September 22 News Items

SpaceX Reports Milestone, Details Future Plans (Source: CNET News)
SpaceX reached a milestone Thursday by finishing the primary engine for Falcon 9, its larger rocket launcher with which it will conduct a few operational lift-offs with satellites next year. Musk reportedly said earlier in the week that Falcon 9 could launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station next fall.

Late Payload Delays Sea Launch's Return to Flight (Source: Space News)
Sea Launch Co.'s planned late October return to flight has been postponed until mid November because the payload, the Boeing-built Thuraya 3 mobile telecommunications satellite, has been delayed, Sea Launch and Boeing officials said.

Taurus 2 Coming Into Focus (Source: Space News)
Orbital Sciences Corp. considered taking over Delta 2 rocket operations from Boeing before finally deciding to pursue development of its own solution for orbiting medium-sized payloads, which are becoming increasingly expensive to launch and a lower priority for the major launch services companies. Orbital's solution, dubbed the Taurus 2, would take advantage of surplus Russian engines and other cost-saving measures to deliver a launch service priced more in line with what NASA and other U.S. government customers historically have paid to loft medium-sized payloads.

TacSat-3 Launch from Virginia Delayed Due to Component Issues (Source: Space News)
Component problems have delayed the launch of the U.S. Air Force's experimental TacSat-3 satellite until June 25. TacSat-3, one of a series of small spacecraft designed to bring information to the battlefield rapidly, is slated to launch from Virginia's Wallops Island aboard a Minotaur 1 rocket built by Orbital Sciences Corp. As of this past May, the launch was supposed to take place in December. The delay was due to thermal issues with the optical link between the spacecraft's sensor processor and communications system. Another factor was the need to upgrade mirror mounts on TacSat-3's Artemis hyperspectral imaging payload to better handle launch vibration, he said.

Orbital Sciences Ready to Expand in Virginia (Source: BizJournals.com)
Orbital Sciences Corp. is planning a major expansion of its Dulles, Virginia, campus and will add 600 jobs during the next four years. The satellite design and manufacturing company wants to build 140,000 square feet of office space at its headquarters. The new facilities would house a variety of engineering, laboratory and manufacturing operations. Work on the first office building will start in early 2008. The expansion is expected to help Orbital keep pace with a backlog of about $4 billion in current contracts. Orbital, which has been in Dulles since 1992, has a 77-acre campus with about 1,500 employees. When the expansion is completed sometime in 2011, Orbital will have 700,000 square feet of operations at the Dulles campus.

Orbcomm is Target of Class-Action Lawsuits (Source: Space News)
Two U.S. law firms are seeking clients for class-action lawsuits against satellite-messaging service provider Orbcomm Inc., alleging that Orbcomm misled investors about its revenue outlook as it prepared the company's initial public offering of stock last November. Orbcomm's stock, traded since November on the U.S. Nasdaq exchange, tumbled this summer when the company said new contracts that had been expected this year likely would be delayed, forcing a downward revision of its full-year revenue forecast. Company officials said the issue was only one of contract timing and that they still expected the business to be booked.

ESA Eyes European Space Surveillance Network (Source: Space News)
The European Space Agency (ESA) is investigating the creation of a quasi-commercial body that would operate a network of ground- and space-based sensors to forecast space weather and provide, to a restricted audience, a space-surveillance service to track satellites and debris in orbit, according to ESA and European industry officials. The idea would be to offset part of the cost of establishing a space-surveillance network by selling space-weather data to governments and other subscribers, much as some meteorological data is commercialized in Europe today.

Russia Aims for New Far East Space Launch Pad by 2020 (Source: SpaceDaily.com)
Anatoly Perminov, head of the Russian space agency Roskosmos, said he hoped a new spaceport would be built in the Russian far east by 2020 to supplement the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan. Perminov said that Russia would need a new launch site partly so it can launch a new type of manned spacecraft, which is still to be developed. "I'm absolutely sure that a new cosmodrome should exist in the far east and be developed for launches of various space vehicles for civilian use and also launches for manned space exploration," Perminov said.