While the industry trend is to move to “methalox” – liquid methane/liquid natural gas and liquid oxygen (LOX) as propellants – no rocket using this combination had achieved orbit…until now. The Chinese privately run company Landspace has successfully launched its...
SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9v1.2FT Block 5 rocket from Vandenberg, California, at 1929 GMT on 7 July. The launch vehicle was carrying Starlink Group 5-13, a total of 48 Starlink v1.5 satellites for the second-generation constellation. The B1063 reusable...
The introduction of “full screen” cockpits is evident both in fighter jets and on human carrying spacecraft. For example, the latest F-35 stealth jet fighter in its various vanilla F-35A, hooked carrier F-35C and vertical landing F-35B guises has no HUD (Head Up...
The 117th and last Ariane 5, flight VA261 using the Ariane 5 ECA+ variant, successfully lifted off from the ELA3 pad at Kourou, French Guiana, at 2200 GMT on 5 July. The rocket was carrying two communications satellites: Germany’s H2SAT (Heinrich Hertz) and France’s...
The adventure movie, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, has finally been released after some years in production. Directed by James Mangold and starring Harrison Ford in the title role, it is, like its predecessors, a rip-roaring travelogue adventure, although...
A test to qualify a new carbon-carbon material in the nozzle on the Vega-C Zefiro-40 second stage solid rocket engine after it was indicated as the source of a launch failure in December 2022 has itself ended in failure – but not of the nozzle. While the nozzle...
