The advent of fully reusable launch systems took another partial step forward with last Thursday’s liftoff of a SpaceX Falcon 9 carrying the U.S. Air Force’s X-37B space plane, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle. The mission, dubbed OTV-V, was the fifth launch overall for the fleet of two unmanned spacecraft, with the first […]
When Donald J. Trump won the U.S. Presidency, it was a pretty fair bet that America’s space program would soon be setting its sights on the Moon once again. What few saw coming however, was the bombshell that SpaceX dropped on Monday, as the company announced that it is in the advanced stages of mounting […]
As SpaceX is making the final touches on launchpad 39-A at the Kennedy Space Center in advance of its upcoming inaugural flight from that historic venue, a Washington Post article centers on blade cracks in the Falcon 9 rocket’s turbo-pumps. The piece, written by Andy Pasztor goes under the scary headline Congressional Investigators Warn of SpaceX […]
The inauguration of Donald J. Trump as the 45th President of the United States is a remarkable event in more ways than one, but for the American space program, it could prove to be hinge-pin in history. At this point, there is no way to know what policy directions the Trump White House may provide […]
The passing of John Glenn on December 8th, 2016, signified the end of an era in American spaceflight in more ways than one. The loss of Glenn marked not only the death of the first American to orbit the Earth, but also the last of the famed “Mercury 7” group of test pilots who formed […]
Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words. As U.S. space pundits await signals over what direction NASA’s policy will take under the Trump Administration, this photo of the European Space Agency’s general meeting should serve as reminder of some of the downsides of increased international participation in large space projects. Exercising leadership and […]
While NASA watchers are still guessing at what direction the incoming Trump administration will assign to America’s space agency, it is increasingly obvious that it won’t include the outgoing Obama administration’s badly beleaguered and generally unloved Asteroid Redirect Mission, or ARM. That mission would see a small boulder plucked off a Near Earth Asteroid by […]
Two inextricably linked stories for the reader to digest: Space Food Bars Will Keep Orion Weight Off and Crew Weight On “Because flights to deep space will not rely on resupply spacecraft to deliver what astronauts need and dispose of trash, the Orion crew will have to take everything they need with them and bring […]
For future colonists, Mars’ Utopia Planitia or “Plains of Paradise” may be rather aptly named despite its less than appealing appearance. In a paper highlighted last week on NASA.gov, scientists using the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s shallow ground penetrating radar (SHARAD) have concluded that the region contains a volume of ice equivalent to the amount of […]
When NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft sailed past Pluto on July 14th, 2015, it gathered a treasure trove of information regarding what used to be the 9th planet. Among the most intriguing was an odd “heart shaped” feature on Pluto’s surface which is clearly of more recent origin than what surrounds it. Now, a new study […]
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