WASHINGTON (House Science Committee PR) – Today, Chairwoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) and Ranking Member Frank Lucas (R-OK) sent a letter [see below] to President Biden expressing their concerns regarding the Administration’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) for commercial space accident investigation that was issued by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
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WASHINGTON, DC (National Air and Space Museum PR) — The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum awards its Michael Collins Trophy annually for Lifetime and Current Achievements. The 2022 recipients are Wally Funk for Lifetime Achievement and the Mars Ingenuity Helicopter Team for Current Achievement; they will receive their awards at a ceremony March 24 at the museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia.
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WASHINGTON (Frank Lucas/Brian Babin PR) — House Science, Space, and Technology Committee Ranking Member Frank Lucas joined Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee Ranking Member Brian Babin in a letter to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) requesting information on their attempts to expand their role in commercial space accident investigations. Concurrently, Babin introduced a resolution to reiterate that commercial space launch is a developmental activity, rather than a mode of transportation.
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WASHINGTON (Nov. 16, 2021) — The National Transportation Safety Board has proposed codifying its investigative procedures for commercial space accidents and incidents, it announced through a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking published in the Federal Register Tuesday.
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by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor
Today, Sept. 27, marks the 15th anniversary of Richard Branson announcing the launch of Virgin Galactic Airways. It’s been a long, winding road between that day and today, filled with many broken promises, missed deadlines, fatal accidents and a pair of spaceflights.
This year actually marks a double anniversary: it’s been 20 years since Branson registered the company and began searching for a vehicle the company could use to fly tourists into suborbital space.
Below is a timeline of the important events over that period.
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by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor
Well, it’s not the famous winter of Game of Thrones, but the 14-day lunar night has arrived where India’s Vikram lander and Pragyan rover made what IRSO officials have called a “hard landing” two weeks ago with no communication between them and ground controllers.
Since neither vehicle was designed to survive the frigid temperatures of the lunar night, the Indian space agency has called it a day in a rather bare bones announcement.
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HAWTHORNE, Calif. (SpaceX PR) — On Saturday, April 20, 2019 at 18:13 UTC, SpaceX conducted a series of static fire engine tests of the Crew Dragon In-Flight Abort test vehicle on a test stand at SpaceX’s Landing Zone 1, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
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