EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, CALIF. (NASA PR) — Two aerospace legends and their families were honored at a formal dedication ceremony May 13, marking the rededication of NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, formerly the Dryden Flight Research Center, at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.

Legislation passed Congress in January to rename the center after the late Neil A. Armstrong, a former research test pilot at the center and the first man to step on the moon during the historic Apollo 11 mission in 1969. Armstrong flew research aircraft, including the rocket-powered X-15s, during his seven-year tenure at the center from 1955 through 1962.

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Elisa Mallis

Meet Founder Astronaut: Elisa Mallas

SXC May 2014 Mission Report

Tell us a bit about your background.

Growing up between countries, from early childhood I had a strong desire to explore the world and to support the positive evolution of humanity. My journey so far has taken me to work and live in 16 difference countries, including China, where I have been based for the last 7 years with my husband and our two amazing boys. Throughout my career my focus has always been on supporting people to transform toward their full potential. In China I am know as a top authority on Executive Coaching and Developing a Global Mindset, often invited as a speaker at large human capital conferences and business events. I have coached and consulted to numerous managers and senior leaders across the United States, Europe and Asia over the last 14 years, and am currently the Head of Executive Coaching at MDS, a leadership development and executive coaching company with offices in several major cities in Asia – www.mdsbeijing.com From 2011 to 2013, I also served as the European Chamber of Commerce in China’s HR Forum Chair, successfully launching several large events which brought a more holistic and strategic undestanding of people development to the multi-national busienss community in China.

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An F-18 flies over the crowd during the formal dedication ceremony for the NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center. Formerly named after the late NASA Deputy Administrator Hugh Dryden, the center was renamed earlier this year after Apollo 11 Commander Neil Armstrong, who was the first man to walk on the moon.

Credit: David Wilson, Spaceport America

While engineers in Mojave prepare WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo for another round of test flights, others in the company are preparing to ramp up operations at Spaceport America in New Mexico.

Virgin Galactic senior program manager Mark Butler recently provided a status report to the Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce. The Las Cruces Bulletin reports:

Currently, there are five pilots ready to go, and they need four for operations. By the time Virgin Galactic is ready to launch the space tourism program, it will have eight fully trained pilots. (more…)

Zenit launch

Ukrainian rocket maker Yuzhmash has signed an agreement under which the Dnepropetrovsk Regional State will provide financial and organizational support to the company and protect against being taken over by Russian separatists.

The announcement came in a May 8 press release. Yuzhmash produces the following launch vehicles and stages:

The full press release is reproduced after the break.

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WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo in flight. (Credit: Ken Brown)

Parabolic Arc has obtained the following email from Virgin Galactic Commercial Director Stephen Attenborough to the company’s ticket holders concerning the London Sunday Times story that I co-authored with Jon Ungoed-Thomas about cracks in WhiteKnightTwo’s wings. It’s worth a read.

From: Future Astronauts
Date: May 10, 2014
Subject: Virgin Galactic Update

Dear all,

We wanted to give you a quick heads-up that we believe the UK Sunday Times may run a negative story on Virgin Galactic tomorrow.

We don’t know all the angles but from what we can tell, the story appears to be predicated on false or deliberately misleading and exaggerated rumours from “off the record”, nameless contributors. Although that means we cannot be sure of the sources of the mischief, we suspect they are linked in some way to the author Tom Bower, who has made a living by trying to discredit famous personalities, including Richard. The Sunday Times has previous form in knocking Richard and various Virgin companies, including Virgin Galactic and has had a commercial relationship with Bower. So, despite the fact that we have vigorously rebuffed the points, we do expect the story to run and for it to maintain a negative stance.

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Virgin Galactic’s WhiteKnightTwo made a rare visit outside into the warm Mojave sun on Tuesday after months undergoing repairs and upgrades inside the FAITH hangar. SpaceShipTwo’s mother ship conducted some taxi tests of its new landing gear, Virgin Galactic reports. Sources tell me that when Scaled Composites turned over WhiteKnightTwo to Virgin Galactic in February, it did so with two known issues that Virgin was responsible for fixing. One was […]

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin. (Credit: A. Savin)

Briefing by Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin and Head of the Federal Space Agency Oleg Ostapenko on International Space Cooperation

Transcript

Dmitry Rogozin: Good afternoon. Our meeting today concerns certain issues related to international cooperation in the rocket and space industry and individual space services, for instance, navigation. These issues are related primarily to the US policy of imposing sanctions on Russia, including in such a sensitive sphere as space cooperation.

We’ve repeatedly warned our colleagues at the political and professional levels (via the Federal Space Agency) that sanctions are always a boomerang. They always come back around and are simply inappropriate in such sensitive spheres as cooperation in space exploration, production of spacecraft engines, and navigation, not to mention manned space flights. Sanctions are like releasing a bull in a china shop. That said, we’ve always built Russian policy on the following logic – a statement in response to a statement and a reaction following an action.

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NASA and United Launch Alliance have both issued formal statements on Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin’s announcement of an immediate ban on the export of RD-180 engines and the end of cooperation on the International Space Station in 2020. United Launch Alliance “ULA and our NPO Energomash supplier in Russia are not aware of any restrictions. However, if recent news reports are accurate, it affirms that SpaceX’s irresponsible actions […]