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 […]
KSC News Release: “NASA took a significant step Friday toward expanding research opportunities aboard the International Space Station with its first mission order from Hawthorne, California based-company SpaceX to launch astronauts from U.S. soil. This is the second in a series of four guaranteed orders NASA will make under the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) […]
NASA announced earlier this week through its Commercial Crew Blog that SpaceX has completed testing of SuperDraco propulsion system. “The propulsion system SpaceX would use to power its Crew Dragon out of danger has been test-fired 27 times as the company refines the design for the demands of operational missions carrying astronauts to the International […]
In a week likely to be dominated by news from both United Launch Alliance and Blue Origin, the company which began the ongoing disruption in the launch industry kicked things off with an early morning announcement regarding two new contracts. From SpaceX: SpaceX Signs New Commercial Launch Contracts Hawthorne, CA/Paris, France, September 14, 2015 — […]
Tuesday, September 8th 2015 marks the day Congress returns to session after an August recess. It is an event which officially starts the timer on a countdown to an annual budget battle, with this year’s episode, FY 2016, taking center stage. As usual, Spacepolicyonline has a good summary of what is (or is not) to […]
Boeing officially opened its Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center today in a televised event which culminated in the name reveal for the CST-100 spacecraft which will be the focus of operations. The name for the partially reusable spacecraft which will transport astronauts to ISS as part of NASA’s Commercial […]
Following a polite, but factual slap-down by NASA in its response to Congressional inquiries into whether or not SpaceX has received preferential treatment in how an accident review board is being managed, one might have that though the issue was out to rest. As Lee Corso will most assuredly say on ESPN every Saturday morning […]
SpaceX has been uncharacteristically, but perhaps none too surprisingly, quiet about its future plans in recent months as it has concentrated on the failure investigation of the June 28th loss of a Falcon 9 booster carrying the CRS-7 Dragon supply capsule to ISS. Based on comments made by SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell, as well as […]
The twin failures of both the Orbital Sciences Antares and SpaceX Falcon launch vehicles have made for a challenging 10 months for NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program, a period further complicated by the loss of a Russian Progress cargo ship between the two U.S. accidents. At the same time, the program’s core philosophy of […]
InnerSpace Opinion “He who pays the piper, calls the tune.” On Wednesday, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden sent a letter to Congress informing America’s elected representatives that due to consistent under-funding of the Commercial Crew program since its inception, his agency would be forking over an additional $490 million to Russia to pay for Soyuz crew […]
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