Human Spaceflight
Bigelow’s promise: More space at less cost with inflatable space habitats
We’ve all seen or played in one of those inflatable bounce houses at a carnival or a friend’s birthday party. Now just imagine a bounce house that you can live inside of in outer space. While much more advanced than a bounce house, that’s what Bigelow Aerospace is pursuing. They are designing and building inflatable …
Abandon in place: Betty Grissom’s last visit to Apollo 1 memorial?
Is Gus Grissom’s widow herself about to “abandon in place” the memorial vigil she has maintained over the last 48 years since the fiery death suffered by her husband, Astronaut Commander Virgil “Gus” Grissom and fellow astronauts Roger Chaffee and Ed White back in 1967 at Pad 34 Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS)? They …
Boeing’s CST-100 passes two new milestones in development
The Boeing Company recently announced the completion of more developmental requirements for their Crew Space Transportation 100 (CST-100) spacecraft that includes a software safety test and hardware design review. Passing this phase of testing is considered a milestone for a company that is competing to return flights of astronauts from U.S soil in the coming …
NASA observes Day of Remembrance
Earlier today NASA paid tribute to the crews of Apollo 1 and Space Shuttles Challenger and Columbia, as well as other NASA colleagues, during the agency’s Day of Remembrance. NASA’s Day of Remembrance honors members of the NASA family who lost their lives while furthering the cause of exploration and discovery. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden …
Virgin Galactic’s SS2 soars during supersonic test flight
Virgin Galactic, the world’s first commercial spaceline, successfully completed on January 11 the third rocket-powered supersonic flight of its passenger carrying reusable space vehicle, SpaceShipTwo (SS2). In command on the flight deck of SS2 for the first time under rocket power was Virgin Galactic’s Chief Pilot Dave Mackay. Mackay, along with Scaled Composites’ (Scaled) Test …
Lynx spacecraft to give big boost to space tourism
Like a scene out of a futuristic movie, imagine an airplane that could take off from a runway, fly sub-orbital, and return to the ground with a runway landing. The concept seemed pretty far-fetched not even ten years ago. Now, a handful of commercial spaceflight companies are breathing life into what was once only sentiment. …
Lynx spacecraft making big screen debut
There is a lot of excitement coming in the near future for the Lynx spacecraft and everyone involved in its development at XCOR Aerospace. In a partnership with Centerboro Productions, XCOR’s Lynx spacecraft is going to be making its acting debut in the upcoming Science Fiction/Action/Thriller 3D movie “Newcomers”, where a NASA astronaut becomes the last …
Dream Chaser nears piloted tests
On Oct. 26, 2013, Sierra Nevada Corporation put their Dream Chaser engineering test article through its first free flight Approach and Landing Test, or ALT-1, at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center in southern California. The important flight test, a first since the late 1970s with NASA’s space shuttle test article Enterprise, performed flawlessly up until …
Bond’s Skylon to achieve dream of single-stage-to-orbit vehicle
In the UK’s Oxfordshire country-side, the legacy of British invention is being passed from Sir Frank Whittle to a new group of dedicated aerospace engineers and one man in particular; Alan Bond. The long held dream of UK spaceflight is coming closer to reality, and his dream could be a game-changer. Despite decades of lacklustre …
How the Skylon fleet would operate
A fleet of Skylon vehicles can operate from a spaceport. A Vehicle Loading Hall receives and processes payloads which are installed in the Skylon payload bay. Skylon is then towed to the spaceport’s Refuelling Apron. Liquid Oxygen and Liquid Hydrogen propellants are loaded through connections in the wheel wells. Skylon is towed to the runway for …