NASA PR — HOUSTON — Astronauts and oil field workers will share a training facility at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston thanks to a new agreement that takes advantage of excess capacity at the agency’s underwater training pool.
Raytheon Technical Services Co. of Dulles, Va., NASA’s contractor for operations at the Sonny Carter Training Facility Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) near Johnson, has signed an agreement to partner with Petrofac Training Services in Houston.
Europa's "Great Lake." Researchers predict many more such lakes are scattered throughout the moon's icy shell. Credit: Britney Schmidt/Dead Pixel VFX/Univ. of Texas at Austin.
NASA PR — Data from a NASA planetary mission have provided scientists evidence of what appears to be a body of liquid water, equal in volume to the North American Great Lakes, beneath the icy surface of Jupiter’s moon, Europa.
The data suggest there is significant exchange between Europa’s icy shell and the ocean beneath. This information could bolster arguments that Europa’s global subsurface ocean represents a potential habitat for life elsewhere in our solar system. The findings are published in the scientific journal Nature.
Space Florida President Frank DiBello; Business Development Board of Palm Beach County CEO Kelly Smallridge; Florida Lt. Governor Jennifer Carroll; and Richard Holmberg, vice president at Lockheed Martin stand in front of Lockheed Martin's autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) known as Marlin. (PRNewsFoto/Lockheed Martin)
LM PR — PALM BEACH, Fla., Nov. 16, 2011 — Space Florida and Lockheed Martin have signed an agreement to advance the testing and production of a new autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) known as Marlin™ in support of aerospace economic development in the state of Florida.
Lockheed Martin will outfit the Marlin systems with sophisticated sensors and imaging equipment to conduct commercial underwater inspections. The systems are well suited for use in the oil and gas industry as a safe and cost-effective way to inspect underwater infrastructure and pipelines, especially after severe weather such as hurricanes.
We’re going to take a closer look at the NASA budget that Senate and House conferees approved this week. As will see, Congress cares about little else but heavy-lift and the Orion MPCV when it comes to human spaceflight, commercial crew got slashed, the James Webb Telescope has lived to slip another day, and a crack has opened in the ban on cooperation with China.
NASA and the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) would be able to cooperate with China under the new budget if they certify that the activities “pose no risk of resulting in the transfer of technology, data, or other information with national security or economic security implications to China or Chinese-owned company.”
The provision is included in the budget passed by Congress earlier this week. The measure requires that
“Any certification…shall be submitted to the Committees on Appropriations of the House of Representatives and the Senate no later than 14 days prior to the activity in question and shall include a description of the purpose of the activity, its major participants, and its location and timing.”
SPACE FLORIDA PR – KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL. – The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS)—the non-profit entity recently selected by NASA to maximize use of the International Space Station U.S. National Laboratory (ISS NL)—has hired three senior executives to direct the Operations, Marketplace Development and Economic Valuation functions for the organization.
NASA PR — Do you dream of flying in space? Now is your chance. NASA is accepting applications for the agency’s next class for the Astronaut Candidate Program.
Starting today, qualified individuals can submit their applications through the federal government’s USAJobs.gov website. Those selected will be among the first to pioneer a new generation of commercial launch vehicles and travel aboard a new heavy-lift rocket to distant destinations in deep space.
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XCOR/SwRI PR — November 15th, 2011, Mojave, California and Boulder, Colorado: In a first of its kind prize for the reusable suborbital research community, XCOR Aerospace and the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) announced today that a research flight will be awarded to one lucky paid registrant at the NSRC-2012 Conference (nsrc.swri.org) to be held 27-29 February 2012 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel and Resort in Palo Alto, California.
“This is a great day for the researcher, educator or the innovative college student who will be attending NSRC-2012 in Silicon Valley at the end of February,” said Andrew Nelson, Chief Operating Officer of XCOR Aerospace. “They now have a chance to win a flight that would otherwise cost $95,000 with XCOR, or up to $200,000 on competing vehicles. We are pleased to make this contribution to further the suborbital research and education community.”
The Florida Times-Union reports on developments concerning Cecil Field, the former Naval Air Station in Jacksonville that the FAA has designated as a spaceport: Legislation that could help attract space-related companies to Cecil Field has been fast-tracked in the Florida Senate… A bill filed by state Sen. Stephen Wise, R-Jacksonville, and state Rep. Lake Ray, R-Jacksonville, would officially designate Cecil Field as a spaceport territory at the state level. That […]
