Tag: commercial-space
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Bigelow Aerospace and ULA plan to launch supersized space station module in 2020
An artist’s conception shows the B330 space module in Earth orbit. (Credit: Bigelow Aerospace) DENVER – Bigelow Aerospace and United Launch Alliance have announced a plan to launch Bigelow’s B330 expandable space module aboard an Atlas 5 rocket in 2020, to serve as a destination for commercial operations in orbit. Today’s announcement at the Space Symposium…
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Moon Express asks FAA to review its plans for Google Lunar X Prize landing in 2017
An artist’s conception shows the Moon Express MX-1 spacecraft orbiting the moon in preparation for landing. (Credit: Moon Express) Moon Express, the lunar exploration venture backed by Seattle tech entrepreneur Naveen Jain, says it’s asking the Federal Aviation Administration to conduct a payload review of its spacecraft and plans for a mission to the moon…
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Video: Jeff Bezos shares drone’s-eye view of Blue Origin spaceship’s flight
A view from above shows Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket ship rising from its West Texas launch pad. (Credit: Blue Origin) Saturday’s test flight of Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital spaceship marked lots of milestones, including the first time a drone captured video of its launch from above. Those kinds of views have long been provided by SpaceX,…
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Jeff Bezos live-tweets ‘flawless’ test flight of Blue Origin’s New Shepard spaceship
Blue Origin’s New Shepard fires its BE-4 rocket engine for a soft vertical landing at the end of the April 2 flight. (Credit: Blue Origin) Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos served as launch commentator today for a risky but successful third flight of Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket ship to space and back. He even worked…
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Jeff Bezos lets the world know about Blue Origin’s craziest spaceship test flight yet
Workers prepare Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket ship for its next test flight. (Credit: Jeff Bezos via Twitter) Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos says his Blue Origin rocket venture will put its New Shepard suborbital spaceship to its sternest test to date: a flight that involves a quick restart of the craft’s rocket engine just six seconds…
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Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin highlight small steps toward giant space leaps
Virgin Galactic’s second SpaceShipTwo rocket plane, known as VSS Unity, is brought out from its hangar in Mojave, Calif. A portion of the plane’s WhiteKnightTwo mothership can be seen at the right edge of the frame. (Credit: Virgin Galactic) In the past few weeks, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic space venture and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin…
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Legislation aimed at boosting Washington state’s space industry fizzles out
Engineers work on a spaceship crew capsule at Blue Origin’s production facility in Kent, Wash. (Credit: Blue Origin) Two measures that would have lent a hand to Washington state’s fledgling space industry have been stalled in committee and aren’t likely to win approval during the state Legislature’s current session, the bills’ sponsor said today. “We’re having such a…
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Jeff Bezos lifts curtain on Blue Origin rocket factory, lays out grand plan for space travel that spans hundreds of years
Billionaire Jeff Bezos stands beside the copper nozzle for a BE-4 rocket engine at Blue Origin’s production facility in Kent, Wash., while journalists snap pictures. (GeekWire photo by Alan Boyle) KENT, Wash. – For the first time, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos guided a pack of journalists around his Blue Origin rocket factory today and showed off hardware…
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Wayward boat gets blamed after SpaceX aborts Falcon 9 rocket liftoff at last second
A launch pad camera shows the Falcon 9 rocket’s engines flaring during a last-second shutdown. (Credit: SpaceX via YouTube) A wayward boat and a load of liquid oxygen that got too warm forced SpaceX to abort what might have been a successful launch of the SES-9 telecommunication satellite today, just as the engines were firing up. The…
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SpaceX holds up on SES-9 satellite launch (and rocket landing) just before liftoff
A SpaceX Falcon 9 sits on its launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. (Credit: SpaceX) For the second day in a row, SpaceX scrubbed the launch of the SES-9 telecommunications satellite as well as the Falcon 9 rocket landing attempt that was due to follow. The abort came with just 1 minute and…