JAXA MISSION UPDATE The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) would like to announce that we have confirmed the successful acceleration of the Small Solar Power Sail Demonstrator “IKAROS” by photon (*1) in the course of determining its precise orbit after its sail deployment. The IKAROS was launched by JAXA on May 21, 2010 and has been under operation since then. The thrust by solar light pressure is 1.12 mili-Newton (*2,) […]
Photo caption: Flight hardware for the inaugural launch of Falcon 9 rocket undergoing final integration in the hangar at SpaceX’s Cape Canaveral launch site in Florida. Components include: Dragon spacecraft qualification unit (left), second stage with Merlin Vacuum engine (center), first stage with nine Merlin 1C engines (right). (Credit: SpaceX)
SpaceX is beginning to assemble components for its second Falcon 9 rocket at Cape Canaveral, eying a late September launch date for a crucial test of its Dragon cargo freighter.
Video of the first flight of the VSS Enterprise with a crew aboard, July 15, 2010.
Russian Relaunch: Rocket business hopes to take off after bankruptcy
Los Angeles Business Journal
Sea Launch Co. LLC, a joint venture started by Boeing Co. that launches commercial satellites from the middle of the Pacific Ocean, is expected to emerge next week almost wholly owned by Russians after 15 months of bankruptcy.
(more…)
Soyuz rocket
Russia to invest over $ 800 mn to build new space centre
Zeenews.com
Russia will invest over USD 800 million to build a space centre in the Far East of the country for civilian space launches, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said today.
BOEING PROGRAM UPDATE
Boeing released artist’s renderings of its Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 spacecraft during a media briefing with Bigelow Aerospace today at the Farnborough Airshow.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin tours RSC Energia. (Credit: Russian Federation Government)
RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT PRESS RELEASES
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who chaired a meeting at the Energia Rocket and Space Corporation, spoke about state support for the development of the rocket and space industry. He said that allocations from the federal budget amounted to more than 18 billion roubles in 2009. He added that in 2010 the industry would receive 67 billion roubles for the implementation of the Federal Space Programme and 27.9 billion roubles for the Glonass global navigation system.
PRATT & WHITNEY ROCKETDYNE PRESS RELEASE
Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne signed a NASA Mentor-Protege Agreement on July 7 with Avans Machine & Tool, a flight-approved supplier and certified Historically Under-Utilized Business (HUB) Zone small business located in Skyline, Ala. It is the first such agreement between a NASA prime contractor and a certified HUBZone small business. Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne is a United Technologies Corp. (NYSE: UTX) company.
This week in The Space Review: Critical partnerships for the future of human space exploration The size of the challenges associated with human exploration beyond Earth orbit is likely beyond what any single space agency is willing to spend to carry out those missions. Andre Bormanis describes the types of partnerships that are critical to making such exploration possible. The real message of a controversial statement NASA found itself embroiled […]
Monday, July 19, 2010, 2-3:30 PM PDT: We welcome Lucinda Land, Executive Director of The Mars Society to discuss the upcoming Mars Society Conference which is August 5-8, 2010 in Dayton, Ohio. Tuesday, July 20, 2010, 7- 8:30 PM PDT: In honor of this special day, we again present Evoloterra with Rand Simberg and Bill Simon.
CSF PRESS RELEASE
The Commercial Spaceflight Federation is pleased to announce that Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne has joined the Federation as an Associate Member. With 3,100 employees across Florida, California, Alabama, and Mississippi, including more than 1,800 employees in Southern California, the company is a leading provider of propulsion and power systems for space flight.
“Moonrush†author Dennis Wingo joins us from a converted McDonald’s where he is converting old Lunar Reconnaissance to digital files for our latest live show. Dennis has very compelling arguments for us to not only go back to the moon but how we can colonize and monetize as well. We even cover how we can use the ISS as a building station to get to GEO to push to the […]