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Manned Systems

ULA Selects Blue Origin Advanced Booster Engine for Vulcan Centaur Rocket System

Engineers at United Launch Alliance (ULA), provider of spacecraft launch services to the US government, in Centennial, Colo., have selected the BE-4 engine from...

News

Mechanical & Fluid Systems

Zwick Roell Provides Flexible Materials Testing over a Wide Temperature Range

Materials research and development frequently require materials to be tested at different temperatures, in line with their eventual area of use. For aerospace...

News

Aerospace

Northrop Grumman Wins $792M to Deliver Intermediate, Heavy Versions of OmegA Space Launch Vehicle

Northrop Grumman Corporation of Falls Church, Va. received a Launch Services Agreement (LSA) worth approximately $792 million of government...

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Power

Soyuz MS-10 Launch Abort Prompts Investigation into Booster Anomaly

NASA officials in Washington are pledging to conduct a thorough investigation into the cause of an anomaly with a rocket booster on the Soyuz MS-10 manned spacecraft,...

News

Manned Systems

JAXA Launches HTV7 Unmanned Cargo Spacecraft on Resupply Mission to ISS

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) H-IIB Launch Vehicle No. 7 lifted off from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan at 2:54:27 Japan Standard Time (JST) on...

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Propulsion

Delta II’s Final Flight a Success

The United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta II rocket carrying NASA’s Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) spacecraft lifted off from Space Launch Complex-2 at Vandenberg Air Force Base,...

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Manned Systems

Three Stages of Separation: Bidding Farewell to the Delta II Launch Vehicle

The upcoming launch of the NASA Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) will be the last liftoff for the Delta II rocket, whose reliability made it a...

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Manned Systems

Northrop Grumman Completes First Live Motor Cast for OmegA Rocket

Northrop Grumman of Falls Church, Va. has successfully completed casting, or filling with solid propellant, the first live motor segment for its new OmegA rocket. The...

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Mechanical & Fluid Systems

Advances in Adhesive Joining of Structural Components Focus of New Book from SAE International

Adhesive joining of structural components will assume an increasingly important role in designing and manufacturing lightweight structures for...

News

RF & Microwave Electronics

Five-Satellite MUOS Constellation to Deliver Secure, Next-Gen SATCOM on Battlefield

U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) at Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., has approved the U.S. Navy’s next-generation narrowband satellite communication (SATCOM)...

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Defense

NASA, Boeing, SpaceX to Launch ‘New Era in Human Spaceflight’

Astronaut launches will return to U.S. soil for the first time since the space shuttle’s retirement in 2011. NASA officials have named the first U.S. astronauts who will fly...

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Electronics & Computers

Iridium, Aireon, SpaceX Celebrate Satellite Launch, System Deployment

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., at 04:39:30 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) on July 25, 2018 and placed 10 new Iridium NEXT...

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Automotive

Blue Origin Mission 9 a Success

Earlier this week, Blue Origin’s New Shepard flew for the ninth time, completing a test of the crew capsule escape motor. This launch, known as Mission 9 (M9), marks the highest elevation achieved by Blue...

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Defense

U.K. Space Agency Partners with Industry to Advance Spaceflight Program

U.K. Space Agency officials in Swindon, England, are partnering with Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) in Bethesda, Md., to execute several strategic projects to support the...

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Manned Systems

Northrop Grumman Acquires Orbital ATK, Adds Solid Rocket Motors to Space Portfolio

Northrop Grumman Corp., an aerospace and defense technology company in Falls Church, Va., has acquired Orbital ATK Inc., one of only two leading U.S....

News

Manned Systems

FAA, SAE International Focus on Engine Fire Protection System Standards for Aerospace

Aerospace systems, subsystems, and components must continue to operate as intended when exposed to fire, rather than going up in flames and ceasing to...

Articles

Materials

How Additive Manufacturing is Changing the Aerospace Industry

Additive manufacturing was invented more than 30 years ago and, from small beginnings in prototyping, has developed and grown into a $6 billion industry. While additive manufacturing...

News

Manned Systems

Made in Space to Increase Material Portfolio After Two Years of Printing in Space

Made In Space, Inc. (MIS) is celebrating the two-year anniversary of the Additive Manufacturing Facility (AMF) printing onboard the International Space Station...

Articles

Aerospace

Radiation Tolerant “Smart Backplanes” for Spacecraft Avionics

In recent years there has been a trend towards the wider use of COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) equipment in space missions. This trend has been mainly driven by the...

Articles

Aerospace

Electric Rockets and the Future of Satellite Propulsion

Humans have been using rocket propulsion for almost a millennium, starting with Chinese rockets and “fire arrows” in the 13th century and continuing to the modern era's powerful Space...

Technology Update

Aerospace

Production of Satellite with First All-Electric Propulsion System Advances

Boeing is “running on schedule” as it continues to achieve production milestones for the first of its all-electric-propulsion 702SP (small platform) satellites.

Articles

Aerospace

Simulation Tools Prevent Signal Interference on Spacecraft

Launching a satellite into space requires painstaking preparation, not only to make sure that a multitude of technologies are functioning, but also to ensure that critical components...

Briefs

Mechanical & Fluid Systems

Lightcraft Propulsion for Launching a Small Satellite

A study of lightcraft propulsion systems in general has led to the conception and analysis of such a system for launching a small (having a mass no more than a few kilograms) satellite into...

Briefs

Mechanical & Fluid Systems

Prototype Rocket Engine for a Nanosat Launch Vehicle

A paper discusses a prototype rocket engine for a suborbital Reusable Nanosat Launch Vehicle (RNLV). The engine must operate with thrust levels from 3,000 to 5,000 lbf. The engine is comprised of three major subassemblies: the injector, igniter, and the combustion chamber nozzle. Propellants are...

Briefs

Physical Sciences

Advanced Concepts for Space Access

A paper summarizes commonly proposed advanced launch concepts, including both concepts that employ propellant and propellant-less concepts. A wide range of advanced launch concepts have been proposed in an effort to revolutionize space access through either a significant reduction in launch costs or significant...

Articles

Propulsion

The Future of Space Propulsion

Significant challenges and advances in space propulsion have occurred over the past ten years. The end of the Cold War had significant impacts, both positive and negative. Operational systems now have to operate...

Briefs

Physical Sciences

AFRL’s Demonstration and Science Experiments Mission

A document describes the Air Force Research Laboratory's Demonstration and Science Experiments (DSX) mission, dedicated to research needed to advance the ability to operate spacecraft in the harsh radiation environment of medium earth orbit (MEO). The DSX spacecraft, to be launched in late 2009...

Briefs

Mechanical & Fluid Systems

Thrust-Augmented Nozzles for Rocket Engines

The thrust-augmented nozzle (TAN) has been invented as a means of obtaining high performance from a rocket engine both during liftoff at sea-level atmospheric pressure and later during flight under...

Briefs

Mechanical & Fluid Systems

Thermal Design and Analysis of a Rocket-Engine TAN Injector

A subscale thrust-augmented-nozzle (TAN) rocket engine was designed, built, and hot-fire tested to demonstrate the validity of the TAN concept. As described in more detail in the...