Russia’s annexation of Crimea and support for the military conflict in eastern Ukraine are having a ripple effect on the nation’s military-industrial complex, which remains heavily dependent on imports of components from abroad. Faced with impending EU sanctions on Russia’s defense industry, President Vladimir Putin on Monday urged the Defense Ministry to redouble its efforts to wean the defense sector off foreign suppliers, Interfax reported. Russian firms currently make their […]
AUTHOR
Doug Messier
Space News reports that Eric Stallmer will replace outgoing Commercial Spaceflight Federation President Michael Lopez-Alegria in September.
Stallmer has served as vice president government affairs at Analytical Graphics since 2001. Previous to that position, Stallmer had served as president of the Space Transportation Association.
UPDATE: Here’s the Federation’s press release:
Washington D.C. – The Commercial Spaceflight Federation is pleased to announce that Eric Stallmer has been named as its next President. Stallmer will join CSF staff in September and will assume the position of President following the departure of Michael Lopez-Alegria.
(more…)
Two three-unit (3U) CubeSats. At about a foot in length and four inches wide, these are similar in design to IceCube and the five selected heliophysics CubeSats. (Credit: NASA)
NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) has chosen a team at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, to build its first Earth science-related CubeSat mission.
The tiny payload, known as IceCube or Earth-1, will demonstrate and validate a new 874-gigahertz submillimeter-wave receiver that could help advance scientists’ understanding of ice clouds and their role in climate change.
Founder and CEO Peter Beck displays Rocket Lab’s accumulated expertise in carbon composite launch vehicles. (Credit: Rocket Lab)
Small-satellite launch provider Rocket Lab has received funding over the past four years from the United States and New Zealand governments as well as Silicon Valley-based Khosla Ventures.
Rocket Lab announced in January 2011 that it had completed the first phase of a contract with the Defense Advanced Research Agency (DARPA).
With a crucial environmental review by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) behind it, SpaceX has begun to apply for building permits for its planned Texas spaceport as it acquires more land to support it: On Monday, SpaceX’s Dogleg Park LLC submitted an application for a permit to install small solar panels off-grid in the vicinity of the proposed launch control center at the potential launch site. The contractor is SolarCity. […]
Spaceflight to become first and only company to offer both rideshare launch services for free-flying spacecraft and ground-station communications in one bundled service
SEATTLE, July 30, 2014 – Spaceflight Inc., the space logistics company reinventing the model for launching small satellites, today announced it is expanding its services to include Spaceflight Networks, a business dedicated to cost-effective spacecraft communications and operations for small-satellite customers. The expansion will make Spaceflight the first and only company dedicated to providing a bundled package of small-satellite communications and data services along with its existing rideshare launch services.
Doug Shane
MOJAVE, Calif. – July 29th, 2014 – The Spaceship Company (TSC), the space manufacturing venture owned by Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group and Abu Dhabi’s aabar Investments PJS, announced today that Doug Shane has been named President. TSC, the sister company of Virgin Galactic, is responsible for manufacturing the full fleet of Galactic’s innovative SpaceShipTwo and WhiteKnightTwo space vehicles and has built extensive capabilities in all aspects of aerospace vehicle design, analysis, fabrication and test.
Shane will continue to report to George Whitesides, CEO of Virgin Galactic and The Spaceship Company.
One of America’s favorite billionaires will meet one of its most hated in the upcoming season of The Simpsons: The Simpsons panel was unusually light on guest-star news, with exec producer Al Jean making only one announcement: Elon Musk will play himself in an upcoming episode in which Mr. Burns loses all of his money to the Tesla/SpaceX tycoon. Mr. Burns is, of course, C. Montgomery Burns, the elderly and […]
The FAA has proposed changing the way it calculates collective risk limits for commercial launches and reentries. A brief summary is reproduced below. For more information, visit the entry in the Federal Register. Notice Of Proposed Rulemaking Summary The FAA proposes to amend the collective risk limits for commercial launches and reentries. Under this proposal, the FAA would separate its expected-number-of-casualties (E c) limits for launches and reentries. For commercial […]
A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta IV rocket successfully launched the AFSPC-4 mission for the U.S. Air Force on July 28 at 7:28 p.m. EDT from Space Launch Complex-37. (Credit: United Launch Alliance)
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. (ULA PR) – A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta IV rocket successfully launched the AFSPC-4 mission for the U.S. Air Force on July 28 at 7:28 p.m. EDT from Space Launch Complex-37. This is ULA’s eighth launch in 2014, and the 85th successful launch since the company was formed in December 2006.
“The ULA team is proud to have delivered the twin Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program (GSSAP) spacecraft to orbit today,” said Jim Sponnick, ULA vice president, Atlas and Delta Programs. “We are privileged to work with a top notch U.S. government and contractor mission team that is committed to mission success.”