October 2012 Archives

At 11:41:18 AM Moscow Time, logistics spacecraft Progress M-17M was launched from the Baikonur launch site.

Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. and the non-profit B612 Foundation have signed a contract for Ball to create prototype infrared imaging sensors for the Sentinel Mission, a deep space mission to protect Earth by providing early warning of threatening asteroids.

On the morning of August 6, the Russian space industry woke up to yet another failure in a long list of failures over the last 2 years. 2 months later, on October 16th that failure became a catastrophe with the explosion of the Briz-M upperstage. Are we witness to the end of the dominance of the Russian space industry?

Madison, Wisconsin based Orbital Technologies Corporation (ORBITECTM) has successfully flight-tested its new rocket engine and technologies in Mojave, CA. ORBITEC integrated its Vortex Liquid Rocket Engine into a launch vehicle airframe designed and built by Garvey Spacecraft Corporation (GSC) of Long Beach, California and California State University at Long Beach.

A Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) Dragon spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean at 2:22 p.m. CDT Sunday a few hundred miles west of Baja California, Mexico. The splashdown successfully ended the first contracted cargo delivery flight contracted by NASA to resupply the International Space Station.

The SpaceX Dragon cargo craft was released from the International Space Station's robotic arm by the Expedition 33 crew at 9:29 a.m. EDT. Dragon will perform three burns to place it on a trajectory away from the station and begin its return trip to Earth.

A week after the dual liftoff from Kourou, French Guiana, the two latest Galileo satellites completed the critical Launch and Early Orbit Phase on 19/20 October.

Orbital Sciences Corporation one of the world's leading space technology companies, today announced that the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Space Vehicles Directorate has awarded the company a $32 million contract to develop an experimental maneuverable spacecraft platform that will be capable of hosting multiple payloads and operating in low- and geosynchronous orbit.

GAO identified 15 key aerostat and airship efforts that were underway or had been initiated since 2007, and the Department of Defense (DOD) had or has primary responsibility for all of these efforts. None of the civil agency efforts met GAO's criteria for a key effort.

On June 15, 2011, the Air Force Space Command established a new vision, mission, and set of goals to ensure continued U.S. dominance in space and cyberspace mission areas.

Blue Origin conducted a successful Pad Escape test last week at its West Texas launch site, firing its pusher escape motor and launching a full-scale suborbital Crew Capsule from a launch vehicle simulator. The Crew Capsule traveled to an altitude of 2,307 feet under active thrust vector control before descending safely by parachute to a soft landing 1,630 feet downrange.

A pioneering technology capable of atomic-level precision is now being developed to detect what so far has remained imperceptible: gravitational waves or ripples in space-time caused by cataclysmic events including even the Big Bang itself.

Tests of GOES-13 instrumentation have demonstrated the Imager and Sounder are ready to return to GOES-East operational service. The root cause of the GOES-13 anomaly was a motor vibration in the sounder filter wheel subsystem that was transmitted on to the imager and sounder optical bench.

At the 2012 International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight, NanoRacks and Astrium North America announced the successful completion of the 1st Interim Design Review (IDR) for the External Payload Platform (EPP).

The AIAA has released the following video, Space Entrepreneurs Panel, from their recent Space 2012 conference. The theme of the panel as per the program was: "... What makes a space entrepreneur and the road they take to success. What paths are space entrepreneur's taking to develop a new frontier? What are their concepts for future space business? What are their vehicles and or capabilities they are creating? Will they be able to succeed in developing businesses of the future?"

NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP) partner Blue Origin has successfully fired the thrust chamber assembly for its new 100,000 pound thrust BE-3 liquid oxygen, liquid hydrogen rocket engine. As part of Blue's Reusable Booster System (RBS), the engines are designed eventually to launch the biconic-shaped Space Vehicle the company is developing.

Due to uncertainties in the business case and yet-to-be mitigated technology risks associated with the Reusable Booster System (RBS) concept, it is currently premature for Air Force Space Command to invest substantially in developing RBS, says a new report from the National Research Council.

Austria's Felix Baumgartner earned his place in the history books on Sunday after overcoming concerns with the power for his visor heater that impaired his vision and nearly jeopardized the mission. Baumgartner reached an estimated speed of 1,342.8 km/h (Mach 1.24) jumping from the stratosphere, which when certified will make him the first man to break the speed of sound in freefall and set several other records* while delivering valuable data for future space exploration.

NASA partner United Launch Alliance (ULA) has completed the fifth and final milestone for its Commercial Crew Development Round 2 (CCDev2) agreement with the agency's Commercial Crew Program.

Intelsat 23 LiftoffReston, Va., and Luxembourg, 14 October 2012 - Intelsat S.A., the world's leading provider of satellite services, announced today that an International Launch Services (ILS) Proton vehicle successfully launched the Intelsat 23 satellite from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Liftoff occurred at 4:37 a.m. EDT (2:37 p.m. local time).

12 October 2012: Soyuz lifts off for the third time from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana on its mission to place the second pair of Galileo In-Orbit Validation satellites into orbit.

NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston and Epiomed Therapeutics Inc. of Irvine, Calif., have signed an agreement to develop and commercialize a NASA-crafted, fast-acting nasal spray to fight motion sickness.

The Minister for Universities and Science, David Willetts, today announced the release of the UK Space Agency's latest report on the progress of the UK space industry.

The B612 Foundation today announced the formation and initial findings of its Sentinel Special Review Team (SSRT) to aid B612 in building the world's first privately funded deep space mission to protect Earth by providing early warning of threatening asteroids.

Global recording artist and UNESCO Artist for Peace Ambassador, Sarah Brightman, announced today in Moscow her intention to launch on a future orbital spaceflight mission to the International Space Station (ISS) in partnership with Space Adventures, Ltd., the world's leading space experiences company.

XCOR has released an animation of an experimental flight of Lynx, their suborbital vehicle.
Lynx is XCOR's entry into the commercial reusable launch vehicle market. The two-seat, piloted space transport vehicle can take humans and payloads on a half-hour suborbital flight to 100 km (330,000 feet) and then return safely to a landing at the takeoff runway. Lynx is currently under development at XCOR's Mojave, California facilities.

The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft has been successfully captured at the International Space Station.

Virgin Galactic, the world's first commercial spaceline, today announced that it has taken 100% ownership of its sister company, The Spaceship Company (TSC), by acquiring the 30% stake held by Scaled Composites (Scaled) since TSC's formation under a joint venture with Virgin Galactic.

The Dragon spacecraft is on its way to the International Space Station this morning and is performing nominally following the launch of the SpaceX CRS-1 official cargo resupply mission from Cape Canaveral, Florida at 8:35PM ET Sunday, October 7, 2012.

Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) today successfully launched its Dragon spacecraft aboard a Falcon 9 rocket on the first official cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station. The launch went off on schedule at 8:35 p.m. ET from Launch Complex 40 in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Technicians attach the Dragon capsule to a Falcon 9 rocket at the SpaceX facility at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., during preparations for the CRS-1 mission.

A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta IV rocket carrying the Global Positioning System (GPS) IIF-3 payload for the United States Air Force lifted off from Space Launch Complex-37 here at 8:10 a.m. EDT today.

Plenary Event 3 at the 2012 International Astronautical Congress in Naples focus was on commercial space transportation initiatives.The Plenary Event provided "a snapshot of the political, economic, and technical landscapes to best determine if, when and how much humankind could be ready to embark on futuristic scenarios based on massive space commercialisation."

A technology designed for use by astronauts in the hazardous environment of space has found a lifesaving use in another dangerous occupation, but this time on Earth, or rather under it: coal mining.

NASA has awarded three contracts totaling $137.3 million to improve the affordability, reliability and performance of an advanced booster for the Space Launch System (SLS).

The twin Galileo satellites are now fully fuelled and mated together atop the upper stage that will haul them most of the way up to their final orbit. The launch is now planned for the evening of 12 October.

Orbital Sciences Corporation (NYSE: ORB), one of the world's leading space technology companies, today announced that has it has commenced Antares launch vehicle operations at the liquid-fuel launch complex at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS).