Image Credit: IEEE / Emily Cooper In the immediate aftermath of the Virgin Galactic disaster, SpaceShipTwo’s hybrid rocket motor came under suspicion as the most likely culprit. And, although subsequent updates by the NTSB team investigating the accident have instead centered on a problem with the craft’s feathering device and likely human error, many articles […]
Only two days in to an investigation which was expected to take up to a year, the National Safety Transportation Board team looking in to Friday’s Virgin Galactic crash at the Mojave spaceport has made a surprising discovery, one which overturns almost all of the early assumptions about what led to the disaster. Speaking at […]
Tuesday’s loss of the Orbital Sciences Antares booster carrying a Cygnus cargo vessel to the International Space Station, a failure of space hardware, is also bringing more attention to matters of space policy, where the news is both good and bad. To begin with, the explosion of the Antares rocket only six seconds into flight, […]
Vostochny Under Construction. Image Credit The Moscow Times One question which defines the NewSpace movement, is which individuals, companies, or governments are investing in technologies or systems which have the capacity to significantly reduce the cost of access to space. In the case of the latter, governments, all too often it is just as easy […]
Image Credit USAF Concluding its longest mission to date, the U.S. Air Force X-37B space plane returned to Earth on Friday, Here is the full Air Force Press Release: Release Number: 041014 10/17/2014 – VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. — The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle mission 3 (OTV-3), the Air Force’s unmanned, reusable space plane, […]
Image Credit: SpaceX Innerspace Commentary: On Wednesday, United Launch Alliance took delivery of two more Russian built RD-180 rocket engines destined for the Atlas V. They were delivered to Huntsville, Al. aboard an Antonov cargo plane in a depressingly routine procedure. Curiously, even though Congress is in recess, none of the Alabama delegation; Mo Brooks, […]
Image Credit: Swiss Space Systems Since the day it was announced, Swiss Space Systems has been among the more intriguing NewSpace companies enering the launch arena. With its vision of a two/thirds reusable space launch platform consisting of a modified Airbus A-300 carrying aloft a fully reusable, unmanned winged second stage based on both European and […]
Image Credit : Northrop Grumman 2014-08-19T12:00:00-0700 REDONDO BEACH, Calif. – Aug. 19, 2014 – Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) with Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic is developing a preliminary design and flight demonstration plan for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Experimental Spaceplane XS-1 program. A photo accompanying this release is available at: http://media.globenewswire.com/noc/mediagallery.html?pkgid=27176. XS-1 […]
XCOR held a “wall breaking” ceremony in Midland, Texas to commemorate the start of renovations to the hanger which will house the Lynx spaceplane. The complete press release is below. As an aside, is an actual race shaping up between XCOR and Virgin Galactic? Begin XCOR Press Release XCOR Breaking Down Walls with Midland – […]
Image Credit: SNC Sierra Nevada Press Release: Sparks, Nev., July 22, 2014 – Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) announces it has successfully passed Milestone 9, the Risk Reduction and Technology Readiness Level (TRL) Advancement Testing milestone, for several critical Dream Chaser® systems under NASA’s Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) agreement. Milestone 9 culminated in a […]
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