Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos is to fly on the first crewed mission of the New Shepard, which is scheduled to make its historic suborbital journey on 20 July. He will be joined by his younger brother, Mark, and the winner of an online auction for a third seat on the...
At 1526 GMT on 22 May Virgin Galactic achieved its first successful suborbital crewed mission from Spaceport America, New Mexico. Following its release from the WhiteKnightTwo – VMS Eve – carrier aircraft the SpaceShipTwo vehicle – VSS Unity –...
Budding space tourism company Blue Origin has announced that, following a long development programme, it will conduct its first crewed New Shepard flight on 20 July. The announcement, on 5 May 2021, was timed to mark the 60th anniversary of the launch – on 5 May...
Following four failed attempts to land previous versions of the Starship launch vehicle, SpaceX finally succeeded in landing its latest prototype, SN15, on 5 May after a six-minute test flight. As the dust cleared from the landing pad at the Boca Chica facility in...
At 1556 GMT on 14 April, Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital launch vehicle and Mk 3 version of the capsule made another successful uncrewed launch beyond the Karman Line official limit of space (100km). The actual altitude reached a peak at 106 km over the Van...
Just as the Starship SN8 test launch ended in an explosive landing failure in December – after all the hard bits of the flight – so the same has happened to its successor, Starship SN9. After a few days’ delay due to a flight safety waiver dispute with the Federal...
