“That is ongoing currently,” Chatman said. “[We are] working in close partnership with SpaceX and Blue Origin on the LOX/methane combination and the explicit equivalency to identify how much we can … reduce that blast radius. Those discussions are happening, have been happening the last couple years, and are looking to culminate here in ’26. ..
Tag : space
The US space agency ended months of speculation about the next flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, confirming Monday that the vehicle will carry only cargo to the International Space Station. NASA and Boeing are now targeting no earlier than April 2026 to fly the uncrewed Starliner-1 mission, the space agency said. Launching by next April ..
Rocket Lab’s Neutron rocket is shown in this rendering delivering a stack of satellites into orbit. Credit: Rocket Lab Rocket Lab’s Neutron rocket is shown in this rendering delivering a stack of satellites into orbit. Credit: Rocket Lab Ars: You mentioned ESCAPADE. How’s your relationship with Jeff Bezos? I heard there was some tension last ..
One week after the successful second launch of its large New Glenn booster, Blue Origin revealed a roadmap on Thursday for upgrades to the rocket, including a new variant with more main engines and a super-heavy lift capability. These upgrades to the rocket are “designed to increase payload performance and launch cadence, while enhancing reliability,” ..
“They’re coming off the line at one a month right now, and then we’re ramping from there,” he said of the second stages, known internally as GS-2. “It would be ambitious to get to the upper level, but we want to be hardware rich. So, you know, we want to try to keep building as ..
The mission aims to aid our understanding of Mars’ climate history and what was behind the loss of its conditions that once supported liquid water, potential oceans, and possibly life on the surface. Plaques and partner patches In addition to the kiwi-adorned plates, Rocket Lab also installed two more plaques on the twin ESCAPADE spacecraft. ..
This view shows a Shenzhou spacecraft departing the Tiangong space station in 2023. Credit: China Manned Space Agency Swapping spacecraft in low-Earth orbit With their original spacecraft deemed unsafe, Chen and his crewmates instead rode back to Earth on the newer Shenzhou 21 craft that launched and arrived at the Tiangong station October 31. The ..
ESCAPADE, short for Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers, was developed and launched on a budget of about $80 million, a bargain compared to all of NASA’s recent Mars missions. The spacecraft were built by Rocket Lab, and the project is managed on behalf of NASA by the University of California, Berkeley. The two ..
During an earnings call on Monday, Rocket Lab chief executive Peter Beck announced that the company’s medium-lift launch vehicle, Neutron, would not launch this year. For anyone with the slightest understanding of the challenges involved in bringing a new rocket to the launch pad, as well as a calendar, the delay does not come as ..
Planetary science Another area of concern is planetary science. When one picks apart Trump’s budget priorities, there are two clear and disturbing trends. The first is that there are no significant planetary science missions in the pipeline after the ambitious Dragonfly mission, which is scheduled to launch to Titan in July 2028. It becomes difficult ..