NASA today signed an agreement with Russia to extend the current arrangement for U.S. crew flights aboard Soyuz into 2017. The full press release, included below, is noteworthy in that it calls for crew return, as well as rescue capability, but not necessarily crew transport to the station, through Jun 2017. This represents perhaps the last hopeful […]
The suborbital space transportation industry took one of its biggest steps to date this morning, with the first powered test flight of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo, the complete details of which are included in the press release below. Coming as it does in the same month which saw Orbital Sciences complete the first launch of the Antares booster, and looking […]
This week could see significant developments for two of the most visible companies in NewSpace. Things got off to an early start with a tweet from Elon Musk dated 5:54 AM Sunday, announcing an ignition test for the “Falcon 9-R (reusable) ignition system.” The nomenclature is interesting, as it might have been expected to be identified as the […]
On Friday, China conducted its first space launch of the year when a Long March 2D rocket lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. The primary payload was the Gaofen-1 remote sensing satellite, the first of a fleet of six such spacecraft China plans to launch before 2016. Also aboard were three smaller satellites […]
Sierra Nevada Press Release: Sierra Nevada Corporation Completes Dream Chaser® Milestones for Commercial Crew Integrated Capabilities Program SPARKS, Nev., – April 25, 2013 – Sierra Nevada Corporation’s (SNC) Space Systems has successfully completed two milestones as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) phase of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. SNC completed the Program […]
Source : RIA Novosti Extending a record which is no danger of being broken any time soon, the Russian Soyuz made the 1803rd successful launch of incredible career today, carrying a GLONASS navigation satellite into orbit from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in the far north. GLONASS is the Russian counterpart to American GPS, and like GPS it is a dual use system for both […]
Anatoly Zak has an interesting story about Russia’s planned successor to the Soyuz crew capsule on his site Russianspaceweb.com, and as usual it provides a wealth of information. What is particularly intriguing about new spacecraft, labelled PTK NK, is the fact it is currently being designed to make propulsive landings much like the SpaceX Dragon, which it somewhat resembles. One key […]
It has been quite a week for Orbital Sciences Corporation. Following the successful maiden launch of its Antares rocket on Sunday, OSC reported first quarter earnings on Monday, and they too were strong, showing a 31% growth in operating income. Today, the company annouced that it has been selected by NASA to build the Transiting Exo Planet Survey […]
Video : SpaceX Grasshopper performs another test flight, reaching a peak altitude of 820 feet, tripling its previous public record and holding station in high winds. Looking back from some future point in time, when the humanity has established itself as a multi planet species, historians are going question just why it was that in the post Shuttle era, NASA, the Air […]
Press release from Orbital Sciences following today’s successful launch of the Antares booster ORBITAL SUCCESSFULLY LAUNCHES FIRST ANTARES ROCKET — Company Introduces America’s Newest Medium-Class Space Launch Vehicle — — Orbital Now Poised to Conduct Cargo Resupply Demonstrations Mission to International Space Station in Mid 2013 — (Dulles, VA 21 April 2013) – Orbital Sciences […]
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