CCDev milestones status, June 2012. (Credit: NASA)

NASA PR — NASA’s commercial crew partners continue to achieve exciting milestones as the Commercial Crew Development Round 2 (CCDev2) Space Act Agreements enter their home stretch. Since the agreements were awarded in April 2011, the partners have achieved 48 of the 62 planned test, demonstration, and technical review milestone events. With the maturation of spacecraft and launch vehicle designs being accomplished under CCDev2, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program is well positioned to move into the integrated capability design and testing phase. Awards for new Space Act Agreements are expected in July/August 2012.

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Excalibur Almaz's space tourism vehicle concept. (Credit: Excalibur Almaz)

LONDON, United Kingdom (XCOR/EA PR) — Excalibur Almaz Limited (EA), a commercial aerospace company based on the Isle of Man, British Isles, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with California-based XCOR Aerospace for suborbital flight services. The agreement signed in conjunction with the Royal Aeronautical Society’s 3rd European Space Tourism Conference calls for XCOR to provide suborbital flight familiarization and training using its Lynx vehicle for Excalibur Almaz crews traveling on Earth orbit, circumlunar, and deep space missions.

“Suborbital flight experience will serve as an integral preparatory step for the safety, education and enjoyment of our customers traveling on crew expedition missions,” said Art Dula, Excalibur Almaz Founder and Chairman. “The XCOR flights will enhance the overall spaceflight experience of our program and will help ensure that our passengers are both mission and medically qualified to fly in space.”

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Washington, D.C. (CSF PR) – NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) held a teleconference on Monday to discuss their joint commercial human spaceflight vision. In the teleconference, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and FAA acting Administrator Michael Huerta announced that NASA and FAA will be working together closely to ensure that the FAA’s work in regulating commercial spaceflight and NASA’s work to procure American commercial crew transportation to the International Space Station are in harmony. The Memorandum of Understanding between the agencies states that it is intended to “[avoid] conflicting requirements and multiple sets of standards” and satisfy the National Space Policy, which directs agencies to “minimize, as much as possible, the regulatory burden for commercial space activities.”

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The International Astronautical Federation’s (IAF) Entrepreneurship and Investment Committee (EIC) in cooperation with the Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC) challenges young minds to think about the future, past and present of Entrepreneurship and Investment within the Space Sector and submit their views and analysis to this competition. The content of papers may address any characteristics of Entrepreneurship and Investment in the Space Sector that you might regard as particularly interesting […]

The FastForward Project has released a survey seeking opinions and perceptions related to future ultra-high speed point-to-point (PTP) services for passengers and priority cargo. Please take a minute to provide your input. Take the Survey About FastForward Project: The FastForward Project is a diverse, ad-hoc industry study group focused on common issues related to future global, high-speed point-to-point transportation (including passenger travel and fast package delivery). The all-volunteer group is […]

London, England (Cosmica PR) — Cosmica Spacelines and EMXYS announced today the signature of an alliance to jointly market and provide payload integration services on XCOR’s Lynx spaceplane. This alliance consolidates the team formed by the two companies as the leading supplier of commercial suborbital flight services for experimental payloads in the European market. Both companies are Authorized Payload Integrators for XCOR’s Lynx, a fully reusable, liquid rocket powered suborbital vehicle expected to make its first flight in early 2013 with commercial flights available after successful completion of a comprehensive flight test program.

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B612 FOUNDATION TO ANNOUNCE FIRST PRIVATELY FUNDED DEEP SPACE MISSION Who: The B612 Foundation What: Press Conference to Launch the B612 Foundation and Sentinel Space Telescope Mission-the first privately funded deep space mission. When: Thursday, June 28, 2012 — 8:30 AM – 11:00 AM (PT) Where: Morrison Planetarium, California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse Drive, San Francisco, CA, in Golden Gate Park. (Pay Parking in CA Academy Garage) Announcement: […]

The flight of the Dragon seems to have had some impact in Congress. House appropriators have decided to provide the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation its full budget request of $16.7 million for FY 2013. The appropriations bill contains a short explanation for the decision. The Committee recommends $16,700,000 for the office of commercial space transportation, which is equal to the budget request and $429,000 above the fiscal year […]

Flight: 85 Date: 15 June 12 Flight Time: 1.5 hr WK2 Pilot: Mackay WK2 CoPilot: Stucky WK2 FTE: Vannoy Objectives: Virgin Galactic WK2 pilot proficiency and joint SS2 GF18 pilot proficiency Results: Conducted multiple instrument approaches and touch and goes at multiple airports. Flight: 84 Date: 12 June 12 Flight Time: 2.2 hr WK2 Pilot: Siebold WK2 CoPilot: Colmer WK2 FTE: Zeeb Objectives: Pilot familiarization Cold soak gear behavior Fuel […]

Brevard County commissioners have recently approved the Economic Development Plan for the North Brevard Economic Development Zone. The plan focuses $18 million in resources over 10 years to help develop the area, which has been hard hit by the end of the space shuttle program. A summary of the plan follows that is taken from the plan.

The Challenge

• Projected layoffs affecting North Brevard have impact of $100 million in annual income
• Each job lost at KSC has a ripple effect of an additional 1.8 jobs
• More than 50 percent of land in North Brevard is exempt from property taxes and therefore what would be key commercial and industrial areas are unable to be developed.
• North Brevard Area has 20 percent of the population, but only one tenth of the county’s taxable value.

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