A collection of papers just released at the journal New Space makes the argument that thanks to advances by SpaceX. Bigelow Aerospace and others, the United States is in a position mount a return to the Moon and construction of a permanent base housing 6-10 people at the lunar North Pole in approximately 10 years […]
Editorial: It is has not been a particularly good week for United Launch Alliance, and especially for now former VP of Engineering Brett Tobey, who resigned after making a number of controversial comments during a speech at the University of Colorado-Boulder. The story has unfolded in a flurry of articles in Space News, which on […]
Talk about going down in flames. Sometimes it seems that NASA has an inappropriate fascination with destroying its own spacecraft. Cassini comes to mind, but there are quite a few other examples, including the four former SSME’s which will power each of the first few SLS launches. See Related: Expending Reusable Engines: A Good Thing? […]
In 2013, the Houston Chronicle’s Eric Berger conducted a remarkable interview with retired NASA manager Christopher Kraft, the engineer who was the agency’s first manned spaceflight director, and who played a critical role in designing each of the boosters which elevated the United States from sub-orbital flight to the surface of the Moon in less than […]
The House appropriations sub-committee which funds NASA held a hearing yesterday regarding the Administration’s FY-2017 budget request. Background The Administration request for FY 2017 is $18.262 billion. NASA says that the proposed budget is really $19.025 billion because it includes $763 million from other sources. The Congressional appropriation (what NASA actually received) for FY 2016 was […]
A bit if interesting news regarding Ceres that comes not from the Dawn spacecraft, but rather from the ground based observation from the European Southern Observatory. From ESO: “Observations made using the HARPS spectrograph at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile have revealed unexpected changes in the bright spots on the dwarf planet Ceres. Although […]
One of the most exciting and innovative robotic space exploration missions we have been privileged to witness has won one of space exploration’s most prestigious awards. From NASA.gov NASA’s Dawn project team recently earned two prestigious awards, honoring its successful mission to giant asteroid Vesta and dwarf planet Ceres. On March 8, the Dawn project […]
China is about to introduce a new class of small launch vehicle aimed at entering the growing smallsat market. The new, solid fueled booster is called Kuaizhou-11, or Fast Vessel-11 and should be capable of placing 1,000 kg into a 700 km sun-synchronous orbit. And at least some versions of a closely related booster sport […]
Update: Europe’s Exo-Mars mission is successfully on its way to the Red Planet following successful completion of all four burns of the Briz-M and stage separation which took place at 20:13 GMT. At 21:29 GMT, ESA’s control center in Darmstadt, Germany received signal confirmation that spacecraft is in good health and the solar wings have unfolded. […]
There were three newsworthy developments regarding reusable engines this week. First, SpaceX announced something close to firm pricing regarding what flights aboard a Falcon 9-R might cost in the near future. For the record, the reduction, enabled by 9 reusable Merlin 1-d engines that power the vehicle’s first stage, is 30% off the already low […]
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