Kathryn Lueders

NASA has published the following Q&A with Commercial Crew Manager Kathy Lueders.

Q: What are your goals for the Commercial Crew Program?

A: My first goal is to help our partners safely fly crew. My second goal is to do it in the most cost-effective manner possible from an industry partner and NASA resource standpoint. My hope is that, through this, we enable a capability for others to use.

Q: How do you envision the CCtCap certification process working moving forward?

A: The CCtCap certification process is tied to the principle that we gave our partners the requirements; we will agree with them on their plans to close out our requirements; and then we need to figure out a way to have them run while we efficiently assure the requirements are met. Paper is not the product. A new certified system that will safely fly crew to the ISS is the product. We will need to work with our industry partners to find the best way to make that happen.

(more…)

Credit: NASA

WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — Building on the progress of NASA’s partnerships with the U.S. commercial space industry, NASA has recently announced several new initiatives for partnerships, including: the Lunar Cargo Transportation and Landing by Soft Touchdown (Lunar CATALYST), Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) Broad Agency Announcement (BAA), Collaborations for Commercial Space Capabilities (CCSC), and a Request for Information (RFI) for interest in evolving ISS functions and capabilities for supply and demand in support of the development of a low-Earth orbit (LEO) commercial market. These efforts are complementary to each other and support NASA’s overall exploration implementation strategy.

(more…)

Artist’s impression of Ariane 6. (Credit: ESA)

Space News reports that the future of the Ariane 6 launch vehicle remains uncertain after a meeting in Geneva on Tuesday:

The ministers from France, Germany, Italy, Belgium and Switzerland took no formal decision but agreed to reassess the situation in September after further study of the costs associated with the two designs.

(more…)

Space News reports that Bigelow Aerospace has hired former NASA astronauts Kenneth Ham and George Zamka as the Nevada company ramps up hiring:

Zamka comes to Bigelow Aerospace from the Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation, where he was deputy associate administrator from March 2013, when he left NASA, through June 11. Zamka will remain in Washington to aid the company’s business development efforts with the U.S. and other governments, and serve as a company face for federal policymakers, Robert Bigelow, founder of Bigelow Aerospace, said in a July 9 phone interview.

(more…)

There will be no free trips to space aboard XCOR’s Lynx for members of the Dutch World Cup team. After 120 minutes of scoreless football, the Dutch national team fell to Argentina 4-2 in penalty kicks on Wednesday. The win sent Argentina to the World Cup final against Germany on Sunday. The Dutch will play Brazil in the third-place match on Saturday. XCOR Space Expeditions had offered the Dutch players […]

The Planetary Society’s LightSail-1 solar sailing spacecraft is scheduled to ride a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket to orbit in 2016 with its parent satellite, Prox-1. (Credit: Josh Spradling / The Planetary Society)

PASADENA, Calif. (Planetary Society PR) — The Planetary Society, the world’s largest and most influential space interest group, announces that its LightSail solar sail spacecraft will reach space on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch in 2016. The announcement was made during a live webcast on July 9th.

“It’s fantastic that at last we have a launch date for this pioneering mission,” said Planetary Society CEO Bill Nye The Science Guy. “When I was in engineering school, I read the book about solar sailing by my predecessor, Society co-founder Louis Friedman. But the dream of sailing on light alone goes back much further.”

(more…)

Sierra Nevada Commercial Crew Milestones Status Award Period: August 2012 – March 2015 Total Milestones: 13 Milestones Completed: 10 Milestones Pending: 3 Total Possible Award: $227.5 Million Total Awarded to Date: $192.5 Million Total Award Remaining: $35 Million No. Description Original Date Status Amount 1 Program Implementation Plan Review. This is an initial meeting to describe the plan for implementing the Commercial Crew Integrated Capability Program, to include management planning […]

Artist’s conception of the proposed SpaceX commercial launch facility near Brownsville, Texas.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has approved SpaceX’s plan to build a spaceport south of Brownsville, Texas, to launch Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy and suborbital rockets.

In its record of decision, the FAA said that while the environmentally preferable alternative would be to reject the application and having nothing constructed in the beachfront area, the option is not in keeping with the agency’s purpose.

(more…)

ATLANTA, GA, JULY 9, 2014 (GO PR) – Generation Orbit Launch Services, Inc. (GO) has been awarded a Phase I Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory, Aerospace Systems Directorate (AFRL/RQ) for development of a GOLauncher 1, a single-stage air launched liquid rocket vehicle designed to fly suppressed trajectories for hypersonic flight research applications. Booster systems capable of flying suppressed trajectories increase flexibility for experimental payloads to high Mach number, high dynamic pressure test environments. The nine-month effort worth $150,000 will focus on requirements definition, configuration trade studies, and trajectory design space exploration.

(more…)