A 1,000-meter flight of the Falcon 9 Reusable (F9R) at McGregor — with steerable fins.
AUTHOR
Doug Messier
The International Space Station, backdropped by the blackness of space and the thin line of Earth’s atmosphere. (Credit: NASA)
NASA has awarded $500,000 and payload flight opportunities for research and technology development onboard the International Space Station to academic institutions across the U.S. The awards are through NASA’s Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).
The academic research to be conducted by space station astronauts is in areas important to the agency’s missions. These include testing leak detection techniques using ultrasonic sensors arrays, and improving spacewalking suits by incorporating self-healing polymers that are tested against micrometeor impacts. These types of research also help university faculty develop science and technology curricula and support higher education students pursuing studies in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).
Griffin Lander. (Credit: Astrobotic Technology)
PITTSBURGH, Penn. (Astrobotic PR) — Astrobotic Technology has invited its competitors for the Google Lunar XPRIZE to fly aboard its Griffin lander to the Moon, setting up the first extraterrestrial race as the lunar rovers sprint to the finish line to win a prize in excess of $20 million.
John Thornton, CEO of Astrobotic Technology, made the proposal at the Google Lunar XPRIZE Team Summit June 3-6, 2014 at the Academy of Sciences in Budapest, Hungary.
Nearly 20 years after it co-starred in a Hollywood blockbuster that tanked, an oil supertanker will finally set sail from the Mojave Air and Space Port. The scale model of the Exxon Valdez has been sitting in the airport’s boneyard since a film crew abandoned it there after filming scenes for Kevin Costner’s “Waterworld” movie. Although the film was set at sea, the filmmakers shot scenes at the desert facility […]
Credit: Matt Wade
The Obama Administration has issued a statement opposing a House spending proposal that would allocate $220 million for the development of a new rocket engine to replace the Russian RD-180 motors used on ULA’s Atlas V launch vehicle.
The Administration objects to the unrequested $220 million for a new rocket engine. An independent study recently concluded that such a program would take eight years to field and could cost $1.5 billion with another $3 billion needed to develop a suitable launch vehicle. This approach prematurely commits significant resources and would not reduce our reliance on Russian engines for at least a decade. With a goal of promptly reducing our reliance on Russian technology, the Administration is evaluating several cost-effective options including public-private partnerships with multiple awards that will drive innovation, stimulate the industrial base, and reduce costs through competition. The Administration looks forward to working with the Congress on this issue once the analysis is complete.
The funding is included in the House’s proposed FY 2015 defense budget.
Last week, China Space News published a short article on efforts by engineers to recover rocket boosters for later reuse. Based on a Google Translate version of the original article, it sounds like they are pursuing an approach quite different from SpaceX’s propulsive landing system. The article quotes an engineer has saying the recovery approach involves attaching paraglider-type “wings” to the booster that would allow it to glide to a […]
My appearance on The Space Show on Monday has now been archived for your listening pleasure. We talked about Virgin Galactic, events here in Mojave, and other space matters and answered some questions from listeners. Archived Show: www.thespaceshow.com. Scroll down to the archives in the lower half of the page. The Space Show blog: https://thespaceshow.wordpress.com. Here, listeners can ask questions, post comments, etc. Meanwhile, Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides will […]
Credit: Matt Wade
In a policy statement issued today, the White House took issue with two objectives near and dear to Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL): crippling NASA’s Commercial Crew Program and boosting its Space Launch System (SLS).
“The Administration appreciates the Committee’s support for the Commercial Crew program, but has concerns about language that would seek to apply accounting requirements unsuitable for a firm, fixed-price acquisition, likely increasing the program’s cost and potentially delaying its schedule,” the Administration said in the statement, which covers the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2015.
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL., June 17, 2014 (CASIS PR) – The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) has announced grant awards for five projects focused on remote sensing and Earth observation. These awards stem from the CASIS Request for Proposals (RFP) “Remote Sensing From the International Space Station.” CASIS is the nonprofit organization managing research onboard the International Space Station (ISS) U.S. National Laboratory.
This solicitation sought proposals using the ISS research platform for terrestrial benefit via Earth observations, atmospheric science, planetary science, or remote sensing of space. Through this RFP, CASIS aimed both to increase use of existing ISS hardware and to promote use of the station as a testbed for developing and improving new instrumentation. The ISS National Lab provides a premier vantage point from which to conduct studies of Earth and space. Its specific location and path in low Earth orbit allows this platform to cover 90% of Earth’s population, with improved spatial resolution in images and variable lighting conditions when compared with many traditional Earth observation platforms.
On Monday, Russian space officials named six new cosmonauts out of a group of eight candidates selected for training in the fall of 2012. The new cosmonaut trainees are Oleg Blinov, Nicholai Chubu, Peter Dubrov, Andrey Fedyaev, Sergey Korsakov and Dmitry Petelin. Two candidates selected in 2012 — Ignat Ignatov and Anna Y. Kikin — were not on the list of those selected. The original eight candidates were chosen from 304 […]