11 August 2011
Astrium ships ATV “Edoardo Amaldi”
“Edoardo Amaldi”, the third European cargo spacecraft for the International Space Station (ISS), left Bremen on Thursday and is on its way to the European spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
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11 August 2011
Russia to allocate $8 billion to build space center in Far East
The construction of Vostochny is scheduled to begin this year and end in 2016, with the first rocket launch to take place in 2015 and the first manned flight due in 2018.
The vast facility in the Amur Region will eventually include two launch pads, a training center and oxygen and hydrogen generation plants.
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11 August 2011
NASA selects Virgin Galactic for Suborbital Flights
This arrangement marks the first time that NASA has contracted with a commercial partner to provide flights into space on a suborbital spacecraft, and represents another important endorsement of the value of regular commercial space access for a wide range of science and educational applications.
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10 August 2011
China Set to Launch Its Space Lab: Tiangong 1
Although there has been no official announcement, there are good signs here in Beijing that China plans to launch its experimental space laboratory before the end of August.
China’s space lab will have a short life-span of two years and is designed as a test bed for the technologies China will need to move forward with its space station program. The most important among these is docking technology, which will allow a spacecraft carrying people to and from the station to hook up with it.
In an article published on August 6 in the overseas edition of the People’s Daily, Lt. General Zhang Jianqi, Chief Commander of the China Manned Space Engineering Launch Facility Systems, told reporters that in his opinion:
The Chinese Space Station is an open engineering platform, and allowing foreign scientists and astronauts to visit the station to conduct scientific experiments in cooperation with China would be an ordinary thing.
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10 August 2011
Structural and Thermal Model of the Mercury Planetary Orbiter arrives at ESTEC
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10 August 2011
Image: The Flag at the Heart of "Capture the Flag - in Space"
Inside the International Space Station's Node 2 or Harmony, the STS-135 crew presented the Expedition 28 crew this special U.S. flag and mounted it on the hatch leading to Atlantis. The flag was flown on the first space shuttle mission, STS-1, and flew on this mission to be presented to the space station crew. It will remain onboard until the next crew launched from the U.S. will retrieve it for return to Earth. It will fly from Earth again, with the crew that launches from the U.S. on a journey of exploration beyond Earth orbit.
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08 August 2011
NASA funds 30 new space research projects
The US space agency announced funding for 30 new space projects Monday, including ways to protect astronauts from deep-space radiation, eliminate space debris and improve spacesuit technology.
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08 August 2011
NASA Selects Companies To Study Storing Cryogenic Propellants In Space
The selected companies, pending successful contract negotiations, are:
Analytical Mechanics Associates Inc. Hampton, Va.
Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corporation, Boulder, Colo.
The Boeing Company, Huntington Beach, Calif.
Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, Littleton, Colo.
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05 August 2011
NASA launches Juno mission to Jupiter
NASA on Friday launched the billion-dollar solar-powered spacecraft Juno on a five-year journey to Jupiter aiming to discover what makes up the solar system's biggest planet.
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05 August 2011
More Than 1,000 Shuttle Workers To Lose Jobs This Month, Including 800 from USA
More than 1,000 workers at companies that worked on the space shuttle program will leave their jobs for good in August.
USA expects to lay off approximately 285 more employees in Houston, Huntsville, Ala., and Huntington Beach, Calif., by the end of August, leaving a company that once employed 10,500 with just over 3,100 employees.
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04 August 2011
Cosmonauts launch Gagarin satellite on second try
Two Russian cosmonauts on Thursday completed a marathon spacewalk on the ISS in which they launched a student-made satellite honouring the first spaceman Yuri Gagarin after initially aborting the delicate task.
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04 August 2011
LADEE Completes Mission Critical Design Review
NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) has passed its most significant mission milestone to date, the Mission Critical Design Review, or MCDR. This means the LADEE observatory is cleared to go forward and complete the flight hardware fabrication necessary to meet all science and engineering requirements for its 2013 mission to explore the moon.
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04 August 2011
Russia marks 'forgotten spaceman's' historic flight
Russia on Saturday, 6 August, marks 50 years since Gherman Titov became the second man in orbit, a historic achievement long eclipsed by the first space flight of his friend and rival Yuri Gagarin months earlier.
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02 August 2011
India eyes manned space missions
India's space agency has plans to launch a manned space mission in the future, but a lot of work needs to be done before that to ensure such missions are failure-proof, a top scientist has said. K. Radhakrishnan, chairman of ISRO, said here that the space agency will have to first master the rocket technology to launch heavy communications satellites before it can progress to a manned mission. "Rockets that carry humans cannot have a failure rate of more than two per thousand flights," he said after the successful launch of latest communications satellite GSAT-12 from the space port.
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29 July 2011
Why Tiangong is not a Station Hub
Tiangong is testing many of the technologies that China will need to build a space station. China has announced plans to build a large space station in the years ahead. But Tiangong 1 is not going to be a part of that space station.
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Thanks to Stephen Asworth who spotted the following two news for us:
22 July 2011
Apollo's Children and the NewSpace Revolution - Rick Tumlinson the man with the crystal ball
As the final Shuttle flight came to an end, Rick Tumlinson (founder of Space Frontier Foundation and MirCorp) threw down the challenge to the NewSpace generation in a Huffington Post op-ed.
Tumlinson wrote:
"I make the following predictions based not on whimsical fancy but real information and the direction of real companies and projects - many of which are already underway, funded and producing hardware, and some of which have already flown or have test articles in space right now - and all are American-led or based:
* Within one year the first non-governmental spaceship will carry a human into orbit.
* Within two years the first paying customers will be flying regularly to the edge of space.
* Within three years the first commercial space facility will open its airlock.
* Within four years the first commercial missions will land on the Moon.
* Within five years multiple spaceships will be serving multiple space facilities including hotels and laboratories.
* Within six years the world's first commercial orbital space port will launch a rocket into space.
* Within seven years the first commercial customer will orbit the Moon and return to Earth.
* Within ten years the first human outposts will be established on the Moon.
* Within fifteen years the first astronauts will visit an asteroid.
* And yes, within the next 20 years the first human will step on the surface of Mars. By the way, it is quite possible she will be a private citizen explorer and will have flown there on a privately funded spaceship.
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19 July 2011
Space poem celebrates Apollo 11's 42nd anniversary
Rick Tumlinson writes: Kyle and Ryan, my amazing partners at INSpace Media, and I produced this in honour of our heroes. "Apollo's Children Vers. 1". A poem from the future.
It needs a little work and more editing, but it was a bit last minute...
Enjoy! (It's only 2 mins. long...) and feel free to share.
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FOR FURTHER READING
08 August 2011
An enduring value proposition for NASA human spaceflight (part 1)
The end of the shuttle program has created uncertainty about NASA’s long-term future. In the first part of her analysis of the situation, Mary Lynne Dittmar says the lack of a compelling and enduring value proposition for human spaceflight is at the root of this problem.
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08 August 2011
Still eyeing the lunar prize
It’s been nearly four years since the Google Lunar X PRIZE was unveiled, and no team had won it, or even appears reasonably close to winning it. Jeff Foust reports on some recent developments among the various teams, and discussions about what Google itself gets out of the prize competition.
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08 August 2011
Avoiding “the end” of NASA
TIn the last several weeks many have claimed that the retirement of the shuttle is tantamount to the end of NASA human spaceflight, or even NASA itself. Justin Kugler argues while that isn’t the case, we’re in danger of repeating the same mistakes of the past.
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08 August 2011
An update on the proposed European Code of Conduct

Michael Listner provides a brief update on the US government’s consideration of a proposed European “code of conduct” for space activities.
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08 August 2011
Review: Falling to Earth
Among the Apollo astronauts least remembers are those who flew to the Moon but remained in the command module while their crewmates walked on the Moon. Jeff Foust reviews a memoir by one of those astronauts, who experienced highs and lows after his flight.
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01 August 2011
Could commercial crew become less commercial?
A proposed change in how NASA will contract for the next round of its commercial crew development program has generated considerable opposition from industry. Jeff Foust reports on the planned change and concerns it could be the first step to more significant changes in the program.
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01 August 2011
High expectations: Utopianism and cornucopianism in the early modern era and the Space Age
Many aspects of space exploration, from the language of the Outer Space Treaty to concepts for space colonies, implied a future where space was free of national interests and sovereignty. John Hickman argues that such approaches are as doomed as the utopian visions of the New World centuries ago.
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01 August 2011
VASIMR and a new war of the currents
The utility, or lack thereof, of a proposed electric propulsion system to enable Mars missions has been a major point of contention for some Mars exploration enthusiasts and will be discussed again at the Mars Society conference this week. Chuck Black finds a historical analogue to this debate.
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01 August 2011
Another look: Falling Back to Earth
Lou Friedman offers his perspective on the book Falling Back to Earth about the space policy of the George H. W. Bush Administration and its lessons for today.
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01 August 2011
Current strategies towards air-breathing space launch vehicles
A long-term vision for many aerospace engineers and others in the space community has been the development of a reusable launch vehicle that use atmospheric oxygen for some phases of its flight. John K. Strickland examines the current state of research and the potential future directions in this area.
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01 August 2011
My dear friend
Dwayne Day discovers an unusual consequence of, and financial opportunity associated with, the retirement of the Space Shuttle.
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