NewSpace in 2010
A log of the Ups and Downs in entrepreneurial spaceflight
Most recent change: Jan.2.10
Log up to date through: Dec.31.10
Highlights of the successful
flight of Falcon 9 with the Dragon capsule on December
8th, 2010.
Find links to articles, commentary, photos and videos
here.
(Video via SpaceX)
This page provides a compilation of links to articles,
blog postings, videos, and other resources for significant
events and developments during 2010 in the New
Space area. Unless otherwise indicated, the links
are to the Space
Transport News blog.
Note: I exclude most of the hundreds of posts
related to the big controversy over President Obama's
new direction and budget for NASA, which was introduced
on February 1st. This would overwhelm the log here and
is not directly related to New Space except for the
plan to use commercial crew transport services. See
Space
Transport News and the Space
Policy category for posts about the NASA budget
controversy and battles.
This Masten
Space Systemsvideo
shows a boosted hop of their Xombie
vehicle to 68 meters from an unusual viewpoint.
The following Highlights section describes particular
NewSpace events of interest during the 2010 and points
to sets of links with additional information and resources
about those events.
Dec.
3: The X-37B/OTV-1 (Orbital Test Vehicle)
made a successful autonomous return and landing
at Vandenberg AFB affter 225 days in space. During
its that time, it made several orbital changes.
It's mission and operations were kept secret.
The reusable prototype vehicle, which was launched
on April
22 with an Atlas V, will possibly return to
space but a second vehicle (OTV-2) will make the
next flight, currently set for sometime next spring.
Dec.
4: SpaceX successfully carries out a static
test firing of the Falcon 9 engines on the pad
in preparation for the first flight of the Dragon
spacecraft.
Dec.
8: The SpaceX Falcon 9 launch of the Dragon,
the orbital operations of the Dragon and its landing
are all a complete success!
Dec.
13: Several companies submitted proposals
for NASA's $250M Commercial Crew Development -
Phase 2 program (CCDev-2). Full list not revealed
but known to include propsals led by Boeing, SpaceX,
Orbital Sciences, and Sierra Nevada (SNC).
Dec.
13: Revealed that Virgin Galactic will partner
with Orbital Sciences and Sierra Nevada on their
respective CCDev-2 proposals.
Dec.
15: For CCDev-2, Orbital Sciences unveils
a four passenger lifting body design that would
launch on an Atlas V. The are partnering with
several companies including Virgin Galactic
Dec.
20: NASA awarded $500k to each of three firms
in the Innovative Lunar Demonstrations Data (ILDD)
program. Six organizations received the initial
contracts in October for this program, which seeks
to gather technical data on the design and development
of lunar lander systems. Each of the six then
submitted System Definition Review (SDR) packages
and on the basis of those packages, NASA selected
the three firms for the subsequent larger grants.
All six organizations are also entrants in the
Google
Lunar X PRIZE competition.
Nov
9: SpaceX raises $50M in additional private
capital.
Nov.
10: The
Spaceship Company, the joint Scaled Composites/Virgin
Galactic firm that will produce WhiteKnightTwo/SpaceShipTwo
vehicles, has a ground-breaking for a new hangar.
Nov.
13: The Ares
Institute announces sponsorship of a contest
to win a suborbital space flight.
Nov.
14: Florida Today publishes an extensive and
mostly positive article on the prospects for commercial
human spaceflight.
Nov.17:
Dutch airline KLM announced that it would sell
tickets for XCOR
Lynx flights in Curaçao. (In October,
XCOR and Space
Experience Curacao (SXC) unveiled a partnership
to begin tourist flights in Curaçao in 2014.)
Nov.17:
SpaceShipTwo glides back to the Mojave spaceport
for the 3rd time after dropping from the WhiteKnightTwo.
Nov.17:
The two X-34 vehicles were moved from storage
at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards
Air Force Base to the Mojave Air and Spaceport.
Nov.22:
Masten Space Systems and Space Florida announce
agreement for test flights at SLC-36 at Cape Canaveral.
Nov.22:
SpaceX receives first FAA license for spacecraft
return from orbit to a landing on earth.
Oct.3:
ARCA Space has a successful test flight of its
Helen 2 rockoon system.
Oct.5:
XCOR and Space
Experience Curaçao announce a wet least agreement
in which XCOR will fly space tourists on its Lynx
Mark II suborbital spaceplane from a commercial
spaceport on Curaçao, one of the five island territories
in the Netherlands Antilles.
Oct.7:
During a visit to the ULA plant in Decatur, Alabama,
Robert Bigelow says they will be announcing within
a couple of weeks the names of the first six countries
that have indicated they will be customers for
his orbital habitats.
Just before the ISPCS
meeting in Las Cruces, Robert Bigelow
gave the names of the first six countries
to signe MOUs for using the BA habitats.
Oct.8:
Armadillo Aerospace highlighted in a Blackberry
Torch commercial.
Oct.10:
The SpaceShipTwo successfully makes its first
glide flight after dropping from the WhiteKnightTwo.
Oct.15:
NASA announces that six teams would receive contracts
for purchase of technical data generated by their
lunar robotic systems.
Oct.22:
A dedication ceremony is held for the runway at
Spaceport America. Richard Branson, Lori Garver
and other notables attended and spoke. The WhiteKnightTwo/SpaceShiptTwo
combo flew over several times and then landed
for a short time.
Oct.22:
Researchers published a paper in September that
describes a study of the effects on the climate
of soot (unburnt fuel particles) emissions from
a hybrid rocket like that intended for the SpaceShipTwo.
Nature News a month later posts a news item implyng
that the climate effects found in this initial
study apply to all space tourism vehicles, even
though other vehicles use propulsion systems that
produce little or no soot. The Nature News pronouncement
gets wide press coverage with headlines claiming
that space tourism will lead to serious climate
damage.
Oct.25:
NASA announces a request for proposals for up
to $200M in the second phase of its Commercial
Crew Development program (CCDev-2).
Oct.28:
The SpaceShipTwo successfully carries out its
second glide test flight.
Oct.29-31:
The Space
Studies Institute held the Space Manufacturing
14 conference at NASA Ames in Mountain View, California.
Presentations and panel discussions of a wide
range of issues on the utilization of and
Sept.9:
Space X and EADS Astrium announce partnership
to market Falcon 1 launch services in Europe.
Sept.10:
Boeing and Space Adventures hint at announcement
on Sept.15th about a commercial spaceflight partnership.
Sept.10:
Boeing and the Indian space agency in talks on
partnership in human spaceflight including use
of Boeing's CST-100 spacecraft.
Sept.13:
WhiteKnightTwo "Eve" returns to the
air following repairs to the landing gear, which
failed following the landing after a flight on
August
19th.
Sept.15:
Boeing and Space Adventures announce a commercial
spaceflight partnership. Space Adventures will
market rides to orbit in spare seats on Boeing's
commerical CST-100 spacecraft when it begins delivering
crews to the ISS.
Sept.16:
Armadillo Aerospace begins free flights of its
Super Mod streamlined VTVL vehicle.
Sept.17:
Rocket pioneer Robert C. Truax died. In the 1940s
and 50s he led development of the Jet Assisted
Take Off (JATO) and participated in the Thor,
Viking and Polaris missile programs. He subsequently
pursued commercial rocket projects and tried in
the 1970s and 80s to develop a commercial low
cost suborbital manned rocket.
Sept.20:
XCOR announces that they had completed the Lynx
supersonic wind tunnel tests.
Sept.29:
A consortium of Russian enterprises form the Orbital
Technologies company to pursue development
of a commercial space station for launch in 2016.
Sept.29:
The House of Representatives approved the NASA
Authorization bill previously passed in the Senate
that included substantial funding for a commercial
crew launch services program and $15M for the
CRuSR (Commercial
Reusable Suborbital Research) program. The
commercial crew program will lead to commercial
orbital launch services both for the ISS and for
commercial facilities such as Bigelow space stations.
CRuSR will buy suborbital space transport services
for scientific, educational and technology payloads
from companies flying fully reusable suborbital
space vehicles.
Aug.3:
ARCA Space's suborbital launch of their rockoon
system was canceled after a balloon failure. The
next attempt is set for October.
Aug.6:
NASA announces program to buy technical data from
private/commercial lunar rover projects such as
those in the Google Lunar X PRIZE competition.
Convincing NASA to carry out this sort of data
purchase program has long been a goal of NewSpace
advocacy organizations.
Aug.11:
A test of the hybrid motor "RocketMotorTwo"
for the SpaceShipTwo was carried out.
Aug.12:
A prototype Dragon capsule is dropped from 14,000
ft from a helicopter and it successfully deploys
its drogue and landing parachutes. It is retrieved
from its landing in the ocean near Morro Bay,
California.
Aug.13:
The NASA sponsored Strong Tether Centennial Challenge
event, held during the Space Elevator Conference,
again failed to see any entrant come close to
the required strength.
Aug.18:
The FAA selects the New Mexico Space Grant Consortium,
based at New Mexico State University, as the host
for the Center for Excellence for Commercial
Space Transportation. Several other universities
are part of the COE-CST collaboration.
Aug.19:
WhiteKnightTwo "Eve" suffers a landing
gear collapse after landing from a test flight.
Scaled Composites says the problem is "minor".
Aug.19:
NASA hosts the Commercial Crew RFI Forum to discuss
input from companies that responded to the agencies
request for information, advice and designs regarding
the planned commercial crew services program.
Aug.22:
Copenhagen Suborbitals starts to get lots of publicity
as they aimed for their first suborbital test
flight of their unmanned rocket at the end of
the month.
Aug.30:
NASA awards Armadillo Aerospace and Masten Space
Systems each a contract for suborbital flights
on their vertical-takeoff-vertical-landing vehicles.
July
2: More videos and information came out during
July about the partnership of Armadillo Aerospace
and NASA's Project M, which seeks to place a humanoid
style robot on the Moon. Armadillo is developing
lander prototype vehicles.
July
3: The Bigelow
Aerospace website was revamped in July and
gave more information and graphics about their
space plans as well updates on the major expansion
of their headquarters in Las Vegas.
July 7:
It was revealed in an Oklahoma newspaper that
the firm Rocketplane,
which once was developing vehicles for both suborbital
and orbital operations, had filed for bankruptcy
and liquidation. The company had obtained Oklahoma
tax credits early in the decade for development
of a suborbital space tourism vehicle. Later it
bought Kistler Aerospace and successfully won
a NASA COTS contract in 2006 to use the Kistler
K-1 vehicle for cargo deliveries to the Space
Station. However, an inability to raise sufficient
private capital led to the cancellation of the
COTS contract. In the meantime, the suborbital
project became derailed following a decision to
switch to a new design after spending considerable
money on a design that turned out to have major
flaws.
July 13:
NASA announced sponsorship of three new Centennial
Challenges competitions:
$2m nanosat launch
$1.5m night rover
$1.5m sample return
July 14:
The Teachers
in Space program announced three additional
slots available for teachers who want to participate
in their suborbital spaceflight program.
July
15: The WhiteKnightTwo carried out a captive
carry test flight with a crewed SpaceShipTwo in
preparation for a drop and glide test of the SS2.
July
16: The firm Final
Frontier Design introduced a new low cost
spacesuit aimed for commercial spaceflight operations.
July
19: At the Farnborough Air Show, Boeing and
Bigelow unveil the latest version of the CST-100
Capsule project that they are jointly developing.
It could fly on different rockets and would be
used to take up to 7 passengers to Bigelow Habitats.
July
20: NanoRacks commercial experiment facility
activated on ISS.
July
23-25: The Space Frontier Foundation's conference
NewSpace
2010 took place in Sunnyvale, California.
A dedicated page of resources is available here.
July
28: Peroxide Propulsion in Sweden closes after
accident. The company had supplied bulk H2O2 for
some projects in the US such as Unreasonable Rocket.
July 30:
MDA reveals that it is having difficulty finding
an initial customer to get its in-space servicing
spacecraft project off the ground.
June
4: Successful first launch of SpaceX Falcon
9 rocket.
June
5: Armadillo Aerospace flew a Mod vehicle
to 2000 ft (610m). Near apogee they shut off and
then restarted the engine, and flew the vehicle
down for a safe landing
June
8: XCOR and ULA announce a partnership to
develop liquid hydrogen piston pumps.
June
13: SpaceX receives contract to launch Taiwanese
earth observation satellite
June
16: SpaceX and Iridium sign largest commercial
launch contract in history. The $495M deal will
cover launches of Iridium's new constellation
of 72 satellites starting in 2015.
April
19: SpaceX carried out another pad fueling
test on the Falcon 9 to see if the changes to
the adhesive for the thermal cork on the first
stage booster fixed the debonding problem seen
in first test.
April
22: The X-37 successfully reaches orbit via
an Atlas 501.
April
24: At the Tulsa air show, the Rocket Racing
League successfully debuts the Mark III X-Racers,
built by Armadillo Aerospace
April
29: Space Adventures and Armadillo Aerospace
announce a partnership to offer suborbital spaceflights
at a ticket price of $104k per seat. (Additional
details were released at ISDC 2010 in
May.
Feb 1: NASA unveiled its 2011 budget, which
included the use of commercial transport services
for crews by 2015. See Space
Transport News and the Space
Policy category for lots of links to the NASA
budget controversy and battles.
Feb.2:
SpaceDev/SNC, Blue Origin and others got the first
CCDev (Commercial Crew Development) grants.
Feb.
10-11: The FAA commercial space transportation
conference had to deal with extreme snow conditions
but nevertheless had good attendance and interesting
presentations.
Feb.
12: The Rocket Racing League announced that
it would do an exhibition at the Tulsa Air Show
in April.
Feb. 18-20:
The first suborbital spaceflight research conference
(NSRC 2010) in Colorado was very well attended
and indicated growing enthusiasm for science apps
on reusable suborbital vehicles.
Feb.
27: SpaceX carried out a successful wet rehearsal
of the Falcon 9/Dragon on the pad at Cape Canaveral.
Launch of Falcon 9 with the Dragon spacecraft on December
8, 2010. Video
from SpaceX webcast by Spacevidcast
Highlights:
Dec. 3:
The X-37B/OTV-1 (Orbital Test Vehicle) made a successful
autonomous return and landing at Vandenberg AFB affter
225 days in space. During its that time, it made several
orbital changes. It's mission and operations were
kept secret. The reusable prototype vehicle, which
was launched on April
22 with an Atlas V, will possibly return to space
but a second vehicle (OTV-2) will make the next flight,
currently set for sometime next spring.
Dec.
4: SpaceX successfully carries out a static test
firing of the Falcon 9 engines on the pad in preparation
for the first flight of the Dragon spacecraft.
Dec.
8: The SpaceX Falcon 9 launch of the Dragon, the
orbital operations of the Dragon and its landing are
all a complete success!
Dec.
13: Several companies submitted proposals for
NASA's $250M Commercial Crew Development - Phase 2
program (CCDev-2). Full list not revealed but known
to include propsals led by Boeing, SpaceX, Orbital
Sciences, and Sierra Nevada (SNC).
Dec.
13: Revealed that Virgin Galactic will partner
with Orbital Sciences and Sierra Nevada on their respective
CCDev-2 proposals.
Dec. 15:
For CCDev-2, Orbital Sciences unveils a four passenger
lifting body design that would launch on an Atlas
V. The are partnering with several companies including
Virgin Galactic
Dec.
20: NASA awarded $500k to each of three firms
in the Innovative Lunar Demonstrations Data (ILDD)
program. Six organizations received the initial contracts
in October for this program, which seeks to gather
technical data on the design and development of lunar
lander systems. Each of the six then submitted System
Definition Review (SDR) packages and on the basis
of those packages, NASA selected the three firms for
the subsequent larger grants. All six organizations
are also entrants in the Google
Lunar X PRIZE competition.
Nov
9: SpaceX raises $50M in additional private capital.
Nov. 10:
The
Spaceship Company, the joint Scaled Composites/Virgin
Galactic firm that will produce WhiteKnightTwo/SpaceShipTwo
vehicles, has a ground-breaking for a new hangar.
Nov. 13:
The Ares
Institute announces sponsorship of a contest to
win a suborbital space flight.
Nov. 14:
Florida Today publishes an extensive and mostly positive
article on the prospects for commercial human spaceflight.
Nov.17:
Dutch airline KLM announced that it would sell tickets
for XCOR
Lynx flights in Curaçao. (In October,
XCOR and Space
Experience Curacao (SXC) unveiled a partnership
to begin tourist flights in Curaçao in 2014.)
Nov.17:
SpaceShipTwo glides back to the Mojave spaceport for
the 3rd time after dropping from the WhiteKnightTwo.
Nov.17:
The two X-34 vehicles were moved from storage at NASA's
Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force
Base to the Mojave Air and Spaceport.
Nov.22:
Masten Space Systems and Space Florida announce agreement
for test flights at SLC-36 at Cape Canaveral.
Nov.22:
SpaceX receives first FAA license for spacecraft return
from orbit to a landing on earth.
Scenes from the first glide test flight of SpaceShipTwo
"Enterprise" on October 10. Virgin
Galactic
Highlights:
Oct.3: ARCA
Space has a successful test flight of its Helen 2
rockoon system.
Oct.5:
XCOR and Space
Experience Curaçao announce a wet least agreement
in which XCOR will fly space tourists on its Lynx
Mark II suborbital spaceplane from a commercial spaceport
on Curaçao, one of the five island territories in
the Netherlands Antilles.
Oct.7:
During a visit to the ULA plant in Decatur, Alabama,
Robert Bigelow says they will be announcing within
a couple of weeks the names of the first six countries
that have indicated they will be customers for his
orbital habitats.
Just before the ISPCS meeting in Las Cruces,
Robert Bigelow gave the names of the first six
countries to signe MOUs for using the BA habitats.
Oct.8:
Armadillo Aerospace highlighted in a Blackberry Torch
commercial.
Oct.10:
The SpaceShipTwo successfully makes its first glide
flight after dropping from the WhiteKnightTwo.
Oct.15:
NASA announces that six teams would receive contracts
for purchase of technical data generated by their
lunar robotic systems.
Oct.22:
A dedication ceremony was held for the runway at Spaceport
America. Richard Branson, Lori Garver and other notables
attended and spoke. The WhiteKnightTwo/SpaceShiptTwo
combo flew over several times and then landed for
a short time.
Oct.22:
Researchers published a paper in September that describes
a study of the effects on the climate of soot (unburnt
fuel particles) emissions from a hybrid rocket like
that intended for the SpaceShipTwo. Nature News a
month later posts a news item implyng that the climate
effects found in this initial study apply to all space
tourism vehicles, even though other vehicles use propulsion
systems that produce little or no soot. The Nature
News pronouncement gets wide press coverage with headlines
claiming that space tourism will lead to serious climate
damage.
Oct.25:
NASA announces a request for proposals for up to $200M
in the second phase of its Commercial Crew Development
program (CCDev-2).
Oct.28:
The SpaceShipTwo successfully carries out its second
glide test flight.
Oct.29-31:
The Space
Studies Institute held the Space Manufacturing
14 conference at NASA Ames in Mountain View, California.
Presentations and panel discussions of a wide range
of issues on the utilization of and
Armadillo
Aerospace flies its Super Mod rocket on a free flight
to over 2000 ft on Sept. 16th.
Highlights:
Sept.9:
Space X and EADS Astrium announce partnership to market
Falcon 1 launch services in Europe.
Sept.10:
Boeing and Space Adventures hint at announcement on
Sept.15th about a commercial spaceflight partnership.
Sept.10:
Boeing and the Indian space agency in talks on partnership
in human spaceflight including use of Boeing's CST-100
spacecraft.
Sept.13:
WhiteKnightTwo "Eve" returns to the air
following repairs to the landing gear, which failed
following the landing after a flight on August
19th.
Sept.15:
Boeing and Space Adventures announce a commercial
spaceflight partnership. Space Adventures will market
rides to orbit in spare seats on Boeing's commerical
CST-100 spacecraft when it begins delivering crews
to the ISS.
Sept.16:
Armadillo Aerospace begins free flights of its Super
Mod streamlined VTVL vehicle.
Sept.17:
Rocket pioneer Robert C. Truax died. In the 1940s
and 50s he led development of the Jet Assisted Take
Off (JATO) and participated in the Thor, Viking and
Polaris missile programs. He subsequently pursued
commercial rocket projects and tried in the 1970s
and 80s to develop a commercial low cost suborbital
manned rocket.
Sept.20:
XCOR announces that they had completed the Lynx supersonic
wind tunnel tests.
Sept.29:
A consortium of Russian enterprises form the Orbital
Technologies company to pursue development of
a commercial space station for launch in 2016.
Sept.29:
The House of Representatives approved the NASA Authorization
bill previously passed in the Senate that included
substantial funding for a commercial crew launch services
program and $15M for the CRuSR (Commercial
Reusable Suborbital Research) program. The commercial
crew program will lead to commercial orbital launch
services both for the ISS and for commercial facilities
such as Bigelow space stations. CRuSR will buy suborbital
space transport services for scientific, educational
and technology payloads from companies flying fully
reusable suborbital space vehicles.
Aug.3:
ARCA Space's suborbital launch of their rockoon system
was canceled after a balloon failure. The next attempt
is set for October.
Aug.6:
NASA announces program to buy technical data from
private/commercial lunar rover projects such as those
in the Google Lunar X PRIZE competition. Convincing
NASA to carry out this sort of data purchase program
has long been a goal of NewSpace advocacy organizations.
Aug.11:
A test of the hybrid motor "RocketMotorTwo"
for the SpaceShipTwo was carried out.
Aug.12:
A prototype Dragon capsule is dropped from 14,000
ft from a helicopter and it successfully deploys its
drogue and landing parachutes. It is retrieved from
its landing in the ocean near Morro Bay, California.
Aug.13:
The NASA sponsored Strong Tether Centennial Challenge
event, held during the Space Elevator Conference,
again failed to see any entrant come close to the
required strength.
Aug.18:
The FAA selects the New Mexico Space Grant Consortium,
based at New Mexico State University, as the host
for the Center for Excellence for Commercial Space
Transportation. Several other universities are
part of the COE-CST collaboration.
Aug.19:
WhiteKnightTwo "Eve" suffers a landing gear
collapse after landing from a test flight. Scaled
Composites says the problem is "minor".
Aug.19:
NASA hosts the Commercial Crew RFI Forum to discuss
input from companies that responded to the agencies
request for information, advice and designs regarding
the planned commercial crew services program.
Aug.22:
Copenhagen Suborbitals starts to get lots of publicity
as they aimed for their first suborbital test flight
of their unmanned rocket at the end of the month.
Aug.30:
NASA awards Armadillo Aerospace and Masten Space Systems
each a contract for suborbital flights on their vertical-takeoff-vertical-landing
vehicles.
An illustration of the orbital complex of three habitats
(two Sundance
and one BA-330
modules) that Bigelow Aerospace plans to launch beginning
in 2014. See the Bigelow
Aerospace website for lots of information and
graphics about their plans.
Highlights:
July
2: More videos and information came out during
July about the partnership of Armadillo Aerospace
and NASA's Project M, which seeks to place a humanoid
style robot on the Moon. Armadillo is developing lander
prototype vehicles.
July 3:
The Bigelow
Aerospace website was revamped in July and gave
more information and graphics about their space plans
as well updates on the major expansion of their headquarters
in Las Vegas.
July 7:
It was revealed in an Oklahoma newspaper that the
firm Rocketplane,
which once was developing vehicles for both suborbital
and orbital operations, had filed for bankruptcy and
liquidation. The company had obtained Oklahoma tax
credits early in the decade for development of a suborbital
space tourism vehicle. Later it bought Kistler Aerospace
and successfully won a NASA COTS contract in 2006
to use the Kistler K-1 vehicle for cargo deliveries
to the Space Station. However, an inability to raise
sufficient private capital led to the cancellation
of the COTS contract. In the meantime, the suborbital
project became derailed following a decision to switch
to a new design after spending considerable money
on a design that turned out to have major flaws.
July 9:
JAXA announces that the IKAROS becomes first solar
sail to accelerate from solar light.
July 13:
NASA announced sponsorship of three new Centennial
Challenges competitions:
$2m nanosat launch
$1.5m night rover
$1.5m sample return
July 14:
The Teachers
in Space program announced three additional slots
available for teachers who want to participate in
their suborbital spaceflight program.
July 15:
The WhiteKnightTwo carried out a captive carry test
flight with a crewed SpaceShipTwo in preparation for
a drop and glide test of the SS2.
July
16: The firm Final
Frontier Design introduced a new low cost spacesuit
aimed for commercial spaceflight operations.
July
19: At the Farnborough Air Show, Boeing and Bigelow
unveil the latest version of the CST-100
Capsule project that they are jointly developing.
It could fly on different rockets and would be used
to take up to 7 passengers to Bigelow Habitats.
July
20: NanoRacks commercial experiment facility activated
on ISS.
July
23-25: The Space Frontier Foundation's conference
NewSpace
2010 took place in Sunnyvale, California. A dedicated
page of resources is available here.
July 28:
Peroxide Propulsion in Sweden closes after accident.
The company had supplied bulk H2O2 for some projects
in the US such as Unreasonable Rocket.
July 30:
MDA reveals that it is having difficulty finding an
initial customer to get its in-space servicing spacecraft
project off the ground.
Recording of webcast of the successful first launch
of the SpaceX Falcon 9
rocket from Cape Canaveral on June 4, 2010.
Highlights:
June 4:
Successful first launch of SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
June
5: Armadillo Aerospace flew a Mod vehicle to 2000
ft (610m). Near apogee they shut off and then restarted
the engine, and flew the vehicle down for a safe landing
June
8: XCOR and ULA announce a partnership to develop
liquid hydrogen piston pumps.
June 13:
SpaceX receives contract to launch Taiwanese earth
observation satellite
June
16: SpaceX and Iridium sign largest commercial
launch contract in history. The $495M deal will cover
launches of Iridium's new constellation of 72 satellites
starting in 2015.
Links:
June 4th- first launch of
the Falcon 9 is a complete success.
Armadillo Aerospace: four pane view of the boosted hop
flight on June 5th, 2010
of the Mod vehicle with engine shutdown, drogue deployment,
engine restart, safe landing.
June 5: Armadillo
flew Mode vehicle to 2000ft (610m) in boosted
hop mode, shut down the engine after deploying
drogue, restarted engine and came down for
a safe landing
During the flight of Masten Space's Xombie
vehicle on May 26, 2010, the engine
was deliberately shut off and then re-lit. This is the
first public demonstration of such
a capability, which is needed for VTVL vehicle suborbital
flights. See MSS
statement.
Alan
Stern, Principle Investigator for the New Horizons
mission to Pluto and former head of
NASA's science directorate, and researcher Dan
Durda in this video promote the potential of
suborbital space transports for scientific research,
education and public participation in spaceflight.
Highlights:
Feb 1: NASA unveiled its 2011 budget, which included
the use of commercial transport services for crews
by 2015. See Space
Transport News and the Space
Policy category for lots of links to the NASA
budget controversy and battles.
Feb.2: SpaceDev/SNC,
Blue Origin and others got the first CCDev (Commercial
Crew Development) grants.
Feb.
10-11: The FAA commercial space transportation
conference had to deal with extreme snow conditions
but nevertheless had good attendance and interesting
presentations.
Feb.
12: The Rocket Racing League announced that it
would do an exhibition at the Tulsa Air Show in April.
Feb. 18-20:
The first suborbital spaceflight research conference
(NSRC 2010) in Colorado was very well attended and
indicated growing enthusiasm for science apps on reusable
suborbital vehicles.
Feb.
27: SpaceX carried out a successful wet rehearsal
of the Falcon 9/Dragon on the pad at Cape Canaveral.
This conference is a major milestone in
the path towards utilization by scientists
of the new fully-reusable vehicles for routine
access to suborbital space (e.g. 100-120km
range). Over 250 people attended the meeting,
resulting in standing room only for many of
the presentations and panels.
