WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA is seeking proposals for two new private astronaut missions to the International Space Station as part of the agency’s efforts to open space to more people than ever before. With these opportunities, U.S. commercial companies will continue to play an essential role in establishing a sustained presence in low-Earth orbit (LEO) through the agency’s Commercial LEO Development Program.

The first targeted flight opportunity will occur between fall of 2022 and mid-2023 and the second will occur between mid-2023 and the end of 2023. Proposals are due Friday, July 9, 2021 at 5 p.m. EDT. NASA will host a pre-proposer’s conference to field industry questions related to this announcement on Tuesday, June 22, 2021 at 3:30 p.m. EDT. To confirm attendance, please email Karen Dailey at [email protected].

WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA and Axiom Space have signed a mission order for the first private astronaut mission to the International Space Station and will host a teleconference with media at 11 a.m. EDT on Monday, May 10, to discuss more details about the mission.

Audio of the teleconference will be streamed live online at: 

https://www.nasa.gov/live

WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA has selected four companies to collect space resources and transfer ownership to the agency: Lunar Outpost of Golden, Colorado; Masten Space Systems of Mojave, California; ispace Europe of Luxembourg; and ispace Japan of Tokyo. Overall, the new NASA contracts with these companies totals $25,001.

WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA will hold a media teleconference Thursday, Dec. 3, at 1 p.m. EST to announce the companies it has selected to collect lunar resources as part of the Artemis program. NASA’s Acting Associate Administrator for International and Interagency Relations Mike Gold and Director of Commercial Spaceflight Development Phil McAlister will provide an update on the selections and answer questions from the media. Audio of the teleconference will stream […]

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. (NASA PR) — Years of design, development, and testing have culminated in NASA officially certifying the first commercial spacecraft system in history capable of transporting humans to and from the International Space Station as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. NASA completed the signing of the Human Rating Certification Plan Tuesday for SpaceX’s crew transportation system after a thorough Flight Readiness Review ahead the agency’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission with astronauts to the space station.

HOUSTON (NASA PR) — NASA will highlight the first crew rotational flight of a U.S. commercial spacecraft with astronauts to the International Space Station with a trio of news conferences beginning 11 a.m. EDT Tuesday, Sept. 29.

The briefings, which will take place at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, will air live on NASA Television and the agency’s website. The full astronaut crew flying on the mission also will be available for interviews.

WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — For the first time in the agency’s history, NASA has initiated a new effort to enable NASA personnel to fly on future commercial suborbital spaceflights.

NASA’s Flight Opportunities program has successfully worked with emerging commercial suborbital transportation systems to fly research payloads to space for short periods of microgravity time. In addition, the Flight Opportunities program recently released a call that allows those non-NASA researchers to propose accompanying their payloads in suborbital space.

The second SpaceShipTwo is carried aloft by WhiteKnightTwo on its first captive carry flight. (Credit: Virgin Galactic)

NASA and various commercial companies gave updates on their programs during the International Symposium on Commercial and Personal Spaceflight this week in Las Cruces, NM.

What follows are summaries that include:

• suborbital programs (Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin)
• commercial cargo (SpaceX, Sierra Nevada Corporation)
• commercial crew (NASA, Boeing, ULA).

The summaries are based on Twitter posts from attendees. A big thanks to Thanks to Tanya Harrison (‏@tanyaofmars), Frank Slazer ‏(@FSlazer), Jeff Foust (‏@jeff_foust), Michael Simpson ‏(@SpaceSharer), and Melissa Sampson (‏@DrSampson) for the coverage.

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What I am hearing regarding NASA’s commercial crew program: There is a “decent” chance a single, crewed mission will fly in 2018.

— Eric Berger (@SciGuySpace) August 10, 2016

I asked Eric what he meant by this Tweet. He said he was referring to a crewed test flight of either SpaceX’s Dragon or Boeing’s CST-100 sometime by the end of 2018. That would push back the first commercial mission into 2019.

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The NASA Advisory Council has been meeting in Cleveland this week, receiving program updates from top agency officials. Below is a summary of the first two days based on Tweets by Jeff Foust (@jeff_foust) and Marcia Smith (@SpcPlcyOnline). There are updates below on:

• Commercial crew
• Commercial cargo
• International Space Station
• SLS/Orion
• NextSTEP
• Deep-space human mission planning
• SpaceX’s Red Dragon
• Mars 2020
• Blue Origin

Enjoy!
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