The Dragon spacecraft is secured before being transported back to a SpaceX facility. May 31, 2012. (SpaceX)

WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — In preparation for a summer 2014 test, NASA partner Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) recently laid out its plan to demonstrate the Dragon spacecraft’s ability to carry astronauts to safety in the event of an in-flight emergency.

This review of the in-flight abort test plan provided an assessment of the Dragon’s SuperDraco engines, the software that would issue the abort command, and the interface between the Dragon spacecraft and the Falcon 9 rocket on which the spacecraft will be launched.

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CASC — the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation — reports it has reached a milestone in its development of a new LOX methane rocket engine.

“Recently, a new generation of methane liquid oxygen rocket engine ignition system-wide test to be successful for the first time, signifying that our LOX methane engine development has reached the international advanced level,” according to a story by China Space News published on the CASC website.

The story (in Chinese) is here. You’ll have to open the page in Google Chrome (which has built-in translation) or run it through a translator.

SpaceX is developing a LOX methane engine that will be used as an upper stage for its Falcon rockets. The engine will be tested at the NASA Michoud facility in Mississippi.

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New Roscosmos head Oleg Nikolayevich Ostapenko has begun to make the rounds of his domain. On Thursday, he flew out to the Amur region to visit the new Vostochny Cosmodrome, which is set to host its first launch in 2015. Roscosmos reports that he viewed launch complexes and other structures now under construction and received a status update on the work. The following day, he was at JSC Information Satellite […]

Igor Komarov has been appointed the deputy head of the Federal Space Agency.  The appointed was made in a one-sentence announcement by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. Komarov was most recently head of Russia’s largest automaker, AvtoVAZ. Russian media originally reported that he would be appointed as head of the Unified Rocket and Space Corporation, a new company intended to absorb and consolidate a number of Russian space companies. Early scans […]

An Aerojet Rocketdyne engine burns hot during a test for the Boeing Company’s CST-100. The engine produced 40,000 lbs of thrust Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — The technologies NASA develops don’t just blast off into space. They also improve our lives here on Earth. Life-saving search-and-rescue tools, implantable medical devices, advances in commercial aircraft safety and efficiency, increased accuracy in weather forecasting, even the miniature cameras in our cell phones. For over fifty years, NASA has transferred its cutting-edge aerospace technologies to the private sector, helping create new commercial products, improve existing products, and boost the competitiveness of the U.S. economy.

Now NASA has joined forces with the product development startup Marblar (www.marblar.com) for a pilot program allowing the public to crowdsource product ideas for forty of NASA’s patents. This initiative will allow Marblar’s online community to use a portion of NASA’s diverse portfolio of patented technologies as the basis of new product ideas.

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Cygnus is released from the International Space Station. (Credit: NASA)

Dulles, VA, 23 October 2013 (ORB PR) – Orbital Sciences Corporation (NYSE: ORB), one of the world’s leading space technology companies, today confirmed that its Cygnus cargo logistics spacecraft reentered Earth’s atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean east of New Zealand at approximately 2:15 p.m. (EDT). Cygnus unberthed from the International Space Station (ISS) yesterday following its 23-day stay at the station. The successful conclusion to its demonstration mission also completes the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) joint research and development initiative with NASA. Orbital is now ready to begin regularly scheduled resupply flights to the station later this year as part of a $1.9 billion Cargo Resupply Services (CRS) contract with NASA.

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An AJ26 engine on a test stand at NASA Stennis.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Sen. Cochran PR) – U.S. Senator Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) today said the agreement signed today between the State of Mississippi and the commercial space company SpaceX bodes well for future job growth at and around NASA’s John C. Stennis Space Center in Hancock County.

Cochran commended the accord which will involve SpaceX investing in the E-2 test stand at Stennis to support engine research, development and testing of the firm’s Raptor methane rocket engines.  The agreement, signed by Governor Phil Bryant, also involved the Mississippi Development Authority, Hancock County Port and Harbor Commission and NASA.

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BOULDER, CO, October 23, 2013 (Golden Spike PR) – A two-day workshop led by Golden Spike—the world’s first company planning to undertake human lunar expeditions for countries and corporations around the world—attracted scientists from four continents who proposed exciting new human Moon mission concepts.

The workshop, held at the Lunar and Planetary Science Institute in Houston, Texas, focused on landing sites, sample returns, and aspirations of the international lunar scientific community.

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The Orion’s stage adapter diaphragm leaves a manufacturing facility at Janicki Industries in Hamilton, Wash., to be trucked to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. (Credit: Janicki Industries)

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (NASA PR) —  The design and fabrication of critical flight hardware that will be used to keep NASA’s Orion spacecraft safe during launch was recently completed at Janicki Industries in Hamilton, Wash. The hardware arrived Sept. 26 at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. for final preparations before Orion’s first mission planned for September 2014.

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