Recent News from the Commercial Space Gateway

(Commercial Space Watch) NASA Langley Awards Logistics Support Services Contract

NASA Langley Awards Logistics Support Services Contract   

(Discovery News) Iran Launches Another Satellite

The Navid observation satellite is expected to stay in orbit for 18-months, heightening tensions with western countries.   

(ScienceDaily) Classic portrait of a barred spiral galaxy

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken a picture of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1073, which is found in the constellation of Cetus (The Sea Monster). Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, is a similar barred spiral, and the study of galaxies such as NGC 1073 helps astronomers learn more about our celestial home.   

(ScienceDaily) Surface of Mars an unlikely place for life after 600-million-year drought, say scientists

Mars may have been arid for more than 600 million years, making it too hostile for any life to survive on the planet’s surface, according to researchers who have been carrying out the painstaking task of analyzing individual particles of Martian soil.   

(Space Fellowship) Armadillo Aerospace launches their third "STIG-A" rocket from Spaceport America

UPHAM, NM – New Mexico Spaceport Authority (NMSA) officials announced today a launch of a “STIG-A” rocket designed and built by Armadillo Aerospace. The launch took place from Spaceport America's vertical launch complex on Saturday, January 28, 2012. The research and development test flight was a non-public, unpublished event at the request of Armadillo Aerospace, as the company is testing proprietary advanced launch technologies. Saturday’s Armadillo launch successfully lifted [...]


  

(Space Politics) Space hasn’t completely faded from the presidential campaign

The conventional wisdom was that, after the Florida primary earlier this week, space policy would fade from the presidential campaign at least though the rest of the GOP primary race. By and large, that’s been the case: as the candidates have moved on to Nevada and other states, they’ve focused their attention on other issues, [...]   

(euronews) Ti my shoes

This tannery in Silla, Spain, has made its leather production greener and safer with a new technology developed as part of an EU-funded research…
  

(Space Fellowship) Iran Launches Observation Satellite

Iran has successfully launched an observation satellite, Iranian news network Press TV reported on Friday. The domestically-built Navid (Harbinger) satellite is designed to take pictures of the Earth at low altitudes of 250 to 370 kilometers. Press TV hailed it as the “first satellite to be completely designed and built by Iranian experts.” The head of Iran’s Space Agency, Hamid Fazeli, earlier announced plans to establish a “national satellite launch base” in the Islamic repu [...]


  

(Space Fellowship) Manned Moon Shot Possible by 2020 – Roscosmos

A crewed mission to the moon is possible by 2020, the head of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, Vladimir Popovkin, said in an interview with the Ekho Moskvy radio station on Thursday. "Today science is ripe for using the moon. I think that by 2020 a man will land on the moon,” Popovkin said. He also said Russia’s previously announced cosmonaut recruitment drive will focus on preparing crews for a moon mission. The competition will be open for every Russian citizen with technical or me [...]


  

(Space Fellowship) NASA's Commercial Crew Partner ULA Completes Two Milestones

One of NASA's industry partners, United Launch Alliance (ULA), successfully completed two milestones that could eventually lead toward the certification of its Atlas V launch vehicle for human spaceflight. In December, ULA conducted a series of detailed reviews that reflected the culmination of efforts involving technical experts and representatives from NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP). “ULA gave us an invaluable opportunity to get to know its Atlas V systems and subsystems thro [...]


  

(Space Fellowship) Station Crew Preps for Spacewalk, Reaches Out to Students

The Expedition 30 crew of the orbiting International Space Station tackled a heavy workload Thursday with a special focus on preparations for a spacewalk scheduled for Feb. 16. Flight Engineers Anton Shkaplerov and Oleg Kononenko spent most of their day gathering tools and preparing their Orlan spacesuits. During the five-and-a-half-hour spacewalk, the two cosmonauts will move one of the two Strela hand-operated cranes from the Pirs docking compartment to the Poisk module and install five de [...]


  

(Space Fellowship) Hubble Zooms in on a Magnified Galaxy

Thanks to the presence of a natural "zoom lens" in space, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope got a uniquely close-up look at the brightest "magnified" galaxy yet discovered. This observation provides a unique opportunity to study the physical properties of a galaxy vigorously forming stars when the universe was only one-third its present age. A so-called gravitational lens is produced when space is warped by a massive foreground object, whether it is the sun, a black hole or an entire cluste [...]


  

(Space Fellowship) NASA's Juno Spacecraft Refines its Path to Jupiter

Juno Mission Status Report PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's solar-powered Juno spacecraft successfully refined its flight path Wednesday with the mission's first trajectory correction maneuver. The maneuver took place on Feb. 1. It is the first of a dozen planned rocket firings that, over the next five years, will keep Juno on course for its rendezvous with Jupiter. "We had a maneuver planned soon after launch but our Atlas V rocket gave us such a good ride we didn't need to make any trajectory [...]


  

(Space Fellowship) Ariane 5 to launch Galileo constellation

Jean-Yves Le Gall, Chairman and CEO of Arianespace, and Didier Faivre, Director of the Galileo Program and Navigation-related Activities at the European Space Agency (ESA), today signed an agreement in London to launch satellites in Europe’s Galileo satellite positioning system by Ariane 5 launchers. This agreement provides for the possibility of using Ariane 5 launchers in 2014 and 2015 to complete the deployment of the Galileo constellation. Arianespace will have launched the 26 satellit [...]


  

(AviationWeek) Defense Disconnect: Lean Times, Fat Profits

Earnings results showed that the industry managed to maintain and in many cases bolster profit margins in 2011.   

(Commercial Space Watch) Sierra Nevada Corporation Delivers the Dream Chaser First Flight Test Vehicle Structure

Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) Space Systems announces the completion of a major Dream Chaser(R) milestone under NASA's Commercial Crew Development Round 2 (CCDev2) Program.   

(Commercial Space Watch) Space Frontier Foundation and NASA Announce $110,000 in NewSpace Business Plan Competition Prizes

Space Frontier Foundation and NASA Announce $110,000 in NewSpace Business Plan Competition Prizes   

(Discovery News) Space: Massive Northern and Southern Lights Explained

Thanks to the largest solar radiation storm since 2003, beautiful aurorae have been popping up across the globe. Martin Berman talks to Discovery News Space Producer Ian O'Neill to understand how the aurora borealis and australis are created.   

(Commercial Space Watch) Virginia Govenor Robert McDonnell to Address 15th Annual FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference

AIAA will co-sponsor the 15th Annual FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference, to be held February 15-16 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, 801 Mt. Vernon Place NW, Washington, D.C.   

(Commercial Space Watch) NASA Ames Research Center: Sources Sought Special Notice 2012

NASA Ames Research Center (ARC) is seeking partners interested in developing competitive proposals in response to NASA Announcements of Opportunity (AOs) or other agency proposal calls.   

(Commercial Space Watch) NASA Solicitation: Thermo Structural Analysis Support for Multipurpose Crew Vehicle Orion Thermal Protection System

NASA Solicitation: Thermo Structural Analysis Support for Multipurpose Crew Vehicle Orion Thermal Protection System   

(Discovery News) A Sublime Springtime for Martian Dunes: Big Pic

When northern spring warms subsurface ice on Mars, dry ice eruptions paint the red dunes black.   

(AviationWeek) Israel Says Iran Seeking U.S.-range Missile

Israel said Iran had been working on developing a missile capable of striking the U.S. at a military base rocked by a deadly explosion three months ago.   

(AviationWeek) U.S. Base In Germany To Host Missile Defense

The command center for a controversial missile defense shield in Europe will be housed at Ramstein Air Base in western Germany.   

(Discovery News) Is That a Crashed Flying Saucer on the Seabed?

Linking a murky unknown circular artifact on the ocean floor to alien visitors is leap of faith wider than jumping the Grand Canyon.   

(ScienceDaily) Stellar astrophysics: The discovery of deceleration

Pulsars are among the most exotic celestial bodies known. They have diameters of about 20 kilometres, but at the same time roughly the mass of our sun. A sugar-cube sized piece of its ultra-compact matter on Earth would weigh hundreds of millions of tons. A sub-class of them, known as millisecond pulsars, spin up to several hundred times per second around their own axes. Previous studies reached the paradoxical conclusion that some millisecond pulsars are older than the universe itself.   

(ScienceDaily) New super-Earth detected within the habitable zone of a nearby cool star

Sientists have discovered a potentially habitable super-Earth orbiting a nearby star. The star is a member of a triple star system and has a different makeup than our Sun, being relatively lacking in metallic elements. This discovery demonstrates that habitable planets could form in a greater variety of environments than previously believed.   

(ScienceDaily) Hubble zooms in on a magnified galaxy

Astronomers aimed Hubble at one of the most striking examples of gravitational lensing, a nearly 90-degree arc of light in the galaxy cluster RCS2 032727-132623. Hubble's view of the distant background galaxy, which lies nearly 10 billion light-years away, is significantly more detailed than could ever be achieved without the help of the gravitational lens.   

(Commercial Space Watch) CSF Welcomes National Research Council Report on NASA Space Technology Program

The Commercial Spaceflight Federation welcomes today's release of the National Research Council report on NASA's Space Technology Program. The Federation and its member companies are strong advocates for robust funding for the Space Technology Program.   

(AviationWeek) NGA EnhancedView To Absorb $50 Million Cut

Valued at $7.3 billion, the 10-year EnhancedView program has come under increasing budget scrutiny from lawmakers and administration officials.   

Sponsors