NASA and the Private Sector - Page 61

NASA has selected 15 proposals for study under Phase I of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC), a program that aims to turn science fiction into science fact through the development of pioneering technologies.
The chosen proposals cover a wide range of inventive concepts, selected for their potential to transform future aerospace missions. Such transformational technology holds promise of accelerating NASA’s progress toward its goals of exploration beyond low-Earth orbit, and missions to an asteroid and Mars.

"The latest NIAC selections include a number of exciting concepts," said Steve Jurczyk, associate administrator for the Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "We are working with American innovators to reimagine the future of aerospace and focus our investments on concepts to address challenges of current interests both in space and here on Earth."

NIAC Phase I awards are valued at approximately $100,000, providing awardees the funding needed to conduct a nine-month initial definition and analysis study of their concepts. If the basic feasibility studies are successful, awardees can apply for Phase II awards, valued up to $500,000 for two additional years of concept development.

NASA and its international partners agreed Tuesday to set a new schedule for spacecraft traffic to and from the International Space Station.

The partner agencies agreed to adjust the schedule after hearing the Russian Federal Space Agency's (Roscosmos) preliminary findings on the recent loss of the Progress 59 cargo craft. The exact dates have not yet been established, but will be announced in the coming weeks. Roscosmos expects to provide an update about the Progress 59 investigation on Friday, May 22.

The return to Earth for NASA's Terry Virts, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti and Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov now is targeted for early June. NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and Gennady Padalka will remain aboard the station to begin Expedition 44.

The next Russian cargo craft, Progress 60, will launch in early July to deliver several tons of food, fuel and supplies. The space station has sufficient supplies to support crews until the fall of 2015.

The Soyuz spacecraft carrying Expedition 44’s Kjell Lindgren of NASA, Oleg Kononenko of Roscosmos, and Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, will launch in late July from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The date of SpaceX’s seventh resupply flight under its commercial resupply services contract with NASA still is under review but remains targeted for no earlier than June 19. The mission will deliver to station additional supplies and research that improve life on Earth and drive progress toward future space exploration. It also will deliver the first of two international docking adapters, which will enable future commercial crew vehicles to dock to the orbiting laboratory.

On May 27 2015 09:19 zlefin wrote:
While I fully support indigenous building tech, the 3d printing stuff sounds odd. The requirements to make a material suitable for use in a 3d-printing device would make it ill-suited to such work I would suspect.

It sounds like that stupid sending people to Mars thing is being worked on. It makes far more sense to start building lunar infrastructure remotely; and start bootstrapping the production process.

I wish I was in charge so I could do that, I'd only need a small fraction of NASA's budget.