Countdown to Monday Launch at Spaceport

The Up Aerospace SpaceLoft8 rocket launces at the vertical launch site of Spaceport America on a suborbital mission on November 12, 2013.
LAS CRUCES — UP Aerospace is set for its next suborbital launch on Monday out of Spaceport America in southern New Mexico.
It will be UP’s first flight since last year, when it launched two rockets in summer and fall with more than a dozen payloads paid for by NASA under the agency’s Flight Opportunities Program. That initiative, launched in 2011, pays commercial aerospace companies for suborbital flights to test new technologies in space.
Monday’s flight will include four payloads that UP is now packaging and loading onto its rocket, company President and CEO Jerry Larson said earlier this week.
“This is our third mission for NASA,” Larson said. “All the payloads are here. We’ve been putting the vehicle together at the spaceport this week in final preparation for Monday’s flight.”
This is UP’s 13th launch from the spaceport since 2006, and the 21st time a rocket has flown from the facility since it began hosting vertical launch activities eight years ago, said Spaceport America Executive Director Christine Anderson.
“UP is a key player in NASA’s Flight Opportunities Program,” Anderson told the Journal during the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight, an annual, two-day event that the New Mexico Space Grant Consortium is hosting in Las Cruces this week. “We’re thrilled to have them flying here.”
UP is one of seven companies chosen in 2011 by NASA to fly payloads for the agency, and it’s one of only four companies the agency selected to continue managing flights in a new round of selections NASA announced in September.
That reflects the success of UP flights and their contributions to NASA’s space research and development efforts, said Paul De Leon, NASA’s Flight Opportunities manager for suborbital launches.
In fact, at least one of the payloads that UP flew last year — and that will fly a second time on Monday — will soon be headed to the International Space Station. It’s a device built by the engineering firm Control Dynamics Inc. that can isolate experiments from vibrations and other interference on rocket flights. That can help further lower microgravity levels for some experiments in space.
“Even though the Space Station is in orbit, some vibrations still happen that can impact experiments there,” De Leon said. “This device will reduce that.”
In general, NASA says the Flight Opportunities Program, which it launched as part of a shift to using private companies to continue space exploration after the space shuttle stopped flying, has successfully provided the agency with low-cost launch alternatives that allow it to mature new technologies.
Apart from the vibration-isolation device, for example, a 3D printer will also soon be placed on the Space Station after having been tested in a high-altitude balloon by Near Space Corp. of Oregon.
“The program is an effective means to an end for us to develop technologies for further missions in space,” Laguduva Kubendran, NASA Flight Opportunities Program executive, said Thursday in a presentation at the symposium. “We have some 140 payloads now in the pipeline to fly on commercial launches. We want to get to where we’re flying payloads through commercial companies at least every quarter, and eventually get to monthly and even weekly flights.”
UP was chosen to continue in the program given the company’s reliability, De Leon said.
“The relation with UP is very good,” he said. “They’re very detail-oriented, very reliable and all their flights have been a success.”
The contract extension announced in September could mean a lot more launches by UP out of Spaceport America. Under the initial NASA contract from 2011, UP was eligible to fly up to eight rockets with NASA payloads. The new contract extends that for another five years, with potentially more than a dozen launches.
“Under the new contract, we could earn up to $10 million,” Larson said. “This award is a lot more open-ended than the last one. We could fly as many as 15 missions.”
After Monday’s launch, two more UP flights are scheduled for next year, including one in summer and another in fall.
“We plan to stay at Spaceport America for all our launches,” Larson said. “Our operations here are working well. We want to continue flying from here for many years to come.”
By: Kevin Robinson-Avila (Albuquerque Journal)
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