SILICON VALLEY, Calif. (SFF PR) —  Join the Space Frontier Foundation (SFF) to felicitate the recipients of the 2014 NewSpace Awards at the NewSpace 2014 Awards Gala on July 26th at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel, San Jose.

This year, the Foundation recognized a multitude of accomplishments over the past 12 months, giving out awards in five categories. Below is a glimpse of this year’s awards and award winners who will be recognized at the conference.

Vision of Reality

This award is for outstanding achievement in the development and operation of a device, system, or entity that forwards the opening of the Space Frontier.

The NASA COTS (Commercial Orbital Transportation Services) program was chosen to receive the Vision to Reality Award for pushing and helping to develop the commercial space industry through the achievements of Orbital Sciences and SpaceX.

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SpaceX Launch Update SpaceX is taking a closer look at a potential issue identified while conducting pre-flight checkouts during yesterday’s countdown. SpaceX will stand down Tuesday while our engineering teams evaluate further, which will also allow the Range to move forward with previously scheduled maintenance. We are currently targeting the first week of July and will work with the Range to confirm the next available launch opportunities.

This week on The Space Show with David Livingston: 1. Monday, June 23, 2014: 2-3:30 PM PDT (5-6:30 PM EDT, 4-5:30 PM CDT): No show due to host travel schedule. 2. Tuesday, June 24, 2014:, 7-8:30 PM PDT (10-11:30 PM EDT, 9-10:30 PM CDT): We welcome back ROBERT ZIMMERMAN for space news updates. 3. Friday, June 27, 2014, 9:30 -11 AM PDT (12;30-2 PM EDT; 11:30-1 PM CDT): We welcome […]

Orbital Mission Update – June 23, 2014 Orbital has updated its launch schedule for the Orb-2 mission to a date no earlier than July 10, 2014. Orb-2 is the second of eight cargo resupply missions to the International Space Station (ISS) under the company’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract with NASA. The new launch schedule reflects progress in the investigation into the cause of an AJ26 engine test failure and […]

A video of XCOR CEO Jeff Greason’s talk at the ideacity conference in Toronto last week.

SpaceX has once again scrubbed the Sunday launch of six ORBCOMM satellites. The announcement came from the U.S. Air Force Eastern Range. The Air Force gave no reason for the postponement. SpaceX has not commented yet. In fact, it’s Twitter feed has not been updated for two days. The next launch opportunity is Tuesday. So, go out and enjoy the rest of your Sunday. Or whatever day it is in […]

Elon Musk (Credit: SpaceX)

Quora.com has some interesting input from Space.com and Tesla employees on what it’s like to work for Elon Musk. From the responses, it sounds awesome, challenging, demanding, inspiring and all measures of other superlatives. And it’s clearly not for everyone.

There’s one anonymous entry from one SpaceX employee who while professing to love the company and his job, nonetheless delves into some of the darker aspects of working for Musk:

Everything that’s been said is certainly true. SpaceX really is awesome. What’s been said is just one part of what it’s like to work with Elon Musk so I’ll discuss the side that you won’t often hear.

If you want a family or hobbies or to see any other aspect of life other than the boundaries of your cubicle, SpaceX is not for you and Elon doesn’t seem to give a damn.

This side of what it’s like to work with Elon shows that no one likes working with Elon. You can always tell when someone’s left an Elon meeting: they’re defeated. These are some of the hardest working and brightest people in the world, mind you. And they are universally defeated. At least in engineering, who knows what HR and finance does.
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SpaceX has rescheduled its Falcon 9 launch for Sunday at 5:30 p.m. EDT. Heeding the social medial outcry over SpaceX’s decision not to webcast Saturday’s launch attempt, the company has reversed it decision for today. The reversal proved two things. First, there is clearly a demand for people to spend part of their weekend watching an expendable rocket launch a cluster of commsats. Who knew? Second,nobody’s quite buying SpaceX spokeswoman […]

SpaceX had to scrub its scheduled launch of six ORBCOMM satellites due to lightning on Saturday, but what seemed to really annoy its many fans was the company’s decision to not webcast the proceedings from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. After webcasting a launch attempt on Friday that was scrubbed due to pressure problems in the second stage, SpaceX made a surprise decision not to show Saturday’s […]

WhiteKnight with SpaceShipOne on the taxiway prior to the first commercial spaceflight. I’m on the right filming. To my left, Eric Dahlstrom and Emeline Paat-Dahlstrom. (Credit: John Criswick)

Ten years ago, I was right here in Mojave — not far from where I sit writing now — watching Mike Melvill make history. He flew Burt Rutan’s SpaceShipOne to just over 100 km, becoming the first private astronaut of the Space Age.

After gliding to a landing at the Mojave Air and Space Port, Melvill stood triumphantly atop SpaceShipOne before a cheering crowd holding a sign that one of the spectators had made that read: “SpaceShipOne Government Zero.”

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