VIA ESA PR — Malta signed a Cooperation Agreement with ESA on Monday, allowing the island nation to become more involved with projects being undertaken by the continent’s space agency. Meanwhile, Romania has joined ESA as its 19th Member State while ascension talks are being held with Poland to become the 20th member.
Mojave's runways. (Credit: Mojave Air and Space Port)
Mojave Air and Space Port CEO and General Manager Stu Witt will be visiting Sacramento next week to lobby California lawmakers to provide regulatory relief and the types of incentives that other states have been providing to space companies.
Although Mojave is thriving as a aerospace research and development center, it has done so despite California ranking last among the states in terms of business friendliness, Witt said during a meeting of the East Kern Airport District Board of Directors on Tuesday. Obstacles include high taxes and a substantial regulatory burden.
Video Caption: A launch of the Armadillo Aerospace liquid-fueled sounding rocket STIG-A, late in the morning of January 28th 2012 from Spaceport America.
Tampa, Florida – Astronauts4Hire and partner company Vital Space will test a new biometric monitoring system designed for use by spaceflight participants on a May 2012 reduced gravity parabolic flight campaign in Houston, Texas.
They will undergo up to four flights with 40 parabolas each granting 25 seconds of near zero-gravity. The project is facilitated by NASA’s Flight Opportunities Program, to which Vital Space and Astronauts4Hire submitted a successful joint proposal chosen by NASA in October 2011 titled, “A demonstrated application of a cost effective and novel platform for non-invasive acquisition of physiologic variables from spaceflight participant candidates.”
Video Caption: Upon completion of Xaero’s free flight hover earlier this month, she performed yet another successful free flight to an altitude of 61 meters on February 17th, 2012. The exterior view of the flight reveals a bobble at apogee, as well as a slight rocking motion after touchdown. Despite these imperfections, the flight was a complete success, with all test objectives reached or exceeded.
Three taikonauts aboard China’s Shenzhou 9 spacecraft will dock with the Tiangong-1 space station between June and August, Chinese officials have announced. This will be the first human stay aboard the nation’s first space station, which was launched last year. The taikonauts will validate rendezvous and docking procedures and conduct experiments aboard the laboratory. Chinese officials have not announced how long the mission will last. A second human is set […]
OSC PR — Today, Orbital updated its 2012 COTS and CRS operational schedules. Gone is our colorful Development and Flight Milestones chart, now that we’re in the homestretch to our four major milestones for the year, which are as follows: May – Antares First-Stage Static Fire Test at Wallops June – Antares Test Flight for COTS Third quarter – COTS Demonstration Mission* Fourth quarter – CRS Mission #1* *Orbital’s operational […]
SWISS SPACE CENTER PR – 15.02.12 – The proliferation of debris orbiting the Earth – primarily jettisoned rocket and satellite components – is an increasingly pressing problem for spacecraft, and it can generate huge costs. To combat this scourge, the Swiss Space Center at EPFL is announcing today the launch of CleanSpace One, a project to develop and build the first installment of a family of satellites specially designed to clean up space debris.
Statement by AIA President and CEO Marion C. Blakey
Arlington, Va. — The budget released by the administration today is not a shot over the bow of the American aerospace and defense worker – it’s a direct hit. As a result of the approximately $487 billion, ten-year cut to the defense budget alone, buying power to procure technologies that fuel U.S. military strength will be reduced in 2013 by approximately $20 billion.