Shop Mechanic Ray Fitting plumbs the Lynx LOX pump for a test. (XCOR Aerospace / Mike Massee)

May 24th, 2012, Mojave CA (XCOR PR): XCOR announced today that it has achieved a key technical milestone with its flight weight rocket piston pump hardware. XCOR engineers have successfully and repeatedly pumped liquid oxygen (LOX) at flow rates required to supply the Lynx suborbital vehicle main engines. Combined with earlier demonstrated kerosene pumps and fully characterized engines, XCOR is now poised for main propulsion integration into the Lynx flight weight fuselage.

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View of the Dragon spacecraft from the International Space Station.

Hawthorne, CA  (SpaceX PR) – Today, Space Exploration Technologies’ (SpaceX) Dragon spacecraft completed key on-orbit tests as part of a historic attempt to be the first commercial company in history to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station.

In the days since SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft successfully launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, the vehicle has steadily completed one task after another as it prepares to berth with the International Space Station. Only minutes after the spacecraft separated from the Falcon 9 rocket’s second stage, its solar arrays successfully deployed, providing power to the spacecraft.  The door that had been covering sensors needed for proximity operations opened successfully.

On Tuesday and Wednesday Dragon traveled in orbit, firing its thrusters to catch up to the space station. During that time, the vehicle hit a series of milestones.  Dragon showed its Absolute Global Positioning System (GPS) is in good working order.  The vehicle demonstrated both a pulsed and a full abort.  It also demonstrated free drift, floating freely in orbit as it will when grappled by the space station’s robotic arm. And its proximity operations sensors and SpaceX’s COTS UHF Communication Unit (CUCU) are up and running.

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The winds were so strong at Mojave on Wednesday that they raised the dead. The winds lifted up the nose of a 747 in the Mojave Air & Space Port’s Boneyard, putting the massive aircraft up on its tail as if it was trying to take off. Observers say it was rocking back and forth and they feared it might just crash over on its side. Well, at least the […]

A severe windstorm that started on Tuesday has been continuing to blast the town of Mojave and the surrounding area. The highlights: sandstorms are raging at the airport and throughout the surrounding area winds are reporting reaching up to 86 mph the Mojave Air & Space Port lost power in the late afternoon A 747 in the airport’s Boneyard is tilting on its tail as if its trying to take […]

Blue Origin's Charon vehicle. (Credit: Blue Origin)

KENT, Wash. (Blue Origin PR) – A new exhibit opens today at The Museum of Flight in Seattle that features Blue Origin’s first flying vehicle, Charon. Built as an early development project in 2005, Blue Origin has loaned the vertical take-off, vertical-landing jet-powered vehicle to the Museum. Charon will be on display in the new Charles Simonyi Space Gallery on the west side of the Museum of Flight campus, accompanied by the NASA Full-Fuselage Space Shuttle Trainer and the TMA-14 Soyuz space capsule.

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SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket lifts off with a Dragon spacecraft bound for the International Space Station. (Credit: SpaceX)

Following Alan Shepard’s flight aboard Freedom 7, there was a triumphant parade through Washington, D.C., to honor the first American in space. In one of the limousines sat NASA Administrator Jim Webb with Bob Gilruth, the man in charge of the Space Task Group that launched Shepard into space.

Gazing out at the adoring, cheering crowds that lined the parade route, Webb turned to Gilruth and said, “If it hadn’t worked, they’d be asking for your head.”

With that in mind, let’s look at some of the reaction to the SpaceX Dragon launch from Capitol Hill….

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A reusable Falcon 9 first stage comes in for a landing. (Credit: SpaceX)

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (NASA PR) – NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., completed wind tunnel testing for Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) of Hawthorn, Calif., to provide Falcon 9 first stage re-entry data for the company’s advanced reusable launch vehicle system.

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NASA TV MISSION COVERAGE Thursday, May 24 (Flight Day 3): Live NASA Television coverage from NASA’s Johnson Space Center mission control in Houston as the Dragon spacecraft performs its flyby of the International Space Station to test its systems begins at 2:30 a.m. EDT and will continue until the Dragon passes the vicinity of the station. A news briefing will be held at 10 a.m. following the activities. Friday, May […]

NASA PR — The Inflatable Reentry Vehicle Experiment (IRVE-3) is the third in a series of suborbital flight tests of this new technology. It is scheduled to launch from the Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia’s Eastern Shore this summer.

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