Want to know why Arianespace has never made a profit? Read this story.
Want to know why Arianespace has never made a profit? Read this story.
The story itself is not about Arianespace, but about the agencies that run it.
Tag: competition
Russia considers building a heavy-lift rocket, even as it completes the design and construction of its new Angara commercial rocket family.
The competition heats up: Russia considers building a heavy-lift rocket, even as it completes the design and construction of its new Angara commercial rocket family.
The headline of the article focuses on the heavy-lift rocket, but the meat of the article is its details on Angara, which is expected to make its first launch in 2014.
For a variety of reasons, SpaceX and NASA have agreed to delay the next Dragon cargo mission a few weeks to no early than March 16.
For a variety of reasons, SpaceX and NASA have agreed to delay the next Dragon cargo mission a few weeks to no early than March 16.
It looks like it was a combination of minor issues that, when piled up, called for a delay.
Congress hovers over commercial space like a vulture
We’re here to help you: A House subcommittee held hearings yesterday to consider updating the Commercial Space Launch Act that regulates the commercial space tourism industry.
Forgive me if I am pessimistic about anything Congress might do. So far, every time they have updated the law Congress has increased the regulatory regimen, making it harder and more expensive for these companies to get started. Consider these words from Donna Edwards (D-Maryland), the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee:
» Read more
The public battle between Virgin Galactic and the author of a critical new biography of Richard Branson.
The public battle between Virgin Galactic and the author of a new biography of Richard Branson that raises serious doubts about the company.
Bottom line: The facts still suggest strongly that the company is having serious problems with SpaceShipTwo’s engines.
The legs for Falcon 9’s first stage.
The legs for Falcon 9’s first stage.
They might make their first flight on the next supply mission to ISS, now scheduled for no earlier than March 1.
What life has been like for one engineer who works at SpaceX.
What life has been like for one engineer who works at SpaceX.
Key quote:
According to Pearce, the best and the worst things about working for Musk are actually the same. “He doesn’t feel the need to make reasonable requests,” Pearce says. “The whole idea of SpaceX is not reasonable. The idea that a dot-com millionaire could take [US] $100 million and start a rocket company that within 13 years would be taking supplies to the International Space Station, that’s on track to take crew to the International Space Station — that’s not reasonable.”
But SpaceX did it.
The head of Russia’s space agency is in Vostochny to review the construction of Russia’s new spaceport there.
The competition heats up: The head of Russia’s space agency is in Vostochny to review the construction of Russia’s new spaceport there.
In a spacewalk earlier this week, two Russian astronauts on ISS successfully installed the commercial UrtheCast cameras.
In a spacewalk earlier this week, two Russian astronauts on ISS successfully installed the commercial UrtheCast cameras.
The cameras cost $17-million and are capable of beaming down images and high-definition video from the Russian part of the ISS to UrtheCast, a small Vancouver company that struck a deal with the Russian space agency to have its devices blasted into space on a Soyuz rocket and installed in exchange for imagery captured over Russia.
There had been a problem installing these cameras on an earlier spacewalk last month, so this was the second attempt.
Once operational, these cameras will also provide a continuous and free live feed of the Earth for anyone who wishes to view it.
A Kazakhstan political party is demanding the end of all launches from Baikonur.
Trouble in Russia: A Kazakhstan political party is demanding the end of all Proton launches from Baikonur.
Though I doubt this party’s radical and somewhat ignorant environmental position will gain much traction in a country where Russia’s spaceport is one of its biggest employees, its existence demonstrates why Russia is working hard to get its new spaceport in Vostochny, Russia, finished as quickly as possible.
Sierra Nevada sets November 2016 as the date for its first orbital flight of Dream Chaser.
The competition heats up: Sierra Nevada has now set November 2016 as the date for its first orbital flight of Dream Chaser.
The flight will be unmanned, followed by a manned mission the next year.
Virgin Galactic today announced the successful testing of their own new rocket engine.
The competition heats up: Virgin Galactic today announced the successful testing of their own new rocket engine.
Virgin Galactic, the world’s first commercial spaceline, announced today that it has reached a significant milestone in the testing of a new family of liquid rocket engines for LauncherOne, the company’s small satellite launch vehicle. As part of a rapid development program, Virgin Galactic has now hot-fired both a 3,500 lbf thrust rocket engine and a 47,500 lbf thrust rocket engine, called the “NewtonOne” and “NewtonTwo” respectively. Further, the NewtonOne engine has successfully completed a full-mission duty cycle on the test stand, firing for the five-minute duration expected of the upper stage engine on a typical flight to orbit. These tests are being conducted on two new state-of-the-art test stands that the team designed, assembled and installed internally. [emphasis mine]
Though they say that these engines are for their orbital rocket, not SpaceShipTwo, I find it interesting that their development was in-house, not by Scaled Composites which has so far been building everything for Virgin Galactic. Moreover, note the highlighted words, “rapid development program.” Though you should never be leisurely about this stuff in order to compete, giving this particular title to this engine program suggests they are in a particular hurry to develop it.
Both factoids suggest again that they are not happy with the performance of the hybrid engines Scaled Composites built for them, under their direction, and are now working hard to replace them.