Tag: commercial-space
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Amazon’s Jeff Bezos compares space to internet, and he’ll build the infrastructure
Jeff Bezos says he plans to spend his “Amazon winnings” on Blue Origin’s effort to build the heavy lifting infrastructure for space ventures. (Credit: Blue Origin) Amazon founder Jeff Bezos says he’s trying to do for outer-space ventures what delivery services and the internet did for him: provide the “heavy lifting infrastructure” that will make it…
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Orbital ATK books Proton rocket for first commercial satellite servicing mission
Artist’s concept of Orbital ATK’s Mission Extension Vehicle docked with a commercial communications satellite. Credit: Orbital ATK Armed with capital and an anchor customer for a trailblazing satellite life extension service, Orbital ATK has signed a contract to loft its first robotic servicing tug aboard a Russian Proton rocket in 2018 on a shared launch…
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Spaceflight signs up Google’s Terra Bella for satellite launch on SpaceX rocket
An artist’s conception shows Terra Bella’s SkySat satelltes in orbit. (Credit: Terra Bella) Seattle-based Spaceflight Industries says it’s made a deal with Terra Bella to have the Google subsidiary’s Earth-observing satellites launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket next year. The agreement makes Terra Bella, which was known as Skybox Imaging before Google bought it…
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Critical Antares rocket launch set for Friday night
A view of the Antares rocket and Cygnus spacecraft (right) undergoing final preparations for this week’s launch. Credit: Orbital ATK The debut launch of an upgraded version of Orbital ATK’s Antares rocket has slipped to Friday after ground teams resolved a minor vehicle issue and made emergency preparations for Hurricane Matthew, which bypassed the Antares…
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Stratolaunch announces plan to fly with Pegasus rockets
An artist’s concept of Stratolaunch’s carrier aircraft with three Pegasus rockets. Credit: Stratolaunch Systems Stratolaunch Systems, a company backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, will launch Pegasus XL rockets produced by Orbital ATK from the world’s largest airplane as officials shift focus toward deploying lighter satellites into orbit. Stratolaunch and Orbital ATK announced the “production-based”…
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Jeff Bezos marks retirement of Blue Origin New Shepard space capsule with a tortoise
A worker at Blue Origin stencils the seventh and last tortoise onto what Jeff Bezos calls a “hardy and stalwart” New Shepard space capsule. (Credit: Jeff Bezos via Twitter) After seven launches, Blue Origin’s first New Shepard suborbital space capsule is getting a send-off from the company’s founder, Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos. To celebrate last…
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Paul Allen’s Stratolaunch teams up (again) with Orbital ATK on air-launched rockets
An artist’s rendering shows the Stratolaunch twin-fuselage airplane with Orbital ATK’s Pegasus XL air-launch vehicles slung underneath. (Credit: Vulcan Aerospace) Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s Stratolaunch Systems has renewed its partnership with Orbital ATK on a platform that will make use of the world’s biggest airplane to launch rockets into orbit. Allen started up Stratolaunch five…
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Privately-developed rocket aces abort test
Blue Origin, the space company founded by Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos, launched a dramatic flight test over West Texas on Wednesday to verify the performance of an escape system on its reusable suborbital launcher designed to loft space tourists, researchers and commercial astronauts on short rides to the edge of space. The stubby, single-stage New Shepard…
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Privately-developed rocket aces abort test
Blue Origin, the space company founded by Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos, launched a dramatic flight test over West Texas on Wednesday to verify the performance of an escape system on its reusable suborbital launcher designed to loft space tourists, researchers and commercial astronauts on short rides to the edge of space. The stubby, single-stage New Shepard…
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‘One hell of a booster’: Blue Origin’s spaceship totally survives what should have been a fiery flight
The payload capsule on Blue Origin’s New Shepard spaceship lights up its in-flight escape rocket motor and separates from the booster below. (Credit: Blue Origin) Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos is a happy man today, now that the wildest test flight ever conducted by his Blue Origin space venture has ended in the safe landing of an empty crew capsule…