Carbon in its many forms is transforming manufacturing, from electronics to structures. Aerospace uses carbon in fiber form, but new nano-structured materials are emerging that promise improved properties and expanded applications.
Orbital Sciences Corp. reported a drop in revenue for the second quarter of this year — $333.1 million as compared to $371.3 million in the second quarter of 2012.
ELECTROSPRAY PROPULSION: Three organizations may get a chance to fly their electrospray microthrusters on a future orbiting testbed, following their selection for “game-changing” development grants from NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. Picked to negotiate for grants are projects proposed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Busek Company, Inc., of Natick, Mass., and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
SPACE SELFIES: NASA’s Messenger Mercury probe and Cassini Saturn explorer are maneuvering into place to image the Earth on July 19 and 20. Cassini will take its pictures between 2:27 p.m. and 2:42 p.m. PDT July 19, when the probe will be nearly 900 million mi. (1.5 billion km) from Earth. The portrait is part of a mosaic of images of the Saturn system backlit by the Sun, in which the viewing geometry allows for highly detailed study of Saturn’s famous ring system.
Partisan gamesmanship continued in the House Science Committee during a July 18 markup, as Democrats mounted an account-by-account attack on the Republican majority’s NASA reauthorization bill. The committee approved the bill, authorizing the space agency for two years, starting at $16.9 billion in fiscal 2014.
As part of an ongoing effort to spread the benefits of government investment in space exploration and science, NASA is looking for outside partners to collaborate on “mutually beneficial” space projects. A synopsis published July 17 offers NASA spaceflight expertise to companies and nonprofit organizations willing to work with the agency in unfunded partnerships that can use that expertise to further their goals in space.
In celebration of Nelson Mandela on Mandela Day, Virgin Galactic and Galactic Unite have announced a new initiative, inspired by the great man himself.
AEHF CHECKOUT: Technicians at Cape Canaveral will spend the next several months preparing the third Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF-3) military communications satellite, after the U.S. Air Force and manufacturer Lockheed Martin Space Systems delivered it with a C-5 Galaxy flying out of Travis AFB, Calif. Launch from Complex 41 on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V is scheduled for this fall.
Democratic-led appropriators in the Senate are on a collision course with counterparts in the Republican-controlled House over spending for NASA, with the Senate Appropriations Committee this week set to approve $18 billion for next fiscal year for the space and aeronautics agency.
HOUSTON — NASA is looking into a possible cooling system leak after water seeped into the helmet of spacewalking European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano on July 16, prompting an early end to a two-man excursion that was to advance preparations for the arrival of Russia’s Multipurpose Laboratory Module (MLM) later this year. Neither Parmitano nor lead U.S. spacewalker Chris Cassidy faced imminent danger, and all of the missed tasks can be rescheduled without urgency, according to NASA’s Mission Control.
GLASGOW, Scotland — The U.K. government will invest £60 million ($90 million) to advance cutting-edge propulsion technology in development at Reaction Engines Ltd (REL), a U.K.-based technology company that is building a radical new motor designed to power a reusable space vehicle. The new investment targets continued work on REL’s Synergistic Air-Breathing Rocket (Sabre), which uses lightweight heat exchangers to chill the incoming airstream from more than 1,000C to minus 150C in less than 1/100th of a second.
ROCKET TEST: Engineers at NASA’s Glenn Research Center have tested a rocket engine injector made with additive manufacturing (AM), the 3D printing process that allows complex shapes to be crafted at a fraction of the time and cost of traditional machining. Aerojet Rocketdyne produced the injector assembly, which fired liquid oxygen and gaseous hydrogen in the test series, using high-energy lasers to melt metallic powder in a buildup process.
HOUSTON — Ad Astra Rocket Co., developer of the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (Vasimr), is moving forward with modifications to the company’s 200-kw. VX-200 ground test article intended to allow characterization of the engine’s thermal steady state.
NEW MOON: An astronomer using the Hubble Space Telescope has discovered a tiny moon orbiting Neptune, bringing to 14 the number of known satellites orbiting the blue-green gas giant. Designated S/2004 N 1, the moon measures an estimated 12 mi. across and completes an orbit every 23 hr. at an altitude of about 65,400 mi. above the planet’s clouds. Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute found the new moon between the orbits of Larissa and Proteus while trying to track fast-moving ring segments around Neptune.
PARIS — Sweden launched an enormous, helium-filled balloon from its Esrange Space Center on July 12, carrying the PoGOLite (Polarised Gamma-ray Observer) telescope dangling beneath it.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Donna Thomas at [email protected]. (Bold type indicates new calendar listing.) July 15 - 17 — 49th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference & Exhibit, San Jose, Calif. For more information go to www.aiaa.org/EventDetail.aspx?id=16854 July 16 - 17 — RotorTech Asia Pacific 2013 Conference and Exhibition, "Embrasing Asia's Growing Helicopter Market," Singapore. For more information go to www.cdmc.org.cn/2013/rap/
PARIS — Thales Alenia Space of France and Italy expects to complete a new turnkey satellite integration and test center for the Turkish military this fall, with final acceptance of the new facility, including all test systems, slated for May 2014.
Walking through the Paris air show last month, I was struck by the large number of companies exhibiting under one regional or cluster umbrella. There were, to mention a few, Aerospace Valley, Rockford Area Aerospace Network, Monterrey Aerocluster Mexico, Isle of Man Aerospace Cluster, Aero Montreal, Skywin Wallonie and Northwest Aerospace Alliance. Such groupings have a basic economic rationale: They allow small suppliers to be present at a show without bearing the full costs of renting their own stands in an exhibit hall.
In the 1960s, NASA had a couple of ways to get to the surface of the Moon. They came together in this famous November 1969 photo of Apollo 12 Commander Pete Conrad examining the Surveyor 3 robotic lander, with the lunar module Intrepid that brought him to the Moon parked on the horizon. Those days are long gone now, but the U.S. space agency still wants to go to the Moon—for science and for exploration experiments.
