Wireless Blog

The benefits of the upcoming 802.11n standard are well known. The methods defined in this standard are so beneficial and the standard itself so crucial to the growth of wireless LAN that the Wi-Fi Alliance has ...

Critical Links, a global provider of converged voice, data and IT solutions for SMBs, announced today that Flytrap Technologies has entered into a reseller agreement where Critical Links' flagship product, the ...

SpaceX’s Falcon 1 launch (live webcast) from the Marshall Islands is scheduled to launch today. The Falcon 1 rocket measures 90 feet, weighs roughly 103,000 pounds and uses a two stage, liquid oxygen and rocket grade kerosene vehicle to blast off. SpaceFlightNow has live launch coverage.

SpaceX, started up by Elon Musk of PayPal fame, is one of several new commercial companies trying to commercialize space travel, wrestling the mostly government-funded industry into the privatized world. The last time SpaceX tried this on March 24th, 2006, the the vehicle was lost later in the first stage burn.

The Falcon 1 rocket is using SpaceDev’s spacecraft bus to carry:

• The 184-pound Jumpstart satellite, a multi-pronged effort by the DoD to test Operationally Responsive Space.
• PRESat, a 10-pound satellite developed by NASA’s Ames Research Center, will be released about 14 minutes after liftoff. The spacecraft’s two-month mission will monitor the growth of microorganisms housed inside a miniature life sciences laboratory.
• NanoSail-D will be the first satellite to fully deploy a solar sail, which uses light pressure from the sun to change the velocity of objects traveling in space.
• Also onboard are the cremated remains of more than 200 people, including astronaut Gordon Cooper and Star Trek actor James Doohan. The ashes are carried in a capsule provided by Space Services Inc.

Designed from the ground up by SpaceX, and funded by PayPal Billionaire Elon Musk, Falcon 1 is a two stage rocket powered by liquid oxygen and purified, rocket grade kerosene.

The flight will take place from the Kwajalein Atoll (Live Blog), in the Marshall Islands. SpaceX says their Falcon 1 rocket includes lots of firsts:

• It will be the first privately developed, liquid fueled rocket to reach orbit and the world’s first all new orbital rocket in over a decade.
• The main engine of Falcon 1 (Merlin) will be the first all new American hydrocarbon engine for an orbital booster to be flown in forty years and only the second new American booster engine of any kind in twenty-five years.
• The Falcon 1 is the only rocket flying 21st century avionics, which require a small fraction of the power and mass of other systems.
• It will be the world’s only semi-reusable orbital rocket apart from the Shuttle.
• Priced at $6.7 million a pop, it will provide the lowest cost per flight to orbit of any launch vehicle in the world, despite receiving a design reliability rating equivalent to that of the best launch vehicles currently flying in the United States.

SpaceX is the only US heavy lift provider with an equatorial launch location. Boeing’s SeaLaunch is an international consortium as is Lockheed’s International Launch Services at Cape Canaveral and Baikonur. Sea Launch uses a Russian-made rocket on a modified ocean drilling platform, but does not have the capacity of the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV), the heavy lifters from Boeing and Lockheed. SpaceX challenged the legality of the launch services monopoly by Boeing and Lockheed. They plan to compete for heavy lift government launch contracts with the yet-to-be-built Falcon 5 rocket.

Taxpayer contributions to the EELV program shot to $17 billion in the $34 billion program. Taxpayers are subsidizing duplicative efforts because both companies guessed there would be a commercial market for giant satellites, lowering unit cost for the military.

There wasn’t.

The United Launch Alliance is merging the two EELV programs (see DW: EELV Rocket Program Merges). Congressional leaders are asking how the government’s contribution to the EELV rocket project grew $14.44 billion over budget and counting, from $17 billion total to almost $32 billion in a few years. Taxpayers subsidized two of America’s biggest aerospace companies to keep them in the launch business, reports Florida Today. The Air Force’s rocket overrun is about as much as NASA spends in a year for all its projects and three times what NASA has overspent so far on the International Space Station, something that drew cries of waste and mismanagement from Congress.

The customer for the first SpaceX mission is DARPA and the Air Force with FalconSat-2. The target orbit is 400 km X 500 km (just above the International Space Station) at an inclination of 39 degrees.

TacSat-1 & TacSat-2 are scheduled to go aloft. TacSat 4 will feature a standardized satellite platform that the Air Force will be able to buy in bulk and adapt to a variety of future missions.

Related DailyWireless stories include; Mars Landing Sunday, U.S. Antisatellite Weapon to be Tested, F.I.A. FUBAR, Space Cold War, Chinese Destroy Satellite - Create Space Debris Field, Space Radar Launch, Satellite Jam, Lockheed CEO: Space is Broken, NRO Rides Again, T-Minus 10 for Space X, Routers in Space, Canaveral Double Header for DOD, Space Capsule, Small Satellite Conference, SkyNet Satellite Hacked?, Russian Satellite Zapped?, Satellites from Subs, Advanced EHF - Wait for It, EELV Rocket Program Merges, Space Mist, Tracking the NRO, and Rocket Welfare.

Glentel Inc. today reported its results for the 2nd quarter ended June 30, 2008.

Stocks that moved substantially or traded heavily Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Stock Market : NYSE Exxon Mobil Corp.

Winston-Salem has put its free wireless Internet service on hold. WinstonNet said in 2005 it would provide free wireless Internet.

July 30, 2008 - MIPS Technologies, Inc. , a leading provider of industry-standard architectures, processors and analog IP for digital consumer, home networking, wireless, communications and business ...