Thursday, March 22, 2012

Space Access '12: A Conference Warmup Roundup

After a long break from posting on Space Prizes, my post backlog is a bit too huge to handle all in one post, so I plan to do some "roundup with a theme" posts.  This post's theme is the Space Access '12 Conference.  It's a good time for this theme, since the Space Show's lineup for this week includes Henry Vanderbilt, who will discuss the 2012 Space Access Society meeting on the radio show today.  The conference itself is scheduled to start April 12.  Many of the presenters at this conference are, or have been, involved with various space prizes (the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge being a prominent example).  Let's take a look at what some of this year's presenters with space prize backgrounds have been up to lately, borrowing heading links straight out of the Space Access '12 agenda.

Altius Space Machines, Jon Goff

New Moonandback Interviews - Altius Space Machines

Armadillo Aerospace

Second Flight of Stiga - Armadillo Aerospace gives a detailed and entertaining description of the flight and subsequent shovel-less shovel recovery.  The post ends with a hint about what to expect next from the team.
More on Armadillo STIG-A flight - RLV News
Florida team pursues Carmack Prize - RLV News
Briefs: Latest ATREX launch target; Project Ursa aims for Carmack Prize - RLV News
NASA selects expt. payloads for commercial suborbital flights - RLV News (This one is relevant to both Armadillo Aerospace and Masten Space Systems) 

Lasermotive, Jordin Kare

LaserMotive: Working the paths at the DoD - LaserMotive
LaserMotive Marks Five Years Pioneering Wireless Power Technology - LaserMotive
Student Science Fair Project Studying Power Beaming - LaserMotive

LaserMotive is also mentioned briefly in this Space Elevator Blog post: JSETEC ‘11

Masten Space, Dave Masten

Why Precision Landing? - Masten Space Systems
Masten's Xaero extended hover test - RLV News
SpaceUp San Diego review - RLV News - This includes a talk by Dave Masten.
Masten Xaero free flight - RLV News
Draper flies Masten's Zombie with GENIE guidance system - RLV News
Masten Space's XEUS lunar lander system - RLV News
Briefs: More on Xombie & Draper; Steve Brody pt. 3 - RLV News
Briefs: Q&A with Masten Space; Alaskan rocket launch - RLV News
Masten's Xaero did 61m free flight on Feb.17th - RLV News

Tim Pickens, Rocket City Space Pioneers GLXP Project

Fourth Graders Name Rocket City Space Pioneers' Lander "Spirit of Alabama" - Rocket City Space Pioneers Blog
Rocket City Space Pioneers Team Member Participates in Electric Car Competition - Rocket City Space Pioneers Blog

Team Phoenicia, Will Baird

Team Phoenicia Wins $1 Million Contract - Team Phoenicia announces an arrangement with Nova Rocketcraft, which is interested in the Nanosatellite Launch Challenge.
Team JURBAN Selects Team Phoenicia Engines for GLXP Lander - Team Phoenicia

You can also see a number of recent rocket test videos and component pictures at the Phoenicia blog.

Team Phoenicia set up the Nanosatellite Launch Challenge seminars.  One of the teams, Vog Rockets, links to one of Phoenicia's seminar recordings in this post: The Team Phoenicia/Techshop Nanosat Launcher Seminar Video: Vog Rockets 

Speedup, Robert Steinke 

Students for the Exploration and Development of Space, Sara Meschberger

2nd Annual SEDS High-Powered Rocketry Competition Announcement - SEDS

Unreasonable Rocket, Paul Breed

Quick Update... - Unreasonable Rocket - This post covers a lot of ground, including a possible "show and tell" topic at the SA '12 conference.
Ideas about business and a request for feedback... - Unreasonable Rocket