VX200 engine. (Credit: Ad Astra Rocket Company)

Houston, TX (Ad Astra PR) – Ad Astra Rocket Company and NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) have signed a Support Agreement (Annex 6) to collaborate on aspects of safety, reliability and mission assurance related to the development of VASIMR® technology. As the Agreement reads, the parties will:

“…work together to examine, understand, and document the safety and reliability aspects of the VASIMR® technology and develop a design approach for the flight system that conforms to accepted NASA safety, reliability and mission assurance best practices.”

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LAS CRUCES, NM (Spaceport America PR) — The Bureau of Land Management will host an open house public forum to field comments and suggestions as part of an Environmental Assessment (EA) to analyze the potential effects from construction and operation of a 26-mile southern road from Doña Ana County to the Spaceport America facility.

The meeting will be from 4 to 7 p.m. on June 4, 2012, at the Hatch High School cafeteria at 170 E. Herrera Road in Hatch, where members of the project team will be available to discuss the proposed road and take questions. Comment forms are provided below for anyone who would like to submit suggestions for the project.

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KENT, Wash. (Blue Origin PR) – Blue Origin successfully completed a System Requirements Review (SRR) of its orbital Space Vehicle on May 15-16. Blue Origin is maturing the design of the Space Vehicle in partnership with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under the agency’s Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program.

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Astronauts inside the Dragon. (Credit: SpaceX)

Washington D.C. (CSF PR) – The Commercial Spaceflight Federation congratulates SpaceX for the completion of its Commercial Orbital Transportation System demonstration with the successful splashdown of the Dragon capsule today. Dragon departed the Station this morning and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, carrying over 1,000lbs of cargo from the International Space Station.

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Dream Chaser on its first captive carry flight. (Credit: SNC)

Louisville, Colo. – May 30, 2012 (SNC PR) – Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) announces the beginning of its Dream Chaser® Space System’s flight test program with a successful captive carry of a full scale Dream Chaser Flight Vehicle near the Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport in Colorado.

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SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft splashed down successfully in the Pacific Ocean at 11:42 a.m. EDT time after a historic mission to the International Space Station. The cargo ship landed about 563 miles off the coast of Baja California. Recovery operations now underway.

The official SpaceX press release:

Hawthorne, CA (SPACEX PR) – This morning, at approximately 8:42 AM Pacific/11:42 AM Eastern, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) completed its historic mission when the Dragon spacecraft splashed down safely in the Pacific. The vehicle will now be recovered by boats and start the trip back to land.

At 11:00 AM Pacific/2:00 PM Eastern, SpaceX CEO and Chief Designer Elon Musk will join NASA Space Station Program Manager Mike Suffredini and NASA COTS Program Manager Alan Lindenmoyer for a press conference to discuss today’s exciting events.

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Artist’s rendition of the Dragon spacecraft as it returns to earth like a burning comet. (Credit: SpaceX)

Hawthorne, CA (SpaceX PR) – After making the historic journey as the first commercial spacecraft to visit the International Space Station, SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft will return to Earth tomorrow.

The return is by no means an easy operation.  In fact, today, Dragon is the only spacecraft capable of returning a significant amount of cargo from the space station.  The other cargo vehicles serving the space station – from Russia, Japan and the European Space Agency – can carry cargo up but all are destroyed after leaving the station.

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