Perhaps it is time to change the plucky little spacecraft’s name. In a press conference held Thursday afternoon at NASA’s Johnson Space Center to announce the CRS-2 contract awards, Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser space plane finally caught up with its ambitions, becoming for a day at least, Dream Catcher. In fact, the second Commercial Resupply […]
For the first time in its often turbulent history, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program is set to receive the full level of funding. $1.243 billion, requested by the Obama Administration. The news comes as one small part of an Omnibus Spending Bill passed by House and Senate appropriators early this morning. While the agreement, as well […]
There is a distinct difference between the rosy image of the future NASA is drawing daily with its “Journey to Mars” campaign and the hard realities it must address when facing audiences somewhat more skeptical than the twitterverse. One of those is the NASA Advisory Council, an outside committee of experts which traces its origins […]
Two NASA reports released late this week bring to mind the old adage “we don’t know what we don’t know.” The first concerns the explosion of an Orbital Sciences, (now Orbital ATK ) Antares booster carrying a Cygnus cargo ship to the International Space Station on October 28th 2014. One year later, a NASA Independent […]
With SpaceX, United Launch Alliance and Blue Origin all working on methane powered boosters, NASA is a little late to the party on this one, but maybe they’re bringing the good stuff. The Marshall Space Flight Center is testing a 4,000 lb. thrust pressure-fed methane rocket engine in anticipation of a developing larger descent/ascent engines […]
NASA’s Kennedy Space Center has seen a number of exciting developments announced in recent years as it undergone a largely successful transition from the Shuttle era to becoming a “21st Century Spaceport.” While there is quite a bit underway on KSC proper, including the conversion of Pad 39B for SLS, and SpaceX’s high profile transformation […]
NASA Press Release: Oct. 8, 2015 15-206 NASA Releases Plan Outlining Next Steps in the Journey to Mars NASA is leading our nation and the world on a journey to Mars, and Thursday the agency released a detailed outline of that plan in its report, “NASA’s Journey to Mars: Pioneering Next Steps in Space Exploration.” […]
One of the great things about the emerging cubesat launch market is that NASA is able to help no less than three different companies get off the ground by booking a launch for less than $18 million. On June 12th, NASA’s Launch Services Program announced that it was establishing a new class of launch vehicles, […]
The Wall Street Journal reports that Lockheed Martin has been eliminated from NASA’a CRS-2 competition to award the next round of space station cargo resupply missions. According to the article, which quotes unnamed sources, the decision has been widely understood since the summer, and was made primarily based upon price. The Lockheed Martin proposal, a […]
Ostensibly we go, or send our machines, out into space for the advancement of science. It is a goal NASA’s New Horizon’s mission to the Pluto – Charon system has clearly achieved and then some. As the quality of imaging systems has vastly improved over earlier missions however, what continues to delight and to invoke […]
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