Sarah Brightman announces intention to become first ever global recording artist to take spaceflight
Space Adventures Press Release

Global recording artist and UNESCO Artist for Peace Ambassador, Sarah Brightman, announced today in Moscow her intention to launch on a future orbital spaceflight mission to the International Space Station (ISS) in partnership with Space Adventures, Ltd., the world’s leading space experiences company.

Brightman will be part of a three-person crew travelling to the ISS on board a Soyuz rocket. Once on the ISS, she will orbit the Earth 16 times daily and intends to become the first professional musician to sing from space. The final scheduling of her trip to the space station will be determined by Roscosmos and the ISS partners in the coming months.

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A taikonaut emerges from China’s Shenzhou 7 spacecraft after a successful orbital flight

PARIS, 8 October 2012 (ESA PR) — Wang Zhaoyao, Director General of the China Manned Space Agency, accompanied by the first Chinese female astronaut, Liu Yang, met ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain at the Agency’s headquarters in Paris on 8 October.

Mr Dordain congratulated Mr Wang on the successful Shenzhou-9 mission, stating how impressed he had been when learning of the flawless automatic and manual docking with Tiangong-1.

Following earlier discussions, the two sides have agreed to continue talking about possible avenues for cooperation between ESA and the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).

A delegation from CMSA and the Chinese Astronaut Centre will visit the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne in the near future with a view to sharing experiences in astronaut training.

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Well, midnight is almost upon us out here on the West Coast, marking the end of a day in the Mojave that was filled with cloudy skies, cool temperatures and various booms, sonic and otherwise. This means I will momentarily retire for the evening. But, before I do, I wanted to make a few predictions about a a couple of commercial space events that will be happening overnight that I […]

SpaceX CRS-1 Mission Update #2:  October 9, 2012 – as of 9:30 PM ET / 6:30 PM PT Dragon has continued today on track and is scheduled to begin its final approach to the International Space Station in the morning of Wednesday, October 10. Before capture, Dragon is required to pass a series of go/no-go points determined by Mission Control in Houston and the SpaceX team in Hawthorne. It will […]

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL. (October 9, 2012) – The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), the manager of the International Space Station (ISS) U.S. National Laboratory, announced today that December 27, 2012 is the new submission deadline for its “Materials Testing in the Extreme Environment of Space” Request for Proposals (RFP).

“Because of significant interest in this RFP, CASIS is extending the deadline for the Materials Science solicitation in order to make sure that everybody throughout the research community has ample time to ask questions and submit their proposals,” said CASIS Interim Executive Director Jim Royston.

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WhiteKnightTwo’s pilots are becoming very proficient in flying SpaceShipTwo’s mother ship while the tourism vehicle is fitted out for powered flights set to begin late this year. It’s mostly what they’ve been doing for the past month. There was one more flight, WhiteKnightTwo’s 100th, that was performed last Thursday, Oct. 4. That was the 8th anniversary of SpaceShipOne winning the Ansari X Prize, which was that last time anyone flew […]

Astronauts, Business Owners, and Space Leaders Agree: Obama Vision for Space Exploration Ensures a Brighter Future
Barack Obama Press Release

Sunday night’s successful SpaceX launch marks another extraordinary new milestone in space. It also provides an opportunity to assess the significant advances we’ve seen in just four years on Florida’s Space Coast.

When President Obama came into office, he inherited a human spaceflight program in crisis. The previous Administration’s decision to retire the Space Shuttle by 2010 was exacerbated by the lack of a viable follow-on program. In 2009, an independent commission concluded that the program to replace the Shuttle suffered such significant underinvestment and was so behind schedule that the first crewed flight to the International Space Station (ISS) would not occur until more than a year after the ISS was planned to be deorbited into the ocean.

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MOJAVE, Calif. — SSI is pleased to announce the publication of papers from the 14th Space Manufacturing Conference. Thirteen papers from the conference at the NASA Ames Research Center are now available for download at no cost. They cover a broad range of key areas including space transportation, closed environment life support systems, in-situresource utilization, space solar power, and emerging technologies such as 3-D printing.

Please see this page to download papers from Proceedings of Space Manufacturing 14.

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SpaceX CRS-1 Mission Update:  October 9, 2012 – 8:28AM ET The Dragon spacecraft continues to look great and all systems are performing nominally. Dragon spent yesterday executing a series of burns and is currently catching up to the International Space Station. The spacecraft is expected to begin its approach to the station on October 10, where it will be grappled and berthed by Akihiko Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency […]

MISSION SCRUBBED: The launch was scrubbed at 1:42 p.m. EDT/10:42 a.m. PDT due to high winds. LATEST UPDATE: The Red Bull Stratos mission is now set to launch from Roswell, NM at 1:15 EDT/10:15 PDT. The Red Bull Stratos mission has been delayed until 1:30 p.m. EDT/10:30 a.m. PDT due to wind restraints.