“The more we fly the better we get. Safety and reliability are paramount. Our rigorous test program with New Shepard is putting the vehicle through the paces. We have successfully completed several crew capsule escape tests showing that our astronauts will be safe in any phase of flight. In addition to our test program, our payloads program is driving more flights of the system as we iterate on operations and technology in preparation for human spaceflight. All the learnings from the New Shepard program are being flowed into New Glenn development as we scale up our capabilities to serve the orbital market.”
“The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) is a member of the United States Intelligence Community and an agency of the United States Department of Defense. NRO is considered, along with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), to be one of the “big five” U.S. intelligence agencies. The NRO is headquartered in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, 2 miles (3.2 km) south of Washington Dulles International Airport.
It designs, builds, and operates the reconnaissance satellites of the U.S. federal government, and provides satellite intelligence to several government agencies, particularly signals intelligence (SIGINT) to the NSA, imagery intelligence (IMINT) to the NGA, and measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT) to the DIA.”
“United Launch Alliance (ULA) is a provider of spacecraft launch services to the United States government. It was formed as a joint venture between Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Boeing Defense, Space & Security in December 2006 by combining the teams at the two companies. U.S. government launch customers include the Department of Defense and NASA, as well as other organizations. With ULA, Lockheed and Boeing held a monopoly on military launches for more than a decade until the US Air Force awarded a GPS satellite contract to SpaceX in 2016.
ULA provides launch services using two expendable launch systems – Delta IV and Atlas V. The Atlas and Delta launch system families have been used for more than 50 years to carry a variety of payloads including weather, telecommunications and national security satellites, as well as deep space and interplanetary exploration missions in support of scientific research. ULA also provides launch services for non-government satellites: Lockheed Martin retains the rights to market Atlas commercially.
Beginning in October 2014, ULA announced that they intended to undertake a substantial restructuring of the company, its products and processes, in the coming years in order to decrease launch costs. ULA is planning on building a new rocket that will be a successor to the Atlas V, using a new rocket engine on the first stage. In April 2015, they unveiled the new vehicle as the Vulcan, with the first flight of a new first stage planned for no earlier than 2020.”
“Rocket Lab is a private American aerospace manufacturer and smallsat launcher with a wholly owned New Zealand subsidiary. It has developed a suborbital sounding rocket named Ä€tea and currently operates a lightweight orbital rocket known as Electron, which provides dedicated launches for smallsats and CubeSats.
The Electron test program began in May 2017, with commercial flights announced by the company to occur at a price listed in early 2018 as US$5.7 million. Launching from Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand, the rocket’s test flights took place on 25 May 2017 and 21 January 2018, while its first commercial flight took place on 11 November 2018. On December 16 Rocket Lab launched their first mission for NASA; the rocket contained 13 Satellites for the ELaNa-19 mission.”
“We completed the second qualification test for the launch abort motor for NASA’s Orion Spacecraft. The motor fired for 5 seconds with a force of just under 370,000 pounds and will be used to pull the crewed capsule away from NASA’s Space Launch System in the event of an emergency on the launch pad or during ascent. The next major milestone for the motor will be the Ascent Abort-2 Flight Test (AA-2) that will take place in 2019.”
“The Space Launch System (SLS) is an American Space Shuttle-derived super heavy-lift expendable launch vehicle. It is part of NASA’s deep space exploration plans including a crewed mission to Mars. SLS follows the cancellation of the Constellation program, and is to replace the retired Space Shuttle. The NASA Authorization Act of 2010 envisions the transformation of the Constellation program’s Ares I and Ares V vehicle designs into a single launch vehicle usable for both crew and cargo, similar to the Ares IV concept. The SLS is to be the most powerful rocket ever built with a total thrust greater than that of the Saturn V, although Saturn V could carry a greater payload mass.
The SLS launch vehicle is to be upgraded over time with more powerful versions. Its initial Block 1 version is to lift a payload of 95 metric tons to low Earth orbit (LEO), which will be increased with the debut of Block 1B and the Exploration Upper Stage. Block 2 will replace the initial Shuttle-derived boosters with advanced boosters and is planned to have a LEO capability of more than 130 metric tons to meet the congressional requirement. These upgrades will allow the SLS to lift astronauts and hardware to destinations beyond LEO: on a circumlunar trajectory as part of Exploration Mission 1 & 2 with Block 1; to deliver elements of the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway (LOP-G) with Block 1B; and to Mars with Block 2. The SLS will launch the Orion Crew and Service Module and may support trips to the International Space Station if necessary. SLS will use the ground operations and launch facilities at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Florida.”
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