Paris — Since 2009, the commercial launch sector estimates nearly $1 billion in new orders have gone to a single U.S. company developing a rocket that has yet to be flown. Over the past two years, Hawthorne, Calif.-based Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) proved its Falcon 9 medium-lift rocket can deliver unmanned payloads to low Earth orbit in two demonstration flights for NASA.
PASSING MUSTER: Loral Space & Communications says its proposed sale of spacecraft maker Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) to investors MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates has passed one regulatory hurdle. Loral says the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States has “concluded its review and investigation” of SS/L’s sale and found there are “no unresolved national security concerns with respect to the transaction.” Still pending is anti-trust approval by the U.S. Justice Department. SS/L expects the sale to be completed in the fourth quarter, an official says.
Inmarsat expects that costs for satellite-based flight deck safety services, which airlines typically use for ACARS (aircraft communications addressing and reporting system) messaging in oceanic regions, will be 30% lower than its traditional services when the SwiftBroadband Safety Services option is approved for use in 2014.
The heavy-lift Space Launch System that Congress ordered NASA to build is ahead of schedule in some areas despite an austere funding profile, with hardware for the first NASA exploration flight test being machined and a critical design milestone coming up later this year.
Houston — Unconstrained by budget forecasts, and even the limits of current technology, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s 100-Year Starship project is surging ahead with concepts for the first human interstellar mission. The program is taking a visionary look at propulsion systems that extract their fuel from dark energy, manipulate space-time or look to other sources that have yet to be dealt with.
The Senate is poised to vote early Sept. 22 on a bill to continue funding the government in fiscal 2013 — legislation that will freeze funding for all programs, including Boeing’s U.S. Air Force KC-46A tanker program in a year when its budget was expected to take off. In fiscal 2012, the program received $877.1 million. The fiscal 2013 request was $1.8 billion.
NASA will spend $2.7 million on eight peer-reviewed research projects designed to advance the interagency National Robotics Initiative, set up by the Obama administration to promote U.S. robotics capabilities for the global marketplace. The projects will receive from $150,000 to $1 million for their work, which NASA's Office of the Chief Technologist is sponsoring as a way to push applications for “co-robotics” that can work with future human explorers on deep-space missions.
Veteran astronaut Chris Hadfield is training to become the first representative of the Canadian Space Agency to command the ISS, with a two-month stint at the helm of the six-person orbiting science laboratory set to begin in March 2013. Hadfield, 53, has trained for two years with cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, 41, and NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn, 52, for a Dec. 5 liftoff aboard the 33 Soyuz mission to the station for a six-month tour of orbital duty.
NASA's space shuttle Endeavour landed atop its Boeing 747 carrier aircraft at Edwards AFB, Calif., just before 1 p.m. local time, marking the penultimate stop of its final journey into retirement. The shuttle, which was the last to be built, completed 25 missions and spent 299 days in orbit.
The French Polynesian island of Bora-Bora gleams in 1.5-meter (5-ft.) resolution in this image collected by the new SPOT 6 Earth-observation satellite three days after its Sept. 9 launch from the Satish Dhawan space center on Sriharikota Island on an Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C21). Built by Astrium Services, the 800-kg (1,765-lb.) spacecraft images a 60-km (37-mi.) swath and can be complemented by 50-cm (20-in.) data from the very-high-resolution Pleiades 1A satellite, Astrium says.
Researchers from industry, academia and government agencies now have access to the Space Communications and Navigation (SCAN) testbed on the International Space Station (ISS). NASA's Glenn Research Center hopes to begin demonstrations as early as late next year of new waveforms and software designed to enhance data delivery from scientific spacecraft. Announcements of opportunity to use SCAN are on the street, with industry and government researchers invited to enter Space Act agreements, and academic researchers to propose cooperative agreements.
A business aviation-related article in the Sept. 17 issue (page 62) incorrectly identified which Bombardier Global model will offer a 7,300-nm range at Mach 0.85 cruise when it becomes available in 2016. It is the Global 7000.
JSC SUPPORT: S&K Global Solutions LLC, of Polson, Mont., has been selected by NASA’s Johnson Space Center to consolidate computer product support for the facility’s Engineering Directorate under a potential $50 million, five-year agreement. Effective Oct. 18, the contract includes a three-year, cost-plus, fixed-fee, firm-fixed-price agreement and a single two-year option. S&K Global Solutions’ team includes Booz Allen Hamilton, of McLean, Va., and S&K Aerospace LLC, of St. Ignatius, Mont.
LOS ANGELES — Boeing is revising the CST-100 air bag landing system for use in water landings, after tests and further analysis revealed the space capsule would encounter greater loads than expected on splashdown.
Inmarsat expects that costs for satellite-based flight deck safety services, which airlines typically use for ACARS (aircraft communications addressing and reporting system) messaging in oceanic regions, will be 30% lower than its traditional services when the SwiftBroadband Safety Services option is approved for use in 2014.
The union representing Boeing engineers has lodged a preemptive strike in its negotiations over a four-year contract, recommending that its 23,000 members reject the company’s contract offer before it is formally presented.
NEW DELHI — The launch of India’s GSAT-10 communications satellite has been delayed by a week due to a minor error in the European Ariane 5 rocket meant to place it on orbit, the country’s top scientist says. “While reviewing the launch preparation, Arianespace found a hole in one of the hoses connecting the spaceport and launch vehicle. It is suspected one gram of dust particles might have entered the launch vehicle through the small hole,” says K. Radhakrishnan, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).
METOP-B: Europe’s Metop-B satellite was launched into orbit from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 10:28 p.m. local time Sept. 17. Roughly 1 hr. and 9 min. after liftoff, the upper stage of the Soyuz launch vehicle released the Astrium-built satellite into its designated orbit at approximately 800 km (500 mi.) altitude. Metop-B is a replacement low-altitude, polar-orbiting weather satellite for Metop-A. The spacecraft is designed to have an operational life of five years.
Last week, a fresh set of calls urged Congress to address the nation's financial situation. Executives from Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems and EADS North America are proceeding with pre-election plans to warn thousands of workers that they might be laid off early next year. Two former Treasury secretaries, one Republican and one Democrat, said failing to address America's debt problem has dire economic and foreign policy implications. And Moody's rating agency now says the nation's long-held AAA rating hinges on congressional budget negotiations. Sen.
