Space / Aerospace / Aircraft

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[Malcolm]

Polaris Dawn civilian crew prepares to head to orbit on SpaceX craft: How to watch

Polaris Dawn civilian crew prepares to head to orbit on SpaceX craft: How to watch (msn.com)

Polaris Dawn, an ambitious all-civilian spaceflight, is scheduled to liftoff Tuesday.

When the mission commences with the launch of a SpaceX Dragon capsule, four private astronauts will rocket into the upper reaches of Earth's orbit, where they will conduct the first-ever commercial spacewalk, among other things.

 

The mission has the potential to be a historic one – and not just because of the many firsts that billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman's crew hopes to accomplish. A successful mission would also be a crucial step in laying the groundwork for future deep space exploration as NASA and other space agencies set their sights on destinations like Mars.

[Malcolm]

Breaking down the challenges for stranded Boeing astronauts | Watch (msn.com)

[Malcolm]

Breaking news from overnight: Polaris Dawn is SpaceX's biggest and riskiest mission to date, but it was called off today due to a helium leak in ground equipment. The launch of the Crew Dragon capsule is now scheduled for 3:38 a.m. ET on Wednesday. The highlight of the mission will come two days in, when the crew embarks on the first-ever spacewalk by a private company.

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[Malcolm]

• SpaceX's flight has been delayed again following yesterday's technical issues
• The launch will now take place no sooner than Friday depending on the weather

SpaceX's historic mission to launch the first ever private spacewalk has once again been left grounded by delays.

The company announced that its daring Polaris Dawn mission would not go ahead with Wednesday's scheduled lift-off due to bad weather.

 

This comes after an earlier attempt on Tuesday was scrapped due to a helium leak on a line connecting the tower to the rocket.

An alternative launch date has not yet been announced but SpaceX has already ruled out any more attempts on Wednesday or Thursday.

[Malcolm]

This may delay the rescue mission for the 2 Boeing Starliner’s test flight astronauts

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket intended for the Polaris Dawn mission sits on a launchpad at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on August 26.© Joe Skipper/Reuters

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SpaceX’s prolific Falcon 9 rocket has been grounded for the second time in two months after federal regulators said they wanted to review a wayward landing attempt that occurred Wednesday morning.

 

That makes the Falcon 9 rocket unable to fly with two key human spaceflight missions on the horizon.

The company is slated to launch a daring mission called Polaris Dawn as soon as this week, and next month it’s expected to launch two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station on Crew-9, a mission that will also bring home Boeing Starliner’s test flight astronauts, who have been in limbo on the orbiting laboratory since the first leg of their journey in early June.

Wednesday’s incident involved the first stage of a Falcon 9 rocket — or the bottommost portion that gives the first burst of power at liftoff — which failed to land upright on a seafaring platform and exploded. The overall mission, however, appeared to go off without a hitch, safely delivering a batch of SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites into orbit.

Still, the Federal Aviation Administration, which licenses commercial rocket launches, said it would investigate the mishap.

 

“The FAA is aware an anomaly occurred during the SpaceX Starlink Group 8-6 mission that launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on August 28,” the FAA said Wednesday in a statement. “The incident involved the failure of the Falcon 9 booster rocket while landing on a droneship at sea. No public injuries or public property damage have been reported. The FAA is requiring an investigation.”

Landing the first-stage booster is a signature SpaceX move. Other rockets flying today typically discard their first stage boosters after flight. SpaceX, however, aims to recover and refurbish its Falcon 9 boosters as often as possible to save money.

SpaceX does not typically experience delays or lengthy groundings after losing a booster, as the loss does not affect the success of the primary mission.

Wednesday’s announcement, however, could greatly complicate SpaceX’s plans to get Polaris Dawn off the ground. That mission, carrying a four-person crew, was set to take off early this morning, but was delayed because of weather forecasts. The company would have been able to try again as soon as Friday.

It’s not clear how long the Falcon 9 will remain grounded. After the mishap in July, the rocket was taken out of flight for a couple of weeks.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

[deicer]

Just a point of discussion...

This isn't the first instance of a Falcon 9 crashing on return.  They didn't 'ground' the program with previous crashes and it is the return phase with no immediate risk to the public or infrastructure.

I could see them grounding it if it blew up on liftoff destroying it's payload, or causing harm to humans, however this is even more rare.

Do you think this is just a ploy to distract from Boeing's ongoing problems with the Starliner capsule and all it's other programs?

[Malcolm]

8 hours ago, deicer said:

Just a point of discussion...

This isn't the first instance of a Falcon 9 crashing on return.  They didn't 'ground' the program with previous crashes and it is the return phase with no immediate risk to the public or infrastructure.

I could see them grounding it if it blew up on liftoff destroying it's payload, or causing harm to humans, however this is even more rare.

Do you think this is just a ploy to distract from Boeing's ongoing problems with the Starliner capsule and all it's other programs?

Just a case of bureaucratic BS.  If anything the grounding will spotlight the Boeing probems even more as the 2 astronauts remain stranded.

[Malcolm]

days ago and promptly tipped over on its side.

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NASA's pricey mission to send U.S. back to moon faces technical challenges | 60 Minutes

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Blue Origin sends 6 passengers on sub-orbital trip to space and back

Story by William Harwood

 • 1h •

View on Watch

Blue Origin launched six passengers, including a NASA-sponsored researcher and the youngest woman to fly in space, on a sub-orbital trip out of the lower atmosphere Thursday in the company's eighth crewed spaceflight.

University of Florida researcher Rob Ferl, philanthropist Nicolina Elrick, adventurer Eugene Grin, Vanderbilt University cardiologist Elman Jahangir, American-Israeli entrepreneur Ephraim Rabin and University of North Carolina senior Karsen Kitchen blasted off from Jeff Bezos' west Texas launch site at 9:07 a.m. EDT.

 

A Blue Origin New Shepard rocket blasts off from west Texas Thursday, boosting six passengers out of the lower atmosphere for an up-and-down sub-orbital trip to space. It was the company's eighth crewed New Shepard flight. / Credit: Blue Origin

Powered by a single-stage, hydrogen-fueled rocket, the New Shepard crew capsule was propelled straight up and through a deck of clouds, disappearing from view as it was boosted to a maximum velocity of 2,238 mph before the launcher's BE-3 engine shut down.

At that moment, the crew began enjoying about three minutes of weightlessness, along with spectacular views of the Earth below, as the capsule coasted up to an altitude of about 345,000 feet, or 65 miles, and then arced over to begin the long fall back to Earth.

 

NASA and the U.S. Air Force consider 50 miles to be the somewhat arbitrary "boundary" of space, the point above which an aircraft's wings, rudder and other aerosurfaces are no longer effective. The internationally recognized boundary is 12 miles higher.

By either yardstick, the New Shepard capsule easily passed into the lower reaches of space as it arced through the high point of its trajectory.

 

The New Shepard crew, from left to right: Ephraim Rabin, Nicolina Elrick, Eiman Jahangir, Karsen Kitchen, Rob Ferl and Eugene Grin. / Credit: Blue Origin

After sending the crew capsule on its way, the reusable booster fell back to the Texas launch site, touching down safely on a concrete landing pad.

The New Shepard capsule took a bit longer to come down, lowered to the surface under three large parachutes for a relatively gentle touchdown at 9:17 a.m. From launch to landing: 10 minutes and eight seconds.

 

The crew members were ecstatic when they left the spacecraft a few minutes later, embracing family members and friends with broad smiles and exclamations.

Ferl is a professor at the University of Florida who carried out NASA-funded research during the New Shepard flight to learn more about how genes react during the transition to and from weightlessness.

"The ride was incredibly smooth; I was so impressed with the ride up," Ferl said after landing. "But being there, the darkness of space, there's no way to talk about it. There's no way to talk about how impressive space is and the Earth below. The science went well, everything worked like it was supposed to. ... It couldn't have been a better experience."

 

Passenger Karsen Kitchen greets family and friends after a 10-minute up-and-down flight to space. At 21, the University of North Carolina student is the youngest woman to fly in space. Her father, Jim Kitchen, flew to space aboard a New Shepard capsule in 2022. / Credit: Blue Origin

Kitchen, at 21 the youngest woman to fly in space, was equally excited, repeatedly hugging her father Jim, a University of North Carolina professor and veteran of an earlier Blue Origin flight in 2022.

"When she was a little girl, she told me definitively she was going to be an astronaut," the elder Kitchen said before launch. "It's emotional. It's emotional to see someone that's wanted to go to space and it's actually a dream come true. To be able to have that dream and have it fulfilled is amazing."

 

Blue Origin builds and markets the New Shepard rocket and spacecraft for space tourism, human-tended research and unpiloted experiments. The company also is building a large orbit-class rocket, called the New Glenn, that will compete with SpaceX's Falcon-family of boosters, designed to deliver satellites and other payloads to orbit.

The first New Glenn rocket is tentatively scheduled for launch from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station as early as Oct. 13 to boost NASA's two ESCAPADE probes to Mars to learn more about how the solar wind interacts with the red planet's atmosphere.

[Malcolm]

NASA finally gives Boeing Starliner capsule a return date. But it will fly home without its crew

Boeing's Starliner spacecraft that launched NASA's Crew Flight Test astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station is pictured docked to the Harmony module's forward port.© NASA

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After 12 weeks in space, Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is finally set to return home from the International Space Station on September 6 — albeit without its two-person crew.

 

The troubled spacecraft will undock from the orbiting laboratory around 6 p.m. ET, and it will spend about six hours maneuvering closer to home before landing around midnight in New Mexico’s White Sands Space Harbor.

The astronauts who rode aboard Starliner to the space station on June 5, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, will remain on board the orbiting laboratory.

NASA announced on August 24 that experts were wary of gas leaks and issues with the Starliner capsule’s propulsion system, leading the agency to determine the spacecraft is not safe enough to finish its mission with crew on board.

“The uncrewed Starliner spacecraft will perform a fully autonomous return with flight controllers at Starliner Mission Control in Houston and at Boeing Mission Control Center in Florida,” according to a NASA update posted Thursday. “Teams on the ground are able to remotely command the spacecraft if needed through the necessary maneuvers for a safe undocking, re-entry, and parachute-assisted landing in the southwest United States.”

 

How the Starliner vehicle performs during its return trip could be crucial to the future of the overall Boeing program.

If the spacecraft experiences a mishap or NASA ultimately decides not to certify the vehicle for human spaceflight — a step that would set up the vehicle to make routine trips to orbit — it would mark yet another blow to Boeing’s already damaged reputation.

Repeating this test flight and implementing redesigns on Starliner could cost the company millions of dollars — on top of the roughly $1.5 billion the company has already recorded in losses on the Starliner program.

“All of us really wanted to complete the (Boeing Starliner) test flight with crew, and I think unanimously we’re disappointed not to be able to do that,” Ken Bowersox, associate administrator for NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate, said last week. But “you don’t want that disappointment to weigh unhealthily in your decision.”

 

Even if Starliner’s uncrewed return trip goes well, NASA will still face a crucial decision on whether to grant the spacecraft its human spaceflight certification even though it did not complete its mission as intended.

Throughout the weeks that engineers on the ground worked to understand the thruster issues and leaks plaguing the Starliner, Boeing maintained that it believed the vehicle would be safe to bring astronauts Williams and Wilmore home.

In a statement on August 24, Boeing said that it “continues to focus, first and foremost, on the safety of the crew and spacecraft. We are executing the mission as determined by NASA, and we are preparing the spacecraft for a safe and successful uncrewed return.”

Williams and Wilmore will now fly home aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule no earlier than February. The Crew Dragon spacecraft has been certified to fly astronaut missions for about four years and has made about a dozen crewed trips to orbit.

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[Malcolm]

© The Associated Press

NASA on Friday cut two astronauts from the next crew to make room on the return trip for the two stuck at the International Space Station.

NASA's Nick Hague and Russian Aleksandr Gorbunov will launch in September aboard a SpaceX rocket for the orbiting laboratory. The duo will return with Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore in February. NASA decided it’s too risky for Williams and Wilmore to fly home in their Boeing Starliner capsule, marred by thruster troubles and helium leaks.

 

In this photo provided by SpaceX in July 2024, from left, Russian Aleksandr Gorbunov, and NASA's Stephanie Wilson, Zena Cardman and Nick Hague stand together for a group photo in front of the launch tower at Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (SpaceX via AP)© The Associated Press

Bumped from the SpaceX flight: NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson. NASA said they could fly on future missions.

The space agency said it took into account spaceflight experience and other factors in making the decision.

After the shuttles retired, the U.S. relied on Russia to ferry crews to the space station until SpaceX began taking astronauts in 2020. The two countries have continued to trade seats. Next month, NASA’s Don Pettit will be launching to the space station while NASA’s Tracy Dyson will be returning to Earth on Russian capsules.

 

NASA turned to private businesses a decade ago, wanting two competing U.S. companies ferrying astronauts in the post-shuttle era.

Williams and Wilmore were Boeing's first crew, arriving at the space station in June for what was supposed to be a weeklong stay. Their capsule will return empty as early as next Friday, aiming for a touchdown in the New Mexico desert.

[Malcolm]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The SpaceX Falcon 9 vehicle may return to flight operations while the overall investigation of the anomaly during the Starlink Group 8-6 mission remains open, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said on Friday.

SpaceX made the return to flight request on Aug. 29 and the FAA gave approval on Aug. 30, the FAA said.

[deicer]

Strange happening with the Starliner capsule.

Is it issues with the capsule?  Or is it.............aliens?

https://www.space.com/strange-noise-boeing-starliner-spacecraft

NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore reports 'strange noise' coming from Boeing's Starliner spacecraft, 'I don't know what's making it'

On Saturday (Aug. 31) NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore noticed something weird inside the Starliner spacecraft. 

 

Wilmore radioed down to Mission Control to ask about the bizarre noises heard emanating from Starliner's speakers while the spacecraft is currently docked to the International Space Station (ISS). 

 

"There's a strange noise coming through the speaker," Wilmore tells Mission Control "I don't know what's making it."

Wilmore then holds a device to the speakers, allowing Mission Control to hear the pulsating sound occurring at regular intervals.

Mission Control at Johnson Space Center in Houston likens the sound to a "pulsing noise, almost like a sonar ping."

 

Sounding rather relaxed, and unfazed by the whole situation, Wilmore replied "All right, over to you, call us if you figure it out." Mission Control then informs Wilmore that the recording will be passed along to the team and they'll let him know what they find.

Former Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield commented on the situation in a post on X. In the post, you can hear the strange sound reported by Wilmore.

"There are several noises I'd prefer not to hear inside my spaceship, including this one that Boeing Starliner is now making," Hadfield wrote. 

 

See more

The unusual sound was initially reported by Ars Technica, referencing a recording originally captured and shared by Michigan-based meteorologist Rob Dale on the NASA Spaceflight (NSF) forum.

Starliner launched on June 5 for its first-ever crewed mission, transporting NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore to the ISS. The capsule successfully docked on June 6. Although the mission was initially expected to last around 10 days, NASA and Boeing extended the capsule's stay in orbit multiple times as they investigated a thruster issue. 

Ultimately, NASA determined that returning Williams and Wilmore on Starliner was too risky. The agency announced that the two astronauts would instead return to Earth aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule in February 2025. Meanwhile, the Boeing capsule will return to Earth uncrewed. It is scheduled to undock the ISS no earlier than 6:04 p.m. EDT (2204 GMT) on Sept. 6 and land six hours later in the White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico. 

 

[deicer]

Here's the X post from Hatfield with the sound...

 

[deicer]

If you are interested in watching the undocking and reentry of the Starliner capsule, you can do so here.

https://plus.nasa.gov/scheduled-video/nasas-boeing-crew-flight-test-reentry-and-landing/

[Airband]

Cathay’s Engines Are Pushing the Limits of Technology

We may be running out of options when it comes to reducing emissions from air travel

At the cutting edge

Tue Sep 3, 2024 - Bloomberg News
By David Fickling

Quote

'Champion racehorses can often be temperamental beasts, and it’s little different with these cutting-edge components.'

We don’t yet know the details of the problem that caused Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. to cancel flights and inspect its entire fleet of Airbus SE A350 aircraft after finding issues with its Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc engines. But one thing is certain: As the world struggles to slow rising emissions from jet travel, we’re pushing technology so close to its limits that defects are close to inevitable.

Eking more power out of every gallon of jet fuel was a driving force in the aerospace industry long before climate change became a concern. Kerosene makes up about a quarter of costs for most airlines. Everything from the A350’s fuselage (made primarily from huge, lightweight sheets of woven carbon fiber) to the upward-bending winglets at the tips of its wings (which help to reduce drag) has been optimized to save gas.

Nowhere does this drive for efficiency dance closer to the technological frontier than in the hellish interior of a jet engine. One of the best ways of getting more propulsive energy from fuel is to increase the pressures and heat at which it’s burned. That can save emissions — Airbus claims the long-haul A350 uses 15% less fuel than previous models — but it puts enormous stresses on the materials.

Turbine blades, the ultra-engineered, chocolate bar-sized structures at the heart of the engine, rotate faster than the speed of sound, at temperatures that would melt even the exotic high-performance alloys from which they’re made. Manufacturers such as Rolls-Royce must use ceramic coatings and cooling air to prevent them from falling apart. Champion racehorses can often be temperamental beasts, and it’s little different with these cutting-edge components. The defects behind Cathay’s cancellations may be related to fuel lines feeding the engines, two people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg News Tuesday.

The XWB-97 engine that’s being inspected by Cathay is one of the highest-performing engines ever made, and is already well-known as a demanding machine. A major driver of the £1 billion ($1.3 billion) jet upgrade program Rolls-Royce announced in July has been concerns among customers about how frequently planes need to be pulled out of service and overhauled.

Emirates President Tim Clark last year described the XWB-97 turbofan as “defective” because of the maintenance requirement. In hot, dusty environments like the home bases of Gulf carriers Emirates, Etihad Airways PJSC and Qatar Airways, airborne particles of sand can melt in the extreme conditions inside the jet and clog up internal cooling systems.

Rolls-Royce is by no means alone in this. A joint venture between General Electric Co. and Safran SA has promised comparable 15% fuel savings in shorter-haul aircraft with their CFM Leap International engine, but it has suffered similar problems. The Leap is now being redesigned and shortages of turbine blades have slowed deliveries of Airbus A320neo jets. The Leap’s main energy-efficient competitor in the single-aisle jet market, RTX Corp.’s PW1000G, has faced its own teething problems after about 3,000 engines were recalled last year due to impurities in the metal powder used to cast its turbines.

It would be wrong to think of these failures as evidence of incompetence on the part of enginemakers. Instead, it’s a testament to the immense difficulty of achieving further improvements in a technology that’s been around for eight decades.

Manufacturers still have plenty of ideas about the sorts of design changes that could thrift fuel consumption even further, but it will probably be decades before the next generation of turbofans cuts emissions another 15%. By that time, any such marginal improvements will have been overwhelmed by the fact that air traffic is likely to triple by 2050.

[conehead]

NASA reveals the source of those strange noises coming from Starliner..

[Malcolm]

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Boeing will attempt to return its problem-plagued capsule from the International Space Station later this week — with empty seats.

NASA said Wednesday that everything is on track for the Starliner capsule to undock from the space station Friday evening. The fully automated capsule will aim for a touchdown in New Mexico’s White Sands Missile Range six hours later.

 

NASA's two stuck astronauts who flew up on Starliner will remain behind at the orbiting lab. They'll ride home with SpaceX in February, eight months after launching on what should have been a weeklong test flight. Thruster trouble and helium leaks kept delaying their return until NASA decided that it was too risky for them to accompany Starliner back as originally planned.

[Malcolm]

https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=polarisdawn

On Thursday, September 12 at 7:58 a.m. ET, the Polaris Dawn crew completed the first-ever spacewalk – also known as an extravehicular activity (EVA) – from Dragon at 738 km above the Earth’s surface.

The crew began preparations for the spacewalk shortly after liftoff, through a two-day pre-breathe process designed to prevent decompression sickness by slowly acclimatizing the crew to lower pressures while slowly increasing oxygen levels within the spacecraft’s cabin. Once complete, the crew began preparations for the spacewalk, which included donning their EVA suits, completing suit leak checks, and venting Dragon down to vacuum.

After opening the hatch, the Polaris Dawn crew became the first four astronauts to be exposed to the vacuum of space at the same time. Over the next approximate 20 minutes, Commander Jared Isaacman and Mission Specialist Sarah Gillis each exited the vehicle, completed a series of tests designed to evaluate the suit’s mobility, thermal systems and the Dragon mobility aid “Skywalker” before returning to the cabin and closing the hatch. Mission Pilot Scott “Kidd” Poteet and Mission Specialist and Medical Officer Anna Menon monitored vital support systems throughout the operation.

Once the hatch was closed, Dragon was re-pressurized, cabin oxygen and pressure levels confirmed, and the crew was able to remove their EVA suits, officially completing the suit testing alongside the first commercial spacewalk and the first EVA from a Dragon spacecraft.

THE CREW

The Polaris Dawn crew will combine their expertise, knowledge, and passion for spaceflight to further human space exploration. This will be the first human spaceflight for Mission Pilot Kidd Poteet, Mission Specialist Sarah Gillis, and Mission Specialist and Medical Officer Anna Menon. Mission Commander Jared Isaacman previously flew to space as commander of Inspiration4. This will also be the first time two SpaceX employees will be part of a human spaceflight crew, providing valuable insight to future missions on the road to making life multiplanetary.

 Jared Isaacman

 Kidd Poteet

 Sarah Gillis

 Anna Menon

SpaceX © 2024 PRIVACY POLICY SUPPLIERS

 

[Malcolm]

Polaris Dawn: Billionaire completes first private spacewalk (bbc.com)

Key moments:

Key moments from first non-professional spacewalk (bbc.com)

[Malcolm]

Who is Jared Isaacman?

Born in New Jersey on February 11, 1983, Isaacman was an entrepreneur from a young age, dropping out of high school at age 15 after describing himself as a ‘horrible student’ who ‘wasn’t happy in school’.

He instead founded his first company, United Bank Card, in 1999 when he was just 16 years old while working part-time at a credit card terminal company.

 

The company, which later became Shift4 Payments, was created to provide payment processing services to businesses and quickly gained traction by offering better rates, transparent pricing, and more customer-friendly service than competitors. 

It eventually became one of the largest payment processing firms in the U.S.

After growing his fortune, Isaacman later founded Draken International in 2012, which provides training for air force pilots for the US military, the UK, and NATO countries.

He became a billionaire in 2020 after selling Draken International to Blackstone and taking Shift4 public, and now has a net worth of around $1.9 billion, according to Forbes.

 

The Polaris Dawn crew will test SpaceX’s new commercial spacesuits (Picture: Polaris Program)

How did he become involved with SpaceX?

Isaacman has always harboured a passion for aviation, attending flight school in 2004 during a bout of burnout and eventually becoming an accomplished pilot.

After establishing himself as a renowned pilot and adventurer, having set world records for high-speed, around-the-world flights, Isaacman opened discussions with SpaceX in 2020 about launching an all-civilian spaceflight.

 

This collaboration culminated in Inspiration4, the first all-civilian mission to orbit the Earth, launched by SpaceX in September 2021.

The mission was personally funded by Isaacman, and in addition to flying to space himself, he used the mission to raise awareness and funds for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, committing $100 million of his own money and raising additional millions for paediatric cancer research.

The Inspiration4 crew included a physician assistant from St. Jude, a scientist, and an engineer, all civilians with different backgrounds.

Following the success of Inspiration4, Isaacman announced the Polaris Program in 2022, a multi-mission initiative in partnership with SpaceX to push the boundaries of space exploration, including spacewalks and testing new technologies for future missions.

 

Isaacman is an accomplished pilot who has been into space before (Picture: AP)

What is the purpose of the Polaris Dawn mission?

While the commercial aspect of the mission is seen as the most important factor to a wider audience, the real purpose of the flight is to test SpaceX’s new spacesuits.

In an interview given while she was training for the spacewalk, fellow crewmember Sarah Gillis said that it was a necessary part of Space X’s plans to send people to other worlds.

 

‘So far only countries have been able to perform a spacewalk. Space X has huge ambitions to get to Mars and make life multiplanetary. In order to get there, we need to start somewhere. And the first step is testing out the first iteration of the EVA spacesuit so that we can make spacewalks and future suit designs even better.’

Isaacman echoed the sentiment, and added: ‘The idea is to learn as much as we possibly can about this suit and get it back to the engineers to inform future suit design evolutions.

‘Space X know they need EVA capability if they are going to realise their long-term dream of populating another planet someday.’

 

Polaris Dawn astronauts Anna Menon (L), Scott “Kidd” Poteet (2L), Jared Isaacman (2R) and Sarah Gillis (R) (Picture: Polaris Dawn)

What will happen during the spacewalk?

The mission will take place in a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft which has no airlock, which means the only way to perform the spacewalk is to let all the air out of the spacecraft, and then open one of the hatches.

After reaching orbit, the crew will exit the capsule for around 15 to 20 minutes each, passing through a hatch at the top of the Crew Dragon with the help of a handrail that SpaceX has named Skywalker.

 

Isaacman and SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis will embark on the spacewalk, while the other two crew members will remain inside the craft to feed the spacewalkers oxygen and power and ensure everything runs properly.

Overall the entire spacewalk is expected to take about two hours in total, from letting out all the air to refilling a breathable atmosphere.

 

The mission is seen as risky one for an amateur crew (Picture: Polaris Program)

The mission itself is a risky one- especially for a crew of rookies. Isaacman has only been into space once before while the other three have never left orbit.

While some have bristled at the idea of a billionaire paying to go into space and also naming himself commander of the crew, experts have warned not to dismiss the endeavour as a mere vanity project.

 

Dr Simeon Barber, a space scientist at the Open University, told BBC News: ‘Isaacman is actually the most experienced astronaut of the crew – he alone has been to space before, on another self-funded mission with SpaceX, where he also took the position of Commander. In the context of the mission, he is the natural choice.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

[deicer]

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/investing/2024/09/13/the-worlds-most-desperately-needed-airplane-is-back-in-production/

Canada Is Making the World’s Most Desperately Needed Airplane

After the world posted its worst year for wildfires, with an area roughly the size of Nicaragua scorched in 2023, one plane model has become the most important aircraft on Earth.

A specialized amphibious firefighting plane — commonly called a Canadair after its original manufacturer — is unique in the market for its size and maneuverability. It can hold as much as 1,621 US gallons (6,137 liters) of water — about 20 bathtubs full — and travel at more than 200 miles per hour (322 kilometers per hour). In a quick swoop, the planes scoop up water from lakes or seas — filling up in 12 seconds — and fly as low as 100 feet (30 meters) above burning infernos to douse flames.

As climate change makes wildfires more frequent and intense around the world, these acrobatic water-bombers are needed now more than they’ve ever been before. Yet they were out of production for almost 10 years. This has now changed.

De Havilland Aircraft of Canada Ltd., which acquired the rights to the aircraft in 2016, reached new agreements with European Union countries this year to provide 22 DHC-515 firefighter planes, the brand successor of the Canadair. The order will be the first time De Havilland makes these €50 million ($55 million) planes. While production won’t finish until the end of 2026 at the earliest, the EU is willing to wait for a firefighting plane considered incomparable to anything else available.

“The so-called Canadair is the only functioning, operational aircraft in that category in this moment of time,” Hans Das, deputy-director general for European civil protection and humanitarian aid operations at the European Commission, said in an interview. “Over the last few years, we have seen forest fires expanding into all of Europe. Nobody escapes anymore.”

Wildfires have been raging across the continent this year — most ferociously in Greece and Turkey — as the world recorded its hottest summer ever. Across the Atlantic, Brazil’s Amazon rainforest has been on fire, wafting toxic smoke into the country’s largest city Sao Paulo in recent weeks. In North America California battled one of its worst wildfires on record in July and blazes have raged across De Havilland’s home province of Alberta. Fires were still smoldering under the snow in Canada in March after unprecedented wildfires in 2023.

Most firefighters are on the ground during a wildfire, but planes play an important role in helping dowse fires with water or stopping the spread with retardant.

“As fires continue to increase both in number of fires and in the scale, there is just more and more need for aerial firefighting assets to help support those firefighters on the ground so they don’t get their butt kicked,” Paul Petersen, executive director of the United Aerial Firefighters Association, said in an interview.

Petersen estimates the world needs twice the amount of firefighting aircraft currently available to meet demand.

Riva Duncan, a retired fire chief with the US Forest Service, agreed that demand has been exceeding aircraft availability. “The growing number of fires we’re having, the lengthening of the fire season into a fire year, larger, more destructive fires — we need every tool in the toolbox to be able to manage these fires and aircraft’s a big part of that,” she said.

Quebec-based Bombardier Inc., the previous manufacturer of the Canadair planes, sold off the unit in 2016 as it dealt with a series of financial difficulties. From 2015 until the new EU order, the firefighter planes had been out of production.

De Havilland first discussed restarting production of the planes in 2019, but due to the high costs, it needed a firm commitment of a minimum number to get their suppliers on board for parts, according to Neil Sweeney, De Havilland vice president of corporate affairs. He said the EU’s order for 22 planes was enough to start things up again.

The EU started looking at expanding its aerial firefighting fleet in 2020 — taking on board supply chain lessons learned during the Covid pandemic. With fires happening simultaneously across the continent, the bloc found sharing resources across countries does not work if there aren’t enough planes.

“When everybody is facing the same difficulty, then the system gets paralyzed,” Balazs Ujvari, a spokesperson for the European Commission, said in an interview. “If your house is burning then you cannot also help the neighbor’s house that is burning.”

For this fire season, the EU has access to 26 firefighting planes from nine member states.

De Havilland said there are approximately 160 Canadair planes in operation in 10 countries: Turkey, Morocco, Canada, the US, France, Croatia, Spain, Italy, Greece and Malaysia. There are other aircraft capable of water bombing, but they either hold less extinguishing agent or they’re good for one big drop before needing to return to a station for a slower refill. Canadairs, on the other hand, can circle back and skim an open body of water again and again, refilling almost at full speed.

While countries around the world have made regional deals to share aerial firefighting resources, including lending out aircraft during off-seasons for wildfires, climate change has been making this a logistical nightmare. Countries are dealing with longer fire seasons and places that previously didn’t have many fires are seeing them more regularly.

This is one reason De Havilland expects to see more demand for firefighting aircraft in the future. The other is that many countries will be keen to upgrade aircraft in their fleet — which may be up to 50 years old. Over time, planes that scoop salt water can suffer from corrosion, and in warmer climates they may begin to rust.

The new DHC-515 aircraft will have similar water capacity to its predecessor, but will have a few upgrades. These include improvements to the water drop control system, the avionics, the rudder control and the air conditioning.

Mike Flannigan, a research chair in emergency management and fire science at Thompson Rivers University, said De Havilland may have cornered a market for these types of planes now, but other manufacturers will likely sense an opportunity as wildfires become a more difficult problem for countries to tackle.

“I expect they might get some competition eventually if this market continues to grow,” he said.

[Malcolm]

All about the ISS and living onboard.

 

Astronauts reveal what life is like on ISS – and how they deal with 'space smell'

50 minutes ago

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Georgina Rannard

Science reporter

NASA

 

Work to build the International Space Station began in 1998

In June two American astronauts left Earth expecting to spend eight days on the International Space Station (ISS).

But after fears that their Boeing Starliner spacecraft was unsafe to fly back on, Nasa delayed Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore’s return until 2025.

They are now sharing a space about the size of a six-bedroom house with nine other people.

Ms Williams calls it her "happy place" and Mr Wilmore says he is "grateful" to be there.

But how does it really feel to be 400km above Earth? How do you deal with tricky crewmates? How do you exercise and wash your clothes? What do you eat - and, importantly, what is the “space smell”?

Talking to BBC News, three former astronauts divulge the secrets to surviving in orbit.

 

Every five minutes of the astronauts’ day is divided up by mission control on Earth.

They wake early. At around 06:30 GMT, astronauts emerge from the phone-booth size sleeping quarter in the ISS module called Harmony.

“It has the best sleeping bag in the world,” says Nicole Stott, an American astronaut with Nasa who spent 104 days in space on two missions in 2009 and 2011.

The compartments have laptops so crew can stay in contact with family and a nook for personal belongings like photographs or books.

 

The astronauts might then use the bathroom, a small compartment with a suction system. Normally sweat and urine is recycled into drinking water but a fault on the ISS means the crew must currently store urine instead.

Then the astronauts get to work. Maintenance or scientific experiments take up most time on the ISS, which is about the size of Buckingham Palace - or an American football field.

“Inside it's like many buses all bolted together. In half a day you might never see another person,” explains Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, commander on the Expedition 35 mission in 2012-13.

“People just don't go zipping through the station. It’s big and it's peaceful,” he says.

 

The ISS has six dedicated labs for experiments, and astronauts wear heart, brain or blood monitors to measure their responses to the challenging physical environment.

“We’re guinea pigs,” says Ms Stott, adding that “space puts your bones and muscles into an accelerated ageing process, and scientists can learn from that”.

If the astronauts can, they work faster than mission control predicts.

Mr Hadfield explains: "Your game is to find five free minutes. I would float to the window to watch something go by. Or write music, take photographs or write something for my children."

 

Nasa

 

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield was commander of the ISS in 2012-13

A lucky few are asked to do a spacewalk, leaving the ISS for the space vacuum outside. Mr Hadfield has done two. “Those 15 hours outside, with nothing between me and the universe but my plastic visor, was as stimulating and otherworldly as any other 15 hours of my life."

But that spacewalk can introduce something novel to the space station - the metallic “space smell”.

“On Earth we have lots of different smells, like washing machine laundry or fresh air. But in space there’s just one smell, and we get used to it quickly,” explains Helen Sharman, the first British astronaut, who spent eight days on the Soviet space station Mir in 1991.

 

• WATCH: 'Space is my happy place,' says stranded astronaut

Objects that go outside, like a suit or scientific kit, are affected by the strong radiation of space. “Radiation forms free radicals on the surface, and they react with oxygen inside the space station, creating a metallic smell,” she says.

When she returned to Earth, she valued sensory experiences much more. “There’s no weather in space - no rain on your face and or wind in your hair. I appreciate those so much more to this day now,” she says, 23 years later.

 

In between working, astronauts on long stays must do two hours of exercise daily. Three different machines help to counter the effect of living in zero gravity, which reduces bone density.

The Advanced Resistive Exercise Device (ARED) is good for squats, deadlifts, and rows that work all the muscle groups, says Ms Stott.

Crew use two treadmills that they must strap into to stop themselves floating away, and a cycle ergometer for endurance training.

 

'One pair of trousers for three months'

All that work creates a lot of sweat, Ms Stott says, leading to a very important issue - washing.

“We don't have laundry - just water that forms into blobs and some soapy stuff," she explains.

Without gravity pulling sweat off the body, the astronauts get covered in a coating of sweat - "way more than on Earth", she says.

"I would feel the sweat growing on my scalp - I had to swab down my head. You wouldn't want to shake it because it just would fly everywhere."

Nasa

 

Nicole Stott was on the ISS for 104 days

 

Those clothes become so dirty that they are thrown out in a cargo vehicle that burns up in the atmosphere.

But their daily clothes stay clean, she says.

“In zero-gravity, clothes float on the body so oils and everything else don’t affect them. I had one pair of trousers for three months,” she explains.

Instead food was the biggest hazard. “Somebody would open up a can, for example, meats and gravy,” she says.

“Everybody was on alert because little balls of grease drifted out. People floated backwards, like in the Matrix film, to dodge the balls of meat juice.”

At some point another craft might arrive, bringing a new crew or supplies of food, clothes, and equipment. Nasa sends a few supply vehicles a year. Arriving at the space station from Earth is “amazing”, says Mr Hadfield.

“It’s a life-changing moment when you catch sight of the ISS there in the eternity of the universe - seeing this little bubble of life, a microcosm of human creativity in the blackness,” he says.

 

After a hard day’s work, it is time for dinner. Food is mostly reconstituted in packets, separated into different compartments by nation.

“It was like camping food or military rations. Good but it could be healthier,” Ms Stott says.

“My favourite was Japanese curries, or Russian cereal and soups,” she says.

Families send their loved ones bonus food packs. “My husband and son picked little treats, like chocolate-covered ginger,” she says.

The crew share their food most of the time.

Astronauts are pre-selected for personal attributes - tolerant, laid-back, calm - and trained to work as a team. That reduces the likelihood of conflict, explains Ms Sharman.

“It’s not just about putting up with somebody's bad behaviour, but calling it out. And we always give each other metaphorical pats-on-the back to support each other,” she says.

 

Ria Novosti/Science Photo Library

 

Helen Sharman is the UK's first astronaut

Location, location, location

And finally, bed again, and time to rest after a day in a noisy environment (fans run constantly to disperse pockets of carbon dioxide so the astronauts can breathe, making it about as loud as a very noisy office).

“We can have eight hours of sleep - but most people get stuck in the window looking at Earth,” Ms Stott says.

All three astronauts talked about the psychological impact of seeing their home planet from 400km in orbit.

“I felt very insignificant in that vastness of space," Ms Sharman says. "Seeing Earth so clearly, the swirls of clouds and the oceans, made me think about the geopolitical boundaries that we construct and how actually we are completely interconnected."

Ms Stott says she loved living with six people from different countries “doing this work on behalf of all life on Earth, working together, figuring out how to deal with problems”.

“Why can't that be happening down on our planetary spaceship?” she asks.

Eventually all astronauts must leave the ISS - but these three say they would return in a heartbeat.

They don’t understand why people think the Nasa astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore are “stranded”.

“We dreamed, worked and trained our entire lives hoping for an extended stay in space," says Mr Hadfield. "The greatest gift you can give a professional astronaut is to let them stay longer."

And Ms Stott says that as she left the ISS she thought: “You're gonna have to pull my clawing hands off the hatch. I don't know if I'm going to get to come back.”

Graphics by Katherine Gaynor and Camilla Costa