Checking in on activities down at the European spaceport in Kourou, we find the rocket base is abuzz with activity. On Wednesday, an Ariane 5 successfully delivered two communications satellites to space. It was the rocket’s fifth mission of 2011; one more and it will match the number flown last year, which ended with Arianespace actually losing money.

Meanwhile, preparations are well along for the first Soyuz launch from the spaceport on Oct. 20. The venerable Russian rocket will launch the first two satellites in Europe’s Galileo navigational constellation.

And in related news, officials announced this week that the debut of Europe’s new Vega small satellite launcher will be delayed until January. It had been set to launch from Kourou in November or December.

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SPACE LAUNCH SYSTEM ACQUISITION OVERVIEW

Synopsis – Sep 22, 2011

General Information

Contracting Office Address

NASA/George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, Procurement Office, Marshall Space Flight Center, AL 35812

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Washington, D.C., Thursday, September 22, 2011 – The Commercial Spaceflight Federation is pleased to announce that three companies providing services to the commercial spaceflight industry have joined the Federation as Associate Members: United Space Alliance, David Clark Company, and Moon Express.

John Gedmark, Executive Director of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, stated, “We are excited to welcome these three new Associate Members to the Commercial Spaceflight Federation.  Each of these companies brings unique expertise and knowledge to advance commercial spaceflight.”
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The Chinese Xinhua news agency reports that the nation will launch its first space station between Sept. 27 and 30. The 8.5-metric ton Tiangong-1 (Heavenly Palace 1) is about half the size of the early Soviet Salyut space stations that were launched in the 1970s.  It will serve as docking target for three Shenzhou spacecraft. The first will dock unmanned to demonstrate that capability.  If that mission is successful, two crews […]

Aviation Week has an update on SpaceShipTwo’s progress: George Whitesides, president and CEO of Virgin Galactic and The Spaceship Company (TSC), says recent full-duration firing tests of the Sierra Nevada RM2 rocket motor are encouraging and point the way to integration with the SS2 early next year. Powered flight tests will begin with short-duration 15-sec. burns before building up to a full-duration suborbital flight before the end of 2012. “We’ve […]

The Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) has sent a letter to the White House, Congress and Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong urging them to support NASA’s commercial space efforts. The letter has been signed by more than 300 students from across the nation.

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During the VLAB event at Stanford on Tuesday night, I ran into John Powell of JP Aerospace. He told me about a very cool promotion he did in July for Samsung. They put a Samsung Galaxy S II phone held by a miniature astronaut figure on a balloon and sent it to 100,000 feet above the Nevada desert, where it displayed messages sent from users in Tokyo. John says that […]

DragonRider.

It sound like somebody in Avatar, doesn’t it? Or the code name of the evil plot hatched by the most nefarious James Bond villain yet?

No, it’s just the project name for SpaceX’s effort to launch commercial crews to the International Space Station. DragonRider was one of the nuggets that Abhishek Tripathi revealed during a talk at the SETI Institute in Mountain View on Wednesday night. The SpaceX engineer gave an overview of his company’s work and some insights on what it is like to work there.

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Good news for all you would-be newlyweds out there. Due to high interest and many inquiries about extending the the competition, the Space Wedding Rings competition has been extended three weeks to Monday, October 10, 2011. The Grand Prize: ONE SET OF GENUINE 18K GOLD SPACE WEDDING RINGS VALUED AT $17,000 (Flown in space on May 20, 2011) The Challenge: Tell SpaceWed why you should win. You can try to […]

In addition to getting angel investment, LaserMotive has also been chosen as one of nine companies to do concept studies for NASA’s “Ride the Light” concept, which seeks to provide external power on demand for aerospace vehicles and other applications.

When NASA made the announcement last week, it left out of the name of the Kent, Wash.-based company. The space agency has since corrected the mistake.

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