Space policy review and ITAR reform
A couple of interesting items in the latest weekly
Space News summaries (temporary links):
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President Orders Sweeping U.S. Space Policy Review
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Obama ITAR Reform Could Move Satellites Back To Commerce
07/02/09 06:31 PM |
Posted by TopSpacer | Category Space policy
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Notes on RAeS Space Tourism conference
Representing
HobbySpace,
Andrew Janes attended the
Royal Aeronautical Society's Space Tourism conference (
pdf) held in London this week. I've now compiled his notes into
this web page along with some of his photos.
Briefs: Chartered Soyuz update; Tethered Armadillo
Rob Coppinger talks with Eric Anderson about the schedule for the dedicated Soyuz flight that Space Adventures would like to arrange for two private travelers to the ISS:
Will the June 2011 deadline for a 2013 private Soyuz flight be met? - Hyperbola - July.1.09.
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I hope
this is not because Russell did something bad to Mod or Pixel.
07/02/09 02:04 AM |
Posted by TopSpacer | Category NewSpace
2 comments | Permalink |
Briefs: NASA manager's alternative to Ares; HSF panel log
Nancy Atkinson discusses the Shuttle-derived side-mounted heavy cargo lifter design presented by NASA program manager John Shannon to the Augustine Commission:
Faster, Cheaper (and Better?) Way to the Moon - Universe Today - July.1.09.
Includes a video animation of the system.
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The
website for the Augustine panel includes a page with a log of their activities:
See What The Committee Is Doing. There is also a
Twitter account and one at
Facebook.
07/02/09 01:46 AM |
Posted by TopSpacer | Category NASA
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SpaceShipTwo rocket motor tests log
In addition to the
WhiteKnightTwo flight log, Scaled Composites is now posting updates on the
Rocket Motor 2 Hot-Fire Test Summaries.
07/01/09 01:21 PM |
Posted by TopSpacer | Category Transport Companies
1 comment | Permalink |
Space tourism meeting Q&A
Rob Coppinger has posted on his
Hyperbola blog the following audio recordings made at the RAeS space tourism meeting yesterday :
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[XCOR] and Space Adventures Q&A
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Spaceports speak up Q&A
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Astrium and Galactic Q&A
Briefs: India/Russia space partnership; MOST update
Not clear what sort of reusable spacecraft they are referring to. Probably just a capsule :
India plans to develop reusable spacecraft with Russia: Nair- TIMESNOW.tv (via
spacetoday.net).
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The Canadian
MOST (The Microvariability and Oscillation of Stars) micro-satellite reaches its sixth year of operation:
MSCI-Microsat Systems MOST, Canada's Space Telescope, Celebrates Birthday Number Six - MSCI - June.30.09. See also
MOST: Canada's First Space Telescope. I'll note that space info storehouse
Henry Spencer was the Software Architect for the mission.
NewSpace 2009 speakers
Check out
the speakers at the upcoming
NewSpace 2009 Conference at NASA Ames, July 17-20:
Speaker List Revealed for NewSpace 2009 Conference - SFF.
See also the meeting
Agenda.
07/01/09 11:15 AM |
Posted by TopSpacer | Category Events
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Briefs: Kourou report; HSF ini Alabama
Ken Davidian is posting
lots of photos during his trip to Kourou to see the TerreStar-1 launch.
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The
Augustine panel visited NASA Marshall Spaceflight Center in Huntsville and the
ULA facility in Decatur, Alabama last week.
Human space flight review panel updates Web site with Huntsville information - al.com.
Some pictures from their trip:
Site Visit Week of June 22-26, 2009 - a set on Flickr.
07/01/09 11:11 AM |
Posted by TopSpacer | Category General
1 comment | Permalink |
Briefs: UK space tourism; Guinness space tourism prize;
A report on Will Whitehorn's comments at the RAeS space tourism conference yesterday:
UK 'yet to embrace space tourism' - BBC.
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Guinness includes a space tourism prize as part of its 250 year anniversary celebration:
Guinness offers drinkers chance to win space flight: Guinness has launched a competition offering drinkers the chance to win a trip into space aboard Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic spacecraft - Telegraph (via
Jeff Foust).
More info on the Guinness space tourism contest is available at
250 - Remarkable Experiences.
Briefs: SBSP in Japan; DIRECT v.3 video
This article says Japan is beginning a space based solar power program:
Japan Shooting For Space-Based Solar Power -Nikkei - June.28.09.
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A video illustrating the latest iteration of the
DIRECT Launcher design:
Shuttle-to-DIRECTv3 - The Original Rocket Dungeon - June.30.09.
07/01/09 02:32 AM |
Posted by TopSpacer | Category General
2 comments | Permalink |
Briefs: Commercial space rise; Geospace policy
Richard Mains discusses the emergence of the entrepreneurial commercial spaceflight industry:
Why Everyone's Talking Commercial Space - Commercial Space Gateway - June.30.09.
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J. Paul Douglas suggests turning over operations in Geospace (the "region that spans the radiation environment from the Sun to Earth’s upper atmosphere") to NOAA:
A Different Way of Doing Things - SpaceTalk NOW - June.30.09
07/01/09 02:27 AM |
Posted by TopSpacer | Category General
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Firm to lease low cost microsats to the military
A group of "former Pentagon brass" have fomed the company
US Space LLC that intends to offer the US military a cheaper way to obtain satellite services:
Venture to Build Military Satellites - WSJ.com - June.30.09. The company will
build and launch relatively small and inexpensive commercial satellites that would be optimized for military use and leased only to military customers, according to Mark Albrecht, the company's chairman and co-founder.
Orbital Sciences is one of the backers of the company and the satellites would be launched on its rockets.
07/01/09 02:22 AM |
Posted by TopSpacer | Category Military Space
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Ariane launch of TerreStar;
An Ariane 5 is scheduled to launch the huge TerreStar-1 satellite tomorrow:
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Mission Update - Ariane 5 moves to the launch pad with TerreStar-1 for Arianespace’s third launch of 2009 - Arianespace
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Largest commercial telecommunications satellite ever - Examiner - June.30.09
TerreStar-1 was built by Space Systems/Loral for
TerreStar Networks and will use 500 spot beams "to provide voice, data and video communications to satellite/terrestrial mobile devices the size of a typical smart phone".
You can watch the launch
Arianespace - VideoCorner at 12:14 pm ET.
Ken Davidian is in Kourou and posting about launch preparations on his
CSWiki Twitter account.
06/30/09 08:30 PM |
Posted by TopSpacer | Category Rockets
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Swedish spaceport update
Rob Coppinger has posted another video interview made at the RAeS space tourism meeting:
Sweden considers SpaceX Falcon 1 for its spaceport - Hyperbola.
06/30/09 06:07 PM |
Posted by TopSpacer | Category Spaceports
7 comments | Permalink |
Briefs: Space Fellowship makeover; June Horizons
Check out the
Space Fellowship website, which has had a major makeover. They also have a
News section in blog format.
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Also check out the latest issue (
pdf) of
AIAA-Houston Horizons magazine. It includes a discussion with Ross Tierney about the latest iteration of the
DIRECT launcher proposal. There's also a short article about Daniel Adamo's Lunar Surface Rendezvous (LSR) architecture for accessing the Moon.
06/30/09 05:52 PM |
Posted by TopSpacer | Category General
1 comment | Permalink |
Richard Garriott inteview
Rob Coppinger has posted a video of an interview with Richard Garriott:
Private space explorer Richard Garriott talks to Hyperbola - Hyperbola.
Rob also
posts the following review of Garriott's talk at the space tourism meeting:
Space tourist Richard Garriott giving an awesome talk about his ISS flight
Briefs: Northrop Grumann demos lunar descent engine; Space suit designer
Northrop Grumman demonstrates stable performance over a wide throttling range with an LH2/LOX fueled engine with a pintle injector. The engine could be used to power the Altair lunar vehicle:
Northrop Grumman Demonstrates Rocket Engine Technology That Could Enable Return of U.S. Astronauts to Moon - Northrop Grumman - June.29.09
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An interesting interview with Bill Elkins, who is still active in space suit design more than fifty years after he first got into the business:
Space Suits Past and Future: Bill Elkins has been outfitting astronauts since before NASA was born - Air & Space Magazine - June.10.09. See also this article about Elkins and a space suit spinoff:
Gearing up for the Big Game and More - NASA Tech Briefs - Jan.1.04,
06/30/09 11:16 AM |
Posted by TopSpacer | Category Space Technology
4 comments | Permalink |
Briefs: Space law round-up; Space prizes round-up
The latest Res Communis collection of space law, regulation and policy items:
Library: A Round-up of Reading - Res Communis - June.29.09.
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The latest Space Prizes blog collection of space competition elated items:
Prize Update: June 28-30 (Part 1?) - Regolith Challenges, Singularity U, More Twitter, Human Space Flight Commission Advice - Space Prizes.
06/30/09 10:47 AM |
Posted by TopSpacer | Category General
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