Lifeboat Foundation

Axiom-1 is the first all-private mission to the International Space Station, chartered by Axiom Space through SpaceX in the hopes of funding a private space station.

2022 is set to be a major year for the space economy. According to the Space Foundation, 15 new launch vehicles are set to debut this year, more than any other year in space history. Last year, US spaceports had more launches than any year since 1967, and the number is climbing. Meanwhile, employment in the core US space industry employment is at a 10-year high.

The momentum is there for a flourishing space economy that, according to NASA leaders, could in 20 years take public and private missions beyond low Earth orbit (LEO), with services and infrastructure on the lunar surface and in cislunar space. It’s a fast-growing economy, NASA leaders said at the 37th Space Symposium, that offers promising opportunities for young people who want to get their foot in the door.

The space economy is already a $400 billion industry “and on the way to $1 trillion, and I suspect it’ll get there faster than we think,” James Reuter, associate administrator for the Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) at NASA, said during a panel this week at the 37th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs.

Musk plans to build a self-sustaining city on Mars.

Here is what you need to know about Musk’s mission.

Continue reading “SpaceX Mars City: Why, when, and how Elon Musk wants to build his ambitious plan” »

A meteor crashed into the Pacific Ocean in 2014, but it wasn’t until Harvard scientists researched its velocity and trajectory five years later that they learned it came from outside our solar system.

Spaceship Neptune will start carrying customers to the stratosphere in 2024, if all goes according to plan.

Space Perspective wants its passengers to fly in style.

The Florida-based company is working to send paying customers (as well as research payloads) to the stratosphere aboard its “Spaceship Neptune,” a pressurized capsule that will cruise high above Earth beneath an enormous balloon.

After restarting work on the project a few months ago, SpaceX appears to have gotten back up to speed and begun to make rapid progress on the construction of Starship’s first Florida launch pad and tower.

Located at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Launch Complex 39A facilities, SpaceX has intended to construct a Starship launch site there for several years. A serious attempt was made in late 2019 but SpaceX soon abandoned the effort and redirected its energy towards Starship prototyping and a much different launch pad design. Two years later, SpaceX’s second attempt shares only a little in common with the first. Both are to be located within the eastern half of Pad 39A’s shield-like footprint, although the specific location of the tower and launch mount has been modified. If this attempt comes to fruition, Starship’s first East Coast launch facilities will still sit just a few hundred feet away from the only SpaceX pad capable of launching Crew Dragon, Cargo Dragon, or Falcon Heavy.

Beyond those two characteristics, SpaceX’s second attempt is almost entirely different.

Space Exploration Technologies Corporation’s (SpaceX) Crew Dragon is carrying the world’s first private astronaut crew to the ISS.

COLORADO SPRINGS — Moog Inc. is quadrupling the size of its Colorado space vehicle production capacity as the New York-based company long known as a spacecraft component supplier expands its role as a space vehicle integrator.

“It’s a proud moment for our company,” Maureen Athoe, Moog Space and Defense Group president, told SpaceNews. “This step takes us to the mission level. We’re going to hear from our customers about what they need not just with components, but with the actual mission.”

This year, Moog is scheduled to integrate nine space vehicles in its new 8,800-square-meter facility in Arvada, Colorado, and its existing 3,000-square-meter plant nearby.