The following press release was published by Virgin Galactic on May 30, 2012. Virgin Galactic, the world’s first commercial spaceline, announced today that its vehicle developer, Scaled Composites (Scaled), has been granted an experimental launch permit from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for its suborbital spacecraft, SpaceshipTwo, and the carrier aircraft, WhiteKnightTwo. “This important milestone enables our team to progress [...]
Archive for May, 2012
Electric Moon Jolts the Solar Wind
Source: NASA With the moon as the most prominent object in the night sky and a major source of an invisible pull that creates ocean tides, many ancient cultures thought it could also affect our health or state of mind – the word “lunacy” has its origin in this belief. Now, a powerful combination of spacecraft and computer simulations is [...]
EU Council Supports an International Code of Conduct
The European Council on May 29, 2012 voted to support an international Code of Conduct. The decision by the EU to support an international Code of Conduct goes beyond merely agreeing to support it politically. The EU in its decision also committed to gather expert support for the process of adopting the International Code of Conduct as well as consulting [...]
Scientist Plays “Guess Your Weight” With Asteroid and Wins
Source: NASA A scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., has accurately determined the mass of a nearby asteroid from millions of miles away. The celestial equivalent of “guess your weight” was achieved by Steve Chesley of JPL’s Near-Earth Object Program Office by utilizing data from three NASA assets – the Goldstone Solar System Radar in the California [...]
Falcon Heavy Wins First Commercial Contract
Two days before SpaceX’s Dragon, the first commercial vessel to dock with the International Space Station, is due to return to Earth, the company scored another coup. It signed Intelsat as its first commercial customer to launch aboard the Falcon Heavy launcher. “Timely access to space is an essential element of our commercial supply chain,” said Thierry Guillemin, Intelsat CTO [...]
A Spacesuit Ballet
It is easy to take for granted a spacesuit look that has not changed significantly since Neil Armstrong described his as “tough, reliable, and almost cuddly.” But there were numerous suits competing for selection by 1960′s NASA. Watch some of these prototypes in testing in the video below compiled by Science Friday using NASA footage. Staff WritersMore Posts
Google Lunar X Prize to Protect Historic Lunar Sites
The Google Lunar X Prize is a competition offering a $20 million grand prize to the first privately funded team to place a rover on the surface of the moon that is able to explore 500 m and transmit images back to Earth by 2015. On May 24, the X Prize Foundation which administers the competition reached an agreement to recognize [...]
Astronaut Drink Works As Elixir of Youth
Space Safety Magazine would like to caution readers that the veracity of this report has come under question. Although the article below was written with reliance on what were considered to be reliable reports from mainstream media sources, additional information has come to light which casts doubt on the story. Space Safety Magazine is indebted to Spaceref’s Keith Cowling for [...]
Excalibur Almaz Shifts Gears
In 2009, while other commercial spaceflight companies were working towards providing services for a suborbital tourism market, Excalibur Almaz made a splash when it announced plans to provide week long stays in low Earth orbit to space tourists. Excalibur Almaz founder and CEO Art Dula seemed to walk away from that goal in a speech at the International Space Development [...]
A Tradition Continues: Blessing the Soyuz
This week, vivid photographs have been released of a Russian Orthodox priest annointing the Soyuz, the crew, and even the press in advance of the May 15 launch to the International Space Station from Baikonur Cosmodrome. Blessing the crew is a tradition that began in 1994 by request of cosmonaut Alexander Viktorenko before his launch to Mir. This is one [...]
