December 2012

SpaceX's Grasshopper successfully takes a leap towards reusability!

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

SpaceX’s dreams of creating a fully reusable launch vehicle is getting closer to fulfillment via the third test of their test vehicle - Grasshopper. The third and the most ambitious test of the vehicle took place on December 17,2012 when the Grasshopper took a 40 meter leap into the skies at their test facility in Texas – followed by a stable hover and smooth landing – was conducted without a hitch. The first two tests were conducted in September when the Grasshopper flew to 1.8 meters (6 feet), and in November, when it flew to 5.4 meters (17.7 feet/2 stories) including a brief hover.

Grasshopper, SpaceX's vertical takeoff and landing vehicle (VTVL), rose 131 feet (40 meters), hovered and landed safely on the pad using closed loop thrust vector and throttle control. The total test duration was 29 seconds. There are the videos:

Single Camera Grasshopper Test flight video 17/12/2012:

Multi- Angle Grasshopper Test flight video 17/12/2012:

The Grasshopper – consisting of a Falcon 9 rocket first stage, Merlin 1D engine, four steel landing legs with hydraulic dampers, and a steel support structure. The plan revolves around a modified version of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle design, creating a version of the flyback booster concept – one where all of the vehicle’s components return back to Earth for reuse. SpaceX founder and chief executive, Elan Musk talked about these plans, "This is a very difficult thing to do. Even for an expendable launch vehicle, where you don’t attempt any recovery, you only get maybe two to three percent of your lift-off weight to orbit. That’s not a lot of room for error. Now you say ‘OK, now let’s make it reusable’. You have to strengthen the stages, add a lot of weight, a lot of thermal protection – a lot of things that add weight to that vehicle – and still have a useful payload to orbit. You’ve got to add all that’s necessary to bring the stages back to the launch pad to be able to re-fly them and still have useful payload to orbit."

Science Fact - 8

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Did you know that astronauts cannot belch. This is because there is no gravity to separate liquid from the gas in their stomachs.

Doha Climate Gateway: Extended Kyoto Protocol

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP18) which extended for two weeks in Doha, finally came to an end with the favorable result. 194 countries have agreed to implement the second phase of Kyoto Protocol which is initiating from 2013 to 2020. The Doha round of talks mark the beginning of a transition to a new global climate change regime that will come into effect from 2020 and include within its ambit all countries.

The talks in Doha have agreed that the last 20 years intended to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to climate change were not much of a success. The Kyoto Protocol, the only existing and binding agreement which developed countries commit to cutting greenhouse gases, has been amended so that it will continue as of 1 January 2013. The first commitment period ends on 31 December 2012. The length of the second commitment period will be eight years.

The outcome came 24 hours after the negotiations were supposed to close because of countries like Poland, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus demanding use of the extra credit that had been given to them in the first phase. Doha Climate Gateway, the outcome of these two week long conference is being described as "historic" by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change executive secretary Christiana Figueres. She said, "Now, there is much work to do. Doha is another step in the right direction, but we still have a long road ahead. The door to stay below two degrees remains barely open. The science shows it, the data proves it. The UN Climate Change negotiations must now focus on the concrete ways and means to accelerate action and ambition. The world has the money and technology to stay below two degrees. After Doha, it is a matter of scale, speed, determination and sticking to the timetable."

In order to achieve this, countries will hold meetings and workshops next year to prepare the new agreement and to further ways to raise ambition; to submit information, views and proposals on actions, initiatives and options to enhance ambition to the UN Climate Change Secretariat, by 1 March 2013; and that elements of a negotiating text are to be available no later than the end of 2014, so that a draft negotiating text is available before May 2015.