Space News reports that the Europeans have worked out their differences on the continent’s two largest space efforts: The European Space Agency (ESA) on March 17 agreed to commit Europe to continue participating in the international space station through 2020, and to paying 240 million euros ($318 million) over two years to support the Arianespace commercial launch consortium and the Ariane 5 heavy-lift rocket, European government and industry officials said. The […]
WASHINGTON — NASA Television and the agency’s website will carry live coverage from 8 to 10 p.m. EDT Thursday as the first spacecraft enters Mercury’s orbit. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, which operates the MESSENGER spacecraft, is conducting the webcast from its mission control building in Laurel, Md. NASA’s MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging, or MESSENGER, is scheduled to enter the planet’s orbit at approximately 9 […]
In Texas, an informed consent bill that would require spaceflight participants to sign waivers acknowledging the risks they face has passed the Senate by a 31-0 bill. The measure, which now heads to the House, gives commercial space operators protections from being sued in the event of injuries or deaths resulting from flights. Meanwhile, Apollo moon walker Charlie Duke and shuttle astronaut Kay Hire were part of a 70-member delegation […]
AIA PR — Frank Slazer, an executive with nearly 30 years of experience on space policy issues and programs, has joined AIA as the Vice President of Space Systems.
Most recently, Slazer developed and implemented business development strategies across the NASA civil space market for Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems. He was responsible for developing and managing customer relationships and all aspects of the business acquisition process.
Hey, you going to be in Chicago on March 26? Yes. Got $4,200 to burn? Uh-huh. Then Go ZERO-G! All right! Seats on the Chicago flight on March 26 are only $4,000 plus a $200 excise tax. That’s about a 20 percent discount on a $5,197.50 full-priced ticket with tax. Sign up here. Do it quickly. The 72-hour sale ends on Sunday, March 20.
Another day, another bewildering blog post in The Hill, this time courtesy of former Florida Congressman James Bacchus, who once represented the district that contains the Kennedy Space Center:
Yet, for all the considerable promise of private commercial space exploration, it is not at all clear that commercial rockets will be able to be “man-rated†by NASA to taxi astronauts any time soon.
Yes. Yes, they can be.
NASA Mission Update — After more than a dozen laps through the inner solar system, NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft will move into orbit around Mercury on March 17, 2011. The durable spacecraft–carrying seven science instruments and fortified against the blistering environs near the sun–will be the first to orbit the innermost planet.
James Cameron. Credit: Richard Burdett
Cameron joins a world-class Board of Trustees that includes a growing list of entrepreneurs, scientists and engineers such as Dean Kamen, inventor, CEO, DEKA; Dr. J. Craig Venter, CEO, Synthetic Genomics; Elon Musk, CEO, Tesla and CEO, SpaceX; Ray Kurzweil, futurist and author; Anousheh Ansari, first female private space explorer; Larry Page, CEO & co-founder, Google; and Arianna Huffington, President and Editor in Chief, Huffington Post Media Group. The Board actively participates by advising on where large incentive competitions (X PRIZEs and X CHALLENGEs) can drive radical breakthroughs to help address humanity’s grand challenges.
NASA Ames Research Center's Dr. Chris McKay stands in the shade while teaching astrobiology to students attending the United Arab Emirates University. In the background is Jebel Hafeet, a highly stratified protrusion of sedimentary rock rich in deep sea planktonic fossils and bronze age human artifacts. Image credit: NASA/Matthew F. Reyes
NASA PR — Whether or not you remember the winter of 2011 as unusually cold or snowy, an adventurous team of experts will remember its intense heat, as they searched for microbial life between sand dunes in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). They were searching for simple life forms that also may exist on other planets.
The United States team consisted of teachers Mike Wing and Lucinda Land, NASA space scientists Chris McKay and Jon Rask, and education specialist Matthew Reyes. Together, they embarked on a high adventure desert expedition from Feb. 18 – Mar. 4 with UAE students and teachers as part of a NASA education program, called Spaceward Bound. Developed at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., Spaceward Bound’s mission is to train the next generation of space explorers. Led by the U.S. team, local students and teachers from the Emirates were given real planetary research experience using remote, extreme environments in the UAE deserts as analogs for Mars and Saturn’s moon, Titan.
CSA PR — Seven new research projects on regenerative medicine and nanomedicine received $16 million in funding. The studies, co-funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), were announced today at the University of Toronto by Dr. Colin Carrie, Member of Parliament for Oshawa; Dr. Jane Aubin, Scientific Director of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Institute of Musculoskeletal Health and Arthritis; Mr. Gilles Leclerc, Director General, Space Exploration at the Canadian Space Agency; and Professor Peter Lewis, Associate Vice President (Research) at the University of Toronto.
Arianespace PR — ARSAT has once again selected Arianespace for its commercial launch services – this time to orbit the Argentinean satellite operator’s second satellite, Arsat-2.
Participating in this week’s Satellite 2011 conference in Washington, D.C., Arianespace today announced that it has signed a launch Service & Solutions contract with Argentine operator ARSAT (Empresa Argentina de Soluciones Satelitales Sociedad Anonima) to orbit its Arsat-2 satellite by the second half of 2013.
Weighing about 2,900 kg at launch, Arsat-2 will be placed into geostationary transfer orbit by an Ariane 5 or Soyuz launcher from the Guiana Space Center, Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.