Richmond, B.C. (MDA PR) — MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (TSX: MDA), a provider of essential information solutions, today announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire 100% of Space Systems/Loral, Inc. (SS/L) for US$875 million in a transaction that is immediately accretive.

Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, SS/L is the global market leading provider of commercial communications satellites, serving a global customer base. The acquisition transforms MDA into a major player in commercial communications and provides the Company with critical mass in the U.S. market.
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Space.com reports that Virgin Galactic has revived a plan to use its WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft to launch small satellites into orbit using a rocket in the place of SpaceShipTwo.

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Antares rolls out for the first time. (Credit: NASA)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (NASA PR) — NASA has modified its NASA Launch Services (NLS) II contract with Orbital Sciences Corporation of Dulles, Va., to add the Antares launch vehicle, formerly known as Taurus II, for future missions.

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A Boeing CST-100 crew module docks at a Bigelow Aerospace space station. (Credit: Boeing)

CANOGA PARK, Calif. (NASA PR) — Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne has successfully completed a series of tests on a thruster destined for Boeing’s Commercial Space Transportation spacecraft, designated CST-100.

Boeing is one of several companies working to develop crew transportation capabilities under the Commercial Crew Development Round 2 agreement with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. The goal of the program is to help spur innovation and development of safe, reliable and cost-effective spacecraft and launch vehicles capable of transporting astronauts to low Earth orbit and the International Space Station.
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NASA JSC has announced that it intends to extend its agreement with Zero G Corporation for microgravity flight services for at least another year with an option for an additional six months. The current agreement expires on December 31, 2012. The company, owned by Space Adventures, uses a modified Boeing 727 to fly parabolic arcs that provide short periods of microgravity. Other companies interested in bidding on  the contract have […]

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL. (CASIS PR) – The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), the nonprofit organization promoting and managing research on board the International Space Station (ISS) U.S. National Laboratory, announced today a solicitation for proposals in relation to advancing protein crystallization using microgravity.

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NASA has released promotional videos for various commercial crew competitors. PA will be running them over the next few days.

ROME (ASI PR) — In 2011, ASI and JAXA started a collaboration for the preliminary study of an innovative spacecraft can be launched into space aboard a carrier and then return to earth on a conventional runway, like an airplane.

At the conclusion of an initial period of about eight months of collaboration during the first week of June, two delegations of JAXA and ASI, assisted by CIRA, met to complete the first phase of this joint work on the feasibility study of the aerodynamic characteristics of the spacecraft.

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Members of NASA's Commercial Crew Program tour Lockheed Martin Space Systems’ Space Operations Simulation Center near Denver during a Technical Interchange Meeting, or TIM, with Alliant Techsystems Inc. (ATK) on June 7. (Credit: Lockheed Martin)

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER (NASA PR) — NASA’s Commercial Crew Program is turning to a number of strategies to work through the complex challenges of engineering a new generation of rockets and spacecraft. Technical Interchange Meetings, for example, are providing program leaders an opportunity to gain a comprehensive understanding for the vehicles that private industry are designing and developing on their own before the agency’s astronauts will climb aboard.

Called TIMs for short, the meetings bring together a rather small group of experts to do just what its namesake calls for, exchange technical information. Alliant Techsystems Inc., or ATK, which is developing its Liberty launch vehicle under NASA’s Commercial Crew Development Round 2 (CCDev2) activities, most recently held a TIM on the software that controls all the avionics components, commanding them to work together to control the launch vehicle.

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Hawthorne, CA (SpaceX PR) – Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) announces that its Merlin 1D engine has achieved a full mission duration firing and multiple restarts at target thrust and specific impulse (Isp).

The engine firing was for 185 seconds with 147,000 pounds of thrust, the full duration and power required for a Falcon 9 rocket launch. The tests took place at SpaceX’s rocket development facility in McGregor, Texas.

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