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Taxi to orbit: NASA goes with Old Space and New Space (with a cameo by Jeff Bezos)

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Big news at NASA: The agency has chosen Boeing and SpaceX to carry astronauts to the International Space Station. So reports my colleague Chris Davenport. This keeps competition in the commercial crew program. Its also a major achievement for Elon Musk and the several thousand employees of SpaceX who have turned a start-up company into a major player in the space industry. Some lawmakers wanted NASA to go with a single company and Old Space stalwart Boeing was always a front-runner but the career folks at NASA who made this decision have opted for two providers, which gives them some flexibility if one of the companies has a major problem.

For several years now, NASA has had only one option for sending Americans into space the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. The Russians charge about $71 million per seat, and NASA has in a single year sent more than $400 million to Russia for these taxi rides. If the schedule doesnt slip, and Boeing and SpaceX are successful, NASA should see its astronauts launched on U.S. soil with American rockets circa 2017/2018.

The end result of this contract will be a single mission for each company to demonstrate the capability of delivering astronauts to the ISS. An operational contract will be awarded down the road after that capability has been shown.

We dont know yet how the money will be divided between the two companies, but Im told one company will get more money than the other. Its important to note that Boeing charges more than SpaceX. The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Boeing will get the bulk of the money, but that may simply reflect Boeings pricing. If so, it would be wrong to suggest that Boeing somehow won the competition.

Official announcement will be at 4 p.m. We await word from the companies involved.

Left out in the cold, apparently, is Sierra Nevada Corp., which had developed a winged space plane that looked like a miniature space shuttle. Sierra Nevada had some troubles with its Dream Chaser vehicle (it did a face-plant, sort of, during a test flight a while back), and NASA may have felt that Boeing and SpaceX would be ready to go sooner and time is money, given what were paying the Russians.If the early reports hold up, and its Boeing and SpaceX, that means NASA has decided to go all-capsule foregoing the winged orbiter model which could be useful for certain kinds of missions and cargo returns to Earth.

Theres another development, first reported by the Journal, that weve now confirmed via an official with knowledge of the situation: Blue Origin, the company founded by Jeffrey P. Bezos (whofounded Amazon.com andowns The Washington Post), will provide rocket engines to the Atlas 5 rocket owned by United Launch Alliance, the Boeing-Lockheed partnership that has a virtual monopoly on national security launches.

This is probably the biggest surprise of the day. Blue Origin has never launched anything into orbit, and has kept a low profile for years now. Space blogger Jeff Foust has reported that Bezos has sunk half a billion dollars in Blue Origin. This deal is a blockbuster partnership between Old Space and New Space and may force us to retire that dichotomy. [More here at Spacenews.com.]

The Atlas 5 currently uses an RD-180 Russian-made engine. With U.S.-Russia relations at a low point, Russian officials have made noises about cutting off the supply of such engines.SpaceX, which is in a protracted battle with ULA to gain access to the national security launch market, has pointed out that Boeings crew capsule is launched on an Atlas 5 rocket. So it appears that Boeing and ULA see Blue Origin as the solution to an embarrassing problem. If Blue Origins engine can replace the RD-180 on the Atlas 5, that may have made Boeings bid more attractive to NASA.

No comment yet from Blue Origin, which is famously tight-lipped about its plans.

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Taxi to orbit: NASA goes with Old Space and New Space (with a cameo by Jeff Bezos)

NASA to award space contract to Boeing and SpaceX

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NASA plans to award a much-anticipated, multi-billion dollar contract to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station to both Boeing and SpaceX, according a person familiar with the process.

Thecontracts, which are expected to be announced at 4 p.m. today,would allow the U.S. to get to the space station aboard American spacecraft instead of having to rely on the Russians, who charge more than $70 million a seat for the ride. Theperson familiar with the dealspoke on the condition of anonymity because the contract has not been awarded.

The awardsrepresent a significant shift for NASA, which has long owned and operated its own rockets. Instead of going to space on government-owned rockets, NASAs astronauts would essentially rent space on vehicles provided by Boeing andSpaceX. It was unclear how Boeing and SpaceX would divide the work and how big each company's contract would be.

The two companies represent vastly different cultures in the space industry. Boeing is a so-called old space stalwart with decades of experience. SpaceX is the upstart California-based company founded by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk that has sought to disrupt the industry.

SpaceX already uses its Dragon capsule to ferry cargo to the space station and is the first private company to do so. Boeing is offering its CST-100 capsuleanduses the Atlas V rocket to deliver the capsule to space.

Musk has criticized Boeing for using the Atlas V, which uses a Russian-made engine.

United Launch Alliance is expected to counter that tomorrow by announcing that Blue Origin, the space startup founded by Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, would develop an American-made engine for the Atlas V, according to another person who is close to the situation. ULA is ajoint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

The partnership between ULA and Blue Originwas first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Boeing and SpaceX could not bereached for comment.

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NASA to award space contract to Boeing and SpaceX

NASA's Private Astronaut Space Taxi: Who Could it Be?

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Who will be responsible for flying Americans to the International Space Station by 2017? Today, NASA could announce which private spaceflight company (or companies) have been selected to move toward developing an astronaut taxi service to the orbiting outpost in the next three years.

Space agency officials are choosing among four different spaceflight companies SpaceX, Boeing, Sierra Nevada and Blue Origin as part of theCommercial Crew Program. Each company in the running has developed its own technology that could deliver humans to orbit someday. The program is set up so that NASA will buy rides for their astronauts to the space station on private spacecraft that launch from the United States.

While many people think that NASA will announce the selection of one company during the commercial crew news conference airing live at 4 p.m. EDT (2000 GMT) today (Sept. 16), others have speculated that the new award could be split among multiple firms.

Today, NASA relies on Russia's Soyuz capsules to bring astronauts to and from the space station, but what could the spacecraft of tomorrow look like? Here is a rundown of the technology Boeing, Blue Origin, Sierra Nevada and SpaceX (short for Space Exploration Technologies) are developing to fly astronauts to orbit:

SpaceX founder and billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk unveiled the company's Dragon V2 manned spacecraft during a dramatic reveal in May. The roomy capsule is designed to fit up to seven astronauts on flights to and from space. If chosen for the contract, the Dragon V2 is expected to launch atop the company's Falcon 9 rocket to the space station. Upon its return to Earth, SpaceX's capsule should land vertically using rockets on the base of the craft, and it will be reusable.

Boeing's Commercial Space Transportation 100 vehicle (CST-100 for short) is designed to fly seven people into space. The capsule has just gone through a rigorous design review, and engineers with the company are already creating test articles that will be used to test the capsule's design. The CST-100 is expected to launch to the space station atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket. CST-100's interior will also be unique, featuring blue lighting in the cabin.

Dream Chaser Sierra Nevada's entry in the Commercial Crew Program looks more like NASA's space shuttle than any of the other spacecraft in the running. Dream Chaser is designed to launch atop an Atlas 5 rocket to space, but once it returns to Earth, the spaceship will fly down to the ground, landing on a runway. Sierra Nevada, Boeing and SpaceX all split a $1.1 billion award in 2012 to fund their projects.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' secretive spaceflight company Blue Origin is also in the running for the contract. While Blue Origin did not receive funding in 2012 like SpaceX, Sierra Nevada and Boeing, the spaceflight company did get $22 million from NASA in 2011. Bezos' company is developing a conical spaceship called Space Vehicle and has tested a new rocket engine.

Follow Miriam Kramer @mirikramer and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebookand Google+. Original article onSpace.com.

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NASA's Private Astronaut Space Taxi: Who Could it Be?

In Space, What's On The Outside Matters

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September 15, 2014

Image Caption: A view of Earths atmosphere from the International Space Station during Expedition 23 illustrates the unique vantage point the orbiting laboratory provides for externally mounted instruments. Credit: NASA

Jessica Nimon, International Space Station Program Science Office/NASAs Johnson Space Center

We all know that its whats on the inside that counts, right? But sometimes whats outside can be just as important. At least thats the case with the International Space Station (ISS) and the collection of external instruments soon to join those already operating in orbit.

Moving at 17,500 miles per hour and operating around 240 miles above Earth, the space station circles at a 51.6 degree inclination north and south of the equator, offering a unique platform to mount research equipment. The space stations precessing orbit circles the globe 16 times daily to cover more ground at different times of day, while other satellites follow a sun-synchronous orbitcrossing the equator at the same local time every revolution. For this reason, data from station-mounted instruments can complement those gathered from similar satellite missions to fill in gaps for greater scientific returns.

Station instruments range from those looking for answers to the universe, such as the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS)the largest of the externalsto those looking Earthward, providing remote sensing data. These devices rely not only on the angle and speed of the spacecraft, but also the space stations power, data and thermal support with one-of-a-kind real estate.

These are premium locations, as space in space is limited. Deployment locations on station are valuable because a sensor can reside there and generate data without project teams having to build and launch a dedicated satellite spacecraft. As of July 2014, there are 13 external locations in use aboard the orbiting complex, leaving 10 spots for new technologies. Here are a few of the latest devices planned to join this distinctive community.

The Multi-User System for Earth Sensing (MUSES), currently being developed by Teledyne Brown Engineering, Inc., is a precision-pointing platform that will mount externally to the space station. The platform will be capable of hosting up to four Earth-observing instruments simultaneously. MUSES is scheduled to launch aboard an uncrewed Japanese cargo HTV5 spacecraft in 2015. As part of a collaboration with Teledyne, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) will provide the first instrument on MUSES: the DLR Earth Sensing Imaging Spectrometer (DESIS). Teledyne and its partners will be able to use data from DESIS and future instruments aboard the MUSES platform for a variety of commercial, scientific and humanitarian applications.

Soon joining the efforts of the AMS on station is the Calorimetric Electron Telescope (CALET). This instrument is an astrophysics mission searching for signatures of dark matter. It will provide the highest energy direct measurements of the cosmic ray electron spectrum to help researchers observe discrete sources of high energy particle acceleration. Specifically, CALET will focus on Earths local region of the galaxy, and its location aboard the station will allow for observations unhindered by Earths atmosphere, which can impact readings.

The goal of CALET is to address questions of high energy astrophysics. For instance, what is the origin of cosmic rays? How do they accelerate and propagate? The instrument also will search for the existence of dark matter and nearby cosmic-ray sources. CALET is scheduled to launch to the space station on HTV5 in 2014 and is sponsored by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency in collaboration with the Italian Space Agency.

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In Space, What's On The Outside Matters

Expedition 40 Soyuz Undocks from the International Space Station – Video

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Expedition 40 Soyuz Undocks from the International Space Station
Expedition 40 Undocks from International Space Station Ending Mission. After spending 167 days aboard the International Space Station, Steve Swanson, Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev...

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Expedition 40 Soyuz Undocks from the International Space Station - Video


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