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NASA Orders Second Boeing Crew Mission to International Space “This is the third in a series of four guaranteed orders NASA will make under the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contracts. Boeing and SpaceX received their first orders in May and November, respectively, and have started planning for, building and procuring the necessary hardware and assets to carry out their first missions for the agency. NASA will identify at a […]
Congress, Don’t Make Us Hitch Rides With Russia. Love, NASA, Charlie Bolden via Wired “Saturday will mark 1,500 days since the Space Shuttle touched down for the final time. Grounding human spaceflights was always supposed to be temporary as we made the necessary transition to a new generation of spacecraft, operated by American commercial carriers. Likewise, paying for seats on Russian spacecraft to send our astronauts to the International Space […]
NASA Briefing: SpaceX Commercial Crew Pad Abort Test “A May 1 news briefing at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, previewed the pad abort test of the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, scheduled for no earlier than Wednesday, May 6.”
NASA Releases Commercial Crew Source Selection Statement, SpaceRef “[HEOMD AA Bill Gerstenmaier]: On August 6, 2014, the Source Evaluation Board (SEB) appointed to evaluate proposals for the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability Contract (CCtCap) under Request for Proposals (RFP) NNK14467515R presented the results of its evaluation to me and other senior officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). I held a follow-up meeting on August 19th to ask additional […]
Why NASA Rejected Sierra Nevada’s Commercial Crew Vehicle, Aviation Week “The internal document, signed by NASA Associate Administrator William Gerstenmaier on Sept. 15, the day before the contract awards were announced, says, “I consider SNC’s (Sierra Nevada Corp.) design to be the lowest level of maturity, with significantly more technical work and critical design decisions to accomplish. The proposal did not thoroughly address these design challenges and trades.” Gerstenmaier goes […]
Keith’s note: Don’t expect to see a commercial crew selection announcement this week. Unless things change, of course.
Marc’s note: Last week I decided to run a poll on who our readers thought would be selected for funding in the next round of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program which many expect to be announced tomorrow. The results were surprising at first. I expected, considering the wide variety of readers we have, to have a very close poll. What I didn’t expect was the blatant padding of the results for […]
3 commercial companies compete in new space race, Houston Chronicle “NASA should make its decision on the “commercial crew” competition in the next few weeks. At stake is not just a $4 billion contract, but prestige. The next spacecraft that flies U.S. astronauts will have an American flag, yes, but also a prominent corporate logo. That company will also join the elite club – whose only members include the United […]
NASA Selects Commercial Crew Program Manager “NASA has selected Kathy Lueders as program manager for the agency’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP). Lueders, who has served as acting program manager since October 2013, will help keep the nation’s space program on course to launch astronauts from American soil by 2017 aboard spacecraft built by American companies.” Keith’s note: Of course this all came about because of Ed Mango’s problems (see previous […]