Posts Tagged ‘SpaceX’

Article courtesy of Las Cruces Sun-News

By Diane Alba, Staff and Wire reports

Video courtesy of Spaceport America

UPHAM – Virgin Galactic’s Sir Richard Branson, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and prospective astronauts gathered in the southern New Mexico desert Friday to celebrate the completion of the runway at the world’s first purpose-built commercial spaceport.

Spaceport America is the world’s first facility designed specifically to launch commercial spacecraft. The celebration of its nearly-two-mile-long runway comes less than two weeks after another major step for Virgin Galactic: the first solo glide flight of its space tourism rocket ship.

Branson called it an emotional and historic day. The British billionaire said he expects flights for space tourists to begin in nine to 18 months, and he will be among the first passengers.

Stretching across a flat dusty plain 45 miles north of Las Cruces, the runway is designed to support almost every aircraft in the world, day-to-day space tourism and payload launch operations.

Virgin Galactic is the anchor tenant of the taxpayer-funded spaceport and plans to use the facility to take tourists on what will first be short hops into space. State officials want to add companies for other commercial space endeavors, such as research and payload delivery missions.

Virgin Galactic’s White Knight Two – the special jet-powered mothership that will carry SpaceShipTwo to launch altitude – also made an appearance Friday, passing over the spaceport several times before landing on the new runway.

Tickets for suborbital space rides aboard SpaceShipTwo cost $200,000. The 2½-hour flights will include about five minutes of weightlessness. Some 380 customers have already made deposits totaling more than $50 million, Virgin Galactic officials said Friday.

Branson, the president of Virgin Group, which counts airlines, entertainment and mobile communications among its businesses, partnered with famed aviation designer Burt Rutan on the venture.

Until now, space travel has been limited to astronauts and a handful of wealthy people who have shelled out millions to ride Russian rockets to the international space station.

Some of the soon-to-be astronauts attended Friday’s runway dedication.

While space tourism projects such as Virgin Galactic’s venture receive plenty of publicity, the commercial space industry is seeing rapid developments with companies like SpaceX of Hawthorne, Calif., seeking to win NASA work to supply the International Space Station.

SpaceX has successfully placed a dummy payload into orbit and has contracts to lift satellites next. Other firms, including Masten Space Systems of Mojave, Calif., and Armadillo Aerospace of Rockwell, Texas, are testing systems that would carry unmanned payloads to space.

Last month, Congress approved legislation that affirms President Barack Obama’s intent to use commercial carriers to lift humans into near-Earth space.

Article Courtesy of Las Cruces Sun-News

By Diana M. Alba

LAS CRUCES – Michael Blum’s conference name tag dubs him as an “astronaut-in-waiting.”He’s one of Virgin Galactic’s customers, and, if all goes well, he and five friends will launch into suborbital space about a year after the company begins its commercial space tourism operations at Spaceport America in southern Sierra County.

Personal interests are part of the reason Blum, an investor from Singapore, has traveled to Las Cruces annually to attend the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight. This year is his seventh conference. But business also drives his interest.

“Like a number of other early Virgin Galactic customers, we’re also interested in investing in Virgin’s business and what’s going to pop up around Virgin’s business,” he said. “We’re always looking at what it is and where it is that we can get involved.” Continued Blum: “This conference is a great way to connect with the local community here in southern New Mexico, with other like-minded individuals and with other companies that are bringing change to the industry.”

Blum said he believes it’s time for the government to focus more attention on space exploration, a role that can be filled by commercial aerospace companies, such as SpaceX, Bigelow Aerospace and Virgin Galactic.

Some 340 people are at the conference this year – the largest-ever attendance, said Patricia Hynes, director of the New Mexico Space Grant Consortium. The event was founded in 2005. “We have every single large player in the industry here,” she said.

The symposium began Tuesday, with a free, all-day public forum at the Pan American Center. People attending Wednesday had to pay a registration fee.

In a morning panel, representatives from three large companies spoke about the difficulty in gaining the public’s trust in their eventual spaceflights, while at the same time conducting vehicle development programs that not only allow for failures, but rely on them in order to solve as many problems as possible early on.

Jeff Greason, CEO of XCOR Aerospace, said part of that entails countering a myth that calls for everything to go right the first time.

Steven Brody, vice president of North American operations for International Space University, based in France, said this is the third year he’s attended the symposium. He said gaining exposure for the institution is one reason for the trip. Also, “I come partly to see people I know and others I’d like to meet,” he said. “The networking potential is great here.”

Author and Pulitzer winner Neil Sheehan did not speak Wednesday morning, as originally scheduled, because of an allergic reaction to a medication, Hynes said. Sheehan was slated to give the keynote address

The symposium, hosted at the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum, wraps up today.

Diana M. Alba can be reached at (575) 541-5443

Release courtesy of Spaceport America

Las Cruces, NM – Spaceport America and the New Mexico Spaceport Authority (NMSA) congratulate Dr. Pat Hynes and the New Mexico Space Grant Consortium at New Mexico State University (NMSU) for being selected as the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Center of Excellence for Commercial Space Transportation (COE-CST). Winning the nationwide competition to host the COE-CST now enables NMSU to serve as the hub of a minimum $5 million, five-year research coalition addressing key challenges in the development of the commercial space industry.

“It’s a great day not only for education in the state of New Mexico, but also for the emerging commercial space industry and the role that Spaceport America will have in its continuing growth,” said Spaceport America Executive Director Rick Homans. “This COE-CST reaffirms and cements New Mexico’s leadership in the vanguard of commercial space.” Homans said the Center would likely facilitate development of launch vehicle systems, technologies and operations research for Spaceport America. “We commend Dr. Pat Hynes and her team, and are excited to work with her innovative consortium from New Mexico, Florida, Texas, Colorado and California, as well as companies like Virgin Galactic, SpaceX and other members of the NMSU COE-CST industry advisory board.”

In addition, NMSA Chairman of the Board Ben Woods said, “Today’s announcement means the New Mexico Space Grant Consortium at NMSU will be at the center of development for industry enabling technologies such as space launch operations and traffic management, space commerce and commercial human spaceflight for launch facilities like Spaceport America here in New Mexico.”

More information on the COE-CST announcement can be found on the FAA website: http://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?newsId=11737.

Spaceport America has been providing commercial launch services since 2006. The spaceport is the world’s first purpose-built commercial spaceport and is now undergoing construction near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. This state-of-the-art launch facility is expected to become fully operational in 2011. Officials at Spaceport America have been working closely with leading aerospace firms such as Virgin Galactic, Lockheed Martin, Moog-FTS, and UP Aerospace to develop commercial spaceflight at the new facility. The economic impact of launches, tourism and new construction at the Spaceport is already delivering on its promise to the people of New Mexico.