Commercial Suborbital Panel at DPS

[simonbp]

There was a commercial suborbital research panel at the annual DPS (Division of Planetary Science) meeting yesterday. Here's my notes:

Alan Stern, SwRI
Introduction

Sounding rockets the start, lot of planetary science that can be done.
New vehicles don't replace sounding rockets, they complement them.
Birth of all this was the X-Prize, SS1.
A guy with long hair named Branson showed up, and now SS2.
SS2 will do research missions.
RM2 just finished qualification tests.
Competition from Blue Origin, XCor, Armadillo, and Masten.
All US companies, all interested in flying research payloads.
Will be flying much more often.
VG will build 6 vehicles, and fly one per day.
Lynx possibly many times per day.
Researchers fly, cutting automation costs.
Rapid qualification of experiments.
Cover large range of variables not possible on ISS.
Human on-the-spot is much more responsive.
Much smoother, cleaner microgravity than atmospheric parabolas.
Closer model to ground observatory or HST than current suborbital.
A lot of astronomy that can be done near Sun, impossible for other space telescopes.
Starting to standardize racks, C&DH, optical windows, etc.
SwRI has purchased 6 flights on Lynx Mk. 1, 3 seats on SS2.
Second SS2 is research charter flight, group of universities and institutes.
NSRC conference next June just outside Boulder.

Greg Delory, UC Berkley
Fundamental particle electrostatic interactions

Applicable to dust storms, rings, protoplanetary disk, airless body exospheres, etc.
Triboelectricity is important (scary picture of Icelandic volcano lightning)
Started with Shuttle experiments.
Found it was really easy to create cm-scale aggregates of charged dust.
Problem with Shuttle and ISS is that you measure time in years and money in millions.
Really just need a few minutes per iteration of experiment.
Have a new experiment for a human-tended suborbital flight, hope to fly next year.
Fly early and often.

Laura Seward, University of Central Florida
Preparing for success by failing

Physics of low-velocity impacts (<100 cm/s).
Planetary formation, ring dynamics, planetary surfaces.
Flew Get-Away specials on Shuttle in 1998 and 2001.
Then flew experiments on parabolic aircraft, but not consistent enough.
Changed experiment to free-float in parabolic flights (ZeroG); didn't work.
Flew again (NASA C-9), better but not great.
Future flight on Blue Origin Pathfinder Program, ~5 min of microgravity.
Date TBD, 100% automated, free flight on test flight.
Failing is learning, gradually build up to success.

Faith Vilas, Planetary Science Institute
The Atsa Suborbital Observatory

Suborbital observations can reach close to Sun, allows Venus, Mercury, NEOs, Vulcanoids
Two types, open field (surveys), and precise pointed targets
Allows observations in UV and thermal IR
Combine the best from space-based and ground-based instruments.
Atsa is a facility, and can accept facility and PI instruments.
No downlinking, storage on board.
Cut out redundancy in instrumentation.
Simulate observation before approving.
When approved, Atsa trains the flight observers.
Or, let facility operators fly for you.
20-inch telescope currently planed.
Best window is no window, thus Lynx Mk. 3.
Mk. 3 has 0.5 deg pointing.
Test instrument to fly on Lynx Mk. 1, Atsa armrest camera.
Armrest cam developed by undergrads at The Citadel.
Adapted open source pointing codes.
Effective time management is critical for several minute observations.
Full NASTAR training for operators.
Armrest cam fit/function testing in Winter 2012.

Eric Schindhelm, SwRI
Suborbital sounding rockets

Run through NASA Wallops.
Sites in USA, Europe, soon Australia.
3 years from concept to flight.
Usually Black Brant 9, two-stage.
Gas jets for pointing, 0.1-0.5 degree pointing.
Stellar or solar pointing system.
~400 PhDs since 1954.
$0.25-2.0 million for sounding rocket mission, order of magnitude more than reusable suborbital.
Person in the loop observations.
Intact return of payload.

Suborbital Panel
Eric Schindhelm, SwRI
Dan Durda, SwRI
Faith Vilas, Planetary Science Institute
Greg Delory, UC Berkley

Balloon like sounding rockets in that takes very long to develop payload.
Balloons can fly much larger apertures, much longer.
Hundreds of researchers lining up for zero G, a few minutes allows even more.
Commercial suborbital can be used to qualify for balloon flights.
A lot of microgravity science is in its infancy, and need lots of experiments.

Kyle Stephens, Operations Engineer, Virgin Galactic

Founded on the principle routine space access can be affordable.
SS2 can carry 8 people, 2 pilots, 6 passengers or payloads.
VG like an airline, but "better in every way possible".
22 free flights, 5 feather demonstrations.
17 ground firings of RM2.
Spaceport America base built, fitting it out.
WK2 can carry 30,000 lb payload to 50,000 ft.
Can do testing in WK2 cabins before SS2 flight.
SS2 can carry 1,300 lb, 500 ft3.
Up to 110 km, 3-4 microgravity.
Working with Nanoracks on payload rack hardware.
Want to hear from researchers about needs & desires.
NASA flight opportunities program, NASA ROSES program.

Khaki Rodway, Xcor Aerospace

24 ft wingspan, 30 ft long.
Any appropriate runway of 7,500 ft.
Flight test operations early next year.
Mk 2 12-18 months after Mk 1.
Apogee 100 km.
Can have payloads in dorsal pod or cabin
A second-grade bake sale could afford a flight (!!!).
Again, need to hear from researchers on needs.
Internal 19-inch rack or 2 Shuttle mid-deck lockers.
Also, secondary payload box behind pilot.
Secondary payloads by middle of next year.
Have payload user's guide.
Are no range operations, just standard flight control.
Not a lot wait time, not a lot of people.
Call-up time of four hours, up to four times a day, 2 hour turn around.
Large network of payload integrators worldwide.
Differ payload integration to experts.

Michelle Peters, Director of Research and Education, ZERO-G Corporation

Reduced gravity environments on modified 727.
Flying now for international customers.
25-60 parabolas per flight.
Currently flying research payloads.
No way to describe working in micro-g other than doing it (which I'll personally vouch for).
Has just finished first commercial spaceflight participant suborbital training.
Space Florida has an incentive program for suborbital or parabolas out of Florida.

Operators Panel

All SS2 windows the same now, could change in the future.
The longer the microgravity time, the higher the g, and that's a major limit (same from VG and Xcor).
Xcor didn't really look at Spaceport America, are looking at Colorado.
Spaceports seem to be coming online every week.
Sapphire windows can go from 200 nm to 5 microns.

[baldusi]

Any words on how the lack of automatics on XCor and VG would need human-rated experiments?

[QuantumG]

XCOR.

[simonbp]

Any words on how the lack of automatics on XCor and VG would need human-rated experiments?

I'm not quite sure what you mean, but there are many experiments that are much easier to perform manually than to automate. Indeed, nearly all experiments that fly on microgravity research flights are manually operated. Making things automatic generally involves a lot of engineering that simply isn't worth it for a one-off experiment.

[baldusi]

Any words on how the lack of automatics on XCor and VG would need human-rated experiments?

I'm not quite sure what you mean, but there are many experiments that are much easier to perform manually than to automate. Indeed, nearly all experiments that fly on microgravity research flights are manually operated. Making things automatic generally involves a lot of engineering that simply isn't worth it for a one-off experiment.

But then there must be a lot of experiments with danger of either explosion and/or toxic output that would be precluded from flying because the risks to the pilot. The experiments are literally on his side and back on the XCOR.

[simonbp]

If the experiment is toxic or explosive, it's probably not flying, period. This is no different from the experiments flown today on microgravity aircraft or ISS.

Most of the experiments discussed at the panel were focused on either microgravity physics or astronomy. The former is self-contained, and the later is an external (or external-looking) payload.

[baldusi]

If the experiment is toxic or explosive, it's probably not flying, period. This is no different from the experiments flown today on microgravity aircraft or ISS.

Most of the experiments discussed at the panel were focused on either microgravity physics or astronomy. The former is self-contained, and the later is an external (or external-looking) payload.

There are burning experiments on the ISS. The fact is that you can make any dangerous experiment on the ISS, as long as you make it safe enough. Sometimes, the cost of makings and showing that's safe enough, is more than simply taking a big insurance payment.
A robotic suborbital vehicle allows for a ceiling to the insurance payment. Human rating is orders of magnitude bigger. I guess those would fly in Masten and AA suborbitals.