05 July 2011
NASA Chat: Administrator Bolden Answers Questions About NASA's Future
Join NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden in a one hour web chat on Tues., July 5, at 3:30 p.m. EDT, where he will answer your questions about what NASA's future holds.
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01 July 2011
Message from the Administrator: What's Next for NASA
In just a couple of hours, I am delivering an address at the National Press Club to talk about NASA's future, and before I do so, I wanted to share with you what I'm going to be discussing. Some say that our final shuttle mission will mark the end of America's 50 years of dominance in human spaceflight. As a former astronaut and the current NASA Administrator, I want to tell you that American leadership in space will continue for at least the next half-century because we have laid the foundation for success - and here at NASA failure is not an option.
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30 June 2011
ESA Forced To Defer Full-scale Work on 2016 Mars Orbiter
The European Space Agency (ESA) on June 30 withdrew its proposal to begin full-scale work on a 2016 Mars orbiter mission with NASA following receipt of a letter from NASA’s administrator saying the U.S. agency could not commit to a companion 2018 Mars rover mission, a senior ESA official said June 30.
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30 June 2011
Moon Express Announces First Successful Flight Test of Lunar Lander System Developed With NASA Partnership
Moon Express, Inc. today announced a successful flight test of a prototype lunar lander system being developed in partnership with NASA. Controlled flight tests of the Lander Test Vehicle (LTV) allow Moon Express to assess lunar vehicle design, including guidance, navigation and control software and new landing leg concepts designed by Moon Express engineers. The company signed a Reimbursable Space Act Agreement with NASA last year to invest over $500K into the commercialization of technology developed by the agency.
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29 June 2011
Driving a robot from the Space Station
Meet Justin, an android who will soon be controlled remotely by the astronauts in ESA's Columbus laboratory on the International Space Station. With this and other intriguing experiments like the Eurobot rover, ESA is paving the way for exploring the Moon and planets with tele-operated robots.
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29 June 2011
Charles Bolden National Press Club Address - July 1
NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden Jr. will address a National Press Club luncheon on July 1, one week before the final scheduled space shuttle launch. Discussing America's continued commitment to leadership in human spaceflight, Bolden will also speak about NASA's plans to extend human presence beyond low-Earth orbit.
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29 June 2011
Expert’s reentry flap endures hot baptism
A spacecraft control flap designed for the super-heated hypersonic fall through Earth’s atmosphere has come through testing in the world’s largest plasma wind tunnel to be ready for its first flight next year. This flap and its advanced sensors are destined to fly on ESA’s Expert – the European Experimental Reentry Testbed – a blunt-nosed capsule being shot up to the edge of space next spring on a Russian Volna rocket to gather data on atmospheric reentry at 5 km/s.
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29 June 2011
Commemorating 50 Years of Space Nuclear Power
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29 June 2011
New Animation Depicts Next Mars Rover in Action
Although NASA's Mars Science Laboratory will not leave Earth until late this year nor land on Mars until August 2012, anyone can watch those dramatic events now in a new animation of the mission. The full, 11-minute animation shows sequences such as the spacecraft separating from its launch vehicle near Earth and the mission's rover, Curiosity, zapping rocks with a laser and examining samples of powdered rock on Mars. A shorter, narrated version is also available here.
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29 June 2011
Astrium signs up for Next Gen Launcher High Thrust Engine
Astrium, Europe's leading space company, continues to prepare Europe's future propulsion technology by signing a euros 60 million rider with the European Space Agency (ESA) and its partners of the joint propulsion team consortium, Avio SpA (Italy) and SNECMA (SAFRAN Group) (France).
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28 June 2011
NASA Will Compete Space Launch System (SLS) Boosters
It should come as no surprise that NASA has selected a "shuttle-derived" vehicle with two existing LOX/LH2 stages as its reference design for the new heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS) ordered by Congress and to be used for exploration missions beyond low Earth orbit (LEO).
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28 June 2011
Sierra Nevada Space Systems Completes Milestones For Commercial Crew Program
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24 June 2011
Test Stand Fire Threatens Taurus 2 Launch Schedule
An Aerojet AJ-26 main engine undergoing acceptance testing for the inaugural flight of Orbital Science Corp.’s Taurus 2 rocket was badly damaged June 9 when a metal fuel line ruptured, causing the engine and test stand to catch fire, according to an industry source with knowledge of the mishap.
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24 June 2011
Aerojet, QinetiQ and EADS Astrium Crisa to Jointly Market XENITH Ion Propulsion System
Built around the ultra high-efficient T6 ion thruster developed by QinetiQ, the XENITH propulsion system will provide a reduction in propellant consumed by more than a factor of 12 over conventional chemical propulsion systems. Ion propulsion systems have been used for orbit raising and station keeping of satellites, as well as for primary propulsion for deep space missions.
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22 June 2011
LRO Showing Us the Moon as Never Before
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has forever changed our view of the moon, literally bringing it into sharper focus and showing us the whole globe in unprecedented detail.
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21 June 2011
ESA reentry vehicle on track for flight in 2013
ESA and Thales Alenia Space Italia announced an agreement today at the Paris Air & Space Show to begin building the IXV Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle for its mission into space in 2013.
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FOR FURTHER READING
27 June 2011
The national space policy, one year later
One year ago this week the White House released its new national space policy. Jeff Foust reports on the progress government agencies have made in implementing the policy and the policy’s long-term relevance.
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27 June 2011
Gazing back through the crystal ball
More than 30 years ago one writer penned a major critique of the shuttle program before even the first shuttle launch. Dwayne Day examines what Gregg Easterbrook got right and wrong in his assessment.
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27 June 2011
Commercial space, what’s good for Florida, and 2012
The end of the shuttle program has caused plenty of angst in Florida, where people fear the loss of jobs that will result after the shuttle is retired. Alan Stern notes that commercial space efforts can help the local economy rebound, provided there’s sufficient political support for them.
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27 June 2011
Shuttle with racing stripes
One of the first appearances of the shuttle on the big screen was in the 1979 James Bond movie Moonraker. Dwayne Day looks back at the movie and its portrayal of the shuttle.
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