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Commercial Human Space Systems Overview

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Presentation on theme: "Commercial Human Space Systems Overview"— Presentation transcript:

1 Commercial Human Space Systems Overview
Aerospace Engineering © 2011 Project Lead The Way, Inc.

2 Overview Introduction History of Commercial Human Spaceflight
Suborbital Flight Orbital Flight

3 Introduction Original manned spaceflight started in early 1960s
Government was the only organization going into space Recent government budget changes and technological innovations provided an environment for private industry to enter space Within last few years this has become a reality Trend is advancing and evolving as a legitimate industry and method of transportation

4 History of Commercial Human Spaceflight
Call to action was initiated by Dr. Peter Diamondis through the formation of the X-Prize Foundation in 1999 X-Prize sparked development with $10M prize Over 20 teams competed Scaled Composites in Mojave, CA demonstrated successful flight test on June 21, 2004 Official record set and Ansari X-Prize awarded on October 4, 2004

5 Timeline 1961 1969 1982 1999 2004 2012 + 4/1961 to 1999 Prior manned space by governments only First manned spaceflight Man walks on moon First space shuttle 1999 to 10/2004 Start of Commercial spaceflight development Kickoff of Ansari X-Prize Scaled team enters competition 6/ First commercial manned spaceflight 10/ SS1 wins X-Prize, formation of Virgin Galactic 2004 to beyond Implementation of Commercial spaceflight Engineering development of SS2 starts 7/ First mothership for Virgin Galactic delivered

6 Presentation Name Course Name Unit # – Lesson #.# – Lesson Name Suborbital Flight Suborbital spaceflight achieves flights to altitudes qualifying as space but do not achieve or maintain orbit Typically short-duration flight Typically take-off and land at same location Cannot reach ISS ISS is the ancroynm for International Space Station.

7 SpaceShip One First spacecraft to successfully achieve suborbital manned spaceflight as a private company (no government funding or support)

8 SpaceShip One Launch Mothership “White Knight” lifts spacecraft to 50,000 feet – above 80%+ of atmosphere

9

10 Major Contributors Dr. Peter Diamondis – XPRIZE Foundation
Scaled Composites LLC Burt Rutan – President and chief Engineer at Scaled Composites Sir Richard Branson – Founder of Virgin Group in UK, became first entrepreneur to take this new technology to a commercial application with launch of Virgin Galactic

11 Invention Evolution Initial development was for glider flight test, with concurrent control and propulsion system certification SpaceShip 1 configuration used for X-Prize designed to carry 3 passengers Next version, SpaceShip 2, carries six passengers Continuing to refine engines and other systems development to allow longer sub-orbital flights

12 Virgin Galactic Initial test flights in 2011-2012
First commercial flight planned for 2013 Operates from New Mexico

13 Shuttle Replacement Retirement of shuttle program in 2011 created need for new spacecraft to support ISS

14 Commercial Human Orbital Flight Providers
Russians currently selling seats onboard Soyuz $20M per person 10 days on ISS

15 SpaceX Dragon Spacecraft
SpaceX developing Dragon spacecraft

16 Boeing – Orion Spacecraft
Boeing repurposing Orion capsule development for commercial variant

17 Bigelow Aerospace – Genesis Hotel
Bigelow Aerospace developing Orbital Hotel facility

18 Summary Next 20 years will bring major changes as commercial organizations work to access space Major goal is to reduce cost for access to space while improving safety and reliability Similar situation to what commercial airline industry faced in 1930s Significant number of jobs in aerospace will be provided by these companies

19 References Boeing (2011). Retrieved from Bigelow Aerospace, LLC (2011). Station development. Retrieved from Scaled Composites, LLC (2011). About us. Retrieved from SpaceX Exploration Technologies (2011). Company. Retrieved from Virgin Galactic (2011). Company. Retrieved from


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