Wallops Island, VA, 6 Sept. 2013 (Orbital PR) – Orbital Sciences Corporation, one of the world’s leading space technology companies, successfully mated its Cygnus™ cargo logistics spacecraft to its Antares™ rocket today in preparation for its Sept. 17 launch from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS), located at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in eastern Virginia. This upcoming demonstration flight is the final milestone in theCommercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) research and […]
AUTHOR
Doug Messier
Mission Information Spacecraft: NASA’s LADEE (Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer) Launch Site: Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, Wallops Island, Virginia Launch Vehicle: Minotaur V Launch window: Friday, Sept. 6, 2013 from 11:27 – 11:31 PM EDT Mission: LADEE lunar orbiter will gather detailed information about the lunar atmosphere, conditions near the surface and environmental influences on lunar dust. A thorough understanding of these characteristics will address long-standing unknowns, and help scientists […]
SpaceShipTwo Flight Test Summary Via Scaled Composites Flight: 132/PF02 Date: 05 Sep 13 Flight Time: 14 min SS2 Pilot: Stucky SS2 CoPilot: Nichols Flight Time: 1.4 hr WK2 Pilot: Mackay WK2 CoPilot: Alsbury WK2 FTE: Glaser GS Crew: Bourgeois, Hunsaker, Knupp, Bassett, Kalogiannis, Jaster, Verderame, Prior, Cassebeer, Story, Baker, Zeeb, Gould, Colby, Withrow, Kroese, Flynn, Tighe, Siebold SS2 Objectives: Second powered flight Supersonic aero expansion (20 sec burn) Wing lift […]
Footage from the tail camera onboard SpaceShipTwo during Virgin Galactic’s Second Rocket Powered Test Flight.
Team IDEAS and participants at StoryJam on Aug. 29. (Credit: Spaceport Sweden)
KIRUNA, Sweden (Spaceport Sweden PR) — Spaceport Sweden together with Kiruna in Swedish Lapland are proud to announce the partnering with IDEAS, a world leading innovation studio, for the project of develop a Space Visitor & Science Center in Kiruna, contributing to a world-class all year round destination.
Paul Spudis
Houston, TX, September 5th, 2013 (ME PR) – Moon Express, Inc., a lunar resources company, announced today that leading planetary scientists Dr. Paul Spudis and Dr. Jack Burns have joined the company to assist its plans to explore the Moon for precious resources.
Dr. Spudis, an outspoken advocate of using lunar resources to develop the Moon and cislunar space, has joined Moon Express as its Chief Scientist, a part-time role established in collaboration with the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas, where he is a Senior Staff Scientist.
MOJAVE, Calif. (VG PR) – Today, Virgin Galactic, the world’s first commercial spaceline owned by Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group and Abu Dhabi’s aabar Investments PJS, successfully completed the second rocket-powered, supersonic flight of its passenger carrying reusable space vehicle, SpaceShipTwo (SS2). In addition to achieving the highest altitude and greatest speed to date, the test flight demonstrated the vehicle’s full technical mission profile in a single flight for the first time, including a high altitude deployment of the unique wing “feathering” re-entry mechanism. All of the test objectives were successfully completed.
SpaceShipTwo’s second powered flight this morning was successful, with the first feather test under power. Still waiting on details from Virgin Galactic concerning burn time, altitude and other factors. The company Tweeted, “Hit our planned duration, altitude, and speed.” UPDATE: Branson said on his blog that SpaceShipTwo was released at an altitude of 46,000 feet and then burned the hybrid engine for 20 seconds, soaring to an altitude of 69,000 […]
Sources report that SpaceShipTwo will make a powered flight early Thursday morning from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. The space plane and its WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft have been outside on the ramp all day. Final preparations will begin later tonight. During its first powered flight on April 29, the vehicles took off after 7 a.m. PDT, with SpaceShipTwo landing just after 8 a.m. PDT after a short […]
XCOR has begun a series of posts on its blog that will allow readers to follow the building and testing of the Lynx Mark 1 space plane. We would like to share that experience with you, and share what excites and motivates our team in developing Lynx. We will bring you the story daily, a piece at a time, all the way through the flight test program to first commercial […]