Artists conception of SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft in orbit
Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has announced a second user conference for its commercial product DragonLabâ„¢, a free-flying, reusable spacecraft capable of hosting pressurized and unpressurized payloads to and from orbit. The event will focus on the needs of European users and take place on October 29th, 2009, in Haarlem, Netherlands.
Sky is not the limit at space business summit
Associated Press
About 120 companies that make products or offer services ranging from communications satellites to rocket-powered vehicles capable of sending ordinary people into space gathered Wednesday at Boston’s Hynes Convention Center for the seventh Space Investment Summit….
NASA MISSION UPDATE
MESSENGER successfully flew by Mercury yesterday, gaining a critical gravity assist that will enable it to enter orbit about Mercury in 2011 and capturing images of five percent of the planet never before seen. With more than 90 percent of the planet’s surface already imaged, MESSENGER’s science team had drafted an ambitious observation campaign designed to tease out additional details from features uncovered during the first two flybys. But an unexpected signal loss prior to closest approach hampered those plans.
NASA MISSION UPDATE
During MESSENGER’s approach to Mercury yesterday, the NAC acquired a high-resolution, 62-image mosaic of the sunlit crescent planet. Many of these images show portions of Mercury’s surface not previously seen by spacecraft, including the NAC image shown here. In this image, Mercury’s northern horizon cuts a crisp line against the blackness of space. The surface in the lower right corner of the image is near Mercury’s terminator, the line between the light dayside and dark night side of the planet. Looking toward the horizon, smooth plains extend for large distances, similar to volcanic plains seen nearby during MESSENGER’s second flyby of Mercury. (Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington)
The Commercial Spaceflight Federation is calling upon Congress and the Obama Administration to provide federal funding to the nation’s spaceports under an unfunded 1993 law:
Unlike airports, commercial spaceports currently have no opportunity to apply for federal matching dollars for infrastructure to support operations and protect public safety. In the 1993 NASA Authorization Act (Public Law No. 102-588), Congress authorized a new program to support commercial space transportation facilities, but no funding has been appropriated to date.
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE PRESS RELEASE
Mark Schoeberl, age 60, of Silver Spring, Maryland, a senior manager and scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), pleaded guilty today to a felony conflict of interest charge in connection with his participation in NASA contracts given to his wife’s company, announced United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein.
Bigelow Aerospace and Virgin Galactic are considering future partnerships in the area of space tourism.
A Soyuz rocket carrying Canadian space tourist Guy Laliberte, Russian cosmonaut Maxim Suraev and American astronaut Jeffrey Williams lifted off at 1:14 p.m. local time on Wednesday. The crew is now in orbit aboard a Soyuz spacecraft headed for a Friday rendezvous with the International Space Station.
CALIFORNIA SPACE AUTHORITY PRESS RELEASE
25 September 2009
The California Space Authority (CSA) announced the 2009 California SpotBeam Award Winners today. The awards will be formally presented at the California SpotBeam Awards Dinner on Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at The Proud Bird Restaurant in Los Angeles, California.
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
PRESS RELEASE
(Via Roskosmos based on RAS Institute of Space Reseach press statement)
Russian LEND — Lunar Exploration Neutron Detector – installed on NASA`s LRO -Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter – was switched into active mode on Sept. 15, after LRO reached Lunar 50-km polar orbit, which is to be the operational orbit for the initial stage of the mission.
The JAXA website has a lengthy interview with astronaut Chiaki Mukai, who is manager of the agency’s Space Biomedical Research Office. She talks in depth about the current state of Japanese space medical research, how it will use the newly installed Kibo module aboard the International Space Station, and her nation’s aim to be the leader in the area of lunar frontier medicine. (more…)
