Stu Witt is general manager and CEO of the Mojave Air and Space Port. Mr. Witt is a graduate of the Naval Fighter Weapons School (TOPGUN), Naval Aviation Schools Command, and the University of Maryland’s Center for Creative Leadership. During his military career he was a carrier-based F-14 Tomcat pilot with VF-14, and an FA-18 project pilot at the Naval Air Warfare Center, China Lake, California.
AUTHOR
Doug Messier
Race for Space winner Justin Dowd's reaction to his winning a trip to space! (Photo: Business Wire)
BOSTON, Apr 25, 2012 (Metro PR) — Metro, Boston’s #1 daily newspaper, is proud to announce that local reader Justin Dowd from Worcester, MA, has won Metro’s Race for Space, a global competition to select one Metro reader to travel into space.
Justin, 22, beat hundreds of thousands of candidates across the world to win a the coveted once-in-a-lifetime ticket on board XCOR Lynx, the first generation rocket-powered aircraft currently being built by leading spaceflight company SXC (Space Expedition Curacao).
Metro, the leading free daily in the US, became the first newspaper to offer a reader the chance to visit space when it launched its ‘Race for Space’ competition in March.
By Douglas Messier
Parabolic Arc Managing Editor
The Mojave Air and Space Port has developed a profitable consulting business: advising other groups about how to build and operate their spaceports.
Officials from the California spaceport have provided advice to spaceport operators in New Mexico, Oklahoma, Sweden and the Caribbean island of Curacao, said Mojave CEO Stuart Witt.
Hawthorne, CA (SPACEX PR) –- On Monday, April 30, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) will webcast a static fire test of the Falcon 9 rocket’s nine powerful Merlin engines in preparation for the company’s upcoming launch.
Hey everyone. I’m scheduled to be on the radio on Saturday morning. I’ll be talking about the latest NewSpace news on the “Digital Village” program on KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles. The show runs from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. I should appear between 10:40 a.m. and 11 a.m. PDT. The radio station also broadcasts on the frequencies below and streams live at https://www.kpfk.org/ 93.7 FM North San Diego 98.7 […]
Scaled Composites employees greet job seekers during the April 21 career day in Mojave. (Credit: Douglas Messier)
By Douglas Messier
Parabolic Arc Managing Editor
At 10 on Saturday morning, Scaled Composites flung open the gates to its facility at the Mojave Air and Space Port for the company’s first ever Career Day.
“It was really wild and a flood of people came around the corner,” recalled Elliot Seguin, a Scaled project engineer who was helping out with recruitment. “And we opened up the hangar doors and everyone ran to the tables.”
To boldly go.... (Credit: Douglas Messier)
By Douglas Messier
Parabolic Arc Managing Editor
“California can have either all the regulation or all the business, but it can’t have both.”
That was the message delivered to a high-level state official who visited the Mojave Air and Space Port last week to see what Sacramento can do to help keep the burgeoning commercial space industry from moving to other states with fewer regulations, lower taxes and financial incentives.
The hangar where Alex Tai's company will house its jets was the site of a robotics competition last Saturday. (Credit: Douglas Messier)
By Douglas Messier
Parabolic Arc Managing Editor
A company led by the Virgin Group’s Director of Special Projects Alex Tai is the Mojave Air and Space Port’s newest tenant.
Last week, the East Kern Airport District Board of Directors authorized Mojave Air & Space Port CEO Stu Witt to finalize a lease for Tai’s company, Super Sonic Jet, Inc., of Nevada. Tai plans to house a small fleet of Eastern Bloc fighters in Building 70, a hangar adjacent to the airport’s Administration building.
Sparks, NV – April 24, 2012 – Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) Space Systems has successfully completed wind tunnel testing of a scale model of the Dream Chaser® orbital crew vehicle in the Oran W. Nicks Low Speed Wind Tunnel at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. Aerodynamic data generated from this testing, coupled with data from computer simulations, will define the characteristics of the Dream Chaser® lifting body vehicle during the approach and landing phase of flight. This information will assist engineers in preparing for the Dream Chaser®vehicle’s first free flight test scheduled for the third quarter of this year.
Photos taken of the first Stratolaunch hangar under construction in Mojave taken on Monday, April 23, 2012. You can see workers on the roof in the photo above. You can also see the first Stratolaunch 747-422 behind the building. Workers are now stripping the former United Airlines passenger jet of engines and other parts for use in a much larger aircraft. And as an added bonus, I’m throwing in a […]