NASA & World Space Exploration...News, Views, Photos & videos

Some international space news:

Does South Korea have what it takes to become a leading space nation?


The Exploration Company raises $160 million for Nyx cargo vehicle


ESA awards funding to four European launch startups


Kiwis flew a supersonic model airplane, ahem. Sorta belongs here. I could swear I've seen them claim they'd do a spaceplane:

anzha said:

Some international space news:

Kiwis flew a supersonic model airplane, ahem. Sorta belongs here. I could swear I've seen them claim they'd do a spaceplane:

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Pretty impressive such a small aircraft hit Mach 1.1 and over 80,000 feet! I didn't know it was possible for such a small aircraft to do that.

Anyone knows the reason of SpaceX cancelling the capture of super heavy in the last launch? Is it because of the launcher tower?

taxiya said:

Anyone knows the reason of SpaceX cancelling the capture of super heavy in the last launch? Is it because of the launcher tower?

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All I have seen is there has been some automated health checks on the tower causing the abort. No word as to what it was so far as I can tell.

Nasa Space Flight with an awesome view of the of the fully stacked New Glenn from Blue Origin.

SlothmanAllen said:

Nasa Space Flight with an awesome view of the of the fully stacked New Glenn from Blue Origin.

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I knew - but haven't talked to in years - the original engineer hired to kickstart Blue Origin. In 2012 (+/-), he was fired for telling Bezos at the funding rate BO was getting, it would take 10+ years to develop the New Glenn. Bezos thought he was wrong and they would go faster. More than ten years later...

Pleasantly surprised, I could think of a lot worse picks than this one.

Lots of people saying he's going to be biased towards one firm. I think Isaacman will honor active contracts and competition. Strength of the US aerospace industry lies in its collective knowledge and I don't think he'll sabotage that.

PLSV-XL launched the PROBA-3 satellite from the EASA yesterday.

gpt said:

Lots of people saying he's going to be biased towards one firm. I think Isaacman will honor active contracts and competition. Strength of the US aerospace industry lies in its collective knowledge and I don't think he'll sabotage that.

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I also believe ULA already has some contracts signed and the Vulcan should be ready to go next year. I am not sure what their schedule looks like, but it could be as many as 10 launches per year once they get going. I would expect Blue Origin to aim for the same amount at minimum. Between SpaceX, ULA, Blue Origin and Electron the US should have a very healthy launch industry within the next five years.

Obviously SpaceX just totally dominates, but I think that hides the fact that Electron has had 13 launches this year which is a very good launch rate when looking at the global landscape.

So basically I think a lot of stuff is already in motion to support the other launchers. Maybe future contracts will heavily bias SpaceX, but I think you would see a lot of pushback against that.