Aviation Week & Space Technology, 10/24/2005, page 24
Frank Morring, Jr. and Michael Mecham, Fukuoka, Japan
Some 1,800 space scientists, engineers and other specialists gathered at the port city of Fukuoka, Japan, last week for the 56th International Astronautical Congress, an annual event that offers a snapshot on the status of space programs and would-be programs worldwide. Jointly organized by the International Astronautical Federation, the International Academy of Astronautics and the International Institute of Space Law, the week-long symposium heard more than 1,200 papers presented at 123 technical sessions, along with topical plenary panels and lectures.
NASA's International Space Station partners are working with the U.S. agency to move their expensive ISS hardware forward in the dwindling space shuttle launch schedule, to give it a better chance of reaching orbit.
If it doesn't get there, the impact on President Bush's space exploration plans could be dire. Bush needs international cooperation to make his plan work, and that will be hard to come by if he doesn't deliver the goods to the station.
"I think it's quite natural; without JEM there should be no meaningful cooperation, I'm afraid," says Kaoru Mamiya, vice president of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
JEM is the Japanese Experiment Module, a $3-billion laboratory, storage unit and exposed research platform that has been at Kennedy Space Center awaiting a shuttle launch since May 2003. With the last shuttle flight now targeted for December 2009, and the drop-dead date for shuttle retirement nine months after that, the partners are getting seriously nervous.
"It was very clear that all of the international partners to whom we spoke would be very unhappy if we were unable to keep that commitment, and it's a commitment that we want to keep," said NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin, after a series of bilateral meetings with his counterparts from Europe, Japan and Canada at the 56th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) here. "No one disagrees on the goal."
In heads-of-agency meetings with Jean-Jacques Dordain of the European Space Agency, Keiji Tachikawa of JAXA, Marc Garneau of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and Sergio Vetrella of the Italian space agency (ASI), Griffin promised to do his best to get the partners' hardware attached to the station. But in that he is limited both by the demonstrated difficulty of keeping the space shuttle on a schedule, and by ongoing--and secret--budget discussions within the Bush administration.
"I have assured them that at this point administration support remains unchanged," Griffin says. "I can't make 'forward-looking statements' because Congress and for that matter even the administration have yet to speak."
Plans call for Europe's Columbus laboratory to launch on the eighth shuttle mission, counting from resumption of operations next May with STS-121. The May flight would be the second of two test flights to check improvements made since the Columbia accident. If it goes as NASA hopes, the following six missions would emplace the remaining truss elements and solar arrays on the ISS, and position a second pressurized node to receive Columbus and JEM.
JEM itself would require the three shuttle flights after Columbus to install.
Then NASA's "18-plus-one" launch schedule would round out with seven logistics and utilization flights, delivering supplies and smaller hardware elements, and a final mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope. Griffin says that based on historic shuttle flight rates, the schedule could be met by the end of December 2009, "well ahead of the planned retirement date, so it allows plenty of time to slip."
The administration wants to retire the shuttle fleet by Sept. 30, 2010, the end of Fiscal 2010. But White House budgeteers are studying a shuttle slowdown to one-shift launch processing that would seriously jeopardize chances of launching the partner modules (AW&ST Oct. 10, p. 31).
With that in mind, the partners have asked for another look at the manifest--to move their hardware forward and slip some of the truss elements and solar arrays to later in the schedule. William Gerstenmaier, associate NASA administrator for space operations, says preliminary work has already started, and a full-scale replanning meeting is scheduled at Johnson Space Center next month.
"Everyone wants to fly first, but on the other hand we have a pretty well-thought-out sequence," Griffin says. "Bill Gerstenmaier and his folks are always open to bright ideas, but we think the thing has been scrubbed fairly carefully."
Generally speaking, space-agency participants in the IAC panels here say the ISS model is a good starting point for future cooperation. And while Bush's January 2004 call for a push beyond low Earth orbit to the Moon, Mars and beyond has reshaped some agencies' planning, NASA's performance as lead agency in the ISS program is already sparking a push for modifications to the original ISS cooperation model.
"It's a very good thing that there was a backup between the U.S. space shuttle and Russian Soyuz and Progress vehicles," says Alexander Medvedchikov, deputy director general of the Russian space agency. "And it is very good when one of the partners faces difficulties, another partner can help him with his needs. Space is a very risky business. No one can be guaranteed against failures. This is a very important point when we are discussing future exploration missions and future plans."
In presenting NASA's exploration architecture, which calls for using two new rockets derived from space shuttle components, plus a new Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), in-space transportation stage and lunar lander, Griffin has stressed that for "strategic" reasons the U.S. wants to own all of the hardware needed for a round trip from the Earth to the Moon.
But NASA very much wants to explore the solar system in partnership with other nations, and has explicitly stated that non-U.S. astronauts will be allowed to use the CEV. Its plan calls for international contributions of hardware at the lunar surface, including habitats and power supplies.
"It is our strongest hope that in future space endeavors, we would continue to have the kind of cooperation we've had on the space station partnership," Griffin told the opening IAC plenary.
But the ISS partners--mindful of the precarious position they're in because they relied solely on the shuttle to launch their major station elements--are moving away from NASA as their sole means of access to space. Russia is in serious discussions with ESA, and in preliminary talks with Japan, about a joint effort to develop the Clipper reusable crew vehicle as a backup to the CEV. Like the CEV, the Clipper would be able to carry a crew of as many as six, supporting missions to the ISS and the Moon.
RUSSIA HAS NO PLANS to build a heavy-lift launcher like the 125-metric-ton-capacity behemoth NASA plans to employ for lunar flights. Instead, Medvedchikov says, his agency would use existing or upgraded Russian rockets, and build on its ISS experience to assemble exploration vehicles in Earth orbit (see p. 26).
Japan's latest space-vision document--"JAXA 2025," issued in March--prominently features human lunar exploration as a long-term goal, and lists plans to use the facilities on JEM to move in that direction. Among technologies JAXA hopes to develop for lunar applications are environmental control and life support, and power-generation systems to include wireless transmission of solar power from satellites (see p. 17).
Europe's Aurora solar system exploration program initially focused on eventual human exploration of Mars. The Moon was left to robots like the Smart-1 technology testbed currently in orbit there; but by the 55th IAC in Vancouver last year, ESA was beginning to incorporate Smart-1 results into a growing international lunar-exploration planning effort (AW&ST Oct. 11, 2004, p. 38). This year, the Moon has taken a more prominent place in European space plans.
"I wish to enter into a significant exploration program, and this European contribution to an exploration program is made of different parts," says ESA's Dordain. "One of the parts is this mission to Mars, called ExoMars, which is to be launched in 2011. But this exploration program will also include preparatory activities for exploration of the Moon, including human exploration."
Just as Griffin cannot speak with final authority about NASA's plans for the ISS until the White House and Congress act on his budget, decisions about international participation in future human exploration programs will be made at a higher level than was represented at the conference here. Dordain must present his proposals to the ESA ministerial council meeting set for December in Berlin, and JAXA's vision is only "a hope," in the words of one agency official, that remains unfunded by the Japanese government.
Still, it seems likely that human spaceflight will continue to be a cooperative venture at some level. Even China, which has so far gone it pretty much alone in its fledgling human space activities, sees the need to cooperate eventually.
"Exploration and space activity are a complicated, high-risk and high-cost activity, and it is difficult for any single country to achieve all success," says Zhang Wei, director general of the Foreign Affairs Dept. in the China National Space Administration. "Therefore, extensive international cooperation has become an efficient approach to promote the development of space technology, science and education."
And at least at the nongovernmental level, there seems to be a growing recognition that better coordination is needed among the space-faring nations of the world as they set off together beyond Earth orbit. Serge Plattard, secretary general of the European Space Policy Institute in Vienna, argued for more clear-cut cooperation guidelines to enhance the efficiency of international exploration efforts.
"It's so important that I think it's really urgent to get organized to install a proper regime for international cooperation," Plattard says. "It's extremely complex; it's extremely expensive. It's going to be spread over several decades, and if it's really a venture of humankind . . . it really needs careful planning and strong, coordinated partnership."
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NASA Plan Details Draw Fire At International Astronautical Congress
Aviation Week & Space Technology, 10/24/2005, page 26
Frank Morring, Jr. and Michael Mecham, Fukuoka, Japan
Shuttle-derived U.S. exploration plan criticized for long-term costs, all-eggs-in-one-basket risk
NASA may be getting itself into a cost bind down the road with its shuttle-derived back-to-the-Moon approach, critics say.
Transportation costs alone to support a lunar outpost could reach $7-11 billion a year under NASA's current exploration plan, based on the cost experience with shuttle. And relying on a shuttle-derived heavy-lift rocket to put an entire lunar expedition, minus the crew, into low Earth orbit is riskier--if not cheaper--than breaking the mission into several launches.
Addressing the 56th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) here, NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin said he believes the difficulties associated with the ongoing International Space Station assembly demonstrate the value of the single-launch approach. "I'd say the next time that we have a 500-metric-ton payload to put in orbit, we try not to do it 15 or 20 tons at a time."
That view is shared by some of the Johnson Space Center flight controllers overseeing the "tinker toy" approach to in-space construction at the station, with its elaborate choreography and risky extravehicular activities (AW&ST Aug. 8, p. 25). But NASA's principal ISS partner has taken exactly the opposite lesson from the project.
"These two processes can run parallel," says Alexander Medvedchikov, deputy director general of the Russian space agency. "If there is a powerful launch vehicle, we can launch a big system at once. If there are small parts, they also can be brought and assembled in orbit."
NASA's approach to lunar missions calls for a "launch and a half" at the outset--a 125-metric-ton rocket based on the space shuttle main engines, solid rocket boosters and external tank, followed by a "single-stick" Crew Launch Vehicle carrying four lunar astronauts in an upsized Apollo capsule designated the Crew Exploration Vehicle (AW&ST Sept. 26, p. 22).
But at least two different analyses presented at the IAC--one by NASA's former chief technologist for exploration--found that the shuttle-derived vehicles in Griffin's plan may be the cheapest way to get the U.S. program moving out of low Earth orbit again, but they don't save money in the long run.
"I looked only at the transportation against operations costs, yielding something between $7 billion to $11 billion per year for ongoing operations costs for a lunar exploration base on the Moon, not counting all other costs," says John C. Mankins. He left NASA last month after assembling a technology-development plan for exploration that has been largely dropped since Griffin took office in April.
"SOMETHING MUST be done to achieve dramatically lower life-cycle operations costs if these ambitious missions, including exploration and the others, are to be affordable and sustainable," says Mankins.
A separate analysis by Gordon R. Woodcock, a retired Boeing space engineer now working as a consultant, produced similar figures. The problem, says Mankins, is the cost of low-volume hardware and the "marching army" needed to support it, based on the shuttle experience to date.
"The only way to get these costs down in the range of $1-4 billion a year to the Moon, that kind of thing, is to end up with numbers of people one-tenth or less than we have in the shuttle/station system," he says.
Mankins, Woodcock and others proposed a more modular approach to in-space transportation in support of lunar exploration, pre-positioning fuel and supplies using identical, reusable spacecraft that can operate with a much greater degree of autonomy than the system NASA wants to build. The approach would use solar-electric propulsion as a "slow boat" to deliver high-energy fuels and other exploration essentials to the lunar surface or an Earth-Moon Lagrangian point. It would require much more technology development than the NASA plan, but its backers argue that the outlay would be worth it in the long run.
Similarly, use of even limited mass production would dramatically cut the unit cost of the needed spacecraft, says Mankins, based on the experience with such disparate space systems as the GPS satellite constellation, and NASA's spacesuits. And launching identical elements on smaller rockets lowers the overall risk.
"Your eggs are in a lot of baskets, so the overall risks for the missions drop like a stone," he says. "The more units you can have--and the more you can distribute them across these risky launch vehicles--the overall risk actually improves."
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NASA Administrator Hopeful on Chinese Space Cooperation
Aviation Week & Space Technology, 10/24/2005, page 27
Craig Covault, Frank Morring, Jr., Cape Canaveral, Fukuoka, Japan
NASA administrator ties U.S. cooperation to progress on broader policy issues
China will advance to rendezvous and docking and astronaut extravehicular activity (EVA) following the Oct. 17 completion of the five-day Shenzhou 6 mission piloted by two Chinese crewmen.
China's second manned space flight in two years concluded as U.S. and Chinese space managers met in Fukuoka, Japan, at the International Astronautical Federation conference.
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin congratulated Zhang Wei, director general of foreign affairs for the China National Space Administration (CNSA).
Griffin told Aviation Week & Space Technology that he expressed to Zhang an interest in closer cooperation between NASA and CNSA "at some point in the future" if "government-to-government issues" can be resolved. Similarly, earlier this year, outgoing NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said the Bush Administration is now ready for "measured and appropriate levels of space cooperation with China" (AW&ST Jan. 31, p. 27). One problem is the Shenzhou program is managed almost totally by the People's Liberation Army and has significant Chinese military space technology goals (AW&ST Oct. 20, 2003, p. 26).
The success of China's second manned space mission is to lead to an EVA by a Chinese astronaut in 2007 and the rendezvous and docking with "target flyers" between 2009-12, says Tang Xianming, director of the China Manned Space Engineering Office.
The Chinese have said they would use the orbital modules separated from the noses of future Shenzhou spacecraft as docking targets.
But Tang, speaking in Beijing, indicate the Chinese could also launch individual docking target spacecraft as the U.S. Gemini program did with Agena target vehicles 40 years ago.
The ability to separate the orbital module and have it serve as functional free-flying spacecraft is one major improvement of the Shenzhou over the Russian Soyuz.
The Shenzhou 6 module was separated the day of the vehicle's reentry and is expected to remain an additional six months in orbit, carrying microgravity experiments.
The predawn landing in Inner Mongolia by Shenzhou 6 ended a 75-orbit mission where astronauts Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng logged about 2 million miles of spaceflight.
Total duration of the flight was 115 hr., 32 min. from liftoff on Oct. 12 at the Jiuquan launch site in the Gobi desert (AW&ST Oct. 17, p. 29). This compares with only a 21-hr. mission flown by China's first astronaut in 2003 (AW&ST Oct. 20, 2003, p. 22).
Chinese space managers in both Beijing and the space conference in Japan reaffirmed the long-stated goal of the manned program--the launch of a small Chinese space station after 2010.
CNSA also continues to develop increasingly advanced Earth orbit satellites for varied missions and will sign a memorandum of understanding with the European Space Agency next month on more Chinese/European cooperation on Earth observation satellites, Zhang said.
As in previous forums, the Chinese discussed no policy or technology plans aimed at manned lunar missions, but reaffirmed development of an unmanned lunar orbiter planned for launch in 2007 and lunar rover planned for about 2012 (AW&ST May 23, p. 37).
Speaking at Fukuoka, Zhang also said China continues to develop a new series of oxygen/hydrogen-powered launch vehicles to propel 25-ton payloads to low Earth orbit and 14-ton payloads to geosynchronous transfer orbit (AW&ST Nov. 12, 2001, p. 54). He also confirmed that China will establish a national Earth observation system to continuously develop follow-on meteorological satellites, marine satellites and resources satellites to establish a constellation to monitor the environment and disasters (AW&ST Nov. 12, 2001, p. 56). He added that a distribution system to move such Earth observation data to users is also a high priority. Zhang also said China will complete flight demonstrations with large high-capacity communications satellites and launch its first direct broadcast satellite.
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Top British Scientists Advocate UK Participation in Manned Space Exploration
Aviation Week & Space Technology, 10/24/2005, page 28
Douglas Barrie, London
Britain urged to rethink investment policy in run-up to Aurora discussions
Eminent scientists want the British government to reconsider its disdain for participating in manned space exploration, prior to a key European meeting later this year.
A trio of top U.K. scientists argue politicians need to revisit the rationale for not supporting British involvement in human space exploration. At 3 billion pounds ($5.3 billion) plus, the cost may prove prohibitive.
The scientists suggest a required investment of around 150 million pounds a year over a 20-25-year period.
The Royal Astronomical Society's "Report of the Commission into the Scientific Case for Human Space Exploration," published last week, argues the U.K. will "look increasingly isolated," should it fail to revise its position. "We regard it as timely for Her Majesty's Government to re-evaluate its long-standing opposition to British involvement in human space exploration."
The report's authors are keen to raise the issue in the runup to a ministerial meeting in December at the European Space Agency's Aurora exploration program due to be launched.
PRESENT U.K. POLICY will focus its participation in Aurora "only in the robotic aspects of the. . . program," notes the report--which would be a mistake, the authors contend. Some other U.K. aerospace executives are less certain. One points out: "Human space exploration is a very high cost game." The government's 2004 budget for Aurora participation is only one-sixth of the annual funding the report suggests is required to secure British participation in human spaceflight.
For the report's authors, however, robotic exploration is, as yet, no replacement for direct human involvement. "We have concluded that the capabilities of robotic spacecraft will fall well short of those of human explorers for the foreseeable future."
Aurora is aimed at mapping out a long-term plan for robotic and crewed exploration of the solar system. The overarching research theme is to look for traces of life. "We believe the essential scientific case at present for human space exploration is based on investigations on the Moon and Mars," states the report.
The report identifies three "key scientific challenges" and contends "direct human involvement will be necessary for a successful outcome." These are: mapping the history of the solar system, including the ability to recover core samples from depths of up to 300 ft.; investigating the question of life on Mars, and, if Mars proves to be a "dead planet," what lessons can be drawn "about the long-term viability of our own planet to support life?"
Only one of the report's three co-authors, Prof. Ken Pounds, a space physics specialist at Leicester University, has a direct interest in space exploration. Particle physics specialist Prof. Frank Close is a Fellow at Exeter College, Oxford, while Dr. John Dudeney is deputy director of the British Antarctic Survey. All three previously consider themselves to have been in the "skeptical" camp with regard to the scientific worth of human space exploration.
AN OFFICIAL FROM the government's coordination body for space research, the British National Space Center, says it had received the report and is "considering" its content. They were unwilling to discuss whether there was any likelihood of the government re-evaluating its position.
With crewed missions to the Moon and Mars on the medium- to long-term space agenda for NASA and ESA, the report's authors believe, "It is hard to conceive that the U.K., one of the world's leading economies, would stand aside from such a global scientific and technological endeavor."
Given the required funding, the authors argue, "It therefore appears unlikely--and undesirable--that an internationally significant effort in human spaceflight could be funded from the current science vote."
Japanese See Solar-Power Satellite Supplying Lunar Base
Aviation Week & Space Technology, 10/24/2005, page 17
Edited by Frank Morring, Jr.
JAXA has identified wireless energy transmission technology as an area where it wants to contribute to future exploration initiatives, starting with the Moon. The Japanese agency and its industry partners, notably Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), plan to orbit a demonstration satellite able to beam 100 kw. of solar power collected in orbit back to Earth as microwaves or lasers by 2010. But the technology might be better applied to support lunar bases, says JAXA Vice President Kaoru Mamiya. Working with Kyoto University, JAXA has already built a ground-based demonstrator called Solar Power Radio Integrated Transmitter (Spiritz) that used a 10-by-10-element phased array radar to transmit and receive 25 watts of simulated solar power as microwaves with a frequency of 5.77 GHz. over a short distance. Japan may be looking for a role to play in NASA's new lunar exploration plans, and beaming power for surface bases from orbit may be a good fit. Mamiya notes that while there would be environmental concerns about transmitting high-energy microwaves to populated areas on Earth, it would be easy to find empty places to put receiving antennas on the Moon.
