Rocket Lab’s second attempt to recover an Electron rocket first stage in midair with a helicopter failed on Friday when controllers lost telemetry from the booster during reentry and descent, the company said.

• No reports of injuries or damage from debris
• NASA administrator condemns Chinese actions as dangerous, irresponsible
• Fourth such incident since May 2020

U.S. Space Command reports that China’s latest attempt to play Russian roulette with the world using a massive, 30-meter long rocket stage weighing about 21.5 metric tons (23.8 tons) ended with an apparently safe reentry over the south-central Pacific Ocean on Friday.

Virgin Galactic’s reaffirmed plans on Thursday to begin commercial suborbital spaceflights in the second quarter of 2023 with a single SpaceShipTwo while pushing back the start of revenue flights of a second spacecraft capable of flying more customers more frequently into 2024. The company reported a net third quarter loss of $145.5 million, triple that of the same period last year.

Read Parabolic Arc‘s analysis of the earnings report here.

TUSTIN, Calif., November 03, 2022 (Virgin Galactic PR) — Virgin Galactic Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: SPCE) (“Virgin Galactic” or the “Company”) today announced its financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2022 and provided a business update.

Michael Colglazier, Chief Executive Officer of Virgin Galactic said, “We remain on track to launch commercial service in the second quarter of 2023, and we look forward to validating the modifications to VMS Eve and VSS Unity with multiple scheduled test flights in the coming months. We are also executing on our key strategic initiatives to scale our business as a global Spaceline over the long-term. With Aurora Flight Sciences building our next generation motherships, and the selection of experienced manufacturers, Bell Textron and Qarbon Aerospace, to help build our Delta Class Spaceships, we have our primary suppliers in place to expand our fleet and support our long-term growth.”

The late, great John Beluishi’s Weekend Update segment on the reentry of Skylab, America’s first space station, in 1979.

Yellow Icon – location of object at midpoint of reentry windowBlue Line – ground track uncertainty prior to middle of the reentry window (ticks at 5-minute intervals)Yellow Line – ground track uncertainty after middle of the reentry window (ticks at 5-minute intervals)Pink Icon (if applicable) – vicinity of eyewitness sighting or recovered debrisNote: Possible reentry locations lie anywhere along the blue and yellow ground track.  Areas not under the line are not exposed to the debris. The Aerospace […]

Part I in a Series

At the end of the film, “There Will be Blood,” wiped out in the Depression preacher Eli Sunday (Paul Dano) offers to sell millionaire Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) land to be drilled for oil. Plainview agrees at first, forces Sunday to renounce his faith, and then coldly tells him that that there’s no oil under the property because he has already drilled all the land around it.

China completed construction of its space station, SpaceX reached multiple milestones, Firefly Aerospace put payloads in orbit for the first time, OneWeb resumed deployment of its broadband constellation aboard an Indian rocket, and a new crew began a six-month stay aboard the International Space Station during October.

Once the rocket goes up
who cares where it will crash?
It launches 25 tons of mass….

For its first decades as a space power, China located its spaceports inland where they would be more difficult for enemies to destroy in the event of a war. That meant that, like the Soviet Union, spent rocket stages were dropped over land. The hair-raising risks involved have been revealed in recent years as Chinese residents have posted cell phone videos of stages with toxic propellants crashing near residences.

SpaceX launched its Falcon Heavy rocket for the fourth time ever on Tuesday in a mission for the U.S. Space Force. It the first flight of the giant booster since June 2019, and the company’s 50th launch of 2022.

The contract will leverage Spire’s pioneering Space Services model to design a satellite that could carry the agency’s sensor to very low Earth orbit to improve characterization of the ionosphere

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded Spire Global a contract to deliver a preliminary design for a satellite that would carry an array of sensors to very low Earth orbit (VLEO) for in-situ ionosphere measurements.

LOUISVILLE, Colo. and Armonk, NY (Sierra Space/IBM PR) – Sierra Space, a leading commercial space company at the forefront of creating and building the future of space transportation and infrastructure for low-Earth orbit (LEO) commercialization and IBM (NYSE: IBM), a technology leader within the space industry going back to the earliest days of the U.S. space program, today announced the signing of a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). Together, Sierra Space and IBM plan to work to develop the next generation of space technology and software platforms across Sierra Space’s range of space vehicles and infrastructure.