SpaceX is considering sabotage as cause of Falcon 9 explosion

Dear readers and followers,

As SpaceX’s investigation of a Falcon 9 rocket explosion on September 1st drags into its second month, rumors are flying that this may have been more than a random technical failure. According to a Washington Postreport, SpaceX is considering the possibility of sabotage.

In a Holmesian twist to the investigation of the sudden fireball that eviscerated a Falcon 9 rocket, a $95 million internet satellite, and a chunk of Cape Canaveral’s launch pad 40, a SpaceX employee recently requested rooftop access to a building owned by competing rocket consortium United Launch Alliance. As industry officials who spoke on condition of anonymity told the Washington Post, SpaceX was following up on “something suspicious” it had seen while reviewing video footage of the rocket explosion—a weird shadow and a white spot on the roof of the ULA building, which sits about a mile from the launch pad.

According to the Washington Post’s unnamed experts, SpaceX was denied access to the rooftop, which was instead investigated by Air Force officials who found no evidence of a connection to the September 1st explosion. 

SpaceX’s official line—that it’s simply trying to leave no stone unturned—may well be true. But that hasn’t stopped the internet from offering up its own conspiracy theories, including that maybe a guy with a rifle shot the rocket from a mile away. (After all, Musk did say his company is trying to figure out the source of a “quieter bang sound” a few seconds before the fireball!)

Then again, as Elon Musk noted during his Martian colonization speechlast week, SpaceX has already investigated all obvious possibilities. “What remains are the less probable answers,” he said.

A ULA spokesperson responded to Gizmodo’s request for comment in an email, stating that “ULA cooperated with the Air Force’s 45th Space Wing, and nothing associated with the SpaceX accident was found.”

Source: Fortune

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Military weather spy satellite apparently exploded in orbit

Dear readers and followers,

A 20-year-old military weather satellite apparently exploded in orbit February. 3rd 2015 following what the U.S. Air Force described as a sudden temperature spike. The “catastrophic event” produced 43 pieces of space debris, according to Air Force Space Command, which disclosed the loss of the satellite on February 27th 2015. 

Credit image: US air force

The satellite, Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Flight 13, was the oldest continuously operational satellite in the DMSP weather constellation. Launched in 1995, DMSP-F13 provided thousands of hours of weather imagery to Air Force and Navy forecasters before transitioning to a backup role in 2006. The Air Force said its sudden loss would have minimal impact. DMSP-F13 flew in a 800 kilometers sun-synchronous polar orbit popular for weather and spy satellites.

“Because this satellite was no longer used by the National Weather Service or the Air Force Weather Agency, the impact of the loss of this satellite is minimal,” the Air Force said. “We anticipate real-time weather data for tactical users will be slightly reduced without this satellite, but its data was not being used for weather forecast modeling.”

The Air Force still has six DMSP satellites in service following the launch last April of DMSP-F19. A seventh satellite, DMSP-F20, was under consideration for a 2016 launch as recently as November.

Air Force Space Command said DMSP-F13’s power subsystem experienced “a sudden spike in temperature” followed by “an unrecoverable loss of attitude control.” As DMSP operators were deciding to “render the vehicle safe” the Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, identified a debris field near the satellite. The Air Force said it is continuing to track the debris and will issue conjunction warnings if necessary.

“While the initial response is complete, JSpOC personnel will continue to assess this event to learn more about what happened and what it will mean for users within this orbit,” said Air Force Col. John Giles, the Joint Space Operations Center’s director.

The first public indication of a problem with DMSP-F13 came from T.S. Kelso, a senior research astrodynamicist for Analytical Graphics’ Center for Space Standards and Innovation in Colorado Springs, Colorado, who noted Feb. 25 that there had been “another debris event with 26 new pieces” in addition to five previously cataloged DMSP-F13 objects.

Source: Space news

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Space launches from planes

Dear readers and followers,

Space launches are used to be captured in picture from the ground, but sometimes, the space launch are immortalized from planes. Enjoy these amazing pictures:

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The US secret space drone finally came home

Dear readers and followers,

The US Air Force’s mysterious X-37B robotic space plane returned to Earth on Tuesday October 14th after nearly two years in space. But while it is no secret that the Air Force has sent the unmanned spacecraft into orbit at least three times, the service refuses to say what the machine has been doing up there. The spaceship was launched on December 11th, 2012, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

While most Air Force and industry officials refuse to talk about the program at all, sources familiar with the program indicated that the X-37B is designed to carry experimental payloads of sensors, like various high-tech cameras of various types, electronic sensors and ground-mapping radars.

The idea is that the X-37B carries “specialized” sensors packages that can be reconfigured as needed for each mission when the aircraft returns to Earth. That ability to reconfigure the robotic spacecraft makes the X-37B cheaper and more flexible than a satellite, which goes up once with one package of sensors and is eventually discarded. Satellites can often cost billions of dollars and cannot reconfigured or reused, unlike the X-37B. Further, the X-37B can maneuver more freely once it is in space. Unlike a satellite, which is placed into orbit with a finite amount of fuel, the X-37B can be topped with more fuel for its thrusters when it returns to Earth. It can even change orbits. That ability gives the spacecraft much more flexibility than a traditional satellite. 

The X-37B returned to Vandenburg Air Force Base in California, according to the Air Force. 

Ever since the X-37B made its first flight back in 2010, outlandish rumors and bizarre conspiracy theories have dogged the Boeing built space drone. Some wags suggested in the past that the X-37B would be used to tap into the communications of foreign satellites, however the Pentagon has other easier and more effective means to listen in on those spacecraft. 

An even more outlandish theory was that the X-37B would be used to physically interfere with foreign satellites, maybe even abducting those machines from orbit. However, the possibility that Air Force would have designed the X-37B for that kind of mission was extremely remote. It would be very easy to trace that sort of activity back to the U.S. government since governments and amateurs alike can easily track the X-37B.

Another theory that was batted around was that the X-37B was some kind of orbital bomber that could strike at foreign lands with only a few moments notice. Technically, that could be semi-feasible—and indeed the Pentagon is working a weapon that would be able to hit targets anywhere on Earth in less than an hour that could be launched from within the continental United States.

However, the X-37B is not likely to be designed for that so-called “conventional prompt global strike” mission, though it is not entirely inconceivable that it could carry a weaponized payload. But any sophisticated foe like Russia or China has the ability to track the X-37B in orbit very easily and it may not be particularly useful in such a capacity.

And then there would be the political backlash. Space-based weapons are a hugely controversial topic and the U.S. is not likely to deploy such systems given the proclivities of the Obama administration. It’s one of the many reasons why informed observers—like Brian Weeden, a former officer with the U.S. Air Force’s Space Command, have long considered the space plan to be an orbital spy. And it’s probably no coincidence that the X-37B’s orbit takes it over North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and China. There are some items in those countries that the Pentagon might want to see from space.

Source

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Successful Atlas5 liftoff in pictures

Thanks to +Elizabeth Therese Niwel
Source

Atlas 5 take-off livestream now

Dear followers,

today, United Launch Alliance will perform its seventy-fifth launch with the space-launcher Atlas V with the aim of deploying the AEHF-3 satellite for the US Air Force.

The Liftoff is scheduled from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in few minutes. You could follow the liftoff in livesteam below.

Watch live streaming video from spaceflightnow at livestream.com

Source

An Atlas 5 rocket successfully took-off from Cape Canaveral

Dear follower,

2 days ago, in Baikonur the Proton rocket had liftoff. Today, in Cape Canaveral, the Atlas 5 has successfully carried a replacement Global Positioning System satellite for the United States Air Force.
The Centaur upper stage completed its second burn and released the Global Positioning System 2F-4 satellite into the navigation network.

Credit: Walter Scriptunas II 

Credit: NASAgovVideo

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