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.
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.
With 3,774 days in space under its belt, the solar-powered X-37B has already traveled more than 1.3 billion miles.
After a record-breaking 908 days in orbit for its sixth mission, a U.S. military drone touched down at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, early on Saturday.
“Since the X-37B’s first launch in 2010, it has shattered records and provided our nation with an unrivaled capability to rapidly test and integrate new space technologies,” stated Jim Chilton, a senior vice president for Boeing, its developer.
Wikimedia Commons.
The tiny space-shuttle X-37B, powered by solar energy carrying out scientific tests, broke the prior mission record, which took 780 days to complete, according to several media reports.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla — An unmanned U.S. military space plane landed early Saturday after spending a record 908 days in orbit for its sixth mission and conducting science experiments.
The solar-powered vehicle, which looks like a miniature space shuttle, landed at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Its previous mission lasted 780 days.
“Since the X-37B’s first launch in 2010, it has shattered records and provided our nation with an unrivaled capability to rapidly test and integrate new space technologies,” said Jim Chilton, a senior vice president for Boeing, its developer.
A Tohoku University researcher has increased the performance of a high-power electrodeless plasma thruster, moving us one step closer to deeper explorations into space.
Innovations in terrestrial transportation technologies, such as cars, trains, and aircraft, have driven historical technologies and industries so far; now, a similar breakthrough is occurring in space thanks to electric propulsion technology.
Electric propulsion is a technique utilizing electromagnetic fields to accelerate a propellant and to generate thrust that propels a spacecraft. Space agencies have pioneered electric propulsion technology as the future of space exploration.
Today we return to the Fermi Paradox to contemplate the notion of civilizations which neither expand outwards to colonize the galaxy nor go extinct, but exist as long-term, high-tech civilizations just on their own planet or solar system. To discuss the possible motives and reasoning we will look at the many arguments raised for and against space exploration.
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Hyderabad-based private space startup, Skyroot Aerospace, is set to launch its, and India’s first private rocket between November 12 and 16 from the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Sriharikota launchpad. The rocket, named Vikram-S, will be the first space launch vehicle manufactured and operated entirely by a private company in the country — making this the first launch of its kind since the union government opened up the space sector for private industry participation in June 2020.
The final date of the launch mission will be confirmed depending on the prevalent weather conditions during the mentioned launch window. Naga Bharath Daka, chief operating officer of Skyroot, confirmed in a statement that the launch mission will be a suborbital spaceflight, and will carry three customer payloads to the intended orbit.
Typically, a suborbital spaceflight refers to a height of around 100km from the Earth surface, and is done at a lower altitude than an orbital flight, which reaches at least a low-Earth orbit — between around 200km to 2,000km from Earth.
Elon feels that Starship is moving too slow so he is now throwing a lot more resources at it.
While Elon Musk earns daily headlines over changes at Twitter, a significant reorganization is underway at his space company’s Texas launch facility.
SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell and vice president Mark Juncosa – two of the most influential executives at the company aside from Musk himself – are now overseeing the facility and operations of the company’s Starbase location, people familiar with the situation told CNBC.
Senior director of Starship operations Shyamal Patel is leaving the site to move to the company’s Cape Canaveral facilities, after spending more than two years working on the next-generation rocket in Texas, those people said. Patel was previously based at the Cape, before a promotion and move to Starbase.
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.
China gave up on their SLS clone, deciding that building a giant rocket that blows up with every mission is a bad idea. Maybe Congress, who is forcing NASA to build the SLS, could learn from this.
When China started to get serious about sending its astronauts to the Moon in the middle of the last decade, the country’s senior rocket scientists began to plan a large booster to do the job.
In 2016 the country’s state-owned rocket developer, the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, began designing the “Long March 9” rocket. It looked more or less like the large heavy lifter NASA was designing at the time, the Space Launch System. Like NASA’s large rocket, the Long March 9 had a core stage and boosters and was intended to be fully expendable.