The uncertainty about the future of Rick Homans as executive director of Spaceport America, as discussed here earlier this week, appears to be over. The Las Cruces Sun-News reports Wednesday that Homans has tendered his resignation, effective Friday. Homans, speaking at an emergency meeting of the spaceport’s board, said that he had been informed last week by Susana Martinez, who became governor of New Mexico on Saturday, that he had to either resign or be fired. Homans had served in the administration of the previous governor, Bill Richardson, a Democrat; Martinez is a Republican. “I understand politics, and I also understand how critical it is for her to have absolute trust and confidence in the executive leadership of the New Mexico Spaceport Authority,” Homans said, according to the report.

It’s not clear what the board’s plans are for replacing Homans, on an interim or permanent basis. It’s also not clear what the current board’s own future is: while only the spaceport’s board has the power to hire or fire the executive director, the board itself could be replaced by the new governor. The uncertainty comes at a time when the spaceport is seeking to expand the roster of companies doing business there, a move endorsed in a recent Sun-News editorial, but questions about both the spaceport’s management and the commitment to it by the state government could cause some companies to think twice, at least for now.

Update: some more information from the Albuquerque Journal and the Las Cruces Sun-News Thursday morning:

• According to the Journal, at least five of the seven spaceport board members wanted Homans to stay on, at least until construction of the spaceport is completed later this year.
• Board members, who told the Sun-News they were uncertain whether they would be kept by the new governor, said they had not been given instruction on how to hire a new executive director. However, a spokesperson for the state’s Department of Economic Development told the Journal that the position would be advertised and a search committee created.
• The Journal also reported that the governor has a “Spaceport Review Team” that is examining the current status of the spaceport, including its contract with anchor tenant Virgin Galactic; that team has received input from former astronauts like Harrison Schmitt and Sid Gutierrez. “The governor believes astronauts have more insight into space travel than Bill Richardson’s deputy campaign manager,” said a spokesman for the governor, referring to Homans. (How much insight these former astronauts have on commercial space travel, though, may be very different.)
• Virgin Galactic president and CEO George Whitesides told the Journal that the company is looking “forward to working with the Martinez administration to continue to advance New Mexico’s leadership in commercial space,” but had no other comment.

Washington, D.C. – The Commercial Spaceflight Federation is pleased to announce that Aerojet has joined the Federation. With over 3,000 employees nationwide including locations in California, Arkansas, Washington State, Virginia, New Mexico, Utah and Tennessee, the company is a leading provider of aerospace propulsion systems.

Julie Van Kleeck, Aerojet’s Vice President for Space Programs, stated, “Aerojet welcomes the opportunity to join the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. Joining CSF will enable Aerojet to work better with industry to serve NASA’s exploration programs and the expanding commercial space market.”

Van Kleeck continued, “Aerojet propulsion systems have flown on every U.S. human spaceflight mission. We are actively engaged in developing propulsion to power the next generation of human spaceflight systems – both launch vehicles and spacecraft. We’re proud of our work on Orion, EELV and a number of new commercial systems such as Taurus II and Sundancer. We are building on Aerojet’s proven capabilities in rocket engine and spacecraft propulsion development, human-rating, propulsion system verification, and operations to power the next generation of U.S. human space flight capabilities.”

Van Kleeck added, “Aerojet believes that affordability and innovation are key to the future of human space flight – and competition is fundamental to both. Aerojet’s membership in CSF will provide new opportunities to support NASA’s efforts to use safe, affordable and innovative commercial systems to transport crew to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) while NASA also continues to reach beyond LEO. We believe that NASA’s plans for new investments in propulsion systems are vital to spurring innovation, driving down cost and fostering both LEO access and human exploration beyond LEO.”

John Schumacher, Aerojet’s Vice President for Washington Operations, added, “Aerojet is at work to field new technologies for both launch and in-space propulsion that foster a new era of affordable, sustainable missions. CSF membership offers unique opportunities to work with other member companies to advance these efforts.”

Mark Sirangelo, Chairman of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, commented, “On behalf of the member companies of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, we are proud to welcome Aerojet. Their expertise in propulsion technology is widely known and it’s a privilege to have them join the Commercial Spaceflight Federation.”

Bretton Alexander, President of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, added, “It is great to see the aerospace industry continue to unite behind a common goal of expanding our nation’s commercial space economy. Creating thousands of new high-tech jobs, enhancing our nation’s access to space, and exciting a new generation of young people to embark on science and technology careers are some of the benefits this growing industry aims to realize. The Federation is pleased to welcome the entire Aerojet team.”

About the Commercial Spaceflight Federation
The mission of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) is to promote the development of commercial human spaceflight, pursue ever-higher levels of safety, and share best practices and expertise throughout the industry. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation’s member companies, which include commercial spaceflight developers, operators, spaceports, suppliers, and service providers, are creating thousands of high-tech jobs nationwide, working to preserve American leadership in aerospace through technology innovation, and inspiring young people to pursue careers in science and engineering. For more information please visit http://www.commercialspaceflight.org or contact Executive Director John Gedmark at john@commercialspaceflight.org or at 202-349-1121.

About Aerojet
Aerojet, a GenCorp Inc. (NYSE: GY) company, is a major space and defense contractor specializing in missile and space propulsion, and defense and armaments. Since the company was founded in 1942, it has led the way in the development of crucial technology and products that have kept America strong and furthered human exploration of space. For more information on Aerojet, please visit http://www.aerojet.com.

Washington, D.C. – The Commercial Spaceflight Federation, representing 37 companies employing thousands of Americans nationwide, released a statement opposing in the strongest possible terms the “illustrative cut” to commercial spaceflight put forth today by the co-chairs of the Deficit Commission.

“This proposed cut would have disastrous consequences for NASA and the Nation. Commercial Crew now represents the primary means of transporting U.S. astronauts to orbit following retirement of the Space Shuttle. Commercial Crew will in fact result in substantial cost savings to the U.S. taxpayer. Eliminating Commercial Crew would result in total reliance on Russia to get to the Space Station and result in the loss of thousands of high-tech jobs here in the United States,” stated Bretton Alexander, President of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation.

Alexander added, “The bottom line is that elimination of NASA’s Commercial Crew program will cede human spaceflight to Russia. Commercial Crew is the fastest way to reduce the gap following Shuttle retirement, minimizing the time we are dependent on buying seats from the Russians. Some commercial providers have publicly committed to significant cost savings on a per-seat basis as compared to the Russian alternative.

“Moreover, the Deficit Commission also appears to misunderstand the very nature of the Commercial Crew Program. Rather than being ‘a subsidy to the private sector,’ the Commercial Crew program is fulfilling an essential national need by developing the next U.S. spacecraft to take astronauts to the Space Station, while stimulating markets beyond government as well. It is, in fact, a win-win for the American taxpayer.

“Last year, an independent blue-ribbon commission headed by Norm Augustine recommended to President Obama that NASA partner with the private sector on the development of its next manned spacecraft. Since then, groups including 25 former NASA astronauts and 14 Nobel laureates have all endorsed the Commercial Crew Program. The deficit commission couldn’t have gotten this more wrong – this is a program NASA cannot afford to do without,” Alexander concluded.

About the Commercial Spaceflight Federation
The mission of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) is to promote the development of commercial human spaceflight, pursue ever-higher levels of safety, and share best practices and expertise throughout the industry. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation’s member companies, which include commercial spaceflight developers, operators, spaceports, suppliers, and service providers, are creating thousands of high-tech jobs nationwide, working to preserve American leadership in aerospace through technology innovation, and inspiring young people to pursue careers in science and engineering. For more information please visit http://www.commercialspaceflight.org or contact Executive Director John Gedmark at john@commercialspaceflight.org or at 202-349-1121.

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Washington, D.C. – Showcasing the potential of commercial crew transportation and commercial fixed-price agreements, five company teams selected by NASA in February 2010 under the $50 million Commercial Crew Development Round One program have built significant working hardware in just nine months, new images and data show.

Please click here to download a high-resolution press release [pdf, 10 MB] for information on the progress of the five teams participating in Commercial Crew Development Round One: Sierra Nevada Corporation, Paragon Space Development Corporation, United Launch Alliance, Blue Origin, and Boeing.

About the Commercial Spaceflight Federation
The mission of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) is to promote the development of commercial human spaceflight, pursue ever-higher levels of safety, and share best practices and expertise throughout the industry. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation’s member companies, which include commercial spaceflight developers, operators, spaceports, suppliers, and service providers, are creating thousands of high-tech jobs nationwide, working to preserve American leadership in aerospace through technology innovation, and inspiring young people to pursue careers in science and engineering. For more information please visit http://www.commercialspaceflight.org or contact Executive Director John Gedmark at john@commercialspaceflight.org or at 202.349.1121.

Image credit: NASA. Please note this is not a NASA press release.

Robin Snelson recently posted on Ustream a video press release from the legendary Rocket Rocket Company, an entrepreneurial RLV developer from the late 1990s:

The 15-minute video from 1998 starts with an animation of the unique flight profile of the company’s Roton SSTO RLV: launch vertically into orbit, deploy its payload, then land vertically using helicopter-like rotors. It then follows with interviews with a number of company officials, many of whom read like a who’s who of NewSpace today: in addition to Rotary founders Gary Hudson and Bevin McKinney, there are cameos by Jeff Greason and Dan DeLong, who went on to found XCOR Aerospace; Burt Rutan of Scaled Composites; and Brian Binnie, a test pilot for Rotary who later flew SpaceShipOne for Scaled.

The video apparently predates the 1999 rollout of the Roton Atmospheric Test Vehicle (ATV) at Mojave Airport. The ATV made a few low-level flight tests using its rotors (powered by tip thrusters), but the company’s financial problems prevented additional test flights as well as the development of additional prototypes. The ATV was destined to go to a helicopter museum near San Diego, but an attempt to airlift the ATV by a Chinook failed. Instead, the ATV is now installed in a small park by the Mojave Air and Space Port headquarters:

SpaceX has raised another round of financing, to the tune of $50 million, according to an SEC filing by the company on Tuesday. A company spokesman told Business Insider that the additional funding came from existing investors, which would include the Founders Fund and Draper Fisher Jurvetson. However, there appears to be a new (or at least significantly increased) investor in the company: Valor Equity Partners. Valor CEO Antonio Gracias is now listed as a director of SpaceX (he was not listed in SpaceX’s previous SEC filing in March 2009) and SpaceX is now listed in Valor’s online portfolio. (Valor is also an investor in another Elon Musk company, Tesla Motors.)

Special Aerospace Services, a Colorado aerospace company, announced Monday they would host the first Commercial Human Spaceflight Technical Forum in Boulder this coming January. The one-and-a-half-day conference is designed to give attendees “insight to techniques that will be required to successfully achieve NASA human rating certification and FAA commercial spaceflight licensing”, according to the conference web site. Featured speakers include former shuttle program manager Wayne Hale and former astronaut Jeffrey Ashby.

Groundbreaking is scheduled for Tuesday in Mojave for a new production facility for WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo. The 68,000-square-foot (6,300-square-meter) factory for The Spaceship Company (a joint venture of Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites) is slated for completion in September 2011. The formal name of the facility, according to a Tehachapi News article, is the Final Assembly, Integration and Test Hangar, which, yes, has the acronym FAITH.

SpaceX has rescheduled its next Falcon 9 launch for no earlier than December 7, citing both delays of other launches at Cape Canaveral as well as a desire to run more tests. The launch will be the first of three planned test flights of the Dragon spacecraft under its COTS agreement with NASA. The delay will also give SpaceX additional time to secure a first-ever reentry license for the Dragon from the FAA.

Some people dream their whole lives about flying in space. For Marc and Sharon Hagle, they sort of stumbled across the opportunity, the Orlando Sentinel reports. The two were taking a Zero-G flight along with, as it turned out, a number of Virgin Galactic sales agents, and as the article notes, “It didn’t take much to sell the Hagles on the chance for some real space travel.”

The first SpaceShipTwo vehicle, VSS Enterprise, performed a glide test this morning in the skies above the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, according to observers as well as Virgin Galactic. No details about the flight test, other than that it was successful, have been released, although when more details are available they’ll likely be included in the SS2 flight log at Scaled.

Update: the log has been updated, noting that all test objectives were achieved. Highlights include: “Flew to more aggressive stall indication. Evaluated handling and stability through several maneuvers.”

Washington, D.C. – The Commercial Spaceflight Federation strongly welcomes NASA’s announcement earlier this month that the space agency will purchase data generated by innovative lunar robotic missions being prepared by six commercial space companies in pursuit of the Google Lunar X PRIZE, through the space agency’s new $30.1 million Innovative Lunar Demonstrations Data program.

The X PRIZE Foundation, which administers the Google Lunar X PRIZE, explained that, “NASA awarded small, firm-fixed price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contracts worth at least $10,000 to these companies [Astrobotic, Next Giant Leap, Rocket City Space Pioneers, Omega Envoy, Frednet, and Moon Express] making them eligible to make later sales of lunar data worth as much as $10 million through the Innovative Lunar Demonstrations Data program. In exchange, each of these companies will provide NASA with unique and valuable data regarding the demonstration of critical technical components required to mount successful, low cost missions to the lunar surface. To claim the full $10 million, these teams must supply a variety of data packages as they pass significant milestones in the mission planning and operations; initial data packages worth just over $1 million will be from tests conducted here on Earth, but a majority of the available funding will come from spacecraft en route to or already on the lunar surface.”

Commercial Spaceflight Federation Executive Director John Gedmark stated, “We are exceptionally pleased to see NASA supporting the Google Lunar X PRIZE in such a visible fashion. By paying for results and for milestones delivered, NASA will be able to deliver high value for the taxpayer while at the same time fostering innovative space companies.”

William Pomerantz, Senior Director for Space Prizes at the X PRIZE Foundation, stated, “These contracts send a clear signal to the investment community that NASA is ready to purchase lunar data, even from small, entrepreneurial firms. This will give a huge momentum boost not just to the companies selected today, but to all of the Google Lunar X PRIZE teams and other companies hoping to sell unique lunar data to NASA and other space agencies at competitive rates.”

About the Google Lunar X PRIZE
The $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE is an unprecedented international competition to challenge and inspire engineers and entrepreneurs from around the world to develop low-cost methods of robotic space exploration. To win the Google Lunar X PRIZE, a privately-funded team must successfully place a robot on the Moon’s surface that explores at least 500 meters (1/3 of a mile) and transmits high definition video and images back to Earth. The first team to do so will claim a $20 million Grand Prize, while the second team will earn a $5 million Prize. Teams are also eligible to win a $1 million award for stimulating diversity in the field of space exploration and as much as $4 million in bonus prizes for accomplishing additional technical tasks such as moving ten times as far, surviving the frigid lunar night, or visiting the site of a previous lunar mission. To date, more than 20 teams from a dozen countries around the world have registered to compete for the prize. The Google Lunar X PRIZE is available to be claimed until the end of the year 2015. For more information about the Google Lunar X PRIZE, visit http://www.googlelunarxprize.org.

About the Commercial Spaceflight Federation
The mission of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) is to promote the development of commercial human spaceflight, pursue ever-higher levels of safety, and share best practices and expertise throughout the industry. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation’s member companies, which include commercial spaceflight developers, operators, spaceports, suppliers, and service providers, are creating thousands of high-tech jobs nationwide, working to preserve American leadership in aerospace through technology innovation, and inspiring young people to pursue careers in science and engineering. For more information please visit http://www.commercialspaceflight.org or contact Executive Director John Gedmark at john@commercialspaceflight.org or at 202.349.1121.

The Commercial Spaceflight Federation and its member organizations, including five providers of commercial reusable suborbital spaceflight services, supports the kind of scientific inquiry that led to the recent Ross et al. Geophysical Research Letters paper titled, “Potential Climate Impact of Black Carbon Emitted by Rockets.” The commercial spaceflight sector aspires to good environmental stewardship.

In an attached fact sheet (click to download), the Commercial Spaceflight Federation has clarified several assumptions used by Ross et al in their model-based analysis. Ross et al may have dramatically overestimated the actual environmental impact of reusable suborbital vehicles.

The Commercial Spaceflight Federation, working with its scientific advisory panel, the Suborbital Applications Researchers Group (SARG), and its suborbital spaceflight provider members, is exploring ways the industry can provide research opportunities to document the actual levels of emissions made by suborbital launches through ground test and in-flight experiments. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation is also assembling a panel of independent experts to provide recommendations to the industry and researchers.

The suborbital vehicles now in development will significantly benefit scientific research, particularly climate science, by allowing previously unparalleled access to parts of the upper atmosphere where atmospheric phenomena concerning global change may take place. Toward this end, the Commercial Spaceflight Federation and its suborbital provider members are working with NASA and NOAA on programs to deploy these vehicles and their valuable capabilities as new platforms for scientific instruments. At industry workshops held at the American Geophysical Union annual conference and the Next Generation Suborbital Researchers conferences, the industry received an enthusiastic response from scientists eager to use these new vehicles in their research.

The commercial spaceflight industry looks forward to the coming era of commercially reusable suborbital spaceflight and research, and the Commercial Spaceflight Federation commits to a proactive stewardship of the atmosphere through which these vehicles will fly.

Bretton Alexander, President of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, commented, “The commercial spaceflight industry is deeply committed to protecting the environment and the priceless planet that we call home. Indeed, the ‘overview effect’ of traveling to space is well-known. Those who are blessed with seeing our fragile blue marble from space always return with a reinvigorated passion to protect it.” Alexander added, “Rocket launches are critical for understanding the environment. The NASA and NOAA space programs that provide us with critical atmospheric and climate data were all launched on rockets and would not have been possible without them. Now the new commercial suborbital vehicles in development will allow access to space that the science community has never before had, including for atmospheric and climate data that was previously out of reach.”

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To download an attached fact sheet clarifying several assumptions used by Ross et al in their model-based analysis, please click here [pdf].

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Washington, D.C. – The Commercial Spaceflight Federation welcomes the recent announcement by the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation that several U.S. spaceports have received funds under the inaugural round of the Space Transportation Infrastructure Matching Grants (STIM-Grants) program.

Several Commercial Spaceflight Federation member spaceports received grants as part of the first-year’s $500,000 total allocation, including:

* The New Mexico Spaceport Authority; to provide an Automated Weather Observing System;
* The East Kern Airport District in Mojave, California; for an emergency response vehicle; and
* The Jacksonville Airport Authority in Florida; to develop a Spaceport Master Plan for Cecil Field Spaceport.

CSF Executive Director John Gedmark stated, “The FAA’s Spaceport Grants program has been a major policy priority for the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. We see this program as essential to improving safety and maintaining the economic competitiveness of U.S. spaceports. This is the first year the program has received funds from the U.S. Congress, and we are pleased to see that FAA has moved promptly to award the funds so that spaceport infrastructure improvements can begin immediately. We look forward to seeing this program continue and grow.”

The press release issued by the FAA is available at http://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?newsId=11919 .

About the Commercial Spaceflight Federation
The mission of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) is to promote the development of commercial human spaceflight, pursue ever-higher levels of safety, and share best practices and expertise throughout the industry. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation’s member companies, which include commercial spaceflight developers, operators, spaceports, suppliers, and service providers, are creating thousands of high- tech jobs nationwide, working to preserve American leadership in aerospace through technology innovation, and inspiring young people to pursue careers in science and engineering. For more information please visit http://www.commercialspaceflight.org or contact Executive Director John Gedmark at john@commercialspaceflight.org or at 202.349.1121.

Washington, D.C. – Underscoring the growth of the market for commercial spaceflight, agreements have been signed with national space agencies, companies, and governmental entities located in Japan, the Netherlands, Singapore, Sweden, Australia and the United Kingdom expressing interest in Bigelow Aerospace’s commercial orbital complexes slated for launch later this decade. These agreements, in the form of memorandums of understanding (“MoUs”), were reported by the space media site Space.com earlier this week.

Mr. Robert T. Bigelow, founder and President of Bigelow Aerospace, has invested approximately $200 million as the company prepares the world’s first private sector space stations for use by domestic and international clients. Space media site Space.com reports that Bigelow Aerospace “has found a robust international market.”

The full Space.com article is available at http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/private-space-station-first-clients-101019.html.

WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo soar above the crowd at Spaceport America on Friday. (credit: J. Foust)

Friday’s events at Spaceport America went off pretty much as planned. There were the speeches by dignitaries (including Richard Branson, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, and NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver), followed by the flyover by WhiteKnightTwo with SpaceShipTwo attached. After the two vehicles completed several passes and appeared to fly off, Branson and the others started a press conference.

However, a short time into the press conference Branson interrupted the Q&A. “I rang the pilot of the spaceship and said, ‘Look, we’ve got a runway here. Why are you going back to Mojave? Why can’t you come and sort of show it off?’ I’m not sure I managed to persuade him, but maybe we could all sort of put some vibes up in the sky.” What followed was the odd spectacle of several hundred people shaking their hands, clapping, and stomping their feet, all at the insistence of Branson, to try and get WK2 and SS2 to return.

“What’s the point of having a spaceport if you don’t land at a spaceport?” Branson asked. The first time around this didn’t get the vehicles to return, but several minutes later he interrupted the press conference again to get people to do the same thing. And this time, it “worked”: WK2 and SS2 reappeared in the skies over the spaceport and landed on the runway, which during the ceremony had been renamed the Bill Richardson Spaceway. The vehicles became the backdrop for photo opportunities and the like for the remainder of the event.

Sir Richard Branson and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson pose in front of WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo at Spaceport America. (credit: J. Foust)

Besides the unexpected (albeit rumored in the days leading up to the event) landing, there were only a few other announcements or other newsworthy items at the event. In his speech Virgin Galatic CEO George Whitesides announced a new program called “Galactic Unite”, an initiative designed to support STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education. That program is being done in cooperation with Virgin Unite, the Virgin Group’s non-profit arm, and the New Mexico Space Grant Consortium.

Virgin officials did not talk too much about other aspects of the spaceport or vehicle development. “We saw the latest successful major test fire of our rocket motor” being developed by Scaled Composites and Sierra Nevada Corporation, Whitesides said, but didn’t mention when that test took place other than the test is “moving us well along the way to an ambitious upcoming test schedule.” Later, Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn said that for the hybrid rocket motor they were looking at replacing the rubber used as the solid fuel with “basically recycled nylon” that would have a lower carbon output than the conventional motor. It wasn’t clear from those statements what fuel they’re using for the rocket motor in the current tests (I was next up to ask a question along those lines when Branson interrupted again just before the return of WK2 and SS2.)

Also during the press conference Branson was asked about orbital vehicle development. That is a long-term goal of the company, but Branson suggested they would try to find ways to accelerate it. “Obviously we want to move on to orbital after we’ve got suborbital under our belts, and maybe even before that,” he said, then mentioned NASA’s commercial crew development program and its request for proposals in the coming months. “Virgin Galactic is going to put forward proposals, and we plan to start work on an orbital program quite quickly.” Branson declined to provide any details on Virgin’s orbital vehicle plans, but said the company would say more in the next three to four months.

WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo fly over the Terminal Hangar Facility under construction at Spaceport America. (credit: J. Foust)

Wednesday was the first of two days of the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight in Las Cruces, New Mexico. The conference, now in its sixth year, started as an opening act for the X PRIZE Cup, but has now not only continued after the end of the Cup, but has grown into one of the major commercial spaceflight conferences. Wednesday’s sessions didn’t provide any major breaking developments, but here are a few highlights and other interesting tidbits:

• In a session titled “Closing the credibility gap”, speakers from Virgin Galactic, XCOR Aerospace, and Armadillo Aerospace discussed the importance of testing to demonstrate to customers, investors, regulators, and others that their ventures are, in fact, credible. During her presentation Virgin Galactic operations manager Julia Tizard mentioned that “full scale hot firing” of the rocket motors for SpaceShipTwo is underway in preparation for powered flight tests next year. (It should be noted that the log of RocketMotorTwo test firings was last updated in August.)
• Neil Milburn of Armadillo Aerospace said in another panel that the company plans to bring out two vehicles, Super Mod and the “tube vehicle”, to Spaceport America by the end of this year for test flights under NASA’s CRuSR program, pending FAA approval. Super Mod will be able to fly to at least 40 kilometers, and perhaps as high as 60 kilometers, while the tube vehicle (Milburn admitted that vehicle needs a better name) could go all the way to 100 kilometers.
• Earlier, Milburn said that Project M, a low-profile NASA project Armadillo had been associated with, has changed its name to Project Morpheus. The project had originally sought to land a humanoid rover (based on the Robonaut that will be going to the ISS on the next shuttle mission) on the Moon within 1,000 days (hence M, the Roman numeral for 1,000). The name change reflects a change in focus on the program for more terrestrial technology development.
• Tim Pickens, the founder or Orion Propulsion who now works for Dynetics, said Dynetics’s role in projects like the Rocket City Space Pioneers Google Lunar X PRIZE team is part of an internal investment by the company to become one known for building space hardware. He added that in “the next few weeks” you would see some major investments by the company along those lines.
• Bigelow Aerospace’s Robert Bigelow said despite the ongoing construction of a 185,000-square-foot factory in Las Vegas devoted to the production of expandable modules, he still considered the company to be in R&D mode. The company is looking for customers, and recently signed several memoranda of understanding with countries interested in leasing modules, but he said the company would not take any money from customers until at least 2012, pending the state of crew transportation development. (The company has a considerable presence at the conference; more on that in a later post.)

The International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight in Las Cruces, New Mexico, wrapped up yesterday with another series of panels after an opening keynote by NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver. In her speech, Garver talked about the importance of the recent passage of the NASA authorization bill, which, while not everything the administration wanted, did open the door to further commercial participation in the agency’s efforts, primarily with commercial crew. She also cited other recent efforts, such as NASA contracts issued last week to several Google Lunar X PRIZE teams for data from those missions, if and when they fly. “This really has to be a true partnership” between the agency and commercial entities, she said.

Some other notes of interest from the conference sessions:

• In a session on the microgravity research market, Andrew Nelson of XCOR said that he believes that, by 2016, there will be an annual market for suborbital flight services of $3.3 billion. Only $800 million of that will be flying people (primarily for tourism), with $1.1 billion for flying payloads and $1.4 billion for launching smallsats.
• In a panel on orbital crew capsules, Robert Bigelow said Bigelow Aerospace had been in discussions with Lockheed Martin back in 2004-2005 on crew transportation systems, and even awarded the company a million-dollar contract to design an “Orion Lite” version that would be a scaled-down version of the Orion spacecraft for NASA. However, asked later what he thought of the potential competition between Orion and commercially-developed systems for ISS crew transportation, Bigelow said bluntly that “I think Orion is unnecessary”: commercial systems could handle access to LEO while spacecraft larger than Orion should be developed for deep-space exploration.
• On that same panel Lockheed’s Kenneth Reightler defended the development of Orion, but also indicated that the company had attracted “quite a bit of interest” from other customers, and that Lockheed had “invested a lot of out corporate money” into the program.
• In a panel late in the day on spaceports, Rick Homans of the New Mexico Spaceport Authority said that the development of Spaceport America is now in a “very complex” phase, as it transitions from construction to operations over the next year. The authority will soon issue a series of RFPs for operational-related activities, from security to visitor services, and is actively seeking a deputy director who will be responsible for spaceport operations.
• Stu Witt of Mojave Air and Space Port, on the same panel, advised Homans and others running spaceports to be ready to deal with both “normal and abnormal” operations, citing from his own experience in Mojave events ranging from plane crashes to the SpaceShipTwo engine development accident in 2007 that killed three people to even the windstorm that prematurely ended the SS2 rollout event last December and toppled tents—after everyone had been evacuated, fortunately. “You’ve got to be planning and planning and planning,” Witt advised.

On Friday the big event, of course, is the dedication of the runway at Spaceport America, which will feature appearances by Sir Richard Branson and New Mexico governor Bill Richardson as well as a flyover by WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo.

These are all photos I took of Friday’s event, including the people, facilities, and, of course, WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo.

The web site Evadot recently published a comprehensive “team scorecard” ranking all the current teams participating in the Google Lunar X PRIZE. The scorecard lists 22 teams and their cumulative scores based on the following metrics:

• Funding – 20 possible points – Measures how far along the teams are in their acquisition of funding based on their publicly stated estimated mission costs
• Innovation – 10 possible points – Measures how much innovation is being used across the entire project. This includes new inventions and clever reuses of existing resources and technology
• Social Savvy – 10 possible points – It’s 2010 and connecting with people will require the use of social networks and other avenues in order to gain mindshare of both influential thinkers and the “people on the street”
• Connections – 10 possible points – Measures how connected are the people involved in the team leadership to the outside help and expertise they will need to execute their mission.
• Progress – 10 possible points – Measures our perception of their progress to being able to launch.
• Feeling – 10 possible points – Measures just our gut feeling about the team. Things like that look in a leader’s eyes when they speak.
• Inspiration – 10 possible points – Measures the ability to inspire others.
• Rover/Lander Completion – 10 possible points – How complete is the actual build.
• Participatory Exploration – 10 possible points – Measures the teams involvement in involving others. People need to feel directly connected to the exploration of space in order to have a long term impact on their thinking.

It’s certainly a comprehensive examination of the teams, and Michael Doornbos deserves credit for putting it together. However, if the goal is to measure which teams are closest to winning the prize, the categories and their weighting should be reconsidered. Some comments:

1) While the scorecard weights funding more than any other category, it’s still not weighted heavily enough. Getting enough funding to carry out a mission is perhaps the most difficult aspect of the competition, given that none of the teams are independently wealthy or (with, perhaps, the exception of new team Rocket City Space Pioneers) have the backing of major corporations. You can have a great concept, an impressive social media strategy, and inspiration oozing out your virtual pores, but without money you’re never getting off the ground.

2) Similarly, hardware development should be weighted more: it’s a key differentiator between teams making serious progress towards going to the Moon versus those with flashy web sites and gorgeous illustrations, but nothing else.

3) Several of the other categories should be weighted less, or even combined or eliminated: social savvy, connections, feeling, and inspiration among them. Social media is nice to have, but beyond the requirements set forth by the competition it’s not essential. And some of the metrics are admittedly extremely subjective (see “feeling”).

4) Since progress is captured in other areas, such as funding and hardware development, having a separate progress category seems redundant.

A simplistic alternative would be to give one-third weight to funding, one-third to hardware development, and one-third distributed among the other categories. Even that, though, may underweight funding and hardware.

Washington, D.C. – Following on the success of the inaugural Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference in February 2010, the Commercial Spaceflight Federation is proud to again co-sponsor the 2011 sequel conference, which will occur February 28 – March 2, 2011 in Orlando, Florida.

This second annual Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference (NSRC) will allow scientists, engineers, and educators to learn about the research and education capabilities of commercial suborbital spacecraft and to foster a two-way conversation between the research community and the commercial spaceflight industry. Panelists will also discuss NASA’s Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research (CRuSR) program, which will invest $75 million over the next five years to promote scientific and education uses of these new commercial suborbital vehicles. The conference website is http://nsrc.swri.org/ .

Bretton Alexander, President of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, added, “The commercial spaceflight sector is excited to work with government, academia, and industry to start putting payloads on next-generation suborbital vehicles. The commercial spaceflight industry shares the enthusiasm displayed by the scientific community for the great research potential of these new spacecraft. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation is proud to play a role in opening up this new frontier for scientific research and discovery.”

The Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference (NSRC) will include a strong leadership role by researchers and educators from the Suborbital Applications Researchers Group (SARG), a scientific advisory committee that was formed in 2009 under the aegis of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation.

Dr. S. Alan Stern, Chairman of the Suborbital Applications Researchers Group and a former NASA associate administrator for science, stated, “2011 is the year when next-gen suborbital research missions will actually begin flying, NASA funding for CRuSR ramps up, and the first broad experiment proposal opportunities will appear. Come to NSRC in 2011 to learn about these and other exciting developments, to network, and to present your own ideas.”

Hosted in Orlando, Florida by Space Florida, the University of Central Florida, and the Southwest Research Institute, NSRC is the meeting for researchers and educators wanting to participate in, learn about, and contribute to the new era of commercial, reusable suborbital spaceflight.

For more information or to register for the conference, visit http://nsrc.swri.org/; abstracts for talks can also be submitted at this web site. The abstract deadline is Nov 23, 2010 and Student Contest deadline is Dec 3, 2010.

About the Commercial Spaceflight Federation
The mission of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) is to promote the development of commercial human spaceflight, pursue ever-higher levels of safety, and share best practices and expertise throughout the industry. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation’s member companies, which include commercial spaceflight developers, operators, spaceports, suppliers, and service providers, are creating thousands of high-tech jobs nationwide, working to preserve American leadership in aerospace through technology innovation, and inspiring young people to pursue careers in science and engineering. For more information please visit http://www.commercialspaceflight.org or contact Executive Director John Gedmark at john@commercialspaceflight.org or at 202.349.1121.

About the Suborbital Applications Researchers Group
The Suborbital Applications Researchers Group (SARG) is a coordination and advisory committee of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, composed of scientists and researchers dedicated to furthering the scientific potential of suborbital reusable launch vehicles under development by the commercial spaceflight sector. SARG seeks to increase awareness of commercial suborbital vehicles in the science, R&D, and education communities, work with policymakers to ensure that payloads can have easy access to these vehicles, and aim to generate new ideas for uses of these vehicles for science, engineering, and education missions. SARG is taking a leadership role in the February 2011 Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference (NSRC). For more information please contact Dr. Alan Stern at astern@boulder.swri.edu or at 303.324.5269.

The Commercial Spaceflight Federation is proud to be participating in the Space Entrepreneurship Forum, a September 15 event on Capitol Hill. Commercial Spaceflight Federation speakers will include John Gedmark, Executive Director of the Federation, and George Whitesides, CEO of Virgin Galactic. The event, which begins at 3 pm, is free and open to the public.

The forum is being organized by the JURBAN Google Lunar X PRIZE team and the JAKA Consulting Group, in cooperation with Representatives Donna F. Edwards, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Diane Watson, Chaka Fattah and Marcia Fudge, coinciding with Congressional Black Caucus Week.

“The growth of commercial spaceflight will open up new opportunities for youth across America and excite children to enter careers in math and science in a highly-visible way,” stated John Gedmark, Executive Director of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. “The Commercial Spaceflight Federation is very proud to be participating in the Space Entrepreneurship Forum.”

Former FAA Associate Administrator and commercial space expert Patti Grace Smith will also be speaking, as well as a panel of current government officials including Dr. George Nield from the FAA and Michael Beavin from the Department of Commerce, among others.

The panel sessions will begin at 3 pm in Rayburn House Office Building Rm 2318, with a reception to follow at 5 pm in Cannon House Office Building Rm 122. For more information or to register, please visit http://www.juxtopia.org/jurban/spaceforum/register2.html.

Washington, D.C. – The Commercial Spaceflight Federation strongly supports Senate bill S.3729, the NASA Authorization Act of 2010, which has been approved unanimously by the Senate. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation urges that the House vote to pass the Senate bill immediately, before the new fiscal year begins on October 1.

Commercial Spaceflight Federation President Bretton Alexander said, “With the new fiscal year about to begin, space industry businesses and individual space workers can’t afford more months of ongoing uncertainty – they need to know what future to plan for. A protracted stalemate over the NASA authorization bill would likely cause continued layoffs and would make it more difficult for commercial companies to ramp up hiring. We cannot afford to delay the creation of new jobs, and the Senate bill, which we support, could be on the President’s desk before the end of the week. The only way to avoid months of limbo for NASA is for a prompt resolution by Congress before the new fiscal year begins, and the Commercial Spaceflight Federation urges a speedy resolution to this process.”

About the Commercial Spaceflight Federation
The mission of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) is to promote the development of commercial human spaceflight, pursue ever-higher levels of safety, and share best practices and expertise throughout the industry. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation’s member companies, which include commercial spaceflight developers, operators, spaceports, suppliers, and service providers, are creating thousands of high- tech jobs nationwide, working to preserve American leadership in aerospace through technology innovation, and inspiring young people to pursue careers in science and engineering. For more information please visit http://www.commercialspaceflight.org or contact Executive Director John Gedmark at john@commercialspaceflight.org or at 202.349.1121.