What is old is new again in the American space program. The possibility that United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V booster will be sending Americans into space within a few years increased significantly this week as bids were submitted for NASA’s Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program. Atlas V is a descendant of the rocket that sent the first American, John Glenn, into orbit around the Earth in 1962. Virginia-based Orbital Sciences […]
Orbital Sciences Corporation's blended lifting body vehicle. (Credit: OSC)
VIRGIN GALACTIC PRESS RELEASE
Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, LLC (VG), the world’s first commercial spaceline, today announced that it will be supporting Sierra Nevada Space Systems’ (SNC) and Orbital Sciences Corporation’s (OSC) work on commercial space vehicles.
For the first time it will give not only professional scientists and other crew astronauts but also fare-paying passengers the chance to experience safe orbital space flight at lower costs.
A report submitted to NASA’s management last month titled, “NASA’s Top Management and Performance Challenges,” reveals that the space agency’s Inspector General is currently auditing the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program for fraud, waste and abuse: Contract Management. NASA spends approximately 85 percent of its $18 billion budget on contracts and awards. Given the significant amounts of taxpayer funds at risk, continued findings by the OIG and GAO identifying […]
AIA PRESS RELEASE
With another solid financial performance in 2010, the aerospace industry has again demonstrated its vital importance to the U.S. economy.
“Aerospace has produced solid results, including a new sales record for the seventh straight year, leading all manufacturers in trade surplus and providing a sense of stability amidst the chaos of economic upheaval,†said AIA President and CEO Marion C. Blakey.
In her remarks to more than 300 members of the news media, government and industry at the association’s 46th annual Year-end Review and Forecast Luncheon, Blakey cited a preliminary total aerospace sales figure of $216.5 billion.
Aerospace orders made a strong bounce back into positive territory, increasing 20 percent over 2009.
The Office of Naval Research Electromagnetic Railgun located at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division, fired a world-record setting 33 megajoule shot, breaking the previous record established January, 31, 2008. Railguns could be used to launch payloads off Earth, the moon and other celestial bodies. And they also can be used for killing people.
NASA recently announced that it would be conducting contract negotiations for 350 projects under its SBIR and STTR programs, which are aimed at promoting space technology development by small businesses. Parabolic Arc will be looking at a number of the proposals involving NewSpace companies that it regularly covers or which encompass interesting technologies.
This post looks at Altius Space Machines, a new startup from Jon Goff who is late of Masten Space Systems. Goff’s Colorado-based company is working on a system to assist NASA with its Mars Sample Return mission.
DRAFT SENATE APPROPRIATIONS BILL
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
SUMMARY
The agreement provides $18.9 billion for NASA, $186 million above the Fiscal Year 2010 level and $90 million less than the President’s request. The total funding includes
- $989.1 million for base Space Shuttle operations;
- $2.7 billion for Space Station operations;
- $825 million for an additional Shuttle flight, if determined to be safe, and for launch infrastructure for the heavy lift rocket;
- $3 billion for development of the Orion multipurpose crew vehicle and the heavy lift launch vehicle;
- $5 billion for science;
- $580 million for aeronautics; and
- $559 million for space and exploration technology research.
ESA PRESS RELEASE
Today, Jean-Jacques Dordain, Director General of ESA, and Steve MacLean, President of the Canadian Space Agency, signed a new Cooperation Agreement between ESA and Canada that will extend their partnership for a further 10 years, until 2020.
ESA and Canada have enjoyed a 30-year partnership that has led to many successful space projects. They will now continue to build on their shared interests. Their focus will continue to be on space applications.
CSF PRESS RELEASE
The Commercial Spaceflight Federation, representing 37 companies employing thousands of Americans nationwide, has selected its next Chairman of the Board, Eric C. Anderson, who holds the position of chairman of Space Adventures, Ltd. Anderson was elected by a diverse cross-section of industry leaders at a recent board meeting. Anderson succeeds Mark Sirangelo of Sierra Nevada Space Systems, who has completed his appointed term as Federation Chairman. Mr. Sirangelo will continue on as an officer and board member of the Federation as Chairman Emeritus.
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The Wall Street Journal’s Beth Gardiner takes a look at the International Space University’s Executive MBA program:
The classrooms are filled with physicists and engineers, lectures come from former astronauts and field trips include a visit to NASA headquarters in Washington.
The International Space University’s new executive M.B.A. is unusual in the world of business education, but organizers hope it will give a big boost to scientists forced to grapple with matters of money and management as the space sector grows increasingly commercialized.
The first class of 12 students, mostly technical experts in their 40s who have been promoted into management roles, collected their degrees on Nov. 19 at the private space university, based in Strasbourg, France. As their careers have advanced, many have had to acquire business skills on the fly to deal with realms not covered by their extensive scientific training, areas like contracting, accounting, corporate mergers and private equity investment.
NASA PROGRAM UPDATE
The 33-year odyssey of NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft has reached a distant point at the edge of our solar system where there is no outward motion of solar wind.
Now hurtling toward interstellar space some 10.8 billion miles from the sun, Voyager 1 has crossed into an area where the velocity of the hot ionized gas, or plasma, emanating directly outward from the sun has slowed to zero. Scientists suspect the solar wind has been turned sideways by the pressure from the interstellar wind in the region between stars.
The event is a major milestone in Voyager 1’s passage through the heliosheath, the turbulent outer shell of the sun’s sphere of influence, and the spacecraft’s upcoming departure from our solar system.
NASA recently announced that it would be conducting contract negotiations for 350 projects under its SBIR and STTR programs, which are aimed at promoting space technology development by small businesses. Parabolic Arc will be looking at a number of the proposals involving NewSpace companies that it regularly covers or which encompass interesting technologies.
This post looks at an SBIR proposal from Paragon Space Development Corporation, a rapidly growing Arizona company whose expertise lies in life-support systems. The project involves extracting water from brine to support human missions to other worlds. A cool idea, but the bigger question is: can it turn the water in wine? That would be really profitable. And miraculous to boot!
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