New Mars Forums

Status report
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object … ctid=37699

Some pictures of the Rosseta craft
http://www.dlr.de/os/forschung/projekte … ettavirtis
http://www.uk2planets.org.uk/images/gal … ...esa.jpg
http://jmm45.free.fr/sondes/rosetta/ros … osetta.htm
http://www.cnes.fr/html/_107_443_445_.p … 3_445_.php
http://solarsystem.dlr.de/PP/OS/HTML/dt … alerie.htm

More on the Russian space craft, the Kliper spacecraft would have a mass of some 13 tonnes at launch. It would be carried into orbit by an improved and more powerful version of the Soyuz rocket.Russia and the European Space Agency (ESA) have signed an agreement to allow closer co-operation over the use of facilities and exchange of information. Some Proton missions will be moved from Russian space centers to Kourou, French Guiana. Vladimir Taneev, the leading designer of the Kliper system speculated on the contribution of Europe to the project in the following way: The European companies will likely contribute avionics, materials, and cabin systems. Many different options are on the table, and in the near future we expect to form Russian-European working groups specialized in different subsystems and fields of design. Both the project itself and the funding questions will be debated in a European space summit in December 2005. Work on the new launch pad, dedicated to the Russian launcher and costing an estimated €344 million, can now begin at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou.

Not far from the Kliper model at Le Bourget was another scale model, that of the future Soyoz launch complex being built in French Guiana.Soyuz is due to be launched by Arianespace for the first time in 2007 and will complement the European heavy-class Ariane 5 and small Vega launchers. That weight-bearing capacity will fill a niche between Arianespace's two other rocket lines. The company’s Vega rockets launch small scientific satellites weighing no more than 1.5 tonnes into relatively low orbit, while the company's two types of Ariane 5 rockets can launch 6.6 tonnes or 10.0 tonnes into geostationary transfer orbit, respectively. The Klipper craft can carry up to six people and can be used for ferry services between earth and the International Space Station, but is also planned to be the crew module for further trips to the Moon and Mars. The Russian Phobos-Grunt mission will study the Moons of Mars. Phobos-Grunt will also study Mars and its environment, including atmosphere and dust storms, plasma and radiation. Electric jet propulsion is considered for this Russian mission. At present the Soyuz rocket will not be able to lift Kliper into lower earth orbit, because the spacecraft is planned to weigh between 13 and 14.5 metric tons with payload and crew whereas Soyuz only has a lifting capacity of around 8 metric tons. It was therefore planned to heavily enhance the Soyuz rocket - a project that was labelled the Onega rocket. However as of 2005 it is much more likely that Kliper will take off on a Angara-A3 rocket, which is scheduled to make its first launch 2006-2007 or under certain circumstances on a Zenit rocket that is built in Ukraine. Kliper is planned to be a flexible spacecraft, that should have the capability to be launched both from Plesetsk or Baikonur and the European spaceport in French Guiana Kourou. As of June 2005 it is unclear whether the Ariane 5 rocket, that was originally designed to bring the European Hermes shuttle into orbit, will be used as a launch vehicle beside Russian launch carriers.

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/ESA_Permane … ..._0.html
http://www.physorg.com/news4929.html]ht … s4929.html
http://www.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/phpB … ...start=0
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/ESA_Permane … ..._0.html

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, who chairs the Subcommittee on Science and Space, said she believes Congress will provide the money needed to keep the shuttle running safely until its successor is developed. "I think the key is not whether they are getting too old, but whether they are maintaining them properly," she said.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ … tle17.html

I am not bashing NASA or the USA, for me it doesn't matter if Russians, Japanese, Europeans or Amercians want to send craft to a planet like Mercury, what matters to me are the space results, a great mission and the space science. When NASA landed Americans on the Moon it not just made the USA proud but the people of the world thought it was great for mankind. Mad Grad Student I understand what you're saying, and agree with much of what you said. You have made some good points but Is it all so clear or are there questions to be asked, the NYtimes CNN and Washington post have asked about how valid such stuff is, Steven Weinberg criticises the use of manned space missions, and Glenn has been critical of plan Bush to the Moon/Mars. I see many problems with the vision to Mars from President Bush, and I maybe have about 6-7 major questions to ask. But I will address 2 of the big questions in this post. 

Two of my major question would still be the ONE : budget and TWO: dealing with internal sceintific/political conflict, I see the trouble because the Shuttle return, development of a CEV and SDR are all part of these goals and pushing Shuttle to finish ISS, all of this will be a major cost and it is part of the total Mars package deal . Space flight is both a scientif jounry but to being with there is a political game to understand and winning public support from the taxpayers. Form the Bush goal we had a vision for Moon landing, finsihing the space station, bringing back the Shuttle and Right now NASA has not been back into Space for 2 1/2 years, they are not ready for lunar flight and if they can't launch Shuttle soon they will lose a launch window and may depend on Russian Soyuz, ESA's ATV or Russian Progress for their lifts and payloads. This is why I say there is internal political/scientific strife and contradictions. The Bush vision asked for the return of Shuttle and manned flights after the last disaster. Considerable costs are incurred by NASA in maintaining the aging Space Shuttle.  During the last decades up to 1/3 of NASA's budget had to be invested in the Shuttle to keep it flying for year 2005  another 5 billion are allocated for the Space Shuttle constituting 30 % of the entire US-space budget and NASA's funding of many research projects has been cut in the recent years and months in order to free money from missions like JIMO, Ulysses, Voyager. The cancellation of other missions has done great for money cutbacks but not for other members of the science community, it has lead to heat over Voyager, people asking about JIMO and the Hubble fan Club are starting to dislike manned missions because of the HST cancellation. A single Space Shuttle launch costed more than 600 million dollars to run, it is getting more expensive due to the whole overhaul and new safety checks and development of the SDV and CEV is going to be very costly.

no way, for any type of cheap price

without research, investments, big money spent and good designs you're only going to get a risky mission that may not arrive on the red planet, or just become a suicide-kamikaze flag planting journey

Mars mission and blog

http://athena.cornell.edu/news/mubss/]h … ews/mubss/

Steve Squyres some updates on the plan for the Martian rovers

NASA did fantastic during Apollo and Russia did great by putting the first man in Space and sending robotic rovers to the Moon. Chinese have thier own Space plans and some say China is looking to find a real big business on the Moon, through detection of minerals and plans for a future base. Some start to ask questions about a new guy like Griffin because NASA has maintained a huge administration and bureaucracy that can burden down current projects, get newer designs axed and weigh on current NASA budgets. 

NASA's budget is about $15 Billion dollars, some say there will be an increase NASA's budget by 5% per anum others say the cost of going to Mars will be much higher. Some American newspapers have already said that as cost of Iraq rise and Oil prices soar the budget can’t handle another billion for NASA. Bush said let's go to the Moon and Mars but NASA had told the American people most of the requested $866 million budget increase for 2005 would be used to get the shuttles back in the air. This is America's MTV, cell phone fast-food, laptops playstation and rave and Rap-rusic generation, the bulk of the public is as nonplussed over the prospect of going to Mars as it is about returning to the Moon and the apathy for human spaceflight has increased. President Bush had a new order that NASA redirect its energies toward human exploration of the Moon and Mars, after this the space agency has drastically shifted its scientific priorities, delaying missions and cutting the projected budgets of programs that it does not perceive as related to the Mars/Moon exploration.

Before this Bush Senior asked NASA for an estimate to go straight to Mars and received the ridiculous estimate. House-Senate conference committee has hammered out a budget resolution that endorses President Bush's visionary space plan. Right now we have the problem that NASA is involved in both manned exploration and in robotic science, the tow just don't go together cost/benefit analysis of human vs. unmanned missions for science is always debated. Perhaps 4 big questions remain for me, I have seen all the ideas by people talking here and future plans from other websites about solar-sails, Energia style launches, a re-birth of Saturn V, Ion-Drives, Nuke rockets,....both a lot of this is not a reality it is more science fiction than fact.

Two of my questions would be how does NASA launch to Mars, get such a massive  craft there and how do they land, very few have Landed on Mars, the USA had many failures, Russia landed a craft but it only last a few mins on the surface while ESA did Mars Express but Beagle went smash ! The Russian Federal Space Agency is keeping the USA's manned flights alive by sending American astronauts up on Soyuz and Russia plans on perhaps giving a Klipper Shuttle to Europe's French Guiana for ESA astronaut flights. Russian Federal Space Agency or RKA did good moon missions and sent craft to Venus, the budget for Russia in 2006 will be as high as  900 million dollars the ESA has about 2,500 - 3100 million dollar/Euros while the Chinese CASC was split into a number of small state owned companies for 200 million dollars China might be sending craft to the Moon. By 2013 NASA's CEV will be absorbing maximum funding with an operational vehicle or not  NASA might be expecting too much from the CEV program  and some have asked is the younger-Bush vision dimming like the plans for landing on Mars during Apollo years and like his father's proposal to go to Mars, President Junior George W. Bush's grand space exploration vision appears to be on the verge of being scuttled well before launch.

With comparison to other space agencies like Russia, the ESA, China the USA's space costs are very high, there are questions and political games being played with the CEV and SpaceShuttle some of this is costing NASA billions of dollars, this is long before we ever get plans for a Moon base or manned missions to Mars moving. I've heard NASA cost going from 13.5  billion to 19 B dollars which would be 13,500 million to 19,000 million budget. There looks like there might be a gap between 2010 and 2015 and with the CEV it look like Americans will be getting a Shuttle-part2  NASA will make another  jack-of-all-trades spacecraft for , lab experimets, keep Congress happy, a CEV for flying around the Moon, keep Gov't accountants and launch station missions. Grumman/Boeing have submitted a proposals for Moon/Mars plans and a the scientists at Lockheed's facility are also working on some stuff, people wonder when the improved Delta and Atlas launchers are coming ?

( Edit to attempt paragraph )

more here !!
Enceladus ‘11EN’ Flyby Raw Preview #4
http://ciclops.org.]http://ciclops.org.

http://ciclops.org/media/ir/2005/1235_2 … 2987_1.jpg
http://ciclops.org/media/ir/2005/1233_2 … 2989_1.jpg
unprocessed images were taken during Cassini's close approach to Enceladus

This unprocessed image was taken during Cassini's close approach to Enceladus on July 14, 2005.

The image was taken with the narrow angle camera from a distance of approximately 33,610 kilometers (20,890 miles) from Enceladus and at a Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 50 degrees degrees. Resolution in the image is about 200 meters (650 feet) per pixel.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colorado.
http://ciclops.org/media/ir/2005/1228_2 … 2993_1.jpg
http://ciclops.org/media/ir/2005/1229_2 … 2992_1.jpg

If they can't launch before July

the next possibilities for the USA getting people back into space are the STS-shuttle launch windows in September

or else start asking the Russian rockets at Baikonour, Burt Rutan or the Soyuz at French Guiana for a lift into Space ??

Here's an older discussion on it
http://www.newmars.com/forums/viewtopic … ...4;st=15

The size is ninety meters ? For some reason I thought it was much bigger that doesn't seem great much you compare to the MIR station, Apollo, the Salyut, the ESA Aurora-Mars mission options, TKS Manned Ferry complex, ISS or USAs Skylab or the Russian Mars-Station Model. Anyway GCNRevenger when you talk about these projects you should perhaps quote the total weight of the payloads,  describe the internal living volume in cubic metres, and the Total volume of the craft modules on the Mission

The Mars mission that NASA is looking at and the designs I've seen are very good, internal living space would not be a problem. It's the cost of such a project, NASA has already been making budget cuts and questions about if the science and design is ready for such a risky mission and people have asked about the safety of such a journey.

Russian's will do something big in 2007 from Russian pads, they could also launch from Europe's Guiana South America or Baikonur Kazakhstan

The year 2007 could be a big event for them, and for their Laika space-dog that went up on Sputnik-II

http://www.newmars.com/forums/viewtopic … ...3;st=15

There is also info on the other Russian plans

Russian participation in European/Japan BepiColombo mission

Russia's joint efforts with Chinese Space Agencies Roscosmos / CNSA with ultra-high speed penetrators and sample return from the Moon.

Soyuz to launch from French Guiana, the Russian technicians have already visited European space launch base in French Guiana South America.

Roscosmos Venus lander Venera-D

http://www.dogluvers.com/dog_breeds/Rus … space_dogs
http://www.space.com/news/laika_anniver … 91103.html
http://www.silverdalen.se/stamps/dogs/l … ...ian.htm
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/Histo … sput2.html
http://www.spacetoday.org/Astronauts/An … /Dogs.html

When 2007 comes it will see the 50th anniversary of Sputnik-I satellite and the Spuknik-2 with the dog Laika, these were the first satellites in Space

How is Russia going to mark this space event ?