Space and astronomy news
The next few evenings will provide excellent opportunities for observing the International Space Station in the night skies above both Europe and North America. Beginning this evening, May 21 through May 23 the ISS will pass over from two to four times per night, depending on your location. Because of the station’s current orientation and …
What happens when a robotic space probe breaks down millions of miles away from the nearest spacecraft engineer? If there is a software bug, engineers can sometimes correct the problem by uploading new commands, but what if the computer hardware fails? If the hardware is controlling something critical like the thrusters or communications system, there …
Continue reading “Self-Healing Computers for Damaged Spaceships”
It is really taking shape. The future of Virgin Galactic’s fleet of space tourism rockets is currently forming in a non-descript factory in the Mojave Desert, California. As if to prove that the Scaled Composite-design is not a pipe dream, pictures of the first commercial spaceflight vehicle have been released. It looks fairly crude and …
Continue reading “Under Construction: SpaceShipTwo, on Course for 2009 Testflight (Pictures)”
Europe’s leading spacecraft manufacturer EADS Astrium, the builders of the Ariane rocket (that launches many of Europe’s space missions), has announced plans to mass produce the next generation of space planes. Developing the design of a single-stage “rocket plane”, the company believes there will be a demand for 10 spacecraft per year when the space tourism idea …
Continue reading “Astrium Unveils New Spaceship Plans (Video Simulation & Pictures)”
Your trip to space is just around the corner now. In the next step in its goal of sending regular folk to space, Virgin Galactic today unveiled the vehicle that’s going to take them there: SpaceShipTwo. The announcement was made today at a press conference at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. …
What a terrible couple of days for spaceflight. I thought NASA was having a tough time with its drunken astronauts and sabotage, but that pales in comparison to what happened in the Mojave Desert yesterday. As you’ve probably heard by now, a rocket test facility for Scaled Composites exploded on Thursday, killing 3 workers, and …
Continue reading “3 Dead, 3 Injured at SpaceShipTwo Explosion”
Scaled Composite’s SpaceShipOne claimed the X-Prize when it reached an altitude of 100km for the second time in less than 2 weeks. Although this was a much simpler feat than reaching orbital altitude and velocities, many believed we were on the verge of a space tourism revolution. Virgin Galactic, one of the companies attempting to …
Continue reading “Virgin Galactic Updates on Plans For SpaceShipTwo”
If you’re looking to build a powerful spaceship, nothing’s better than antimatter. It’s lightweight, extremely powerful and could generate tremendous velocity. However, it’s enormously expensive to create, volatile, and releases torrents of destructive gamma rays. NASA’s Institute for Advanced Concepts is funding a team of researchers to try and design an antimatter-powered spacecraft that could …
Wait, don’t throw that garbage bag away. It might come in handy if you wanted to build a spaceship. At least, that’s what NASA scientists working on new spacecraft materials are proposing. They’ve invented a new polyethylene-based material called RXF1 that’s even stronger and lighter than aluminum. A plastic material like this is actually surprisingly protective against solar flares and cosmic rays since it doesn’t produce “secondary radiation”, like aluminum.
SpaceShipOne flew to space Monday morning, for the second time in less than a week. This time, though it came back down $10 million richer, taking the Ansari X-Prize. Pilot Brian Bennie guided the suborbital spacecraft to an altitude of more than 114 km (368,000 feet) after taking off from the Mojave Spaceport in California. …
Continue reading “SpaceShipOne Flies to Space and Wins the X-Prize”