Blue Origin tests out New Glenn rocket recovery crane at Port Canaveral
Saturday, 10 August 2024 09:20
With the first launch of Blue Origin's massive New Glenn rocket still in the works before the end of the year, Jeff Bezos' company got to work testing out its recovery operations with the huge crane parked at Port Canaveral on August 8.
"Port Canaveral spectators got a sneak peek of our recovery operations today as we demonstrated the process of transitioning New Glenn's first stage from vertical to horizontal using our 200-foot-tall simulator," the company posted on X. "The operation validated our tooling and procedures for recovering our first stage from the landing vessel, bringing us another step closer to our first launch."
The 375-foot-tall crane arrived to the port from Germany last October and will be used when New Glenn's booster returns to the port on its "sea-based landing platform," similar to how SpaceX lands its Falcon 9 boosters on droneships.
Since it's a taller rocket, Blue Origin needed a taller crane, and it's the highest point in Port Canaveral, sitting adjacent to SpaceX recovery operations, which use mobile cranes owned and operated by the port nearby.
Meet the two Boeing mission astronauts stuck aboard the ISS
Saturday, 10 August 2024 05:39
Two astronauts stranded in space may sound like the start to a big-screen science thriller, but the Boeing Starliner mission is no work of Hollywood fiction.
Astronauts Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Sunita "Suni" Williams were originally scheduled to spend a little more than a week aboard the International Space Station as part of the debut crew flight test of the Starliner.
However, the spacecraft encountered several issues during the flight, and now the two astronauts will likely have to extend their stay aboard the ISS for several months.
NASA will issue a decision by mid-August as to whether Wilmore and Williams can return on board Starliner, or if they will have to wait for their retrieval by a SpaceX craft.
Rocket Lab Plans Next Electron Launch Eight Days After Recent Mission
Friday, 09 August 2024 22:55
Rocket Lab USA, Inc. (Nasdaq: RKLB) is set to launch its 52nd Electron mission, deploying a satellite for American space tech firm Capella Space.
Scheduled for a 14-day window starting August 11th, the mission will launch from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 on New Zealand's Mahia Peninsula. It aims to place Capella's Acadia-3 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite into a 615km circular orbi Space Force Endorses Orbit Fab's RAFTI as Standard for Satellite Refueling
Friday, 09 August 2024 22:55
Orbit Fab, a leading provider of in-space refueling services, announced that its RAFTI (Rapidly Attachable Fluid Transfer Interface) refueling port has been approved by the Space Force's Space Systems Command (SSC) as a standard refueling interface for military satellites.
The SSC's System Engineering Review Board (SERB) recommended RAFTI after confirming it meets the necessary technical q NASA, LASP sign agreement to advance space weather research, modeling
Friday, 09 August 2024 22:55
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado (CU) Boulder enacted a collaborative Space Act Agreement Monday, Aug. 5, 2024, to advance research and modeling in the critical field of space weather.
NASA and LASP are longtime space science and exploration partners, and this formal agreemen SFL to build two more microsats for GHGSat's emissions monitoring
Friday, 09 August 2024 22:55
Space Flight Laboratory (SFL) has secured a contract from GHGSat, based in Montreal, to develop two new greenhouse gas monitoring microsatellites, GHGSat-C12 and C13. These satellites will be built on SFL's cost-effective, high-performance 15-kg NEMO bus, the same platform used for the initial nine GHGSat spacecraft.
The announcement was made by SFL at the 2024 Small Satellite Conference, NASA and USGS find a new way to measure river flows
Friday, 09 August 2024 22:55
A team of scientists and engineers at NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) collaborated to see if a small piloted drone, equipped with a specialized payload, could help create detailed maps of how fast water is flowing. Rivers supply fresh water to our communities and farms, provide homes for a variety of creatures, transport people and goods, and generate electricity. But river flows can Space Force to expand missile-defense satellite network in medium Earth orbit
Friday, 09 August 2024 22:15
Variable-Thrust Rocket Engine Passes Initial Hot-Fire Tests
Friday, 09 August 2024 21:43
The European Space Agency (ESA) has successfully completed the first phase of hot-fire tests on a new variable-thrust rocket engine, part of the Future Launchers Preparatory Programme (FLPP). Conducted in Warsaw, Poland, the tests focused on a rocket engine developed by a Polish consortium that is exploring innovative designs for propellant valves and injectors. These designs aim to vary thrust Rocket Lab Installs Advanced Carbon Composite Manufacturing System for Neutron Rocket Production
Friday, 09 August 2024 21:43
Rocket Lab USA, Inc. (Nasdaq: RKLB), a global leader in launch services and space systems, has commenced the installation of a state-of-the-art automated fiber placement (AFP) machine at its Neutron rocket production facility in Middle River, Maryland. The machine, touted as the largest of its kind, is set to revolutionize the production of carbon composite structures for Rocket Lab's Neutron la Rocket Lab Successfully Completes Initial Hot Fire Test of Archimedes Engine for Neutron Rocket
Friday, 09 August 2024 21:43
Rocket Lab USA, Inc. (Nasdaq: RKLB) has conducted the first hot fire test of its new Archimedes rocket engine, marking an important step toward the inaugural launch of its Neutron medium-lift rocket.
The successful hot fire test took place in August 2024 at Rocket Lab's Engine Test Complex, located within NASA's Stennis Space Center in Hancock County, Mississippi. During the test, Archimed MSU Professor Receives $1.1M NASA Grant to Enhance Hypersonic Vehicle Design Tools
Friday, 09 August 2024 21:43
NASA has awarded a $1.13 million grant to an assistant professor at Mississippi State University (MSU) to develop an advanced computational tool designed to improve the design process of hypersonic vehicles for space exploration.
Vilas Shinde, a faculty member in MSU's Department of Aerospace Engineering, secured the funding to create a new tool for flow stability and transition analysis. Engineering Students Invited to Enter NASA's 2025 Lunabotics Challenge
Friday, 09 August 2024 21:43
NASA is calling on teams from colleges, universities, and technical schools nationwide to showcase their engineering talents in the 2025 Lunabotics Challenge. Applications for the competition open at 5 p.m. EDT on Friday, Sept. 6. This event is designed to motivate Artemis Generation students to engage deeply with science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines, contributing to adv Good viewing conditions expected for peak of this week's Perseid meteor shower
Friday, 09 August 2024 21:43
The annual Perseid meteor shower is set to peak later this week with ideal viewing conditions anticipated in most places, according to reports.
Commonly known as the "Perseids," the Perseid meteor shower is expected to peak Sunday night and before dawn the next morning on Monday, and is seen annually every four years by mid-July to late August. NASA says the Perseid is considered the "b Scientists lay out revolutionary method to warm Mars
Friday, 09 August 2024 21:43
Ever since we learned that the surface of planet Mars is cold and dead, people have wondered if there is a way to make it friendlier to life.
In a groundbreaking study published Aug. 7 in Science Advances, researchers from the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the University of Central Florida have proposed a revolutionary approach towards terraforming Mars. This new meth