The container used to ship a Soyuz capsule to Baikonur was damaged in transport. No word yet on the condition of the capsule, which was scheduled for a December launch to ISS.
The space tourism company Xcor today signed a deal to fly suborbital flights as soon as 2014 from the island of Curaçao in the Netherlands Antilles.
NASA’s technology chief said today that despite the specific demands Congress included in its authorization bill, NASA will make its own decision on the kind of heavy-lift rocket it wants to build.
The Lunar X Prize award for putting the first privately funded robot on the Moon by 2012 is now set at $30 million.
Using the data gathered by Rosetta in its fly-by of the asteroid Lutetia in July, scientists have concluded that the 60 mile diameter asteroid is covered with a deep layer of dusty debris, as much as 2000 feet deep.
The HiRise Camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has released some wonderful new pictures, showing what are called barchan dunes on Mars.
Barchans are crescent-shaped, with the horns of the crescents pointing downwind. One barchan is visible in the upper part of the image, with the Southeast (lower right) horns longer than the other. This trend, along with the position of the steep face of the dune on the South side, indicates that the predominant winds which formed the dunes came from the North.
There are a lot more great images on the websites above.
The second Chinese probe to the Moon did more than take off on Friday. It also rained pieces of metal down on a Chinese villages in Suichuan County, Jiangxi, China.
Virgin Galactic, the company that is building a suborbital rocket to put tourists in space, appears to be delaying the development of its orbital launching system.
Meanwhile, the company resumed capture carry flights of WhiteKnightTwo, with SpaceShipTwo attached, with a five hour test flight on Thursday.
How dare you succeed! The EPA has fined SpaceX $45,600 for hazardous waste violations.
What does this have to do with engineering? Under a plan released by the Obama adminstration today, automakers will be required to magically achieve substantially higher fuel efficiency — between 47 and 62 miles per gallon — by 2025.
ATK lays off 426 employees today.
An evening pause: August 2, 2010: The first flight of a human powered ornithopter, an aircraft propelled by flapping wings.
Here’s a further update on SpaceX’s plans for the second test launch of its Falcon 9 rocket, now set for November 8.
Faced with the loss of the space shuttle yet committed to the ISS at least through 2020, the European Space Agency is moving forward in its plans to upgrade its Automated Transfer Vehicle, which is only able to bring cargo to ISS, to what they call an Advanced Re-entry Vehicle, which will be able to also bring cargo back.
A Russian company says it plans to launch its own commercial space station by 2016.
New world speed record — 96.5 miles per hour — for lawnmowers.
NASA climate scientist James Hansen was arrested yesterday in a Washington, D.C. protest against mountaintop mining.
Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic said today that his company is on schedule to begin flying the first tourist flights in eighteen months.
New details about the Chilean miner rescue.
After a 24 hour delay due to an undocking problem, the Soyuz capsule with its three astronauts landed safely last night without a hitch.
The scheduled return of three astronauts on a Soyuz spacecraft has been delayed tonight because of a malfunction in the docking port.
Update: The return to Earth has definitely been canceled for tonight. The problem was caused when latches on the Soyuz, designed to secure it safely to ISS, refused to release on command. As of 12:43 am the plan was to recycle and try to land on Friday evening.
Who says space exploration is dead? Sometime in November researchers will conduct the first zero gravity tests of the world’s first beer to be certified for drinking in space. The tests will take place during suborbital flights of what is commonly known as the Vomit Comet. Key quote:
Sampling the beer during weightless parabolas, the flight researcher will record both qualitative data on beverage taste and drinkability and biometric data on body temperature, heart rate, and blood alcohol content.
Check out the first do-it-yourself satellite. It is 60 cubic inches in size and cost only $500 to build.
SpaceX has delayed the second Falcon 9 test launch, which includes the first test of the Dragon capsule, until November 8, at the soonest.
Who da thunk it? Internal combustion engine wins fuel efficiency contest, beating out both hybrids and electric cars.
On August 9, 2010 the camera on Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter took some routine calibration images and captured the Earth from lunar orbit, showing the western hemisphere with relatively little cloud cover. The picture below is a tiny piece from that global image, cropped to show the United States. The details are pretty remarkable, considering the distance. You can explore the full global image in detail here.
A photo gallery showing the space shuttle Discovery’s last rollout from the VAB to the launchpad on Monday.
An evening pause: Here’s another Rube Goldberg machine, this time created for a music video from the band OK Go.
Despite the program’s budget uncertainties, testing by NASA of the Orion capsule continues.
