Chris Hadfield (Credit: CSA)

Ottawa, Ontario, September 14, 2012 (CSA PR)— Can astronauts play hockey in space? Today astronaut Jeremy Hansen along with a grade 7 classroom, conducted a science experiment using a roll of scotch tape, pencils, a writing pad and a paper clip as part of an experiment to see if hockey could be played in zero-gravity. The hockey experiment is part of a new contest by the Canadian Space Agency that will see one lucky classroom’s experiment performed by Chris Hadfield aboard the International Space Station and streamed live on the Internet to the whole world, during a unique Earth to space connection at the winners’ school.

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WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA has selected 26 proposals from academia and industry for advanced development activities for the nation’s next heavy lift rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS). Proposals selected under this NASA Research Announcement (NRA) seek innovative and affordable solutions to evolve the launch vehicle from its initial configuration to its full lift capacity capable of sending humans farther into deep space than ever before.

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The space shuttle Endeavour and its Shuttle Carrier Aircraft made a low pass over Runway 8-26 at the Mojave Air and Space Port this morning at about 8:45 a.m. I joined a large crowd that gathered next to the Mojave control tower to watch the final space shuttle flight. Folks working at XCOR Aerospace, Scaled Composites, The Space Ship Company and Masten Space Systems watched  Endeavour fly over the spaceport […]

Gov. Jerry Brown

SACRAMENTO (Gov. Brown’s Office) -– Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today signed a bill to boost the commercial space-travel sector in California. Assembly Bill 2243 (Knight) limits liability for space-flight companies.

“California aerospace pioneers like Virgin Galactic, SpaceX and the Spaceship Company are blazing a path to the stars with commercial space travel,” said Governor Brown. “This bill allows commercial space-travel companies to innovate and explore without the worry of excessive liability.”

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NEW YORK, NY, Sept. 20, 2012 (Loral/MDA PR) — Loral Space & Communications Inc. today announced that Loral and MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (MDA) were notified today by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) that CFIUS had concluded its review and investigation of the proposed sale of Space Systems/Loral, Inc. (SS/L) by Loral to a subsidiary of MDA and determined that there are no unresolved national security concerns with respect to the transaction.

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Endeavour and the shuttle carrier aircraft over Houston (Credit: NASA)

NASA PR — Space shuttle Endeavour has returned to California, its state of origin, 21 years after rolling out of the Palmdale assembly facility. At 3:50 p.m. EDT, Endeavour, mounted atop NASA’s 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), landed at Edwards Air Force Base, just down the road from where it was built.

Following an overnight stay, the SCA and Endeavour will complete the ferry flight with a salute to the Edwards Air Force Base area early Friday. At 11 a.m. EDT (8 a.m. PDT), NASA Television will air the departure of Endeavour from Edwards as it begins its California flyover:

https://www.nasa.gov/ntv

They will take off at 8:15 a.m. PDT (11:15 a.m. EDT) and make low-altitude flyovers of Palmdale, Lancaster, Rosamond and Mojave before heading north to Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area.
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Dragon berthed at the International Space Station. (Credit: NASA)

HOUSTON (NASA PR) — NASA managers, Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) officials and international partner representatives Thursday announced Sunday, Oct. 7, as the target launch date for the first contracted cargo resupply flight to the International Space Station under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract.

International Space Station Program managers confirmed the status and readiness of the Falcon 9 rocket and its Dragon cargo spacecraft for the SpaceX CRS-1 mission, as well as the space station’s readiness to receive Dragon.

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By Douglas Messier
Parabolic Arc Managing Editor

The Congressmen who are calling for a radical reorganization of NASA believe shifting oversight to a board of directors co-appointed by the President and Congress, allowing the space agency’s administrator to serve a 10-year term, and altering the budget process would insulate NASA from political upheavals caused by changes in Administration and give it a more stable funding profile that would limit cost overruns and mismanagement.

The Congressman released a chart showing canceled human spaceflight development programs over the past two decades that they say have wasted more than $20 billion.  The chart, and the politics behind the proposed reforms, deserve some closer scrutiny. We’ll look at the chart in this post.

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WASHINGTON, DC (Press Release) – Today, Reps. John Culberson (TX-07), Frank Wolf (VA-10), Bill Posey (FL-15), Pete Olson (TX-22), James Sensenbrenner (WI-05) and Lamar Smith (TX-21), introduced the Space Leadership Preservation Act, legislation that will change business as usual at NASA and result in a more stable and accountable space program. The bill would create a 10-year term for the NASA Administrator to provide crucial stability of the leadership structure at NASA so that decisions are made based on science and are removed from the politics of changing administrations.

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The U.S. Air Force is opening up competition for Minotaur-class launches under its has reviewed the candidates under its Orbital/Suborbital Program-3 contract: SpaceX, Lockheed Martin, Orbital Sciences Corp. and ATK are all in the mix. United Launch Alliance (ULA), which operates a monopoly in the U.S. on large launchers, is not allowed to bid, as this program is being set aside for new entrants… The Air Force plans to select […]