Mentor Blogs

When the Space Shuttle retires as scheduled in June, NASA will be dependent on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS). Based on a recent $753 million contract NASA awarded to the Russian Federal Space Agency, these outsourced services cost U.S. taxpayers roughly $63 million per seat. It’s doubtless a hefty price tag, but NASA lacks U.S.-based … Read More

Aerospace, nasa, Virgin Galactic, Soyuz, Milaero, Geek, Mentor.com, Mil-Aero, ISS, Elon Musk, rad-hard, spacex, Mentor, Boeing, Russian Federal Space Agency, Space Shuttle, Mentor Graphics

Virgin Galactic, according to the company’s Web site, is an “airline offering suborbital spaceflights,” or flights into space with a reusable spacecraft. The Virgin Galactic vehicle is capable of carrying passengers into Low Earth Orbit (LEO). While in LEO, passengers gain a taste of what it is like to be free of Earth’s gravity, after which the craft descends, once again falling victim to Earth’s … Read More

Mentor.com, Mentor Graphics, Vetronics, Virgin Galactic, Jet, Virgin Mother Ship, Burt Rutan, LEO, VMS, WhiteKnightOne, Low Earth Orbit, WhiteKnightTwo, Aerospace, Mentor, Electronic, HTPB, Eve, Hybrid, hybrid rocket motor, Design Automation, hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene new tag, Geek, Future of Flight, Hardware, SpaceShipTwo, Mil-Aero, Sir Richard Branson, SpaceShipOne, rad-hard, Scaled Composite, N2O, nitrous oxide, Milaero, Military

After 30 years of service, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is going to be retiring its fleet of three space shuttles next year. The final flight of the shuttle Atlantis took place in May, Discovery’s final flight is set for November 1, and Discovery will be grounded after its last mission planned for February of 2011. The first of four test flights of the NASA space shuttle … Read More

Radiation, rad-hard, Mil-Aero, Atlantis, Milaero, nasa, National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, Aerospace, Discovery, Johnson Space Cente, Mentor, Endeavour, Mentor Graphics, Challenger, Mentor.com, Columbia, Future of Flight, Geek, seattle museum of flight, Space Shuttle, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base

When President Obama unveiled his budget in February, it included an increase in NASA funding. Despite tough economic times, more than $100 billion over the next five years is earmarked for NASA. Nonetheless, the proposed budget still caused upset for those involved in the U.S. space program, including the wealth of aerospace contractors, subcontractors, systems integrators, and technology companies … Read More

Geek, Embedded Systems, Hardware, Radiation, astronaut, Military, Computer, nasa, Obama, Aerospace, rad-hard, Mentor, DoD, Mentor Graphics, Electric, Mil-Aero, Milaero, Design Automation