is whether philanthropists will open up their wallets to support the project.

Nine years ago, the cost was estimated at $500 million, said Tim Spahr, director of the Minor Planet Center at Harvard University who was part of the team that came up with the figure for NASA.

Spahr questions whether enough can be raised given the economy. "This is a hard time," he said.

The group has received seed money — several hundreds of thousands of dollars — from venture capitalists and Silicon Valley outfits to create a team of experts. Lu, the foundation chair, said he was confident donors will step up and noted that some of the world's most powerful telescopes including the Lick and Palomar observatories in California were built with private money.

"We're not all about doom and gloom," Lu said. "We're about opening up the solar system. We're talking about preserving life on this planet."

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Online:

NASA's Near-Earth Object Program: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov

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Alicia Chang can be followed at http://www.twitter.com/SciWriAlicia

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Astronauts to Spend Memorial Day Unpacking Private Space Capsule

Rather than kick their feet up this Memorial Day weekend, the astronauts aboard the International Space Station will be unloading cargo from the first private spacecraft ever to visit the orbiting lab.

SpaceX's unmanned Dragon capsule docked with the station Friday (May 25), making spaceflight history in the process. Another milestone came Saturday at about 5:53 a.m. EDT (0953 GMT), when the hatches between Dragon and the $100 billion orbiting lab were opened.

The station's crew is now able to access the 1,014 pounds (460 kilograms) of cargo that the Dragon spacecraft brought up. But unpacking the capsule in earnest won't begin until Memorial Day (Monday, May 28), NASA officials said.

"Monday and Tuesday are very big cargo days on the space station with regard to Dragon," NASA flight director Holly Ridings said during a post-docking briefing Friday. "At least one of the crewmembers will be doing cargo operations almost all of their work days those days." [SpaceX's Dragon Arrives at Space Station (Pictures)]

Six spaceflyers are currently living aboard the station: NASA astronauts Don Pettit and Joe Acaba, European astronaut Andre Kuipers, and Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko, Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin.

Pettit, Acaba and Kuipers will handle most of the unloading operations, which should take a total of about 25 hours, Ridings said. Dragon's cargo consists primarily of food and clothing for the station astronauts, as well as 15 student science experiments.

"There's about as much stuff in here as I can put in the back of my pickup truck and don't think there will be any issue with the three of us working and getting this thing unloaded over the next two or three days," Pettit told reporters Saturday.

SpaceX holds a $1.6 billion contract with NASA to make 12 supply runs to the space station. Dragon's current mission is a demonstration flight to see if the capsule and SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket are ready to start the bona fide cargo deliveries.

If all goes well, the first of the 12 contracted missions could launch in September, NASA officials said.

Dragon is slated to stay docked to the orbiting lab until Thursday (May 31), when it will detach and return to Earth with about 1,400 pounds (635 kg) of used gear from the station. The capsule is scheduled to depart and splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the California coast, where SpaceX personnel plan to retrieve it with a recovery ship.

The six station astronauts have been busy for a while preparing for Dragon's arrival, but they'll get a chance to relax for at least part of the holiday weekend, Ridings said.

"We are going to give our crew some time off," Ridings said. "They've been working very hard over the last couple of days, so they'll have a little bit of time off over the weekend."

SPACE.com staff writer Denise Chow contributed to this story. You can follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter: @michaeldwall. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Copyright 2012 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Astronauts enter world's 1st private supply ship

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Space station astronauts floated into the Dragon on Saturday, a day after its heralded arrival as the world's first commercial supply ship.

NASA astronaut Donald Pettit, the first one inside the docked capsule, said the Dragon looks like it carries about as much cargo as his pickup truck back home in Houston. It has the smell of a brand new car, he added.

"I spent quite a bit of time poking around in here this morning, just looking at the engineering and the layout, and I'm very pleased," Pettit said from the brilliant white compartment.

To protect against possible debris, Pettit wore goggles, a mask and a caver's light as he slid open the hatch of the newest addition to the International Space Station. The complex sailed 250 miles above the Tasman Sea, just west of New Zealand, as he and his crewmates made their grand entrance. The atmosphere was clean; no dirt or other particles were floating around.

"This event isn't just a simple door opening between two spacecraft — it opens the door to a future in which U.S. industry can and will deliver huge benefits for U.S. space exploration," the Space Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group, said in a statement.

The California-based SpaceX — formally Space Exploration Technologies Corp. — is the first private company to send a vessel to the space station. It's run by Elon Musk, a billionaire who helped create PayPal and founded the electric car company Tesla Motors.

Now that the space shuttles are retired, NASA is handing over orbital delivery work to American business in order to focus on bigger and better objectives, such as getting astronauts to asteroids and Mars. The space agency hopes astronaut ferry trips will follow soon; SpaceX contends its Dragons could be carrying space station astronauts up and down within three or four years.

Flight controllers were ecstatic to be at the cusp of this new commercial era.

"It's great to see you guys inside Dragon. It looks great," Mission Control radioed.

The six space station residents have until the middle of next week to unload Dragon's groceries and refill the capsule with science experiments and equipment for return to Earth. Unlike all the other cargo ships that fly to the orbiting lab, the Dragon is designed for safe re-entry. It will be freed on Thursday and aim for a Pacific splashdown.

The Dragon contains 1,000 pounds of food, clothes, batteries and other provisions. It will bring back 1,400 pounds' worth of gear.

Until now, only major governments have launched cargo ships to the space station. Russia, Japan and Europe will keep providing supplies, and Russia will continue to sell rocket rides to U.S. astronauts until SpaceX or other companies are ready to take over. Several American enterprises are competing for the honor.

Pettit noted that the Dragon — 19 feet tall and 12 feet wide — is roomier than the Russian Soyuz spacecraft he rode up in.

"Flying up in a human-rated Dragon is not going to be an issue," he assured reporters during a news conference.

The unmanned bell-shaped capsule was launched Tuesday from Cape Canaveral aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Pettit used the space station's robot arm Friday to snare the craft.

During Saturday's news conference, Pettit played down his role in the historic event. He noted that the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, which opened up America's Western frontier, was commemorated by the pounding of a golden spike.

"This is kind of the equivalent of the golden spike," he said. "And one other interesting detail — nobody remembers who pounded that golden spike in. The important thing is to remember that the railroad was completed and was now open for use."

Success or failure of the new commercial space effort — the cornerstone of President Barack Obama's vision for NASA — does not hinge on a single mission but rather many missions over many years, Pettit stressed.

"Commercial spaceflight will blossom due to its own merits," he said.

___

Online:

SpaceX: http://www.spacex.com

NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/offices/c3po/home/

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Spaceport America Showcases Private Space Industry's Half-Built Dream (SPACE.com)

SPACE.com reporter Clara Moskowitz visited Spaceport America near Truth or Consequences, N.M., a site that's billed as the world's first purpose-built commercial spaceport. Here's what she saw during her October 2011 visit.

After two hours of driving through the desert, a structure appears to rise from the sand. It's soft and rounded, and almost the same color as the beige terrain around it.

Yet as our tour bus drives closer, light glints off metal. What resembled a mushroom in shape and color from the distance starts to take form as a futuristic building. A hangar, in fact.

I am here at Spaceport America, a half-built dream to transform a desolate stretch of scrub brush into the worldwide capital of the commercial space industry. [Photos: Take a Tour of Spaceport America]

The facility, which will cost $209 million when all is said and done, is financed entirely by the state of New Mexico. Its taxpayers are betting that if we build it, they will come.

"They" refers to the nascent private space industry — firms that plan to launch paying tourists to space. Spaceport America already has its first big anchor tenant: British billionaire Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic.

Virgin Galactic has pledged to fly its SpaceShipTwo suborbital craft, which can carry six paying astronauts per flight, from the New Mexico spaceport. Branson himself was here recently to dedicate the main hangar, newly christened the "Gateway to Space."

When we arrive, I step off the bus onto an island of pavement in an ocean of sand.

It's clear that the terminal hangar and a nearby dome-shape office building, the Spaceport Operations Center, have been designed with style in mind as much as substance. Their curving shell-like roofs resemble flying saucers — a nod, perhaps, to the city of Roswell, N.M., about four hours away.

"This is part of the experience Virgin is selling," Chad Rabon, the spaceport's operations manager, told me. "The roof more or less looks like it's floating. It's very unique."

The spaceport team plans to complete construction on the main terminal next year. The 114,000 square-foot facility can house up to six SpaceShipTwo vehicles, and two of its WhiteKnightTwo motherships, which will carry the spaceships to midair before they ignite their rocket engines to climb to space.

Across from the hangar is a giant "spaceway," a specially built runway that's 2 miles long (3.2 km) and 200 feet wide (61 meters). The cement stretches out into the distance, cutting a swath of order in the wilderness of crumbling baked-dry dirt and scrawny weeds.

"This is really a whole city that we built out here in the middle of nowhere," said the spaceport's executive director, Christine Anderson. Everything has had to be built from scratch — not only the buildings, but also the power lines, water tanks and even a paved road out to the facility.

The location is part of its charm. Though inconvenient to get to, by the time I arrive, I feel I've already come on a journey. The nearest town is the 7,000-person Truth or Consequences, a spa town that changed its name from "Hot Springs" in 1950 to win a radio show contest. Between "T or C," as the locals call it, and the spaceport, the only living creatures to be seen are grazing cattle and bison.

Spaceport America's isolated location is just one factor in its favor as a space travel hub. It's located right next to the White Sands Missile Range, whose restricted airspace prevents any interference from passing aircraft traffic. The weather is consistently clear and unchanging, and its elevation of 4,200 feet (1,300 meters) means that it's that much easier and cheaper to get to space compared to launching from sea level.

The spaceport is almost ready. Now it just needs more customers to use it. Besides Virgin Galactic, some smaller suborbital rocket firms, such as UP Aerospace and Armadillo Aerospace, have also come onboard.

But eventually Spaceport America planners foresee more big-ticket tenants, and maybe even orbital launches taking place. They're also planning an intensive tourist experience, complete with a state-of-the-art visitor's center and simulation rides, to attract day visitors.

From my perspective, it should be worth checking out.

You can follow SPACE.com Senior Writer Clara Moskowitz on Twitter @ClaraMoskowitz. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcomand on Facebook.

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Private Spaceship Factory Opens for Business in Calif. Desert (SPACE.com)

In a grand and ceremonious style, a factory site that will crank out private spaceships has opened its hangar doors.

The $8 million hangar was specifically designed to support the final stages of assembly and integration for prime customer Virgin Galactic’s fleet of passenger-carrying suborbital SpaceShipTwos and the mothership launch craft, WhiteKnightTwos.

Called the Final Assembly, Integration and Test Hangar, or FAITH, the special building was unveiled Sept. 19 at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. That’s the home port for Scaled Composites, builder of the SpaceShipTwo/WhiteKnightTwo launch system. [Photos: SpaceShipTwo's First Glide Test Flight]

Important step

"The opening of the new facility is an important step on a journey that will culminate in commercial operations at Spaceport America" in New Mexico, said George Whitesides, CEO and president of Virgin Galactic, which will launch paying customers to suborbital space aboard SpaceShipTwo.

"The modern plant is energy-efficient and will provide ample space for future growth of The Spaceship Company. It can hold two WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft and several SpaceshipTwos at the same time," Whitesides told SPACE.com.

The Spaceship Company (TSC) was established to manufacture additional vehicle sets beyond the first pair from Scaled Composites.

"We believe there is tremendous possibility for growth in the future," Whitesides added.

FAITH is a 68,000-square-foot (6,317 square meters) structure. It's big enough to accommodate the first-ever side-by-side public viewing of WhiteKnightTwo/SpaceShipTwo and the WhiteKnightOne/SpaceShipOne system, which happened at the grand opening ceremony.  

In 2004, SpaceShipOne bagged the $10 million Ansari X Prize as the world’s first privately developed piloted spacecraft.

Joint venture

TSC is the aerospace production joint venture of Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites, which teamed up to build the world’s first fleet of commercial spaceships and flying launch pads.

Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo is being built to carry six customers and two pilots on suborbital jaunts. That trek to the edge of space and back provides passengers several minutes of out-of-the-seat, zero-gravity experience. [Video: SpaceShipTwo's First Crewed Flight]

During the flight, space travelers are promised astounding views of the planet from the black sky of space for about 1,000 miles (1,609 kilometers) in every direction.

In the space reservation department, Virgin Galactic has signed up more than 450 individuals who have made deposits between $20,000 and the total per-seat cost of $200,000.

Total deposits received are over $57 million. Over 85,000 people from 125 countries have registered their interest in becoming a Virgin Galactic astronaut, according to the company.

Kick-in-the-pants velocity

The first fully built SpaceShipTwo is dubbed VSS Enterprise, and the WhiteKnightTwo is called VMS Eve. Both have already undergone a step-by-step test flight program.

Still ahead, however, are critical flights involving SpaceShipTwo’s hybrid rocket motor. That engine is central to giving the craft a kick-in-the-pants velocity to attain a desired suborbital trajectory.

The progression of shake-out flights is necessary before Virgin Galactic can start safe and sound commercial operations, which will be based at Spaceport America in New Mexico.

FAITH was completed within 10 months, as scheduled and on budget by Bakersfield-based Wallace & Smith General Contractors. It can support the production of two WhiteKnightTwos and at least two SpaceShipTwo vehicles in parallel. Also, the facility can support major return-to-base maintenance for the rocket plane and carrier mothership fleet once in operation, officials said.

Workforce wants

FAITH is one of two facilities that TSC will use to produce commercial spacecraft. The other is a 48,000-square-foot (4,459 square meters) existing building at the Mojave Air and Space Port that TSC recently upgraded to serve as the company’s fabrication and vehicle sub-assembly facility.

TSC has secured options to expand the size of the FAITH facility and build an adjacent flight test hangar, as the customer base grows.

The opening of FAITH has been also billed as a means to boost local economies in California and New Mexico. TSC currently employs more than 80 people and is looking to double its work force within the next year, with numerous high-tech and engineering positions available in the next few months, according to TSC officials.

Others in the aerospace field see the opening of the new hangar as a good sign for the nascent space tourism industry.

"Not only are we welcoming a new neighbor at the Mojave Air and Space Port…we’re ushering in another phase in the development of commercial space travel," said Doug Shane, president of Scaled Composites. "It’s exciting to see the vision becoming a reality."

For more information on The Spaceship Company, visit: http://www.thespaceshipcompany.com

Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is a winner of this year's National Space Club Press Award and a past editor-in-chief of the National Space Society's Ad Astra and Space World magazines. He has written for SPACE.com since 1999.

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NASA Buys Flights on Virgin Galactic's Private Spaceship (SPACE.com)

The space tourism company Virgin Galactic has struck a deal with NASA worth up to $4.5 million for research flights on the company's new private spaceliner SpaceShipTwo, Virgin Galactic officials announced today (Oct. 13).

Under the deal, NASA will charter up to three flights on Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, an air-launched spacecraft designed to carry eight people on trips to suborbital space.

The announcement comes just two days after Virgin Galactic announced that Mike Moses, NASA's former deputy space shuttle program chief, had joined the company's ranks as vice president of operations.

"We are excited to be working with NASA to provide the research community with this opportunity to carry out experiments in space, said George Whitesides, president and CEO of Virgin Galactic, in a statement.

"An enormous range of disciplines can benefit from access to space, but historically, such research opportunities have been rare and expensive," Whitesides added. "At Virgin Galactic, we are fully dedicated to revolutionizing access to space, both for tourist astronauts and, through programs like this, for researchers." [Photos: SpaceShipTwo's First Glide Test Flight]

NASA research flights

Each suborbital spaceflight for NASA could carry up to 1,300 pounds (590 kilograms) of scientific experiments, allowing up to 600 different payloads per mission, Virgin Galactic officials said.

The company will provide a flight test engineer on every mission to help monitor and conduct experiments as necessary, they added.

In the deal, NASA committed to chartering one flight with Virgin Galactic, with options for two more. If the space agency exercises those options and charters all three flights, the contract will be worth $4.5 million, officials said.

NASA shuttle veteran comes aboard

Virgin Galactic just announced  Tuesday (Oct. 12) that it was hiring Mike Moses, NASA's former space shuttle launch integration manager, to become its vice president of operations.

In this role, Moses will oversee all operations at Spaceport America in New Mexico, the site of Virgin's commercial suborbital spaceflight program. The company is slated to dedicate its headquarters at the spaceport this coming Monday (Oct. 17).

Moses has considerable experience overseeing human spaceflight operations and most recently served as NASA's deputy space shuttle program chief, as well as the mission management team for the agency's final shuttle flights. He provided ultimate launch decision authority for the final 12 missions of the now-retired shuttle program, for example, which lofted 75 astronauts to orbit.

"Bringing Mike in to lead the team represents a significant investment in our commitment to operational safety and success as we prepare to launch commercial operations," Whitesides said.

Moses had worked as a space shuttle flight controller for 10 years before being selected as a flight director in 2005. He said he was happy to be making the leap to the private sector.

"I am extremely excited to be joining Virgin Galactic at this time, helping to forge the foundations that will enable routine commercial suborbital spaceflights," he said in a statement. "Virgin Galactic will expand the legacy of human spaceflight beyond traditional government programs into the world’s first privately funded commercial spaceline."

Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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SpaceX Sues Expert Who Questioned Safety of Private Falcon 9 Rocket (SPACE.com)

WASHINGTON — Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is suing Herndon, Va.-based Valador Inc. and its vice president, Joe Fragola, for making what SpaceX says were defamatory allegations about the safety and reliability of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.

At the heart of the lawsuit is a June 8 email Fragola allegedly sent to NASA’s chief of safety and mission assurance, Bryan D. O’Connor, saying he was trying to verify a rumor that the Falcon 9’s first stage experienced a significant anomaly during its December launch of the Dragon space capsule. The suit was filed June 14 in Virginia’s Fairfax County Circuit Court.

"I have just heard a rumor, and I am trying now to check its veracity, that the Falcon 9 experienced a double engine failure in the first stage and that the entire stage blew up just after the first stage separated. I also heard that this information was being held from NASA until SpaceX can 'verify' it."

SpaceX denies there were any such problems on the flight, the second of the medium-lift Falcon 9 rocket. [Photos: SpaceX's Falcon 9 Rocket]

"First, there was no ‘double-engine’ failure (nor even a single engine failure)," SpaceX says in its complaint. “As planned, two of the nine first-stage engines shut down automatically ten seconds before the first stage shut down.

"Second, the first stage did not 'blow up' after separation from the second stage and spacecraft. The launch was broadcast by a camera on the Dragon spacecraft, which vividly showed the separation of the first stage — and no explosion occurred. Furthermore, the first stage was, at all times, tracked by ground telemetry including by NASA. No systems observed any "explosion" of the first stage. As an 'expert,' Fragola should have known the notion of the first stage 'blowing up' was abjectly untrue."

O'Connor did not respond to a request for comment. Fragola, reached June 16 at Valador's Rockville Centre, New York, office, declined to comment, saying he had been advised not to talk about the case.

SpaceX also declined to discuss the case. "It’s still in the hands of counsel and we have no comment," SpaceX spokesman Bobby Block said June 17.

Fragola is a safety expert and a core member of the NASA Exploration Systems Architecture Study team that in 2005 picked the Ares 1 and Ares 5 rockets the agency then set out to build under the now-defunct Constellation program. In December 2009, Fragola testified before the House Science and Technology space and aeronautics subcommittee about ensuring safety in human spaceflight.

In its complaint, SpaceX says Fragola sought a consulting contract worth up to $1 million, claiming the company needed his independent analysis of the Falcon 9 "to bolster its reputation with NASA based on what he called an unfair ‘perception’ about SpaceX." [Video: Falcon Heavy - Most Lift Since Saturn 5]

"SpaceX subsequently learned that Fragola — within the scope of his employment at Valador, and using his email account at Valador — has been contacting officials in the United States Government to make disparaging remarks about SpaceX, which have created the very ‘perception’ that he claimed SpaceX needed his help to rectify," SpaceX’s claim states.

SpaceX also says that if anything went wrong during the flight, NASA would have known. "NASA officials were present with SpaceX controllers in the control center during the flight, and thus saw in real time all of the telemetry information SpaceX controllers saw," the complaint states. "SpaceX then provided extensive post-flight debriefings to NASA, including telemetry analysis. If any of the foregoing events claimed by Fragola had occurred, then NASA would have known as soon as SpaceX did."

Asked whether the Falcon 9 experienced any type of first-stage anomaly in its last outing, Block said: "Any observance noted had no impact on this or future mission success."

SpaceX, which holds a $1.6 billion contract to deliver supplies to the International Space Station using Falcon 9 and Dragon, is seeking at least $1 million in damages plus legal fees and is demanding that a jury hear the case.

SpaceX’s attorney in the suit, Douglas Lobel with the Cooley law firm of Reston, Va., did not respond to a request for comment.

This article was provided by Space News, dedicated to covering all aspects of the space industry.

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Bigelow Plans First Private Space Station by 2016, Warns of Chinese Lunar Land Grab (ContributorNetwork)

The Next Big Future recently checked in on Bigelow Aerospace, which plans to deploy a private space station in low Earth orbit by 2016. Robert Bigelow, the company's CEO, also had some blunt things to say about the Chinese.

More than the heavily government subsidized rocket companies such as SpaceX, real hopes for a vibrant commercial space sector resides in corporations like Bigelow. So far the government is at once the prime investor and the sole customer of the commercial launch companies it is funding under President Barack Obama's space policy.

Bigelow represents a much more pure manifestation of commercial space. Instead of chasing government subsidies, Bigelow envisions its space facility as hosting private researchers and astronauts, charging initially $28.75 million for a two-week stay, expensive to be sure, but still very competitive compared to what is charged by Space Adventures for a stay on the International Space Station.

Bigelow will benefit from the Obama commercial space plan at least indirectly. Bigelow has signed an agreement with Boeing to use the BA330 capsule, which the giant aerospace firm is developing using commercial space subsidies from NASA. The BA330 is in direct competition with SpaceX's Dragon space ship.

Bigelow would also not be averse to having guests paid by the U.S. government, say researchers who want to run experiments on board its facility. Plans are not quite firm for that kind of arrangement, so Bigelow is relying mainly on commercial customers for now. Of course, the US government is not the only government keen on getting in on space research. Bigelow's prices are low enough that any number of countries could use its space station to do research.

Moving beyond low Earth orbit, Robert Bigelow was quite blunt in his belief that as soon as practicable China would withdraw from the Outer Space Treaty which, among other things, forbids nation states from claiming extra terrestrial territory. China would hence start claiming large sections of the moon, especially the poles where water exists in relative abundance.

Bigelow's assertion may seem far-fetched, but it does mesh with China's aggressive behavior on Earth in its drive to supplant the United States as sole super power. And Bigelow does envision his company as being part of an American response, building inflatable lunar bases to counter Chinese territorial claims.

One of the refreshing aspects of Bigelow's prediction of a Chinese lunar land grab is the implied criticism of Obama's current space plan that bypasses the Moon, which in many ways is strategic territory, in favor of chasing asteroids. If one legitimately fears Chinese empire building on the Moon, then the recourse is to deploy American personal and infrastructure on the lunar surface to preempt that move. And, if Bigelow makes a little more money in the process, one suspects that Mr. Bigelow will not mind getting richer by being a patriot.

Mark R. Whittington is the author of Children of Apollo and The Last Moonwalker. He has written on space subjects for a variety of periodicals, including The Houston Chronicle, The Washington Post, USA Today, the L.A. Times, and The Weekly Standard.

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Virgin Galactic Pushes Private Spaceship Envelope in Test Flights (SPACE.com)

The space tourism company Virgin Galactic has put its spaceship of choice through new glide flights and re-entry technology tests in the latest round of workouts for the privately built spaceliner.

The suborbital rocket ship SpaceShipTwo has been repeatedly dropped from its mothership, called WhiteKnightTwo, at high altitude during 10 glide flights at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California.

It is the first of five SpaceShipTwo vehicles being constructed for Virgin Galactic by the Mojave-based company Scaled Composites. SpaceShipTwo is a six-passenger and two-pilot vehicle.

The first SpaceShipTwo, named the VSS Enterprise, is nearing another milestone: The installation of its unique hybrid rocket motor, a key technology needed to propel paying customers to the edge of space. [Photos: SpaceShipTwo's First Glide Test Flight]

Those flights, Virgin Galactic officials have said, will give paying passengers a stunning view of the Earth and several minutes of weightlessness. The price per seat? A cool $200,000. Virgin Galactic's spaceliner operations are bankrolled by British entrepreneur and adventurer Sir Richard Branson, who founded the firm.

Wealth of data

The spacecraft's 10th glide flight, on May 25, featured the second evaluation of its feather re-entry system. The test "went very well," said Virgin Galactic CEO and president George Whitesides. [Video: SpaceShipTwo Passes Re-Entry System Test]

"Scaled has amassed a wealth of data and experience from the recent series of test flights which is now undergoing thorough analysis," Whitesides told SPACE.com. "Overall, the findings seem to be very positive. The team will soon enter a period of slightly less visible activity as they prepare the spaceship and carrier aircraft for the next phase of flight testing."

Whitesides added that congratulations are due to the whole team at Scaled Composites for the dedication and hard work that has made so many flights possible in such a short time.

The rocket plane made its maiden free flight on Oct. 10, 2010. Since then, it has been put through an ever-expanding set of flight objectives. 

Pushing the SpaceShipTwo envelope

At the Mojave Air and Space Port, the Scaled Composites team has been busy exploring the flight envelope of SpaceShipTwo, Whitesides added, pushing the vehicle to higher speeds and higher G-loads.

Earlier this year, SpaceShipTwo passed a critical test flight: a demonstration of its novel re-entry system, which "feathers" the vehicle's aft flight surfaces to provide stability during atmospheric re-entry.

"The feather was a major milestone," Whitesides said, with the glide flights exploring the aerodynamic envelope and seeing how plane reacts to pilot.

SpaceShipTwo’s ability to feather its tail section is a unique control feature.

On a suborbital trek, SpaceShipTwo would boost itself upwards out of Earth's atmosphere to about 69 miles (110 kilometers), the vehicle’s maximum altitude.

In re-entry mode, the tail structure of the craft will be rotated upward to about 65 degrees. In this feathered configuration, automatic control of attitude is achieved with the fuselage parallel to the horizon. This creates very high drag as the spacecraft descends through the upper regions of the atmosphere.

At around 70,000 feet (21,336 meters), SpaceShipTwo's feather would lower to its original configuration. The unpowered spaceship then would glide to a spaceport runway and touchdown.

The two feathered tests to date - though not done under all conditions that would be encountered during a full-blown plunge from space - matched predictions, Whitesides said.

Next big milestone

Regarding the mood of those working on SpaceShipTwo, "everybody wants to move forward as quickly as possible … while still being safe about it," Whitesides said. "There's a lot of satisfaction that they’ve built something that's basically a stable airframe. They are feeling pretty good so far."

Whitesides said pilot proficiency is central to the SpaceShipTwo’s test card. "They’ve got a pretty deep bench of fantastic pilots," he said.

Clearly, the integration of the hybrid motor with SpaceShipTwo is the next big milestone. That powerhouse engine is being crafted by Sierra Nevada Corporation. Short bursts to ever-long burns of the motor during flight are being planned. The first in-flight firing is still to be determined.

"Realistically, probably around end of the year or early next year. We'll have to see how things go," Whitesides said.

'Fascinating times'

Mark Sirangelo, head of Sierra Nevada Space Systems, the prime contractor for the SpaceShipTwo motors, told SPACE.com that progress is ongoing regarding development of the hybrid motor propulsion for the SpaceShipTwo program. [Vote Now! The Best Spaceships of All Time]

"Recently we conducted a firing of the motor which extended the burn duration by 30 percent and validated several of the important hardware systems," Sirangelo said. "We are preparing to shortly conduct another firing of the enhanced motor which will extend the burn duration and incorporate several additional important advances in the design.

This firing is expected to lead to final design of the motors for flight testing," he explained.

"Fascinating times," said Stuart Witt, general manager of the Mojave Air and Space Port. While more- aggressive testing of SpaceShipTwo is on tap, other space firms on the spaceport property ? including Masten Space Systems, XCOR Aerospace and Firestar Technologies ? continue to make progress, he added.

"We are now operating seven days a week … continue to add well-paying jobs and work to capture additional projects seeking a risk-friendly location," Witt told SPACE.com. "We see nothing but exciting times ahead."

Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is a winner of this year's National Space Club Press Award and a past editor-in-chief of the National Space Society's Ad Astra and Space World magazines. He has written for SPACE.com since 1999.

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