Mojave Air and Space Port. (Credit: Douglas Messier)

The Mojave Air and Space Port’s Board of Directors has an opening to fill. Anyone living within the district who wants to serve on the five-member board has until Dec. 26 to submit a letter of interest.  The board expects to fill the open seat at its Jan. 15 meeting.

The board seat opened up earlier this year after member Cathy Hansen resigned for personal reasons. Although Hansen was re-elected, she will not serve the two-year term. Incumbent Jim Balentine lost his bid for re-election to Allen Petersen, who began his term on Tuesday.

Balentine has said that he plans to apply for the appointment.

The full notice of vacancy is reproduced below.

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MOJAVE, Calif. (Virgin Galactic PR) — SpaceShipTwo today undertook its 23rd glide flight in the pre-powered portion of its incremental test flight program. This was a significant flight as it was the first with rocket motor components installed, including tanks. It was also the first flight with thermal protection applied to the spaceship’s leading edges. It followed an equally successful test flight last Friday which saw SpaceShipTwo fly in this […]

My good friend Bill Deaver forwarded me this photo of SpaceShipTwo landing at Mojave this morning. This appears to be the first glide flight with both the nitrous oxide tank installed and a nozzle on the back end. The picture above shows a closer look at the rocket nozzle. Reports indicate that the nozzle appears to be bolted on to the back of SpaceShipTwo. There is a round pipe that […]

A very reliable source tells me that SpaceShipTwo successfully completed a glide flight this morning at the Mojave Air and Space Port. The craft glided to a landing before 8 a.m. PST. Engineers recently installed the nitrous oxide tank in the 8-person suborbital spaceship. Drop flights are required to determine the vehicle’s new center of gravity and to test the venting of the nitrous oxide. These are possible objectives for […]

ARLINGTON, VA (AIA PR) — AIA congratulates conferees on the fiscal year 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (H. R. 4310) for completing their work and producing a final conference agreement that supports our warfighters and helps sustain our defense industrial base in a time of uncertainty.  We urge the House and Senate to pass the agreement and President Obama to sign it into law.

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We now know what DARPA had in mind for payloads when it launched its Airborne Launch Assist Space Access (ALASA) program, which is aimed at being able to quickly launch 100 pound satellites into orbit for $1 million apiece.

Darpa’s goal is to show that a constellation of 24 satellites, each weighing less than 100 lb., can be launched into low Earth orbit (LEO) at a fraction of the cost of acquiring additional unmanned aircraft to provide the same imagery.

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Airship Ventures has flown off into the sunset for the last time. Apparently the company couldn’t make a business out of charging people $500 an hour for riding in a Zeppelin over Silicon Valley. The airship was based out of NASA Ames.

Florida Senator Bill Nelson

By Douglas Messier
Parabolic Arc Managing Editor

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) have introduced legislation that would give NASA the long-term goal of creating a permanent human presence beyond low-Earth orbit space and the responsibility of submitting a plan to do so next year.

The bill is being opposed by NASA’s largest federal employee union, the International Federation of Professional Engineers (IFPTE). In a letter to Senators, the union says the measure is “a flawed and unbalanced effort to improperly prioritize a few outsourced and offshored activities, while neglecting NASA’s internal core capabilities and other critical needs.”

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Cygnus modules in preparation for flight. (Credit: Orbital Sciences Corporation)

An update from Orbital Sciences Corporation:

As the year draws to a close there are now three substantially complete Cygnus Service Modules in Orbital’s Dulles, Virginia Satellite Manufacturing Facility (see photo below). In addition to the integration and testing of the spacecraft, the program has achieved a number of key milestones in the last few months:

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By Douglas Messier
Parabolic Arc Managing Editor

Satellite export reform is included in the final version of the $633 million defense bill agreed to in conference by House and Senate leaders on Tuesday. Speaking the same day in Mojave, Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) Chairman Stu Witt said  the federation would help lead the effort for additional measures next year.

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