NASA Commercial Crew Partner SpaceX Achieves Milestone in Safety Review

Nov. 15, 2013

This is an artist concept of SpaceX’s Dragon 

capsule in orbit. (Image Credit: SpaceX)

Engineers and safety specialists from NASA and Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) met in late October to review the safety of the Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket being developed to launch humans into low-Earth orbit later this decade.

The detailed overview of safety practices the company is implementing was a major milestone for SpaceX under a funded Space Act Agreement with NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP).

SpaceX is one of NASA's commercial partners working to develop a new generation of U.S. spacecraft and rockets capable of transporting humans to and from low-Earth orbit from American soil. NASA intends to use new commercial systems to fly U.S. astronauts to and from the International Space Station within the next four years.

Continue Learning: http://www.nasa.gov/press/2013/november/nasa-commercial-crew-partner-spacex-achieves-milestone-in-safety-review/#.Uoenh_mKK-0

Roscosmos Wants Only Domestic Civilian Satellite Makers

Roscosmos Wants Only Domestic Civilian Satellite Makers
15 November 2013 | Issue 5256
The Moscow Times

Image via Commons.wikimedia.org

Federal Space Agency Chief Oleg Ostapenko proposed in a letter to Deputy Premier Dmitry Rogozin to end the practice of placing orders for the production of civilian communication satellites with foreign manufacturers, a news report said Friday.

The new head of Roscosmos sees such orders as a kind of subsidy of foreign manufacturers, Kommersant reported.

If the government heeds Ostapenko's advice European space concern EADS may lose part of its contracts here, leaving Russia's Information Satellite Systems Company, or ISS, as the only supplier of civilian communication satellites. Ostapenko noted in the letter that the planning for the launch of the next series of three communication satellites — Express-AMU2, Express-AMU3 and Express-AMU4 — in 2016-2025 — involves only one supplier, ISS.

Continue Learning: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/roscosmos-wants-only-domestic-civilian-satellite-makers/489671.html

NASA Looks To Small Businesses For Big Space Programs

NASA Looks To Small Businesses For Big Space Programs

November 15, 2013

Image Credit: Thinkstock.com

NASA is seeking proposals for the agency’s Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) programs to enable future space exploration while helping to seed viable commercial products and services here in the US.

Small businesses and nonprofit research institutions that participate in the SBIR and STTR Programs are provided with opportunities to address specific technology gaps in NASA missions. The programs stimulate opportunities for the commercialization of new technologies developed through federal research and development. Many NASA efforts have been aided through the program results, such as modern air traffic control systems, Earth and sun observing spacecraft, the International Space Station (ISS), planetary and astrophysics science missions and the technologies needed for human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit.

Continue Learning: http://www.redorbit.com/news/space/1113004473/small-business-key-for-nasa-space-program-111513/

Notre Dame a partner in NASA’s Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute

Image via ND.edu

The University of Notre Dame will be a partner in NASA’s Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute(SSERVI), a new organization that expands the scope of the NASA Lunar Science Institute to one that includes near-Earth asteroids and the moons of Mars.

Clive R. Neal, a Notre Dame planetary geologist, was part of a Universities Space Research Association (USRA) team that was selected for SSERVImembership. Scientists from USRA’s Lunar and Planetary Institute, the Johnson Space Center and the Arecibo Observatory and researchers from six universities, including Notre Dame, will be one of eight initial teams in SSERVI.

Continue Learning: http://news.nd.edu/news/44234-notre-dame-a-partner-in-nasas-solar-system-exploration-research-virtual-institute/

Through the Wormhole: What Are We Really Made Of?

Through the Wormhole: What Are We Really Made Of?

Our understanding of the universe and the nature of reality itself has drastically changed over the last 100 years, and it's on the verge of another seismic shift. In a 17-mile-long tunnel buried 570 feet beneath the Franco-Swiss border, the world's largest and most powerful atom smasher, the Large Hadron Collider, is powering up.

Its goal is nothing less than recreating the first instants of creation, when the universe was unimaginably hot and long-extinct forms of matter sizzled and cooled into stars, planets, and ultimately, us. These incredibly small and exotic particles hold the keys to the greatest mysteries of the universe. What we find could validate our long-held theories about how the world works and what we are made of. Or, all of our notions about the essence of what is real will fall apart.

http://science.discovery.com

Through the Wormhole: Are We Alone?

Through the Wormhole: Are We Alone?

Aliens almost certainly do exist. So why haven't we yet met E.T.? It turns out we're only just developing instruments powerful enough to scan for them, and science sophisticated enough to know where to look. As a result, race is on to find the first intelligent aliens.

But what would they look like, and how would they interact with us if we met? The answers may come to us sooner than we imagine, for one leading astronomer believes she may already have heard a hint of their first efforts to communicate.

http://science.discovery.com

Through the Wormhole: How Did We Get Here?

Everywhere we look, life exists in both the most hospitable of environments and in the most extreme. Yet we have only ever found life on our planet. How did the stuff of stars come together to create life as we know it? What do we really mean by 'life'? And will unlocking this mystery help us find life elsewhere?

http://science.discovery.com