Virgin Galactic CEO and President George Whitesides has announced a spaceflight contest for one lucky resident of the United Arab Emirates: “Aabar Investments and Virgin Galactic are pleased to announce they have opened up one slot for an Emirati to travel into space onboard Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo. These slots currently sell for $250 000. So, you can imagine it’s a huge opportunity for the lucky winner. Aabar Investments will be […]
AUTHOR
Doug Messier
Engineers in the Operations and Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, perform avionics testing on the Orion spacecraft being prepared for its first trip to space later this year. (Credit: Lockheed Martin)
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. (NASA PR) — NASA’s Orion spacecraft has proven its mettle in a test designed to determine the spacecraft’s readiness for its first flight test — Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) — later this year. EFT-1 will send the spacecraft more than 3,600 miles from Earth and return it safely.
Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides speaks to current and prospective employees during Virgin Galactic’s recent career fair at Mojave Air and Spaceport in California. (Credit: Virgin Galactic)
Virgin Galactic CEO and President George Whitesides says he plans to be on a SpaceShipTwo test flight later this year:
Whitesides said at the Aerospace Summit at the start of April that he would take one of the latter test flights, before his boss took off on the first commercial space flight with his family.
“Sir Richard [Branson] flying on the first commercial flight has been a great sign to our customers that we’re not going to let him fly until we think it’s ready. Correspondingly, I think I should fly soon before Richard just to make sure that he knows that I fully believe in the technology,” he said.
This is a bit odd. But, it seems to be the VG way.
Four RS-25 engines, like the one pictured undergoing a hot-fire test, will power the core stage of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) — NASA’s new heavy-lift launch vehicle. (Credit: NASA)
STENNIS SPACE CENTER, Miss. (NASA PR) — The RS-25 engine that will power NASA’s new rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), off the launch pad and on journeys to an asteroid and Mars is getting ready for the test stand. And it is packing a big punch.
Engineers at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Miss., are now focusing their attention on preparing the RS-25 engine after completing testing of the J-2X engine April 10. Four RS-25 engines, previously known as space shuttle main engines, will muscle the core stage of SLS for each of its missions. Towering more than 200 feet tall with a diameter of 27.6 feet, the core stage will store cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen that will feed the vehicle’s RS-25s.
George Whitesides
Aabar Investments, the Abu Dhabi government company which owns 37.8 percent of Virgin Galactic, release the following Q&A today with Galactic CEO and President George Whitesides.
What brings you to the UAE?
We’re here for two events. The first was the Global Aerospace Summit. Secondly, we had a board meeting with our fellow Virgin Galactic shareholders, Aabar Investments, in their parent company’s, International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC), HQ building.
Is this your first time in Abu Dhabi?
We are co-owned by Virgin Group and Abu Dhabi’s Aabar Investments. Naturally, with significant Abu Dhabi ownership, represented on our Board, we have been frequent visitors since Aabar made its initial investment in [2010]. We are very proud of our Emirati connections and continue to benefit from Aabar Investments’ ownership.
NASA PR — ISS Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, with the assistance of NASA’s Rick Mastracchio, successfully berthed the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft at the space station at 9:06 a.m. EDT. The mission is the company’s third cargo delivery flight to the station. Dragon’s cargo will support more than 150 experiments to be conducted by the crews of ISS Expeditions 39 and 40. The scientific payloads on […]
Outredgeous red romaine lettuce plants grow inside in a prototype Veggie flight pillow. The bellows of the hardware have been lowered to better observe the plants. A small temperature and relative humidity data logger is placed between the pillows small white box, central. (Credit: NASA/Gioia Massa)
By Linda Herridge
NASA’s Kennedy Space Center
A plant growth chamber bound for the International Space Station inside the Dragon capsule on the SpaceX-3 resupply mission may help expand in-orbit food production capabilities in more ways than one, and offer astronauts something they don’t take for granted, fresh food.
NASA’s Veg-01 experiment will be used to study the in-orbit function and performance of a new expandable plant growth facility called Veggie and its plant “pillows.” The investigation will focus on the growth and development of “Outredgeous” lettuce seedlings in the spaceflight environment.
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL. (April 18, 2014) – The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) is proud to announce several sponsored research payloads have launched to the International Space Station (ISS) onboard Space Exploration Technology Corporation’s (SpaceX) Dragon cargo capsule. This marks the second series of investigations headed to the station that are sponsored by CASIS, the nonprofit responsible for managing research onboard the ISS U.S. National Laboratory.
Research on this flight includes multiple protein crystallization projects supported by grant funding from the first CASIS request for proposals, awarded in late 2012 and early 2013. In all, five of the funded protein crystallization researchers saw their investigations launch on this flight to the ISS National Lab. These investigators are evaluating various proteins involved in human health: the protein responsible for Huntington’s disease; proteins involved in other neurodegenerative conditions, Cystic Fibrosis, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and other aliments; and membrane proteins involved in drug effectiveness.
Flight computers continued transmitting for 8 seconds after reaching the water. Stopped when booster went horizontal. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 19, 2014