The wild, but underwhelming ride that has been Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s effort to revolutionize the launch industry with the Stratolaunch aircraft has taken another turn. Yesterday, Stratolaunch Systems announced an agreement with Orbital ATK to use the massive carrier aircraft to loft Pegasus XL rockets for air launch, a move which would supplant the […]
To loosely paraphrase Khan Noonien Sing (the real one) Stratolaunch may no as wounded as the Wall Street Journal led us to believe. Here is a statement sent to Spacenews from Vulcan Aerospace made in response to yesterday’s story : Vulcan Aerospace remains steadfast in its mission to transform space transportation to low-Earth orbit […]
Virgin Galactic Press Release, Comments Follow VIRGIN GALACTIC ANNOUNCES SIGNIFICANT PROGRESS WITH LAUNCHERONE ROCKET PROPULSION IN-HOUSE TEAM ACHIEVES KEY MILESTONES IN STEADY-STATE TESTING OF MAIN STAGE AND UPPER STAGE LIQUID ENGINES MOJAVE, California – September 28, 2015 – Successful test firings of key propulsion components marked the latest sign of progress for Virgin Galactic’s dedicated small […]
Although NewSpace companies are already revolutionizing some market segments such as the the smallsat industry, progress in other areas, notably launch systems, has been much slower, with the clear exception of SpaceX. Two companies which harbor long term crew capable orbital ambitions, Virgin Galactic and XCOR, are on the threshold of beginning suborbital passenger flights, […]
The recently reported split between SpaceX and Stratolaunch Systems raises some interesting questions regarding the future of Paul Allen’s project. The inclusion of SpaceX and its Falcon launch vehicle always seemed to make more sense for Stratolaunch than it did for SpaceX, which after all, is doing quite nicely on its own. According to reports, Stratolaunch, which has yet to […]
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