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Category Archives: Near Space
Latest on the Register’s LOHAN (Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator) adventure
The UK’s Register newspaper has been hosting reports on the LOHAN (Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator) project, which aims to launch a small rocket powered plane (named Vulture 2) from a high altitude balloon. (See infographic below.) Plans to fly the package in Spain were undermined by bureaucratic barriers to “explosive” model rocket motors. So they will fly it at Spaceport America in New Mexico if they can raise enough travel money via crowd-funding : LOHAN packs bags for SPACEPORT AMERICA! – The Register –
Find videos about their endeavors here, including this one about their 2010 Paper Aircraft Released Into Space (PARIS) project in 2010 to set a Guinness world record for highest paper plane launch :
Japanese artist’s flowers and bonzai tree pose on the edge of space
JP Aerospace has taken many interesting items to high altitudes with their balloon systems but a small pine tree and a floral arrangement must be among the most unusual.
- What A Bonsai Tree Looks Like Suspended In Space | Co.Design | business + design
- A Japanese Artist Launches Plants Into Space – New York Times
- Exobiotanica – Botanical Space Flight – photo gallery
- Mission Success! – JP Aerospace Blog
- JP Aerospace in the New York Times! – JP Aerospace Blog
A bonzai tree from Japanese artist Azuma Makoto
reaches high in the sky.
And a flower arrangement as well.
World View Experience opens emblem design contest
The World View Experience high altitude balloon travel venture has opened a contest to design their Voyager emblem:
Leave Your Mark On Spaceflight – Design Contest
Design the World View Voyager emblem; an iconic mark that will represent our group of spaceflight passengers, which we call “Voyagers,” for decades to come. Our community of Voyagers is comprised of people from all over the world that have reserved a flight with World View. Like any club, alumni organization, or society that has a logo, our Voyagers need one as well. Something separate from the World View logo itself, but a mark that they would be proud to wear on a flight uniform or display in a home.
This is your chance to leave a mark – on the industry that captivates our dreams.
The Prize:
One designer will win $500 cash and an all expenses paid trip for themselves and one guest to our Inaugural Voyager Gala at the end of this year, where they’ll have the chance to witness the unveiling of part of the World View space capsule and rub elbows with NASA astronauts, celebrities, and leaders from industries the world over.
How to Enter:
Click on the “Enter and Submit Your Design” link above and submit your design through our online competition website. That’s also where you can find submission guidelines, official rules, and a link to our brand elements for use in your design.
The Deadline:
All designs must be submitted via the link above by 11:59 p.m. on June 23rd, 2014. Save the date! Bookmark this page. Set a reminder. Though we’d love to be flexible, our legal team won’t let us. So make sure your design hits our submission portal before time expires.
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Enter your design at Contest registration
NASA to flight test inflatable supersonic decelerator
NASA is preparing to test a Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator demonstrator on a balloon and rocket combo flight:
NASA’s ‘Flying Saucer’ Readies for First Test Flight
NASA’s flying saucer-shaped test vehicle is ready to take to the skies from the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii, for its first engineering shakeout flight.
The first launch opportunity for the test vehicle is June 3, when the launch window opens at 8:30 a.m. HST. The test will be carried live on NASA TV and streamed on the Web. The Low Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) will gather data about landing heavy payloads on Mars and other planetary surfaces.
“The agency is moving forward and getting ready for Mars as part of NASA’s Evolvable Mars campaign,” said Michael Gazarik, associate administrator for Space Technology at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “We fly, we learn, we fly again. We have two more vehicles in the works for next year.”
As NASA plans increasingly ambitious robotic missions to Mars, laying the groundwork for even more complex human science expeditions to come, accommodating extended stays for explorers on the Martian surface will require larger and heavier spacecraft.
The objective of the LDSD project is to see if the cutting-edge, rocket-powered test vehicle operates as it was designed — in near-space at high Mach numbers.
“After years of imagination, engineering and hard work, we soon will get to see our Keiki o ka honua, our ‘boy from Earth,’ show us its stuff,” said Mark Adler, project manager for the Low Density Supersonic Decelerator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. “The success of this experimental test flight will be measured by the success of the test vehicle to launch and fly its flight profile as advertised. If our flying saucer hits its speed and altitude targets, it will be a great day.”
The way NASA’s saucer climbs to test altitude is almost as distinctive as the test vehicle itself.
“We use a helium balloon — that, when fully inflated, would fit snugly into Pasadena’s Rose Bowl — to lift our vehicle to 120,000 feet,” said Adler. “From there we drop it for about one and a half seconds. After that, it’s all about going higher and faster — and then it’s about putting on the brakes.”
A fraction of a second after dropping from the balloon, and a few feet below it, four small rocket motors will fire to spin up and gyroscopically stabilize the saucer. A half second later, a Star 48B long-nozzle, solid-fueled rocket engine will kick in with 17,500 pounds of thrust, sending the test vehicle to the edge of the stratosphere.
“Our goal is to get to an altitude and velocity which simulates the kind of environment one of our vehicles would encounter when it would fly in the Martian atmosphere,” said Ian Clark, principal investigator of the LDSD project at JPL. “We top out at about 180,000 feet and Mach 4. Then, as we slow down to Mach 3.8, we deploy the first of two new atmospheric braking systems.”
The project management team decided also to fly the two supersonic decelerator technologies that will be thoroughly tested during two LDSD flight tests next year.
If this year’s test vehicle flies as expected, the LDSD team may get a treasure-trove of data on how the 6-meter supersonic inflatable aerodynamic decelerator (SIAD-R) and the supersonic parachute operate a full year ahead of schedule.
The SIAD-R, essentially an inflatable doughnut that increases the vehicle’s size and, as a result, its drag, is deployed at about Mach 3.8. It will quickly slow the vehicle to Mach 2.5 where the parachute, the largest supersonic parachute ever flown, first hits the supersonic flow. About 45 minutes later, the saucer is expected to make a controlled landing onto the Pacific Ocean off Hawaii.
NASA TV will carry live images and commentary of LDSD engineering test. The test vehicle itself carries several onboard cameras. It is expected that video of selected portions of the test, including the rocket-powered ascent, will be downlinked during the commentary. Websites streaming live video of the test include:www.nasa.gov/nasatv
For more information about LDSD, visit:www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/tdm/ldsd/
NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate in Washington funds the LDSD mission, a cooperative effort led by JPL. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages LDSD within the Technology Demonstration Mission Program Office. NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia is coordinating support with the Pacific Missile Range Facility and providing the balloon systems for the LDSD test.
Update: Here is a NASA press conference about the test: