Lifeboat Foundation

Through a $57 million contract with NASA, ICON, a company out of Austin, is working to do just that. ICON wants to put a broad spectrum of infrastructure on the moon, which isn’t the easiest place to build.

“First of all, you need to be able to protect the astronauts from the lunar environment which is really a nasty place to live and work. Vacuumed environment, extreme temperature swings, radiation environment, micro-meteoroids, dust protection,” Clinton said. “To produce things like landing pads and roads and blast shields and shelters and habitats.”

Continue reading “Texas-based 3D printing company teaming up with NASA to put buildings on the moon” »

Will the supersonic Dream Chaser soon be competing with Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin in the space-tourism race? That’s the plan—eventually.

Sierra Space is developing the Dream Chaser as the world’s “first and only winged commercial spaceplane.” The aircraft is designed to take off atop a rocket, and then return to Earth on its own wings, landing itself much as the original space shuttle designs.

The radical spaceplane will use New Mexico’s Spaceport America as part of a global network for takeoff and landing with “high-value” payloads.

The first launch of SpaceX’s massive rocket, called Starship, could be coming soon. The company shared a series of photos highlighting the vehicle’s progress ahead of its highly anticipated test flight.

Starship consists of two major components: a massive first-stage booster called the “Super Heavy” and an upper stage known as “Starship.” In typical SpaceX fashion, both aspects of the craft are designed to be fully reusable.

A SpaceX Cargo Dragon 2 spacecraft has safely returned to Earth after delivering several tons of NASA supplies to the International Space Station (ISS).

A little over six weeks after Falcon 9 launched SpaceX’s 26th Commercial Resupply Services 2 (CRS2) mission for NASA, Dragon departed the ISS on January 9th. Efficiently lowering its orbit with several small Draco thrusters took about 36 hours, and reusable Dragon 2 capsule C211 eventually slowed to the point that it began impacting Earth’s atmosphere. Using its ablative heat shield like a brake pad, Dragon slowed from a velocity of 7.5 kilometers per second (16,800 mph) to about 155 meters per second (~350 mph) before beginning parachute deployment.

At 5:19 am on January 11th, the Dragon capsule gently splashed down off the coast of Tampa, Florida, and was quickly secured by a SpaceX recovery ship. Once onboard, the capsule was opened up, and cargo fresh from orbit was loaded onto a helicopter as quickly as possible. That system – primarily created to rapidly transport astronauts back to NASA medical facilities – also means that scientists can get access to their recovered ISS experiments just a handful of hours after Cargo Dragon splashes down.

A researcher at Tohoku University has made significant improvements to a high-power electrodeless plasma.

Plasma is one of the four fundamental states of matter, along with solid, liquid, and gas. It is an ionized gas consisting of positive ions and free electrons. It was first described by chemist Irving Langmuir in the 1920s.

SpaceX’s next Falcon Heavy rocket is in the hangar at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, prepping for a launch in the coming days.

At CES 2023, IE discovered a cutting-edge bioreactor for the future of in-space dining.

The days of tang and freeze-dried ice cream are far gone in the world of space technology. To find ways to grow food in space, organizations, including NASA, JAXA, and the European Space Agency, are collaborating with the food business.

Interesting Engineering (IE) learned from a panel of experts at the Consumer’s Electronic Show (CES) 2023 (Jan .05) the kind of solutions being developed to provide humans food during extended space flight-and eventually, habitation. One particular solution that stood out, turns plastic into consumable food. Yup, you read that right. Engineering (IE) learned from a panel of experts at the Consumer’s Electronic Show (CES) 2023 (Jan .05) the kind of solutions being developed to provide humans food during extended space flight-and eventually, habitation. One particular solution that stood out, turns plastic into consumable food. Yup, you read that right.

The two interstellar meteorites identified so far seem to be significantly stronger than local meteorites, which may mean they formed in supernovae.

SpaceX has released a video featuring a rocket’s-eye view of a recent orbital mission, all the way from launch to landing.