The test has now validated the startup’s patented design and manufacturing methodology.

A space-tech startup headquartered in Chennai, India, successfully test-fired the world’s single-piece 3D-printed engine.

Elen11/iStock.

Agnikul Cosmos on Tuesday said that Agnilet was test-fired at the Vertical Test Facility, Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS), at Vikram Sarabhai Space Center (VSSC), Thiruvananthapuram. The test was supported by ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) and IN-SPACe, a nodal agency for promoting and regulating space players.

Circa 2012 face_with_colon_three

It’s not quite warp drive, but researchers are hot on the trail of building nuclear fusion impulse engines, complete with real-life dilithium crystals.

Virgin Galactic, while fighting delays in returning tourists to space, is building for the future.

The new class of space tourist ship for Virgin Galactic, called Delta, is coming together with a new deal to fly Axiom Space astronauts along with contracts to secure key suppliers, the company said in press releases this week. Delta may fly as frequently as once a week and is slated to enter service in 2026.

NASA and China plan to mount crewed missions to Mars in the next decade. While this represents a tremendous leap in terms of space exploration, it also presents significant logistical and technological challenges.

For starters, missions can only launch for Mars every 26 months when our two planets are at the closest points in their orbit to each other (during an “Opposition”). Using current technology, it would take six to nine months to transit from Earth to Mars.

Even with nuclear-thermal or nuclear-electric propulsion (NTP/NEP), a one-way transit could take 100 days to reach Mars.

Spaceship Neptune is the latest space tourism venture for a company is planning balloon flights to the edge of space.

SpaceX and NASA are gearing up towards the first crewed lunar landing since Apollo 17 in 1972.

NASA deputy associate administrator Mark Kirasich spoke highly of SpaceX’s progress on Starship in a subcommittee meeting of NASA’s Advisory Council on Monday, October 31, as per an Ars Technica report.

Now, Kirasich has provided an update on SpaceX’s fully reusable Starship launch system, stating that the private space firm is building one of its next-generation Raptor engines every day.

SpaceX / Twitter.

In 2021, NASA awarded SpaceX a $2.9 billion contract to build a modified version of Starship as a lunar lander for its upcoming Artemis III mission.

In the past 30 days, SpaceX has completed 8 orbital launches. If they kept this up for a year, they would be doing 8 12 = 96 which is about their goal for next year. To give you an idea of how fast SpaceX is growing, last year, SpaceX only did 31 launches which was a record for them.

Even more impressive, one of these launches was a Falcon Heavy which is basically 3 Falcon 9’s tied together. So SpaceX completed 10 orbital launches of Falcon 9s in the past 30 days which would be a rate of 120 Falcon 9 orbital launches per year!

A history of orbital rocket launches.