Courtney Stadd

PRESS RELEASE
U.S. Attorney’s Office
Southern District of Mississippi

A former high-ranking National Aeronautics and Space Administration (“NASA”) official, Courtney A. Stadd, 55, of Bethesda, Maryland, has entered a guilty plea to conspiracy charges in connection with actions he took to obtain and receive funds from a $600,000 sole-source contract from John C. Stennis Space Center to Mississippi State University (“MSU”) on a remote sensing study, United States Attorney Donald R. Burkhalter and NASA Inspector General Paul K. Martin announced today.

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Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center

Florida Today’s editors believe that two announcements made this week bode well for the Space Coast’s efforts to create jobs in the post-shuttle era:

The first came Monday when a task force recommended to President Obama that companies focusing on aviation, solar power, life sciences and information technology compete for $35 million in federal grants to help replace lost shuttle jobs.

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Tim Russ of Star Trek: Voyager fame sings the blues with the Ames Jazz Band during SETIcon in Santa Clara, Calif. Aug. 14, 2010

A P3 Navy aircraft with Hangar One at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. (Copyright 2009: Douglas Messier)

There was interesting story recently in the Mountain View Voice about how NASA Ames’ management allegedly handles criticism. It seems that the Ames Federal Employees Union filed a complaint last year alleging verbal assault by the center’s second ranking officer:

It turns out that the “unfair labor practice” involved [Center Director Pete] Worden himself, along with his number two, deputy director Lewis Braxton III. According to documents filed with the Federal Labor Relations Authority, Braxton is alleged to have verbally “assaulted” AFEU president Leland Stone while Worden was present at an August 2009 meeting. The incident took place immediately after Stone sent an e-mail to union members which disparaged Ames management and boasted about the union’s accomplishments.

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Sen. Richard Shelby

The United Launch Alliance plant in Decatur, Ala. has been all but invisible over the last six months as the Obama Administration and Congress battled it out over plans to commercialize human spaceflight to orbit.

NASA officials mentioned the possibility of using Atlas V and Delta IV vehicles built at the plant from time to time, but they never pushed it very hard. (Probably because the program would be competitively bid and they legally couldn’t endorse any one option.) Meanwhile, Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby seemed to forget that the ULA facility even existed at all as he fought tooth and nail against the plan. (A senior moment — or clever politicking?)

Well, that seems to be changing now, every so slightly…

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SpaceX conducted drop tests of its Dragon spacecraft off the coast of Central California last week. The capsule was hauled aloft by helicopter in Morro Bay and then dropped; it descended under three red-and-white parachutes. You can see pictures here. (A shout out to Clark Lindsey at Hobby Space for the link.)

Ex-NASA chief of staff pleads guilty to conspiracy in steering contract to US university
The Canadian Press

NASA’s former chief of staff pleaded guilty Wednesday to a federal conspiracy charge stemming from a $600,000 contract awarded by the space agency to Mississippi State University, a client of his consulting firm.

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FAA PRESS RELEASE

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today announced that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has selected New Mexico State University (NMSU), Las Cruces, NM, to lead a new Air Transportation Center of Excellence for Commercial Space Transportation. The center is a partnership of academia, industry, and government, developed for the purpose of creating a world-class consortium that will address current and future challenges for commercial space transportation.

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Edward Ellegood of the FLORIDA SPACErePORT says that the Space Florida board has been busy this week:

The Space Florida board approved the following investments: up to $1M in financial support for a reusable launch vehicle company; up to 30% of the estimated $2.9 million cost for Starfighters Aerospace to procure multiple F-104 jet aircraft from Italy; and $2 million over three years to match the FAA’s investment in research at a proposed Center of Excellence for Commercial Space Transportation (Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University has teamed with Space Florida to establish this Center at the Cape Canaveral Spaceport).

The suborbital company was not named, but my guess is that it is XCOR Aerospace. The company is building its first Lynx vehicle at its facility in Mojave, Calif. Florida has licensed spaceports at Cape Canaveral and in Jacksonville.

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AVIATION WEEK PRESS RELEASE

Aviation Week has released results from its 2010 Workforce and Young Professionals/Student Study, a mainstay for aerospace and defense (A&D) planning and trend analysis since 1997, which show that A&D companies plan to hire 15,500 professionals this year. However, retaining younger employees continues to be a challenge — the voluntary attrition rate (employees choosing to leave) for young professionals rose to 21%, and 41% admit to looking for new jobs. The study also reviewed industry retirement rates and ranked the top universities for A&D alumni hires, with California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, at number one.

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China finishes construction of first unmanned space module Xinhua China has finished construction of its first unmanned space module, Tiangong-1, and it is testing the module’s electronic, mechanical and thermal properties, a military source said here Tuesday. The 8.5-tonne Tiangong-1 will be put into preset orbit in 2011, the source added. The space module is expected to carry out China’s first space docking, with the Shenzhou-8 spacecraft, which will be […]

Space shuttle Atlantis lands on runway 33 at NASA Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility concluding the STS-129 mission. Photo credit: NASA Jack Pfaller

The Presidential Task Force on Space Industry Workforce & Economic Development’s report outlines proposals for:

• a $5 million Commercial Spaceflight Technical Center
• Commerce and Small Business Administration efforts
• retraining and job fair programs for laid off workers
• a fast-track competitive grants program.

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