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 – […]
SOAR Second Stage Space Plane Image Credit: Swiss Space Systems One of the most intriguing of a growing number of NewSpace companies targeting the small satellite launch market is Swiss Space Systems. With its plans for 2/3 reusable launch system consisting of an Airbus 300 carrier plane, and unmanned fully re-usable SOAR rocket plane as […]
IXV Undergoing Ocean Retrieval Tests Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser is far from the only space plane currently under development. With the second super secretive Boeing X-37 still in orbit, and a variety of suborbital craft; Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo, XCOR’s Lynx and Swiss Space Systems SOAR space plane all in various stages of construction, the Shuttle […]
Swiss Space Systems has signed an agreement with Thales Alenia Space to develop the pressurized compartment for its air launched SOAR (Sub-Orbital Aircraft Reusable space plane announced in March. SOAR is intended to be primarily employed as reusable second stage for launching small satellites, but S3 is also seeking to enter the suborbital research and tourism market with a pressurized compartment which can […]
Following a path taken in 1977 by the Space Shuttle Enterprise which saw the orbiter’s first ever free fly flight over NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Ca. Sierra Nevada Corporation is preparing to embark on a series of tests of its own Dream Chaser space plane as a part of […]
Sierra Nevada Corporation’s announcement last week that it is partnering with Lockheed Martin to further develop its Dream Chaser space plane for NASA’s Commercial Crew Competition brings a new twist to the program to succeed the Space Shuttle as America’s ground to LEO space transportation system. With Dream Chaser designed to launch on the United Launch Alliance Atlas V, a rocket designed by […]
Tuesday’s launch of a Atlas V rocket carrying the X-37B unmanned orbital space plane marked an interesting development in the gradual progression of reusable space flight capability. In the first place, it represented a return to flight of the RL-10 upper stage engine following an October Delta IV launch “anomaly” in which an underperfoming engine led to a longer than planned […]
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