Many of the promising technologies announced today will fly on New Sheppard:Quote from: Jim Morhard@NASA is once again pushing the envelope of what is possible, selecting and funding over 30 technological applications across industry and academia to test on commercial suborbital flights. Read about the new tech here:https://www.nasa.gov/features/nasa-selects-31-promising-space-technologies-for-commercial-flight-testshttps://twitter.com/jmorhard/status/1316429753608536067
@NASA is once again pushing the envelope of what is possible, selecting and funding over 30 technological applications across industry and academia to test on commercial suborbital flights. Read about the new tech here:
NASA has selected Virgin Galactic LLC of Las Cruces, New Mexico, and Masten Space Systems Inc. of Mojave, California, to provide flight and integration services for payloads chosen by the agency’s Flight Opportunities program, which is managed at the agency’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. The two companies join four others to provide service under commercial indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contracts with NASA.
“NASA has a $19-billion budget to play with every year, and our program is part of that with a budget of $15 million,” said Stephan Ord, technology manager for the Flight Opportunities Program at NASA. “The nature of our program is to develop things quickly rather than spending a decade developing hardware. We are more aggressive than what NASA is used to.”The program, which has a tag line of “Fly Early, Fly Often, Fly Safely,” has a dual purpose of supporting and enabling space technology that is of interest to NASA while stimulating the growth and use of U.S. commercial spaceflight technology. It supports developments in the suborbital and orbital small satellite launch vehicle market in hopes of reducing risks, reducing costs, improving performance, and advancing capabilities.
