Author: starpathwp-production
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European official on Ariane 6 debut: “Please allow me to not speculate at this time”
Europe’s new Ariane 6 rocket is reaching its decisive phase of testing, officials said this week. This includes a short- and long-duration firing of the rocket’s first stage at European launch facilities in French Guiana, tests that could occur today and about one month from now. “They are really the decisive moments when we see…
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Four-person crew returns to Earth aboard SpaceX’s Dragon capsule
A SpaceX Dragon capsule with a crew of four returning from the International Space Station streaked through the atmosphere over Florida and splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean early Monday, closing out the company’s initial commercial crew contract with NASA. But SpaceX has at least eight more space station crew rotation missions under contract with…
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SpaceX stacks Ship 25 and Booster 9, prepares for flight
SpaceX has rolled out Ship 25 to the launch site and stacked it on top of Super Heavy Booster 9, bringing back a fully stacked Starship rocket to Starbase since April 20. Several important additions have been made to Ship 25 ahead of this stacking and should make the vehicle ready for flight. SpaceX now…
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Mars Society unveils its plan to establish technology institute, perhaps in Seattle
A computer-generated image shows an early Mars settlement. (Image via Midjourney, 2023) The nonprofit Mars Society is getting set to take the next giant leap in its mission to support Red Planet exploration and settlement, by establishing a Mars Technology Institute to develop the tools and processes those settlers will need. Robert Zubrin, the Mars…
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Here’s what we know about a mysterious launch from Florida this week
Thursday update: The US military confirms it scrubbed a planned hypersonic missile test Wednesday. The test has not yet been rescheduled. Here’s the full statement from a spokesperson from the Office of the Secretary of Defense: “On September 6, the Department planned to conduct a flight test at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida to inform…
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Next-generation X-ray space telescope and lunar lander launches from Japan
Updated 8:32 p.m. EDT (0031 UTC): The H-2A rocket lifted off on time and deployed the XRISM space telescope as planned at T+14 min 21 sec. The upper stage performed a second burn and deployment of the SLIM lunar lander occurred about 48 minutes after launch. A next-generation X-ray space telescope and an experimental lunar…
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Employees report a rare round of layoffs at Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture
The marquee of Blue Origin’s HQ in Kent, Wash., glows on a rainy morning. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle) Several employees at Kent, Wash.-based Blue Origin are reporting that they’ve been laid off, marking a rare turnabout in the rapid growth of Jeff Bezos’ space venture. The reduction in force appears to be focused in…
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Starship is stacked and ready to make its second launch attempt
On Tuesday, SpaceX stacked its Starship rocket on top of a Super Heavy booster in South Texas, beginning final preparations for a second launch attempt of the massive vehicle. After the stacking operations were complete, SpaceX founder Elon Musk posted on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, that “Starship is ready to launch, awaiting…
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Wyvern and Loft Orbital Partner to Expand Dragonette Satellite Constellation
Wyvern has announced that they are teaming up with Loft Orbital, a space infrastructure company, to expand the capacity of their Dragonette constellation. Like Wyvern, Loft is unlocking the power of space for data collection with a deep understanding of how to develop, manage, launch, and operate the satellites that make up their infrastructure. This…
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Speedcast Names James Feger as New Chief Technology Officer
Speedcast appoints James Feger as the company’s new chief technology officer, to improve its software-defined wide area networking solutions. Feger joins Speedcast from application security and multi-cloud management company F5, where he was senior vice president. He has also held technology leadership roles at CenturyLink. Speedcast said Feger will help the company introduce a new…