Orbital Sciences Corp., which makes small rockets and space systems, reported a higher quarterly profit helped by a ramp-up of contract activity on NASA’s Orion human spacecraft program and expansion of commercial satellite manufacturing. Read more
House and Senate appropriators have pushed back against NASA’s proposed termination of a planned 2011 robotic lunar lander mission, directing the agency to spend $20 million this year to continue work on a follow-on to the 2008 Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
The directive, in the form of a letter from Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) and Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.), who respectively chair the Senate and House appropriations panels with NASA oversight, responds to a 2007 operating plan the space agency submitted to Capitol Hill in mid March. Besides formalizing NASA’s previously disclosed intentions to cancel the robotic lander, the operating plan details the latest cost estimates for a slew of other missions. Read more
NASA has entered into an agreement with the U.S. Air Force to support abort flight test requirements for the Orion Project. The Air Force has contracted with Orbital Sciences Corp. of Chandler, Ariz., to provide launch services for the flight tests.
The agreement with the Air Force’s Space Development and Test Wing at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., provides for abort test boosters that will serve as launch vehicles for Orion ascent abort flight tests that are set to occur from 2009 through 2011 at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The first abort test is scheduled for 2008, but will not require a functional booster.
The tests will support certification of the Orion crew exploration vehicle’s launch abort system. The system includes a small escape rocket designed to ensure the safety of the crew in the event of a launch vehicle malfunction while on the launch pad or during ascent to orbit. A total of six tests are planned, pending environmental assessments. Two will simulate an abort from the launch pad and will not require a booster. The rest will use abort test boosters and simulate aborts at three stressing conditions along the Ares launch vehicle trajectory. Read more
After a trip out of town its time to catch up on last weeks news.
NASA, Lockheed fret over Orion funding
Astronauts, NASA brass recognize Phoenix contributions to space program
Orbital to provide Orion crew exploration vehicle launch abort test booster for NASA
NASA turns to past for ideas - Orion will use Apollo-style equipment for ocean recovery
NASA’S Orion Program: Hardware Progresses, Challenges Ahead
Space program needs to pick up pace
Orbital to Provide Abort Test Booster for NASA Testing
DED chief hopes funding keeps NASA plant in N.O.
NASA urged by Congress to continue planning robotic missions
Less is more for astronauts - As spacecraft get smaller, greener, shorter occupants in big demand
Remarks to Conference on Quality in the Space and Defense Industries
Cape Canaveral, Florida
Rex Geveden
NASA Associate Administrator
March 26, 2007
Thank you Rob (Rob Ellison, KSC) for that generous introduction and good morning ladies and gentlemen. It pleases me to be here back at the Cape to kick off the nation’s pre-eminent aerospace quality conference. I’ve spent almost exactly half of my life, which turns out to be 23 years, in the aerospace business. The first six of those were in strategic space and the last 17 in civil space with NASA. And, as an engineer, project manager, program manager, and institutional manager, I’ve worked closely with your community, the quality community, in every single one of those years. So, I count you as friends, and I hope the feeling is mutual. I doubt it, but I hope it. By the way, you picked a perfect setting for the conference. A few miles north of here, on Banana Creek at Launch Complex 39, is the place where America’s space exploration dreams come true. Occasionally, I’m called upon to deliver guest briefings in connection with our Shuttle launches, and I always remind people that this is only one of three spaceports on planet Earth from which humans have been launched into orbit. And Launch Complex 39 is the only site from which humans have departed Earth for another heavenly body. Read more
Remarks as Prepared for Delivery
By the Honorable Shana Dale
NASA Deputy Administrator
JPL’s 19th Annual High-Tech Conference for Small Business
March 5th, 2007
Thank you Glenn (Delgado Assistant Administrator for the Office of Small Business Programs) for those kind words of introduction. I’d also like to thank Eugene L Tattini, Deputy Director JPL and Tom May, JPL Business Opportunities Office and Supplier Diversity Program. Read more
With the promise of spring warmth finally headed for a cold-weary east coast, the Orion and Ares programs are making steady progress towards the major events of the year.
The ESMD (Exploration Systems Mission Directorate) top priorities remain selection of prime contractors for the Ares 1 second stage and the launcher’s instrument unit. A number of meetings marked the March and early April calendars at several different NASA facilities. Read more
Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.announced the appointment of Bill Townsend as vice president for Exploration Systems. Townsend will lead the company’s pursuit of the Instrument Unit contract for the Ares I launch vehicle. He
will relocate from Boulder to the company’s Huntsville, Ala. office.
Townsend has been vice president and general manager of Ball Aerospace’s Civil Space Systems division since joining Ball Aerospace in September 2004. In that role, he led the company’s pursuit of civilian remote-sensing instruments and scientific instruments, spacecraft, and other flight hardware for prime contractors and civilian government
agencies. Read more
NASA continues to have too little funding for everything that the space agency, authorizing committees, appropriations committees, and the science community want it to do. This lack of money was a consistent theme at a series of recent hearings, echoing the same problem that was raised a year ago at hearings on Capitol Hill.
In late February, Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) and his colleagues on the Space, Aeronautics, and Related Sciences Subcommittee received testimony from NASA Administrator Michael Griffin. Nelson highlighted the funding problem in his opening remarks, citing the NASA Authorization Act of 2005 and then commenting that “the White House has requested less funding for NASA than authorized by that act. For that reason, and due to the continuing resolution for this fiscal year, NASA will receive $1.7 billion less than authorized in 2007. If the President’s 2008 budget is adopted, NASA will have received $3 billion less than the amount planned under the two-year authorization act. These shortfalls are in addition to the $2 billion that this little agency had to take from other programs to recover from the tragedy of the Columbia accident and return the shuttle to flight. If we continue on the President’s path, we face an extended period when the United States will have no human access to space. I say this is unacceptable - especially at a time when other nations are aggressively developing space technology.” The “extended period” Nelson was referring to is the time between the retirement of the space shuttle by the fall of 2010 and the earliest operation of its replacement vehicle that has been delayed by funding shortfalls to late 2014 or 2015. During these four+ years, NASA will spend hundreds of millions of dollars to purchase transportation to the space station from Russia, China, or yet-to-be developed private interests. Griffin acknowledged that this was “unseemly.” Read more
As early as 2009, applicants to the astronaut corps will face new size limits, including on weight and sitting height. That’s a result of NASA’s plan to retire the space shuttle in 2010 and switch entirely to smaller vehicles. The exact limits haven’t been determined because new vehicles are still in development.
Since shuttle flights began in 1981, NASA has restricted only height. The last time it recruited a new batch of astronauts, in 2003, the minimum height was 4 feet 10 1/2 inches; the maximum was 6 feet 4 inches. Read more
