
Good News!
We're one step closer to launching Wierdy Beardy Branson to Mars and leaving him there!
After some tension around a delayed launch of what will be the first satellite to go into orbit from British soil – or indeed from anywhere in western Europe – UK regulators have confirmed they've issued all licenses necessary for Virgin Orbit to deploy a rocket for horizontal takeoff from a modified Boeing 747 from Spaceport …
A plane is taking off from some airfield which is now called a spaceport for some reason. Said plane, after a bit and when presumably in international waters, then fires a rocket which goes upwards with some future space junk in it and then the plane comes back and lands. I can see the need for a take off and landing chitty but who decided that you need to short stroke some civil servants to get a permit to go up. Did Lester need chitties for LOHAN etc?
You need a license for a dog so I suppose you also need one for a space rocket
I guess from the 's' you're leftpondian. In the UK dog licences were scrapped years ago (in 1988), but you do need a fish licence.
I mean a Border Collie fair enough, but I wouldn't trust a Golden Retriever
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One of the selling points for Pegasus (the original US version of this 30years ago) was that it could fly to your site, pick up your package and deliver it to space directly rather than having to ship it to Edwards AFB/Cape Canaveral
If the UK insists that you need a licence from them, presumably also from the place you pick it up and then from the area you launch from - it's going to get a lot faster/better/cheaper to just ship your package to Texas and let TwitterX deliver it
But IIRC Lohan went to Spain because they couldn't use the rocket motors in the UK and couldn't get some other permission in the USA
> Evri (Hermes as was) for shipping.
Proof that if you change your name in an attempt to shed your godawful reputation (as Hermes did in the UK), it won't work if you don't also improve your service.
(Company I work for repeatedly had Hermes not collect parcels on the expected day because the contracted driver had quit. IIRC the straw that broke the camels back was when we had parcels that were put out on Monday still not collected by Friday, with no notice or explanation given.)
Yes. Lester required a lot of licenses and other paperwork.
This included for the balloon tests, (which were actually flown by balloonists in the UK who already had the required balloon licenses), explosives licenses (which he was unable to get in Spain, one of the reasons he sent it to America) and for the actual launch from Spaceport America, something which never actually happened.
In fact, if I remember correctly, he nearly tripped over shipping LOHAN to America, because the wood of the shipping crate that contained LOHAN did not have the required markings to indicate that it was allowed to be imported to the US because of some plant material import control or other. He complained that that generated a lot of paperwork at the time.
IIRC (again), everything was ready to launch in the US, except for the actual flight license. There seemed to be some problem with the FAA about the trajectory of flight as a result of it being launched from a balloon, something about not being able to guarantee it would not fly outside the designated flight range, although some comments at the time cited a not-invented-here conspiracy by US officials.
In the end, Lester sadly passed away before this had been ironed out, so the flight never actually happened.
I have been saying repeatedly that we ought to find and re-repatriate LOHAN, so that it could be put on display, but I guess that now El. Reg. seems to have become Americanized, maybe it should stay in the US.
Lester Haines. Sadly gone, but not forgotten (he says while taking a swig of tea from his LOHAN mug, all the time wishing for a pint denied as a result of a medical condition).
>> A plane is taking off from some airfield which is now called a spaceport for some reason.
Said (elderly) plane has to overfly quite a lot of inhabited land with an unusual and extremely heavy load bolted to the wing spar. I'd quite like it to be thoroughly tested and licensed before they get to do this.
There are international treaties that say that a country is responsible for stuff launched into space from that country. Even if they fly over international air space on the way.
For example, the US has had to pay up for crashed satellites in the past, when they re-entered and landed in another country. This is a good thing.
So, every country with a launch capability says that satellites and launchers need a license if they are going to launch from their territory. To get a license, the government will have to be convinced that the proposed launch or satellite does not pose a danger to other satellites, or manned spacecraft, or people or property on the ground.
Satellites and launchers also need third party insurance. Like a car does, but the insurance is more expensive. This is usually a condition of the launch license.
There are also requirements not to contribute to space junk - satellites have to be designed to deorbit within 25 years, and the licensing authority has to check this. This is an international standard though I don't think it's actually a treaty, but if you want a launch license then you will have to show you comply.
Satellites and launchers are controlled by radio. So, as with any other radio transmitter, they need a radio licence. The frequency allocation has to be coordinated internationally to ensure the transmitter does not cause problems for anyone that is being overflown. Again, getting a radio licence is required to get a launch license.
There can also be issues with sensors. The UK government does not want to be launching foreign spy satellites that will be used against the UK. So any cameras or radars or other sensors will have to be declared, and many countries will deny a launch license if the camera is too good.
I'm kind of irked by all this. Watergate Bay (just along from the Airport / Space Port) was a little jewel, a few nice campsites, a couple of decent (dog friendly) pubs and good surf. We used to go a couple of times a year. Then Jamie Oliver located his frikking '15' restaurant on top of the beach bar, and the place got gentrified. The beach bar became an overspill facility for people that couldn't get into 15, and was then a bistro instead of a beach bar. More flats were built, now it's a freaking Space Port. What next, a usable 3G signal? Bah!
The ship sailed in 1492. A great many of the "Americanisms" that annoy us Brits are in fact retentions of earlier English that failed to evolve in parallel with British English. (Pots, kettles, trousers, pants etc.). Furthermore, bearing in mind that formalised spelling is a relative innovation, such variation is primarily a matter of pure chance.
After all, the BBC don't use "Prime Minister" when talking about the leader of the Irish Parliament. They use the Irish words for Prime Minister and Parliamnet and put the English translation in brackets. Likewise, the Register article about the Indian Manned space programme also use the Indian word for Parliament and then tell us native English speakers that it mean Parliament. So if they can localise for other nationalities, why not for all nationalities?
I assume at some stage we'll all have to call the Indian astronauts by the local Indian designation the same way space articles always differentiate between "western"[*] Astronauts, Russian Cosmonauts and Chines Taikonauts.
* I say "western" because English language media never tells us what the local language words are for the various other nationalities who have been to space are.
One possibly remarkable aspect of this project opens up another life for the venerable 747. Will it eventually outlive its older brother -the B-52 Stratofortress. That entered service in 1955, 15 years before the 747. The B-52 is planned to have another couple of decades service after another re-engining. But then 20 years was pretty optimistic in 1955 - so let's say it will be retired when fusion power becomes practical.
Will the 747 beat that? It's a beefy machine and will require few flight hours so it shouldn't need wing spars or other difficult replacements that might end its career. I suppose A-380s might be able to lift heavier rockets when retired from passenger service. I suspect this esteemed journal may have a few more knowledgeable planespotters than me.
Prepare for take-off.
Unlikely, the B52s are operated by a organisation with an infinite budget and many of the long lived ones were originally only for use in "delivering special presents to your special best friends" so got very few flight hours.
In terms of years in use, there are probably DC3s flying somewhere. There was a place in Switzerland that did sight seeing trips in a J52 until they had an unfortunate incident with an Alp.
Another thought. Slinging the rocket under the wing increases drag, presumably affecting the max height it can be launched plus a bigger rocket might fall fail of the 737 Max problem - the undercarriage was only designed to keep the original engines off the ground. The yaw induced must lead to interesting handling.
Fitting bomb doors would get around those problems. Sorted and 747s or A-380s could also have another life as B-52 replacements :--)
Guess some bright spark might attempt to lance that fantasy with boring facts about fuselage design >:-(
Ideally a plane with a decent take off weight, internal bomb bays, ability to get upto 50-60,000 ft and proven ability to get into airspace it wants despite an entire air defence network and 1000s of fighters trying to stop it.
https://www.theregister.com/2015/07/01/vulcans_last_flight/
To be fair to the CAA (not that I know why we should be), it was more old age that did for XH558's flying life.
She was old, the spares supplies were running out, the number of people qualified to fly her were getting older/fewer, the number of people that were qualified to maintain her were getting old/fewer. It also tends to get overlooked that a chunk of the British defence Industry actively helped keep her flying (including I think both BAe and Rolls Royce), and those companies had the same issue with the old-timers retiring, and increasingly couldn't help.
So here's a pint to XH558.
They tend to be a lot simpler.
Compare maintenance of a standard bicycle versus a reasonably modern car. Any competent mechanical person can repair the bike. The modern car will depend on specialist parts that are a lot harder to make.
(Ok, the example takes it to extremes. It's not that bad. But you get the idea).
"(Ok, the example takes it to extremes. It's not that bad. But you get the idea)."
I don't agree. That's not an extreme example at all. It's spot on. Compare replacing a pedal, spoke or chain on a bike with a set of blades that are past their Best Before date in a jet engine. There's a good chance you can't even get the specs never mind someone able to make them and get them certified for flight.
How do they keep WWII planes flying then (legally)?
I'm guessing it's down to complexity, the V bombers were a leap ahead in technology compared to WWII aircraft. If you crack a piston in a Lancaster Merlin engine, I'm sure its possible to cast and machine a new one relatively easily, but you can't just machine a new jet engine compressor rotor or bearing, you need a replacement supplied by the original manufacturer. I don't know about the Vulcan Olympus engine rotors, but modern day Rolls Royce high temperature compressor rotors have to be grown from molten alloy into a single crystal of metal before being machined, not something you can do down at the local machine shop...
>How do they keep WWII planes flying then (legally)?
Grandfathered-in regulations and a lot of precision loophole navigation.
There are a couple of companies that will build you a Spitfire from scratch using modern components, all you need is the VIN plate from a crashed plane so that this is a "restoration" and no modern airworthiness rules apply
...proven ability to get into airspace it wants despite an entire air defence network...
How the Vulcans defeated the US defences was simple, they were 30 minutes behind the low level bombers so when they came into the theatre none of the US interceptors had enough fuel left to climb to the Vulcan's altitude. In true General Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmany Melchett fashion they did exactly the same thing the next year and it worked again. Both times 7 out of 8 Vulcan hit their targets and returned unscathed, the other two got a bit scathed.
A favourite Vulcan story was when on a later US intruder exercises a pair of US interceptors found a Vulcan flying at 150 feet and thought their luck was in until they made their approach and a pair of Buccaneers peeled off from under the Vulcan.
Even funnier; a year later they did exactly the same thing, told the USAF they were going to do the same thing, from the same bases to the same targets - but this time they turned on jamming the interceptor's radar.
You didn't do that last time complained the defenders, "Yes obviously" was the reaction from the mustached service
It's a problem operating piston engines in Northern Canada - they run on high-octane (often leaded) petrol which is hard to get, so you have to fly in fuel supplies to supply your cargo aircraft - which ends up being a bit self defeating.
Turbo-props run on kerosene, or even diesel in a pinch, so fuel is much more available
How is it any different from a multi stage rocket?
Well a traditional multi-stage rocket launch has a lot of infrastructure are the launch site, support towers, tracking radar, etc. That represents a significant investment.
Here we have basically a plane launch and a boat-load of publicity. Like the 30 year old Pegasus launcher, if Virgin is successful it does not need Cornwall as it can basically launch from any airport that can take a 747. Probably the launch tracking is a mobile unit already...