Charting the galaxies in the sky has come a long way since the 18th century, when Charles Messier first included 40 nearby galaxies in his catalog of celestial objects. The New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars of 1888 listed more than 6,000 such galaxies, while the Third Reference Catalog of Bright Galaxies, published in 1991, lists more than 23,000.

PoSSUM students learn to operate space-qualified instrumentation in spacesuits. (Credit: Project PoSSUM)

BOULDER, Colo. , March 14, 2016  (Project PoSSUM PR) — Project PoSSUM announced today that it will host an interdisciplinary forum, titled “Project PoSSUM and the Art of Science Communication”, at the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University on April 9, 2016. The first of a series of workshops, this forum will focus on how astronautics enables science communication through human stories and artistic interpretation.
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REDWOOD CITY, Calif., May 8, 2014 (USRA PR) — A new research platform that promises to dramatically reduce the cost of access to space for small scientific and education payloads will be publicly unveiled at MakerCon, which takes place at the Oracle Conference Center in Redwood City next week.

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Artist’s conception of Lynx Cub Payload Carrier internal view. (Credit: Citizens in Space)

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, May 7, 2013 (USRA PR) – The United States Rocket Academy announced the delivery of the first Lynx Cub Payload Carrier, a new research platform which promises to dramatically reduce the cost of access to space for small scientific and education payloads.

The Lynx Cub Carrier will fly on the XCOR Lynx spacecraft, which is now under construction at the Mojave Air and Space Port.

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SpaceShipTwo in its first powered flight over Mojave.

By Douglas Messier
Parabolic Arc Managing Editor

Last week, I got to see close-up views of the power of the emerging suborbital space industry in two very different locations some 300 miles apart.

Monday was all about SpaceShipTwo, which lit its engine for the first time over the dusty Mojave Desert and provided viewers on the ground with a 16-second display of flames and black smoke. The little space plane soared skyward above its WhiteKnightTwo carrier plane before gliding to a perfect landing on the center line of Runway 30 at the Mojave Air and Space Port.

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Citizen Science/SVSC/Ardulab Microgravity Workshop The Silicon Valley Space Center Saturday, May 4, 2013 at 9:00 AM Sunday, May 5, 2013 at 2:00 PM (PDT) Mountain View, CA https://spacehacker-estw.eventbrite.com/# This workshop covers the sub-orbital flight opportunities provided by the Citizen Science Program. Citizen Science has purchased 10 flights about the XCOR Lynx vehicle.  Each flight can accommodate 12 cubelab/nanolab payloads and one payload astronaut.  Citizen Science challenges scientists, engineers, students, faculty, […]