It is a busy week for commercial space. Orbital ATK An Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo vessel departed the International Space Station at 9:30 AM EDT this morning, heading for its usual path of destruction high over the Pacific Ocean, but not before it performs a unique fire in space experiment, as well as releases […]
As much of the space community waits for September and the promised big reveal of SpaceX’s Mars colonization plans, company founder Elon Musk is finding it difficult to keep from spilling the beans about what is coming. In this interview in the Washington Post, an interesting venue considering the paper’s owner, Musk shares a bit […]
With “four on the floor” inside its new hangar at the Kennedy Space Centers’s launch pad 39-A, SpaceX has indicated it is now aiming for a fall re-flight of one of the Falcon 9 first stages which have been landed thus far. The news came, as it often does, via Elon Musk’s Twitter account: Fourth […]
During the course of a wide ranging interview on stage at the Code Conference 2016 in Broomfield, Colorado, SpaceX founder and CTO Elon Musk gave a bit of preview regarding his Mars colonization plans which will be revealed in September at the International Astronautical Congress in Monterrey, Mexico. While he was reluctant to give any […]
Russia still leads the world in total number of space missions launched, but for how long? Here is an unusually blunt assessment of the state of that nation’s space program by the always loquacious Dmitry Rogozin. From the Moscow Times: “Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin has been left red-faced after telling reporters that “Russia […]
After standing down for a day “out of an abundance of caution” to analyze errant readings on a second stage engine actuator, SpaceX ended the week on a spectacular note, successfully lofting the Thaicom 8 communications satellite to Geostationary Transfer Orbit, and then once again landing the first stage on at sea. Sped up video […]
Update: Today’s launch has been scrubbed due to “a tiny glitch in the motion of an upper stage engine actuator.” Original story: Following a successful static fire on Tuesday, SpaceX is getting set for an early evening launch of the Thaicom 8 communications satellite out of Cape Canaveral. Liftoff is scheduled for 5:40 PM EDT, […]
There is an interesting division taking place in the media as it relates to how NASA and the Space Launch System are being covered. On the one hand, NASA itself has done an excellent, if not overly enthusiastic job of promoting SLS/Orion and the “Journey to Mars” despite the fact that there is no such […]
Opinionated Analysis The ping pong match between the House and the Senate over ULA’s request for more RD-180 engines for the Atlas V was in the hands of the latter yesterday, where the Senate Armed Services Committee once again insisted that the number be limited to 9 engines beyond tbose already ordered as part of […]
SpaceX may now be in the pole position to be the first company to launch astronauts to orbit under NASA’s Commercial Crew contract. According to a report in GeekWire, Boeing has announced a slip, albeit a brief one, in its Starliner test schedule as the company works though several issues in getting its capsule ready […]
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