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Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser is one of three programs seeded by NASA for commercial crew transport to Space Station. Now in early testing, this reusable vehicle's aerodynamic shape is a descendant of NASA's X-24A lifting body flown from 1969 to 1971.
A private space plane has arrived at a NASA facility in California to undergo tests that will help vet its ability to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station. A test version of the Dream Chaser space plane arrived at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in southern California on Wednesday (May 15) aboard a flatbed truck, wrapped in a protective white caul for the overland journey from Colorado. Engineers will put the Dream Chaser through its paces at Dryden, testing out its flight and runway landing systems, NASA officials said. The vehicle will be towed down a runway by a truck, for example, to validate the Dream Chaser's brakes and tires.
"If we are truly committed to economic prosperity, we need to continue to reduce over-regulation and over-litigation. As Californians, rather than allowing California’s unfriendly business climate to restrict opportunity and increase costs that stifle future innovation, we must instead champion solutions that create a new business climate that preserves the California Dream, where an individual can still dream big, take risks and make the impossible a reality."
Sierra Nevada Corp. (SNC) Space Systems' Dream Chaser test flight craft, also known as an engineering test article, arrived at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif., May 15 to begin tests of its flight and runway landing systems.
With its wings and tail structure removed and shrouded in plastic wrap, the test article was transported from the company's facility in Louisville, Colo., atop a flatbed truck and trailer. The five-state journey took about five days to complete.
Kennedy Space Center Director Bob Cabana gave a spirited defense of NASA’s turn toward commercial space operations earlier this week, saying the space agency would not block a proposed commercial launch complex on land it controls at the Shiloh site: “If it works out that that’s the right thing to do, we’ll make sure that the land is available for them to do that,” he said.
Dr Alan Stern, planetary scientist, space program executive, aerospace consultant and author, was elected to be the President and CEO of The Golden Spike Company in 2010. Golden Spike, consisting of former NASA engineers, program managers, Agency executives, and others, is a commercial space corporation planning human lunar expeditions. It made news in December 2012 with its proposal to begin launching passenger flights by 2020, costing $1.5 billion each. In this interview with Space Tech Expo, Dr Stern reveals more details about Golden Spike’s ambitions, why it chose to give crowd funding a chance, and why he believes the entertainment industry is key to the development of future space exploration
In a recent presentation to the human exploration and operations committee of the NASA Advisory Counsel (NAC), Phil McAlister, Director of the Commercial Spaceflight Development discussed the next steps that will be necessary for commercial crew providers to be certified to begin transportation of commercial crew to the International Space Station in 2017. NASA is currently funding three commercial crew providers under its Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) program which runs thru May 2014. Optional milestones under CCiCap beyond May 2014 could be exercised by NASA.
Sierra Nevada Corporation's (SNC) Space Systems Dream Chaser flight vehicle arrived at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif., Wednesday to begin tests of its flight and runway landing systems.
The tests are part of pre-negotiated, paid-for-performance milestones with NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP), which is facilitating U.S.-led companies' development of spacecraft and rockets that can launch from American soil. The overall goal of CCP is to achieve safe, reliable and cost-effective U.S. human access to and from the International Space Station and low-Earth orbit.
BOULDER, CO, May 15, 2013 (Golden Spike PR) –Golden Spike, the first company planning to undertake human lunar expeditions for countries and corporations around the world, announced today that legendary astronaut and Apollo 13 Commander Jim Lovell has joined its Board of Advisors. Capt. Lovell, a former Naval aviator and test pilot, is a recipient of the Congressional Space Medal of Honor and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Lovell is one of only 24 people to have flown to the Moon, was the first of only three people to fly to the Moon twice, and was the first person to fly in space four times.
Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, is the world's leading space entrepreneur. Hear how Musk plans to send millions of people to colonize Mars as Michelle Fields talks to Musk about the future of space exploration, scientific innovation and doing business in California during a recession.
"As we see entrepreneurs such as Burt Rutanand Richard Branson dare to achieve the unthinkable, we must ensure that they have the freedom to innovate and create without government making their lives more difficult. Our fear is that soon, because of California's increasingly onerous regulatory climate, other more business-friendly states will offer better incentives and opportunities for these companies to relocate this burgeoning industry – an industry that has already had a significant and tangible impact on California's economy."
On Dec 20th 2012, NASA announced it had awarded Las Vegas-based Bigelow Aerospace a $17.8 million USD contract to build an inflatable module for testing on the International Space Station (ISS). Although NASA has curiously kept the deal low-key over the past several months, Bigelow’s founder has been more open. The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) is being developed by Bigelow Aerospace for use on the ISS from 2015 to 2017. In 2015, BEAM will be delivered to the ISS in an unpressurized SpaceX Dragon spacecraft during the 8th scheduled SpaceX resupply mission (CRS-8). The ISS crew will use the Canadarm2 to attach BEAM to the station’s Tranquility module, after which they’ll activate a pressurization system to expand the structure to its full size using onboard air tanks. Roughly cylindrical in shape, the BEAM module is small at 4 m (13 ft) in length and 3.2 m (10.5 ft.) in diameter.
DUBAI // Virgin Galactic, the space tourism company co-owned by Abu Dhabi’s Aabar Investments, will stage its first flight on Christmas Day this year. Richard Branson, whose Virgin Group co-owns Virgin Galactic, said in Dubai yesterday that he would be on board the first public flight on December 25. Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and Ashton Kutcher are among the celebrities believed to have also bought tickets for the flight.
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The mothballed Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) began looking towards the future on Friday, after NASA issued a Request For Proposals (RFP) from the commercial sector. A level of interest has already been mooted by several parties, ranging from the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V through to SpaceX’s future monster launch vehicles known as Falcon X/XX.
WASHINGTON — Commercial space advocates here said the private sector should have a larger role in U.S. space exploration plans, even as a legislative aide warned that NASA — still the critical anchor customer for such companies — is in line for yet another difficult budget year. “As we look toward the future, commercial space does not stop at low Earth orbit,” Mike Gold, director of Washington operations for Bigelow Aerospace and chairman of the Federal Aviation Administration’s Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC), said at that group’s annual spring meeting May 15. Bigelow Aerospace of North Las Vegas, Nev., has a pair of Space Act Agreements with NASA, including a nearly $20 million pact awarded in December to fly one of the company’s inflatable space modules aboard the international space station in 2015.
Video of SpaceX's 5.2m fairing—designed in-house by SpaceX—undergoing testing in the world's largest vacuum chamber at NASA Glenn Research Center -- Plum Brook Station.
SpaceX's fairing is used to protect a satellite during launch. Separation occurs when the rocket is traveling over 4x faster than a speeding bullet, nearly 10x the speed of sound.
The video is in slow motion.
April 29, 2013 will be remembered as the day a new era began for the human race. It’s the day space tourism has become a certainty. Even if the program won’t open to the public until 2015, we know that it will now be possible to bring non-astronauts to space. Beyond the technological feat, Virgin Galactic has started a new movement that I believe will change humanity’s mindset. Here’s why:
The organizers of a private plan to send two people on a round-trip flyby of Mars in 2018 are choosing between a variety of commercial rockets and a NASA booster for the mission. The nonprofit Inspiration Mars foundation was founded by entrepreneur and space tourist Dennis Tito, who flew to the International Space Station in 2001 aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Tito said the flyby mission is aimed at inspiring the public about space exploration and accelerating humanity's quest to visit Mars by taking advantage of a rare launch opportunity that allows for a relatively brief 501-day round trip. "The way we're going, we'll never get started," Tito said of the government's approach to manned missions to Mars Wednesday (May 8) at the Humans 2 Mars Summit in Washington, D.C. "It's time for us to take the first step."
PARIS — Satellite machine-to-machine (M2M) messaging service provider Orbcomm said the launch of the first eight of its second-generation satellites is likely to occur this fall after its launch services provider, Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX), conducts the first two flights of the new Falcon 9 rocket, Orbcomm Chief Executive Marc J. Eisenberg said. The launch, which has been delayed repeatedly, will better position Orbcomm in the competition with exactEarth, majority-owned by Canada’s Com Dev, to line up customers for a global automatic identification system (AIS) maritime surveillance service for coastal authorities.
HAMPTON, Va. (NASA PR) – A group of NASA astronauts will be at NASA’s Langley Research Center this week to fly in a simulator that is being used to help evaluate the subsonic handling characteristics of Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) Space Systems’ Dream Chaser spacecraft. The simulation is of an approach to — and landing at — Edwards Air Force Base in California — the final 10,000 feet (3,048 meters) and 60 seconds of a future Dream Chaser flight. The astronauts will evaluate how well the spacecraft would handle in a number of different atmospheric conditions as well as assess its guidance and navigation performance.
Legendary Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell has signed on with a commercial lunar exploration firm to help make private trips to the moon a reality, the company Golden Spike announced today (May 15).
Golden Spike aims to launch private citizens on round-trip visits to the moon starting in 2020 for a fee of $1.5 billion per flight. The firm, named after the final spike that joined the rails of the First Transcontinental Railroad in 1869, is pitching these lunar voyages to corporations, countries without their own space programs, and even wealthy individuals.
Aviation Week is reporting that SpaceX and the U.S. Air Force are “days away” from finalizing details for a certification plan which would allow the company to compete for national security launches aboard its Falcon 9 V1.1 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles. Having already won two launch orders under the Air Force’s separate Orbital/Suborbital-3 (OPS-3) program, which carries a lower level of risk, final announcement of a certification plan will mark another significant milestone for company as it seeks to expand its business into the world of EELV launches now monopolized by United Launch Alliance. It will also mark the beginning of a new era for SpaceX, which having very successfully learned to work with NASA and its Partner Integration Teams will now need to handle a new level of scrutiny from a different organization, the Air Force, as it undergoes far-reaching audits into its systems before winning any launch orders under EELV.
A private spaceexploration company's plans to build a novel moonship to return human explorers to the lunar surface has moved one step closer to reality. Aerospace giant Northrop Grumman has completed a lunar lander feasiblity study for the Golden Spike Company, which aims to begin ferrying paying customers to the moon and back by 2020. The study came up with a new design that consists of a descent stage with a surface habitat and a lightweight ascent vehicle dubbed "Pumpkin," all of which would fitinside a 16.5-foot-wide (5 meters) rocket fairing for launch.
WASHINGTON — The next phase of Space Exploration Technologies Corp.’s (SpaceX) experimental Grasshopper program, a key part of the Hawthorne, Calif., rocket maker’s attempt to build a reusable space booster, will be based at New Mexico’s Spaceport America under the terms of a three-year lease the spaceport announced May 7. From Spaceport America, which is about 50 kilometers southeast of Truth or Consequences, N.M., and about 60 kilometers west of the restricted air space over the U.S. Army’s White Sands Missile Range, Grasshopper could fly much higher than the 760-meter ceiling the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) imposed for launches from SpaceX’s rocket test site in McGregor, Texas. “Spaceport America offers us the physical and regulatory landscape needed to complete the next phase of Grasshopper testing,” Gwynne Shotwell, president and chief operating officer of SpaceX, said in the Spaceport’s May 7 press release about the lease.
"If like me, you heard those blood-curdling sounds echoing across the Mojave Desert this morning, you probably knew instantly what had happened. Somewhere, somehow and for reasons known only to himself, Virgin Galactic Founder Richard Branson had made yet another very difficult to meet prediction for the start of SpaceShipTwo’s commercial flights. "Ah, just another day here in paradise."
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