After seven years of work and nearly $1 billion, the Smithsonian has completed the renovation of the National Air and Space Museum’s flagship building in Washington, DC. On October 30, the museum debuted its last-to-open spaceflight exhibition, returning “home” with a gallery devoted to establishing a spacefaring civilization. “Welcome to ‘At Home in Space’!” said ..
Tag : space
Chinese space officials confirmed this weekend that the Asian nation plans to land its astronauts on the Moon within three years. At the Seventh Manned Spaceflight Conference in Beijing, officials, including Wang Xiang, chief designer for the lunar exploration program, laid out the country’s most publicly detailed plans yet for a series of missions leading ..
The Hubble Space Telescope still shines in the eyes of astronomers after 36 years in orbit, but it is not as nimble as it once was. Left alone, the observatory will plunge back into the atmosphere in the early-to-mid-2030s, closing the book on one of the most famous scientific instruments of the century. NASA last ..
A new report from the analytics firm Quilty Space confirms that, outside of China, the world faces a significant shortage of rockets over the next five years. The firm estimates that between now and 2030, there will be a shortfall of about 150 launches compared to demand from satellite operators and civil space agencies. If ..
Welcome to Edition 9.17 of the Rocket Report! It’s been a while since an American company announced plans for a medium-lift new launch vehicle, but that’s what happened this week when a startup named Cowboy Space revealed specs for its Big Iron rocket, named for the classic country-western song by Marty Robbins. I’m a huge ..
Trump could still have hurt Musk’s businesses through regulatory review, particularly with the Federal Communications Commission and Federal Aviation Administration. And the two made up. But one indisputable takeaway from this brouhaha is that the US government now needed SpaceX more than SpaceX needed the US government. “The dust-up with President Trump, when Musk threatened ..
United Launch Alliance announced Wednesday it plans to return its Vulcan rocket to service on November 13, nine months after a solid rocket booster anomaly threw the company’s 2026 launch schedule into oblivion. The return-to-flight mission will launch 40 satellites for the Amazon Leo broadband constellation, the first of 38 Vulcan flights Amazon has booked ..
“We’re proud that the lead ship in Virgin Galactic’s Spaceship fleet will carry a name chosen by the people who share our excitement for what comes next,” said Michael Colglazier, chief executive officer of Virgin Galactic. But more significantly, the company said Apeiron would be moved from its Spaceship Factory in Mesa, Arizona, to Spaceport ..
Blue Moon lunar lander concept of operations. Credit: NASA Blue Moon lunar lander concept of operations. Credit: NASA The chart shared by NASA showed Orion docking with the Blue Moon lander in an elliptical lunar orbit, approximately 8,500 km above the Moon’s surface. However NASA is also working to have the option of docking with ..
Public, private, or both? But there’s no firm plan yet for when the military might get moving on actually setting up a new launch base. “It’s going to take a strong partnership with local and state governments,” Garrant said. “As far as decision timelines, we don’t have anything yet.” There were 175 orbital launch attempts ..
