Spaceport America, Virgin Galactic sign lease agreement

The final obstacle to the beginning of construction of Spaceport America in New Mexico has been overcome. On Wednesday the state announced that it signed a long-term lease agreement with Virgin Galactic, who will be the anchor tenant of the spaceport. The agreement had been in the works for some time, and earlier this month, […]

WhiteKnightTwo (finally) flies

After weeks, if not months, of anticipation, WhiteKnightTwo made its first flight Sunday morning. According to a SPACE.com report, the aircraft took off from Mojave Air and Space Port at 8:17 am PST (11:17 am PST, 1617 GMT) and landed back at the airport exactly one hour later. Flight International has video of a portion […]

Spaceport America gets its license

The Las Cruces Sun-News reported Monday that Spaceport America officials expected the FAA to issue Monday an environmental impact report associated with the spaceport, one of the final steps before the FAA would issue a spaceport license (officially a “launch site operator’s license”) for the planned commercial spaceport. Well, Spaceport America not only got the […]

A new training option for space tourists

A medical institute best known for rehabilitating athletes now wants to get into the space tourism field. The Andrews Institute, in Gulf Breeze, Florida, near Pensacola, has established “Project Odyssey” in partnership with Space Florida. The effort will provide a “first-of-its-kind” program for training prospective customers, which would include medical screening as well as centrifuge […]

Virgin update and other notes

Rob Coppinger of Flightglobal.com covered a speech this morning by Will Whitehorn of Virgin Galactic at a UK space conference. Whitehorn said that the first flight of WhiteKnightTwo will be “soon” (but we’ve heard that before) and that SpaceShipTwo is “almost finished”. Virgin Galactic is now putting its second group of 100 customers through […]

XCOR press conference highlights

The XCOR press conference Tuesday largely confirmed the details that had previously leaked out in the days leading up to the announcement (the XCOR press release includes links to the full press conference video as well as the promotional video shown during the press conference), but there were a few interesting details to come out […]

Coverage of XCOR press conference

I’ll be posting updates from the XCOR press conference today here: Click Here

Previewing the XCOR announcement

As announced last week, XCOR will unveil some new details about their business plans for Lynx at a press conference today, including their first customer and their sales partner. Much of that news, though, has already leaked out.

Yesterday The Daily Mail reported that London investment banker Per Wimmer will be XCOR’s first customer. When […]