Enlarge / Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine hot-fire tests take place at the company’s facility in West Texas. (credit: Blue Origin ) Welcome to Edition 4. 26 of the Rocket Report! This will be the final edition of 2021 due to a forthcoming (and much-needed) holiday break. As I write this, NASA and the European Space […]
The front of the SpaceX Headquarters in Hawthorne, California. (credit: Megan Geuss) In late September, a former communications executive at Blue Origin and 20 other current and former employees raised concerns about the culture at the company, highlighting issues such as sexism in the workplace. Writing on the Lioness website, Alexandra Abrams and the unnamed employees […]
Enlarge / In early December 2019, the Starliner spacecraft is mated to its Atlas V rocket. (credit: Trevor Mahlmann) Nearly two years have now come and gone since Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft made its unsuccessful debut test flight, launching on December 20, 2019. Now, finally, there is some clarity on when the vehicle may launch again […]
Enlarge / A full-power test of the BE-4 rocket engine in April 2019 in West Texas. (credit: Blue Origin) Blue Origin is unlikely to deliver two flight-ready versions of the BE-4 rocket engine to United Launch Alliance (ULA) before at least the second quarter of 2022, two sources say. This increases the possibility that the […]
Enlarge / The cockpit of the restored space shuttle motion simulator. (credit: Carl Brainerd) Every NASA astronaut who ever rode aboard the space shuttle, more than 350 of them, first sat in its full-motion simulator. And even though the simulator was firmly on the ground, anchored inside Building 5 at the Johnson Space Center, it […]
Enlarge / SpaceX launched NASA’s IXPE mission on a Falcon 9 first stage that had previously flown four times. (credit: Trevor Mahlmann / Ars Technica) Welcome to Edition 4.26 of the Rocket Report! Don’t look now, but we’re less than two weeks from the momentous launch of the James Webb Space Telescope. The telescope is […]
Enlarge / Dylan Taylor listens as former astronaut Nicole Stott speaks during a Space For Humanity event in early 2020. The organization’s executive director, Rachel Lyons, is in the background. Editor’s Note: This is the first in an occasional series of profiles of people helping to lead the commercial space industry, which NASA Deputy Administrator […]
Enlarge / Meet the new astronaut-candidates: US Air Force Maj. Nichole Ayers, Christopher Williams, US Marine Corps Maj. (retired) Luke Delaney, US Navy Lt. Cmdr. Jessica Wittner, US Usaf Lt. Col. Anil Menon, US Air Force Maj. Marcos Berríos, US Navy Cmdr. Jack Hathaway, Christina Birch, US Navy Lt. Deniz Burnham, and Andre Douglas. (credit: […]
Enlarge / French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire speaks during a visit to the aerospace company ArianeGroup in Vernon, northern France, on December 6, 2021. (credit: ERIC PIERMONT/AFP via Getty Images) On Monday French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire announced a plan for Europe to compete more effectively with SpaceX by developing a reusable rocket on […]
Enlarge / Hubble Space Telescope above Earth, photographed during STS-125, Servicing Mission 4, May 2009. (credit: NASA) Earlier this month, NASA announced that the scientific instruments aboard the Hubble Space Telescope had been left in safe mode after a series of problems with the timing signals that coordinate their activity. While NASA is still uncertain […]