NewSpace
2010 Review
A report on the annual Space
Frontier Foundation's annual conference,
which was held this year in Sunnyvale, California.
Topics of discussion ranged from entrepreneurial
space businesses to lunar miing to fully reusable
suborbital space vehicles to government policy.
Space
Access '10 Review
A report on the annual Space
Access Society's annual conference in
Phoenix, Arizona. The latest updates on low
cost approaches to getting to space were presented.
1st
SpaceX Falcon 9 Launch Resources
Links to blog posts, pictures, videos and
commentary about the successful first launch
of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
New
Space Log 2010
This new section holds pointers to blog postings,
articles, pictures, etc. concerning particular
events and developments of interest during
the year in New
Space.
SpaceShipTwo
Rollout
Links to articles, blog postings, photos and
videos about the unveiling of the SpaceShipTwo
vehicle on Dec. 7, 2009 at the Mojave Spaceport
by Virgin Galactic.
The Mars
Society sponsors several participatory
projects including the Mars
Analog Research Stations. These stations
provide simulations of Mars bases so that
technologies and techniques for living and
working on Mars can be tested. Volunteers
are selected to comprise a crew to carry
out simulated Mars missions. which can last
for some number of weeks depending on the
project. The video below is a mini-documentary
on one of the recent crews at the Society's
Mars
Desert Research Station in Utah. The
MDRS has seen 90 crews since it was first
opened in January 2002.
Armadillo
Aerospace, which is led by the famous
computer games pioneer John
Carmack, won prizes in the Lunar
Lander Challenge competition in 2008
and 2009.
The company continues to pursue a number
of projects that involve its low cost rocket
engines and vehicles. Below are examples
of three such projects:
Armadillo
Aerospace flew its SuperMod rocket
on a free flight to over 2000 ft on Sept.
16th. They
plan gradually to reach higher and higher
altitudes with this and subsequent vehicles
until they
reach 100km. The company will soon begin
carrying science payloads under a contract
with NASA.
Armadillo
Aerospace is working with NASA's Project
M concept in which a bipedal robot
would be landed on the Moon. This video
shows preparations and flights of a prototype
lunar
lander.
Armadillo is also building the engines for
the rocket
racers of the Rocket
Racing League and is
integrating the engines into the airframes.
The above video shows a flight of a rocket
racer
during the Tulsa
Air Show last April.
Check for the latest in leading edge rocket and
space travel projects on the Space
Transport News blog.
Real-Time Space Viewers
Earth
Weather maps, remote sensing
and spysat images.
Space
Weather
Sun, solar wind, aurora images
and the latest data