EADS Astrium and the German Space Agency (DLR) have proposed modifying Europe’s Automated Transfer Vehicle to carry three astronauts into orbit, the BBC reports.
“The ATV, which ferried just under five tonnes of supplies to the orbiting platform in April, is packed with sophisticated navigation, rendezvous and docking technologies. It also has a pressurised section that is ‘human rated’ in the sense that, once docked to the 340km-high station, astronauts can move around inside it safely in just T-shirts.
“But the ATV was not built with the intention of transporting humans across space, and a fit-for-purpose capsule would have to be developed to take the place of the current cargo section.”
If the project is approved, EADS and DLR officials believe they could conduct test flight beginning in 2013, with human flights coming four or five years later. The project will likely be considered by European space ministers at a meeting in November.
European and Russian space companies are studying designs for a new crew vehicle for possible launch aboard an Ariane 5, Rob Coppinger reports over on his Hyperbola blog.
The study involves a group of European companies headed by Thales Alenia Space and EADS Astrium that is working with Russia’s Energia and S. P. Korolev. A number of designs are being considered, including one similar to NASA’s Apollo and Orion capsules.
One particularly intriguing aspect is that engineers studied building a lunar version of the Russian Soyuz crew transport. However, they rejected the idea because problems arose with the vehicle’s thermal protection system and other changes required to fly to the moon.
Virginia-based Space Adventures is planning to use a Soyuz variant to fly tourists around the moon. Coppinger’s report raises some interesting questions about just how much modification the vehicle will require and what that might cost.
XCOR’s announcement about its Lynx high-altitude vehicle has generated a lot of buzz about how Lynx stacks up with space tourism vehicles being developed by Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and EADS Astrium.
Officials at the Mojave, Calif.-based XCOR say their vehicle will soar to about 200,000 feet (38 miles/61 km) beginning in 2010. Although this is below the 262,500-foot (50 mile/80 km) altitude at which the U.S. Air Force has awarded astronaut wings, the pilot and passenger would still experience about 90 seconds of weightlessness in the small cockpit of the business jet style vehicle.
The company plans to offer flights for about half the cost of Virgin Galactic, which has been selling suborbital tickets for $200,000. XCOR also plans to build a more powerful version of the Lynx that will fly to over 360,000 feet (68 miles/110 km).
Continue reading ‘Lynx vs. Virgin Galactic vs. EADS: How They Stack Up’