orbital

Virgin Orbit targeting this summer for 1st-ever orbital launch from UK soil

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On the heels of a third straight successful launch from California earlier this year, Virgin Orbit plans to extend its liftoffs to the United Kingdom. The company aims to launch for the first time this summer from Spaceport Cornwall, in the western United Kingdom, Virgin Orbit announced on Wednesday (March 9). The mission will loft … Read more

2 Supermassive Black Holes Are Locked in The Tightest Orbit We’ve Seen Yet

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A dance of death is taking place at the heart of a galaxy in the distant Universe. Some 10 billion light-years away, two supermassive black holes are locked in an orbit so tight that they will collide with each other and form one much larger black hole in the relatively short time of just 10,000 … Read more

Elon Musk shows off fully-stacked SpaceX Starship as 1st orbital launch nears

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STARBASE, Boca Chica, TX — “It is hard to believe it is real, except, you know… it is right there.” Elon Musk took to the stage here on Thursday night (Feb. 10) to deliver what his company, SpaceX, billed as an “update on the design, development and testing of Starship” — the “it” to which Musk was … Read more

US Space Force’s ‘Orbital Prime’ project aims to attack space debris by recycling or removing junk

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A new U.S. Space Force video “demands action” on space debris and asks the private sector for their help cleaning up the growing space mess. The video was released Jan. 5 on the Space Force’s SpaceWERX website (its technology branch) to push a program called Orbital Prime, which aims to test out an on orbit-system … Read more

James Webb Space Telescope Reaches Its Destination in Huge Mission Milestone

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The James Webb Space Telescope has fired its thrusters and reached its orbital destination around a million miles (1.5 million kilometers) away from our planet, NASA said Monday, a key milestone on its mission to study cosmic history.   At around 2:00 pm Eastern Time (1900 GMT), the observatory fired its thrusters for 5 minutes … Read more

Radian Aerospace raises $27.5 million for new orbital space plane

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There’s a new private space plane in the works. Washington-based Radian Aerospace emerged from “stealth mode” Wednesday (Jan. 19), announcing that it has raised $27.5 million in seed funding. The money will aid the development of Radian One, a crew-carrying orbital space plane that Radian hopes will transform spaceflight as well as travel here on … Read more

A Giant Asteroid Bigger Than The Empire State Building Is About to Zip Past Earth

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A large, rocky asteroid is going to fly by Earth next week. At 1 kilometer (3,280 feet) long, it’s roughly two and a half times the height of the Empire State Building, and it’s been classed a “Potentially Hazardous Asteroid” due to its size and its regular close visits to our planet.   But don’t … Read more

1st orbital test flight of SpaceX’s Starship Mars rocket pushed to March at the earliest

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We’ll have to wait a bit longer for the orbital debut of SpaceX’s Starship Mars rocket. SpaceX had been aiming to launch Starship on its first orbital test flight in January or February, provided that the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) wrapped up a programmatic environmental assessment (PEA) of the company’s South Texas launch site … Read more