Listen and read 13: Quickening the countdown - Thấm Tâm Vy

Nội dung text: Listen and read 13: Quickening the countdown - Thấm Tâm Vy

1. LISTEN AND READ 13 Relativity Space, another American firm, also plans to print its rocket, the Terran 1. This will carry a payload of 900kg. Its first orbital launch is scheduled for next year. Relativity Warfare In Space Space’s biggest printers produce five-metre sections of propellant tank. Its most precise ones create engine parts with an accuracy of 40 millionths of a metre. A conventionally QUICKENING THE COUNTDOWN manufactured rocket of similar size would contain, the firm says, nearly 100,000 parts. Terran 1 has less than 1,000. That simplifies the supply chain and accelerates the testing of Growing fears of conflict in space mean America’s officials parts. Bright ideas are seeking faster ways to launch satellites Speeding up launcher production in this way helps. But it will not be enough if America is to fulfil its goal of launching replacement satellites with a day’s notice. That is one reason, BY SHOOTING A missile into one of its own satellites in March, India upped the ante. says Mr Roper, why the air force is now buying, at a series of pitching events that started in The immediate intention, suggests Jeffrey Caton, a retired American airforce colonel who March, ideas for ways of prevailing in “high end” orbital combat. Encouragingly for teaches at the Army War College, was to fire “a shot across the bow” of India’s rival China. proposers of such ideas, little bureaucracy is involved. The Chinese had, after all, blown up one of their own satellites in 2007, in a similar Settlement for those accepted is immediate—the air force sidesteps its lumbering demonstration of their ability to do such things. India’s test, along with the wider profusion payments system by using official credit cards to transfer money instantly to people’s PayPal accounts. Those who present clever proposals can thus pocket awards exceeding of antisatellite weapons, has lent credence to the worries of defence chiefs around the world th th who believe that future conflicts between great powers will stretch into space. $100,000 within minutes. The latest of these pitching meetings, on November 5 and 6 Satellites are too militarily useful to pretend that adversaries will consider them off-limits, resulted in on-thespot contracts worth $22.5m. says William Roper, the air force’s assistant secretary for technology and acquisitions. Meanwhile DARPA, America’s main military-research organisation, is trying to organise a America must therefore ready itself for warfare in space. America is, indeed, especially responsive-space competition of its own. Next year it hopes to hold a challenge in which vulnerable. It has more assets than any other country and relies on them more for its war- teams will attempt launches twice in a matter of days or weeks, each time learning only fighting capability. Moreover, as John Hyten, the vice chairman of America’s Joint Chiefs shortly beforehand of the mission’s location, destination orbit and payload characteristics. of Staff, eloquently puts it, America’s kit in space consists mainly of large, “exquisite” This has never been done before. Programming the computers takes time, and the rocket satellites that make for “big, fat, juicy targets”. must be trimmed in advance for the particular trajectory, taking into account such factors as First responders the weather. Prizes of up to $10m will be awarded. It is a measure of the task’s difficulty One approach to reducing the risk this poses is to make those targets less fat and juicy. that, of the 55 teams which signed up initially, only three qualified, and two have That is happening, as both civil and military satellite users shrink their hardware and scatter subsequently dropped out. The name of the remaining competitor is secret. At least one of its functions over multiple pieces of equipment. In particular, people are deploying more of the dropouts has not given up completely, though. That firm, Virgin Orbit, has turned a the modular designs known as cubesats. Among other things, that means individual Boeing 747-400 into a flying launch pad. At an altitude of about 10.7km, the aircraft satellites are smaller and cheaper, and therefore easier to stockpile in advance. But for this releases a rocket called Launcher One. This rocket’s engine ignites after 4.8 seconds of approach to be really useful, it must also be possible to launch them quickly if, for whatever freefall. Such launches, Virgin Orbit says, can take place above nasty weather. They also reason (whether enemy action or otherwise), an orbiting asset stops working and needs make it easier to reach east-to-west “retrograde” orbits, because the launching plane can fly replacing. in the opposite direction to Earth’s spin, reducing the launch velocity required for such an That concept is known as “responsive space”, and, in today’s outsourced world, it often orbit. Though Virgin Orbit’s system has yet to put a satellite into orbit, means calling on the private sector to the actual launching. American officials are therefore Britain’s Royal Air Force seems interested. In July it announced a deal to launch small pleased that a firm called Rocket Lab, whose services they often rely on for lifting payloads satellites on notices possibly as short as a week. By today’s standards, that is, indeed, pretty of up to 150kg, has quickened the tempo of cubesat launches from its pad in New Zealand to responsive. [The Economist US Dec. 07, 2019] once a month. Rocket Lab hopes that, by early next year, it will have improved this rate to once a fortnight—an objective which will be assisted by its construction of a second launch Notes. pad in Virginia. - to up ante:: to increase the level of demands - to lend credence to = believe in - cubesat (< cube satellite) : vệ tinh hình khối lập phương - to stockpile: đưa vào kho; cho trú kho (máy bay tàu thủy ) Rocket Lab is also a pioneer of the 3D printing of rocket parts, such as the nozzles, valves, - to pitch = advertise (new products) - to sidestep = avoid answering questions (lảng tránh) pumps and main combustion chamber of the motor. That reduces the number of components - trajectory = backslide: sút giảm dần – e.g. My career seemed to be on a downward trajectory. involved, and greatly speeds up manufacture and assembly. Rockets being expensive, no - retrograde = returning to how something to the past: quy hồi; quay trở về - one wants to carry a large inventory of them. Having a “just in time” approach to launcher e.g. The closure of the factory is a retrograde step. availability is therefore desirable. Thẩm Tâm Vy, Dec 10, 2019 LISTEN AND READ 13