Tehachapi News

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It's been some time since I updated you on the goings on at our local spaceport. The official name change to the Mojave Air & Space Port reflects its status as the only licensed civil-use spaceport in America. While there haven't been any huge public events of late such as the first flights of SpaceShipOne, the spaceport continues to grow in vitality and importance.

Scaled Composites is still quietly working on SpaceShipTwo. Three times larger than SpaceShipOne, it will take six passengers and two pilots on a two-and-a-half hour suborbital flight. The mothership from which SpaceShipTwo will be launched, WhiteKnightTwo, is larger than a Boeing 757. Test flights are planned for this year, with revenue flights commencing in 2009 from Spaceport America in New Mexico.

Virgin Galactic has accepted advances from eighty paying passengers, some of whom have already begun training for their flight.

XCOR recently unveiled its 28-foot-long Lynx aerospace plane, which will take off from a runway, ascend to 200,000 feet for over four minutes of weightless flight, and land again on the same runway. The ship is designed for one pilot and one passenger and can be flown several times a day. Although the ship will not reach the lower limit of “outer space” (100 km), the passenger gets to sit right up front like a co-pilot with a great view, rather than in the back like an airline passenger.

Powered by kerosene and liquid oxygen, it is considered more environmentally friendly than solid propellant or hybrid rocket motors. XCOR plans to have it flying within two years.

BEA Systems is still converting old F-4 Phantoms into remote-controlled aircraft so that fighter pilots can get the thrill of blowing something out of the sky. (Personally, I think that's a pretty undignified end for a venerable warbird.)

The National Test Pilot School is going strong, and Rocket Propulsion Engineering Corporation is busy testing rocket designs at the ports Rocket Test Facility.

Hollywood frequently uses the port for movie making. Did you know that the “aircraft carrier flight deck” in Hotshots was actually the main taxiway at the Mojave Air & Space Port?

On the aviation side, an automated weather observation system is in place. This is essential to the establishment of an instrument approach, which allows aircraft to land in poor weather.

Plans also include lengthening the main runway and improving rail access within the port. This will allow development of the Mojave Air & Space Port as a true intermodal freight handling center, allowing cargo planes, trains and trucks to hand off cargo.

A number of Tehachapians work at the port, which has a direct impact on our local economy.

Night Sky Watch

Over the next month, the weather will no doubt improve, and astronomers will emerge from their winter burrows. The Astronomy Club will be planning a spring gathering, perhaps for the Eta Aquarid Meteor Shower. Active from mid-April, astronomers expect it to peak on May 5 with as many as seventy meteors per hour, with no moon to spoil the show. Look to the east-to-southeast a couple of hours before dawn.

Mars will pass through the Beehive Cluster (M44) between May 21 and 23, an outstanding astrophotography opportunity.

Mercury and Jupiter will be visible in the morning.

May 2 is Space Day. This year's focus is NASA’s 50th anniversary.

May 10 is Astronomy Day.

On May 16, the Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) is scheduled for launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The Phoenix Lander is scheduled to touchdown on Mars on May 26. Its mission is to search for water at the Martian North Pole.

Cassini will once again buzz Titan on May 12 and 28.

And to close out May, Space Shuttle Discovery is schedule to launch on May 31 at 2:01 p.m. “Tehachapi time” to deliver the Japanese Kibo Pressurized Module to the Space Station Alpha.