MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (Made in Space PR) — The first 3D printer bound for space passed a series of critical microgravity tests at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

Made in Space, the space manufacturing company, conducted examinations of their proprietary 3D printer technology during four microgravity flights lasting two hours each, simulating conditions found on the ISS.

The printer, as part of the 3D Print Experiment in coordination with NASA, is scheduled to arrive at the International Space Station (ISS) in 2014.

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The New York Times has a rather depressing story on the increasingly decrepit state of the Russian-run city of Baikonur, which supports the once-might cosmodrome where Yuri Gagarin roared off into space.

On a sultry desert evening, as bats fluttered about this town’s riverfront park, a man emerged from a reedy marsh carrying a bundle of grass tied with twine.

Setting it down to brush himself off, he explained that he was keeping a calf in the courtyard of an apartment building across town, where he had settled in recently after the previous occupants, engineers with the Russian space program, moved out.

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Video Caption: Stratolaunch Systems unveils a new design concept for its revolutionary space transportation system. Visit https://www.stratolaunch.com to learn more.

WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA announced Tuesday a Grand Challenge focused on finding all asteroid threats to human populations and knowing what to do about them.

The challenge is a large-scale effort that will use multi-disciplinary collaborations and a variety of partnerships with other government agencies, international partners, industry, academia, and citizen scientists. It complements NASA’s recently announced mission to redirect an asteroid and send humans to study it.

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AMSTERDAM (SXC PR) — It was on a beautiful spring night that members of the SXC team travelled to the south of the Netherlands to a little village called Deurne. This was in order to attend an event organised by one of SXC’s Founder Astronauts whom has proven himself, once more, to be a great ambassador of the exciting and noble cause that is Commercial Space.

Mr. Lodewijk-Jan Doensen, officially a medical doctor but truly a Space Advocate, was the master of ceremonies. A perfectly hosted event brought guests and attendees to rediscover the creation of the universe until the most recent developments in the space industry in which SXC is so strongly involved.

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Videos Caption: Static sugar motor test of the Sugar Shot to Space DoubleSShot test motor DSS TM-2-1. This was the same motor tested last month successfully as a two 6″ grain sugar motor. This test lso had a third grain located behind a Delrin mid bulkhead to be fired after the first two grains, propellant was sorbitol and KNO3. For more information, go to sugarshot.org And here are a sequence […]

Arkyd 100 spacecraft. (Credit: Planetary Resources)

SYDNEY, June 17th 2013 (Freelancer.com PR) — High value contests on Freelancer.com continue to achieve out of this world results for businesses.

Planetary Resources, a company dedicated to space exploration and resource discovery, has taken the first step towards making space accessible to everyone. Planetary Resources has turned to both crowdfunding and crowdsourcing, in partnership with Freelancer.com, to involve global communities in building, promoting and launching the first publicly accessible, orbiting space telescope, the ARKYD.

Planetary Resources, backed by visionaries Eric Schmidt, Larry Page and director James Cameron, has partnered with Freelancer.com to run a $7,000 “Design a T-Shirt” contest allowing every designer in the world to enter their designs and have the chance to become part of history.

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AJ26 test firing. (Credit: Aerojet)

Space News is quoting Aerojet Rocketdyne President Warren Boley as saying the engine that powers Orbital Sciences Corporation’s new Antares rocket can be put back into production at a reasonable cost, adding an interesting wrinkle to an on-going anti-trust investigation of rival United Launch Alliance.

Antares uses two Aerojet Rocketdyne AJ-26 engines to power its first stage. The AJ-26s are refurbished Soviet-era NK-33 engines built for that nation’s long abandoned manned lunar program. The NK-33 engines are in limited supply because they haven’t been in production for 40 years.

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HOUSTON (NASA PR) — After an extensive year-and-a-half search, NASA has a new group of potential astronauts who will help the agency push the boundaries of exploration and travel to new destinations in the solar system, including an asteroid and Mars. Eight candidates have been selected to be NASA’s newest astronaut trainees, hoping to be among those who are the first to launch from U.S. soil on commercial American spacecraft since the retirement of the space shuttle.

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Virgin Galactic Founder Richard Branson with Marsha Waters, the 600th ticketholder on SpaceShipTwo. (Credit: The Virgin Group)

LONDON (VIRGIN GALACTIC PR) – Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group and Virgin Galactic, announced Monday, June 17, that the company’s 600th Future Astronaut is Marsha Waters, the owner of an accounting services company based in Blackpool, United Kingdom. Waters, 42, embodies the next generation of women in space: private individuals who are passionate about experiencing space travel for themselves.

Waters first took an interest in Virgin Galactic in 2010 and has been following its progress ever since.

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