Tag: Space
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For the first time, Blue Origin has ignited an orbital rocket stage
Twenty days after it rolled out to Blue Origin’s launch site in Florida, the second stage of the massive New Glenn rocket underwent a successful hot-fire test on Monday. The second stage—known as GS2 for Glenn stage 2—ignited for 15 seconds as part of the “risk reduction” hot-fire test, the company said. The two BE-3U…
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A Chinese rocket narrowly missed a landing on Sunday—the video is amazing
A Chinese space startup conducted what it called a “high-altitude” test flight of its Nebula-1 rocket on Sunday, launching the vehicle to an altitude of about 5 km or so before attempting to land it back at the Ejin Banner Spaceport in Inner Mongolia. The test flight went well for about two and a half…
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One company appears to be thriving as part of NASA’s return to the Moon
One of the miracles of the Apollo Moon landings is that they were televised, live, for all the world to see. This transparency diffused doubts about whether the lunar landings really happened and were watched by billions of people. However, as remarkable a technical achievement as it was to broadcast from the Moon in 1969,…
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Rocket Report: Eutelsat’s surprising decision; Europe complains about SpaceX again
Welcome to Edition 7.12 of the Rocket Report! For once, a week with not all that much launch news. Among the highlights were Eutelsat’s surprise announcement of a deal with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, SpaceX’s ongoing war with the FAA, and Europe identifying a straightforward solution to the upper stage problem on Ariane 6’s debut launch…
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A key NASA commercial partner faces severe financial challenges
Axiom Space is facing significant financial headwinds as the company attempts to deliver on two key commercial programs for NASA—the development of a private space station in low-Earth orbit and spacesuits that could one day be worn by astronauts on the Moon. Forbes reports that Axiom Space, which was founded by billionaire Kam Ghaffarian and…
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So what are we to make of the highly ambitious, private Polaris spaceflight?
A white spacecraft, lightly toasted like a marshmallow and smelling of singed metal, fell out of the night sky early on Sunday morning and splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico not all that far from Key West. The darkened waters there were carefully chosen from among dozens of potential landing spots near Florida. This…
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Polaris Dawn takes to the skies, setting the stage for a daring private spacewalk
A Falcon 9 rocket streaked into the black predawn sky above Florida on Tuesday, carrying four people on the most ambitious private human spaceflight to date. The crew of the Polaris Dawn mission, led by a billionaire pilot named Jared Isaacman, were injected into an orbit intended to reach an apogee of 1,200 km and…
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Faced with a tight deadline, NASA and Blue Origin agree to delay New Glenn debut
NASA and Blue Origin announced Friday that they have agreed to delay the launch of the ESCAPADE mission to Mars until at least the spring of 2025. The decision to stand down from a launch attempt in mid-October was driven by a deadline to begin loading hypergolic propellant on the two small ESCAPADE (Escape and…
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Rocket Report: Falcon 9 lifts its 7,000th Starlink; ABL cuts deep
Welcome to Edition 7.10 of the Rocket Report! It has been a big week for seeing new hardware from Blue Origin. We’ve observed the second stage of New Glenn rolling out to its launch pad in Florida, and the rocket’s first stage recovery ship, Jacklyn, arriving at a nearby port. It looks like the pieces…
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Artificial intelligence is going full circle — from fiction to science, and back again
A teenager is left in charge of a Mars base in one of “The Year’s Top Hard Science Fiction Stories.” (Illustration by Maurizio Manzieri / Infinivox) Artificial intelligence has had an effect on nearly every facet of modern life — ranging from diagnosing diseases, to applying for a job, to deciding which movie to watch. Now it’s reaching…