Lifeboat Foundation

NASA ability to launch cargo and humans into space has become much easier private companies got involved, and now another American company has been approved by the agency to handle its space deliveries.

This week, Jeff Bezos’ company Blue Origin was awarded a NASA Launch Services (NLS) II contract. It means Blue Origin’s New Glenn reusable launch service can and will be used for a range of missions, including launches for planetary, Earth observation, exploration, and scientific satellites.

A startup with a new type of spacecraft propulsion system could make the interplanetary travel seen in Star Trek a reality. Magdrive has just closed a £1.4M seed round led by Founders Fund, an early investor in SpaceX, backed by Luminous Ventures, 7percent Ventures, and Entrepreneur First.

Magdrive is developing a next generation of spacecraft propulsion for small satellites. The startup says its engine’s thrust and efficiency are a “generational leap” ahead of any other electrical thrusters, opening up the space industry to completely new types of missions that were not possible before, without resorting to much larger, expensive and heavier chemical thrusters. It says its engine would make fast and affordable interplanetary space travel possible, as well as operations in Very Low Earth orbit. The engine would also make orbital manufacturing far more possible than previously.

Existing electrical solutions are very efficient but have very low thrust. Chemical thrusters have high thrust but lack efficiency and are hazardous and expensive to handle. Magdrive says its engine can deliver both high thrust and high efficiency in one system.

Cloud cover, and even in some cases walls, can’t block this ultra-precise satellite’s view.

The satellites Blue Canyon developed for DARPA’s Blackjack program — based on the company’s commercial X-SAT bus — passed a critical design review.

WASHINGTON — Small satellite manufacturer Blue Canyon Technologies has been cleared to produce its first two satellites for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Blackjack program, the company announced Dec. 14.

DARPA plans to deploy up to 20 spacecraft in low-Earth orbit that will be connected by optical inter-satellite links and provide communications, missile tracking and navigation services.

Continue reading “DARPA okays Blue Canyon’s satellites for Blackjack program” »

The launch window for Virgin Orbit’s Demo 2 mission will run from Dec. 19 to 20.

😃 So the old ways still work!

A startup called SpinLaunch wants to do away with costly launch rockets. Let’s look at the physics.

National Geographic magazines and Indiana Jones movies might have you picturing archaeologists excavating near Egyptian pyramids, Stonehenge, and Machu Picchu. And some of us do work at these famous places.

But archaeologists like us want to learn about how people from the past lived all over the planet.

We rely on left-behind artifacts to help fill out that picture. We need to excavate in places where there’s evidence of human activity – those clues from the past aren’t always as obvious as a giant pyramid, though.

More reliable measurements would help operators decide when to safely retire aging craft.

When a spacecraft launches, it uses roughly 75–90% of its propellant getting into orbit. The remaini.

We all have images in our mind of rocket launches from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station hurtling astronauts into space and satellites into orbit.

But those launches may be a thing of the past as a new generation of drones that can do the same job cheaper, safer and better steps into play.

Continue reading “Huge drone set to launch satellites in mid-air” »