NASA Flight Opportunities Workshop at Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

University of Central Florida

7:00 pm – NASA’s Flight Opportunities Program – An Overview for Researchers (LK Kubendran, NASA Headquarters), presentation will describe how the program is organized and how to fly payloads in the new year

7:15 pm – Recap of Announcement of Opportunity (John Kelly, NASA Dryden), presentation describing the recent Flight Opportunities solicitation for payloads that will be flown on parabolic aircraft and suborbital RLVs

7:30 pm – FOP-CRuSR, What We’ve Learned So Far (Dougal Maclise, NASA Ames Research Center), presentation will include videos documenting the payload process used for Masten Space Systems and Armadillo Aerospace

7:45 pm – NASA’s Flight Opportunities Program: An Evolving Design & Development Strategy for CRuSR Payloads (Richard Mains, Mains Associates), presentation will include a discussion on NASA payload requirements and design standards

8:00 pm – Tour of Flight Opportunities Website (Alexander Van Dijk, NASA Ames Research Center), presentation will include a tour of the Flight Opportunities website and a walk through of the spreadsheet summarizing vehicle provider RFI responses

8:15 pm – NASA Sounding Rocket Program – An Overview (Robert Pfaff, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)

8:30 pm – Break

8:45 pm – Opportunities / CRuSR payload interfaces (speakers introduced by Gregor Hanuschak, NASA HQ):

* Jason Andrews – Payload interfaces for suborbital RLVs
* Jeff Greason – Payload interface for XCOR Aerospace
* Gary Lai – Payload interface for Blue Origin
* Steven Collicott – Lessons learned from flying microgravity payloads

9:55 pm -Final Thoughts and Wrap-Up (John Kelly, NASA Dryden Flight Research Center)