What does it take to go from tiny to huge? And how can a company that make that journey retain the best aspects of startup culture? If anyone should have insight into these questions it’s Gwynne Shotwell, President and COO of SpaceX (as well as a keynote speaker at our upcoming conference), who joined Elon Musk’s aerospace startup as employee number seven and now helps to manage a team of around 3,000.
We asked Shotwell about the company’s journey from wild idea to real-life rocket maker, as well as her personal journey from technologist to manager (and even got a bold prediction about the future of human space exploration thrown in!) Click here. (2/7)
Failure to Launch? Spaceport Takes Hits on Two Fronts (Source: New Mexico Watchdog)
The venture built with $212 million in state taxpayer money has taken hits on a couple of fronts: From a legislator who doesn’t like how officials are spending the money they’ve received from two southern New Mexico counties and a just-released book questioning whether Spaceport’s anchor tenant — Virgin Galactic — will ever get off the ground. But the executive director of Spaceport America says she’s as confident as ever that commercial space technology, Virgin Galactic and the Spaceport itself will thrive.
“I spent 30 years in the Air Force and a lot of that time was spent in space technology and space systems,” Christine Anderson told New Mexico Watchdog. “It is rocket science and it takes a while. People always like to say, ‘Here’s the date, you gotta hit that date.’ Well, you’re ready when you’ve done all the testing and in this particular case, you really want to get it right because you’ve got commercial passengers flying.” (2/7)
Canadian Aerospace Industry Applauds New Space Policy Framework (Source: AIAC)
James Moore, Minister of Industry, released the government’s new Space Policy Framework, which will serve as a guide for the Canadian space program’s future priorities and activities. The announcement comes as a response to recommendations included in the Emerson Report on Aerospace and Space Programs and Policies for strengthening the competitiveness of the Canadian aerospace and space industries. (2/7)
India to Launch 5 Satellites in 2014-15 (Source: Xinhua)
India is to launch into space at least five foreign satellites this year and next year, sources said Saturday. "All these satellites will be launched by the state-owned Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) from the spaceport of Sriharikota in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh," the sources said.
The commercial arm of ISRO has signed deals with Britain's DMC International Imaging, a subsidiary of the Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd, to launch three 350 kg disaster monitoring satellites and with ST Electronics of Singapore to launch a 400 kg TeLEOS-1 Earth observation satellite, the sources said. The ISRO will also launch SPOT-7, a French satellite in the next two to three months, they added. (2/8)
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