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Virgin Galactic says nobody was in any danger, including its founder and CEO Sir Richard Branson and three other passengers, aboard the landmark July 11 flight of its Unity spacecraft despite an FAA probe into the flight. The agency announced on Thursday that it was banning any further flights until it completes an investigation into the […]

Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule is heading back to the factory for a deeper dive into valve issues that scrubbed a critical shakedown flight earlier this month. The spacecraft was supposed to have launched to the International Space Station Aug. 3. It was a re-do of an uncrewed test flight that ended with an unplanned landing […]

NASA and Boeing have postponed Friday’s planned launch of the Starliner crew capsule to the International Space Station to Aug. 3 after a mishap briefly upset the ISS on Thursday. An uncommanded firing of the thrusters on a Russian science research module tilted the entire orbiting structure about 45 degrees before automatic systems on the […]

The FAA opened a new field office in Houston, Texas, on Monday designed to expand its oversight of commercial space operations in Texas and New Mexico. According to the agency, the Space Safety field office will allow it to more efficiently monitor testing programs and commercial space tourism operations conducted by companies including SpaceX, Blue […]

The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association has released this report on the BasicMed initiative, saying it “has kept safe pilots flying and free from unnecessary red tape and delays over the past five years.” Based on NTSB data, the AOPA Air Safety Institute report cited a general aviation accident rate—including pilots flying on a BasicMed certificate—that is […]

A jubilant Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson celebrated the “experience of a lifetime” as one of six people aboard what was officially the first passenger flight to the edge of space Sunday morning. All the other people on the Unity 22 spacecraft were Virgin employees but it was the first flight after the FAA […]

“Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always liked to make things, and I thought an airplane would be the ultimate project,” said Les Krumel of Moriarty, New Mexico, a mechanical engineer who recently retired as a civilian employee of the U.S. Air Force who worked on aerospace projects. That understatement defines his humble personality. […]

What a country, right? In 1960, we were locked toe-to-toe with the Ruskies over who would seize the high ground of space and then the Moon. Sixty years later, three billionaires are checkbook-to-checkbook to see who gets to claim astronaut firsties. And it looks like Amazon impresario Jeff Bezos won’t be the guy.* The cheeky […]

The FAA has upgraded Virgin Galactic’s commercial space transportation operator license to allow the company to carry paying passengers to space. It has been reported that Virgin Galactic currently has over 600 reservations for its planned commercial passenger spaceflights with ticket prices running between $200,000 and $250,000. The licensing update comes after the company successfully […]

AVweb’s General Aviation Accident Bulletin is taken from the pages of our sister publication, Aviation Safety magazine. All the reports listed here are preliminary and include only initial factual findings about crashes. You can learn more about the final probable cause on the NTSB’s website at www.ntsb.gov. Final reports appear about a year after the […]