|
|
|
|
|
X PRIZE and NASA Centennial Challenges teaming NASA NEWS RELEASE Posted: October 12, 2005 NASA has announced its intent to collaborate with the X PRIZE Foundation on two planned Centennial Challenges prize competitions. Implementation of the collaboration is contingent upon NASA obtaining necessary statutory authority for prizes; inclusion of necessary resources in the Centennial Challenges budget to fund the purses; final negotiation and execution of an agreement between the agency and the Foundation. The prize competitions from the collaboration will be related to suborbital launch vehicle technology development. The prizes are envisioned to be greater than $250,000 each. The Foundation will administer and execute the competitions at no cost to NASA, with the agency providing prize funding to the winning contestants. NASA and the Foundation are working toward signing a non-reimbursable Space Act Agreement to formalize collaboration on the two competitions. The competitions were tentatively named the Suborbital Payload Challenge and the Suborbital Lunar Lander Analog Challenge. "We look forward to working with the X PRIZE Foundation over the coming months to define the rules for these competitions," said NASA Centennial Challenges Manager Brant Sponberg. "These prizes are intended to accelerate the development of the suborbital launch industry while also demonstrating technologies and capabilities relevant to other NASA activities." The Suborbital Payload Challenge will reward the first team that demonstrates a reusable suborbital rocket to altitudes or speeds of interest to science researchers. Once demonstrated, such a capability could support NASA and other research payloads. The Suborbital Lunar Lander Analog Challenge will reward the first team to build a vertical take-off/vertical landing suborbital vehicle capable of reaching a speed consistent with the energies required to land and launch from the moon. This prize is intended to stimulate development of technologies and capabilities for lunar and suborbital space flight. "We look forward to the possibility of offering these cash purses at the annual X PRIZE Cup in New Mexico," said Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, Chairman of the X PRIZE Foundation. "NASA's cash purses will complement other prizes we intend to assemble from corporate sponsorships around the world." NASA's Centennial Challenges promotes technical innovation through a novel program of prize competitions. It is designed to tap the nation's ingenuity to make revolutionary advances to support the Vision for Space Exploration and NASA goals. NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate manages the program. The X PRIZE Foundation is a not-for-profit educational organization using competitions to create innovative breakthroughs in space and related technologies for the benefit of mankind. The Foundation captured world headlines when Mojave Aerospace built and flew the world's first private spacecraft to the edge of space to win the $10 million ANSARI X PRIZE. |
|
|
|
 |
||||||||||||||||||||
The International Space Station's outgoing Expedition 11 crew and the new Expedition 12 crew gather inside the Destiny laboratory module for a change of a command ceremony, complete with ringing of the outpost's bell, as the human presence in space continues.
The Expedition 11 mission of commander Sergei Krikalev and flight engineer John Phillips aboard the International Space Station is winding down, and this narrated retrospective looks back at the key events of the half-year voyage in orbit.
The Pluto New Horizons spacecraft, destined to become the first robotic probe to visit Pluto and its moon Charon, arrives at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in advance of its January blastoff.
NASA astronauts Bill McArthur and John Phillips chat with Associated Press space reporter Marcia Dunn about life aboard the International Space Station in this live space-to-Earth interview from the Destiny laboratory module on October 5.
In preparation for the West Coast launch of Boeing's next-generation Delta 4 rocket, the two-stage vehicle is rolled out of its horizontal hangar and driven to the Space Launch Complex-6 pad for erection. The nose cone for the NRO payload is then brought to the pad.
Boeing's Delta 4 rocket pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base was renovated in recent years, transforming Space Launch Complex-6 from the West Coast space shuttle launch site into a facility for the next-generation unmanned booster. This collection of footage shows the 1985 launch pad test using NASA's orbiter Enterprise.
The Expedition 11 and Expedition 12 crews, along with space tourist Greg Olsen, hold a live news conference with American and Russian reporters on October 4. (26min 36sec file)
A Russian Soyuz spacecraft safely launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome Friday night with the International Space Station's twelfth resident crew and a paying tourist aboard.