Is Sierra Nevada Spaceport America’s next tenant?

The New Mexico legislature is currently considering updated legislation to provide spaceflight liability indemnification, similar to what exists in several other states, including Florida, Texas, and Virginia. Senate Bill 3 would require spaceflight operators to have participants sign waivers; the company is then protected except in the case of “an act or omission that [...]

Armadillo Aerospace flies again from Spaceport America, but not without problems

In early December, Armadillo Aerospace successfully launched its STIG-A suborbital rocket from Spaceport America, flying to an altitude of nearly 42 kilometers before successfully returning to Earth by parachute. Shortly after that December 4 flight they released a video of the flight, shown below:

On Saturday they were back at the Spaceport for [...]

Stratolaunch: a contrarian view

Tuesday’s announcement of the plans by startup Stratolaunch Systems to develop an air launch system attracted considerable attention and excitement, and understandably so. The world’s biggest airplane! A “dream team” that reunited Paul Allen and Burt Rutan for the first time since SpaceShipOne! An industry team that includes Scaled Composites and SpaceX! A [...]

Paul Allen to unveil Stratolaunch Systems today

Late last week members of the media received a notice of a press conference at 2 pm EST (1900 GMT) Tuesday about a new space travel venture backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen. No other details were provided until a short time ago, when Allen announced via Twitter that “I have an [...]

No bull: Orbital rebrands the Taurus 2 the Antares

Illustration of Orbital's Antares (formerly Taurus 2) rocket lifting off from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) in Virginia. (Credit: OSC)

Orbital Sciences Corporation announced Monday that it has renamed the Taurus 2 rocket it’s been developing as part of its commercial cargo system. Henceforth, the rocket will now be called Antares. “We are [...]

SpaceX finally gets a launch date

Exactly 366 days—one year and one day—after SpaceX flew its first Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) demonstration mission, NASA announced it had agreed to a date for the second flight. Speaking at the NASA Future Forum in Seattle Friday, NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver announced that NASA had agreed to a launch date of [...]

Excalibur Almaz gets an unfunded CCDev agreement

The ranks of companies with Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) awards from NASA has quietly grown by one. The charter for a hearing on the program today by the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee reveals that NASA has signed an unfunded Space Act Agreement with Excalibur Almaz on October 17. There are no other [...]

Virgin’s delays hardly surprising (and not necessarily as long as WSJ claims)

Here are the first two paragraphs of a Wall Street Journal article about Virgin Galactic, published last night:

Sir Richard Branson’s space-tourism company won’t start passenger flights for at least two more years and operations will ramp up significantly more slowly than previously anticipated, according to its chief pilot.

In an interview, David [...]

WK2/SS2 flyover at Spaceport America

Below is a brief video I shot of WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo flying over the “Virgin Galactic Gateway to Space” terminal building at Spaceport America on Monday. You’ll see it coming in from the right in the distance, they going over the terminal building and almost straight [...]

Virgin dedicates its Spaceport America terminal

Sir Richard Branson, dangling from the top of Spaceport America's new terminal building, dedicates the building with a bottle of champagne. (credit: J. Foust)

It was the biggest line of the day—and Sir Richard Branson flubbed it.

Branson was dangling from the balcony Spaceport America’s new terminal building, halfway down the building’s glass [...]