John Glenn is the kind of pilot who makes it home. The world held its breath on Feb. 20, 1962, as he reentered the atmosphere after circling the Earth three times. There was an indication that the heat shield on his Mercury capsule Friendship 7 wasn't attached properly, threatening a tragic end to the first U.S. orbital human spaceflight, but he got home safely.
The first commercial spacecraft to reach the International Space Station approaches its berthing site at the end of the Canadarm2 (see pp. 34-37). SpaceX's Dragon cargo carrier is a true trailblazer, built with a combination of private funds from the deep pockets of dot.com entrepreneur Elon Musk and U.S. government seed money supplied by NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program.
Sierra Nevada Corp. will attempt the first free flight of its Dream Chaser commercial-crew spacecraft this summer, including an autonomous approach and landing at Edwards AFB, Calif., following this captive-carry test of the flight vehicle. An Erickson Air-Crane heavy-lift helicopter carried the composite 25,000-lb. vehicle through an hour-long test May 30 designed to assess its aerodynamic performance.
GENOA — To reduce its debt and take a step to strategically reposition the company, Finmeccanica has reached an agreement to disinvest its 14% stake in Avio and have an Italian state fund buy it. The transaction coincides with Avio’s planned initial public offering (IPO), which is expected to happen this year.
HOUSTON — The Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) Dragon capsule has concluded the first International Space Station (ISS) resupply mission flown by a U.S. commercial provider, finalizing a significant upswing in private sector capability to shoulder U.S. civil space activities, with a May 31 splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the southern California coast.
LONDON — Ultra Electronics has resumed its process of making niche acquisitions with the purchase of satellite communications terminal provider Giga Communications. The price of the deal, £12.4 million ($19.3 million), could rise by another £24.6 million depending on earnings delivered in the next two years. Ultra expects the deal to start adding to its bottom line this year.
COMING HOME: Preparations for the mid-to-early June landing of the U.S. Air Force’s second reusable X-37B space plane mission are under way at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., the service says. The precise landing date and time depends on technical and weather considerations. “Space professionals from the 30th Space Wing will monitor the deorbit and landing of the Air Force’s X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle mission, called OTV-2,” the service said in an announcement. The spacecraft was launched on March 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral.
HOUSTON — Astronauts aboard the International Space Station re-sealed the hatch to the Dragon spacecraft on the eve of the capsule’s May 31 departure and the rapid series of events that will transfer control of the landmark commercial-supply flight back to SpaceX for re-entry and a Pacific Ocean splashdown and recovery. If the final leg of the nine-day test flight unfolds as planned, Dragon and a 1,400-lb. return cargo will splash down 560 mi. southwest of Los Angeles shortly before 12 p.m. EDT.
SAN FRANCISCO — Preparations are under way for the low-energy launch of a high-energy X-ray telescope developed to count black holes in the Milky Way, study how particles are created when massive stars explode and how their particles are accelerated to nearly the speed of light. The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuStar) is to be drop-launched June 13 by an Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL from the company’s modified L-1011 “Stargazer” aircraft at 8:30 a.m. PDT.
AIR LAUNCH: The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has awarded Lockheed Martin a $6.2 million contract, and Northrop Grumman $2.3 million, for Phase 1 of the Airborne Launch Assist Space Access (Alasa) program to launch a 100-lb. satellite into low Earth orbit from an aircraft for less than $1 million per launch, including range costs. Space Information Laboratories has received $1.9 million to develop enabling technology for a GPS tracking, autonomous flight termination and space-based range system to reduce launch costs.
EXTENDED OPS: With virtually all the objectives of its primary Moon-mapping mission accomplished, NASA’s twin-spacecraft Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (Grail) mission will take a break before beginning a period of extended operations set to begin Aug. 30 and last through Dec. 3. Both spacecraft instruments will be powered off until the extended mission begins. Since March 8, the spacecraft have operated around the clock for 89 days, NASA says.
Boeing is on track to meet its milestones in the second phase of NASA’s Commercial Crew Development (CCDev-2) competition, after completing a preliminary design review earlier this month for software needed to operate its CST-100 crew capsule. Still to come are CCDev-2 milestones that include an orbital maneuvering/attitude control engine hot-fire test, NASA says, adding that “all of NASA’s industry partners, including Boeing, continue to meet their established milestones in developing commercial crew transportation capabilities.”
HOUSTON — The NASA-led International Space Station (ISS) Mission Management Team has approved plans for the scheduled unberthing of the first U.S. commercial resupply mission spacecraft later this week, as the astronauts aboard the orbiting science laboratory wrapped up a fast-paced, 2,400-lb. cargo exchange.
Michael Bruno (Washington), Mark Carreau (Houston)
One thing has been made certain by the mission launched last week to the International Space Station (ISS) by Space Exploration Technologies Inc.: governments now have someone else they can call to send their cargo into space. The demonstration of Dragon's capabilities since its May 22 launch make clear that cargo transport to the ISS can be viably outsourced to at least one commercial player.
Here is one simple lesson to be gleaned from Aviation Week's Top-Performing Companies (TPC Study): avoid overconfidence. History shows that a first-place finish is no guarantee of long-term success. Conversely, even consistently strong performers have a bad year every now and then.
As top-tier defense contractors begin to move away from an era of big-ticket weapons procurements, they are scrutinizing their portfolios in an effort to weed out lower-performing businesses. And one problem area keeps coming to the forefront: low-margin government services businesses.
