WhiteKnightTwo took off today on its first flight since Jan. 17. It took off solo without SpaceShipTwo. As of five minutes ago, it was flying over the Mojave Air and Space Port. Virgin Galactic Tweeted that Federal Aviation Administration inspectors have signed off on the mother ship’s annual inspection. This is the aircraft’s 150th flight. Virgin Galactic officials said they planned to fly WhiteKnightTwo again sometime in June. They met […]
AUTHOR
Doug Messier
Hours after the June 28, 2014, test of NASA’s Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator over the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Missile Range, the saucer-shaped test vehicle is lifted aboard the Kahana recovery vessel. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
PASADENA, Calif. (NASA PR) — NASA representatives participated in a media teleconference this morning to discuss the June 28, 2014 near-space test flight of the agency’s Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD), which occurred off the coast of the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii.
A high-altitude balloon launch occurred at 8:45 a.m. HST (11:45 a.m. PDT/2:45 p.m. EDT) from the Hawaiian island facility. At 11:05 a.m. HST (2:05 p.m. PDT/5:05 p.m. EDT), the LDSD test vehicle dropped away from the balloon as planned and began powered flight. The balloon and test vehicle were about 120,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean at the time of the drop. The vehicle splashed down in the ocean at approximately 11:35 a.m. HST (2:35 p.m. PDT/5:35 p.m. EDT), after the engineering test flight concluded. The test vehicle hardware, black box data recorder and parachute were all recovered later in the day.
Mars One 2018 lander (Credit: Mars One)
AMERSFOORT, The Netherlands, June 30, 2014 (Mars One PR) – Mars One is extending a formal invitation to universities, research bodies, and companies to contribute to the payload of the 2018 unmanned Mars Lander. The best ideas will be chosen by a panel of experts. This mission will act as a staging point for the first-ever human mission to the red planet in 2025.
Mars One is soliciting proposals for four demonstration payloads that will demonstrate technologies for the human mission in 2025, proposals for one payload that will be elected in a world wide university competition, and proposals for two payloads that are for sale to the highest bidder. These last two payloads can be used for scientific experiments, marketing activities or anything inbetween.
This week on The Space Show with David Livingston: 1. Monday, June 30, 2014: 2-3:30 PM PDT (5-6:30 PM EDT, 4-5:30 PM CDT): DR. DOUG PLATA returns with more on his Lunar Cots & cislunar work, including ISDC presentations and upcoming AIAA Space 2014 presentations. 2. SPECIAL TIME: Tuesday, July 1, 2014:, 2-3 PM PDT (5-6 PM EDT, 4-5 PM CDT): We welcome back MIKE GOLD, the Chair of the […]
The Biotube-MICRo experiment is prepared for launch inside Kennedy’s Space Station Processing Facility. (Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett)
By Anna Heiney
NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Florida
A trio of science payloads have completed their missions on the International Space Station and returned to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where they’ll be turned over to the scientists who designed them.
The BRIC-18, Biotube-MICRo and APEX-02-2 investigations were created to answer a variety of biological questions critical to future long duration spaceflight, from the prevention and treatment of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections to several mysterious aspects of plant growth.
As NASA prepares to award the next round of commercial crew contracts in August, its three partners are in a different place in terms of completing their milestones and developing their vehicles to carry astronauts to the International Space Station.
The space agency has provided SpaceX and Sierra Nevada Corporation with seven additional months — from August 2014 to March 2015 — to complete their original milestones under the current CCiCAP funding round. Meanwhile, Boeing is set to complete all of 20 of its milestones — worth a total of $480 million — by August, when NASA will likely eliminate at least one competitor.
However, merely counting milestones completed doesn’t provide a clear sense of each company’s progress. SpaceX appears to be the closest to an orbital test flight of its Dragon V2 spacecraft, even though its test schedule has slipped by nearly a year. Boeing is on schedule, but its hardware hasn’t advanced as far as SpaceX’s systems. And Sierra Nevada has fallen nearly two years behind its original schedule in conducting glide flights of its Dream Chaser shuttle.
MOJAVE, CA, June 30, 2014 (XCOR PR) — XCOR Aerospace announced today that it has closed the acquisition of all operational subsidiaries of Space Expedition Corporation, the previously independent Dutch company also known as SXC. SXC served as XCOR’s general sales agent for XCOR® Lynx® flight sales and as their lead wet lease customer. The new sales entity, XCOR Space Expeditions, will continue to focus on sales, commercial partnerships and participant (customer) training on a global level, and will serve as an open sales channel available for all future XCOR Lynx wet lease clients.
The acquisition signals XCOR’s commitment to being “the most active space flight company in the world” through a marked increase in integrated sales activities and multiple wet lease operations. As the most active spaceflight company in the world, XCOR is poised to become the company which delivers the most value for the price. With its high frequency of flights, XCOR will learn the most the quickest in the emerging commercial spaceflight industry and more customers will benefit from Lynx’s incredible in-the-cockpit experience.
This computer-generated art depicts Orion’s heat shield protecting the crew module as it enters the Earth’s atmosphere. (Credit: NASA)
WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — All the superlatives associated with Orion’s first mission this year – farthest a spacecraft for humans has gone in 40 years, largest heat shield, safest vehicle ever built – can be dazzling, no doubt. But the reason engineers are chomping at the bit for Orion’s first mission is the promise of crucial flight test data that can be applied to the design for future missions. Orion only has two flight test opportunities before astronauts climb aboard for the first crewed mission in 2021 – so gleaning the maximum information possible from Exploration Flight Test (EFT)-1 in December (and later, Exploration Mission-1 in 2017) is of the highest priority. Here are the top five things the engineers will be paying attention to:
New experiment using the soccer-ball-sized, free-flying satellites known as Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites, or SPHERES, already on the station, is featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 38 crew member in the ISS. (Credit: NASA)
HOUSTON (NASA PR) — The International Space Station is critically important to NASA’s future exploration missions. The orbiting outpost provides a platform to test technologies in a long-duration weightless environment; conditions which are impractical to replicate on Earth. NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate is utilizing the space station as a test bed for multiple game-changing technology demonstrations.
“The International Space Station is our national laboratory for foundational space technology development,” said Dr. Michael Gazarik, Associate Administrator for the Space Technology Mission Directorate. “The new technologies we fly and test on the station will help create the new capabilities needed for our Asteroid Initiative and our Evolvable Mars Campaign. The International Space Station is an innovation incubator for the advanced space technology that will get us to Mars, and beyond.”
Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream NASA has set a drop time of 5:05 p.m. EDT/2:05 p.m. PDT (21:05 GMT). Update: The parachute failed to fully deploy after it was released. The vehicle has landed in the ocean off the coast of Kauai, Hawaii. Recovery efforts are underway. The graphic below shows the stages of the test, which apparently went as planned except that the chute failed to full deploy. […]