Commercial Space – Page 151

NASA spells out support for SpaceX’s Red Dragon Mars mission

July 29, 2016 Stephen Clark

If SpaceX is able to dispatch a robotic Dragon capsule to land on the red planet in 2018 on time and successfully, engineers stand to get a lesson on what it will take to eventually send humans there, capturing key data on an untested Mars landing scheme a decade sooner than NASA could do it, space agency officials said this week.

Blue Origin flies reusable suborbital rocket for fourth time

June 19, 2016 Stephen Clark

Blue Origin’s suborbital space transport system made another test flight Sunday, launching and landing at the company’s West Texas test facility to prove out the crew capsule’s resiliency to a parachute failure.

Bigelow’s station habitat to be expanded Thursday

May 25, 2016 Stephen Clark

Space station flight engineer Jeff Williams will send commands Thursday to pump air into an experimental soft-sided module developed by commercial space habitat builder Bigelow Aerospace, expanding the structure to four times its current size in a stepping stone to future orbital destinations. Live video begins at 5:30 a.m. EDT (0930 GMT).

Key return to flight milestone looms for Antares rocket

May 9, 2016 Stephen Clark

Targeting a resumption of Antares cargo launches to the International Space Station as soon as July, Orbital ATK plans to roll out an upgraded Antares rocket to a launch pad in Virginia this week for a 30-second firing of the booster’s new engines.

SpaceX announces plan to send mission to Mars in 2018

April 27, 2016 Stephen Clark

Elon Musk’s space transport company — chartered with a long-term goal of colonizing Mars — plans to send the first commercial mission to the red planet as soon as 2018, SpaceX announced Wednesday.

Orbital ATK eyes Kennedy Space Center as home of potential new launcher

April 21, 2016 Stephen Clark

NASA announced Thursday that Orbital ATK has begun negotiations to lease a disused section of Kennedy Space Center’s iconic Vehicle Assembly Building and an Apollo-era launch platform for the company’s proposed next-generation rocket.

Florida factory to mass-produce satellites at record pace

April 19, 2016 Stephen Clark

OneWeb officials Tuesday unveiled plans for a factory just outside the gates of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida that will churn out up to 15 satellites per week to populate low Earth orbit and beam broadband Internet signals worldwide.

Expandable room installed on space station

April 16, 2016 Stephen Clark

The International Space Station’s robotic arm, under the control of engineers on Earth, extracted an experimental inflatable habitat from the trunk of SpaceX’s Dragon supply ship Saturday and attached it to the orbiting complex.

Blue Origin’s reusable New Shepard booster flies again

January 23, 2016 Stephen Clark

Two months after it flew into space and landed smoothly, Blue Origin’s suborbital New Shepard booster made the trip again Friday, proving it can be reused for future space tourism jaunts and laying the groundwork for a future commercial satellite launcher, the company said.

Round-trip rocket flight gives SpaceX a trifecta of successes

December 22, 2015 Stephen Clark

Flying through the sky at supersonic speed, a Falcon 9 rocket stage descended to a historic landing at Cape Canaveral on Monday, returning to the spaceport minutes after boosting 11 Orbcomm communications satellites toward orbit on SpaceX’s first mission since a major failure in June.