UP Finished Four Tests in One Flight

UP Aerospace launched one of its rockets last week (23 Oct) giving four experiments four minutes of microgravity and space time during the rocket’s suborbital flight. The rocket, an UP SL-9, was launched from Spaceport America in New Mexico. No lizards lounging in the desert were apparently injured during the test. UP’s rocket flight was […]

DIY Space: Space Travel Grants are Go!

Citizens of Earth: for as little as $15 you can apply to fly in a rocket ship of your choice. How? It’s all thanks to your money, and an inspired program from the people you are giving the money to–Spaceship Earth Grants (SEG). From the middle of last September, until the end of this year (Dec 31, […]

So Where Were the Spiders? NASA Might Be Using A Few

This Gearburn.com post has some interesting information about NASA’s $500,000 award to Tethers Unlimited, Inc. (TUI) and their ideas about how to construct objects in space using a robotic technology they’re calling “SpiderFab.” Specifically, NASA is expecting TUI to build a large multi-armed robot that looks a lot like a big white spider to extrude building materials (basically 3D print […]

DIY Space: Operate a Very Expensive Backhoe

I worked with some plumbing fellows this last year to remove some huge amounts of dirt to get at our very clogged up house waste line. One of the pieces of equipment we used to remove the dirt was a very small, but effective, backhoe. They let me help them with the backhoe occasionally (when I […]

Russia’s Fregat: What Mission Assurance?

Placing a satellite in the wrong orbit. It’s what the delightful world of mission assurance is supposed to prevent. If you talk to any space operator, mission assurance is the sexiest profession in the space realm…JK–not really! If anything, the typical space operator falls asleep at the first fishbone chart presented in the omnipresent and snore-inducing […]