The Space Show schedule for this week… 1. Monday, June 25, 2012, 2-3:30 PM PDT (5-6:30 PM EDT, 4-5:30 PM CDT): There will be no show today as I am flying to Melbourne, Fl for the ISU Space & Media Panel on Tuesday evening, June 26, 2012. 2. Tuesday, June 26, 2012, 7-8:30 PM PDT (10-11:30 PM EDT, 9-10:30 PM CDT): No show today as I am moderating the ISU […]
AUTHOR
Doug Messier
The Mars Curiosity Rover will attempt the craziest landing ever on the surface of another world. If it works, genius! If it doesn’t, we’re out like $2 billion. No pressure.
Final Frontier Design, which won second prize in NASA’s Astronaut Glove Challenge in 2009, has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $20,000 to develop an affordable spacesuit for the space tourism market. To donate, click here. The Kickstarter description of the product: At FFD, we are working together to bring our vision of a lightweight, inexpensive, and highly functional space suit to the new space industry. Our Kickstarter goal, the […]
- This is a medium close-up view of a commercial gravitational research centrifuge which Astrium Space Transportation and NanoRacks LLC will send to the International Space Station. (Credit: NASA)
HOUSTON (NASA PR) — NASA is expanding its existing capabilities for doing plant and animal tissue investigations on the International Space Station with the delivery of a new centrifuge scheduled for this summer. The centrifuge is a NASA and commercial industry collaboration, and will be housed in the NanoRacks facility.
The small Gravitational Biology Lab will allow biological experimentation in artificial gravity — from zero gravity to twice Earth’s normal gravity — for prolonged periods of time. The new facility will provide environmental control, lighting, data transfer, commanding, and observation of experiments in Mars and moon gravity conditions, as well as mimicking Earth’s gravity. This is useful for biological research, and could lead to advances in medications and vaccines, agricultural controls, and discoveries in genetics — all beneficial to those of us on Earth.
Eclipse capsule in orbit. Credit: Space Operations
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (SpaceOps PR) — Chinese Air Force Officers are now conducting military operations in orbit. “The space program, including ostensible civil projects, supports China’s growing ability to deny or degrade the space assets of potential adversaries and enhances China’s conventional military capabilities,” Army Lt. Gen. Ronald Burgess, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, wrote in testimony presented before the U.S. Senate’s Armed Services Committee Feb. 16. Recently, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden stated that the country needs to have “a U.S.-based, commercial crew launch capability at the earliest possible time.”
WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA Administrator Charles Bolden was presented the Excellence in Public Service Award Thursday by former Senator and astronaut John Glenn on behalf of the John Glenn School of Public Affairs at The Ohio State University. “As NASA Administrator, Charlie has charted America’s future in space, leading NASA’s strategic efforts to fully utilize the International Space Station and launch our astronauts beyond low Earth orbit,” Glenn said. […]
NASA Public Affairs Office Dan Huot interviews Jill McGuire, the Robotic Refueling Mission (RRM) Project Manager at Goddard Space Flight Center, about the current RRM operations taking place outside the International Space Station.
HUNTSVILLE, Ala., June 21, 2012 — Boeing [NYSE: BA] last week successfully completed its first major technical reviews for the cryogenic stages of the Space Launch System (SLS), bringing the team into the design phase for the nation’s next heavy-lift, human-rated rocket.
The combined System Requirements Review (SRR) and System Definition Review (SDR), held at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville with independent consultants from previous successful programs, validated that Boeing and NASA have developed solid system requirements for the cryogenic stages and supporting hardware. A cryogenic rocket engine uses liquefied gas stored at very low temperatures for optimal rocket efficiency.
RocketMotorTwo test firing. (Courtesy Beverly S. Rother)
CORRECTION: Virgin Galactic says this test did involve RocketMotorTwo. I regret the error.
By Douglas Messier
Parabolic Arc Managing Editor
The engine hot fire done at Scaled Composites test site at the Mojave Air and Space Port on Wednesday does not appear to have involved the RocketMotorTwo that will be used on the SpaceShipTwo suborbital tourism vehicle, a careful reading of the test summary reveals.
The summary for Hot Fire No. 12 on the Scaled Composites “RocketMotorTwo Hot-Fire Test Summaries” page says it was the “first full scale firing of a rocket motor at Scaled’s test site under full control of the spaceship’s Rocket Motor Controller (RMC).” [Emphasis mine].
Each of the previous 11 test entries on the page includes the phrase “full scale flight design RM2 hot-fire.” That phrase is absent from the summary for the brief test on Wednesday, which is reproduced below.
Space Studies Institute Senior Adviser John C. Mankins has launched a KickStarter fund-raising campaign to fund a new high-quality, non-fiction book on space solar power. Mankins, an internationally recognized expert on the subject who is president of Artemis Innovation Management Solutions LLC, is attempting to raise $25,000 by Wednesday, June 27. A brief summary of the project: I propose to write and publish a high-quality nonfiction book on the topic […]