San Francisco, March 8, 2013 (DIYROCKETS/Sunglass PR) – Today DIYROCKETS and Sunglass are announcing a partnership to launch the world’s first open source competition to create 3D printed rocket engines through collaborative design.

The competition opens for registration at South By Southwest (SXSW) on March 9, and challenges makers, designers and space entrepreneurs to create open source rocket engines that will serve the growing market for small payload delivery into low earth orbit and ultimately, disrupt the space transportation industry.

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Greetings from the Mojave! It rained earlier today, giving the desert a bit of badly needed relief — we’re in a severe drought here — and covering the mountains in snow. It’s quite nice to stand on the desert floor and look up at snow-covered peaks partly obscured by thick clouds. A bit of news: Scaled Composites did another test firing of its engine for SpaceShipTwo this morning. Reports indicate […]

Kevin Mickey

FALLS CHURCH, Va., Jan. 31, 2013 (Scaled Composites PR) — Scaled Composites, a wholly owned subsidiary of Northrop Grumman Corporation, announced today that it has named Kevin Mickey president and Cory Bird vice president, effective immediately.

“Kevin and Cory have been instrumental in keeping the trains of innovation moving for over 20 years,” said Paul Meyer, vice president and general manager of Advanced Programs Development at Northrop Grumman. “I am confident in their ability to continue the great work that started it all, bringing ingenuity and perseverance to realize concepts never before thought possible.”

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Video Caption Problem: If humanity is to move off Earth and become an interplanetary species, it will need an economic reason to do so. Solution: Near-earth asteroids contain (literally) trillions of dollars worth of resources and materials that could be harvested and brought back to Earth. A number of them are also energetically easier to get to than the surface of the Moon. That tremendous bounty creates a huge incentive […]

Antares on the launch pad on Wallops Island. (Credit: Orbital Sciences Corporation)

By Douglas Messier
Parabolic Arc Managing Editor

With the first launch of Orbital Sciences Corporation’s Antares rocket set for about a month from now, I thought this would be a good opportunity to take a closer look about both the launch vehicle and the Cygnus freighter that will carry cargo to the International Space Station later this year.

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Sir Richard Branson and daughter, Holly, look through the window of a SpaceShipTwo shell. (Photo credit: Mark Greenberg/Virgin Galactic)

Wired UK has a story on Richard Branson and Virgin Galactic. It’s actually a really good piece that goes through the whole history of the program up to the preparations for powered flights later this year.

The article documents in detail the years of delay, massive cost overruns, engine problems and the tragic deaths of Scaled Composites engineers along the way. You’ll be happy to know that despite all those setbacks, Branson has lost none of his bravado or disdain for competition he can barely acknowledge exists:

But Branson is confident that Galactic is years ahead of anyone else. “In this field we don’t really have any competitors. Land based take-off — they can never compete with us for people going into space,” he says. “And spaceship companies where people have to parachute back to Earth — that’s the old technology. I may be being naïve — there may be somebody doing something very secretive which we don’t know about — but my guess is that we are five or six years ahead of any competitor.”

Seriously?

Oh, good grief. Naïve is not the word for this…

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Texas State Rep. Rene Oliveira has introduced legislation that would allow for the closing of public beaches to accommodate space flight activities. The bill is designed to support operations at the launch facility that SpaceX is considering building near Brownsville. The legislation requires special approval of the General Land Office for any launch dates on: the Saturday or Sunday preceding Memorial Day; Memorial Day July 4 Labor Day a Saturday […]

Despite abundant evidence that America already has far too many spaceports and far too few launches, Houston Airport System officials are going forward with a plan to obtain a spaceport license for Ellington Field.

Director Mario Diaz on Wednesday said the system is officially moving forward with a plan to turn Ellington Airport into one of the nation’s first spaceports and is seeking certification from the Federal Aviation Administration.

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Commercial Crew Program Status Update Throughout the next several weeks, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) will talk with NASA engineers about the systems necessary to support crewed flights in the company’s Dragon capsule. Currently, SpaceX has an uncrewed Dragon capsule at the International Space Station on a cargo resupply mission for the space agency, delivering supplies supporting more than 200 experiments under way on the orbiting laboratory. The systems the teams […]

By Douglas Messier
Parabolic Arc Managing Editor

The Mojave Air and Space Port expects to re-open the rebuilt Runway 4/22 by April 1, approximately one month ahead of schedule.

Meanwhile, efforts to extend utilities to the test sites on the north side of the airport and to transform Building 137 into a community center are proceeding apace.

Mojave Spaceport CEO Stu Witt said the rapid progress on Runway 4/22 has been assisted by good weather over the winter months. He expects that work will be completed by the end of this month.

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