Posts Tagged ‘COTS’

Dragon ISS flight slips – SpaceX determined to return US crewed access to LEO

Monday, January 16th, 2012

SpaceX’s next Falcon 9 flight with the Dragon spaceship – a mission which is expected to dock with the International Space Station (ISS) – is slipping in order to allow for due diligence “safety checks” ahead of launch. SpaceX’s decision to slip what was a February 7 launch came after comments noting their sense of [...]

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ASAP want NASA to avoid “going native” with CCP partners – SpaceX Latest

Monday, September 26th, 2011

NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) have recommended that NASA personnel embedded at commercial companies should be rotated, in order to avoid them “going native”, which they fear threatens rule bending as the teams’ working relationship becomes closer over time. Meanwhile, SpaceX are waiting on decision to see if they can combine their next two [...]

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Orbital’s Cygnus preparing for the opening salvo to regain US independence

Thursday, August 25th, 2011

While Russian engineers continue to investigate the failure of their Progress M-12M, which crashed in Eastern Russia on Wednesday, half a world away Orbital welcomed their first pressurized cargo module (PCM) for its Cygnus cargo logistics spacecraft at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, in preparation for leading the charge of America’s own commercial cargo [...]

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ISS managers evaluating SpaceX via safety reviews ahead of debut arrival

Tuesday, August 16th, 2011

In what will be a major milestone, not only for SpaceX, but for the entire space program, International Space Station (ISS) teams are working through the long list of safety requirements to approve Dragon’s debut ‘test’ mission to the orbital outpost. Several specific areas of interest are in work, including ongoing evaluations into the potential [...]

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SpaceX launches Falcon 9 – Debut Dragon completes COTS demo

Wednesday, December 8th, 2010

The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft launched on its maiden flight Wednesday, beginning a series of demonstration missions as part of NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) programme. The mission, known as Dragon C1, launched from Cape Canaveral atop a Falcon 9 rocket at 10:43am Eastern, before the spacecraft splashed down around 19:00 UTC.

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SpaceX and Orbital win huge CRS contract from NASA

Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008

SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corporation have been awarded the lucrative Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract, with SpaceX (Space Exploration Technologies Corp.) earning 12 missions, and Orbital winning another eight missions. The details of the award – worth up to 3.5 billion dollars - equates to Orbital winning 54 percent of the funding. PlanetSpace Inc lose out on the award.

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Rocketplane Kistler press on despite COTS notice

Monday, September 10th, 2007

Rocketplane Kistler (RpK) was officially notified by NASA on Friday that they had failed to complete two COTS milestones. Sources from both NASA and RpK have confirmed that the letter does NOT represent a final decision by NASA to terminate the company’s COTS contract. Meanwhile, RpK are pressing on with the a new configuration of [...]

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