by David Todd | Jan 25, 2016 | Launches, Personal spaceflight, Space tourism
Blue Origin’s New Shepard reusable suborbital rocket, New Shepard, powered by Liquid Oxygen (LOx)/Liquid Hydrogen, and its man-capable capsule made a new flight above 100km. The flight from the Van Horn launch site in West Texas, USA, on 22 January was a repeat of the...
by David Todd | Nov 25, 2015 | Personal spaceflight, Space tourism, Suborbital, Technology
On 23 November 2015, the Jeff Bezos-led Blue Origin company made a significant advance in its suborbital test programme when its New Shepard space vehicle successfully breached 100km of space by flying to 100.5km (329,839 feet), and returning to Earth to land back at...
by David Todd | Jul 28, 2015 | Commercial human spaceflight, Personal spaceflight, Space tourism, Suborbital, Technology, Virgin Galactic
The premature in-flight deployment of the feathered tail plane speed braking system was the primary cause of the destruction of the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo (VSS Enterprise) on 31 October 2015, the formal investigation into the accident has concluded. The US...
by David Todd | Jan 29, 2015 | Commercial human spaceflight, NASA, Personal spaceflight, Russia, Soyuz, SpaceX
The days of the Russian space programme extracting pay cheques out of NASA may soon be coming to an end if NASA’s commercial crew launch schedule occurs as planned. At a press conference at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, NASA and representatives...
by David Todd | May 27, 2014 | Commercial human spaceflight, Personal spaceflight, Seradata News, Space tourism, Technology, Virgin Galactic
While it still has notional plans to make its first full suborbital spaceflight launch before the end of 2014, there remains doubts amongst Virgin Galactic’s critics whether this is still possible – not least because it has been revealed that the firm...
by David Todd | Jan 28, 2014 | Commercial human spaceflight, commercial launch services, Personal spaceflight
The Sierra Nevada Corporation has officially booked a flight (announced 23 January 2014) on an Atlas V launch vehicle for its reusable Dream Chaser manned transportation vehicle’s first orbital test flight. The spacecraft is set to be launched in November 2016...
