The German Center of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM) and Spanish, new-space, launch provider, PLD Space signed an agreement on 2 October, during the 69th IAC in Bremen, Germany, for the first test flight of the Arion 1 sub-orbital launch vehicle. The...
The Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo rocket plane, VSS Unity, has made its third test flight, and the seventh in total for the SpaceShipTwo rocketplane design. The first four were flown by VSS Enterprise but it was destroyed in an accident involving premature feathering...
Interstellar Technologies’ plans to build a privately financed Japanese small launch vehicle have suffered a setback. At 2030 GMT on 29 June, a suborbital flight attempt of its MOMO-2 rocket ended in failure as it crashed back onto its launch pad at Taiki, Hokkaido,...
On 29 May, Virgin Galactic made the second flight of its SpaceShipTwo VSS-Unity rocket plane which ignited its rocket after being dropped by its carrier aircraft VMS Eve. The rocket plane’s rocket engine burned for 31 seconds, with the craft achieving Mach...
With assets of less than US$10 million and liabilities of more than twice this amount, XCOR Aerospace filed for bankruptcy after finding that it could not raise further funds. The firm was once a competitor to Virgin Galactic in the suborbital spaceplane space tourism...
As previously flagged by Seradata Space Intelligence (SSI), one possible challenge to reusable launch vehicles is to produce a cheap to build and operate single-stage-to-orbit expendable rocket as proposed by the ARCA Space Corporation. The firm is preparing a 120 km...
