More important than the political struggle over how many Russian RD-180 engines to allow for national security launches is the intense commercial competition to replace it altogether.
Pilot warns of dangers from drones | Need for artificial gravity on long space missions noted | Proponent of U.S. opposition to expansion of Gulf carriers’ U.S. routes
Phase 1, completed in 2010, indicated a TTBW design could reduce fuel consumption by 5-10% over a conventional cantilevered wing. Now Phase 3 tackles transonic capabilities.
Support for a NASA Evolvable Mars Campaign strategy that would establish a single Exploration Zone on the Red Planet is growing, according to those within the agency nurturing the concept.
The new space plan provides 1.4 trillion rubles ($20.5 billion) through 2025—but largely guts earlier proposals to send humans to the Moon in the next decade and leaves in doubt timing of a joint mission to Mars with the European Space Agency.
Portions of the information technology and physical infrastructure of NASA’s Near Earth Network, part of the agency’s far-reaching Space Communications and Navigation Program, face security risks, says an audit by Paul K. Martin, the agency’s inspector general.
Russia has approved a 10-year, 1.4 trillion ruble ($20.51 billion) budget for space programs, according to a March 17 announcement posted on the government’s website.
For delivering on a 15-year promise to complete the initial reconnaissance of the known Solar System, the 2016 Space Laureate goes to the scientists and engineers who created and flew the New Horizons probe to Pluto, and beyond.
JPL head Charles Elachi was awarded an Aviation Week Lifetime Achievement Laureate for “a lifetime dedicated to gaining a better understanding of the Solar System.
Gradatim Ferociter—By degrees, ferociously—aptly states Amazon and Blue Horizon founder Jeff Bezos’s approach to fulfilling his visions for humans in space, and NASA’s.
Dubbed ExoMars, the two-pronged mission will send a methane-sniffing satellite, landing demonstrator and rover equipped with a drill to dig further into the mystery of trace-gas sources on Mars.
“The number is going to be in the billions; there’s no doubt about that,” Gen. John Hyten told the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee March 15. “But exactly where it comes out I don’t know."
India will launch 25 foreign satellites this year and next year using its indigenous launch vehicle as it strives to increase its presence in the global space launch market.
Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos has a long-term vision of humankind moving heavy manufacturing into space, coupled with a short-term plan to develop reusable rocketry.
Finding evidence of extraterrestrial life could be the bonus of NASA’s robotic mission to Europa to map the Jovian moon’s icy surface and might engender more government support.
