NASA is shutting down its Nano-Satellite Launch Challenge (updated)

A NASA prize competition to support the development of very small launch vehicles appears to be aborted by the space agency before it can get off the launch pad. In an email Tuesday afternoon, Space Florida vice president Percy Luney announced that NASA had notified the agency of its plans to terminate the Space Act […]

Fearing it’s falling behind, Boeing may ramp up commercial crew investment

In the latest round of awards in NASA’s commercial crew program, Boeing won the largest amount of money, $460 million, versus SpaceX’s $440 million and Sierra Nevada’s $212 million. NASA officials noted at the time that the dollar values in the awards were not intended to be a ranking of the companies, but it was […]

Russian officials raise doubts about Brightman’s flight, and space tourism

Sarah Brightman attended to during tests that confirmed her fitness to fly to space as a space tourist in 2015. Some Russian officials have raised doubts that she will fly. (credit: sarahbrightman.com)

Last month, with considerable fanfare, Space Adventures and the Russian space agency Roscosmos announced at a press conference in Moscow that singer […]

From Liberty to Lynx (but not from New York to Tokyo)

XCOR Aerospace announced yesterday that it has issued a contract to ATK for the manufacturing of the wings and control surfaces of XCOR’s Lynx Mark 1 suborbital spaceplane. ATK is best known (in the space industry, at least) for its solid propellant motors, including the Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) used to launch the Space Shuttle. […]

iPhone, iPad, CCiCap?

Those who have closely followed NASA’s Commercial Crew Program may have noticed something a little unusual about the latest phase of the effort. Previous phases of the program were known as Commercial Crew Development, or CCDev, but this latest phase is called the Commercial Crew Integrated Capability. It’s known not as CCIC, or CCICap, but […]