Is Roscosmos head Vladimir Popovkin on the way out? Russia media are reporting that Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev officially reprimanded Popovkin for incompetence on Friday following a series of embarrassing launch failures. The official reprimand essentially represents a warning to Roscosmos chief Vladimir Popovkin that he faces the sack if he does not rectify the stated shortcomings in his work. “The head of the federal space agency Vladimir Popovkin must […]
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Doug Messier
John Carmack
As had been rumored for several months now, Armadillo Aerospace is currently inactive. Jeff Foust at NewSpace Journal reports that company is essentially out of money and is currently in “hibernation.”
“The situation that we’re at right now is that things are turned down to sort of a hibernation mode,” Carmack said Thursday evening at the QuakeCon gaming conference in Dallas. “I did spin down most of the development work for this year” after the crash, he said.
SpaceShipTwo in powered flight. (Credit: Virgin Galactic)
This week, the The FAA has on its website lists of the 216 licensed and 28 permitted launches the agency has approved since 1989. They provide fascinating insights into the state of the U.S. launch industry during that period.
In this excerpt, we will examine permitted and licensed “NewSpace” suborbital launches by Armadillo Aerospace, Blue Origin, Scaled Composites and SpaceX. We will see how prizes and competitions have helped to spur on launch vehicle development, the long gaps that can follow initial spurts of progress as companies take the next steps, and how few flights some billionaires are actually getting for their money.
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WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA has achieved a major milestone in its effort to build the nation’s next heavy-lift launch vehicle by successfully completing the Space Launch System (SLS) preliminary design review.
Deputy NASA Administrator Lori Garver
Last week, NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver met with reporters after giving a keynote address at the NewSpace 2013 Conference in San Jose, Calif. Below is an excerpt of the conversation relating to the space Agency’s Commercial Crew program.
Parabolic Arc will run other excerpts from the discussion on the Asteroid Retrieval Mission and International Space Station in the days ahead.
Q. On a little different subject from the asteroid mission, you talked about commercial crew. In the past, you know you’ve talked for the need for full funding for commercial crew in FY 14. If you end up with something closer to what the House is offering, $500 million, or worse a CR [continuing resolution] and another round of sequestration, what does that do to the program looking forward? Can you protect the 2017 date [for commercial service] any longer, or does it shift out?
A note via the Commercial Spaceflight Federation from NASA’s Flight Opportunities program on a new research on human health and safety in space. This is the first time that NASA has included the use of suborbital reusable launch vehicles.
An astronaut performs an experiment aboard the International Space Station. (Credit: NASA)
WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA’s Physical Science Research Program will fund eight proposals to help investigate how complex fluids and macromolecules behave in microgravity. The investigations will be conducted aboard the International Space Station.
For anyone who missed this art exhibit when it was down in Riverside, you can now catch it at the Museum of Art and History in Lancaster starting on Saturday. August 3, 2013 – October 13, 2013 First Floor | Main Gallery Public reception Saturday, August 3, 4-6pm. Free Enterprise: The Art of Citizen Space Exploration is the first contemporary art exhibition in the U.S. to present an international array […]
Video Caption: The Boeing Company evaluated tools, equipment and procedures it could use if the CST-100 spacecraft is required to make a water landing. The testing included a full-scale mockup of the spacecraft floating in a specialized facility operated by Bigelow Aerospace near Las Vegas. The CST-100 is one of three spacecraft under development in partnership with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. The others are the SpaceX Dragon and Sierra Nevada […]
Space News has taken a closer look at XCOR’s piston driven rocket engine technology: With backing from United Launch Alliance (ULA), privately owned XCOR Aerospace is working on a type of piston engine for a prospective upper-stage rocket motor that is similar to what is used in cars and motorcycles. “It’s a dramatically different kind of upper-stage engine,” said Jim Sponnick, ULA vice president of Atlas and Delta programs. “Instead […]