Spaceflight

SpaceX successfully completed the first flight of its upgraded Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket, carrying the Bangladesh telecommunications satellite Bangabandhu-1 into orbit last Friday. According to SpaceX, the Block 5 is “the final substantial upgrade” to the Falcon 9 rocket, which the company hopes to use to transport people into space in the not-too-distant future. […]

Build A Plane, the nonprofit that offers kids a chance to restore an airplane using donated aircraft, now is expanding into rocketry, and with help from a major unnamed donor, recently bought up the assets of XCOR, the bankrupt company that had been working to build the Lynx spaceplane, for $1.1 million. “Our donor heard […]

Private space startup Blue Origin launched its eighth test flight from Texas Sunday, boosting microgravity experiments and an instrumented dummy astronaut to an altitude of 66.5 miles, the company reported. The reusable New Shepard booster was making its second flight and landed successfully on a concrete pad near the launch point about eight minutes after […]

Ellen Stofan has been named director of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. Stofan begins her tenure April 30. She brings more than 25 years’ experience in space-related organizations and a deep research background in planetary geology. She is the first woman to hold this position. Stofan was chief scientist at NASA (2013-2016), serving […]

NASA says it’s hiring a new round of flight directors to oversee U.S. human spaceflight for the upcoming Orion missions and the International Space Station, responsible for the success of missions and the highly trained teams of engineers and scientists that make them possible. “Flight directors play a critical role in the success of our […]

As the huge Stratolaunch aircraft prepares for its first flight at Mojave, company founder Paul Allen is thinking about using it not just to deliver satellites to space, but perhaps also to carry an all-new space shuttle. “I would love to see us have a full reusable system and have weekly, if not more often, […]

Stratolaunch, the giant airplane in development in Mojave, is continuing taxi tests at higher speeds and longer durations, the company said this week. Paul Allen, the Microsoft co-founder who is funding the project, posted video of the taxiing airplane on Facebook on Monday. The airplane reached a top taxi speed of 40 knots, Allen said. […]

NASA has approved a mission using Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser spacecraft, in late 2020, the company announced on Wednesday. The mission will carry 6 tons of supplies to the International Space Station. “The Dream Chaser is going to be a tremendous help to the critical science and research happening on the space station,” Mark Sirangelo, […]

“Did you see it?,” came the question, followed a nanosecond later by the loudest palm-to-forehead slap in this part of Florida. “&GHY no! I forgot!” “It” was SpaceX’s first launch of its new Falcon Heavy, currently the world’s most powerful booster, although not the most powerful ever. I was perfectly positioned to view it from […]

If the universe lacks for not having a midnight-red Tesla Roadster orbiting Mars, SpaceX is about to set things right. This week the company assembled its massive Falcon Heavy booster on Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for what’s planned to be the first launch of the most powerful booster since the Saturn 5 […]