There is little doubt that SpaceX is for the moment in a class by itself in developing partially reusable orbital space transportation, but it is interesting to note that the company has had very little to say regarding what if any role it sees for space tourism in the products it is developing. The Dragon […]
A bit of rocket science courtesy of Jeff Bezos: In the BE-4 preburner, a very small portion of the engine’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) fuel mixes and burns with all of the engine’s liquid oxygen to produce hot gaseous oxygen, which is used to drive the turbine and spin the turbopumps. Oxygen and LNG burn […]
Blue Origin has successfully conducted a third consecutive launch of its New Shepard reusable suborbital booster. The latest flight of the hydrogen/oxygen single engine rocket topped with an equally reusable Crew Capsule included several new elements. First, in a welcome development, company founder Jeff Bezos advised followers via Twitter on Friday that a new […]
ULA Press Release: United Launch Alliance Completes Preliminary Design Review for Next-Generation Vulcan Centaur Rocket Centennial, Colo., (March 24, 2016) – United Launch Alliance (ULA) successfully completed the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) for the Vulcan Centaur launch vehicle with dual Blue Origin BE-4 engines. The PDR, a major milestone in development of the Vulcan launch […]
Earlier this week, Blue Origin finally opened the doors of its Kent, Washington headquarters to a small group of reporters. Although the overall purpose was to begin to pull the veil off a privately funded space development effort which up until now has inevitably been accompanied by the word “secretive,” one emerging theme was to […]
The Air Force has made two more awards in an effort to extricate itself from a controversial, and at times baffling American dependence on Russian rocket engines used to boost some of the nation’s most valuable and sensitive payloads into space. Yesterday’s awards, announced by the Space and Missile Systems PAO, went to Aerojet Rocketdyne […]
This could be the year of the real thing. In an interview conducted just days after his company completed the second successful suborbital launch of its New Shepard rocket, Blue Origin President Rob Meyerson indicated that 2016 should see the same vehicle fly “again and again” as it begins building the experience base which will lead […]
Blue Origin has taken another step in its quest to see “millions of people living and working in space,” and this one could be characterized as significant. Following the announcement of FAA airspace restrictions for the area surrounding the company’s West Texas test facility which came on Thursday, it was pretty clear that another flight […]
December 21st, 2015. It came on a night which was perhaps uniquely appropriate. Celebrated by people and cultures around the planet for a stretch of time which predates the written word, the winter solstice marks the longest night and the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. More than a curiosity of the […]
Opinion “On the Plains of Hesitation bleach the bones of countless millions, who, at the Dawn of Victory, sat down to wait, and waiting–died.” -George W. Cecil On November 23rd, Blue Origin joined SpaceX as the second American company to demonstrate vertical landing capability for a human scaled launch vehicle. Flying out of its West Texas […]
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