Tag: commercial-space
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Jeff Bezos introduces Eutelsat as Blue Origin’s first New Glenn rocket customer
Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon as well as the Blue Origin space venture, takes the stage with Eutelsat CEO Rodolphe Belmer. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle) WASHINGTON, D.C. — Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos revealed satellite operator Eutelsat as the first paying customer for his Blue Origin space venture’s New Glenn orbital rocket, and showed off a new…
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Sierra Nevada to resume Dream Chaser flight tests
Artist’s concept of a Dream Chaser spacecraft arriving at the International Space Station. Credit: Sierra Nevada An atmospheric test model of Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser space plane is being readied for tow and landing tests at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in California this spring. The partially-assembled test craft arrived at the California test site,…
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One giant leap: Jeff Bezos shows off Blue Origin’s shiny new BE-4 rocket engine
Blue Origin employees move the BE-4 engine through the company’s production facility in Kent, Wash. (Blue Origin Photo via Jeff Bezos / Twitter) Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos is providing a sneak peek at his Blue Origin space venture’s BE-4 rocket engine, which could someday help power missions to the moon. Today’s preview tweets comes a…
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Virgin Orbit satellite launch spin-off created with ex-Boeing exec at the helm
An artist’s conception shows Virgin Orbit’s carrier airplane, Cosmic Girl, deploying a LauncherOne rocket for a high-altitude orbital launch. (Virgin Galactic Illustration) Virgin Galactic says it’s spinning off its satellite launch operation, including the LauncherOne rocket development program, as a new commercial space company called Virgin Orbit. The newly created company’s first president, Dan Hart,…
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OneWeb to break ground on Florida factory, merge with Intelsat
Artist’s concept of the OneWeb factory at Exploration Park, Florida. Credit: OneWeb Days before breaking ground on a new spacecraft assembly line near Cape Canaveral, OneWeb and Intelsat announced a proposed merger Tuesday that would couple a planned fleet of 900 broadband Internet satellites with a high-power communications network in geostationary orbit. The “share-to-share” merger,…
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Canada’s MDA buys DigitalGlobe, reveals next-generation WorldView satellite fleet
Artist’s concept of the WorldView 4 satellite launched by DigitalGlobe in November. Credit: DigitalGlobe The acquisition of DigitalGlobe, the owner of several commercial Earth-viewing spacecraft in orbit, by Canada’s MDA Corp. will combine two of the world’s leading radar and optical observation imaging systems into one globe-spanning network and give Space Systems/Loral a firmer foothold…
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SpaceX reveals plan to send two private citizens around the moon in 2018
An artist’s conception shows SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule. (SpaceX Photo) SpaceX says it’s making plans to send two private citizens around the moon late next year – using its yet-to-be-flown Falcon Heavy rocket and its crew-capable Dragon capsule, which is still under development. The would-be fliers have not been identified, but they have already paid a…
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SpaceX to send two private citizens around the moon and back
Updated at 6:15 p.m. EST (2315 GMT) with details. An Apollo astronaut took this image of the Earth above the lunar horizon. Credit: NASA SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk announced Monday plans to send two paying “private individuals” on a week-long flight around the moon and back to Earth by the end of…
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‘Late Show’ host Stephen Colbert dons Boeing’s spacesuit for Starliner stardom
Late-night host Stephen Colbert strikes an astronautical pose. (Boeing via Twitter) Let history record that America’s first late-night astronaut is … Stephen Colbert? In a pre-recorded bit that was broadcast Friday night on CBS’ “Late Show,” Colbert wore the spacesuit designed for crews on Boeing’s Starliner space taxi and did his shtick at Kennedy Space Center…
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Star-studded cast watches Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo glide through test flight
SpaceShipTwo is nestled between the two fuselages of its White Knight Two carrier airplane before the glide test. (Virgin Galactic Photo) Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo rocket plane glided through its third free-flying test run today, and although it hasn’t yet lit up its engine, there was a high-powered crowd to fuel the excitement at California’s Mojave…