Keith’s note: NASA announced a new Mars nuclear rocket ship thing today. Note that neither the symbol “$” or the abbreviation “FY” appear anywhere. Apparently this has to do with sending humans to Mars without SLS which Bill Nelson now says won’t happen until the late 2030s. I guess the NASA PAO art department will now need to come up with yet another infographic on how/when we’ll send people to Mars – with the dates all pushed to the right of course. Ask yourself this – if NASA took more than a decade and billions in cost overruns just to use existing stuff to make SLS how confident are we that they can create something wholly new like a nuclear propulsion system on time and under budget? They say: “NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced Tuesday a collaboration to demonstrate a nuclear thermal rocket engine in space, an enabling capability for NASA crewed missions to Mars. NASA and DARPA will partner on the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations, or DRACO, program. The non-reimbursable agreement designed to benefit both agencies, outlines roles, responsibilities, and processes aimed at speeding up development efforts.” more

Orbital ATK Sues DARPA Over MDA’s SSL GEO Satellite Servicing Contract, SpaceQ “The days of on-orbit servicing, or satellite servicing, living in obscurity are over. On February 7, Orbital ATK, Inc. and their subsidiary Space Logistics LLC, filed a lawsuit in the Eastern District of Virginia to stop the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) from awarding Space Systems Loral (SSL), a subsidiary of Canada’s MDA, a contract to […]

Keith’s note: On 17 November 2015 NASA issued a press release titled “NASA Awards Two Robots to University Groups for R&D Upgrades” regarding NASA JSC’s R-5 robot. At the time I asked “Is JSC’s R5 Droid Worth Fixing?“. I sent NASA PAO a simple request asking “How many applications/proposals were submitted? Which schools submitted proposals?” PAO replied “Thanks for reaching out to us. To answer your question, it’s not our […]

ATLAS robot gets closer to walking like a human, TechGenMag “When Boston Dynamics first revealed their ATLAS robot on July 11, 2013, the bipedal humanoid robot was a clunky, slow moving contraption tethered to a jumble of cords that performed a variety of controlled tasks awkwardly. Still, we were all impressed by the ATLAS robot’s humanlike legs and frame that no doubt offered a tantalizing glimpse into the near future of robotics. Fast […]

Northrop Grumman Developing XS-1 Experimental Spaceplane Design for DARPA “Northrop Grumman Corporation (NOC) with Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic is developing a preliminary design and flight demonstration plan for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Experimental Spaceplane XS-1 program. XS-1 has a reusable booster that when coupled with an expendable upper stage provides affordable, available and responsive space lift for 3,000-pound class spacecraft into low Earth orbit. Reusable boosters […]

Work Commences on Experimental Spaceplane (XS-1) Designs [With Video], DARPA “In an era of declining budgets and adversaries’ evolving capabilities, quick, affordable and routine access to space is increasingly critical for both national and economic security. Current satellite launch systems, however, require scheduling years in advance for a handful of available slots. Launches often cost hundreds of millions of dollars each, in large part to the massive amounts of dedicated […]

JPL’s RoboSimian “Miami Speedway in Homestead, Fla., was the place to be late last month for an unusual two-day competition: the DARPA Robotics Challenge Trials. But if you went expecting high-octane cars zooming around the track at blazing speed, you might have been disappointed. The 16 robots participating in the challenge moved more like the tortoise than the hare, as they performed such tasks as opening doors or climbing a […]

Reader note:“I was at the DRC all week. NASA showed up with the most awesome/expensive looking tracker/trailer.  It had a custom paint job, new custom “pelican” cases for all equipment, a fold out tent on the side, and a $15K Cadillac golf cart (image). The team, if you view their videos had 50+ workers, a high-bay work area, a specialize sewing team and a seemingly unlimited tax payer funded budget. […]

Handicapping the 2013 DARPA Robotics Challenge, Gizmodo “NASA JSC Team Valkyrie (7/1): Johnson Space Center has a 20-year legacy in humanoid robot development, and the six-foot-two, 286 lb Valkyrie, “inspired by a female first responder wearing body armor” brings 44 degrees of American freedom to the fight. Team Valkyrie is playing the long game, claiming they’re focused on next year’s final challenge rather than victory today. Is it sandbagging? We’ll […]

JPL Scores High in DARPA Virtual Robotics Challenge [Watch], NASA JPL “The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has selected a group from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., as one of the teams entitled to move forward from the Virtual Robotics Challenge, the first event of the DARPA Robotics Challenge. … The top teams, including JPL, were entitled to funding and an ATLAS robot from DARPA to compete in […]