SYNERGY MOON team members Rod and Randa Milliron of Interorbital Systems (IOS) visited Tonga in November 2009 to meet with members of the royal family and government officials, to pave the way for construction of Tonga's Island Spaceport on 'Eua. IOS plans to launch their first NEPTUNE 30 with a payload of CubeSats and TubeSats in November or December of this year (2010). The SYNERGY MOON lunar mission will also launch from there on the IOS NEPTUNE 1000. Here is the latest news from Matangi, Tonga ONLINE

Those who are passionate about spaceflight and deep space exploration – including the possibility of personally participating – should keep in mind that nothing related to NASA is relevant to those interests. I once thought NASA's thinking, about how they would use their money, was really important: then I realized that NASA has no money! NASA only has orders from Congress with the promise that money will be sent as those orders are obeyed. (There can and has been some fudging involving not quite doing what they are being paid to do, but that is all in the accounting “noise” .) What we see is the “NASA-Congressional Complex” at work. Congress-critters are not interested in your passions – they are interested in theirs. This NASA+Complex has done some really neat stuff, and will continue to do so. Options are being hashed out – once again – which could change that picture modestly. But the “NASA Congressional Complex” is firmly committed to low risk activities which will create a lot of Jobs along with good publicity. Affordable exploration in space doesn't fit into that picture!

NASA's public domain information does, however, show us how to do what we want to do. Their “Paths not Taken”, including low cost space hardware options, also underscore and affirm the “Affordable Expedition” plans I continue to discuss. The fantasy of “What we could do...”, combining NASA+Complex money with our ideas and priorities, will forever remain a fantasy! We will get into space, but look more like “Linus Rawlings” (mountain man in “How the West Was Won”), or – eventually – a wagon train on the Oregon Trail, than any of the technology in “Avatar”!

Since you can't walk to the Moon, the result will look more like the early days of aviation than the Old West. Early aviation depended on Advertising/Publicity (associated with Air shows and Races), Communications (associated with the Air Mail contracts), Science/Technology (associated with aerial reconnaissance for both civil and military use) and Adventure (epitomized by Barnstormer Rides). There was a great deal of synergism between these components. Details change with time (particularly when a whole century goes by), but basics don't change much.

The picture for entrepreneurial spaceflight will closely resemble the one outlined for aviation history, and have the same four components. The “Adventure” component is the focus for “Virgin Galactic”, although (with typical synergism) the potential for these flights to increase productivity in space related Science/Technology is being recognized. Advertising/Publicity was the key in both of the Lunar Lander competitions. But Synergism will kick in big time when the fourth components starts feeding $$ Cash $$ into this community. And that will come with ComSat maintenance and repair!

More than $5 Billion is “sent into space” each year with high value Communications Satellites and similar equipment. Assets totaling some $100 Billion are working in space to serve humans on Earth. The ability to repair and maintain failed and dying satellites will, in some cases, bring immediate returns. But more important is the “virtuous spiral” which will result from the Possibility of repair! If things can be fixed, a risky new technology – which promises to quadruple ComSat capability – becomes a viable corporate option. Significantly better cost/performance ratios always open up new markets, and that boosts production rates to bring down costs further. Synergism again. If a compact Astronaut/Technician can reach an ailing ComSat, and fix it with only $16 Million costs (something marginally possible today), someone is going to make a hansom profit!

This is not a one shot proposition. Once demonstrated as a possibility, funding and capabilities will grow steadily. But it is far more economical to access GEO ComSats from the Moon than from Earth. So if the traveler can keep His/Her Wife/Husband happy at Moon Base One, that will support the existence of this outpost.

The existence of profitable “GEO On Site Service” will of course fuel vastly greater ambitions for space Adventure, Advertising/Publicity and Science/Technology, and hammer the costs for Deep Space activities down in every category.

It is not too early to begin assembling the equipment required to get a compact Astronaut/Technician from LEO (delivered by a Falcon 1) to GEO and back. Since this idea is no mystery, it may already be too late, for a startup with no preliminary experience, to capture this market!

Here's a clip featuring the final assembly of Asimov Jr. the teams first rover Prototype. Once the especially designed main computing units is added to AJ he will master various driving tests.

We have been pretty busy for the last two years doing SBIR proposals. They are interesting and at least address the needs of customers who want something for use in space and actually have the money to pay for it! If you try it, keep in mind that the customer usually has something specific in mind – which may not be all that obvious in the solicitation. Try to figure it out, since “Innovative” suggests a wider range of possibilities than most customers are ready to consider. Also keep in mind that these are small projects, from the funding standpoint, and won't carry a radically new idea very far toward a usable product. (Skip new SSTO launcher proposals!) In fact, these customers have a LOT of experience with “New Ideas” which went nowhere!

For years the SBIR customers (particularly in the DOD) have been trying to encourage companies who are organized to actually develop and produce products, and discourage “SBIR Mills” which produce only concept paperwork, which sits in a file, or a “prototype” with no potential for production.

A history of producing customized products for DOD, Researchers and Industry shows that focus and often gives you “Modules” you can reuse as you address the new need. A proposal has a lot better chance if it shows real insight and preliminary “Phase Zero” (self funded) effort to rough in some of the ideas. Although the process is slow, encouraging “debrief” notes can produce a “Win” the next year since the outlined need will often not be satisfactorily filled for several years.

We are doing preliminary work (unfunded until the contracts are signed) on our NASA “Lunar Navigator” with encouraging results. The wide field optical systems we have evaluated look pretty good, and will reduce the number of camera modules we need to monitor the entire sky with the required resolution. This effort has also led to the recognition of both enhanced operating modes and terrestrial applications for the same basic system in “GPS Compromised and GPS Denied” environments.

Another of our proposed technology efforts has received promising reviews from DARPA. This involves application of our operational, magnetic propulsion and sensing system for use to assemble and maintain formations of small satellites. In addition to our self funded efforts to upgrade our magnetic demonstration systems, we are now programming a microprocessor to do the signal analysis required for 6DOF magnetic position sensing and handle the orbital dynamics of planning, and generating, the forces needed to optimize the position of member satellites in the formation. It looks like these computing systems will mass only 2 to 5 grams – allowing their use in the smallest satellites.

We have plenty of operational hardware to implement representative sensing and propulsive fields, but a full demonstration will require operation in a tiny orbital satellite cluster. We have roughed in plans for conversion of our lab hardware to a demonstrator that could be run in a “Zero Gee” aircraft flight, but even those flights will require moderate funding.

On November 14th, 2009 ARCA made a launch attempt for the Helen rocket, from the Black Sea.

The launch didn't took place because the inflation arms twisted around the balloon. This happened due to the curents from the sea and some inappropriate procedures for folding the arms during the inflation process from the sea.

The launch was delayed for April 2010, from a location that will be later disclosed. The rocket will be named Helen 2 and the mission will be named Mission 4.

Helen 2 is an upgraded version of Helen. The goal is to implement more technical solutions that will later be used for the Haas rocket. Haas rocket will be used for the launch for the Moon, within the Google Lunar X Prize.

The mail difference between Helen and Helen 2 is the usage of spherical fuel tanks instead of cylindrical ones, a solution that is implemented for Haas.

Since this option will increase the aerodynamic drag, the launch altitude will be 16,000 m, instead of 14,000 m, as for Mission 3.

www.arcaspace.com

What do you get when you cross a multi-national competition with "exploration through open source collaboration" and add a bit of youthful motivation for good measure? Give up? You get Team Cheese, a group of mechanical engineering seniors from Queen's University in Ontario, Canada. While completing the course requirements for their design capstone course, Team Cheese assisted Team FREDNET on a very challenging problem.

How can you bring approximately 200kg with significant downward momentum to a stop while minimizing the impact force upon the mission load with a system that conforms to a minimal weight requirement?

The image illustrates a design method that uses three pod legs cantilevered by secondary struts which compress to absorb impact forces during the landing. What's more interesting, the design is backed up by a very detailed and expansive report that includes all the calculations used that led to this particular design. This report also includes constraints that will be critical when it comes time to scale this model to the final Lunar Landing System, which adds much future value to Team FREDNET.

What's the lesson to take away from all this? Team FREDNET is actively looking to engage in more partnerships with University teams as the design evolves and the goals become more solid. Team FREDNET has open tasks related to Lunar Bus Battery Selection, adding Solar Cells to the lander design, selecting a Laser Rangefinder that's appropriate for the navigation during landing, and even opportunities for a team to determine a good way to protect the Team FREDNET Lunar Rover from dangerous space radiation and a whole lot more! Anybody interested in any one of these tasks is encouraged to contact Fred Bourgeois [fred (dot) bourgeois (at) teamfrednet (dot) org] for further information and contacts to further develop an applicable project formulation that adapt to individual University design requirements.