12 July 2012
Planetary Resources Announces Agreement with Virgin Galactic for Payload Services
Planetary Resources has announced an agreement with Virgin Galactic, LLC that will enable multiple launch opportunities for its series of spacecraft, including the Arkyd-100 low-Earth orbit (LEO) space telescopes. Continuous, low-cost launch services for small spacecraft to LEO assists in accelerating Planetary Resources' vision to make valuable space resources from Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs) available to humanity.
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12 July 2012
Virgin Galactic Reveals Privately Funded Satellite Launcher and Confirms SpaceShipTwo Poised for Powered Flight
During the Farnborough International Air Show 2012, Virgin Galactic, the world's first commercial spaceline, announced "LauncherOne", a new air-launched rocket specifically designed to deliver small satellites into orbit. With substantial funding already raised from Virgin Galactic's partner aabar Investments PJS, and with commercial flights of this new orbital launch vehicle expected to begin by 2016, Virgin Galactic aims to offer frequent and dedicated launches at the world's lowest prices.
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12 July 2012
Nose Landing Gear Tested for Dream Chaser Spacecraft
NASA partner Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) has completed a successful test of the nose landing gear for its full-scale Dream Chaser engineering flight test vehicle. The completed test and an upcoming flight test are part of SNC's Commercial Crew Development Round 2 (CCDev2) agreement with NASA's Commercial Crew Program. The gear test is an important milestone to prepare for the upcoming approach and landing test of the Dream Chaser Space System later this year.
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11 July 2012
Branson to take kids on first space tourist trip
British tycoon Richard Branson said Wednesday his children would join him on the first of his Virgin Galactic space flights, as he unveiled a new satellite launching service. "Obviously this is the most exciting adventure I have ever undertaken," the Virgin Galactic founder told AFP. "It's both an entrepreneurial and personal adventure in being able to build a spaceship and ask my children to come along who can also enjoy it. It's every boy's dream."
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11 July 2012
ExoMars' Prospects Improve with Italian Pledge
The president of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) on July 11 said his agency has agreed to invest an additional 50 million euros ($63 million) in Europe’s struggling ExoMars mission, bringing the project that much closer to the amount of money it needs to win approval in November.
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11 July 2012
UK Space Agency publishes its Civil Space Strategy
The 'Civil Space Strategy' setting out the direction for the UK space sector over the next four years was launched, Tuesday 10th July, at the Farnborough International Airshow. The Strategy sets out the UK Space Agency's framework supporting the growth of the sector over the next four years.
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10 July 2012
NASA envisions lending technical advisors to ExoMars
After pulling out of a leadership role in the next rover mission to launch to the red planet, NASA plans to offer engineering expertise and technical advisors to Europe and Russia's ExoMars project, according to U.S. and European space officials.
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10 July 2012
XCOR Aerospace And Midland Development Corp Announce New Commercial Spaceflight Research Center
The Midland Development Corporation and XCOR Aerospace have jointly announced the establishment of XCOR's new Commercial Space Research and Development Center Headquarters that will be created over the next eighteen (18) months. XCOR manufactures reusable rocket engines for major aerospace prime contractors and is the designer, manufacturer and operator of the Lynx, a winged fully reusable, high performance suborbital space vehicle that is designed to safely carry two persons or scientific experiments to the edge of space and back up to four times per day.
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09 July 2012
Despite China’s Advances, No New Space Race, U.S. Experts Say
Kevin Pollpeter of Defense Group Inc. gave China credit for “hitting on all cylinders” over the past 10 years with a broadly based space program encompassing civil and military objectives, but said Beijing “is not out to eat our lunch – yet.”
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09 July 2012
Scientists say NASA's 'new form of life' was untrue
Two new scientific papers have disproved a controversial claim made by NASA-funded scientists in 2010 that a new form of bacterial life had been discovered that could thrive on arsenic.
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09 July 2012
Final Six-Member Crew Selected for Mars Food Mission
After receiving more than 700 applications, a team of researchers from the University of Hawaii at Manoa and Cornell University have selected six individuals to make up the crew of a simulated Mars mission intended to test new forms of food and food preparation strategies for deep-space travel.
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08 July 2012
NASA Mars images 'next best thing to being there'
The US space agency NASA has recently pieced together a panoramic view from the camera on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity, calling it the "next best thing to being" on the Red Planet.
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05 July 2012
Working Group Backs European Prop Module for Orion Capsule
A French-German working group established to coordinate the policies of Europe’s two biggest space program backers has concluded that the European Space Agency (ESA) should provide a propulsion module for NASA’s Orion crew-transport capsule to pay ESA’s space station operating costs between 2017 and 2020, government and industry officials said.
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05 July 2012
ATK Unveils Unique Liberty Capability
ATK is pleased to announce an expanded crew and cargo capability. The extended cargo configuration will allow the Liberty spacecraft to take full advantage of the launch vehicle lift capacity to transport a pressurized pod (the Liberty Logistics Module or LLM) along with the composite crew module.
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04 July 2012
China Beats Russia on Space Launches
For the first time in the history of space exploration, China beat Russia on the number of space launches in a given period of time, a rocket engine manufacturer said on Wednesday. China conducted 10 of the world’s total 35 launches in the first six months of 2012, Russia’s NPO Energomash said on its website. Russia was second with nine launches, followed by the United States with eight launches, the report said.
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03 July 2012
Fireworks Over Mars: The Spirit of 76 Pyrotechnics
Whether the pyrotechnic charges be large or small, on the evening of August 5th (Pacific time), all 76 must work on cue as NASA's next Mars rover, Curiosity, carried by the Mars Science Laboratory, streaks through the Red Planet's atmosphere on its way to a landing at Gale Crater.
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03 July 2012
Nye Battles Deep Cuts in NASA Planetary Exploration Budget
As chief executive of the Planetary Society, Bill Nye has become a vocal opponent of the proposed $300 million in cuts to NASA’s planetary exploration budget, CNN reports.
Nye said the United States could lose its unrivaled scientific expertise to plan and execute missions to other planets under President Barack Obama’s planned 21 percent cut in the planetary exploration budget. “To try to really land a spacecraft … on another world is really difficult, and if we lose that ability, it’s going to be heartbreaking,” he said.
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02 July 2012
First Orion Flight Test Capsule Arrives at Kennedy Space Center
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02 July 2012
China open to cooperation
"In the following missions of building a space lab and a space station, we are willing to carry out technical cooperation with other countries and regions," Wang Zhaoyao, director of China Manned Space Agency, said at a news conference after the landing of Shenzhou 9. "We will respond positively to the initiatives of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, and share with other countries our technological achievements and application results," he said.
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29 June 2012
Three Chinese astronauts return to Earth
Three Chinese astronauts returned to Earth as heroes on Friday after carrying out China's most complex and longest mission in orbit, vital steps in the country's effort to build a space station by 2020.
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29 June 2012
ATK Signs Teaming Agreement for Liberty Transportation Service
ATK (ATK) and Astrium North America have signed a teaming agreement with NanoRacks, LLC, for NanoRacks to market opportunities for both astronaut explorers and the experiments they plan to carry into space on board the Liberty Transportation Service.
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29 June 2012
Experiments on SHEFEX II successful
Following the flight of the SHEFEX II spacecraft on 22 June 2012, researchers at the German Aerospace Center have performed an initial assessment. "The flight of Shefex II followed the precomputed trajectory and we received extensive and valuable data from all the experiments in real time," says DLR Project Manager Hendrik Weihs. With SHEFEX II, researchers are investigating technologies to make spacecraft re-entry less expensive.
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28 June 2012
Curiosity Rover on Track for Early August Landing
A maneuver on Tuesday adjusted the flight path of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft for delivering the rover Curiosity to a landing target beside a Martian mountain.
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FOR FURTHER READING
09 July 2012
NASA’s past considers its future
A Congressionally-mandated committee is studying NASA’s strategic direction, and inviting both the current and previous leadership of the agency to offer their perspectives. Jeff Foust reports on what these people think about the agency’s direction, budget, and structure at this critical time for NASA.
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09 July 2012
A mighty roar
First impressions, be they of people or museums, can be misleading. Dwayne Day takes a second look at a space museum in Alabama and comes away more impressed than the first time around.
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09 July 2012
Commercial crew providers aplenty (part 1)
SpaceX, riding high on the success of its recent cargo demonstration flight to the International Space Station, is a leading contender in NASA’s next round of commercial crew development awards. However, as Anthony Young reports, it’s not the only company competing, contrasting it with a another firm with a very different technical and business approach.
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09 July 2012
Review: Down to Earth
This week marks the 50th anniversary of the launch of Telstar, a milestone in satellite communications and a good opportunity to examine the effects satellites have had on society. Jeff Foust reviews a book that claims to offer a “comprehensive overview” of the industry but finds it fails to make orbit.
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09 July 2012
Review: Solar Power Satellites
Solar power satellite systems remain an area of interest for some space professionals and enthusiasts alike Paul Jaffe reviews a book that provides a concise but thorough review of the concept and the current state of international efforts involving them.
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02 July 2012
A private effort to watch the skies
A private foundation last week announced plans to mount its own deep space mission to look for near Earth objects that could pose an impact risk. Jeff Foust examines the plans of the B612 Foundation and finds it may be the latest evidence of a shift in space activities to a new funding approach with deep historical roots.
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02 July 2012
Divining meaning from a divine vessel’s latest flight
The recent flight of China’s Shenzhou-9 spacecraft has raised new questions about both China’s space ambitions and their implications for the United States. Jeff Foust reports on what a recent panel of Chinese and space policy experts thought about what impact, if any, China’s recent accomplishments could have on American policy.
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02 July 2012
Review: The Cosmonaut Who Couldn’t Stop Smiling
Yuri Gagarin is one of the most famous figures in space history, but also something of an enigma, his life story rewritten by Soviet propaganda. Jeff Foust reviews a book that examines both the life of Gagarin and the mythmaking of and shifting perceptions about him.
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