The big NASA missions get a lot of press but there is a NASA program for smaller projects called the Discovery program. The program invites scientists and engineers to gather a team to design interesting and sharply focused planetary exploration missions to add to our knowledge of the solar system.
Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
Part 1 of 2 Parts
The human race has been fascinated by the lights in the sky for thousands of years. Mars was called the God of War because of its red color. With the development of high quantity telescopes in the Nineteenth century, observations of Mars revealed a network of lines that Schaperelli called “channels.” That was translated into “canals” in English.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a federal agency that does futuristic research for the government. They are active across a wide range of sciences and technologies. They are not a U.S. space agency, but they do have a space projects umbrella called PE 0603287E. The budget for 2021 was one hundred and ninety million dollars.
Most of the writing I do on this blog deals with conventional launch vehicles utilizing standard propellants. There other ideas for how to get payloads into orbit. Amazon just patented a system to whip small payload into space.
Boeing has been in the news a lot lately. Unfortunately, a lot of the media coverage has been about problems at the company with respect to space projects. Boeing unexpectedly pulled out of a DARPA spaceplane project without any explanation. Very recently, the failure of the test for a manned launch vehicle was attributed to software.
The cost of launching things into orbit is about ten thousand dollars per pound. It takes complex heavy equipment and fuel to get anything to orbit. This means that making payloads as light as possible is important. NASA has used a variety of techniques to reduce the weight that has to be thrown into orbit in order to be useful.
I live in Seattle, Washington. While this blog is not restricted geographically, I am especially sensitive to space industry news that involves Boeing, a major local industry. Today, problems with a Boeing satellite which is no longer functioning.
I live in Seattle, Washington. While this blog is not restricted geographically, I am especially sensitive to space industry news that involves Boeing, a major local industry. Today, I am writing about Boeing’s participation in a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for a reusable spaceplane.
