NASA PR — WASHINGTON — NASA announced today a modified competitive procurement strategy to keep on track the agency’s plan to have U.S. companies transport American astronauts into space instead of outsourcing this work to foreign governments.

Instead of awarding contracts for the next phase of the Commercial Crew Program, the agency plans to use multiple, competitively awarded Space Act Agreements. Using competitive Space Act Agreements instead of contracts will allow NASA to maintain a larger number of partners during this phase of the program, with the flexibility to adjust technical direction, milestones and funding.
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Continuing our look at NASA’s recent SBIR selections, we will examine two awards to Ventions, LLC, a small San Francisco-based R&D company. The company applied for funding for the development of a two-stage launch vehicle for nanosats and cubesats, and for a LOX-cooled propulsion system for sample return missions.

Descriptions of the two projects follow after the break.

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Startled residents of Huntsville awoke yesterday (providing they slept in until at least 1:07 p.m. CST) to what probably sounded like an earthquake, sonic boom and a bazillion car alarms going off all at once. Their self-proclaimed New Federal City (named for its many thousands of government-supported jobs)  that had fought NewSpace tooth and nail found itself suddenly at the center of the biggest, boldest, baddest commercial space venture since….like EVER. We’re talking bolder than Branson, bigger than Bigelow, and maybe even badder than Bronson.*

Just how big? Try two 747s put together big. With six jumbo jet engines, a gross weight of 1.2 million pound, and a wingspan of more than 380 feet. And how super bad is the dream team behind it? Try Microsoft billionaire co-founder Paul Allen; aviation legend Burt Rutan and Scaled Composites; Elon Musk and SpaceX; and Huntsville’s own Dynetics.

The headquarters for this new Stratolaunch Systems venture? Huntsville, Alabama. NewSpace City.

Pretty epic, huh?

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UP AEROSPACE PR — (Denver Colorado) — Lockheed Martin has been awarded a contract from the U.S. Air Force worth up to $250M to develop and demonstrate a sub-scale Pathfinder vehicle of the Reusable Booster System (RBS). Lockheed Martin awarded UP Aerospace a subcontract to support the RBS Pathfinder program in the areas of ground operations, and flight testing at Spaceport America in New Mexico. The first phase award is […]

NASA PR — WASHINGTON — NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., is entering into a space act agreement with Sierra Nevada Corp. Space Systems of Louisville, Colo., to provide key wind tunnel testing of a new spacecraft designed to transport crew and cargo to and from the International Space Station.

Marshall will perform wind tunnel tests for Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser orbital crew vehicle, a spacecraft that looks like a small space shuttle. The tests will simulate speeds ranging from Mach .2, or 152 mph at sea level, to Mach 5, or 3,811 mph at sea level, to provide Sierra Nevada with aerodynamic data about how the vehicle reacts at varying speeds and atmospheric conditions. Marshall will provide engineering support and data processing throughout the test series. The agreement could lead to joint development, testing and operations of advanced space systems — including innovative design and fabrication techniques.

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Masten Space Systems has released its Payload User’s Guide as a Friday deadline looms for applications for NASA’s Flight Opportunities Program, which pays for flights aboard Masten’s Xaero rocket and other suborbital vehicles. Links: Apply to the Announcement of Flight Opportunities Download the Payload User’s Guide

The Parabolic Arc electorate has spoken. And Apache attack helicopter pilot/House of Windsor member for life Prince Harry is your choice for being the first British Royal in space. Harry was the overwhelming favorite with 54 votes, nearly half of the total. Prince Charles came in a surprising second, narrowly edging out Princess Beatrice, who reportedly already has a ticket for Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo. Current Prince and future King William […]

Paul Allen’s announcement of his Stratolaunch launch system, which I’ve nicknamed Birdzilla, was one of the oddest press events I’ve ever participated in. And I’ve been to several of Richard Branson’s events, mind you… Media outlets were notified of the event last week for scheduling purposes, not for publication. They given no details on substance, but were instructed to keep the very existence of the press conference secret (which, in itself, is a bit odd).  We were later given […]

Via Clark Lindsey at HobbySpace, Scaled Composites has posted a summary of the latest test of SpaceShipTwo’s rocket motor. It’s the eighth test of the series; the previous one had been conducted on Aug. 25. This test involved two hot fires: the first for 10 seconds and the latter for 58 seconds. This is longer than the 55-second single firing that was done in August. A full duration burn is […]

An official Q&A published by Stratolaunch.

Q. What was the inspiration for Stratolaunch?

A. The idea of air launching payloads isn’t new, but Paul Allen wanted to develop an aircraft-derived system that was capable of carrying payloads to space. It has become evident that the industry needs a responsive and operationally flexible solution to increase flight rate resulting in lower cost missions. This non-traditional approach to launch could open up the market for truly privatizing human spaceflight.

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