Florida Gov. Rick Scott

Melbourne, FL (Space Florida PR — March 21, 2012) – Today Governor Rick Scott announced that Embraer, a Brazil-based aircraft manufacturer focused on commercial, defense, and executive aviation, is expanding its operations at Melbourne International Airport. The company will be adding a new research and development facility – The Embraer Engineering and Technology Center USA – and 200 new engineering jobs with average salaries of $70,000, in the near term. At least 40 new jobs are anticipated in 2012.

The announcement was made today at the Melbourne Hilton Rialto. Governor Rick Scott was joined by Senator Mike Haridopolos, Melbourne City Mayor Harry Goode, and executives from Embraer, Enterprise Florida, Space Florida and the Economic Development Commission of Florida’s Space Coast.
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Made in Space tests a 3D printer in microgravity. (Credit: Made in Space)

WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA’s Flight Opportunities Program has selected 24 cutting-edge space technology payloads for flights on commercial reusable launch vehicles, balloons and a commercial parabolic aircraft.

Sixteen of the payloads will ride on parabolic aircraft flights, which provide brief periods of weightlessness. Five will fly on suborbital reusable launch vehicle test flights. Two will ride on high-altitude balloons that fly above 65,000 feet. One payload will fly on the suborbital launch vehicle and high-altitude balloon platforms. The flights will take place in 2012 and 2013.
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NASA Administrator Charles Bolden

By Charles Bolden
NASA Administrator

Last week I was in Atlanta, on the campus of Georgia Tech for a “Day of Engineering” Facebook pep rally to kick off the President’s new Stay With It campaign devoted to recruiting, retaining and graduating 10,000 engineers each year to maintain America’s competitive edge. Corporate leaders, educators and students have gathered for dialog and panel discussions on the dire need to increase the number of American engineers. Fourteen universities from across the nation are participating via Facebook viewing parties. Spearheaded by Intel President & CEO, Paul Otellini, who is also a member of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, the Stay With It campaign will provide mentors and other supports to increase the number of American engineering graduates which has fallen woefully behind other surging economies and has led to a shortage of skilled workers for American jobs.

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The old Mojave Air and Space Port's control tower. (Credit: Douglas Messier)

by Douglas Messier
Parabolic Arc Managing Editor

The companies at the Mojave Air and Space Port are developing some of the most aircraft and spacecraft  in the world. But, the one thing they’ve been lacking is access to modern fiber optic communications.

That will be changing soon. Airport officials are negotiating with Race Technologies to bring the service to the airport and its more than 60 tenants.

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Menlo Park, CA (Team Phoenicia PR) — Team Phoenicia announced today they were selected to provide the rocket engines to power Team JURBAN’s competition lunar lander for its landing on the surface of the Moon. Both teams are competing for the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE, the largest incentivized competition offered to date, challenging space professionals and engineers from across the globe to build and launch to the moon a privately funded spacecraft capable of completing a series of exploration and transmission tasks.

Both teams expressed mutual interest in collaborating after they met in the Google Lunar X PRIZE Team Summit last summer where they participated and discussed the rules of the competition as well as presented their progress and status of their bids to land on the Moon. The first area of collaboration is the outfitting of JURBAN’s lander with Team Phoenicia’s engines.

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Spaceport Sweden PR (March 15, 2012) — “It’s not a question of IF Spaceport Sweden is to become a world-leading spaceport with space travel for individuals, but WHEN.”

So says Spaceport Sweden’s CEO Karin Nilsdotter after the contract with Inlandsinnovation that secures funding for new investments in the company, allowing the next targets of product development and commercialization to materialize.

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Stewart David Nozette at the Taj Mahal in India.

by Douglas Messier
Parabolic Arc Managing Editor

Stewart David Nozette is expected to be sentenced on Wednesday to 13 years in jail for attempting to sell some of America’s most sensitive space and defense secrets to an undercover FBI agent posing as an Israeli intelligence agent.

“His motive for betraying his country was greed, pure and simple,” federal prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum. “That defendant was by all accounts a brilliant scientist makes this crime especially troubling. His statement to the undercover FBI agent that anything ‘that the U.S. has done in space I’ve seen’ was not hyperbole. His statement that the classified information to which he had been granted access was ‘in my head’ was not exaggeration.

“His intellectual and creative gifts put him in positions of trust, which in turn literally opened for him secret vaults of information related to the national defense of the United States. As defendant himself put it to the FBI’s undercover employee (‘UCE’): ‘I had all the nuclear clearances. I had a whole raft of . . . special access [clearances].’”
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Video Caption: Based on excerpts from a CNN interview, Moon Express co-Founder and CEO Bob Richards explains the big picture of lunar exploration and the importance of the Moon to humanity’s future.

The Robotic Refueling Mission (RRM) module on the International Space Station before it was installed on its permanent platform. RRM will demonstrate robotic servicing technology and lay the foundation for future missions. (Credit: NASA)

By Adrienne Alessandro and Dewayne Washington
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

NASA’s highly anticipated Robotic Refueling Mission (RRM) began operations on the International Space Station with the Canadian Dextre robot and RRM tools March 7-9, 2012, marking important milestones in satellite-servicing technology and the use of the space station robotic capabilities.

A joint effort between NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), RRM is an external station experiment designed to demonstrate the technologies, tools, and techniques needed to robotically service and refuel satellites in orbit, especially those not built with servicing in mind. RRM represents the first time the space station’s Dextre robot is used for technology research and development, moving it beyond robotic maintenance of the orbiting superstructure.

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MEDIA ADVISORY GOVERNOR RICK SCOTT TO ANNOUNCE LOCAL BUSINESS EXPANSION Significant Near-Term Employment Anticipated WHO: The Honorable Rick Scott, Governor of Florida Hon. Mike Haridopolos, Florida Senate President Gray Swoope, Secretary of Commerce, State of Florida and President & CEO, Enterprise Florida, Inc. Frank DiBello, President & CEO, Space Florida Hon. Harry Goode, Mayor, City of Melbourne Lynda Weatherman, President & CEO, Economic Development Commission of Florida’s Space Coast WHAT: […]