NASA and the Russian space agency Roscosmos are finalizing an agreement to launch the first cosmonaut on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, agency officials confirmed on Monday (Dec. 20).
China is making significant strides in the field of space technology, which has been traditionally dominated by the United States and Russia. It seeks to match and outpace the American hegemony in space that has become evident with the communist country launching its own space station and carrying out “unprecedented” tests. MUST-READ: Taiwan ‘Exposes Chinese […].
In science fiction stories about contact with extraterrestrial civilisations, there is a problem: What kind of propulsion system could make it possible to bridge the enormous distances between the stars? It cannot be done with ordinary rockets like those used to travel to the moon or Mars. Many more or less speculative ideas about this have been put forward—one of them is the “Bussard collector” or “Ramjet propulsion”. It involves capturing protons in interstellar space and then using them for a nuclear fusion reactor.
Peter Schattschneider, physicist and science fiction author, has now analyzed this concept in more detail together with his colleague Albert Jackson from the USA. The result is unfortunately disappointing for fans of interstellar travel: it cannot work the way Robert Bussard, the inventor of this propulsion system, thought it up in 1960. The analysis has now been published in the scientific journal Acta Astronautica.
Billionaire Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shared a video on Twitter of the giant Starship and its steering engines, a sign production may be back on track.
Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin has announced an ambitious plan to operate its own commercial space station called Orbital Reef sometime after 2024.
“Designed to open multiple new markets in space, Orbital Reef will provide anyone with the opportunity to establish their own address on orbit,” the company announced on Monday. Blue Origin describes the station as a “mixed used business park” in space. Orbital Reef will reside in a low Earth orbit at 310 miles, and function as a hub for research, commerce, tourism and logistics, where spaceships can also come and go.
Continue reading “Blue Origin to Build a Commercial Space Station Called Orbital Reef” »
“Looking at the starry sky, with those thousand-year-old walls embracing the ancient constellations and the passing, modern ISS, was undoubtedly a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Masi said in a statement on Thursday.
Masi also released an annotated version of the image showing constellations marked and labeled, from Pegasus to Ursa Minor.
The Colosseum is nearly 2,000 years old. The ISS has been in space for over 20 years. They are very different kinds of monuments, but they meld together beautifully in an image that speaks to the past and the present and how far humans have traveled.
“Specialists of the Central Military District’s search/rescue and parachute service have been relocated in full to the Republic of Kazakhstan to provide for the safe landing of the Soyuz MS-20 descent capsule with space tourists from Japan on its board,” the press office said in a statement.
The Central Military District has redeployed additional personnel from the Chelyabinsk Region in the Urals to bolster the basic group that provided for the safe launch of the Soyuz spacecraft. In particular, about 50 more rescuers have been redeployed to Kazakhstan together with eight Mi-8 helicopters and two PEM-1 and PEM-2 ‘Blue Bird’ search and evacuation vehicles, the statement says.
Overall, the search and rescue operation to provide for the safe landing of the Soyuz MS-20 descent module involves about 200 rescuers, 12 Mi-8 helicopters, two An-12 planes and an An-26 aircraft and over 20 motor vehicles, including six pieces of ‘Blue Bird’ rescue and evacuation equipment.
The prospect of Starship making its mark on the Space Coast entered another level this week when NASA revealed it would conduct environmental assessments on LC-49 to support Starship launch and landing operations.
With SpaceX already confirming they will restart work on a Starship pad inside 39A, the potential of a second site at LC-49 could provide a considerable increase in Starship launch cadence from the Kennedy Space Center (KSC).
Bill Gates’ multibillion-dollar clean-tech initiative Breakthrough Energy Ventures has completed a $65 million funding round for the reusable rocket developer called Stoke Space, according to a Wednesday press release.
So don’t look away, because you might miss the makings of humanity’s future.
On December 15, NASA announced that SpaceX submitted a new proposal to build a Starship launch site at Launch Complex-49 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Previously, SpaceX officials mentioned plans to build a Starship launch tower at historic Launch Complex-39A, the launch site from where NASA Apollo astronauts lifted off atop Saturn V on a voyage to the Moon half a century ago. NASA and SpaceX are working to return humans to the lunar surface by 2025. SpaceX is developing a lunar-optimized Starship Human Landing System (HLS) to land astronauts on the moon as part of the Artemis program that aims to build a sustainable presence on our closest celestial neighbor.
The unbuilt Launch Complex-49 is an 175-acre land located north of Launch Pad-39B and Pad-39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center premises. The agency released a map of the region, pictured below, that outlines the locations of each launch site. “LC-49 has been a part of Kennedy’s master plan for several years,” said Tom Engler, Kennedy’s director of Center Planning and Development. “The Notice of Availability was updated in 2014.”
“Every new construction project, whether government or commercial, goes through a comprehensive environmental review process,” said Don Dankert, technical lead for the Kennedy Environmental Planning Office. “This ensures that we are able to identify potential environmental impacts and define any associated mitigations prior to project implementation.”
