HOUSTON (NASA & SpaceX PR) — NASA Television will provide live coverage of the release and departure of SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft from the International Space Station on Sunday, Oct. 28. Coverage will begin at 6 a.m. CDT and conclude approximately three hours later after Dragon has left the vicinity of the orbiting laboratory.

Space station Expedition 33 Commander Sunita Williams and Flight Engineer Akihiko Hoshide will be at the controls of the space station’s robotic arm as they back Dragon away from the complex. Dragon is scheduled to be released by the crew at 8:26 a.m. CDT.
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SpaceX has been granted an experimental permit for its Grasshopper test vehicle, which is designed to test reusable technologies for the Falcon 9 rocket. Under the permit, SpaceX authorized to conduct: (1) An unlimited number of flights of the Grasshopper Reusable Launch Vehicle within the operating area identified by permit order A; and (2) Pre-flight and post-flight ground operations at McGregor Test Site associated with flight of the Grasshopper Reusable […]

An update on hypersonic vehicle development in India: India is planning to conduct the first flight trial of its Hypersonic Technology Demonstrator Vehicle (HSTDV) in the next 12 to 18 months, according to Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) officials. The HSTDV programme aims to produce a hydrocarbon-fuelled scramjet test article capable of Mach 6-7 and autonomously guided flight. The HSTDV will pave the way for a hypersonic cruise missile […]

Congratulations to SpaceX Founder Elon Musk and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, whom Popular Mechanics has honored with 2012 Breakthrough Awards. Musk was honored with the Leadership Award for his work in space and on electric automobiles. The magazine wrote: Elon Musk, the man, has every reason to be nervous. At 41, the South African-born billionaire has staked his fortune on businesses that could reshape the future—or implode spectacularly. After creating […]

Will Whitehorn gives a pat on the back to Richard Branson as he greets Virgin Galactic ticketholders during the Oshkosh air show in 2009.

By Douglas Messier
Parabolic Arc Managing Editor

Eight years after launching the SpaceShipTwo program, Virgin Group Founder Richard Branson is beginning to sound a bit impatient with progress even as the first powered tests of the 8-person space plane appear imminent. The Associated Press reports from Warsaw, Poland:

He says it will be at least another 12 or 18 months before the Virgin Galactic venture can offer paid space travel to adventurers….

Asked about Virgin Galactic, Branson said he has “stopped counting” days to the launch because it gets delayed “to the next year, to the next year.”

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NPO Energomash says it completed the fifth live firing of its new RD-193 experimental rocket engine last week, completing the first phase of a project that could have impacts on the launch industry in Russia and the United States.

The new 200-ton thrust, liquid oxygen-kerosene engine is an upgraded version of the RD-191 engine that incorporates a number of new welds and other improvements. It is 300 kilograms (661 pounds) lighter and 760 millimeters (30 inches) shorter than the RD-191 engine, which will be used in the Angara family of rockets set to fly next year. The RD-193 can be attached to gimbals or fixed to the body of the rocket.

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The fourth and final X-51A Waverider hypersonic vehicle is being prepared for a test flight set for late next spring or early summer, the U.S. Air Force announced on Wednesday. Investigators have also identified the likely cause of a failed flight two months ago.

Preliminary results from an investigation into what went wrong during the August flight indicate that a “random vibration issue” caused one of the control fins to deploy early, the X-51 program manager at the Air Force Research Laboratory, Charlie Brink, told reporters on a conference call.

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WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA has selected 10 university-led proposals for study of innovative, early-stage space technologies designed to improve shielding from space radiation, spacecraft thermal management and optical systems. The 1-year grants are worth approximately $250,000 each, with an additional year of research possible.

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Computer generated image showing the debris cloud around Earth.

The decaying Russian space program continues to cause serious problems for the world:

A Russian Breeze M rocket stage, left with loaded fuel tanks after an August launch failure, exploded in orbit Oct. 16, raising concerns of the U.S. military, NASA and global satellite operators on the lookout for collision threats from hundreds of new space debris fragments.

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Video Caption: RT’s Tom Barton interviews Eric Anderson, a leading US space entrepreneur, on the prospects of space tourism in the near future.