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From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: March 16, 2014 10:01:53 PM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Space Notebook: Swiss organization plans to use shuttle's runway

 

 

Space Notebook: Swiss organization plans to use shuttle's runway

Mar. 15, 2014   |  

 

Swiss Space Systems to use KSC's Shuttle Runway: Robert Feierbach, head of S3 USA, discusses the company's plans to use KSC's Shuttle Landing Facility.

Written by
James Dean
FLORIDA TODAY

Zoom

Concept image of Airbus aircraft carrying SOAR space plane. / Swiss Space Systems

S3 will fly zero-G flights, maybe launch spacecraft

Pascal Jaussi, CEO and founder of Swiss Space Systems, felt a powerful sense of history during his visit Friday to Kennedy Space Center's shuttle runway.

"This is space," he told a colleague. "This is really space."

S3, as the company is known, could help ensure the three-mile Shuttle Landing Facility continues to make space history.

Under an agreement with Space Florida unveiled Friday evening at the KSC Visitor Complex, the start-up plans to bring its black Airbus A-300 jet to the runway within a year for a series of zero-gravity flights, which fly parabolic arcs to generate brief periods of weightlessness for people or payloads.

Another company, Zero Gravity Corp., has offered similar rides for years from Titusville, among other spots around the country.

But S3's flights, part of a global tour planned in 2015, are just a first step toward more ambitious goals to launch small satellites by 2018 and eventually fly passengers on suborbital, "point-to-point" hops around the globe.

The company will consider KSC as one of its primary spaceports for those missions.

"We believe the Florida Space Coast is absolutely well-positioned to do that," said Robert Feierbach, a former SpaceX executive who heads S3 USA.

"You have the right people, the right knowledge here, the right sort of engineering base that exists here already that we could bring into our team as we grow."

Feierbach said three or four local employees this year will grow to about 20 next year. If the company commits to satellite launches from here, the total could climb to 50 by 2018 or 2019.

S3's concept is to deploy from the top of its jet a mini-shuttle called SOAR (Sub-Orbital Aircraft Reusable) whose design is derived from work on Europe's former Hermes shuttle program.

The unpiloted SOAR craft would rocket into space and open payload bay doors to release a rocket stage attached to one or more satellites weighing up to 550 pounds total.

The aircraft and shuttle would return to the runway while the rocket stage placed the satellites in low Earth orbit.

Eventually, a pressurized module big enough for six passengers and two crew members could fill the payload bay.

 

Other potential users of the runway include the Air Force's X-37B space plane, XCOR Aerospace's suborbital Lynx space plane and Sierra Nevada Corp.'s Dream Chaser mini-shuttle, which is competing to fly astronauts to the International Space Station.

 

Cordova leaves CASIS to be chief of science group

 

France Cordova received a phone call Wednesday from U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy from Vermont, who shared some good news: the Senate had confirmed her nomination to run the National Science Foundation.

 

The prestigious new post means Cordova will resign from several boards, including her position as board chair for the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, the local nonprofit that manages research on the International Space Station's National Lab.

 

Cordova said Thursday that CASIS, which is headquartered near Kennedy Space Center and receives $15 million annually from NASA, had a bright future.

 

The organization has "a unique mission to increase the utilization of the International Space Station, and as you know, that's a very precious and limited resource that the nation has put a big investment in," she said in a call with reporters.

 

"I think they're doing extremely well."Page

 

Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 or jdean@floridatoday.com.

Copyright © 2014 www.floridatoday.com. All rights reserved. 

 

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Swiss startup considering space launches from Florida
BY STEPHEN CLARK
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
March 16, 2014

A Swiss aerospace company plans to begin zero gravity flights from the Kennedy Space Center next year and may use the spaceport's former space shuttle landing strip as a home base for small satellite launches beginning in 2018, officials announced Friday.

File photo of the Shuttle Landing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center. Photo credit: NASA
 
The Swiss firm's Airbus A300 jumbo jet will provide zero gravity sorties to researchers and tourists, offering a similar service to the flights operated by Zero Gravity Corp. aboard a Boeing 727 airplane.

Swiss Space Systems plans to offer zero gravity flights at sites around the world next year. According to the company's website, each flight will last about two hours and feature 15 parabolas, each providing 20 seconds of weightlessness.

Officials said Friday that S3 USA Operations Inc., a U.S.-based subsidiary of Swiss Space Systems, has signed a memorandum of understanding with Space Florida, a state economic development agency focused on the space industry.

"We are pleased to welcome Swiss Space Systems to Florida," said Frank DiBello, CEO and president of Space Florida. "We believe strongly in the enormous potential of the markets they are pursuing including small satellites and suborbital operations. We look forward to working with S3 to enable their growth and expansion in our state."

Zero gravity flights from Florida are scheduled for October 2015. A single ticket starts at 2,000 euros, or about $2,780, according to the Swiss Space Systems website.

Swiss Space Systems will also evaluate the Shuttle Landing Facility as a main site for satellite launches beginning in 2018, the announcement said.

Artist's concept of the Swiss Space Systems Airbus A300 and SOAR space plane. Photo credit: Swiss Space Systems
 
Established in 2012, the Payerne, Switzerland-based company is developing a suborbital space shuttle to put small satellites in orbit.

Named the Suborbital Aircraft Reusable, or SOAR, the space plane would launch from the top of the Swiss Space Systems modified Airbus A300 jet at an altitude of 33,000 feet, or 10,000 meters.

The unmanned spaceship would light a liquid-fueled engine to reach a height of 50 miles, then release a satellite and an attached rocket stage to boost the craft into low Earth orbit. Swiss Space Systems says the SOAR vehicle can put a 250-kilogram (551-pound) satellite into a 700-kilometer (434-mile) orbit.

The Airbus A300 and SOAR space shuttle would return to Earth for reuse.

"For S3, Florida offers several major advantages, including a strategic geographic location, as well as access to key infrastructure and human resources, which will help to enable our success," said Pascal Jaussi, founder and CEO of Swiss Space Systems.

The company has more than 60 employees in Switzerland, Spain and the United States, including a handful of new hires at the Kennedy Space Center. Its budget is $250 million to cover development through the launch of its first satellite.

Swiss Space Systems is sponsored by Swiss watchmaker Breitling and counts the European Space Agency and Stanford University's Aerospace Design Lab among its technical advisors.  

© 2014 Spaceflight Now Inc.

 

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