ASU joins Sierra Space, Blue Origin, Boeing and others to build commercial space station

Arizona State University is joining the charge to commercialize space. The school is now one of the organizations working toward building a commercial space station.  The private station is called Orbital Reef and will be a “mixed-use business park” for national governments, private industry and space tourists to lease and use. The effort is led … Read more

Phantom Space continues to expand with acquisition of Florida-based microsatellite tech firm

Phantom Space Corp., a space transportation technology manufacturing and development  company based in Tucson, has acquired Micro Aerospace Solutions (MAS), a microsatellite tech firm. MAS, which provides space communications systems, space propulsion systems and electrical hardware design for spacecraft and rockets, could further help Phantom Space become what it refers to as “the Henry Ford … Read more

ASU PhD student receives NASA grant

PhD student

Kevin Trinh, a PhD student at Arizona State University, was awarded the Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST) grant earlier this month. This award will give Trinh and his PhD advisor, Joe O’Rourke, an assistant professor at ASU’s School of Earth and Space Exploration, $135,000 over three years.  FINESST, established … Read more

UArizona receives $2 million in support of space programs

Space

The University of Arizona has received a very generous gift from a graduate: $2 million to advance UArizona’s space exploration.  The university said $1.5 million will be used to purchase a nanoscale secondary ion mass spectrometer, an instrument that those at the UArizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory will use to study samples from the solar … Read more

Arizona company raises $5M to try to become the “Henry Ford of Space”

Tucson-based startup Phantom Space recently raised $5 million in seed investments in order to fund their ultimate goal to become the “Henry Ford of Space.”  Talk about ambition. Remember Henry Ford? He founded Ford Motor Company and introduced the Model T, which was the first car that middle-class Americans could afford. He developed the assembly … Read more

World View builds new pad at Spaceport Tucson

Mainstream spaceflight is becoming a reality in Arizona as World View, the commercial balloon spaceflight company,  announces plans to build their global headquarters in Tucson. In collaboration with Sun Corridor Inc., the City of Tucson, Pima County and the State of Arizona, World View will be the anchor tenant in the County Aerospace, Defense and Technology Business … Read more

Tracking an astronaut's health has gone mobile

Scottsdale’s Modulus Global, Inc., a provider of advanced technology products and services, announced that their custom-made scientific charting technology for NASA Mission Operations will be used on the International Space Station (ISS) to process and display high-frequency telemetry and health data from crew members-and can all be monitored through a tablet. Since 1997 Modulus’ has … Read more

Google exec breaks world skydiving record jumping from space

For all of you adrenaline junkies out there who skydive and jump from extreme heights, there is a new kind of rush…space jumping. Alan Eustace, a Google vice president, broke a world record for parachute jumping after diving from the stratosphere with the help of Tucson-based Paragon Space Development Corporation. [youtube]http://youtu.be/T711k05nJmw[/youtube] Eustace was carried into … Read more

Printed Food, a Tracheal Splint and Guns. What Does the Future Hold for 3D Printing?

3D printing or “making” has received a lot of attention in the press recently based on some new developments in the technology. But, is 3D printing a good thing for our future? What do experts say? On May 22, 2013, Drs. Glenn Green and Scott Hollister used 3D printing to design and make an absorbable … Read more