SpaceX to attempt Falcon 9 Rocket landing on Floating Ocean Platform

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, complete with "hypersonic grid fins," that SpaceX will attempt to land on a floating platform in the Atlantic Ocean as part of a Dec. 16, 2014 launch.

Credit: Elon Musk/SpaceX

SpaceX will apparently attempt something truly epic during next week's cargo launch to the International Space Station.

During the Dec. 16 launch from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, which will send SpaceX's robotic Dragon capsule toward the orbiting lab, the California-based company will try to bring the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket back to Earth for a controlled landing on a floating platform in the Atlantic Ocean.

The bold maneuver marks a big step forward in SpaceX's development of reusable-rocket technology, which the company's billionaire founder, Elon Musk, says could eventually cut the cost of spaceflight by a factor of 100 and perhaps make Mars colonization economically feasible.

A photo of the "autonomous spaceport drone ship" on which SpaceX will attempt to land the Falcon 9 rocket.

Credit: Elon Musk/SpaceX

Musk shared photos of the Falcon 9 and landing platform via Twitter late last month, ratcheting up interest in the cargo mission, the fifth of 12 unmanned resupply flights SpaceX will make to the space station for NASA under a $1.6 billion contract.

"Autonomous spaceport drone ship. Thrusters repurposed from deep sea oil rigs hold position within 3m even in a storm," Musk tweeted about the platform on Nov. 22.

"Base is 300 ft by 100 ft, with wings that extend width to 170 ft. Will allow refuel & rocket flyback in future," he added in another tweet.


The Falcon 9 photo revealed that the rocket is outfitted with "hypersonic grid fins" to increase stability during a return to Earth.

"Grid fins are stowed on ascent and then deploy on reentry for 'x-wing' style control," Musk tweeted on Nov. 22. "Each fin moves independently for pitch/yaw/roll."

At a conference at MIT in October, Musk said that SpaceX would attempt to land the Falcon 9 first stage on the floating platform during the rocket's next flight.

The next liftoff on the rocket's schedule is the Dec. 16 Dragon launch.

MicroThrust Ion Engine Could Place Cubesats in Lunar Orbit

The video shows an interview with Herbert Shea by the EPFL University news.

The Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) has announced it has developed a lightweight propulsion system that could propel small satellites to the Moon using only 100mL of fuel.

The entire propulsion system, which comprises an electric ion engine powered by photovoltaic solar cells, weighs only 200g including propellant, and is small enough to fit within the limited envelope of a standard CubeSat nanosatellite.

“The big limitation [of current nanosatellites] is that [they’re] stuck in whatever orbit they’re put in” says Herbert Shea, Associate Professor at the EPFL. “To free them, we need a very efficient, miniaturized propulsion system. […] [MicroThrust] is very efficient, and using only this very small volume, we could send such a satellite from Earth orbit to Moon orbit.”

Although the system only works in space and could not be used to launch from Earth, if successful, the Microthrust system could greatly increase the list of potential applications for nanosatellites, which are currently limited to use in low Earth orbit.

“You can then go to Mars, you can go to the Moon, you can go to asteroids, you can do all sorts of science exploration missions that are today impossible for Universities and for many countries because of the high cost” explained Shea.

EPFL has already announced plans for the Microthrust system to fly on two missions. The first is the Orbital Low Frequency Array, or OLFAR, which intends to create a distributed low-frequency radio astronomy array in space using nanosatellites.

Microthrust could be used to propel the array of satellites beyond the Moon where they could look deeper into the universe. EPFL is also planning to use MicroThrust on the CleanSpaceOne satellite, which intends to demonstrate active removal of space debris using a 3U Cubesat.

The propulsion system has been designed to fit within the Cubesat standard, developed by California Polytechnic State University and Stanford University in 1999 to encourage universities and amateur space enthusiasts to develop standard hardware and increase accessibility to space.

The standard designates a single unit (or “1U”) as a cubic nanosatellite weighing approximately 1kg and measuring 10cm along each outer edge. Cubesats can be either 1U in size, or any integer multiple for larger more complex missions.

ESA ATV-3, Edoardo Amaldi docks with ISS - Image

ESA supply vehicle, ATV-3, Edoardo Amaldi, approaches the ISS in a remote docking manoeuvre. 

You can see the glow from the stabilising thruster jets and the spotlight illuminating the scene.

ESA Human Spaceflight and Exploration - Astrium's Lunar lander firing up for touchdown

A test firing of Lunar Lander’s 220 N thrusters in Astrium’s specialised test facility in Lampoldshausen, Germany. 

The engines will guide Lunar Lander to a safe touchdown on the Moon. 

The thrusters have already flown on ESA’s series of Automated Transfer Vehicles. Tested for their new lunar role, they demonstrated excellent performance.

Credits: Astrium

Voyager 2 to Switch to Backup Thrusters

The thrusters involved in this switch have fired more than 318,000 times.

The backup pair has not been used in flight. Voyager 1 changed to the backup for this same component after 353,000 pulses in 2004 and is now using all three sets of its backup.

NASA's Deep Space Network personnel sent commands to the Voyager 2 spacecraft Nov. 4 to switch to the backup set of thrusters that controls the roll of the spacecraft.

Confirmation was received that the spacecraft accepted the commands.

The change will allow the 34-year-old spacecraft to reduce the amount of power it requires to operate and use previously unused thrusters as it continues its journey toward interstellar space, beyond our solar system.

Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are each equipped with six sets, or pairs, of thrusters to control their movement.

These include three pairs of primary thrusters and three backup, or redundant, pairs. Voyager 2 is currently using the two pairs of backup thrusters that control the pitch and yaw motion of the spacecraft.

Switching to the backup thruster pair that controls roll motion will allow engineers to turn off the heater that keeps the fuel line to the primary thruster warm. This will save about 12 watts of power.

The spacecraft's power supply now provides about 270 watts of electricity. By reducing its power usage, the spacecraft can continue to operate for another decade even as its available power continues to decline.

The thrusters involved in this switch have fired more than 318,000 times. The backup pair has not been used in flight. Voyager 1 changed to the backup for this same component after 353,000 pulses in 2004 and is now using all three sets of its backup thrusters.

Voyager 2 will relay the results of the switch back to Earth on Nov. 13.

The signal will arrive on Earth on Nov. 14. Voyager 2 is currently located about 9 billion miles (14 billion kilometers) from Earth in the "heliosheath" - the outermost layer of the heliosphere where the solar wind, which streams out from the sun, is slowed by the pressure of interstellar gas.

The Voyagers were built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., which continues to operate both spacecraft. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. The Voyager missions are a part of the NASA Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate.

NASA Thruster Test Aids Future Robotic Lander's Ability to Land Safely

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., collaborated with NASA's White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, N.M., and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne in Canoga Park, Calif., to successfully complete a series of thruster tests at the White Sands test facility.

The test will aid in maneuvering and landing the next generation of robotic lunar landers that could be used to explore the moon's surface and other airless celestial bodies.

The Robotic Lunar Lander Development Project at the Marshall Center performed a series of hot-fire tests on two high thrust-to-weight thrusters – a 100-pound-class for lunar descent and a 5-pound-class for attitude control.

The team used a lunar mission profile during the test of the miniaturized thrusters to assess the capability of these thruster technologies for possible use on future NASA spacecraft.

The test program fully accomplished its objectives, including evaluation of combustion stability, engine efficiency, and the ability of the thruster to perform the mission profile and a long-duration, steady-state burn at full power. The test results will allow the Robotic Lander Project to move forward with robotic lander designs using advanced propulsion technology.

The test articles are part of the Divert Attitude Control System, or DACS, developed by the U.S. Missile Defense Agency of the Department of Defense. The control system provides two kinds of propulsion -- one for control and the other for maneuvering.

The Attitude Control System thrusters provide roll, pitch and yaw control. These small thruster types were chosen to meet the golf-cart-size lander's requirement for light-weight, compact propulsion components to aid in reducing overall spacecraft mass and mission cost by leveraging an existing government resource.

NASA Shuttle Thrusters team motto