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Blue Origin Goddard
Blue Origin Goddard is the name of the first development vehicle in Blue Origin's New Shepard program, which flew for the first time on November 13, 2006. Named after rocketry pioneer Robert H. Goddard, the vehicle is a subscale demonstrator and flew up to a height of about during its initial flight. The private spacecraft venture is being funded by the billionaire founder Jeff Bezos. Rob Meyerson led Blue Origin from 2003 to 2017 and served as its first president. Overview The Goddard rocket used 9 BE-1 engines, and is a single stage sub-orbital test vehicle. A video, filmed on November 13, 2006, from the Corn Ranch spaceport shows the first craft to launch under the New Shepard program. The vehicle climbed for approximately 10 seconds, reaching a height of roughly before starting to descend, and making a controlled landing back on its landing legs approximately 25 seconds after take-off. This flight marked the first time the company's founder, Jeff Bezos, broke his si ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blue Origin
Blue Origin, LLC is an American privately funded aerospace manufacturer and sub-orbital spaceflight services company headquartered in Kent, Washington. Founded in 2000 by Jeff Bezos, the founder and executive chairman of Amazon, the company is led by CEO Bob Smith and aims to make access to space cheaper and more reliable through reusable launch vehicles. Rob Meyerson led Blue Origin from 2003 to 2017 and served as its first president. Blue Origin is employing an incremental approach from suborbital to orbital flight, with each developmental step building on its prior work. The company's name refers to the blue planet, Earth, as the point of origin. Blue Origin develops orbital technology, rocket-powered vertical takeoff and vertical landing (VTVL) vehicles for access to suborbital and orbital space. Initially focused on suborbital spaceflight, the company has designed, built and flown multiple testbeds of its New Shepard vehicle at its facilities in Culberson County, Texas. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lunar Lander Challenge
The Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge (NG-LLC) was a competition funded by NASA's Centennial Challenges program. The competition offered a series of prizes for teams that launch a vertical takeoff/vertical landing (VTVL) rocket that achieved the total delta-v needed for a vehicle to move between the surface of the Moon and its orbit. The multi-level competition was conducted by the X PRIZE Foundation, with sponsorship from the Northrop Grumman Corporation who ran the ongoing competition. The prize purses were paid by NASA. It was held annually at the X PRIZE Cup, making its debut at the 2006 Wirefly X PRIZE Cup in October, 2006, until 2009 when the prize purse was awarded to Masten Space Systems and Armadillo Aerospace. Competition rules The competition is divided into two levels. Both levels require teams to demonstrate control of their vehicle by flying to an altitude of more than , flying laterally for , and landing on a pad. For level 1, this pad is a simple di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Private Spaceflight
Private spaceflight is spaceflight or the development of spaceflight technology that is conducted and paid for by an entity other than a government agency. In the early decades of the Space Age, the government space agencies of the Soviet Union and United States pioneered space technology in collaboration with affiliated design bureaus in the USSR and private companies in the US, entirely funding both the development of new spaceflight technologies and the operational costs of spaceflight. The European Space Agency was formed in 1975, largely following the same model of space technology development. However, Arianespace became the world's first commercial launch service provider in the early 1980s. Later on, large defense contractors began to develop and operate space launch systems, derived from government rockets. Private spaceflight in Earth orbit includes communications satellites, satellite television, satellite radio, astronaut transport and sub-orbital an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Space Tourism
Space tourism is human space travel for recreational purposes. There are several different types of space tourism, including orbital, suborbital and lunar space tourism. During the period from 2001 to 2009, seven space tourists made eight space flights aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station, brokered by Space Adventures in conjunction with Roscosmos and RSC Energia. The publicized price was in the range of US$20–25 million per trip. Some space tourists have signed contracts with third parties to conduct certain research activities while in orbit. By 2007, space tourism was thought to be one of the earliest markets that would emerge for commercial spaceflight. Russia halted orbital space tourism in 2010 due to the increase in the International Space Station crew size, using the seats for expedition crews that would previously have been sold to paying spaceflight participants. Orbital tourist flights were set to resume in 2015 but the planne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blue Origin Launch Vehicles
Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when observing light with a dominant wavelength between approximately 450 and 495 nanometres. Most blues contain a slight mixture of other colours; azure contains some green, while ultramarine contains some violet. The clear daytime sky and the deep sea appear blue because of an optical effect known as Rayleigh scattering. An optical effect called Tyndall effect explains blue eyes. Distant objects appear more blue because of another optical effect called aerial perspective. Blue has been an important colour in art and decoration since ancient times. The semi-precious stone lapis lazuli was used in ancient Egypt for jewellery and ornament and later, in the Renaissance, to make the pigment ultramarine, the most expensive of all pigments. In the eig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zarya (spacecraft)
The Zarya spacecraft () was a secret Soviet project of the late 1980s aiming to design and build a large crewed vertical-takeoff, vertical-landing (VTVL) reusable space capsule, a much larger replacement for the Soyuz (spacecraft). The project was developed during 1985–1989 years by Energia corporation until it was shelved in 1989, "on the eve of the Soviet Union's collapse" due to lack of funding. The name of the project was later reused by the Zarya space station module which served as the first component of International Space Station in 1998. Design The Zarya spacecraft would have differed from all previous spacecraft by having an array of a dozen rocket engines for making a soft landing upon return to Earth, without using a parachute. Mission Zarya spacecraft would have brought crew and supplies to ''Mir'' or supplies only in automated mode. It would have had a normal crew of one or two and offered the possibility of carrying a maximum of eight to twelve if used as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
XCOR Lynx
The XCOR Lynx was a proposed suborbital horizontal-takeoff, horizontal-landing (HTHL), rocket-powered spaceplane that was under development by the California-based company XCOR Aerospace to compete in the emerging suborbital spaceflight market. The Lynx was intended to carry one pilot, a ticketed passenger, and/or a payload above altitude. The concept was under development since 2003, when a two-person suborbital spaceplane was announced under the name Xerus. In January 2016, XCOR changed plans for the first flight of the Lynx spaceplane. It was initially planned for the second quarter of 2016 from the Midland spaceport in Texas, but, in early 2016, it was pushed to an "undisclosed and tentative" date at the Mojave spaceport. In May 2016, XCOR announced development of the Lynx had been halted with layoffs of approximately one-third of the staff; the company intended to concentrate on development of their liquid hydrogen rocket under contract with United Launch Alliance, ins ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SpaceX Reusable Launch System Development Program
SpaceX is privately funding the development of orbital launch systems that can be reused many times, in a manner similar to the reusability of aircraft. SpaceX has been developing the technologies over several years to facilitate full and rapid reusability of space launch vehicles. The project's long-term objectives include returning a launch vehicle first stage to the launch site in minutes and to return a second stage to the launch pad following orbital realignment with the launch site and atmospheric reentry in up to 24 hours. SpaceX's long term goal is that both stages of their orbital launch vehicle will be designed to allow reuse a few hours after return. The program was publicly announced in 2011. SpaceX first achieved a successful landing and recovery of a first stage in December 2015. The first re-flight of a landed first stage occurred in March 2017 with the second occurring in June 2017, that one only five months after the maiden flight of the booster. The thi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SpaceShipTwo
The Scaled Composites Model 339 SpaceShipTwo (SS2) is an air-launched suborbital spaceplane type designed for space tourism. It is manufactured by The Spaceship Company, a California-based company owned by Virgin Galactic. SpaceShipTwo is carried to its launch altitude by a Scaled Composites White Knight Two, before being released to fly on into the upper atmosphere powered by its rocket engine. It then glides back to Earth and performs a conventional runway landing. The spaceship was officially unveiled to the public on 7 December 2009 at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. On 29 April 2013, after nearly three years of unpowered testing, the first one constructed successfully performed its first powered test flight. Virgin Galactic plans to operate a fleet of five SpaceShipTwo spaceplanes in a private passenger-carrying service and has been taking bookings for some time, with a suborbital flight carrying an updated ticket price of US$250,000. The spaceplane coul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
JAXA
The is the Japanese national air and space agency. Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on 1 October 2003. JAXA is responsible for research, technology development and launch of satellites into orbit, and is involved in many more advanced missions such as asteroid exploration and possible human exploration of the Moon. Its motto is ''One JAXA'' and its corporate slogan is ''Explore to Realize'' (formerly ''Reaching for the skies, exploring space''). History On 1 October 2003, three organizations were merged to form the new JAXA: Japan's Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), the National Aerospace Laboratory of Japan (NAL), and National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA). JAXA was formed as an Independent Administrative Institution administered by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC). Before the merger ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reusable Vehicle Testing
The Reusable Vehicle Testing (RVT) project was conducted by the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) from 1998 until 2003. The project involved a series of experimental vehicles to test repeated flights of a reusable rocket. Four complete vehicles were developed during the project. The design of the experimental vehicles addressed various technical challenges for future Reusable Launch Vehicles (RLV) such as flight on demand, quick turnaround, higher performance, lightweight structures and materials. The project involved ground and flights tests with the flight testing conducted at the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) Noshiro Rocket Testing Center in the northern part of Japan's main island. JAXA proposed to develop a reusable high altitude rocket based on the technologies demonstrated in the RVT project. The rocket would take a payload of about 100 kg to an altitude of 100 km. RVT-derived equipment such as engines and attitude control will be used. The de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Project Morpheus
Project Morpheus was a NASA project that began in 2010 to develop a vertical takeoff and vertical landing (VTVL) test vehicle called the Morpheus Lander. It is intended to demonstrate a new nontoxic spacecraft propellant system (methane and oxygen) and an autonomous landing and hazard detection technology. The prototype planetary lander is capable of autonomous flight, including vertical takeoff and landings. The vehicles are NASA-designed robotic landers that will be able to land and take off with of cargo on the Moon. The prospect is an engine that runs reliably on propellants that are not only cheaper and safer here on Earth, but could also be potentially manufactured on the Moon and Mars. (See: In-situ resource utilization.) The Alpha prototype lander was manufactured and assembled at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) and Armadillo Aerospace's facility near Dallas. The prototype lander is a "spacecraft" that is about in diameter, weighs approximately and consists of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
