When European Space Agency mission controllers received confirmation that the the ExMars probe had successfully separated from the upper stage of the Proton rocket which boosted it to orbit, they no doubt breathed a particularly deep sigh of relief. Everyone had to be aware that the decision to use Russia’s Proton as the launch vehicle, […]
In case you missed it, here is the official NASA press release from last night’s launch of the Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo vessel to the International Space Station: March 23, 2016 RELEASE 16-036 NASA Sends Fire, Meteor Experiments to International Space Station on Commercial Cargo Spacecraft The station’s Expeditions 47 and 48 crews will employ […]
NASA, United Launch Alliance and Orbital ATK are all counting down to tonight’s scheduled launch of the OA-6 cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station. The ULA Atlas V 401 is scheduled to lift off from Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 41 at 11:05 PM EDT, at the beginning of a 30 minute launch window. This will be […]
An investor conference call (pdf download) for Orbital ATK which took place on March 1st has shed new, if somewhat puzzling light on Orbital ATK’s plans for a new booster to compete in the USAF’s EELV class against long standing incumbent ULA and recently certified SpaceX. Call it the rebirth of Ares-1, or perhaps of the patriotically […]
Perhaps it is time to change the plucky little spacecraft’s name. In a press conference held Thursday afternoon at NASA’s Johnson Space Center to announce the CRS-2 contract awards, Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser space plane finally caught up with its ambitions, becoming for a day at least, Dream Catcher. In fact, the second Commercial Resupply […]
Is Russia following a path the American space program could have taken? A story in the Russian news agency TASS outlines a lunar exploration program which seems to draw on many of the lessons recently learned, but not applied by NASA for its own “Journey to Mars.” The program, which has yet to be funded, […]
Standing in the foyer of the Colorado state capitol earlier today, United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno introduced a new cubesat launch program aimed at promoting STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education at the university level. Beginning in 2017, ULA will mount a dedicated cubesat launcher on the Aft Bulkead Carrier of the Atlas […]
The latest NASA launch award provides more evidence that ULA’s prices for the Atlas V are indeed coming down. This was posted on Friday: “NASA has selected United Launch Services LLC of Centennial, Colorado, to provide launch services for the agency’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite-M (TDRS-M) mission. The mission will launch in October 2017 […]
Editorial On Monday, an Innerspace editorial suggested that perhaps it is time to reconsider restrictions on launching U.S. government payloads on friendly foreign launchers, namely the Ariane V. Part of the logic came from the assessment that ULA is simply not going to be able to make the Atlas V price competitive with the SpaceX […]
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 […]
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