The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) intend to conduct joint research on Sonic Boom Modeling. Sonic Boom Modeling is one of the key technologies needed to enable a next generation supersonic aircraft quiet enough that it can fly supersonically over land without significant disturbance to the public. Such a vehicle also could connect Los Angeles and Tokyo in about 5 hours, flying at Mach 2.

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SAN JOSE, Calif. — NASA Deputy Administrator Shana Dale will announce a significant new education initiative at a NASA Future Forum on May 14 at The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, Calif. Dale will make the announcement during a keynote address at 8:45 a.m. DT and be available to answer questions during a media opportunity at 10 a.m. The forum focuses on how space exploration benefits California’s economy and is part of a year-long series celebrating NASA’s 50th anniversary. Ames Research Center Director S. Pete Worden will serve as master of ceremonies.

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STENNIS, Miss. — NASA engineers Thursday successfully completed the first series of tests in the early development of the J-2X engine that will power the upper stages of the Ares I and Ares V rockets, key components of NASA’s Constellation Program. Ares I will launch the Orion spacecraft that will take astronauts to the International Space Station and then to the moon by 2020. The Ares V will carry cargo and components into orbit for trips to the moon and later to Mars. NASA conducted nine tests of heritage J-2 engine components from December to May as part of a series designed to verify heritage J-2 performance data and explore performance boundaries. Engineers at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Miss., conducted the tests on a heritage J-2 “powerpack,” which, in a fully assembled engine, pumps liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen into the engine’s main combustion chamber to produce thrust. The test hardware consisted of J-2 components used from the Apollo program in the1960s through the X-33 program of the 1990s.

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The launch vehicle for Ariane 5’s third flight of 2008 is now under Arianespace responsibility after its delivery by prime contractor Astrium at the Spaceport in French Guiana. Handover of the heavy-lift Ariane 5 ECA occurred with its transfer yesterday (May 6) from the Launcher Integration Building - where Astrium performed the vehicle’s build-up, to the Final Assembly Building - where Arianespace will carry out payload integration and final checkout. This mission remains on schedule for May 23, with Ariane 5 carrying two passengers: Turksat 3A and Skynet 5C.

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA’s Kennedy Space Center has awarded a contract to Hensel Phelps of Orlando, Fla., for the construction of the Ares I mobile launcher for the Constellation Program. Ares I is the rocket that will transport the Orion crew exploration vehicle, its crew and cargo to low Earth orbit. The contract includes an option for an additional Ares I mobile launcher. It is a firm fixed-price contract with a value of $263,735,000, if all options are exercised. The mobile launcher will support the Ares I and the vehicle’s associated ground support equipment. It will be used in the assembly, testing and servicing of the Ares I at existing Kennedy facilities.

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WASHINGTON — NASA has scheduled a media briefing Tuesday, May 13, at 11 a.m. EDT, to discuss the challenges, risks and science opportunities of the scheduled May 25 landing of the Phoenix Mars Lander. Officials also will provide details on the Phoenix landing site. The briefing will take place in the NASA Headquarters’ James E. Webb Auditorium, 300 E St., S.W., Washington. It will be carried live on NASA Television and on the Web. Phoenix is expected to conduct a three-month mission studying a northern arctic site on the Red Planet. Phoenix will dig down to an ice-rich layer expected to lie within arm’s reach of the surface of Mars. It will analyze the water and soil for evidence about climate cycles and investigate if the environment there has ever been favorable for microbial life.

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ST. LOUIS, May 06, 2008 — The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] is seeking talented mission operations specialists with current NASA experience in the Houston area in support of its bid for NASA’s Facilities Development and Operations Contract (FDOC). Current Mission Support Operations Contract employees are encouraged to submit a contact form at http://active.boeing.com/defense-space/space/fdoc/ to receive information on an open house scheduled for May 17. “Boeing wants to ensure that we have the best work force to hit the ground running if selected by NASA in order to support uninterrupted mission operations,” said Peggy Thomas, Boeing FDOC program manager. “We will appropriately use the skills and experience of the current NASA community to ensure continued success.”

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Europe will soon choose a new group of astronauts, and applicants from all 17 member states of the European Space Agency (ESA) will no doubt flood ESA with applications. The event has special significance for the UK - following discussions between the Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS) and NASA, Britain’s agreement to collaborate on robotic missions to the moon will entitle a British member of the ESA astronaut corps to fly with NASA. This remarkable offer was made by NASA Administrator Dr Mike Griffin in discussions with the Space Group Committee of the Royal Aeronautical Society, and is reported in the latest issue of the Society’s magazine, Aerospace Professional.

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Cannes, April 30, 2008 – The Jason-2 satellite, built by Thales Alenia Space, left its integration centre in Cannes for its launch site. The satellite is slated for a June 15 launch from the Vandenberg Air Force Base (California, USA) by a Delta II rocket. The Jason-2 operational oceanographic mission involves a quadripartite collaboration between French space agency CNES, its American counterpart NASA, and the two meteorological organizations Eumetsat and NOAA, in charge of data analysis. Designed to study the Earth’s oceans and climate, Jason-2 will take over from its predecessor, Jason-1, which has already been in orbit for seven years and is still operational. Jason-2 will provide an opportunity for the launch of new services, including maritime forecasts for ships, and coupling of this data with weather forecasts.

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Cannes, April 28, 2008 — The Amos-3 telecommunication satellite, equipped with a Thales Alenia Space payload, was successfully launched today by a Zenith-3SLB rocket from the Baïkonur cosmodrome. The satellite has been built by Israel Aerospace Industry (IAI) for the Israeli operator, Space-Communication Ltd (Spacecom). Amos-3 will replace the Amos-1 geostationary communications satellite launched in 1996 allowing Spacecom to expand its Ku-band offering. It will deliver high-quality communications and broadcasting transmission services covering the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and parts of the Americas.

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Cannes, April 24, 2008 – GIOVE-B, the second experimental satellite part of the Galileo constellation, is ready to begin its journey from the spaceport of Baikonur, in Kazakhstan. The satellite is schedule for launch by a Starsem Soyuz/Fregat launch vehicle at 00:16:02 CEST (22:16 UTC on April 26, 04:16:02 local time on April 27). GIOVE-B (Galileo In Orbit Validation Element) will verify the most critical technologies of the European satellite navigation system Galileo. More specifically, GIOVE-B will test in orbit the functionality of the atomic clock that represents one of the most important innovations of the system.

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GREENBELT, MD — Astronauts flying on a space shuttle mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope for a final time will speak to middle school students across America simultaneously at 1:15 p.m. EDT, April 30, from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Through NASA’s Digital Learning Network (DLN), students at five middle schools and an invited student audience at Goddard will talk to the shuttle crew. Topics of discussion will include details about the upcoming STS-125 mission to service Hubble. Astronauts also will discuss career diversity among the crew. Each has a doctorate degree in a science, technology, engineering and mathematics discipline.

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The two payloads for Ariane 5’s third mission of 2008 are undergoing pre-flight checkout at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana as Arianespace maintains the accelerated launch rate for its heavy-lift workhorse vehicle this year. These satellites - Skynet 5C and Turksat 3A - are being readied for liftoff on May 23, which will be five weeks to the day after Arianespace’s most recent on-target Ariane 5 launch with the VINASAT-1 and Star One C2 spacecraft. Skynet 5C is the third satellite to be launched by Arianespace for U.K.-based Paradigm - a military satellite telecommunications operator that delivers resilient, survivable and secure communications to military and government users. Ariane 5 missions in 2007 orbited Skynet 5A in March, followed by Skynet 5B in November.

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A five-year, $190 million contract with the NASA (National Aeronautical and Space Administration) has been awarded to QinetiQ North America’s (QNA) Missions Solutions Group (MSG) which provides mission-critical engineering, IT and security support services to customers in the Space, Security, Defense and Intelligence communities. Under this contract, QNA will provide a wide range of environmental test and integration services to support projects at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. These will include providing facility services, cable fabrication, optical services and thermal blanket fabrication for a variety of projects that may involve the Hubble Space Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope, the Solar Dynamics Observatory and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

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The Swedish Space Corporation has signed a contract with the Russian space company Kosmotras regarding launch of the Prisma satellites. The satellites will be launched onboard a Dnepr launcher in June 2009, either from Baikonur in Kazakhstan or from Yasni in southern Russia. The French climate research satellite Picard will probably be launched on the same launcher. The Swedish-lead Prisma project comprises two satellites which will demonstrate new technologies for formation flying and rendezvous, i.e. close encounters and interaction between space vehicles. Such technologies will be useful in future scientific space projects as they enable large telescopes or antennas to be built up by smaller components in space. This makes great demands on precision, sophisticated sensor technology and advanced systems for measurements, navigation and control.

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Arlington, Va. – Increased exports of aerospace products in the final quarter of 2007 sent the aerospace industry’s trade balance into record territory last year, with a final tally of $60.4 billion. “The sustained growth in aerospace trade is a good sign not only for our industry, but the U.S. economy as a whole,” AIA President and CEO Marion Blakey said. “Our industry’s track record as a major net export earner for the United States helps to offset the nation’s chronic trade deficit.” Aerospace industry exports soared to almost $97 billion in 2007, a nearly 14 percent increase over the $85 billion worth of aerospace products exported in 2006. Civil aircraft exports, which accounted for almost 50 percent of total aerospace exports, dominated the growth. Military-related exports accounted for almost $13 billion of the total.

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WASHINGTON — NASA has awarded Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, a NASA Launch Services contract for the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 launch vehicles. The NASA Launch Services contracts are multiple awards to multiple launch service providers. Twice per year, there is an opportunity for existing and emerging domestic launch service providers to submit proposals if their vehicles meet the minimum contract requirements. The contract is an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract where NASA may order launch services through June 30, 2010, for launches to occur through December 2012. Under the NASA Launch Services IDIQ contracts, the potential total contract value is between $20,000 and $1 billion, depending on the number of missions awarded.

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The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) successfully captured a movie of the “Full Earth-Rise”*1 using the onboard High Definition Television (HDTV) of the lunar explorer “KAGUYA” (SELENE) on April 6, 2008 (Japan Standard Time, JST, all the following dates and time are JST.) The KAGUYA is currently flying in the lunar observation orbit at an altitude of about 100 km. An “Earth-rise,” or the rising Earth over the Moon, was first captured by the Apollo project. The Earth rising movie taken by the KAGUYA on November 7, 2007, was not a full Earth-rise (i.e. not all of the globe was seen in shining blue.) It missed some part. This time, a “full Earth-rise”*1 was taken by the onboard HDTV in faraway space, some 380,000 km away from the Earth. This is the world’s first successful shooting of such a Full Earth-Rise. It was also very precious because it was one of only two chances in a year for the KAGUYA to capture a Full Earth-Rise when the orbits of the Moon, the Earth, the Sun and the KAGUYA are all lined up.

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ST. LOUIS, April 21, 2008 — Boeing [NYSE: BA] has been awarded a $3.8 million Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) contract for Phase 1 of the Vulture air vehicle program, an effort to create a new category of ultra-long-endurance aircraft. DARPA’s Vulture program calls for developing technologies and ultimately a vehicle that can deliver and maintain an airborne payload on station for an uninterrupted period of more than five years using a fixed-wing aircraft. Boeing is teaming with United Kingdom-based QinetiQ Ltd. for the program. The yearlong Phase 1 covers conceptual system definition, and formal reliability and mission success analysis, concluding with a System Requirements Review. It also requires conceptual designs for sub- and full-scale demonstrators.

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ST. LOUIS, April 21, 2008 — The Space Based Space Surveillance (SBSS) System Block 10 team, led by Boeing [NYSE: BA] with Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. [NYSE: BLL] providing the space vehicle, today announced completion of the payload electronics, high-speed gimbal and testing of the space vehicle’s visible sensor, enabling the start of payload integration and test. The SBSS gimbal and visible sensor enable responsive tasking as events in space warrant. The Boeing-provided onboard payload computer performs immediate detection of space objects and provides future capability for improved Block 10 performance. Boeing’s architectural analysis shows this combination of capabilities significantly improves space situational awareness.

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Arlington, Va. –AIA co-signed several letters sent this week urging congressional leaders to strengthen math and science education by fully funding federal scientific research and education initiatives like the Education Department’s Math and Science Partnerships program. Sent by the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Education Coalition to President Bush as well as to House and Senate leaders, the letters ask for continued financial support for these educational initiatives. The coalition is a group of diverse organizations representing all sectors of the technological workforce.

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New York (April 14, 2008)—The Rocket Racing League® (RRL™), the new entertainment sports league that combines the exhilaration of racing with the power of rocket engines, today announced that the First Exhibition Race of the Rocket Racing League® will take place on August 1st and August 2nd at EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh, WI. In addition to announcing the dates of the First Exhibition Races, the Rocket Racing League® also announced the remaining series of exhibition races for the rest of 2008, the acquisition of Velocity Aircraft by Rocket Racing Composites Corp., and announced that Armadillo Aerospace will manufacture liquid oxygen (LOX)-alcohol engines for the Rocket Racing League®.

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Cannes, April 16, 2008 – Star One C2, the second of the “C-series” telecommunication satellites, designed and built by Thales Alenia Space, is now ready for launch at the Kourou launch site, in French Guiana. To be launched by an Ariane 5 ECA rocket on April 18th, Star One C2 is dedicated to the Brazilian satellite operator Star One, owned by Embratel (80%) and GE International Holdings (20%). This launch will reinforce Star One’s strategic position as the major regional operator in Latin America. Thales Alenia Space has already manufactured Star One C1, the first of the “C-series”, which was successfully launched in November 2007 and started to expand the operator’s scope of services. The new satellite Star One C2 features a cutting-edge commercial payload that will provide TV, Internet and voice services for South America, Mexico and Florida, through its hybrid C- and Ku-band payload, as well as an X-band payload for military exclusive use.

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ST. LOUIS, April 16, 2008 — The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA], through its commercial launch business, Boeing Launch Services, has been awarded a contract to launch DigitalGlobe’s second WorldView Earth-imaging satellite on a Delta II launch vehicle. DigitalGlobe is the provider of the world’s highest-resolution commercial satellite imagery and geospatial information products. Boeing successfully launched the first satellite in the series, WorldView-1, from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., on Sept. 18, 2007.

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CLEVELAND — As NASA prepares to retire the space shuttle, new launch vehicles and spacecraft are being prepared to extend our presence beyond low Earth orbit. On Saturday, April 19, the Visitor Center at NASA’s Glenn Research Center will be open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. to accommodate three presentations, which will discuss the status of NASA’s Constellation Program and Glenn’s role in preparing to count down to the launch of the Ares I rocket and returning humans to the moon. This family event includes kids’ crafts, “Picture Yourself in Space”. Digital photographs, lunar and meteorite sample display table and plenty of handouts — all FREE!

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