Space companies / agencies

Blogs about space companies and/or agencies

The Vulcan rocket blasting off (Image NASA TV)

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A little while ago, ULA’s Vulcan rocket launched on its maiden mission, formally designated as CERT-1. For the occasion, it was carrying Astrobotic Technology’s Peregrine Moon lander, which separated from the rocket stage called Centaur after about 50 minutes. A capsule containing ashes of various famous people was also launched into a heliocentric orbit. The Centaur continued its mission with a few burns and cut-offs of its engine until it goes out of Earth orbit, scheduled after just under 4.5 hours from the launch.

The Electron rocket starts "There And Back Again" mission (Image courtesy Rocket Lab)

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A few hours ago, Rocket Lab’s first attempt to use a Sikorsky S-92 helicopter to catch the first stage of its Electron rocket while it was returning to the ground during a mission called “There And Back Again” was successful. The goal is a controlled transport of the first stage to the ground in order to reuse it. After catching it, the pilot found that the load had different characteristics from those experienced during the tests and let go of the first stage, which splashed down and was recovered by Rocket Lab’s ship.

The Moon landers by Dynetics, SpaceX and Blue Origin / National Team

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NASA has announced the choice of three companies to design and develop human landing systems for the Artemis program. These are essentially plans for a lunar lander among which one will be selected to be built for the mission that, according to plans, is supposed to bring American astronauts back to the Moon by 2024. The companies selected are Blue Origin (actually the first contractor for a group called National Team), Dynetics, and SpaceX. This stage of development involves a 10-month base period during which companies and NASA will work together on the selected projects. The total contract value is $967 million.

Artist's concept of the Dragon XL cargo spacecraft after separating from the Falcon Heavy rocket's second stage (Image courtesy SpaceX)

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NASA has announced that it has selected SpaceX as the first supplier in the Gateway Logistics Services contract to transport cargo, experiments and other supplies to the Lunar Gateway, part of the Artemis program that aims to bring astronauts back to the Moon. At least two missions will be carried out with the Dragon XL cargo spacecraft, a new variant of the Dragon 2 cargo optimized to carry over 5 metric tons of cargo to the Moon’s orbit. The timeline for these missions isn’t clear due to the NASA’s changes of plans, as recently the agency decided to skip the use of the Lunar Gateway for the mission that’s supposed to take place by 2024 and use it in the following years.

Boeing's CST-100 Starliner Calypso spacecraft during recovery (Photo courtesy Boeing. All rights reserved)

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Boeing has announced that its engineers and technicians are conducting an in-depth examination of its CST-100 Starliner spacecraft, which landed on December 22 after the premature end of its Boe-OFT (Boeing Orbital Flight Test) mission. The exam includes the recovery of all the data recorded by the on-board systems to obtain final answers on the problem that caused an off-nominal orbit insertion about half an hour after launch. After landing at the White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, the name Calypso was proposed by astronaut Sunita Williams and quickly approved, therefore it will be the official name used in the next missions, as the spacecraft is reusable.