The state of Florida and emerging South American economic power Brazil spent the month of October strengthening their economic ties, with a particular focus on aerospace cooperation. The activities included an exchange of trade missions and the announcement that Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer will expand its operations in Melbourne, bringing 600 jobs to Florida’s hard-hit Space Coast.

The following stories are excerpted from Space Florida’s most recent newsletter.

Florida-Brazil Trade Mission Results in Business Development Leads

In early October, Space Florida President Frank DiBello had the opportunity to conduct a trade mission to Brazil, meeting with 20+ high-tech and aerospace executives that expressed interest in doing business in the United States. The mission was hosted by the Brazil-Florida Chamber of Commerce.

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Astronaut Mike Hopkins Checks Out SPHERES-RINGS In the International Space Station’s Kibo laboratory, NASA astronaut Michael Hopkins, Expedition 37 flight engineer, conducts a session with a pair of bowling-ball-sized free-flying satellites known as Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites, or SPHERES. Surrounding the two SPHERES mini-satellites is ring-shaped hardware known as the Resonant Inductive Near-field Generation System, or RINGS. SPHERES-RINGS seeks to demonstrate wireless power transfer between satellites at […]

The Mojave Transportation Museum Foundation Presents Plane Crazy Saturday Mojave Air and Space Port Saturday, November 16, 2014 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. This is a historical aircraft display day and free family ‘educational’ event – kids are especially welcome! Doors will be open between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Breakfast and lunch is available in the Voyager Restaurant. The restaurant opens at 8 a.m. Monthly Speaker Glenn Stearns Title: […]

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL., November 14, 2013 (CASIS PR) – The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), the nonprofit organization promoting and managing research and technology development onboard the International Space Station (ISS) U.S. National Laboratory will host the inaugural education event, “CASIS Academy Live” at the Space Life Sciences Lab and Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex on Friday, November 15. Local high school students will spend the day interacting with CASIS Senior Research Pathway Manager Dr. Mike Roberts and former NASA astronaut Wendy B. Lawrence, touring research facilities and conducting a laboratory experiment focused on microbes in space.

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STONY BROOK, NY (SUNY Stony Brook PR) – Stony Brook is headed to outer space—virtually. The University has been selected as the lead institution for one of NASA’s nine new Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI) teams that will bring researchers together in a virtual setting to focus on space science and human space exploration.

The Stony Brook project, “Remote, In Situ and Synchrotron Studies for Science and Exploration” (RIS4E), led by Timothy Glotch, associate professor in the Department of Geosciences at Stony Brook, is composed of 13 institutions in the US, Canada, and the United Kingdom, and will tackle scientific questions about the Moon, near-earth asteroids, and the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos.

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All the promise, perils and contradictions of America’s human spaceflight effort were on display earlier this week in Washington, D.C.

Things were looking good for a day or so, but then the proverbial other shoe dropped to remind everyone of the deep trouble that lies ahead as NASA attempts to restore its human spaceflight capability and send astronauts beyond low Earth orbit.

As NASA struggles to execute a series of ambitious programs on increasingly tight budgets, the main beneficiary appears to be the bumbling, crisis prone Russian space agency Roscosmos, which has reaped a financial windfall as a result of America’s equally bumbling human spaceflight policy. And matters could get worse before they get better (for NASA, at least).

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A hybrid motor hot fire conducted at a Mojave test site in January 2013. (Credit: Douglas Messier)

Engineers have been busy over the last three months conducting 9 ground tests of SpaceShipTwo’s hybrid engines. At least one of these tests was of an alternative to rubber/nitrous oxide engine design that SpaceShipTwo has been using to conduct powered test flights.

RocketMotorTwo Hot-Fire Test Summaries
Via Scaled Composites

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Video Caption: Ancient riverbeds, crater lakes and flood channels all attest to Mars’s warm, watery past. So how did the Red Planet evolve from a once hospitable world into the cold, dry desert that we see today? One possibility is that Mars lost its early atmosphere, allowing its water to escape into space, and NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft will investigate just that. On September 25, 2013, […]

Aboard Spacelab-1 during STS-9 in 1983 are, from left, Mission Specialist Robert Parker, Payload Specialist Byron Lichtenberg, Mission Specialist Owen Garriott and Payload Specialist Ulf Merbold. (Credit: NASA)

By Jessica Eagan
International Space Station Program Science Office
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center

Rewind to the year 1983. NASA astronaut Sally Ride is the first American woman to visit the depths of the universe. Guion Bluford is the first African-American astronaut in space. Microsoft Word is first released. Michael Jackson performs the popular dance move forever known as the “Moonwalk.” Also 30 years ago on Nov. 28: The launch of Spacelab-1, a reusable laboratory with a legacy that still lives on through the International Space Station.

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Space Expedition Corporation (SXC) has teamed up with Alchemy Tourism in Dubai to market XCOR Lynx tickets in the United Arab Emirates. Officials from the Dutch company were in Dubai earlier this week to keep off the effort, which seeks to tap into a wealthy nation where rival Virgin Galactic has raised the bulk of the funds for its SpaceShipTwo vehicle. You can read about SXC’s expansion into UAE in […]