Day: May 3, 2018

On Sunday, April 29, Blue Origin launched the third New Shepard rocket with its passenger dummy named Mannequin Skywalker. The private space company founded by Jeff Bezos tested its eighth rocket design, reaching its highest flight so far. Despite the last-minute weather delays and countdown holds due to short notice checks, the company was able to launch and land the booster rocket, while its space capsule smoothly landed just minutes later.

According to Bezos, there will be more test flights to be done and they aim to eventually carry passengers into space within an eleven-minute journey inside a space capsule. With the help of parachutes, the space vehicle will flawlessly land while the rocket descends back with a powered landing. Armed with a mission, the space crash dummy’s collected data will greatly improve further research and studies to attain the company’s dream of bringing tourists into space. The New Shepard’s latest apogee has been set to its target altitude at 351,000 feet.

On the other hand, SpaceX’s launch of Falcon Heavy in February marked its remarkable performance as it’s considered one of the most awaited rocket launches in the last 10 years. In 2011, SpaceX initially announced its plans to build Falcon Heavy with the target goal to launch it in 2013 or 2014. But due to a couple of failures of Falcon 9, the mission has been delayed for quite some time. Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, said it was actually harder to create Falcon Heavy than they thought. Successfully, all their labor and hard work came into fruition as the rocket made its take off from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Falcon Heavy soared into space with its payload – the red Tesla Roadster owned by Musk.

With the flight’s success, the two core rockets of Falcon Heavy impressively touched down back on Earth’s surface moments after its takeoff. During midflight, the outer boosters shifted away and made their way back to the Cape. In total, SpaceX has a record of 23 rockets that landed upright. Currently, the Falcon Heavy maintains the title for the most powerful rocket in the world, and this launch is the first time an automobile was sent to space orbit by a commercial company. The rocket also boasts of its 27 engines, creating a combination of five million pounds of force for each takeoff. It also means that the Falcon Heavy can carry approximately 140,000 pounds of payloads into Earth’s lower orbit.

The rocket has two more missions to be accomplished in 2018. It is scheduled to carry a huge Saudi Arabian satellite named “Arabsat 6A” in the first half of the year. In June, it aims to send up a test cargo for the US Air Force in order to get the rocket certified for national security missions.

 Both Bezos and Musk race to create reusable rockets. But unlike Musk, Bezos is not interested to “Space Race” when it comes to his company’s approach to space. While Musk is busy showing off his achievements and blatantly made it clear that he is quite drawn to igniting competition, Blue Origin’s Head of Public Relations, Caitlin O’Keefe Dietrich, said in an interview that the company is not aiming to take the challenge that SpaceX has presented. In another perspective, SpaceX and Blue Origin operate very differently from each other. Though both rocket companies are founded by white male billionaires, Bezos has been focusing to solidify its company as a rocket manufacturer outside the public’s watchful eye. Meanwhile, Musk’s company functions as satellite internet provider, a rocket corporation, and aims to colonize the solar system.

SpaceX and Blue Origin have also both stated that their goal is to begin carrying paying passengers on space flights next year. This means that they need to start moving this year to test launch their own crews and rockets. Blue Origin recently unveiled its gigantic New Glenn rocket and it’s scheduled to have its first flight by the end of 2020, declaring a statement that they think of long-term goals instead of testing from rocket to rocket. SpaceX has now begun assigning the majority of its engineering teams to bigger BFR because according to Musk, “Falcon Heavy was a bit small.” Only time will tell if any competitive advantage can be gained by SpaceX over Blue Origin, but as we watch these two rocket companies create a healthy competition with each other, let’s just enjoy the product of their rocket science and wait for the time they can bring us into space.

Fastned, the Dutch charging company is making headways in supporting electric vehicles (EV) in Europe. It recently announced a new generation of EV charging units which are capable of up to 350kW. The first Fastned fast charging station is located along the A8 highway near Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

The fast charging units were developed by ABB. In the UK, these are called rapid charging stations, and can power up an EV to run up to 500 km of range in 15 minutes of charging. This is around 100 times faster than home charging. Fastned admitted that the new fast charging stations are in anticipation of the next generation EVs from Jaguar, Audi, Hyundai and other car manufacturers which would have large batteries and longer range.

Fast Electronic Car Charging Stations to Change People’s Minds

Slow charging has been cited as a reason for the slow adoption of EVs. People are used to the fast fuel loading of fossil fuels like gasoline, diesel or liquefied natural gas. First generation charging stations are capable of up to 50kW charging. Considering the smaller batteries of current vehicles, these can have up to 80% capacity after 50 minutes of charging.

Tesla is the most famous EV car brand in the market today. The company is one of the most aggressive startups offering EV cars only. However, almost all the major car brands have their sights on releasing their own EV cars in 2018 or 2019. In most instances, the car manufacturers are skipping selling hybrid cars and going straight to EV. The first generation of EV cars was designed from the ground up to be EV. In contrast, the EV cars expected to come out of Jaguar are all EV versions of their venerable models. They are jumping wholeheartedly into the EV market.

The EV market started off slowly due to the lack of charging stations, as well as due to slow charging. The number of charging stations has been steadily increasing. The next hurdle is the charging speed. With the 350kW charging capacity, drivers would not need to wait too long for their vehicles to get charged. In addition, vehicles which have larger battery capacity are assured that they can power up much faster than before.

In a related development, Fastnet will open a charging station in Newcastle and Sunderland. The company had recently won a tender allowing them to build in the two cities. The tender was approved by the UK’s North East Combined Authority (NECA).

The Fastned presence in Newcastle has a bold impact as the company will also be working the Newcastle University researchers in a study on the effect of EV charging on electric grids. The same study will also look at the possibility of using EVs as battery for the local grid during off-peak hours.

The stations will sport the iconic Fastned charging high clearance roof, as well as six chargers, two of which are rapid charging 175kW (350kW enabled) chargers.

If plans succeed, faster charging and more charging stations will hopefully be enough to convince people to make the switch to electric vehicles.