Tag: Space Frontier Foundation

NewSpace Business Plan Competition Announces First Regional Round

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sff_logoSILICON VALLEY, Calif., Sept. 3, 2015 (SFF BPC PR) – The Space Frontier Foundation’s NewSpace Business Plan Competition (BPC), which awards seed money, announced today that the first two of five total regional, qualifying competitions for the 2015/2016 competition cycle will be held in New York on October 22, 2015 and Los Angeles on December 3, 2015.

The cities will each host a Shark Tank-style event whose winners will advance to the national competition in Seattle. Submissions from the Northeast open September 1, 2015 and November 5, 2015 in the Southwest. Partners of the BPC include the Space Angels Network, OrbitalATK, Heinlein Prize Trust and the Space Finance Group.

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NewSpace Conference Headed for Seattle in 2016

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sff_logoSAN JOSE, Calif., July 17, 2015 (SFF PR) — The Space Frontier Foundation, the Washington State Space Coalition and the Washington State Department of Commerce, announced today that the annual NewSpace conference, previously held in Silicon Valley for the past nine years, will move to Seattle, Wash. in 2016 for the first time since its inception in 2006. Going forward, the conference will alternate between Silicon Valley and Seattle. Specific dates and details of the 2016 conference, including its founding sponsors in the Seattle area, will be announced in the coming months.

“From the early days of the space age, companies like Boeing and Rocket Research have played an important role in the development of space vehicles and systems here in Washington state,” said Washington Governor, Jay Inslee. “Rocket Research, now Aerojet Rocketdyne, along with innovative companies like Blue Origin, Planetary Resources, SpaceFlight Industries and dozens of others are benefiting from Washington’s unique blend of aerospace know-how and computer science brain power to catalyze an exciting cluster of space industry innovation in the state.”

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NewSpace Business Plan Competition Moves to Every Other Year

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SILICON VALLEY, Calif. (BPC PR) – The industry-renowned NewSpace Business Plan Competition (“BPC”) announced today that it will adopt a 2 year competition cycle,  in order to expand  its offerings of industry  resources, support and coaching to the competing and winning teams.  With the next competition occurring in 2016, the longer cycle will encourage more in-depth interactions with competition sponsors, allowing competing teams to benefit from deeper industry relationships.

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Space Development Alliance Lays Out Ambitious Agenda

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The new Alliance for Space Development (ASD) has set out an ambitious agenda for itself, with a set of objectives that include radically reducing the cost of getting to orbit and expanding NASA’s purpose to support the settlement of humanity off the Earth.

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NSS, Space Frontier to Announce Formation of New Space Development Alliance

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sff_logoWASHINGTON, D.C. (SFF PR) — The Space Frontier Foundation (SFF) and the National Space Society (NSS) will announce the formation of the Alliance for Space Development (ASD) at a media event on February 25th in Washington, D.C. Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R) and Representative Chaka Fattah (D) will co-host the press conference in the House Space Subcommittee hearing room in the Rayburn office building. The ASD (http://allianceforspacedevelopment.org/) is dedicated to influencing space policy toward the goals of space development and settlement.

At press time, the LifeBoat Foundation, The Mars Society, The Mars Foundation, The Space Development Steering Committee, The Space Tourism Society, Students for the Exploration and Development of Space, Students on Capitol Hill, Tea Party in Space, and the Texas Space Alliance have joined the ASD.

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SV Gets All Spacy This Weekend

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Silicon Valley will be hosting not one but two — you heard that right, TWO — space events this weekend that are overlapping with each other.

The Space Frontier Foundation kicks off its annual NewSpace Conference on Thursday at the Double Tree San Jose. If you like commercial space and lots of panel discussions, this is the conference for you. It’s got plenty of both. And remember, the most important part is not necessarily all the gabbing in the room but the space deals being done in the hallways.

Learn more here

On Friday evening, Startup Weekend: Space gets underway, also at the Double Tree. The event, which features pitches for space-related businesses, moves to the Plug & Play Center in Sunnyvale for Saturday and Sunday.

The startup weekend is being sponsored by the Space Frontier Foundation. There is a 50 percent discount on the NewSpace conference for those who sign up for both events.

Learn more here

Space Frontier Foundation Announces NewSpace Award Winners

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sff_logoSILICON VALLEY, Calif. (SFF PR) —  Join the Space Frontier Foundation (SFF) to felicitate the recipients of the 2014 NewSpace Awards at the NewSpace 2014 Awards Gala on July 26th at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel, San Jose.

This year, the Foundation recognized a multitude of accomplishments over the past 12 months, giving out awards in five categories. Below is a glimpse of this year’s awards and award winners who will be recognized at the conference.

Vision of Reality

This award is for outstanding achievement in the development and operation of a device, system, or entity that forwards the opening of the Space Frontier.

The NASA COTS (Commercial Orbital Transportation Services) program was chosen to receive the Vision to Reality Award for pushing and helping to develop the commercial space industry through the achievements of Orbital Sciences and SpaceX.

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Space Frontier Calls for Opposition to Senate Commercial Crew Provisions

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sff_logoSilicon Valley, CA (SFF PR) — The Space Frontier Foundation calls upon Americans to stop efforts by US Senator Richard Shelby (R, AL) to critically damage the emerging commercial spaceflight industry. The Senate FY 15 budget proposals calls for excessive and costly bureaucratic oversight that would not only increase costs for private launch companies exponentially, but delay the Commercial Crew Program by months, if not years.

“There is a reason the NASA COTS program worked so quickly and efficiently, and that reason was not due to paperwork and hard-nosed oversight,”said Foundation President James Pura. “Taxpayers could save billions of dollars by letting NASA fly lean, commercial U.S. rockets, and if that means loosening up traditional oversight practices, so be it. Lean, milestone-based payment systems are the way of the future, and let’s enable that process, instead of hindering it.”

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NewSpace Business Plan Competition Announces 2014 Lightning Pitch Competitors

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new_space_business_plan_competitionSilicon Valley, CA (SFF PR) — The NewSpace Business Plan Competition, in collaboration with its sponsors (The Space Frontier Foundation, ATK, and Heinlein Prize Trust) are excited to announce the competitors for this years’ unique program, the 2014 Lightning Pitch Competition. Competitors are listed below, in alphabetical order.

This years’ Lightning Pitch Competition is a novel format, somewhere between an “Elevator Pitch” Competition and a traditional Business Plan Competition. During the first day of the Space Frontier Foundation’s annual NewSpace Conference, each of the eight competitors will deliver a four minute presentation to an audience of space industry professionals, Silicon Valley investors and our Lightning Pitch judges.

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NewSpace 2014 to Feature Entrepreneurial Pitch Competition

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sff_logoSILICON VALLEY, CA (SFF PR) — The Space Frontier Foundation and the NewSpace Business Plan Competition are thrilled to announce a new type of entrepreneurial competition for 2014. This year, the NewSpace Business Plan Competition, along with ATK and the Heinlein Prize Trust, will be co-sponsoring a “Lightning Pitch” event during the Space Frontier Foundation’s annual NewSpace Conference. The sponsors will award over $20,000 in cash prizes for the top contestants.

“This novel event, that is somewhere between an Elevator Pitch Competition and a customary Business Plan Competition, offers an exciting new way to reward entrepreneurial space companies while providing an engaging and fast-paced event for spectators,” said NewSpace BPC Project Manager, Thomas A. Olson. “Holding this competition in conjunction with the NewSpace Conference also gives start-up companies an unparalleled opportunity to network and interact with some of the top companies, investors and scientists in the space community.”

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Digital Solid State Propulsion is Headed to ISS

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Silicon Valley, CA (SFF PR) — This summer, Digital Solid State Propulsion’s microthruster will be deployed from the International Space Station (ISS) aboard the SpinSat microsatellite, a project of the Naval Research Laboratory, in a partnership with Digital Solid State Propulsion (DSSP), Inc.

The missions’ objective is to demonstrate and characterize the on-orbit performance of the ESP (Electrically-controlled Solid Propellant) technology in space. This is an enabling technology for the small satellite community that will allow small satellites to perform in-space maneuvers. In 2012, DSSP won 2nd place and a cash prize of $10,000 at the Newspace Business Plan Competition (BPC), as part of the Space Frontier Foundations’ annual NewSpace Conference.

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Space Frontier Foundation Unveils Settlement Enabling Test

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Artist's conception of a Bigelow lunar habitat. (Credit: Bigelow Aerospace)
Artist’s conception of a Bigelow lunar habitat. (Credit: Bigelow Aerospace)

Washington, DC (SFF PR) – The Space Frontier Foundation is pleased to announce the creation of a new tool, the Settlement Enabling Test. This tool acknowledges that our fundamental goal in space exploration is large scale space settlement, and provides a way to determine if our national space policy is delivering on the promise of space settlement. This expands on our previous Frontier Enabling Test that has been with us since our founding.

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Teachers in Space Accepting Flight Experiment Summer Workshop Applications

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NYACK, N.Y. (SFF PR) — The Space Frontier Foundation’s Teachers in Space (TIS) project today announced that teacher’s applications are now being accepted for its Flight Experiment summer workshop.

Teachers in Space is a project to inspire student interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by engaging teachers with authentic astronaut training and real space science experiences combined with information and resources they bring into classrooms across America.

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