SAN DIEGO — NASA is poised to issue a request for proposals (RFP) for the second phase of development and certification of a U.S.-developed crew transportation system as part of the build-up to awarding Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contracts in mid-2014.
Orbital Sciences Corp. says the planned launch its first Cygnus spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) on a demonstration mission for NASA has been pushed back one day due to weather and the need to replace an inoperative cable.
U.S. NAVY Lockheed Martin Corp., Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., Fort Worth, Texas, is being awarded a not-to-exceed $75,726,105 cost-plus-incentive-fee modification to the previously awarded F-35 Lightning II Low Rate Initial Production Lot VI Advance Acquisition contract (N00019-11-C-0083). This modification provides for the diminishing manufacturing sources redesign efforts in support of the Joint Strike Fighter Lot VI effort. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity.
BEIJING — A Japanese program to develop a cheaper solid-propellant space launcher has achieved successful first launch, with the Epsilon rocket putting a planetary observation satellite into orbit. The first Epsilon launch cost ¥5.3 billion ($53.6 million), compared with a ¥3.8 billion target quoted for the rocket’s initial version by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in 2011.
An Australian hypersonic scramjet technology demonstrator is expected to be launched from the Andøya Rocket Range in Norway as early as Sept. 17. The Scramspace (Scramjet-based Access-to-Space Systems) vehicle will test an array of hypersonic-propulsion technologies as well as being designed to foster a new generation of Australian hypersonic specialists. The $12.9 million, three-year research project is led by the University of Queensland and builds on Australia’s lead in air-breathing hypersonics as part of the country’s emerging national space policy.
Scientists are beginning to use the Voyager I spacecraft to make in situ measurements of interstellar space, having applied a “gift from the Sun” to confirm that the venerable probe has traveled into the region characterized by plasma originating in other stars.
NEW DELHI — India soon will have a second satellite launch vehicle assembly unit at the Satish Dhawan Space Center, Sriharikota (SDSC-SHAR) in southern India at an estimated cost of $3.64 billion rupees ($57 million).
SAN DIEGO — SpaceX says unspecified issues prevented the planned static firing of its first upgraded Falcon 9 v1.1 at Vandenberg AFB, Calif., on Sept. 11, delaying the launch by several days.
Finding funds for space startups has always been difficult. Investors all know the old joke that the best way to make a small fortune in space is to start with a large one. Several billionaires have ignored that warning to put their money on the line for commercial space developments. But for most space engineers with a great idea, getting beyond CAD (computer-aided design) is a scramble for money that can suck personal savings dry, pester government funders and angel investors to death, and hammer the crowd-sourcing web servers to the point of meltdown.
It is a plausible approach on its face. The U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) is a detailed list of munitions no one wants to fall into the wrong hands. It includes deadly hardware up to and including nuclear weapons. In the late 1990s, it also came to include satellite components, regardless of their end use. But because the State Department export-licensing bureaucracy proved more difficult to manage than the Commerce Department counterpart, the U.S. satellite industry found itself hobbled at the very time it faced growing competition abroad.
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity in the defense sector has been at a standstill in 2013 in the over-$100 million category. There have been several noteworthy commercial acquisitions announced by companies with defense operations: Rockwell Collins said last month it is buying Arinc from Carlyle, and Alliant Techsystems is purchasing Caliber Co. from Norwest Equity Partners and Bushnell from MidOcean Partners. But heading into September, the number of defense deals with prices in excess of $100 million is easy to add up: zero.
A three-man U.S.-Russian crew is back on Earth after a successful 5.5-month expedition to the International Space Station. Weary but in good shape, NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy, Expedition 36 ISS commander Pavel Vinogradov and fellow cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin were assisted from their capsule by helicopter-borne Russian recovery teams within minutes of touching down under parachute at 10:58 p.m. EDT Sept. 10 (8:58 a.m. Sept. 11 local time).
Scientists will spend 100 days studying the Moon's tenuous atmosphere after this spectacular launch from Wallops Island, Va., on a solid-fuel Minotaur V rocket—photographed from the top of New York's Rockefeller Center, 200 mi. away. Built by NASA's Ames Research Center, the 884-lb. Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (Ladee) gave its handlers a few tense hours right after its Sept. 6 liftoff when fault-protection limits shut down its reaction wheels. Controllers disabled them to restart the wheels, and later fixed a star-tracker misalignment.
NEW DELHI — India on Sept. 11 unveiled its Mars Orbiter, which is due to launch later this year to search the red planet’s atmosphere for methane, considered a “precursor chemical” for life. “The Mars orbiter is in the final stages of testing for launch between Oct. 21 and Nov. 19 on board a rocket with five scientific instruments to conduct various experiments after a nine-month voyage to the red planet,” says S.K. Shivkumar, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) satellite center director.
The Sept. 17 return to flight of Russia’s Proton rocket was postponed Sept. 11 for technical reasons associated with the Russian launch vehicle. Marketed by International Launch Services (ILS) of Reston, Va., the commercial mission was slated to loft The EADS-Astrium-built Astra 2E satellite for fleet operator SES of Luxembourg. “The launch date will be determined at a later time,” ILS said in a Sept. 12 statement.
The Pentagon and NASA will spend $44 billion developing and launching spacecraft over the next five fiscal years, including a $7 billion chunk to develop NASA’s heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS) for human exploration beyond low Earth orbit.
LOS ANGELES — SpaceX is gearing up for the first launch of its upgraded Falcon 9 v1.1 at Vandenberg AFB, Calif., carrying a Canadian satellite, on Sept. 15. “We are looking towards launch at the weekend,” says Adam Harris, SpaceX government sales vice president. “It’s on the pad at Vandenberg AFB and things [are] looking really great there,” he adds. The upgraded Falcon 9 launch, which is the vehicle’s inaugural deployment from the U.S. West Coast, will loft the Canadian-built CAScade, Smallsat and IOnospheric Polar Explorer (Cassiope) satellite.
