Exos Aerospace and 0-G Launch to pursue commercial air-launch

GREENVILLE, TX, USA, September 7, 2021 (Exos Aerpspace PR) — As part of a strategic collaboration to meet the fast-growing demand for responsive and economical access to low-Earth-orbit (LEO), 0-G Launch and Exos Aerospace agree to use the innovative Space Jet ™ as a commercial air-launch platform for small orbital rocket deliveries targeting initial launches in Q4 2023.

Exos Aerospace, a U.S. leading developer and operator of reusable Space vehicles, and 0-G Launch, an innovative provider of multi-vehicle air-launch platforms and high-precision microgravity services, today announced that they have signed an agreement for a series of air-launch missions aboard the Space Jet ™ to begin at the end of 2023.

Video Caption: Bird’s-eye view of launch! Pretty awesome! Exos SARGE M4 Launch – Drone Footage

by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

Last year was a busy one for suborbital flights as Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic conducted a combined four flights of their crewed suborbital vehicles. Despite hopes to the contrary, neither company flew paying tourists on their spaceships.

There were also 26 sounding rocket launches that carried scientific experiments and technology payloads above the atmosphere. The year saw:

• Japanese startup Interstellar Technologies conduct a successful launch of its Momo commercial sounding rocket;
• Texas-based Exos Aerospace continue to struggle with its reusable SARGE booster; and,
• the first suborbital launch ever achieved by college students.

UPHAM, NM (NASA PR) — On Oct. 26, Exos Aerospace launched its SARGE suborbital reusable launch vehicle from Spaceport America, New Mexico, with a NASA Flight Opportunities–supported payload onboard: the University of Central Florida’s Suborbital Particle Aggregation and Collision Experiment-2 (SPACE-2). The flight was aborted 48 seconds after launch due to what the company reported to be a structural failure.  Exos is in the process of evaluating video and telemetry data […]

The fourth launch of a suborbital SARGE rocket by Exos Aerospace ended with a crash of the booster near its launch pad after a brief flight at Spaceport America on Saturday. The booster appeared to wobble as it gained altitude after lift off. Data displayed on the Exos website indicated that the rocket reached an altitude of 41,464 ft (12,638 m) and a velocity of 1,264 mph (2,034 k/h). SARGE’s […]

by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

NMPolitics.net and its publisher, Heath Haussamen, have settled a lawsuit against the secretive New Mexico Spaceport Authority (NMSA) that runs Spaceport America. The authority agreed to release a group of fully unredacted leases of tenants at the spaceport and to pay the website $60,000.

The released tenant leases included:

• Energeticx.net
• EXOS Aerospace
• SpaceX
• UP Aerospace

SPACEPORT AMERICA, NM — EXOS Aerospace’s SARGE 3 launch went awry shortly after liftoff from Spaceport America on Saturday as the suborbital rocket suffered control problems only seconds into its flight. Liftoff appeared nominal, but then the rocket began to veer from side to side as it ascended. It was not clear from the webcast what altitude the booster reached. Ground control team members lost sight of the rocket for […]

Join us LIVE tomorrow for SARGE Launch 3 – Mission 2! Our launch window is from 9:30-12, and we will be kicking off the live stream at 9:30 AM MST! https://t.co/f0iZOmxsTP — EXOS (@exosaerosystech) June 29, 2019

An Exos Aerospace SARGE rocket reached 19.8 km (12.3 miles) before the flight abort after launch from Spaceport America on March 2, the company announced in a statement.

SARGE’s autonomous control system aborted the flight at about 65,000 ft after the rocket reached its instantaneous impact point (IIP) limit, Exos said. In essence, booster determined it was likely to land outside of the permissible range.

The flight had aimed to reach 80 km (49.7 miles). Despite the early abort, the company said it was pleased with the results of the second flight of the reusable booster, which previously flew last August.

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The reusable, suborbital rocket landed back in the desert under a parachute. No information yet on altitude. Flight programs and associated payloads on the flight included: SPACEedu… Help your school fund, build, fly and reuse CubeSat projects for their S.T.E.M research programs. Having already flown for many schools, Exos is literally taking education to a higher level.  P1. Arete’ Greater Nanticoke Area Trojans (space thermal energy transfer experiment). SPACEbuild… Test or manufacture in […]