Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity space plane soared into sub-orbit on Thursday (November 2), marking the fifth commercial flight for the company and the sixth such flight for the reusable craft in the past half-year.

SANTA FE, N.M., November 9, 2021 (Solstar Space PR) – Solstar Space, the company making persistent space-based communications available, announced that it has opened a new regulation crowdfunding campaign on WeFunder. Solstar is continuing the development and delivery of suborbital and orbital communications systems for humans, payloads, IoT sensors, and spacecraft. 

“As space becomes increasingly congested, space-based communications systems are crucial,” says M. Brian Barnett, Founder and CEO, Solstar Space. “Connectivity is challenging during suborbital and orbital missions. We are designing communications solutions that make using your smartphone in space as easy as it is on Earth. Connecting people and spacecraft to resources in space and on the ground is essential for safety, and for extending space exploration, space medicine, monitoring human performance, and on orbit communications. We are continuing the development and engineering of these important solutions,” explains Barnett. 

SpaceShipTwo motor donated to the National Air & Space Museum. (Credit: Virgin Galactic)

WASHINGTON, 7 Feb 2019 (Virgin Galactic PR) — Richard Branson joined Virgin Galactic and The Spaceship Company (TSC) staff and guests today at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC, to announce that the hybrid rocket motor which powered SpaceShipTwo, VSS Unity, to space for the first time on December 13th last year, has been donated to the museum. The rocket motor was unveiled during the ceremony and will be exhibited in the museum’s planned, new commercial space flight gallery to be called ‘Future of Spaceflight.’

(more…)

SpaceShipTwo glides to a landing at Mojave Air and Space Port. (Credit: Virgin Galactic)

Nicholas Schmidle has an interesting profile of Virgin Galactic test pilot Mark Stucky in the New Yorker that sheds some light on what’s been going on at Richard Branson’s space company. I’ve excerpted some interesting passages below.

If you’ve been watching the videos of  SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity‘s first three powered flights and thinking to yourself, Gee, it looks like that thing really wants to roll…well, you’d be right. Here’s an account of the first flight on April 5.
(more…)

Stephen Hawking

Professor Stephen Hawking
Recorded Message
VSS Unity Roll Out
Mojave Air & Space Port
19 February 2016

I have always dreamt of space flight. But for so many years, I thought it was just that – a dream. Confined to Earth and in a wheelchair, how could I experience the majesty of space except through imagination and my work in theoretical physics. I never thought I would have the opportunity to see our beautiful planet from space or gaze outward into the infinity beyond. This was the domain of astronauts, the lucky few who get to experience the wonder and thrill of space flight.

(more…)

A video of Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides appearance on the John Batchelor Show on Wednesday. David Livingston of The Space Show co-hosts.

The battle of singing space divas is on!

In this corner, British soprano Sarah Brightman, who is paying $52 million to fly to the International Space Station in September 2015.

And in the other corner, the always interesting and frequently controversial Lady Gaga, scheduled to blast into space aboard Richard Branson’s SpaceShipTwo as part of the Zero G Colony music festival in early 2015.

Wait? What? How could Brightman get there first if Gaga is flying earlier?

Good question.

(more…)

XCOR has begun a series of posts on its blog that will allow readers to follow the building and testing of the Lynx Mark 1 space plane. We would like to share that experience with you, and share what excites and motivates our team in developing Lynx. We will bring you the story daily, a piece at a time, all the way through the flight test program to first commercial […]

For anyone who missed this art exhibit when it was down in Riverside, you can now catch it at the Museum of Art and History in Lancaster starting on Saturday. August 3, 2013 – October 13, 2013 First Floor | Main Gallery Public reception Saturday, August 3, 4-6pm. Free Enterprise: The Art of Citizen Space Exploration is the first contemporary art exhibition in the U.S. to present an international array […]