Firefly tests aerospike engine
The competition heats up: Firefly Space Systems has successfully tested its aerospike engine.
They are, like Virgin Galactic and Rocket Lab, aiming for the smallsat market, and hope to fly their first launch by 2018.
Posted from Los Angeles, where I am stranded for the nighr because my flight to Tucson today was cancelled due to bad weather.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The competition heats up: Firefly Space Systems has successfully tested its aerospike engine.
They are, like Virgin Galactic and Rocket Lab, aiming for the smallsat market, and hope to fly their first launch by 2018.
Posted from Los Angeles, where I am stranded for the nighr because my flight to Tucson today was cancelled due to bad weather.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The aerospike rocket engine dates back to the 1960s, when we had a lot of ideas for space exploration. Most people and articles seem to talk about the linear aerospike – and the article in the post links to a paper on linear aerospikes — but Firefly’s engine looks like the original circular variety. Here is a five-minute video on them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWf4iOMSPNc