Micro-Space >> Ultralight Manned Spaceflight

[imcub]

It sounds like you've been very busy and pretty successful over the last several weeks.  Thanks for taking the time to update us all.  I always look forward to hearing how things are going and will be looking forward to your next update or video.

Dave

[rpspeck]

One short pause in the program: I am going to be in India for two weeks on a missions trip.  I am assisting in organizing and establishing schools in rural villages in India (working with an organization I have long supported there, IERF).  Some work on the video and still images is being done in the meantime, and we will be getting this online soon after I return.

[imcub]

Have a good safe trip!   We will all be looking forward to the video.

[rpspeck]

Re HOPE:

I just returned from a two week missions trip to India.  It was a great delight to see the bright faces of hundreds of young people, alive with Hope for a future traditionally denied them!   As Dalit, these children traditionally could expect little from a life without education and opportunity.  The NGO I have long supported initiated education in these villages almost two decades ago.  Gradually, India's  promises to its traditionally oppressed “Scheduled Casts” has been implemented, and the private program now supplements the efforts of the Government School.  Not surprisingly, the “Faith Based” organization imparts a “Spirit of Excellence” which carries the talented and ambitious to heights unimagined by their parents!  And the Love, tangibly present  in these collections of youth and their mentors, enables even those with more limited gifts to  reach their full potential.  

Meanwhile:

Micro-Space has inked an Option/Reservation contract with “Legacy Stone” of Colorado http://www.legacystone.com     for the first Moon Rocks returned by our expeditions for architectural use.  

Early use of Extraterrestrial Rock is likely to be limited to ornamental stonework, where it can add a high note, along with or in place of other rare and exotic materials.  

Legacy Stone is an innovative and forward looking corporation which seeks to celebrate and showcase the inherent beauty of God's creation by integrating stone into indoor and outdoor architecture.  Its specialized products and techniques preserve that beauty while reducing the economic, energy and environmental drawbacks of classical rock construction.  Customized application of its technology allows relatively cost effective use of exotic materials including Moon Rocks.  

Moon rocks made available for architectural use will be prescreened for scientific interest, with unusual specimens being diverted for scientific study.  Partnerships for scientific study of unique lunar material returned by Micro-Space have not yet been formalized, although an initial arrangement with the University of Western Ontario has been negotiated.  

Note that Micro-Space is negotiating a “Lunar Sample Return” capability for its “Lunar Landers” with one interested funding group.  That capability, either integrated into our “Google Lunar X PRIZE” effort, or limited to parallel and follow on efforts, would enhance the value of this investment.  Sample return capability can be offered for Polar and Far Side lunar landings, as well as for classic Near Side landing zones.  This capability requires as little as a 50 pound increase in the fuel load of the lightweight Micro-Space lander.

Thank God the oppressive spirit which has blinded people to the near term possibilities of radically mass minimized spacecraft is dissipating! Not only entrepreneurial plans have been rejected but the lightweight concepts researched by NASA decades ago have also been rejected out of hand.  At present only a few are willing to embrace the practicality of these concepts, but no frontier has needed more than a few pioneers.  These self selected individuals step into novel opportunities and reap the rewards.  Their success will eventually feed the “What If” daydreams of those who watch and wait.

[tnphysics]

Any news as to liftoff date?

[Lampyridae]

Moonrock as ornamental paperweights? Certainly costs a packet, but it's grey and not very pretty. Surely research organisation would pay more for it?

Sidenote: it's nice to read posts from someone with a "spiritual" take on spaceflight. Sometimes you get overwhelmed by all the nuts and bolts of it all.

[antonioe]

rpspeck - 18/4/2008 4:36 PM The price for the standard UP Aerospace “SpaceLoft XL” flight is $250,000. At about 1/30 the cost of the least cost orbital service (with the Falcon 1) this radically lowers the threshold for producing an extensive demonstration of our “Lunar Lander” hardware flying in space. On top of the cost saving is the fact that the SpaceLoft system is operational and has achieved its promised flight performance. I am confident that SpaceX will also succeed, but when will that company be ready to fly customer payloads?

I'm glad somebody is giving SpaceX some competition - this will make them lower their prices, and challenge them on their acheivements and reliability claims.

[aero313]

antonioe - 20/5/2008  10:15 AM

rpspeck - 18/4/2008 4:36 PM The price for the standard UP Aerospace “SpaceLoft XL” flight is $250,000. At about 1/30 the cost of the least cost orbital service (with the Falcon 1) this radically lowers the threshold for producing an extensive demonstration of our “Lunar Lander” hardware flying in space. On top of the cost saving is the fact that the SpaceLoft system is operational and has achieved its promised flight performance. I am confident that SpaceX will also succeed, but when will that company be ready to fly customer payloads?

I'm glad somebody is giving SpaceX some competition - this will make them lower their prices, and challenge them on their acheivements and reliability claims.

Great.  Now you made coffee come out my nose.

[rpspeck]

Two notes:

Considering that the Japanese have spent considerable sums to import million year old arctic ice, then used it in party cocktails, there exists a “High End” market for unique things.  I think that Moon Rocks rejected by scientists as “Same old Same old” will bring considerable sums as novelties (complete with high tech – verifiable on line - “Provenance”), both as jewelry and  in fixed displays.  A limited supply of historic samples could be priced like diamonds.  On the other hand, no actual interest has yet been shown by any scientific organization in acquiring samples, photos or other research results from private space efforts. (A few projects have historically tried to sell such rights in advance, with no notable success.)  In my experience, scientific organizations are quite willing to receive “Free Gifts”, but are slow to part with real money.  

The UP Aerospace vehicle, as I described it, has an excellent potential to validate and demonstrate operational hardware in SUBORBITAL SPACEFLIGHT!  This possibility is even discussed by Virgin Galactic and others for their vehicles.  (I once conceptually addressed the same PHANTOM  market.  A Phantom Market is one many people will agree should exist and be interesting, but in fact either does not exist or is extremely small.)  Innovative space developers SHOULD be interested in proving their ideas with low cost, suborbital flights, but they are "Staying away" from UP Aerospace “in droves”.   UP Aerospace competes in no way with SpaceX, other then by hypothetical “if and when” talk of an orbital upgrade.  

As an innovative space developer who needs to build credibility, a suborbital test and demonstration of our deep space propulsion, navigation and control systems (in the few minutes of available free fall in vacuum) will do a lot of good.  The “experts”  will still be able to generate a long list of “yah, buts...”, but their biggest “Killer” - “Never been proven in Space” - will have been canceled.  Our Lunar system may not then have been demonstrated on the second Thursday of a month, and following the exact  stress pattern of an orbital launch, but then no engineered product is ever tested in exactly its final use until that use begins.  Ignition, restart, proper ADAC and thrust control, expected ISP and Thermal patterns are all very real accomplishments for a new space propulsion system and these can be achieved in the low cost test.

[A_M_Swallow]

The In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) people are dreaming about getting more lunar regolith to test their techniques on.  How much mass could the micro lunar lander rockets lift:
a. from the Moon's surface to Low Lunar Orbit (LLO)?
b. from the Moon's surface to Earth re-entry (including heat shield)?

Delta-v Moon to LLO is about 1.87 km/s, LLO to Earth re-entry is 1.31 km/s.
Giving total delta-v Moon to re-entry as about 3.18 km/s.

[rpspeck]

I hadn't visualized that market.  What do you think they would pay for it?

I am working on the numbers.  A critical component is whether we use all the Falcon 1 payload for a single trans-stage and lander, or we partition it into two or more units (to increase Google X PRIZE success statistics).  Regolith at least would make collection easy (no searching for proper sized rocks).  Our HTS with full fuel (before landing) could approach 30 pounds of lunar material returned to Earth.  (I am also working on the reentry, or alternative aerobraking question.) 

Are you sure of your figures, by the way?  I have been calculating just under 0.8 km/s for LLO to Lunar escape and less than 0.2 km/s to get the V_infinity required to get the Earth Centered angular momentum into a usable range. (Assuming the additional velocity is added in Low Lunar orbit and not later.)

This isn't a big deal, but this total is 0.3 km/sec lower than your figure. 

[A_M_Swallow]

I used the approximate delta-v budget figures from Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v_budget
Yours are probably more accurate and/or are for a different part of the Moon.  The  sample sites include the lunar south pole.

Reading between the lines the ISRU people appear to be assuming they would have to use EELV and were doubting that they would get a budget of several billion dollars.  So even if you double your figures for negotiating purposes Falcon 1 plus HTS is likely to be the lowest bid.  This would be a government program so cost in at least one years delay whilst approval is gained from Congress.

[rpspeck]

“Close to Liftoff!” (Yes - Still only "Close")

As announced previously, Micro-Space's new production motors and associated systems are running very well.  The thrust vector control systems on our landers are also running nicely.  (We actually have three sets of the basic lander propulsion hardware finished.  One of these is assembled with our HTS (Human Transport System) frame.  This frame eliminates most of the lander's framework mass,  relying on the strength of the pressurized fuel tanks to carry most of the loads. 

We are close to Tethered Hover flight tests.  However in preparation for this we are finishing both our “Hardware in the Loop” flight simulator and the computer data acquisition system which will be used during both the flight tests and the simulations.  The use of identical hardware for these two purposes will make it much easier to evaluate the accuracy of the simulation's predictions. 

The “Hardware in the Loop” simulator uses the flight ready “Motor Bar Assembly” with its thrust vector servo motors.  The instantaneous position of each motor is measured and used to generate a thrust vector in the 6 Degree of Freedom simulator.  This eliminates both the very difficult (usually imprecise), computer modeling of the nonlinear servo mechanism's response, and the major effort to quantify and evaluate these rate limited operations to obtain a usable result.  The flight ready hardware, and position sensors, replace this difficult simulation with real data.

A few variants of this simulation setup will be used. The Throttling system will be tested using flowing water to test both the manual and autonomous altitude control modes.  The thrust vector data will similarly be used to simulate both human flight efforts and and test the “Stability Augmentation” electronics. 

A switch in the simulator electronics will change from the dynamics of hovering in Earth's gravity, to an accurate simulation of operations in the Moon's lower gravity.  This generally improves the stability, since it makes control events happen in relative “Slow Motion” (with a 2.5x increase in the time required for maneuvers).  Advanced control system designers know, however, that a decrease in feedback forces can destabilize a sophisticated control system just as an increase in feedback forces usually does.   

[rpspeck]

SPONSORS:

Concerning Sponsors:  Micro-Space has a handful of small budget sponsors, but needs more.  Credibility is a problem, for sponsorship, but over caution continues to be a bigger problem and reduces sponsorship benefits.  Corporate “Bean Counters” want a “Proven Track Record” for the teams they consider sponsoring.  But for a truly innovative company – offering “Break Through” technology or products – a “Proven Track Record” destroys the publicity value of the sponsorship by emphasizing “The Very Strengths Their Established Competitors Offer”!    A company – large or small -  that wants to build their “Break Through” image, should sponsor efforts that showcase that mentality and thrust!

Credibility will become a big issue when the hundred million dollars needed to send an adventurer to Mars is involved: when success appears likely, a massive audience will be tuned in.   

But for the thousands of dollars presently needed to get adventurers flying on Lunar Lander prototypes,  it is easier to close the business case.  Seeing humans fly on low cost, but scientifically valid “Lunar Landers” will spark recognition that a “REAL” space age is finally at hand!  Since success with these exciting and high visibility efforts is likely, the sponsor who wants recognition as an innovator will be well rewarded. (Remaining a sponsor, as this effort ramps up to actual human Moon landings, will be even more rewarding!)

Micro-Space systems are already flying and the complex landers will be flying within days!

[rpspeck]

              Vacuum Environmental Testing Underway

Micro-Space has begun Vacuum Environment testing of our operational communications modules.  This will be a long process, for - although we have done production and research high vacuum work for decades (including a variety of thin film coatings and multilayer structures) – we have never done vacuum environment testing for spacecraft systems and will have to add a number of elements to our vacuum chambers. 

Beyond the obvious concern of venting of batteries (and liquid electrolytic capacitors, if they were used), plus vaporization of necessary lubricants in mechanical systems, the primary vacuum effect on electronics is to expand the thermal control problems.  With the loss of air convection for heat distribution at even moderate vacuum, temperature gradients become more severe.  With the loss of all gas thermal conductivity in high vacuum (10 exp - 4 Torr) only radiation and conduction in solids remain to remove heat from hot components. 

Heat sinks of course need to be redefined, since they are not cooled by air, and if not positioned to radiate heat directly into space, they accomplish little or nothing.  The classic black heat sink is also a mistake, since white paint radiates heat in the infrared as well as any other color, but the white surface absorbs less solar radiation if sunlight can't be completely blocked from the radiator structure.

These problems are reduced with today's low power electronic components. Legacy space systems have a bigger problem since the new, low power products are not “Space Qualified”.  In fact, many of these will have a higher ionizing radiation sensitivity, which will call for redundant systems and components as well as error correction techniques.  The short operational life of a Google Lunar Lander of course reduces the problems seen with a ComSat.  Military satellites, like military aircraft, tend to have such a high “Power Density” in the electronics that cooling is a huge problem.     

[rpspeck]

Announced progress with the ESA “Vega” Small Launch Vehicle is a very encouraging development.  The big question, of course, is Launch Costs $$$.  After learning that Ariane' s new “Small Payload” service would have a cost higher than a Falcon 1, for even a few kg satellite, I gave up hope for a meaningful offering from Europe. 

(I still have higher hopes for India.  Their multi satellite launch this spring shows they have the capability.  With a commitment to a few affordable (possible subsidized) launches a year, India could capture the lead in small space systems development – drawing entrepreneurs from other countries – and add a strong entrepreneurial position in advanced spaceflight to their accomplishments in World Class Software!)

The future in innovative spaceflight is up for grabs.  The US seems prepared to see our (hypothetical) lead in this technology go the way of so many others (offshore).  The way in looks just like it did for baby “Microsoft” and similar early computer efforts: find a way to deliver products at affordable prices (deferring profits when necessary), and provide service and performance which makes these offerings irresistible.

Micro-Space would certainly use such a launch service for both prototype systems testing and even the competition launch, if the costs made sense! 

[rpspeck]

Micro-Space continues to push development of the communications components needed for our GLXP Lander system AND ITS TEST PROTOTYPES!

Space “Pros” rightly criticize “New Space” enthusiasts for their assumption that the challenges of spaceflight will be overcome with UNTESTED PROTOTYPES.  Those “Pros” are wrong in their assumption that the new entrepreneurs have not cut their teeth on other difficult projects, but their criticism is justified when we ignore what we have learned in that process.  Neither software or hardware systems flow flawlessly  from a simulation or block diagram.  TEST and DEBUG are a very important part of all real world development, and any project which does not recognize this is naive and doomed to failure (or massive schedule and cost overruns).

Armadillo Aerospace efforts with a “Lunar Lander” can serve as a good example of a real lander development.  The lack comparable competitive efforts makes it impossible to dismiss this as a poor example.  Yet the Armadillo vehicle lacks a great many of the systems required for GLXP.   

For spaceflight, unfortunately, the cost for operational testing in the intended environment is massively expensive and difficult.  The “Standard” answer in the space industry has been to do very little development and to rely on hardware “Proven in Space”, in spite of its large size, mass and cost.  Replacing this with untested prototypes will seldom work, and certainly will fail when a large number of critical systems are involved, as they are for the Google Lunar X PRIZE.

When “Standard Space Systems” can't be used, the only workable answer is to devise affordable operational tests for the new hardware in environments very close to space itself.  We previously mentioned our intention to use “Suborbital” rocket flights to complete the development of our space systems.  Such flights DO REACH SPACE.  The high vacuum, zero G conditions are achieved, as well as the solar and galactic radiation environment.  The stresses of launch are similar.  The duration in the space environment is reduced, if this is a critical factor.  But the only real difference between well instrumented suborbital and orbital tests is the COST of the flight – unless you are developing the launch vehicles and not payload or deep space systems. 

At present Micro-Space is adding low noise amplifiers and  weak signal processing  to our lightweight communications systems.  Achieving hundred thousand mile range with one ounce electronic systems is not mandatory for the GLXP, although it does allow a level of systems redundancy which will be welcome.  It also makes possible small rocket and balloon tests, to the edge of space and beyond.  And it is these we will use for much of our systems development.  It has become obvious that funding for even $250,000 – let alone $8,000,000 – test flights will be hard to obtain.  Realistically, a number of test flights will be necessary to develop confidence in the systems necessary for a successful Moon landing, and no GLXP team yet has the funding to conduct such tests unless they can be done at very low cost.

Thus we are preparing to exaggerate even our “Ultralight” concepts to begin testing our systems in space this year.         

[rpspeck]

Vertical Integration

The difficulty in finding nearly $10 Million for a Falcon 1 launch (not to mention the unimpressive flight history of that vehicle) has caused Micro-Space and its partners to accelerate our plan to pursue an independent launch capability.  To top everything else, the Falcon 1 has TOO LARGE a payload capability for our basic GLXP flight, let alone the reduced mass missions which now seem possible.  As other GLXP teams are forced to reduce their systems mass to match the meager funding that can be raised, we expect to become a prime launch supplier for them.  Our target price is $2 Million to place 400 pounds in LEO orbit.  A small addition will deliver an appropriate fraction of that mass to the Moon, and save a team that complexity.  As always, Micro-Space offers to sell priority options for such launch services – taking priority even over flights of our own lander – for customers willing to provide early cash flow and prepared to ramp up funding for the operational vehicle when that step becomes appropriate. 

This actually ratchets down the Micro-Space funding challenge, for the launch vehicle development – starting with what we have already invested and accomplished – is much less than the nearly $10 Million Falcon 1!  Ours is not, of course, a sophisticated “race car” of a vehicle. It relies on the pressure fed “dumb boosters” which served so well on the Delta II upper stage, and started out nicely on the second flight of Falcon I.  The second stage in these, and all similar vehicles, does most of the work getting a payload into orbit! A cluster of combustion chambers, possibly equaling the count on the Soyuz, will form our first stage.

It is actually well known that development of an orbital  launch vehicle's second stage Costs More than the first stage!  As mentioned it does most of the work to accelerate a satellite to orbital velocity.  But it must contain the Guidance, Navigation and Control systems. Hobbyists talk about “Making a rocket big enough to reach orbit.”, but without these systems, no rocket will ever achieve orbit!  Injection into LEO requires both adequate velocity and an accurate velocity vector.  Deviation by a fraction of a degree in this vector will doom the LEO satellite to premature reentry.

The present Micro-Space plan is to “Finish our Second Stage First”.  We have all the necessary components and operational subsystems, including navigation and guidance.  With integration and demonstration of this stage, the hardest part will be done.  The cluster of takeoff boosters mentioned above will prepare this system for orbital flight.       

In today's investment environment, it will take a Miracle to find even the $1 Million needed to complete integration and operational demonstration of our modular MicroSat launch vehicle.  But we expect to see the Lord's hand – once again – with provision of that Miracle!  Beyond the problem of disbelief, the investor's position is simple:

Thirty two CubeSats have been launched into orbit (the most recent batch by India), and 39 more projects have been publicly announced.  Most of these have been produced by Universities.  When graduates combine this experience with modern microelectronic technology, they will lead corporate, Space Technology efforts.  With active antennas, NanoSats and MicroSats will each be able to focus communications on thousands of customers simultaneously, and add multi spectral data as appropriate. 

Many of these applications will require dedicated, custom orbit launches, as will these satellites when equipped with propulsion which would otherwise endanger other components of a mixed payload.  Deep Space flights, GEO, cislunar and interplanetary, are particularly attractive for micro vehicles, compared to the massive present cost of carrying an experiment above LEO. This field will soon resemble the “Microelectronic” revolution in personal communications, personal and portable computing and endless game systems.

Some few investors will understand this.  Many more will eventually add this to their “If only .....”  list. 

[A_M_Swallow]

“Close to Liftoff!” (Yes - Still only "Close")

As announced previously, Micro-Space's new production motors and associated systems are running very well.  The thrust vector control systems on our landers are also running nicely.  (We actually have three sets of the basic lander propulsion hardware finished.  One of these is assembled with our HTS (Human Transport System) frame.  This frame eliminates most of the lander's framework mass,  relying on the strength of the pressurized fuel tanks to carry most of the loads. 

We are close to Tethered Hover flight tests.  {snip}

Did Micro-Space get a chance to perform the Tethered Hover flight tests?

[rpspeck]

“Close to Liftoff!” (Yes - Still only "Close")

As announced previously, Micro-Space's new production motors and associated systems are running very well.  The thrust vector control systems on our landers are also running nicely.  (We actually have three sets of the basic lander propulsion hardware finished.  One of these is assembled with our HTS (Human Transport System) frame.  This frame eliminates most of the lander's framework mass,  relying on the strength of the pressurized fuel tanks to carry most of the loads. 

We are close to Tethered Hover flight tests.  {snip}

Did Micro-Space get a chance to perform the Tethered Hover flight tests?

A "shortfall" in funding has seriously slowed our flight testing efforts, althought a lot of systems development continues.  Our funding efforts continue, as noted in the following post.