October 29 News Items

OCP Suborbital Space Pilot Trainer/Simulator at World Space Expo (Source: OCP)
Orbital Commerce Project, under an agreement with Spaceport Florida, will bring a suborbital spaceflight trainer/simulator to the World Space Expo at the Cape Canaveral Spaceport. OCP’s goal is educating or interesting participants in the sciences involved in the exploration, utilization, and colonization of space. During the Space Expo, OCP will conduct a contest in its simulators to test the skills of future pilots. Winners will have three opportunities to “fly” to the highest maximum altitude they can achieve, on limited fuel, and land safely back at the spaceport within three minutes. The contest is open to students ages 12-21 and/or teachers. Space Florida will award a certificate for one ZERO-G flight opportunity each day during the World Space Expo.

Space Style 2007 (Source: 62 Mile Club)
Interplanetary nightclub gear, rocket crew uniforms, and pulsing electronic music will join the scene at the California Space Authority's annual Transforming Space conference on Nov. 6. "Space fashion" will be one of fastest growing new markets in the fashion industry. "With upcoming space tourist suborbital and orbital flights, hotels in space, and plans to return and settle on the Moon, people will need clothes that are functional and fashionable," said a JPL consultant. Set in a futuristic theme complete with runway walks and fashion tableaus.

Raytheon: Profits Surge on Continued Operations (Source: AIA)
Excluding income drawn from businesses from which Raytheon posted profits in 2006 but no longer owns, the contractor posted a 39% jump in third-quarter earnings over last year. Sales and income in most of the company's segments increased over last year, but overall income fell 7% due to profits recorded last year from the company's aircraft business, which has been sold.

DARPA Readies Demonstration of Radically New In-Space Propulsion (Source: Space News)
Small satellites could soon get a boost from a novel in-space propulsion system under development at DARPA. Called the High Delta-V Experiment, or HiDVE for short, the program aims within the next year or so to complete a ground demonstration of an unconventional propulsion system that uses the heat of the sun to produce enough thrust to push a 10-15 kilogram satellite into a new orbit. If the ground demo goes well, DARPA would look to press on with an in-space demonstration on a dedicated microsatellite.

Report: ITAR Hurting Remote Sensing Industry (Source: Space News)
A newly released report commissioned by the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and National Reconnaissance Office says the current International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) governing satellite technology exports are hurting the global competitiveness of the U.S. satellite remote sensing industry. The regulations restrict the ability of U.S. vendors to sell certain types of satellites and components to foreign countries or companies, and U.S. government business alone is not enough to keep these suppliers "economically healthy," said the report.

Boeing and Lockheed Both Take 3Q Writeoffs on ULA (Source: Space News)
Boeing and Lockheed Martin both reported increased revenue in their space divisions for the nine months ending Sept. 30 compared to 2006, but both also said their earnings were reduced by write-downs of the value of Delta 2 rocket assets held by United Launch Alliance (ULA), which the two companies own jointly. Indications from the U.S. Air Force are that it will discontinue the use of Delta 2 after 2008 in favor of the heavier Delta 4 and Atlas 5 rockets. If that decision holds, an industry source said, it will sharply increase the cost of Delta 2 vehicles, because the cost of manufacturing the vehicle and maintaining two launch sites will be spread over a smaller population of customers.

Bigelow Aerospace to Offer $760 Million for Spaceship (Source: New Scientist)
Bigelow Aerospace intends to spur development of a commercial space vehicle to take people into Earth orbit by offering to sign a contract worth $760 million with any company that can meet their criteria. Bigelow said the offer is meant to head off a crisis over the lack of transportation options available to get people to the large inflatable space stations it plans to launch by early 2010. Bigelow hopes to rent out space on future stations to astronauts of some of the world's space agencies, as well as to companies that wish to carry out research or other activities in space. The company plans to break ground in less than a year on a factory to mass-produce its inflatable space stations, but they are worried that without an affordable commercial crew launch vehicle, none of its potential customers will be able to pay to get to these space stations.

The contract or purchase agreement would be worth $760 million in total for eight launches. To show that Bigelow Aerospace is serious, it will deposit $100 million in an escrow bank account up front if the plan goes forward. The potential offer tops the $500 million NASA has budgeted for its Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) programme, which is part of the agency's own effort to spur development of commercial orbital crew launch capabilities.

Six Thousand People to be Resettled for New Chinese Spaceport (Source: (Xinhua)
More than 6,000 people will be relocated in China's southern island province of Hainan to make way for a new space launch center. Mayor Yan Zheng of Wenchang city, on Hainan's northeastern coast, said at a meeting on land acquisition on Monday that 1,200 hectares would be obtained for the center. The city's Party chief, Xie Mingzhong, promised they would properly handle issues concerning those to be resettled, such as employment, medical care and education. The new launch center is expected to be completed in 2012 and formally put into use in 2013. A space themed park, with a budget of $875 million and occupying an area of 407 hectares, will also be constructed near the launch center. It is envisioned to create jobs for resettlers.

EU Space Research Sees Four-Month Delay Behind Aeronautics (Source: Flight International)
Despite the fact that the European Union's Seventh Framework Program's (FP7) aeronautical studies started in January, FP7-funded space research is not expected to begin until after April 2008, while the start of Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) program-related work will be three months after that. According to the European Commission, the delay between submission and starting research is due to contractual processes between the EU, industrial and academic partners and ESA. The EC says: "Contracts for space research projects are expected to be signed at least six months from now - probably nine months for the large GMES projects." The research is to develop technologies for space transport, in-orbit telescopes, satellite observation, GMES services, biomedicine and the life and physical sciences, and encourage European Space Agency and inter-EU member state national space agency collaboration.

Damaged Component Could Thwart Space Station Plans (Source: USA Today)
Debris has jammed a key part of the International Space Station, which could delay completion of the station and at least temporarily limit scientific research there, NASA managers said Sunday. The crisis so worries space agency officials that they may ask a space shuttle crew visiting the station to skip crucial work to inspect the malfunctioning part. The extra inspection could be conducted Thursday or Friday, according to NASA. The damaged component is a huge wheel with solar panels attached to it. Normally, the wheel spins freely to point the panels at the sun and to protect the panels from buffeting, functions that are "very important to us," deputy station program manager Kirk Shireman said. Starting last month, engineers saw signs that the wheel was being slowed by an unknown source of friction. NASA sent an astronaut to eyeball the wheel during a spacewalk Sunday.