AEROJET PR – HUNTSVILLE, Ala., March 25, 2011 – Aerojet, a GenCorp (NYSE: GY) company, announced today that in partnership with Huntsville City Mayor Tommy Battle and Chamber of Commerce executives, it held a groundbreaking ceremony, marking the launch of Aerojet’s new office expansion project. The event began at 4 p.m. and was held at Aerojet’s future location at 7047 Old Madison Pike in Huntsville.

Several dignitaries attended the event, including: Congressman Mo Brooks; Mayor Tommy Battle; State Representative Phil Williams; Commissioner Mike Gillespie; Commissioner Phil Reddick and Commissioner Dale Strong.

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The latest update from Henry Vanderbilt….

Space Access ’11 will once again be an intensive, informal event, focused closely on the business, technology, and politics of radically cheaper space transportation. We’ve been running these Space Access conferences since the early nineties, and the audience tends to contain a high proportion of people working in the field on the entrepreneurial startup company end of things. To a considerable extent, our conference has been an incubator of that entrepreneurial end of things. And if you still can’t make up your mind whether it’s worth your attending, see the latest updated SA’11 Conference Schedule below.

Space Access ’11 sessions will run Thursday afternoon April 7th through Saturday evening April 9th 2011. Conference registration is $100 in advance, $120 at the door ($30 student rate either way, day rates available at the door), and we’re only set up to accept credit cards at the door – you need to mail us a check or money order for advance registration. Include your name, the affiliation (if any) you want listed on your badge, and your email address, make the check out to “Space Access ’11”, and mail it to Space Access ’11, PO Box 16034, Phoenix AZ 85011. (Pre-registrations must arrive by Tuesday April 5th at the latest.)

The schedule is after the break.

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A4H PR – Tampa, Florida – Astronauts4Hire is pleased to announce that it has entered into an exclusive training partnership with Survival Systems USA for the purposes of emergency spacecraft escape and surface water survival training. Survival Systems USA will provide A4H members with the knowledge and skills necessary to react appropriately to post-landing emergencies and successfully perform an underwater egress with and without an Emergency Breathing Device, and to care for themselves in a sea survival situation.

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Orbital Sees First Taurus II Flight In Sept. Aviation Week Orbital Sciences Corp. is on track — with “a limited amount of slack” — to fly its new Taurus II launch vehicle in September on a risk-reduction mission. The first flight main stage is on a ship en route from the KB Yuzhnoye factory in Ukraine to the new Horizontal Integration Facility (HIF) here, where it will be mated with […]

UP Aerospace Spaceloft XL rocket lifts off from Spaceport America in New Mexico on May 2, 2009.

NMSGC PR – UPHAM, NM – After analyzing the results of a test on the parachute system for the SL-5 rocket, New Mexico Space Grant Consortium (NMSGC) Director Dr. Patricia Hynes has rescheduled the SL-5 Student Launch to Friday, May 20, 2011 Engineers from UP Aerospace conferred with NMSGC launch officials and it was determined that, even though the drop test was successful, a portion of flight hardware became entangled during recovery and was damaged. Safe return of the students’ 27 onboard experiments is a requirement of this launch, so in order to meet the mission specifications, the launch has been rescheduled to May 20 at Spaceport America.

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Testing of the NDX-1 space suit at the Marambio Base, Antarctica. The NDX-1 space suit was developed at the Space Suit Laboratory, Department of Space Studies, University of North Dakota.

AEROSPACE CORPORATION PR — The first Reentry Breakup Recorder (REBR), an instrument designed and constructed by engineers at The Aerospace Corporation, is set to plunge to Earth on March 29, shortly after 7 p.m.

Two REBRs were carried to the International Space Station (ISS) on board a Japanese Kounotori2 spacecraft, also known as the HTV2, on Jan. 21. The REBR is a small autonomous device that is designed to record temperature, acceleration, rotation rate, and other data as a spacecraft reenters Earth’s atmosphere. The REBRS will be attached to spacecraft returning to Earth from the ISS and will take measurements as the spacecraft breaks up during its reentry.

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Armadillo Aerospace Founder John Carmack writes on the aRocket Digest list that he expects to fly the company’s Tube rocket this weekend from Spaceport America. The flight will be an attempt to exceed 100,000 feet. If the flight goes well and the rocket is recovered intact, Aramdillo will attempt a flight in excess of 100 kilometers within a couple of months.

This week on The Space Show…. Monday, March 28, 2011 , 2-3:30 PM PDT. We welcome Dennis Chamberland of Atlantica Expeditions to the show. Tuesday, March 29, 2011, 7-8:30 PM PDT: The first part of this program features our friend Dave Ketchledge speaking fact not fear, not fiction about nuclear power and radiation as Dave is in the industry and was a Naval sub nuclear expert. He has been a […]

Meanwhile, the sausage making continues on Capitol Hill…

Space News reports that pork barropriators* on Capitol Hill are considering some creative ways to fund the heavy-lift vehicle that NASA doesn’t want and the Orion capsule:

Congressional appropriators could tap the funding accounts of the U.S. departments of Commerce and Justice to help cover what some see as a $1 billion shortfall in NASA’s $18.7 billion spending plan for 2012, which allocates less money for a heavy-lift rocket and crew capsule than Congress directed last year.

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The image shows Curiosity on a tilt table in the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA PR — The NASA rover to be launched to Mars this year will carry the Mast Camera (Mastcam) instrument already on the vehicle, providing the capability to meet the mission’s science goals.

Work has stopped on an alternative version of the instrument, with a pair of zoom-lens cameras, which would have provided additional capabilities for improved three-dimensional video. The installed Mastcam on the Mars Science Laboratory mission’s Curiosity rover uses two fixed-focal-length cameras: a telephoto for one eye and wider angle for the other. Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, built the Mastcam and was funded by NASA last year to see whether a zoom version could be developed in time for testing on Curiosity.

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Not sure what to make of this news release. It involves a Bulgarian vacation travel site that features noted uber-capitalist Che Guevara, whose idea of a vacation was leading Marxist guerrillas through the jungles of Bolivia, pursuing cooperating on space tourism with China, which has previously shown no public interest in entering the field. Apparently the Bulgarian space industry has something unique and valuable to offer China. And the whole idea was dreamed up by a former NASA astronaut.

Huh.

Read on. But, I must warn you, it doesn’t really get any clearer….

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