Tag: commercial-space
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Jeff Bezos’ worlds collide: Amazon and AWS join Blue Origin on Orbital Reef space station team
An artist’s conception shows the Orbital Reef space station. (Orbital Reef via Amazon) Amazon and its cloud computing division, Amazon Web Services, say they’re joining forces with another company founded by Jeff Bezos to support the development of a commercial space station known as Orbital Reef. Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture is one of the…
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Husband and wife score a first for commercial spaceflight during suborbital Blue Origin trip
Blue Origin’s New Shepard spaceship blasts off from its West Texas launch pad. (Blue Origin via YouTube) Say hello to the final frontier’s latest power couple: Marc and Sharon Hagle, who became the first husband-and-wife team to fly on a commercial spaceship today during a suborbital trip provided by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture.…
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All systems go for Blue Origin’s spacefliers — but not for weather at Texas launch site
Trainer Sarah Knights and spacefliers-to-be look at New Shepard’s crew capsule. (Blue Origin via Instagram) Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture has rescheduled its next crewed suborbital space mission for Thursday, due to concerns about the weather for Tuesday and Wednesday. In a mission update, Blue Origin said “forecasted high winds during launch…
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Billionaire kicks off new orbital missions with SpaceX, featuring spacewalk and Starlink tests
An artist’s conception shows a Polaris Project crew member heading out for a spacewalk from SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spaceship. (Polaris Project Illustration) Five months after billionaire tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman led a crew for a privately funded philanthropic space mission, he’s doing it again. And maybe again, and again. The Shift4 CEO announced today that…
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Year in Space: Jeff Bezos and his billionaire rivals finally usher in the age of commercial spaceflight
Jeff Bezos uncorks the bubbly after riding Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital spaceship. (Blue Origin Photo) For 25 years, I’ve been recapping the top stories about space and looking forward to next year’s trends on the final frontier — and for most of that time, the dawn of the era of commercial spaceflight has been…
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Mike Suffredini talks Axiom module additions to ISS, ensuring no gap in LEO station access
It is a lesson the U.S. space program has had to learn many times over: don’t voluntarily give up a space capability without having a successor ready to go or already operational. But for the ISS (International Space Station), a gap in LEO (low Earth orbit) scientific research capability will likely not occur when the…
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Axiom-1 science & the push toward greater commercialization of space research
When the Axiom-1 mission lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center early next year, it will take with it four humans on the first-ever all-private astronaut flight to the ISS (International Space Station). At its core, the mission focuses on science and education, and the four-person crew will conduct 25 experiments with more than 100…
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Citizen spacefliers splash down, finishing up Inspiration4’s charity mission in orbit
SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule descends to a splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean. (Inspiration4 Photo) The first non-governmental flight to orbit ended with a splash — and with the safe return of the Inspiration4 mission’s billionaire commander and his three crewmates. Shift4 Payment’s 38-year-old founder and CEO, Jared Isaacman, paid what’s thought to be a price…
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Why Inspiration4’s ‘all-civilian’ trip to orbit represents the dawn of a second space age
Inspiration4 mission directors Scott Poteet (far left) and Todd Ericson (far right) flank the crew: Chris Sembroski, Sian Proctor, commander Jared Isaacman and Hayley Arceneaux. (Inspiration4 Photo / John Kraus) Are they space tourists? Citizen spacefliers? All-civilian astronauts? Whatever you call them, the four teammates who are due to go into orbit today in a…
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Virgin Galactic flies to edge of space for first time from New Mexico
Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity spaceplane fires its rocket motor to begin an ascent to the edge of space Saturday. Credit: Virgin Galactic Two pilots flew Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo rocketplane to the edge of space Saturday over New Mexico on the first human spaceflight from the company’s new home base at Spaceport America. Commercial astronauts Rick…