by David Todd | Jul 17, 2019 | NASA, SpaceX
The post-flight ground test destruction of the previously flown (in uncrewed condition) Crew Dragon DM-1 capsule, during a SuperDraco thruster engine firing test on 20 April 2019, was caused by a leak of nitrogen tetroxide, a preliminary investigation by SpaceX...
by David Todd | Jul 15, 2019 | Apollo, Blue Origin, Commercial human spaceflight, NASA, Seradata News, Space Insurance, SpaceX, Virgin Galactic
As the 50th celebration of the Apollo 11 astronaut moon landing gets underway, some less well-known aspects of the mission have been revealed. One was that during the late 1950s the UK briefly considered starting a project to mount its own Apollo-11-style human lunar...
by David Todd | Jul 4, 2019 | Satellites, Seradata News, SpaceX
Northrop Grumman has been awarded a two-satellite construction order as part of the Arctic Satellite Broadband Mission (ASBM).by Norway’s state-run firm Space Norway which is offering communications payloads on board the satellites for Norwegian Ministry of...
by David Todd | Jun 27, 2019 | Launches, Satellites, Seradata News, SpaceX
Using the combined 5.1 million lbf thrust of 27 Merlin 1D engines, the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket lifted off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Centre near Cape Canaveral, Florida, on 25 June. It was a big success for its clients but had mixed results for SpaceX in its...
by David Todd | Jun 19, 2019 | History, Seradata News, SpaceX, Technology
Now that Boeing faces legal action over its design process and over its failure to ground the faulty Boeing 737 Max aircraft, some wonder why it was ever designed like that in the first place. Nevertheless, there will always be a tension between what is safe and what...
by David Todd | Jun 14, 2019 | Satellites, SpaceX, Technology
While Space X originally announced that all 60 Starlink communications satellites launched by a Falcon 9 on 24 May were in contact with ground control and that all had deployed their solar arrays and their electric propulsion systems were operational. However, on 28...
