Archive for April, 2015

Blue Origin’s New Shepard Makes Inaugural Flight

Blue Origin’s New Shepard Makes Inaugural Flight

Image Credit : Blue Origin After a four year hiatus, Blue Origin to the skies in West Texas yesterday, and it may well have been worth the wait. Here is the announcement from Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos on the company website. Apr 29, 2015 First Developmental Test Flight of New Shepard Today we flew […]

(Update) Drama in Space: Russian Progress Freighter Reported Spinning Out of Control

(Update) Drama in Space: Russian Progress Freighter Reported Spinning Out of Control

Liftoff of Progress M-27-M / Image Credit Roscosmos A flurry of reports in Russia new media indicate that yesterday’s launch of the Progress M-27-M resupply freighter to the International Space Station has gone awry, and perhaps badly so. Liftoff took place aboard a Soyuz-2.1a booster from the Baikonour Cosmodome in Kazakhstan at 10:09 AM Moscow […]

Posted in: ISS, Russian Space
Falcon 9 Launches Thales/Turkmenistan Mission

Falcon 9 Launches Thales/Turkmenistan Mission

Image Credit SpaceX After waiting out a 49 minute delay due to inclement weather, a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster lifted off from Cape Canaveral’s SLC-40 carrying a communications satellite for Turkmenistan. Officially designed as TurkmenÄlem52E/MonacoSat but referred to by SpaceX as simply the Thales mission in reference to Thales Alenia Aerospace which built the spacecraft […]

Posted in: SpaceX
SpaceX Falcon Flies Tonight, Dragon Pad Abort Next Week

SpaceX Falcon Flies Tonight, Dragon Pad Abort Next Week

SpaceX is counting down to an evening launch of TurkmenistanSat, a Geostationary communications satellite for the Central Asian nation of Turkmenistan. Its full name is the tongue numbing  TurkmenÄlem52E/MonacoSat. Liftoff of the spacecraft,  which was built by Thales Alenia Aerospace and will occupy an orbital slot leased from the Principality of Monoco, is scheduled for […]

Posted in: SpaceX
Five Years Later and Looking Back Again

Five Years Later and Looking Back Again

KSC Director Robert Cabana Addresses the Media on the “21st Century Spaceport” Addressing the concerns of his audience at the Kennedy Space Center on April 15th  2010,  President Obama sought to assure NASA and contract employees that the changes his administration was about to institute; cancelling Project Constellation, maintaining ISS, greenlighting Commercial Crew, and setting […]

Posted in: NASA, NewSpace, SpaceX
Five Years Later: Part II

Five Years Later: Part II

Dawn of New Era : KSC Clock Adds Up the Minutes of the First SpaceX Launch to ISS If Project Constellation was the clear victim of President Obama’s Kennedy Space Center address, the immediate beneficiary was without a doubt the International Space Station program. Slated for de-orbit as soon as 2016 in some Constellation planning […]

Musk Confirms Slow Throttle Valve Doomed Falcon 9 First Stage

Musk Confirms Slow Throttle Valve Doomed Falcon 9 First Stage

Image Credit: SpaceX After first tweeting and then deleting, SpaceX founder Elon Musk confirmed Saturday night that slow response from a thruster valves was the cause of last week’s close but no cigar effort at landing a Falcon 9 first stage at sea. Cause of hard rocket landing confirmed as due to slower than expected […]

Posted in: Uncategorized
American Space Policy Five Years Later

American Space Policy Five Years Later

President Obama at the Kennedy Space Center / April 15th 2010.  Image Credit : NASA The following is Part I in a multi-part series looking back at changes in American space policy put forward by President fiove years ago. Wednesday, April 15th was perhaps not the best of days for many Americans. While for those […]

Posted in: Congress, NASA, SLS / Orion
Not Too Early For Christmas: Star Wars Trailer #2

Not Too Early For Christmas: Star Wars Trailer #2

Image Credit: Lucasfilm 2015 : Year of the X-Wings?            

Update: (NEW) SpaceX Falcon Landing Video and a Look Ahead

Update: (NEW) SpaceX Falcon Landing Video and a Look Ahead

Video of the landing attempt shot from the ASDS Just Read The Instructions was posted anonymously on vidme. A YouTube version is included below. While it is perhaps silly to attribute human or even animal characteristics to mechanical hardware which is just doing its job, there is something poignant about how hard the cold gas […]

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