Excalibur Almaz
| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Aerospace |
| Founded | Isle of Man (2005) |
| Headquarters | Douglas, Isle of Man |
| Key people | Arthur M. Dula, CEO Leroy Chiao |
| Website | excaliburalmaz.com |
 |
This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (March 2010) |
Excalibur Almaz is a private spaceflight company which plans to provide orbital space tourism, and provide test beds for experiments in a microgravity environment.[1]
Design and flight safety reviews are planned for 2012.[2]
Contents |
[edit] History
In 2009, Excalibur hoped to begin flights by 2012 with revenue flights starting as early as 2013.[3][4]
As of January 2012[update], Excalibur will continue designing the vehicle and conduct flight safety reviews during 2012, but will do no flight testing.[2]
[edit] Company
Excalibur Almaz is based in Douglas, Isle of Man, with offices in Houston and Moscow. The company owns its spacecraft but contracts expert services, including refurbishment, launch, control, and recovery.[citation needed]
In October, 2011, NASA signed an unfunded Space Act Agreement for work related to the Commercial Crew Development program. Details have not yet been released.[5]
Jonathan Clark, NASA flight surgeon on six Space Shuttle missions—and whose wife died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster on shuttle mission STS-107—is a consultant on spacesuit and crew biological environment design for Excalibur Almaz.[6]
[edit] Operations
[edit] Spacecraft
Excalibur Almaz is designing a spacecraft based on the Soviet space program's TKS space capsules and Almaz space stations. The TKS-derived capsules, which vaguely resemble a cross between the American Gemini and Apollo capsules, are unique by Russian/Soviet standards. They are equipped to carry three passengers or operate autonomously, but unlike the American capsules the Almaz capsules are reusable from 50 to 100 times. They can launch atop any of several rockets of various spacefaring countries, and they possess a Launch Escape System to ensure the safety of their passengers. They use parachutes and retrorockets to return to Earth, and have soft landing engines which fire just prior to touching down on land. Water-landings are also possible. TKS vehicle/service module design resembles U.S. plans for Manned Orbital Laboratory. Excalibur plans to have multiple options for launch vehicles. The vehicle has three parachutes for redundancy.[citation needed]
The Almaz-derived space stations are directly related to modules used on the International Space Station's Russian Orbital Segment such as Zarya, as well as the Soviet and Russian Salyut and Mir space stations. This is because the design of the original Almaz (Salyut 2,3, and 5) stations was used as a basis for capsules on Mir and ISS.[citation needed]
[edit] Equipment
Two Soviet-era spacecraft were moved from Russia to Excalibur Almaz facilities on the Isle of Man in early 2011. EA "plans to use the modules to provide extra room and supplies for the tourists and researchers it hopes to ferry into space."[7] The precise mix between new and previously-built spacecraft modules from Excalibur Almaz has not been made public.
[edit] Space launch services
In 2010, Excalibur Almaz partnered with Space Launch Services (SLS) to finance Sea Launch's preparations to emerge from Chapter 11 with $12 million (USD) of debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing to provide investment in a financial reorganization of Sea Launch. SLS earlier provided $12.5 million of DIP funds to Sea Launch in December 2009.[8]
[edit] Sources
Siddiqi, Asif A., The Almaz Space Station Complex: A History. 1964-1992, part 1, JBIS, Vol 54, No 11/12, November/December 2001.
Excalibur Almaz Limited AAS Presentation, Nov. 16, 2005
Dr. Jamie Floyd, Assessment of the Almaz Capsule for Space Station Assured Crew Return (ACRV), McDonnell Douglas Aerospace MDC 97W5151, January 1997.
[edit] References
- ^ ExcaliburAlmaz.com
- ^ a b Oberg, James (January 2012). "Private Spaceflight: Up, Up, and Away". IEEE Spectrum. http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/aviation/private-spaceflight-up-up-and-away. Retrieved 2011-12-31. "Little is known about the spacecraft from Excalibur Almaz, except that it's based on a Soviet manned vehicle, with modernized innards, and is launched by a commercial booster. Company official Arthur Dula states that it "could provide a crew vehicle two years earlier than the current NASA plans." The company, headquartered on the Isle of Man, recently inked a development agreement with NASA and will spend 2012 on design and safety reviews, not flight-testing."
- ^ Beating swords into plough shares with Soviet Almaz,SpaceflightNow, 2009-08-18, accessed 2011-01-07.
- ^ Excalibur Almaz to Pioneer Private Orbital Manned Space Flight In cooperation with NPOM of Russia, 2009-08-18, accessed 2011-01-07.
- ^ "Excalibur Almaz gets an unfunded CCDev agreement". NewSpace Journal. 2011-10-26. http://www.newspacejournal.com/2011/10/26/excalibur-almaz-gets-an-unfunded-ccdev-agreement/. Retrieved 2011-10-27.
- ^ The Man Who Would Fall to Earth, Esquire, p. 6, 2010-07-14, accessed 2010-07-14.
- ^ Fledgling space firm will use old Soviet gear , New Scientist, 2011-01-12, accessed 2011-01-12.
- ^ Sea Launch Gets Court Approval To Raise More Money
[edit] External links
- Grahn, Sven. ‘’The Almaz Space Station Complex’’
- Wade, Mark. ‘’Almaz’’
- Russian Space Web. ‘’The Almaz Program’’
[edit] Video clips
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
