RICHMOND (Governor’s Office PR)– Governor Bob McDonnell today announced that the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority (“VCSFA”) and Dulles, Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corporation (“Orbital”) have reached a new agreement to govern their working relationship and allocation of assets at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (“MARS”). Pursuant to an earlier agreement entered into in 2008, Orbital partnered with the VCSFA to develop and construct improvements to the liquid-fuel-capable launch facility at MARS in order to accommodate launches of Orbital’s Antares™ rocket. These improvements are expected to be completed later this month.
AUTHOR
Doug Messier
AUSTIN, TX, SEPT 17, 2012 (TXA PR) – The Texas Space Alliance (TXA) is proud to announce our 2013 Texas Legislative Agenda. The TXA began last year with a legislative victory, assisting Blue Origin with a Space Flight Limited Liability Law, and is now ready to help Texas ‘up the ante’ to help achieve goals in space worthy of our Great State. The Limited Liability Law, similar to one passed in Virginia, was a starting point to remake Texas into the undisputed leader in the development of space enterprises at the State level.
Russia Behind the Headlines has a detailed story on the problems besetting that nation’s space program. In brief, Roscosmos is too small, the industry it oversees is too large, the workforce is too old, the technology is decrepit, and there’s not enough money to fund anything very ambitious.
Other than that, things are not bad…
Personnel from NASA’s Johnson Space Center and Kennedy Space Center practice recovering Orion’s parachutes at the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory in Houston. Photo credit: NASA
WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — They were perhaps some of the most visible images of the end of each Apollo mission: Giant orange and white parachutes unfurled high above the spacecraft, gently descending toward the ocean. As NASA continues to build the Orion spacecraft and head toward its first unmanned test flight in 2014, it will once again descend under parachutes to a water landing. But even though the orange and white chutes remain, their design and testing is quite different than in the past.
Mitt Romney. (Credit: Gage Skidmore)
By Douglas Messier
Parabolic Arc Managing Editor
NASA’s budget is facing deep cuts in January from two sources: sequestration and Mitt Romney.
If President Obama and Congress cannot work out a deal, sequestration will cut NASA’s budget by 8 percent or $1.458 billion in early January, according to a new report issued by the White House.
Meanwhile, Romney has promised if elected to send a bill to Congress on his first day in office, Jan. 20, that would slash non-security discretionary spending across the board. If the measure approved, it would result in a reduction of nearly $900 million from the space agency’s budget.
This is an artist’s conception of Boeing’s CST-100 spacecraft separating from the first stage of its launch vehicle, a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, following liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. (Credit: Boeing)
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. (NASA PR) — The Boeing Company completed its first performance milestone Aug. 23 for NASA’s Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) initiative, which is intended to lead to the availability of human spaceflight transportation services for government and commercial customers.
In its Integrated Systems Review (ISR), Boeing presented the latest designs of its CST-100 spacecraft, United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket launch system, and ground and mission operations. These designs will serve as the baseline for further development work to be accomplished during CCiCap. The company also discussed its plans for safety and mission assurance, which ultimately will contribute to achieving certification of the system for human spaceflight.
(more…)
Statement by Marion C. Blakey, President and CEO, Aerospace Industries Association Arlington, Va. — The “OMB Report Pursuant to the Sequestration Transparency Act of 2012” released today is the final nail in the coffin for pollyannas still pretending that sequestration wouldn’t be that bad. Indeed, it confirms what virtually every expert to study the problem has found — that such abrupt, indiscriminate cuts would be an economic and policy disaster for […]
Via Clark Lindsey at NewSpace Watch: A Texas woman has sued Art Dula and Excalibur Almaz over for allegedly defrauding her and her late husband in an asteroid mining scheme:
Donna Beck sued Houston patent attorney Arthur Dula, his companies Excalibur Exploration Limited, Excalibur Limited, Excalibur Almaz Limited and Excalibur Almaz USA Inc., and Excalibur directors J. Buckner Hightower and Christopher Stott, in Harris County Court.
It looks like we’ve got a bidding war going for the location of SpaceX’s commercial spaceport: Sanchez said at Thursday’s Commissioners Court meeting that the BEDC [Brownsville Economic Development Council] and the state are offering SpaceX $3 million each for a total of $6 million in efforts to attract the business to Cameron County. He said Florida is offering $10 million. “We’re behind in the race,” Sanchez said at the […]
The White House has submitted a report to Congress on $100 billion in budget cuts under the sequestration law., NASA would experience a $1.4 billion reduction from its current $17.7 billion budget to $16.3 billion. Below are the Office of Management and Budget’s estimates of NASA’s sequestration cuts unless Congress and the White House can work out a deal to avoid them. ESTIMATED NASA SEQUESTRATION CUTS ACCOUNT REDUCTION (MILLIONS) Science […]