The competition heats up: It appears that Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and Georgia are all competing to be the location of SpaceX’s proposed private commercial spaceport.
The competition heats up: SpaceX today signed a contract to launch three additional satellites for the European company SES.
SpaceX already has a contract to launch one SES communications satellite next year.
SpaceX’s first official cargo flight to ISS could occur as early as October 5.
The competition heats up: On Friday SpaceX successfully completed a launch pad dress rehearsal for the next Falcon 9 launch to ISS.
The competition heats up: Bigelow Aerospace has expanded its workforce as well doubled its factory space in response to the commercial contracts NASA recently awarded.
The company just opened a 185,000-square-foot addition, bringing its North Las Vegas plant up to about 350,000 square feet. It slashed its work force from 150 before the recession to 50 during the downturn; now, it’s looking to jump back up to 90 workers by Christmas. It’s hiring structural, mechanical and electrical engineers, as well as chemists, molecular biologists and workers who craft composite spacecraft parts.
Hat tip to Clark Lindsey at NewSpace Watch.
Progress on the commercial space front.
The most important announcement is NASA’s official acceptance of SpaceX’s COTS contract to transport cargo to and from ISS. The first official cargo mission is set for no earlier than October 8.
A failed fuel line in the upper stage has been pinpointed as the probably cause of the Russian Proton rocket failure on Tuesday.
In related news, the Russian prime minister said today that he intends to name and shame the officials responsible for the rocket failure.
“I would like to hold a meeting on this next week. It will be prepared by the appropriate deputy prime minister and structures. They are tasked with reporting who should be punished and what to do next,” Medvedev told a government meeting in Moscow. He also said Russia’s space failures “could not be tolerated anymore.”
Do tell. With SpaceX’s cheaper prices looming over them, Russia’s government-owned commercial rocket business can’t afford rocket failures as well. If they don’t fix this soon, their business will evaporate, and Medvedev knows it.
It’s official: Boeing, SpaceX and Sierra Nevada are the winners of NASA’s commercial crew contracts.
Boeing will receive $460 million, SpaceX $440 million, and Sierra Nevada $212.5. All are planning to launch by 2015.
Alan Boyle at NBC tonight reports that Boeing, SpaceX, and Sierra Nevada are the winning companies in the competition to provide human ferrying services to ISS, to be announced officially by NASA tomorrow.
The report does not provide dollar numbers. This Wall Street Journal story says that Boeing and SpaceX will be the prime contractors, which suggests that Sierra Nevada will be getting a smaller award.
Two news items from NASA today:
What I find most interesting about these stories is the fees charged by the two companies. SpaceX will be paid $82 million for its one launch, while ULA will be paid $412 million for its three launches, or about $137 million per launch.
» Read more
The competition heats up: ESA is revamping how it builds rockets in order to compete with SpaceX.
ESA officials have been spooked by Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, Calif., which has demonstrated its technical prowess with the launch of its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon cargo vehicle to the international space station. SpaceX officials say one of the keys to its success is that Falcon 9 is built in one factory owned by SpaceX.
Read the whole thing. The way ESA builds the Ariane rocket requires too many participants (what we in the U.S. call pork), raising its cost. ESA is now abandoning that approach to cut costs and thus compete with SpaceX.
The competition heats up: Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister said today that his country needs to expand its commercial space services and grab market share from the United States and Europe.
I wonder if these comments stem from a realization that — because Russia’s Proton rocket, its main commercial space product, is twice as expensive as SpaceX’s Falcon 9 — Russia faces a significant loss of business if it does not adapt.
