This conceptual image shows NASA’s Orion spacecraft approaching the robotic asteroid capture vehicle. The trip from Earth to the captured asteroid will take Orion and its two-person crew an estimated nine days. (Credit: NASA)
WASHINGTON, DC (NASA PR) — NASA has chosen 96 ideas it regards as most promising from more than 400 submitted in response to its June request for information (RFI) about protecting Earth from asteroids and finding an asteroid humans can explore.
Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin. (Credit: A. Savin)
Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin on Wednesday announced the complete re-nationalization of the Russian aerospace industry, which was partly privatized after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991:
The United Rocket and Space Corporation, to be formed as a joint-stock company, will contain all organizations in the aerospace industry, with the exception of a few defense companies, he said. Plans for the restructuring were first announced in July.
Consolidation will help the government pursue a “unified technical policy” in the space sector as well as remove current redundancies and avoid potential ones, Rogozin said, adding that the new corporation would absorb 33 space organizations, including 16 enterprises.
Evry, France, September 4, 2013 (Arianespace PR) — Following the first meeting of the joint government-industry committee on space, the French Minister of Higher Education and Research announced that the government was allocating 25 million euros [$33 million] to an upgrade of the Ariane 5 launcher, within the scope of France’s Investment Program for the Future (Programme d’Investissements d’Avenir, or PIA).
LAS CRUCES, N.M. (ISPCS PR) – Officials with the 2013 International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight (ISPCS), today announced that the second day of the symposium continues with examining risks and rewards for existing platforms for innovation in the space industry like the International Space Station (ISS), the emerging new platforms for innovation like Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo and SpaceX’s Grasshopper.
Land Launch Zenit booster
The problem-plagued Zenit launch vehicle returned to flight on Saturday with the successful launch of the Israeli Amos-4 communications satellite from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The 3.5-ton satellite, which was built by Israel Aerospace Industries for Israeli operator Spacecom, will deliver Ka- and Ka-band communications to the portions of the Middle East, Russia and south and east Asia.
This is the first successful flight of the rocket since the failure of a Sea Launch Zenit-3SL on Feb. 1. The launch vehicle crashed into the Pacific Ocean shortly after take-off when its first stage failed, taking the Intelsat 27 satellite down with it.
The Zenit launch vehicle, which has a success rate of just over 85 percent, was originally intended for multiple uses. Four Zenits were attached to the core of the giant Energia launch system designed to lift the Buran space shuttle into orbit. Zenits were also designed to fly separately as a replacement for the Soyuz booster for manned flights and as a satellite launcher.
In the video above, NASA Deputy Associate Administrator Dan Dumbacher lays out the nominal launch schedule for the heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS). There will be an unmanned test in 2017, followed by a test with a crew aboard four years later. SLS will then be launched every other year (2023, 2025, etc.). Dumbacher says that NASA is examining whether the system could be launched once a year.
In a separate interview with the Houston Chronicle, former NASA manned space flight director Chris Kraft says that SLS will never become a reliable human-rated booster even if the space agency can manage one launch per year.
Kraft also says that the costs of building and operating SLS, along with the low flight rate, will prevent NASA from actually doing anything in deep space.
REXUS 11 launch (Credit: ESA)
PARIS (ESA PR) — The opportunity to fly experiments high into the stratosphere or even to the edge of space is now open again for university students. Up to 10 teams will be selected to fly a balloon experiment during autumn 2014 or a rocket experiment in spring 2015.
The opportunity is open to university students from the ESA Member States and Cooperating States. The experiments will be carried on sounding rockets and stratospheric balloons launched from the Esrange Space Center in Northern Sweden.
This week on The Space Show with Dr. David Livingston: 1. Monday, Sept. 2, 2013, 2-3:30 PM PDT (5-6:30 PM EDT, 4-5:30 PM CDT): We welcome back SIR MARTIN REES to discuss starships, extra-solar planets, SpaceX, quasars, etc. Sir Martin will be in California soon for the meeting celebrating the 50th anniversary of discovery of quasars and he will be talking about this as well. 2. Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2013, […]
A welder at NASA’s Stennis Space Center works on a portion of piping to be installed on the A-1 Test Stand for RS-25 rocket engine testing. (Credit: NASA/SSC)
BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss. (NASA PR) — Think about negotiating an intricate maze, and you begin to appreciate the challenge of designing and fabricating test stand piping for NASA’s RS-25 rocket engine.
NASA is meeting that challenge at its Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Miss., where liquid oxygen (LOX), liquid hydrogen and related piping is being produced for RS-25 engine testing on the A-1 test stand. Testing of the core-stage engine for NASA’s new Space Launch System (SLS) is scheduled to begin next spring. The SLS is being developed to carry humans deeper into space than ever before.
Video Caption: NASA’s Orion, Space Launch System and Ground Systems Development and Operations programs continued to make progress towards sending humans beyond Earth’s orbit during the past quarter.
