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 | Jun 29, 2015 | commercial launch services, Russia, Satellites, Seradata News, Soyuz, Spaceport, Virgin Galactic
European launch provider Arianespace has been awarded a contract worth up to US$1.5 billion to launch most of the initial 648 microsatellite internet-communications Ku-band constellation for OneWeb. The launches will take place on 21 Soyuz-ST rockets over a two-year...
by David Todd | Mar 18, 2015 | commercial launch services, Virgin Galactic
Speaking at the launcher panel at Satellite 2015 in Washington D.C., Virgin Galactic President, Steve Isakowitz, proclaimed that the small satellite LEO (Low Earth Orbit) market would be better served by a dedicated launch service rather than having to share larger...
by David Todd | Jan 2, 2015 | China, exploration, Russia, SLS, Soyuz, Space Insurance, SpaceX, Technology, Virgin Galactic
2014 was an interesting space year in many ways. It had elements of great achievement, some notable failures, and confirmed some industry trends that are looking unstoppable. Record breaking year for number of launched payloads Driven mainly by commercial factors and...
by David Todd | Nov 27, 2014 | commercial launch services, NASA, Virgin Galactic
Sierra Nevada Corp (SNC) had decided to shut down its propellant office building hybrid rocket engines in California after Virgin Galactic decided to change its rocket engine from a plastic based propellant burning hybrid built by SNC to one burning a rubber compound...
by David Todd | Nov 24, 2014 | Commercial human spaceflight, Space tourism, Virgin Galactic
Following the fatal test flight accident to Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo Seradata was approached by a world famous newswire service to provide some data on the relative risk of flying on a rocket powered space tourism flight. We did not have this exact data...
