New Mexico Spaceport Authority Executive Director Christine Anderson talks about the development and future of Spaceport America. Some highlights from the El Paso Times article: The first phase of construction of Spaceport America, New Mexico’s $209 million commercial spaceflight launch complex, is 90 percent complete. Virgin Galactic, the spaceport’s anchor tenant, plans to dedicate the terminal-hangar sometime in October…. Sir Richard Branson, the owner of Virgin Galactic, has not said […]

The MAKS 2011 airshow in Moscow last week provided that nation’s often opaque aerospace industry an opportunity, if ever so briefly, to emerge from the shadows and shine in the light of day. The annual event also gave us a bit of a peek into that nation’s commercial space efforts, which promise joy rides around the moon, a private space hotel, and a resumption of billionaut flights to the International Space Station.

And yet, amid all the hype, there’s evidence that these ventures, like almost everything else in “NewSpace”, are continuing to slip into the future amid fresh worries that there is not enough money to accomplish all of them.The answer to that will have a major impact on the future of Energia, the Russian space company that is playing a key role in all three commercial ventures.

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Space Up Houston August 2011 from Schipul – The Web Marketing Co. on Vimeo. A video of the Commercial Spaceflight panel at SpaceUp Houston that featured: Will Pomerantz: Virgin Galactic Neil Milburn: Armadillo Aerospace Khaki McKee: XCOR Aerospace Mike Burghardt – The Boeing Company John Curry – Sierra Nevada Corporation Jeff Patton: United Launch Alliance.

Last week, Russia’s $300 million Express-AM4 communications satellite was stranded in the wrong orbit due to a malfunction of its Breeze-M upper stage (the second malfunction of a Breeze stage in six months). Russians officials have begun an investigation into the failure and are studying whether the spacecraft can be salvaged by moving it to a geosynchronous orbit at 36,000 km using on-board propulsion. However, according to figures provided by […]

The latest edition of the Lurio Report is now out. The table of contents is below. Contents: Quick Updates: Operations Plan Approval Releases FY’11 Funds Another Commercial Crew “Industry Day” – But the “Fatal Error” Remains? Leading NASA’s New Directorate With ILDD (and Commercial Crew) Merger of SpaceX COTS Flights 2 and 3 Spaceport America “Visitor Experience” Selection Correction: Yes, It’s “Atsa” not “Asta” Dear Acquaintances, – “Moving the Mainstream” […]

NASA PR — BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss. — A ceremony marking the official transfer of a 1.6-million-square-foot facility to NASA’s Stennis Space Center is scheduled for Wednesday, Aug. 24 at 9 a.m. CDT.  Participants will include Sen. Thad Cochran and NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver. The transfer will position the south Mississippi site for years of major expansion. In 2009, Stennis Space Center was designated a “project-ready” site for high-tech […]

MakerBot sent Stephen Colbert’s head into space on a weather balloon with a FlipCam and a GPS enabled cell phone. Includes epic space footage!

Despite losing contact with its second HTV-2 vehicle, DARPA says the flight was an improvement over the inaugural test last year:

“According to a preliminary review of the data collected prior to the anomaly encountered by the HTV-2 during its second test flight,” said DARPA Director Regina Dugan, “HTV-2 demonstrated stable aerodynamically controlled Mach 20 hypersonic flight for approximately three minutes. It appears that the engineering changes put into place following the vehicle’s first flight test in April 2010 were effective. We do not yet know the cause of the anomaly for Flight 2.”

Read the full press release below.

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NASA will hold a media teleconference to announce proposals selected in the agency’s Technology Demonstration Mission program on Monday, Aug. 22 at 2 p.m. EDT. Technology Demonstration Missions are a vital element in the technology readiness pipeline, allowing NASA to advance innovations from concept to flight across the agency’s 10 space technology programs. The participants are: Michael Gazarik, NASA deputy chief technologist, Office of the Chief Technologist, NASA Headquarters, Washington James […]

Alan Boyle at Cosmic Log talked to Elon Musk about SpaceX’s search for a third U.S. launch site: “We have our main launch facility, which is Cape Canaveral in Florida. Then we are in the process of developing our second launch facility, which is Vandenberg in California. And we do intend to develop a third launch facility. Texas is one of the possible states. But we’re also looking at a […]