Flight Global reports that Bigelow Aerospace and Lockheed Martin are in final negotiations for Lockheed to provide a human-rated capsule and up to 50 Atlas V cargo and crew launches to an orbital space station by 2015.
Bigelow’s Sundancer space station will be composed of three inflatable modules and a propulsion unit. The modules are due to be launched into orbit in 2010 and 2011 aboard Atlas vehicles.
Read the full story here.
Landeene Speaks About Challenges, Opportunities of Spaceport America
KRWG-TV’s Minding Your Business host Charles Comer recently talked with Steve Landeene, Executive Director of the New Mexico Spaceport Authority. Landeene talks about current and future goals for Spaceport America, a $200 million spaceport that New Mexico is building in the desert.
Best of What’s New: WhiteKnightTwo, Phoenix, Rocket Racer and GeoEye
Popular Science has named its Best of What’s New 2008 lists for the year’s top technological achievements. NASA’s Mars Phoenix Lander has been named Grand Award winner in the Aviation & Space category. The spacecraft spent more than five months analyzing soil and conditions near the martian north pole.
Other space- and rocket-related products on the list [...]
A Look at Virgin Galactic’s Millionaut Training Regime
Brooke Borel of Popular Science takes a look at centrifuge training that future millionauts are undergoing for Virgin Galactic flights. He reports:
“Safety is top concern for Virgin Galactic: da Silva and other trainees also underwent vigorous medical testing, including a heart stress test and a physical. No one with even the slightest heart condition is allowed to fly, [...]
The International Space Station - that $100 billion plus, taxpayer funded lab/millionaut vacation getaway - turned 10 years old this week as astronauts worked to install a new module to the facility. ISS won’t be finished until 2010. In about two months, we will celebrate the 25th anniversary of Ronald Reagan proposing the United States build the station.
Ah, progress….
Two other [...]
Did Money Talk in Getting Enomoto Booted Off, Ansari Put on ISS Space Tourism Flight?
Would-Be Space Tourist Sues for Refund
Associated Press
“A federal judge heard arguments Friday in [Daisuke] Enomoto’s lawsuit against Virginia-based Space Adventures, a firm that made its name brokering deals with the Russian space agency to put half a dozen “space tourists” in orbit for fees of $20 million or more….
“Space Adventures wants the lawsuit thrown out, [...]
Energia Gets Loan, Kazakh Cosmonaut to Fly Commercial
RIA Novesti reports that Sberbank has loaned Energia 2.9 billion rubles ($106 million) to allow the company to continue production of the Soyuz and Progress vehicles required for the International Space Station (ISS).
Meanwhile, the news agency says that Kazakhstan will be paying a commercial rate to send a cosmonaut to ISS. “‘The only way a [...]
