Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center

NASA PRESS RELEASE

The President’s Task Force on Space Industry Workforce and Economic Development, co-chaired by NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden, Jr. and U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, today released its report to President Barack Obama with recommendations to enhance economic development strategies along Florida’s Space Coast.

The task force was charged with developing a plan for how best to invest $40 million in transition assistance from the federal government in the Space Coast region as the space shuttle program winds down.

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NGL PRESS RELEASE

Next Giant Leap LLC (NGL) is offering NASA lunar mission data on its planned lunar robotic lander mission via the recently announced NASA Innovative Lunar Demonstrations Data (ILDD) program. The ILDD program challenges industry to demonstrate Earth-to-lunar surface flight system capabilities and test technologies including information related to landing using a human mission profile; identification of hazards during landing; precision landing: imagery: and long-duration surface operations. NASA issued the ILDD Broad Agency Announcement on August 6th which will result in multiple small firm-fixed price indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contracts with a total value up to $30.1 million through 2012.

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A brief note from the Roscosmos PAO website: The number of the International Space Station program participants may be enlarged by adding China and India, ISS flight engineer Fiodor Urchikhin said answering the question from the ISS Mail Box. The Mail Box is the project by Memorial Space Museum supported by Roscosmos PAO and Moscow’s Department of Culture. “I am sure that partnership with China and India would be mutually […]

The 'Zero-G" Airbus A300

The next ESA parabolic flight campaign will be in November, but ESA is calling now for the proposals for experiments to be conducted during the 54th campaign in spring 2011. The campaign will include three flights of 31 parabolas with Moon and Mars gravity-levels (exact amount of each type of parabolas will depending on requests of investigators). Proposals for the first campaign of reduced gravity levels of 0.16 g and 0.38 g should be received before 31 August 2010. Proposals can still be submitted after this date and will be considered or future partial-g campaigns. Please visit www.esa.int/parabolicflight for further information on the ESA parabolic flights and on how to prepare and submit research proposals.

ESA’s full press release is reproduced after the break.

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One of the European Space Agency experiments involves the collection of air samples to measure the quality of air in a confined space such as the Mars500 modules. Romain Charles demonstrates the collection procedure and describes the scope of this experiment.

NASA PROGRAM UPDATE

NASA’s Ames Research Center and Mavericks Civilian Space Foundation, Moffett Field, Calif., today announced a collaboration to develop a high-altitude high-velocity air sampling system for NASA biological experiments.

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Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center

Florida Today reports on an old idea to attract new businesses to the Florida Space Coast:

Tax breaks for commercial space-related businesses are the focus of a bill proposed by Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Orlando, whose Commercial Space Jobs and Investment Act would allow businesses around centers like Kennedy Space Center to qualify for major tax breaks and other incentives.

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Armadillo Aerospace Founder John Carmack celebrates his 40th birthday in microgravity with co-workers and family. (Thanks to Clark Lindsey at Hobby Space for this one.)

Falcon 9 takes off on its first flight. (Credit: Chris Thompson SpaceX)

Aviation Week has an essay by an administrator of the University of Michigan’s space engineering graduate programs. The writer surprised to find that five of the top ten students from his school over the past decade now work for SpaceX.

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This week in The Space Review… Is the Merlin engine the workhorse of future spaceflight? All eyes are on SpaceX as it seeks to lower the cost of space access and open up new markets. Stewart Money argues that the company’s most important innovation may not be its launch vehicles or spacecraft but a rocket engine that could be for space what another engine was for the automotive industry. A […]

Sierra Nevada Corporation successfully test fired the RocketMotorTwo engine for the fifth time last week. The hot-firing was the first such test in over four months. Previous firings were done one: April 20, 2009 May 06, 2009 May 20, 2009 March 30, 2010 RocketEngineTwo Test Log (Courtesy of Scaled Composites) Fire: 05 Date: 11 August 10 Objectives: Perform fifth full scale flight design RM2 hot-fire Continue all systems evaluation Continue […]

PLANETARY SOCIETY PRESS RELEASE

The Planetary Society will present a giant birthday card to Ray Bradbury, a member of our Advisory Council, at Los Angeles City Hall on Friday, August 20, 2010. Bradbury will turn 90 years old on August 22, and the Council will consider a resolution proclaiming August 22 to 28 Ray Bradbury Week. Louis Friedman, Executive Director of The Planetary Society, will speak on behalf of the resolution. A private reception honoring Bradbury will follow the council meeting.

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