JSC to support training, early flight ops for Boeing CST-100
Mark Carreau - Aviation Week
Boeing is turning to the Mission Operations Directorate (MOD) at NASA’s Johnson Space Center to support the training for and early flight operations of the company’s seven-person CST-100 entrant in NASA’s Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) initiative. Under the terms of a recent addition to their April 2011 CCDev-2 Space Act Agreement, Boeing intends to reach a larger pact with MOD later this year to provide launch-to-landing operations from the Mission Control Center (MCC) at Johnson for its first several flights. Boeing will reimburse NASA for the training and flight control services.
NASA Offers Expertise to Help Private Companies Build Rockets, Capsules
Denise Chow - Space.com
To help spur the development of a new fleet of commercial spacecraft to carry astronauts to and from the International Space Station, NASA has partnered with select private companies to foster the design and testing of the new vehicles. But the firms that received funding from NASA are not the only players in the game. NASA has also made deals with several other commercial companies under so-called unfunded Space Act Agreements. As part of these arrangements, the agency provides expertise that could help the companies develop their vehicles or launch systems, but does not give out any money.
Commercial space companies complete wind tunnel testing
Zach Rosenberg - FlightInternational.com
Two of the four teams given awards under the second phase of commercial crew development (CCDev II) have announced completing wind tunnel testing. Both teams will receive money for the tests under the milestone-based contracts. Blue Origin, one of the four awardees under NASA's commercial crew development (CCDev) programme, has announced completion of wind tunnel testing for its Space Vehicle scale model, a biconic capsule meant to transport crew to the International Space Station (ISS). The secretive company has not publically announced a timeline for construction of a full-scale, flight worthy vehicle.
Commercial Space Shuttle Replacements Complete Wind Tunnel Testing
Jason Paur - Wired.com
Two of the companies competing in NASA’s Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program have been busy in the wind tunnel. The overly secretive Blue Origin broke its silence this week with pictures of its unique capsule design and Sierra Nevada Corporation also released news of its Dream Chaser, completing scale model wind tunnel testing in Texas. Blue Origin, the space company started by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, is easily the quietest of the CCDev participants to provide astronaut transportation to the International Space Station and other low-earth-orbit missions. Little is known about what is going on at the Seattle-area company, with news only leaking out a few times a year. This week’s update provided a few more details about the innovative design the company is developing for its creatively named Space Vehicle.
ESA Favors Upgrading Orion over Building In-orbit Service Tug
Peter de Selding - Space News
The European Space Agency (ESA) is proposing that its 19 member governments finance development of a module to power NASA’s Orion crew transport vehicle and limit work on a competing proposal — a robotic vehicle that would perform multiple tasks in low Earth orbit — to initial studies. Development of this vehicle, whose chores would include removing dead satellites and rocket stages from orbit, would accelerate starting in 2015, according to the ESA proposal. The agency also is proposing to build and launch a lunar lander — a project long backed by Germany — that would launch in 2018 and would be followed, in 2022, by a mission to retrieve samples from the Moon’s south pole.
NASA begins new round of J-2X tests at Stennis Space Center
Mike Kelley - Huntsville Times
Southern Mississippi residents may awaken to the sound of rumbling from NASA's Stennis Space Center as it conducts a series of 16 tests on the J-2X, the next generation engine that will power the upper stage of NASA's new Space Launch (SLS). The tests begin this week and are expected to conclude by the end of this year. The series of tests builds on the results of last year's successful test firings in which the engine was tested at sea-level condition. This second test series will simulate high-altitude conditions where the atmospheric pressure is low, a more realistic test scenario.
A new era for the Space Coast
Tia Mitchell - Tampa Bay Times
Tourists began booking rooms weeks ago, making plans to see what is more than a routine rocket launch from Cape Canaveral. The next chapter in U.S. space exploration should begin in about a week, when California-based Space Exploration Technologies — SpaceX for short — expects to become the first private company to send a rocket to the International Space Station. Once it perfects its delivery system for cargo, the company will turn its focus to transporting U.S. astronauts. "We are right now standing at kind of the beginning of a new era in space travel," SpaceX spokeswoman Kirstin Brost Grantham said, "one in which the commercial companies work with NASA to advance space flight."
USA's local chief takes new KSC role
QinetiQ next job for Nappi
James Dean - Florida Today
Mark Nappi, who led United Space Alliance’s Florida operations during the shuttle program’s final years of flight, left the company Friday to join another Kennedy Space Center contractor. Nappi oversaw USA’s local operations beginning in 2008 when many were concerned about the ability of NASA and its lead shuttle contractor to safely fly out the final missions while simultaneously laying off thousands of contractors.
With shuttle’s end, space firms feeling their way
Stephen Singer - Associated Press
Less than a year after NASA ended its shuttle program, players in America’s space business are casting around for new direction. United Technologies Corp. is the most recent company to say it will sharply scale back its role in space exploration. It is selling Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, a manufacturer of rocket engines and liquid-propulsion systems it has owned for seven years. The sale of Rocketdyne and other businesses is intended to raise $3 billion to finance United Technologies’ purchase of aerospace parts maker Goodrich Corp. Greg Hayes, chief financial officer at United Technologies, rapped US space policy when he announced the decision in mid-March to sell Rocketdyne.
PWR Reducing Manufacturing Space by More than Half
Warren Ferster - Space News
With business volume down sharply following the retirement of NASA’s space shuttle fleet, liquid propulsion provider Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne (PWR) is reducing its production footprint by more than half, mostly in California, company officials said. Jim Maser, PWR’s president, said that by the end 2013, the company will have shrunk its factory floor space from 189,000 square meters to less than 90,000 square meters. PWR has sprawling manufacturing and test facilities in Canoga Park, Calif., where it is headquartered, but Maser said operations in West Palm Beach, Fla., also are being consolidated.
NASA's New Spaceship Arrives for Tests
Irene Klotz - Discovery News
It's not going into space, but the mock-up Orion capsule, which arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida this week, at least is a sign of a post-shuttle life. The vehicle comes to Florida from manufacturer Lockheed Martin's plant in Colorado to serve as a test vehicle for the ground processing systems under development for NASA's next human space program, which is designed to fly astronauts to the moon, asteroids, Mars and other destinations in deep space, beyond the space station's 240-mile-high orbit. NASA's first test flight of an Orion capsule is scheduled for 2014. (NO FURTHER TEXT)
Orion Work Helps Lockheed Martin Space Systems Post Quarterly Gains
Peter de Selding - Space News
Lockheed Martin Space Systems on April 26 reported modest increases in revenue and profit for the three months ending March 25, saying sales from work on NASA’s Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle more than overcame the drop in space shuttle revenue after the vehicle’s retirement. Operating profit rose to 12 percent of revenue as the company successfully eliminated risks from unnamed government satellite programs despite slightly lower equity earnings from two 50 percent-owned affiliates, United Launch Alliance and United Space Alliance. These joint ventures with Chicago-based Boeing are focused, respectively, on providing launch services to the U.S. government and providing ground operations that have been reduced with the shuttle’s retirement.
With Shuttle Enterprise in NYC, Endeavour Is Next to Move
Mike Wall - Space.com
Two space shuttles down, two to go. The prototype shuttle Enterprise arrived in New York City Friday morning (April 27) atop a specially modified 747 jet, on its way to Manhattan's Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum. Enterprise's flight came just a week after the shuttle fleet leader, Discovery, was delivered to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. NASA's two other remaining orbiters — Endeavour and Atlantis — are also headed to museum retirement homes soon. Endeavour, the agency's youngest shuttle, is the next to move.
Past-To-Future: NASA's Crawler-Transporters
Jason Rhian - AmericaSpace.org
They move across the landscape at the staggering speed of one mile an hour. They have to – the cargo they carry is delicate and precious. They are NASA’s monstrous crawler-transporters. Since the time when the U.S. sent astronauts to the Moon, these ponderous vehicles have carried their own payloads out to Launch Complex 39. These iconic vehicles are now undergoing renovations to prepare them to once again send humans beyond the confines of their homeworld. The fact that these mammoths have been in service so long – is causing some issues during their refurbishment. Some companies that manufactured parts for the crawler-transporters no longer exist making the task of preparing them for future missions more challenging. The transporter’s massive treads are one of the vehicle’s elements that are currently experiencing these issues.
City plants tree started in space
Stephanie Loder - Vineland Daily Journal (NJ)
Officials marked Arbor Day here by planting a tree grown from space-traveling seeds that flew 1.5 million miles aboard the space shuttle Columbia with an astronaut from New Jersey. The city was one of 35 in the state randomly selected from about 600 entries during the 86th annual New Jersey Shade Tree Federation Conference last year. The nonprofit federation assists individuals and agencies entrusted with the selection, planting and care of trees. Astronaut Gregory Linteris, a Bergen County native, took eastern white pine tree seeds with him in 1997 on Columbia’s 22nd voyage. The mission lasted three days, 23 hours, 13 minutes and 38 seconds, according to NASA.
Asteroid mining no flight of fancy
John Kelly - Florida Today (Viewpoint)
Make fun all you want, but exploring asteroids is a space endeavor worth the effort. You can make a scientific case and a business case for sending probes and people to space rocks. There are tons of reasons to go, not the least of which is the bold move by some of the biggest names in private space and the wealthiest venture capitalists in the world to go after asteroid exploration rather than waiting for NASA. There are two commonly cited reasons for looking more into them: Asteroids are packed with valuable resources, and they're packed with the potential to wipe out life as we know it on this planet. The first is the one that’s attracting more and more attention.
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