The competition heats up: Bigelow and SpaceX announced today that they are teaming up to offer manned flights to space.
Republican space socialism update.
Simberg summarizes well the foolishness coming from Congress when it comes to budgeting NASA and commercial space.
The competition heats up: Sierra Nevada outlines its test flight plans for Dream Chaser, its reusable manned mini-shuttle.
Winter on Mars has finally ended, and Opportunity is on the move again.
The competition continues to heat up: ATK today announced that it is building its own manned capsule for its Liberty launch system.
The capsule’s first two flights are scheduled in 2014, both abort tests, followed in 2015 by an orbital flight and, finally, a crewed orbital flight. The spacecraft is designed for ten flights each, and ATK plans to build a minimum of four capsules. All flights will be launched by the Liberty launcher, and ATK is not actively exploring adapting the capsule for other [launch vehicles].
Liberty is based on the upgraded shuttle solid rocket boosters that were developed for the Ares rocket, now cancelled.
Curiosity takes a picture of itself on its way to Mars.
It just keeps going and going: Air Force officials declare the on-going X-37B mission, now over 400 days long, “a spectacular success.”
The twenty-five coolest garages in the world.
Any society that can still afford this is not yet completely doomed.
The commercial space industry continues to heat up: A space tug to bring secondary commercial payloads to different orbits.
The SpaceX test launch of Dragon to ISS has now been rescheduled for May 19.
The competition heating up: Aerojet successfully completed a hot-fire test yesterday of its AJ26 engine, to be used in Orbital Sciences Antares rocket.
Using the Moon as a mirror.
Boeing’s CST-100 commercial manned capsule successfully completed its second parachute drop test from 14,000 feet on Wednesday.
Europe has decided to build a probe to study Ganymede, Callisto and Europa, Jupiter’s big icy moons.
Known as JUICE, the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, the probe will enter orbit around the gas giant planet in 2030 for a series of flybys of Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. JUICE will brake into orbit around Ganymede, Jupiter’s largest moon, in 2032 for at least one year of close-up research.
The battle to simplify and ease the United State”s international trade laws heats up.
Want to find something different? Use a search engine that intentionally skips the top million results.
The competition continues to heat up: Europe considers building its own reusable suborbital space plane.
The test flight of Falcon 9/Dragon to ISS will almost certainly not launch on May 7.
It appears they need more time to assess the results of the static engine test on Monday.
Some reasonable and unreasonable theories for what the X-37B is doing in orbit.
SEC documents have revealed that the total development costs for Orbital Sciences’ Antares rocket have increased to $472 million, $184 million more than what NASA is paying them.
That the company has been willing to commit these extra funds to develop Antares suggests to me that they see a commercial value for the rocket that will exceed these costs. Or to put it more bluntly, they see a market for their rocket that will pay for their investment, and then some.
SpaceX’s static fire test of the Falcon 9 still set for 3 pm today.
I will be discussing this story and the mining of asteroids on The Space Show today, even as this static fire occurs. Don’t forget to tune in.
Update: the static firing appears to have been a success, after an initial abort.
The construction of Freedom Tower will today finally exceed the Empire State Building, making it the tallest building in New York.
The best memorial to those killed on September 11th is to rebuild, and to rebuild bigger and better.
A good hack: MIT students last week turned a 21-story building into a huge game of Tetris. More here, including links to video.
Blue Origin and Sierra Nevada have successfully completed wind tunnel tests of their commercial manned spaceships.
In closing down its ATV cargo freighter assembly line, Europe considers its next manned space project.
ESA and NASA have been discussing how ESA might compensate NASA for Europe’s 8.3 percent share of the international space station’s future operating charges. Until about 2017, the agency is repaying NASA, as the station’s general contractor, through launches of European Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) cargo ships to the station. But with the station partners now all but committed to operating the station at least through 2020, ESA is searching for another “barter element” to succeed ATV.
NASA has said a propulsion module for the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle would fill ESA’s obligations to NASA, which have been estimated at about 450 million euros ($600 million) over three years.
But several ESA members, notably France and Italy, have argued that the Orion module, which would use ATV-derived technologies, does not provide sufficient technology interest or public impact. Instead, these governments have proposed development of a vehicle that would perform multiple tasks in low Earth orbit, including debris removal.
Want to watch the launch of Falcon 9/Dragon? Here’s the low down.
Three astronauts have returned safely to Earth in their Soyuz capsule after spending 165 days on ISS.
The financial foolishness in Congress, by Republicans this time, continues. In making its budget recommendations for NASA, the report [pdf] of the House Appropriations Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies subcommittee also demands that NASA immediately choose one commercial company for its commercial space program. (Hat tip to Clark Lindsey for spotting this.)
The number of ways this action is counter-productive almost can’t be counted.
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News you can use: Five things you didn’t know about Silly Putty.
