An artist’s conception shows three Bigelow Aerospace B330 modules linked together to create a space station being serviced by SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. Such a configuration would provide as much pressurized volume as the International Space Station. (Bigelow Aerospace Illustration)
All of the studies are due in December, and are supposed to cost no more than $1 million each. NASA still has to negotiate the contract amounts with the study groups, but it expects the total cost of the effort to come in at around $11 million.
The exercise is in line with NASA’s initiative to commercialize low-Earth-orbit operations by 2025. The options include handing over of the International Space Station to commercial management, or creating brand-new orbital outposts.
The latest “State of the Industry” report for small orbital-class launch vehicles tracks 101 reported efforts to create such rockets, compared with a mere 31 in 2015. But many of those efforts are defunct or in limbo, Northrop Grumman’s Carlos Niederstrasser said today at the SmallSat Conference in Logan, Utah. “We’re definitely starting to see attrition” in the industry, he said.
An artist’s conception shows Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lunar lander. (Blue Origin Illustration)
NASA is awarding $44 million to six commercial partners to support “tipping-point” technologies that range from lunar landing capabilities to in-space refueling and spacecraft servicing.
Blue Origin, the space venture that was founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos and is headquartered in Kent, Wash., will receive $13 million to support its Blue Moon lunar lander program. The targeted technologies are to be demonstrated during flights of Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital spaceship.
Today’s award announcement comes months after NASA’s third round of solicitations for ground or flight demonstrations that could lead to tipping points in the development and commercialization of space exploration technologies.
Planetary Resources is selling off equipment from its headquarters in Redmond, Wash. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota)
In a fresh sign of the financial straits facing Planetary Resources, the asteroid mining company will be auctioning off hundreds of items from its headquarters in Redmond, Wash., ranging from industrial-strength CNC machine tools and 3-D printers to laptops and folding chairs.
“We are preparing to sell some equipment that we’ve identified as not currently needed and easily replaceable,” Chris Lewicki, Planetary Resources’ president, CEO and chief asteroid miner, told GeekWire in an email. “This is a result of reducing overhead as we go forward with our smaller team.”
It didn’t help that some interpreted $420 as a veiled reference to 4-20, which is a magic number for marijuana users. At $420 a share, Tesla’s valuation would be in the range of $72 billion.
When NASDAQ trading was stopped, Tesla’s shares were at $366.94, a 7.3 percent gain. When trading resumed, prices reached beyond $380 but ended the trading day just below that mark, adding up to a rise of nearly 11 percent over the previous day’s close. The gap between $380 and $420 reflects market uncertainty over whether the deal will go through as described.
Digital Alloys has developed a technology known as Joule Printing for additive manufacturing of metal components. (Digital Alloys Photo)
Boeing HorizonX says it’s investing in Digital Alloys, a Massachusetts-based startup specializing in metal additive manufacturing, which adds to more than a dozen companies in Boeing’s tech venture capital portfolio.
The $12.9 million Series B financing round announced today was led by G20 Ventures. Other participants in the round include Lincoln Electric and Khosla Ventures, a prior investor. Boeing HorizonX didn’t announce how much it was putting in, but its investments are typically in the multimillion-dollar range.
Digital Alloys, which was spun out from NVBots last year, is virtually certain to see its metal 3-D printing technology used to build Boeing aerospace parts.
The glare of a Falcon 9 rocket launch lights up the night at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. (SpaceX via YouTube)
SpaceX sent Indonesia’s Merah Putih telecommunications satellite into orbit tonight, marking the first reuse of its new-generation Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket booster.
Liftoff came on time at 1:19 a.m. ET Aug. 7 (10:19 p.m. PT Aug. 6) after a trouble-free countdown at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
Minutes after launch, the booster flew itself back down for an at-sea touchdown on SpaceX’s autonomous drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.
The launch and landing kicked off a new chapter in SpaceX’s quest to increase rocket reusability and reduce the cost of access to space. The company says its Block 5 booster can be reused 10 times, a significant step up from the now-retired Block 4 version.
Tonight’s focus on the refurbished, soot-stained booster stole the spotlight from Merah Putih, an SSL-built satellite that’s designed to provide a range of telecommunication services from geostationary orbit, including mobile broadband access across Indonesia and Southeast Asia.
Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s associate administrator for the science mission directorate, gives a keynote address at the SmallSat Conference in Logan, Utah. (NASA Photo via Twitter)
LOGAN, Utah — NASA is already deep into small-satellite science, but today the space agency’s associate administrator for science signaled that NASA will be getting in even deeper.
“We think, in science, smallsats are big,” Associate Administrator Thomas Zurbuchen said in a keynote address to the SmallSat Conference here in Logan.
Zurbuchen turned the spotlight on several initiatives that will heighten NASA’s use of small satellites and commercial services, balancing a mission portfolio that has big-budget missions such as the $8.8 billion James Webb Space Telescope on other end of the cost spectrum.
The Launch-U standard is designed to apply to satellites bigger than a CubeSat but smaller than an ESPA-class secondary payload. (Aerospace Corp. Photo)
LOGAN, Utah — Tiny satellites have their own 4-inch CubeSat standard size, and bigger satellites have a size standard as well. But there’s an awkward gap where no one can agree on exactly how big a satellite should be. Until now.
Today The Aerospace Corp. took the wraps off a proposed size and weight standard it calls the “Launch Unit.” According the standard, a Launch-U satellite and its separation system would fill a volume of 45 by 45 by 60 centimeters (1.5 by 1.5 by 2 feet), or about the size of an end table or two carry-on pieces of luggage strapped together. (Or, for that matter, a pirate chest.)
The mass could range from 60 to 80 kilograms (132 to 176 pounds), with a roughly balanced center of gravity, according to a technical paper issued to coincide with the SmallSat Conference here in Logan. For vibration purposes, the payload’s fundamental frequency would have to be above 50 Hz in any direction.
Launch-U builds on the 10-by-10-by-10-centimeter Cubesat standard, which can apply to 1-unit satellites (1U) or bigger satellites (for example, a 6U satellite, which would be roughly 10 by 20 by 30 centimeters). One Launch-U equals roughly 96 CubeSat units.
An artist’s conception shows Spaceflight’s satellite deployers emerging from their SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle. (Spaceflight Illustration)
LOGAN, Utah — Seattle-based Spaceflight is confirming that it has more than 70 satellites from 18 countries signed up for launch on a first-of-its-kind dedicated rideshare mission, due to fly on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket by the end of the year.
The dozens of spacecraft include two SkySat high-resolution Earth-imaging satellites from Planet, which are designated as the lead payloads. But there’ll also be more exotic payloads on board — including an art project that’s designed to shine in the night sky, and a satellite built by middle-schoolers to test the viability of bacteria in the vacuum of space.
The current tally of 71 satellites on Spaceflight’s SmallSat Express won’t set the record for the most satellites launched at one time. That distinction will still belong to the Indian Space Research Organization, which launched a PSLV rocket with 104 satellites on board last year. But it will represent Spaceflight’s first purchase of the full capacity of a Falcon 9 rocket, and the first use of an innovative set of satellite deployers known as the Upper Free Flyer and the Lower Free Flyer.
