All Space news – Page 11
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NewsSpaceShipTwo survivor unaware tail feathers unlocked
The surviving pilot of the SpaceShipTwo crash on 31 October has told investigators that he was unaware the co-pilot had unlocked a system that rotates the tail feathers of the vehicle moments before an in-flight break-up, the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) says.
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OpinionOPINION: Virgin Galactic crash shows that big dreams mean big risk
Tragedy has struck space tourism a most cruel blow. First, the 31 October crash of SpaceShipTwo took the life of test pilot Mike Alsbury. Then, images of the in-flight break-up cast a calamitous cloud over the industry’s biggest and most important player – the Virgin Galactic/Scaled Composites team.
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NewsEx-SpaceShipOne test pilot critical of hybrid motor in new video
Count the Ansari X-Prize-winning test pilot of SpaceShipOne, Brian Binnie, among the critics of SpaceShipTwo.
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NewsSpaceShipTwo broke up after tail feathers moved
Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo telemetry data has offered a vital clue to investigators searching for the cause of the fatal 31 October crash while the wreckage appears to rule out an engine or fuel tank malfunction.
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NewsBranson hedges on SpaceShipTwo future
In his first live remarks since the Scaled Composites SpaceShipTwo crash on 31 October, Richard Branson linked the future of the Virgin Galactic space tourism venture to the results of the investigation.
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NewsFew clues on cause of fatal SpaceShipTwo crash
One Scaled Composites test pilot died and another was injured severely after a powered flight of SpaceShipTwo ended in disaster near Mojave, California, for the commercial space tourism venture led by Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic on 31 October.
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NewsSpaceShipTwo crashes during powered test flight
Virgin Galactic confirms the Scaled Composites SpaceShipTwo suborbital rocket crashed on 31 October during the first powered test flight in nearly 10 months.
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NewsUnforgiving void: Spaceflight tragedies remembered
A sobering week in spaceflight saw the first in-flight fatality in a commercial space programme, as Virgin Galactic lost a test pilot with the breakup of its SpaceShipTwo over the Nevada desert, along with a spectacular but non-fatal launch failure of an uncrewed International Space Station resupply mission. After that ...
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Lufthansa Technik adds SOFIA, zero gravity to special missions roster
Lufthansa Technik has added weightlessness and flying telescopes to the portfolio of special missions of large commercial aircraft now inducted in its overhaul or modification hangars.
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News'Stay with the Station', NASA boss urges international partners
NASA administrator Charles Bolden today called on Europe and the UK to stand behind their financial commitments to the International Space Station and work with the USA to keep it flying through 2020 and even 2024 – because the orbiting outpost is humankind’s “springboard” to Mars.
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OpinionOPINION: Will US have to look for an all-American alternative to Russian rockets?
War, as the saying goes, is the domain of chance. Business is usually more friendly to calculated manoeuvres, but when actual fighting intervenes all bets are off.
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NewsIndia triumphs with Mars arrival in busy week at red planet
India has joined a very exclusive club of spacefaring nations, with the successful arrival of its Mars Orbiter Mission. Named Mangalyaan – “Mars craft” in Sanskrit – India’s orbiter spent 300 days enroute and will now be readied for its scientific mission, to study the planet’s atmosphere and geology with ...
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AnalysisANALYSIS: Virgin Galactic 'close to reaching space'
Virgin Galactic has formally backed away from its pledge to put its first fare-paying passengers into suborbital space by the close of 2014 – but has made a very public declaration that suborbital operations from its purpose-built spaceport in New Mexico will begin in early 2015.
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NewsBoeing, SpaceX win NASA contracts for ISS space taxi
NASA has tapped Boeing’s CST-100 and SpaceX’s Falcon9/Crew Dragon spacecraft for transporting crews to the International Space Station (ISS) from 2017.
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AnalysisANALYSIS: Galileo 'on track' despite launch trouble
Europe’s bid to establish its own satellite navigation system suffered a setback with the failure of a Soyuz launcher to put into their assigned orbits the fifth and sixth spacecraft in what is to be a 30-satellite constellation. But both the European Space Agency and European Commission remain confident that ...
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NewsZephyr 7 undergoes testing to receive UK military registration
A recent long endurance test of Airbus Defence and Space’s Zephyr 7 high altitude pseudo satellite (HAPS) has resulted in the system being the first of its type to receive UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) military registration.
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AnalysisANALYSIS: ATV era opens final chapter with 'flawless' space station docking
The International Space Station marked the end of an era on Tuesday, 12 August 2014 with a “flawless” arrival by the fifth and final resupply flight in ESA’s Automated Transfer Vehicle programme
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Steering a rover from orbit? No problem now, says ESA
When astronauts finally one day arrive at an alien world, they might want to send a robot advance party down to check out the surface before committing themselves to landing – but controlling a rover from space is far from straightforward, as the orbiting driver would only have intermittent line ...
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Rosetta arrival marks "new chapter" in solar system exploration
The European Space Agency this week declared open a “new chapter in Solar System exploration” when its Rosetta spacecraft achieved the first-ever rendezvous with a comet.
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Eight sites shortlisted for UK spaceport
In shortlisting possible locations for a spaceport, the UK Space Agency looked for “remote” places where the “uninvolved general public” would be at minimal risk from accidents, where operations within segregated airspace would be feasible, where a 3,000m (10,000ft)-plus runway could be accommodated and which were on the coast, where ...