Posts Tagged ‘Burt Rutan’
Industry Day to Be Hosted at Spaceport America
Release courtesy of the New Mexico Spaceport Authority
UPHAM, NM – Virgin Galactic and sister aerospace production company The Spaceship Company (TSC) has announced that they will co-host the first-ever “Industry Day” in cooperation with the New Mexico Spaceport Authority (NMSA) at Spaceport America on Tuesday, October 18. The NMSA said that the Industry Day event, which is by Virgin Galactic invitation only, is designed to educate potential suppliers on the type of goods and services that will be needed by the two companies as commercial space travel becomes a reality in New Mexico.
The daylong event will include presentations by Virgin Galactic President and CEO George Whitesides; New Mexico Department of Economic Development Cabinet Secretary Jon Barela; and NMSA Executive Director Christine Anderson. Attendees will have a unique opportunity to see the WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo vehicles up close in their new home at Spaceport America.
“Virgin Galactic and The Spaceship Company are looking to create relationships with local, regional and global suppliers to support their operations at Spaceport America,” said Christine Anderson, NMSA Executive Director. “The organizers of this event have stated their intention to hire locally as much as possible, which is good news for New Mexico companies.” Interested suppliers are encouraged by Virgin Galactic to complete an online registration form at http://www.virgingalactic.com/news/item/virgin-galactic-industry-day/ to express their desire to attend the event and to become a Virgin Galactic and/or TSC supplier. Virgin Galactic will select the final guest list prior to emailing invitations.
“This is a fantastic opportunity for companies ranging from local New Mexico firms to national corporations to understand our unique needs for goods and services, including our requirements in building and servicing multiple commercial spaceships as the market further develops,” said Virgin Galactic’s President and CEO George Whitesides. “Our intention is to establish these relationships and emphasize our desire to hire locally as much as possible.”
New Mexico Department of Economic Development Cabinet Secretary Jon Barela encourages New Mexico businesses to register their interest in attending online. “New Mexico has a vast pool of available aerospace and related industry talent due to White Sands Missile Range, our national laboratories, Holloman, Kirtland, and Cannon Air Force bases, and many other resources statewide. This is a great time for New Mexico to take advantage of these unique opportunities.”
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 late 2011. Phase Two of the construction and pre-operations activities has recently been initiated, including the development of a world-class Visitors Experience for students, tourists and space launch customers.
The State of New Mexico entered into a 20-year lease agreement with Virgin Galactic, Spaceport America’s anchor tenant.
Officials at Spaceport America have been working closely with entrepreneurial space leaders like Virgin Galactic, UP Aerospace, and Armadillo 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.
Facebook: Spaceport America, or follow us on Twitter: @Spaceport_NM
About Virgin Galactic
Virgin Galactic is on track to be the world’s first commercial spaceline. The new spaceship (VSS Enterprise) and Mother ship (VMS Eve) are both being developed for Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic by Mojave-based Scaled Composites. Founded by Burt Rutan, Scaled developed SpaceShipOne, which in 2004 claimed the $10 million Ansari X Prize as the world’s first privately developed manned spacecraft. Virgin Galactic’s new vehicles share much of the same basic design, but are being built to carry six customers on sub-orbital space flights, allowing an out-of-the-seat, zero-gravity experience and offering astounding views of the planet from the black sky of space. The VSS Enterprise test flight program will continue through 2011, prior to commercial operations, which will be based at Virgin Galactic’s future headquarters at Spaceport America in New Mexico.
About The Spaceship Company
The Spaceship Company (TSC) is a recently formed aerospace production company founded by Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group and Scaled Composites. TSC will build the world’s first fleet of commercial spaceships and carrier aircraft, which will allow widespread space travel to become a reality. TSC has contracted with Scaled Composites to develop and build a suborbital space flight system comprised of WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo, and is now taking these designs into commercial production.
NMSA Media relations: David Wilson
p: 575-640-8228
Space Symposium Draws Pioneers
Article courtesy of the Las Cruces Bulletin
By Todd G. Dickson
A flyover by Virgin Galactic’s spaceliner and the presence of aerospace’s more ambitious space entrepreneurs are just a couple of the highlights of this year’s International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight next month.
Photo courtesy of Virgin Galactic
More than 400 aerospace leaders – company executives, government officials and researchers – are expected to attend this year’s conference to be held Wednesday, Oct. 20, and Thursday, Oct. 21, at the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum, 4100 Dripping Springs Road.
Flanking the conference will be the free public forum from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 19, at the Pan American Center on the New Mexico State University campus, and, after the conference, Virgin Galactic’s “mothership” Eve carrying the six-passenger rocket ship Enterprise is scheduled to fly over Spaceport America’s recently completed two-mile-long runway in the desert between Las Cruces and Truth or Consequences.
British billionaire Richard Branson, who is developing Virgin Galactic’s fleet to fly out of the New Mexico spaceport, described the flight as historic because it will be the first long-distance “capture-carry” flight of the spaceliner, making Oct. 22 a “momentous” day for commercial space.
“The new runway at Spaceport America will be finished, and the exterior fabric of our own facility at the spaceport will largely be complete,” Branson said. “It will be an honor to be present on that day, and I can safely say it will be one of the most exciting days in the history of Virgin.”
Based on the X PRIZE-winning system created by aviation genius Burt Rutan, Virgin’s double-hulled, jet-powered “mothership” will carry the Enterprise into the sky for a high-elevation, mid-air launch that will take its passengers to suborbital space.
Many of Virgin Galactic’s top executives will be at the conference, and Branson will deliver a taped message to school children at the public forum – but he isn’t the only one investing big money into privately funded commercial space development.
As in past years, the roster of panelists and speakers include many of the top players in the new industry of commercial space. The latest to agree to participate is Robert Bigelow, who has spent the last 10 years conducting research and development into a new generation of expandable space habitats. A Las Vegas, Nev., native, he made his fortune in real estate, banking and finance and is now gambling it on Bigelow Aerospace to create these expandable space habitats that can survive safely in orbit.
In 2006 and 2007, Bigelow launched its orbiting prototypes Genesis I and Genesis II with the goal to provide more room than the International Space Station at a fraction of the cost.
Other symposium participants include: Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Neil Sheehan, whose latest book “A Fiery Peace in a Cold War” tells the story of the U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile program; Jeff Greason, CEO of XCOR Aerospace; Debra Fracktor Lepore, president of DFL Space; Lee Rand, Sun Mountain Capital partner; George Nield, commercial space transportation associate administrator for the Federal Aviation Administration; Lori Garver, NASA deputy administrator; and Clay Mowry, Arianespace president. Many others in organizations supporting commercial space development will participate in the two days of the conference.
Pat Hynes, executive director of the New Mexico Space Grant Consortium at the NMSU campus, which organizes the symposium, said the start of the symposium will begin with reviewing the origins of space exploration, but then quickly go into in-depth discussions about issues and obstacles facing the new industry, such as skepticism about the ability of the private sector to reach orbital space and the difficulty in finding investors. The symposium will also explore opportunities the new commercial space vehicles have in microgravity manufacturing, research and education.
The symposium brings the leaders of the industry here at a time when many in the local business community are trying to find a way to have the activities at the spaceport translate into more jobs and opportunities, Hynes said. The symposium provides an opportunity for networking that can lead to local ventures, such as the Hatch solar plant.
The free public forum on Tuesday, Oct. 19, will be divided into three segments. The morning session will be primarily educational, but will give people an opportunity to hear from a real astronaut, Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides, and one of Virgin Galactic’s customers. The lunch hour forum will include Whitesides, Hynes, another astronaut and students. The afternoon segment will include the mayors of Las Cruces, Hatch and T or C, as well as the mayor of Titusville, Fla., which grew with the NASA program.
Spaceport on Track to Start 2011 Launches
Article courtesy of the Las Cruces Bulletin
By Todd G. Dickson
Rick Homans, who starts his second stint as the New Mexico Spaceport Authority’s executive director this week, said the $198 million Spaceport America should be fully operational by mid-2011.
Speaking before the Greater Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce Thursday, June 24, at the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum, Homans said a number of new potential tenants are interested in the spaceport.
Homans said new and existing aerospace companies are especially interested in the spaceport’s vertical launch area to develop new launch systems as NASA changes its focus.
The potential for new jobs and economic opportunity is what has always drawn him to the spaceport effort, Homans said.
“I’m absolutely honored to be back on the job,” he said.
But just as the spaceport authority still has many issues to work through to make Spaceport America operational, local businesses need to get ready as well, said Mark Butler, operations program manager for Virgin Galactic, Spaceport America’s anchor tenant.
“A lot of things need to happen,” Butler said of Virgin Galactic safety testing its newly developed spaceliner system. “But let’s say that if we start flying 18 months from now, a lot of supply chain issues need to be worked on now.”
That’s because, Butler emphasized, Virgin Galactic’s primary focus will be flying customers into suborbital space at $200,000 a ticket. With these people paying so much for their trips, Virgin Galactic can’t allow the cancellation of a single flight because of something as minor as a lack of spare parts, fuel or materials – let alone something as miniscule as running out of bolts, he said.
Local businesses need to realize that these new passengers aren’t just going to be coming for a quick flight and leave. It will be at least a two and- a-half-day stay during which the passengers will go through training to prepare them for their spaceflight experience.
That means hotel stays – nice hotels. Butler said he believes one nice hotel near the spaceport won’t be enough.
These customers will want to find fine dining, preferably food made with quality local ingredients. Their visits will require reliable transportation to and from the spaceport in the desert between Las Cruces and Truth or Consequences.
There will be a need to provide activities for friends and families of the passengers while they are going through their pre-flight training. Though local businesses should offer experiences for these accompanying families and friends. Butler admitted that a jaunt to Las Vegas, Nev., is not that far of a trip for them and will likely be a draw away from local sites.
There are many needs in the direct supply chain of the Virgin Galactic flight system that should preferably be made readily available locally, Butler said, such as repair materials for the specialized carbon fiber composite materials manufactured by Burt Rutan’s Scaled Composites operation in California.
Virgin’s owner, British billionaire Richard Branson, is requiring his network of companies to reduce its carbon footprint and be as ecologically sensitive as possible. Part of the philosophy includes having these kinds of resources close to operations, which requires less shipping, Butler said.
Each flight of the spaceliner will require the replacement of the hybrid rocket engine, fueled by specially shaped rubber particles and nitrous oxide. Having the manufacturing of those fuels locally would provide additional assurance as well as satisfy the company’s ecological desires.
Considering the money at stake, reliability of those suppliers also will be tantamount, he said.
Because Virgin Galactic’s primary mission is making sure the customers experience safe flights, Butler said the company isn’t interested in coming up with all the “trinkets” and mementos passengers will want to take home from their trip. That is another opportunity for local businesses, he said.
Since Virgin Galactic is an international company, all of its American employees will have be U.S. citizens to comply with international trade agreements, he noted.
These are some of the reasons why the chamber has created a working group for the spaceport, said Wayne Savage, who chairs the committee. Butler’s talk gave some insight to kinds of jobs and money the spaceport could bring to the region, he said.
“We haven’t seen this kind of a catalyst for the local economy since the creation of White Sands Missile Range,” Savage said.
Spaceport Begins Work on Virgin Galactic Hangar
Article courtesy of The Las Cruces Bulletin
By Todd G. Dickson
With construction under way on the 110,152-square-foot Terminal Hangar Facility at Spaceport America, Virgin Galactic’s 
new space liner took to the skies for the first time carrying its rocket spaceship. On Monday, March 22, Virgin Galactic announced that its commercial manned spaceship, VSS Enterprise, successfully completed its first “captive carry” test flight.
Virgin Galactic’s system for taking passengers to suborbital space will have the double-hulled carrier jet powered aircraft – called the mother ship or “Eve” – carry the rocket portion up to 52,000 feet, where it will be released. The six-passenger spacecraft will then ignite its hybrid rocket engine to bolt to an elevation of 65 miles within 60 seconds.
Monday’s flight simply had the mother ship carry the rocket payload, but flew to an elevation of 45,000 feet during a flight that lasted nearly three hours. The elevation and duration of the first “mated” flight illustrated the confidence that Virgin Galactic has in the aircraft, said New Mexico Spaceport Authority Executive Director Steve Landeene during a presentation Tuesday, March 22, to the High Tech Consortium of Southern New Mexico.
Both vehicles are being developed for English billionaire Richard Branson by Scaled Composites in Mojave, California. Founded by Burt Rutan, the company came up with a smaller version of the system to claim the $10 million Ansari X PRIZE in 2004 as the world’s first privately developed manned spacecraft to reach suborbital space. Branson bought the rights for the technology and is working with Scaled Composites to create a fleet of space liners for Virgin Galactic, which will take passengers to suborbital space for $250,000 a flight by 2011, should future testing go well.
Virgin Galactic will be the anchor tenant at Spaceport America, and the Terminal Hangar Facility is being built for its operations. Landeene said the foundation for the facility’s steel towers has been laid and the building is on track to be turned over to Virgin Galactic by early 2011.
Meanwhile, Landeene said work continues to progress rapidly on the 10,000 foot runway, which will primarily be used for the Virgin Galactic take-offs and landings. But the sturdy asphalt and concrete runway can handle any kind of aircraft and Landeene said he can foresee its use for specially modified 727s to take people on zero-gravity simulated flights.
Landeene also noted progress on other work at the $198 million spaceport in the desert between Las Cruces and Truth or Consequences, including the spaceport’s fuel storage facility, wastewater treatment system, water access and other utilities, such as electricity. Though the spaceport is tapping traditional electricity, Landeene said the goal is to generate all of the spaceport’s energy needs at the site through renewable energy technologies.
With 12 of the 14 major project contracts awarded, “we are about a year away from having a full spaceport ready for business,” he said. All of those contracts have gone to New Mexico companies, though Landeene acknowledged the criticism that many of the jobs have gone to Albuquerque- based companies. Never the less, Landeene said the work done to date has created more than 600 jobs in the area, which he said is buoying local businesses and government through the lean economy. He estimated that the spaceport activity has already brought New Mexico more than $18 million in revenue that it wouldn’t have had without the project. “The return on investment is really quite tremendous,” he said.
The spaceport will continue to host other customers, such as UP Aerospace, which has conducted a number of launches with its low-cost sounding rocket, including research and development tests for Lockheed Martin and MOOG FTS. Landeene said he expects to soon be making other announcements about significant private space companies coming to Spaceport America.
With NASA rethinking its mission, private companies providing affordable access to space will become more significant partners in the future, Landeene said. NASA recently announced it intends to spend $75 million on development of suborbital vehicles.
It also helped that the Legislature passed and Governor Bill Richardson signed into law informed consent legislation, which defines the passengers as participants who know they are taking a risk in these private space flights. Landeene said the law doesn’t eliminate liability to the companies for negligence or damage to other property, but it does make doing business in New Mexico more attractive in the area of private spaceflight.
State Senator Steve Fischmann agreed with Landeene that many northern lawmakers have a “jaundiced view” of the spaceport until they learn more about research-and-development potential that’s possible along with the space tourism.
Landeene admitted some won’t be able to get behind the spaceport until they’ve seen it work and produce more local activity. He said his office continues to investigate other opportunities for providing more “supply chain” business to the local area, as well as packaging tourist experiences. The spaceport’s construction, however, is the primary task of his office, he noted.
