by David Todd | Apr 6, 2016 | Commercial human spaceflight, Seradata News, Space tourism, Suborbital, Technology
Blue Origin is proving the concept of reusability as it made a third flight using the same reusable New Shepard suborbital rocket on 2 April 2016. The flight reached an altitude of 103km (339,178 feet) – 3km further than the accepted start of “space” – where it...
by David Todd | Nov 25, 2015 | Personal spaceflight, Space tourism, Suborbital, Technology
On 23 November 2015, the Jeff Bezos-led Blue Origin company made a significant advance in its suborbital test programme when its New Shepard space vehicle successfully breached 100km of space by flying to 100.5km (329,839 feet), and returning to Earth to land back at...
by David Todd | Jul 28, 2015 | Commercial human spaceflight, Personal spaceflight, Space tourism, Suborbital, Technology, Virgin Galactic
The premature in-flight deployment of the feathered tail plane speed braking system was the primary cause of the destruction of the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo (VSS Enterprise) on 31 October 2015, the formal investigation into the accident has concluded. The US...
by David Todd | Apr 30, 2015 | Space tourism, Suborbital
On 29 April 2015, Blue Origin has just made a successful unmanned suborbital test flight of its passenger carrying New Shepard spacecraft and launch vehicle. The flight achieved an ultimate altitude of 307,000 feet before the capsule was separated to make a parachute...
by David Todd | Dec 18, 2014 | India, Launches, Suborbital, test
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) conducted the first sub-orbital test launch of the GSLV Mk III launch vehicle carrying its Crew Module Atmospheric Re-entry Experiment (CARE) at 0400 GMT on the 18th December 2014. The launch took place from the Satish...
by David Todd | Sep 2, 2014 | Suborbital, Technology
On 25 August 2014, a test of the Advanced Hypersonic Weapon ended in failure at Kodiak Island in Alaska when the three stage carrier rocket which was meant to accelerate the test vehicle to hypersonic but suborbital speed was exploded deliberately due to a detected...