Waiting on a New Day. Image Credit NASA After a litany of minor issues mostly relating to ground wind speed constraints, today’s launch of NASA’s EFT-1 and a test Orion spacecraft aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta Heavy was delayed repeatedly, and ultimately scrubbed. The final problem, which managers were not able to resolve in […]
Image Credit: “Wanderers” Three videos. One, “Wanderers” a stirring vision of exploration within our own solar system. The second, a promotional video for NASA’s Orion spacecraft. A partially completed version is due to launch aboard a Delta Heavy on December 4th in a test of basic systems as well as the heat shield. The third? […]
Though they may have been considered something of a novelty when cubesats first entered the space industry, today it may be difficult to overstate the potential of these diminutive spacecraft to change the way in which we explore, learn and conduct commerce in the final frontier. While cubesats are finding an initial niche in low […]
$16.5 Million Dollars Ago. OSC Pegasus Launches IRIS. Image Credit : NASA In case there was any doubt there is still a long, long way to go in reducing launch prices across the spectrum, consider this NASA press release from November 20th. CONTRACT RELEASE C14-047 NASA Awards Launch Services Contract for Ionospheric Connection Explorer NASA […]
A NASA press release issued on Friday outlines ongoing progress in the Commercial Crew program. Of particular note, Blue Origin and NASA agreed to a further three unfunded milestones as part of its CCDev-2 contract. While it is still almost impossible to write anything about the Jeff Bezos venture without falling back on the word […]
After a delay of 24 hours due to bad weather, NASA is preparing to move the Orion spacecraft mounted aboard a Delta Heavy rocket to SLC-37 this evening. The launch, which will test Orion’s heat shield and basic systems, is scheduled for December 4th. Meanwhile, an article in Scientific American adds to the growing criticism […]
Will Cygnus be on the Manifest? Image Credit SpaceX One week after the loss of an Antares launch vehicle carrying a Cygnus cargo vessel bound for the International Space Station, Orbital Sciences Corporation held a conference call with investors to discuss what it has learned about the accident thus far, and its plans for going […]
Note: New results from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter indicates just how asinine the notion was that the Moon is no longer a worthy destination for human exploration simply because “we’ve been there before.” But then again, India’s Chandrayaan 1 orbiter had already confirmed that point by discovering the presence of water molecules on the Moon […]
Image Credit: Boeing The NASA source selection statement for Commercial Crew is still not publicly available, at least officially, but Aviation Week has obtained a copy, and the resulting article sheds some light on what its says. From the article: “The internal document, signed by NASA Associate Administrator William Gerstenmaier on Sept. 15, the day […]
Note: NASA has made the right call here. The SNC protest can go on, even as work does as well. One wonders why this took as long as it did. Presumably it took until today to get a legal opinion. NASA News Story: NASA Exercises Authority to Proceed with Commercial Crew Contracts On Sept. 16, […]
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