Archive for the ‘Space Industry News’ Category

Armadillo Aerospace's STIG-A Rocket Launches Successfully from Spaceport America

Release courtesy of Spaceport America

Upham, NM – New Mexico Spaceport Authority (NMSA) officials announced today a successful launch over the weekend of an advanced sounding rocket designed and built by Armadillo Aerospace. The launch took place from Spaceport America’s vertical launch complex on Sun., Dec. 4. The test flight was a non-public, unpublished event at the request of Armadillo Aerospace, as the company is testing proprietary advanced launch technologies.

Saturday’s Armadillo launch successfully lifted off at approximately 11:00 a.m. (MST), which was within the dedicated, five-hour launch window, and reached its projected sub-orbital altitude of 137,500 feet (41.91 km).

“This successful test of our “STIG A” reusable sub-orbital rocket technology represents major progress for the Armadillo Aerospace flight test program,” said Neil Milburn, Vice President of Program Management at Armadillo Aerospace. “The flight successfully demonstrated many of the technologies that we need for our manned sub-orbital program.” Armadillo Aerospace is a leading developer of reusable rocket-powered vehicles and plans to provide a platform for civilian access to suborbital space via its partnership with Space Adventures, Ltd.

“Spaceport America has been an ideal launch facility for this kind of vehicle R&D testing activity,” said John Carmack, President and CTO of Armadillo Aerospace.

The vehicle housed a scientific payload as well.  The experiment was designed, built, tested, integrated, and performed by a team of undergraduate students at the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics in the College of Engineering at Purdue University.  The experiment studied a liquid and gas flow process that is sensitive to the gravity and acceleration levels encountered during spaceflight.

The latest launch represents yet another successful experience at Spaceport America, the nation’s first purpose-built commercial spaceport. “We are extremely pleased to support Armadillo Aerospace as they conduct their high altitude vehicle flight testing, and look forward to hosting their NASA-funded suborbital research launches. Spaceport America continues to set the precedent for safe, efficient, effective service for commercial spaceflight customers,” said NMSA Executive Director Christine Anderson. This Armadillo Aerospace launch marks the thirteenth vertical launch test from the Spaceport America Vertical Launch Complex since 2006.

About Armadillo Aerospace

Founded in 2000, Armadillo Aerospace has an unequaled experience base with over 200 flight tests spread over a dozen different vehicles. The company has done work for NASA and the United States Air Force, and flown vehicles at every X-Prize Cup and Northrup Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge event, including those held in New Mexico from 2006 to 2008.

For more information, please visit www.armadilloaerospace.com.

About Space Adventures

Space Adventures, the company that organized the flights for the world’s first private space explorers, is headquartered in Vienna, Va. with an office in Moscow. It offers a variety of programs such as the availability today for spaceflight missions to the International Space Station and around the moon, Zero-Gravity flights, cosmonaut training, spaceflight qualification programs and reservations on future suborbital spacecraft.

For more information, please visit www.spaceadventures.com.

About Spaceport America

Spaceport America has been providing commercial launch services since 2006. Phase One of the construction for the spaceport is expected to be complete in early 2012.  Phase Two of the construction and pre-operations activities will follow, including the development of a world-class Visitor Experience for students, tourists and space launch customers. Officials at Spaceport America have been working closely with entrepreneurial space leaders like Armadillo Aerospace, Virgin Galactic, and UP Aerospace, as well as established aerospace firms like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and MOOG-FTS to develop commercial spaceflight at the new facility. The economic impact of launches, tourism and new construction at Spaceport America are already delivering on the promise of economic development to the people of New Mexico.

For more information, please visit: www.spaceportamerica.com

Space Adventures/Armadillo Press Contact: Stacey Tearne

p: 703-894-2192

e: stearne@spaceadventures.com

Spaceport America Press Contact: David Wilson

p: 575-640-8228

e: dwilson@zianet.com             

Article Courtesy of the Las Cruces Bulletin

With a building as futuristic as the company itself, Virgin Galactic selected the Green Offices to house its Las Cruces headquarters. John Hummer, owner and Broker of Steinborn & Associates Real Estate , said Jacob Garland, associate broker with Steinborn, represented the project. The office will be located in the new Green Offices, 166 S. Roadrunner Parkway.

“Virgin began their office search back in May,” Garland said. “They looked at numerous locations throughout the city, and after much consideration, the team decided the Green Offices would be the best site for their Las Cruces headquarters.” Garland said construction has already commenced on the interior build-out, and the company’s goal is to occupy the space around the beginning 2012.

The office complex is the first privately funded professional office building built in New Mexico using LEED certification standards.

“Virgin Galactic is leasing approximately 2,000 square feet on the upper level,” Garland said. “They worked with a local architect to design the interior of the suite, which will be somewhat futuristic to stay with the Virgin Galactic theme; we are very excited to see the completed product.”

Virgin Galactic is an innovative company within Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group. Virgin Galactic is the world’s first space line giving individuals the groundbreaking opportunity to become one of the first ever non-professional astronauts.

Virgin Galactic will own and operate its privately built spaceships – WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo – from Spaceport America, which is located northwest of Las Cruces.

“Virgin Galactic’s commitment to this location is a positive example of Spaceport America’s promise of new growth and development in our community,” Hummer said.

“The entire team at Virgin Galactic has been excellent to work with throughout the entire process, they will be a great asset to the community,” Garland said.

Steinborn also represented the developer and owner of the Green Offices. The offices of the state-of-the-art, first of its kind, new professional office building consists of 18,000 square feet and was built to LEED certification standards. It is expected to receive Platinum LEED Certification – the highest LEED designation – upon final completion.

For more information about available space in the Green Offices, contact Garland at jacob@steinborn.com or 202-0429. To learn more about the Green Offices, visit www.greenofficeslc.com.

Sean Jodoin

Sean Jodoin, Virgin Galactic Supply Chain Manager, will be the featured speaker at the December meeting of the MVEDA Business on the Border Forum. The luncheon will be held on Tuesday, December 6, 2011 from 11:30 AM until 1:00 PM at the Hotel Encanto de Las Cruces, 705 S. Telshor. The meeting will begin with a hot entree buffet followed by a brief update by MVEDA staff.

Sean focuses on developing a strategic supply chain plan from the ground up for Virgin Galactic. In addition, he is working on Spaceport America activities and with The Spaceship Company to deliver a technical supply chain for the spaceflight system.

Sean brings with him experience from Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and KBR where he worked in Iraq and Afghanistan as a Procurement Manager. He served in Operation Enduring Freedom as an Air Force Combat Rescue aircrew member. He has earned an MBA from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and holds CPIM and C.P.M. designations.

Luncheon cost is $20.00 per person, payable by cash, check or major credit card. Due to space limitations, reservations are required. Please confirm your attendance no later than Thursday, December 1^st by sending an email to rsvp@mveda.com or by calling the office at (575) 525-2852. The meeting is open to the public.

Release courtesy of NMSU News Center

WRITER: Janet Perez, 575-646-4120, perezjm@nmsu.edu

CONTACT: Steve Hottman, 575-646-9202, shottman@psl.nmsu.edu

New Mexico State University is building a stellar international reputation for its work on unmanned aircraft systems, a fact reflected in the continually growing success of its annual UAS TAAC (Unmanned Aircraft Systems Technical Analysis and Applications Center) Conference.

Entering its 13th year, the UAS TAAC Conference is hosted by NMSU’s Physical Science Laboratory and takes place Dec. 6-8 at the Tamaya Hyatt Regency in Santa Ana Pueblo. The Arrowhead Center, NMSU’s economic development hub, also plays a key role in the conference.

“The significance of a UAS conference in New Mexico continues to grow as we see development of the industry in the state,” said Steve Hottman, associate dean and deputy director for research at PSL. “Our conference efforts have not only attracted the interest and support of industry and government leaders, but also have acted as a great platform for drawing business to the state, as with the recent Vulture project PSL is working on with DARPA.”

On Sept. 30, NMSU announced that PSL had entered a contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to assist in the development and lead the flight-testing of the Vulture unmanned aerial vehicle, the prime contractor of which is Boeing. The Vulture II will have a 400-foot wingspan and weigh between 5,000 and 7,000 pounds.

The idea for the Vulture, and NMSU’s involvement in the project, began a few years ago at a UAS TAAC Conference.

“This conference is one of the most respected networking venues in the UAS industry,” Hottman said. “It allows attendees access to leaders they would likely never get otherwise.”

When the first conference was held in 1998, it was one of only a handful in the nation that primarily focused on the civil use of unmanned aircraft systems. Since then, the conference has become a must-attend event for industry and government leaders. This year, representative s from the Department of Defense, NASA, the Department of Homeland Security, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Federal Aviation Administration, among others, will be on hand. Representatives from aviation user groups, universities and private industry also are expected to attend.

Topics for the conference include airspace access; the use of UAS by law enforcement, homeland security and the military; the availability of spectrum and bandwidth; and the challenges and opportunities facing unmanned aircraft systems. On Dec. 8, a session will be held at a classified location.

“In its 13th year, the TAAC Conference has proven itself to be recession proof,” Hottman said. “In fact, registration for the conference is now closed because we have reached maximum capacity.”

NMSU’s UAS TAAC program has risen to the top of the UAS field through its testing of various UAS platforms. It also has produced a certification roadmap that is serving as a framework for UAS certification. This work has been accomplished largely through the fact that NMSU is the only FAA-authorized UAS Flight Test Center in the United States, which allows UAS operations in the National Airspace System or civilian airspace. Under the FAA agreement, the Flight Test Center can operate flights across more than 15,000 square miles of airspace in southwestern New Mexico. The center’s facilities include a 15,000-square-foot hangar at the Las Cruces International Airport that is dedicated exclusively to UAS operations, as well as offices and technical support on the NMSU campus.

On the economic development front, the Arrowhead Center is creating opportunities for aerospace businesses in southern New Mexico and beyond, partly in tandem with Spaceport America near Truth or Consequences.

For more information on the conference, log onto http://taac.psl.nmsu.edu.

Article Courtesy of the Las Cruces Bulletin

By Todd G. Dickson

When Richard Branson dropped over the edge of the glass-walled balcony of the terminal hangar at Spaceport America Monday, Oct. 17, the danger was more for show to the 800 gathered there for a ceremonial dedication of the 110,152-square-foot facility. But after the champagne and speeches, Branson spent much of his time talking more to the press than to the 150 future passengers, to quell reports of competitors and test flight progress.

Emerging from the rust-colored curving steel doors from the hangar’s south end, Branson was fielding questions from a British journalist. Branson was critical of a report about a competitor – XCOR Aerospace, which is developing a suborbital spacecraft that will take a pilot and a passenger into suborbital space for about $100,000, starting in 2014, flying out from the island of Curacao off the coast of Venezuela.

Branson’s Virgin Galactic spaceliner promises to take six passengers to suborbital space for $200,000 a flight from Spaceport America, 45 miles north of Las Cruces. “We’re the only one with a system that has actually gone to space, and we’re the only one with a spaceport facility like this,” Branson said. “People need to think about that before they pay $100,000 to go to South America.”

The reporters – as well as the other journalists and some of the future passengers – tried to pin Branson down on when he would begin flying out of Spaceport America.

The Virgin Galactic system launches its spaceship from midair using a hybrid rocket engine. The jet-powered mothership carrying the spaceship was as much the star at Monday’s event as Branson, but it didn’t perform a rumored glide test to the two-mile-long runway at Spaceport America. The spaceship has only performed glide flights as the new, larger hybrid engines are still being tested.

When asked about when the craft would be flying into space, Branson was only willing to say next year for the first rocket powered flight tests, but wouldn’t say exactly when he would begin flying passengers to achieve the first year goal of taking 500 people to space the first year of operations. Branson may have been hedging because the SpaceShipTwo almost didn’t make the ceremony.

In its 16th glide flight Sept. 29, SpaceShipTwo carried a three-person crew – two pilots and a flight test engineer – and made a clean release from WhiteKnightTwo at high altitude. But instead of taking its usual smooth glide flight, it “dropped like a rock and went straight down,” according to one observer. Springing into action, the crew deployed the ship’s novel feather re-entry system and was able to regain stability to make a safe landing after seven minutes, four minutes sooner than it should have landed. It is the first report of a flight “anomaly” for the liner-sized version of the system that made the first privately developed back-to-back spaceflights in 2004.

George Whitesides, Virgin Galactic’s chief executive officer and president, told Space.com that this is what flight testing is for and that Scaled Composites – which is creating the spaceliner in Mojave, Calif. – is reviewing the data to find out what happened.

That illustrates why Branson wouldn’t be more firm on the start date for regular flights. Branson told reporters that he couldn’t afford even the marginal failure rate of NASA space flight experience. In essence, Branson plans to conduct many test flights before those passengers are taken to space, with him and his family being the first passengers.

For the British billionaire, creating the spaceliner fleet is “the biggest dream of my lifetime” – and that’s saying something for a man who built an international business venture empire from the humble beginnings of a record store. “I still get goose bumps every time I think that I’m doing this,” Branson said.

Called “Keys to a New Dawn,” the terminal hangar dedication signals that construction is nearly finished on the $32.5 million building, which is designed by URS/Foster + Partners to both be modern and blend in with the surrounding desert. It is LEED certified Gold for its environmental sensitivities and energy efficiencies. Soon, Virgin Galactic designers and interior architects will begin working on making the insides of the hangar as otherworldly and up-scaled as the exterior.

For Virgin’s future passengers, it was a day to stare at the WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo and imagine what that one-hour trip into suborbital space will be like.

One of the newer passengers to put down a deposit on the $200,000 flight is Chandra Jessee of New York, who said she has become a believer that these trips into the upper edge of the planet’s atmosphere will make people more sensitive to the world they live in. “I think it (spaceflight access) can bring the world together,” she said. As she gazed upon the spaceliner and recalled its slow, circling flights overhead earlier, Jessee was clearly taken with the WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo. “It’s stunningly beautiful,” she said.