Editorial The long running drama regarding United Launch Alliance and the use of Russian RD-180 engines for the Atlas V rocket entered a new phase late Friday with the announcement that the Pentagon will not issue a waiver requested by the company allowing it to acquire more engines which it says are needed for competitive […]
Europe’s aerospace sector appears to be waking up to the possibility that American companies are on the verge of establishing first stage reusability. In June, Airbus-Safran announced Adeline, an acronym for Advanced Expendable Launcher with Innovative Engine Economy. Adeline is a recoverable first stage propulsion package which would return the engine and avionics of an Ariane […]
The prospects for air-launched, lower cost access to space appear to be soaring higher all the time. On July 27th, a defense contracts notification website reported that Boeing has received a contract modification for its Experimental Spaceplane, XS-1 award. Managed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, the XS-1 program is seeking to […]
While SpaceX’s long running efforts to achieve certification for launching national security payloads under the EELV program have received a great deal of press attention, a similar, but far less contentions process has been underway at NASA. On Friday afternoon came the word that the SpaceX Falcon 9 V1.1 has finally been certified to launch […]
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 […]
NASA’s Wlliam Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for human exploration and operations, along with director of advanced exploration systems Jason Crusan, views BEAM at the Bigelow facility in North Las Vegas. Image Credit: Stephanie Schierholz NASA and Bigelow Aerospace held a media event on Thursday to highlight preparations for the launch of the Bigelow Expandable Aerospace Activity […]
From SpaceX: “SpaceX is still tracking towards a 6:03pm ET liftoff of DSCOVR, but unfortunately we will not be able to attempt to recover the first stage of the Falcon 9. The drone ship was designed to operate in all but the most extreme weather. We are experiencing just such weather in the Atlantic with […]
And the Award Goes To… Atlas V! Image Credit : United Launch Alliance When Orbital Sciences Chairman and CEO David W. Thompson told investors during a conference call on November 5th that his company would be awarding at least one, and possibly two Cygnus launches to another supplier in the wake of the Antares launch […]
Note: Last night’s launch marks the 8th flight in the first year for the Falcon 9 V1.1 NASA News Story An eruption of fire and smoke sent a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft skyward laden with 5,000 pounds of scientific equipment and supplies destined for use by the crew of the International Space Station. “This launch kicks […]
Long time Russian space observer James Oberg has penned a very interesting article at NBCnews.com which suggests that Russia is subtly attempting to get the U.S. government to acknowledge its absorption of the Crimea by shifting some mandatory cosmonaut training to that region. From the article: “Shifting the survival training to Russian-occupied Crimea will require […]
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