Some more details on the Falcon 1 Flight 3 failure

At the annual AIAA/USU Conference on Small Satellites in Logan, Utah, on Wednesday, Gwynne Shotwell of SpaceX provided some additional details on the failure of the third Falcon 1 launch earlier this month in a previously-scheduled talk about the mission. She showed the rocket’s-eye view of the launch previously released on the SpaceX web site, […]

The happiest launch failure ever?

A lot has already been said about the Falcon 1 launch earlier this week, so rather than recap and reanalyze the launch from a technical standpoint, I’ll make this observation. It was initially a little surprising to hear that SpaceX people were celebrating, having champagne toasts, and, in general, calling the flight mostly a success. […]

Elon Musk, Virgin Galactic customer

On Wednesday night PBS aired a pilot of a new science show, Wired Science. (If you missed the show you can watch it online; the show is competing against two others to win a slot in the network’s lineup). One segment of the show featured an interview of Elon Musk, where host Brian Unger first […]

SpaceX, RpK win COTS awards

NASA announced this afternoon that, as many people suspected in the days leading up to this afternoon’s announcement, that SpaceX and Rocketplane Kistler (RpK) won Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) awards to develop cargo and crew transportation vehicles to serve the ISS. SpaceX proposed the Dragon capsule, launched atop a Falcon 9, as described in […]

Mars on the cheap?

PC Magazine, of all publications, has a summary article of the appearance by Space Adventures’ Chris Faranetta and SpaceX’s Elon Musk at the Future in Review (or FiRE) conference in San Diego. (See earlier post.) There’s not too much new here: both go over their plans, and discuss some far-future propulsion breakthroughs (Faranetta is fond […]

Space Adventures and SpaceX review the future

SpaceX founder Elon Musk and Space Adventures vice president Chris Faranetta discussed space tourism and the future of commercial space ventures during talks Tuesday at the “Future in Review” conference in San Diego, CNET News.com reports. There’s not much news in this report, other than a comment by Faranetta that Space Adventures hopes to sign […]

COTS and space tourism

By now you’ve probably heard that NASA has shortlisted a half-dozen companies (that we know about, at least) for further consideration in its Commercial Orbital Transportation System (COTS) program for ISS resupply. According to MSNBC and other sources, the six companies that got the nod from NASA are Andrews Space, Rocketplane Kistler, SpaceDev, SPACEHAB, SpaceX, […]

Musk on SpaceX’s capsule project

During the Q&A session after his speech Thursday morning at the ISDC, Elon Musk of SpaceX divulged some details about the development of a manned capsule the company has been quietly working on. “It’s been a low priority because obviously we have to get the booster right before,” and his voice trailed off to some […]

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