By Carolynne Campbell

On March 6th 2014, the Autodiverse team conducted the first live test firing of its new ‘Knights Arrow Bybrid © ‘ rocket engine.

The test was conducted in the ‘J1’ test bay, at Westcott UK, under the direction and with the assistance of ‘Airborne Engineering’, whose facility it is.

This is an entirely novel bi-propellant engine with an extremely simple but very efficient propellant injection and cooling methodology. It is the next engine in the development sequence that was begun with the Knights Arrow kerosene wick engine, which gave excellent performance but waslimited in its possible applications, as it lacked significant duration and required rebuilding between
firings.

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Artist’s conception of a Bigelow lunar habitat. (Credit: Bigelow Aerospace)

Washington, DC (SFF PR) – The Space Frontier Foundation is pleased to announce the creation of a new tool, the Settlement Enabling Test. This tool acknowledges that our fundamental goal in space exploration is large scale space settlement, and provides a way to determine if our national space policy is delivering on the promise of space settlement. This expands on our previous Frontier Enabling Test that has been with us since our founding.

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Atlas V with MAVEN aboard on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral. (Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett)

NASA has selected United Launch Services LLC of Centennial, Colo., to launch the Solar Orbiter Collaboration mission to study the sun in July 2017. The Solar Orbiter will launch on an Atlas V 411 rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.

The total cost for NASA to launch the Solar Orbiter is approximately $172.7 million, which includes the launch service, spacecraft processing, payload integration, tracking, data and telemetry and other launch support requirements.

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KRUIBEKE, Belgium (QinetiQ Space PR) — QinetiQ Space has signed a 1.1 million euro contract with the European Space Agency (ESA) for the development of a ground prototype water treatment unit to recycle urine and waste water for use in space.

The prototype will be used to develop a system that will be used in future space missions to treat water for re-use by astronauts to wash, or to be purified further to drinking water. The ground prototype and testing will ensure the future system works successfully in space, with a design that has to take into account the lack of gravity, the launch and the life expectancy of the components in different environments.

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Artist concept of the SLS in flight. (Credit: NASA)

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (NASA PR) – The team designing America’s new flagship rocket has completed successfully a major technical review of the vehicle’s core stage. NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) will take the agency’s Orion spacecraft and other payloads beyond low-Earth orbit, providing a new capability for human exploration.

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By Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

Mojave Air and Space Port’s former Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Erika Westawski, provided officials with 24 months of inaccurate accounting reports before resigning abruptly last month on the eve of a delayed audit, spaceport CEO and General Manager Stu Witt said on Tuesday.

The investigation into the inaccurate financial reports and Westawski’s sudden departure is continuing, Witt told the spaceport’s four directors during its monthly meeting. The independent auditors of Lance, Soll and Lunghard have been retained to review accounts, and a more detailed report is expected for the April board meeting, he added.

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The Mojave Air and Space Port’s Board of Directors is now down to four. Long-time board member Marie Walker has resigned, citing pressing business concerns, Board President Dick Rutan announced on Tuesday. Walker is founder and chief executive officer of Fiberset Inc., a composite manufacturing company located at the airport. A notice on the airport’s website says that the Board of Directors will appoint a replacement for Walker. The appointment […]

SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft. (Credit: NASA)

NASA has revealed the problem that has caused a two-week delay in SpaceX’s launch of its Dragon freighter to ISS, which has scheduled for March 16:

“Due to contamination found on the beta cloth shields in the SpaceX-3 unpressurized external trunk, the decision was made to move the launch of SpX-3 to later in the month.  The exact day of launch will be assessed by ground teams.  Specialists are reviewing options for addressing the contamination issue on the beta cloth shields.”

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Arianespace wants the U.S. market opened so that it can offer its launch vehicles to American customers. Arianespace has called for an opening of the U.S. government market to international launch services competition, with the company ready to bid for such opportunities. Speaking at the Satellite 2014 conference in Washington, D.C. today, Chairman & CEO Stéphane Israël said European governments have held competitions for civil and military satellites in which […]

Andrew Aldrin

Houston, TX, March 18th, 2014 (MoonEx PR) – Moon Express, Inc. (MoonEx) has named Dr. Andrew Aldrin as President, bringing his 20+ years of business leadership and policy experience in high-profile, aerospace companies to MoonEx as it undergoes accelerating growth on the back of rapid technological progress and business expansion. The announcement was made at the 45th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas.

Dr. Aldrin’s appointment happens as the company enters a watershed year of staff build-up and the construction and test its MX-1 lunar lander system in preparation for a maiden flight to the Moon in late 2015. The company has been successful at attracting high profile investors, raising over $15 million in equity financing since its founding in 2010, and continues on a solid financial path to meeting its corporate objective to become the first private company to reach the Moon. The company has grown to more than 40 employees between its NASA Ames Research Park headquarters in Silicon Valley and its propulsion development and test facilities in Huntsville, Alabama, making it the largest dedicated engineering staff in the U.S. focused solely on returning American spacecraft to the surface of the Moon for science, exploration and commerce.

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