Tag: Paul Allen
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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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Internal email: Paul Allen’s top space exec Chuck Beames leaving Vulcan Aerospace
Vulcan Aerospace’s Chuck Beames talks about spaceflight during a 2014 panel discussion in Mojave, Calif., marking the 10th anniversary of SpaceShipOne’s flights. (XPRIZE via YouTube) Aerospace veteran Chuck Beames is leaving his post as president of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s spaceflight company, Vulcan Aerospace. Word of Beames’ departure came from Allen in an internal email…
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Paul Allen’s Stratolaunch lifts veil on world’s biggest plane — a giant bet on a new way to space
This view of Stratolaunch Systems’ hangar at Mojave Air and Space Port in California shows the massive airplane’s left-side fuselage and scaffolding. At least six people are in the picture. To spot them, click on the image and look for the red circles in an enlarged version. (Credit: Vulcan Inc.) MOJAVE, Calif. – When you walk…
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Billionaire Space Club pits Elon Musk vs. Jeff Bezos vs. Richard Branson vs. Paul Allen and more
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (in hat and sunglasses) pops open a bottle of champagne after Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket landing in November. (Credit: Blue Origin) When Jeff Bezos welcomed SpaceX to the rocket landing “club” last week, it set off a round of twittering over whether Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture and fellow billionaire…
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Work continues on Paul Allen’s Stratolaunch plane, but rocket plans are still under wraps
Stratolaunch Systems’ twin-fuselage jet is shown under construction inside a hangar in Mojave, Calif. Vulcan Aerospace released the photo in April. (Credit: Vulcan Aerospace) The world’s largest airplane is taking shape for Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s Vulcan Aerospace venture, but it’s not yet clear what kind of rocket would be launched from the Stratolaunch super-jumbo jet.…
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Alien megastructures? SETI Institute’s Allen Telescope Array targets weirdly winking star
The antennas of the Allen Telescope Array in California is collecting signals from a strange star known as KIC 8462852. (Credit: SETI Institute) One of the premier telescope arrays in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI, is focusing its antennas on an anomalously blinking star, thanks in part to speculation that the star called KIC 8462852 could…
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NTSB’s SpaceShipTwo findings put more pressure on FAA in commercial space
A video screengrab shows SpaceShipTwo’s wings in their “feathered” position moments before the rocket plane’s breakup on Oct. 31, 2014. (Credit: Virgin Galactic / NTSB) The recommendations coming out of a federal investigation of last October’s fatal SpaceShipTwo breakup are likely to add to the challenges facing the commercial spaceflight industry – but they could also provide…
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Paul Allen launches Vulcan Aerospace to make commercial space travel cheaper, accessible
The Stratolaunch carrier vehicle under construction in the hangar at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, Calif. Photo via Vulcan Aerospace. Paul Allen wants to make commercial space travel more convenient and less expensive, and today he launched Vulcan Aerospace to help achieve those goals. Paul Allen. Vulcan Aerospace is a new company from…
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Video: Here’s how Paul Allen’s massive Stratolaunch aircraft will launch rockets into orbit
Stratolaunch Systems, the commercial space venture backed by Paul Allen, has published a new video showing how it plans to send rockets into the sky with the world’s largest plane. The video shows the aircraft, with its six 747 engines and a wingspan greater than the length of a football field, sporting an Orbitial Sciences Corp.…
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Paul Allen discusses the Stratolaunch and sports at U.S. Space & Rocket Center
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen Dressed in a black tuxedo, Paul Allen sat on stage in front of 800 people Wednesday night in Huntsville, Alabama and shared personal insight on a variety of questions. But his words weren’t about new software, cloud computing or the Surface. Rather, the talk focused on two of the billionaire’s other…