VG PR — To date, all test flights of WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo have been piloted by Scaled Composite’s cadre of talented test pilots.
WhiteKnightTwo took to the air for the 72nd time yesterday (8/31/2011); it was a special flight for Virgin Galactic because at the controls, for the very first time, was our own Chief Test pilot, Dave Mackay. Dave joined Virgin Galactic in 2009 following a high-flying aviation career as an RAF test pilot and a Virgin Atlantic Captain.
TXA PR — Austin, TX, AUG 30, 2011 – The Texas Space Alliance (TXA) urged Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and the rest of the Texas Congressional delegation to give their full support to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher’s call for transferring funding to American spacecraft companies and end plans for a giant “pork” rocket being promoted by the Senator and others. On Wednesday, 24 Aug 2011, Rep. Rohrabacher (R-CA) boldly called for an emergency funding transfer of NASA’s unobligated funds into their commercial crew program in response to the failure of a Russian Soyuz rocket to deliver a Progress supply freighter to the International Space Station (ISS).
“This funding transfer will rapidly accelerate the progress of American companies currently developing innovative crew and cargo transport vehicles here in the United States – all of which are based in or have significant and expanding operations in Texas,” said TXA’s Rick Tumlinson. “These companies; SpaceX, Boeing, Sierra Nevada, and Blue Origin are leading a revolution, and they need to see our legislators fighting for them – not against them.”
Anatoly Zak at Russian Space Web reports on a preliminary schedule for returning Soyuz to flight and staffing the International Space Station. As of August 30, the upcoming station milestones looked as following: Sept. 16 (Sept. 15, 11:30 p.m. Houston Time): Soyuz TMA-21 (Tail No. 231; ISS mission 26S) landing (Delayed from Sept. 8); Sept. 25: Soyuz-2-1B/GLONASS-M launch (return to flight for the Soyuz family of rockets); Oct. 13: Progress […]
GREENBELT, Md. — The Innovative Partnership Program at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. is hosting a an Emerging Commercial Suborbital Capabilities Vehicles Workshop at Goddard on Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2011, from 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. The workshop will give an opportunity for commercial companies who provide sub-orbital services to brief Goddard Earth and space science researchers and scientists about the new vehicles being developed and their […]
RocketMotorTwo test firing. (Courtesy Beverly S. Rother)
Scaled Composites and its partner, Sierra Nevada Corporation, reached a key milestone in the development of SpaceShipTwo last week with the first full-duration firing of the vehicle’s propulsion system.The seventh test of RocketMotorTwo on Aug. 25 lasted 55 seconds, which the company describes as a “full duration hot-fire” on its website. That is the duration that is required for SpaceShipTwo to reach its planned altitude of 110 kilometers. The previous test lasted 40 seconds.
Argentina has proposed to Brazil that the two nations join in creating a South American space agency: The defense minister, Celso Amorim, on Tuesday received the proposal for the creation of a South American space agency of his Argentine counterpart, Arturo Puricelli. Puricelli, who attended the seminar “Defense Industry Transformation as an inducer of National Defence,” asked the authorities of both countries and companies to create a strategy that will […]
As engineers continue their investigation of the Soyuz launch failure (a malfunctioning gas generator is to blame) and rejigger their launch schedule, a far more important question is being debated: what to do about the suddenly bumbling Russian space agency, Roscosmos.
One possible answer emerged this week: re-militarize it.
The Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos said on Wednesday it is considering returning the federal space program to the framework of the state defense order to ensure steady financing and reduce the number of accidents with space launches.
Carnegie Mellon University PhD student Krzysztof Skonieczny discusses his work on developing the lightweight lunar excavator robot bucket-wheel, as well as some views on the future of space exploration, in this video from Astrobotic Technology.
(OSC PR – Dulles, VA – 31 August 2011) — Orbital Sciences Corporation (NYSE: ORB), one of the world’s leading space technology companies, today announced that it received a Commercial Space Transportation Launch License from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to conduct the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program demonstration mission in early 2012. An expanded license covering the test flight of the company’s Taurus® II rocket in late 2011 is expected to be granted in the near future.
To secure the license, Orbital was required to submit extensive technical and program management data to the FAA about its Taurus II rocket and Cygnus™ spacecraft to ensure that all necessary operational requirements and safety precautions are met. Among the many items reviewed by the FAA were the rocket’s planned trajectory, ground tracking procedures, onboard safety and flight termination systems, and the experience and training of the launch operations team.
Former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin blasts the Obama Administration’s space policy during a recent panel discussion in Huntsville. This video, and Griffin’s op-ed today in Space News, erase all doubts as to his intentions: he wants his old job back. And this is the start of his unofficial campaign to reclaim the top spot at NASA. We can look forward to this right up through election day 2012. Fun times […]
