Posted by SpaceSightSeer on March 30, 2009 under Spacecraft | 
On Monday (March 30, 2009) visitors to the National Mall in Washington, DC were treated to a rare first look at NASA’s Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle. The full scale mockup of the capsule, which has had infrequent public display, was en route to Florida from NAVSEA Carderock in Bethesda where it underwent water testing.
Orion is under development as part of NASA’s Constellation program. NASA plans for Orion include future lunar missions and as an emergency return vehicle for the International Space Station. The crew module, reminiscent of the Apollo capsule, is noticeably larger as it is designed for a crew of 6.
This slide show contains a handful of pictures I was able to take myself. Click on any image view it full size in a new window.
Posted by SpaceSightSeer on March 29, 2009 under Discussion, Spacecraft |
A full-size mockup of NASA’s Orion crew exploration vehicle will be on display tomorrow (March 30) on the National Mall in front of the National Air and Space Museum. The mockup is en route to Florida following water testing near Bethesda. According to NASA, the goal of the test is to determine the kind of motions an astronaut crew can expect after landing, as well as conditions outside for the recovery team. NASA engineers and personnel will be available all day at the National Mall event to answer questions about the Orion crew module and the Constellation program.
Posted by SpaceSightSeer on March 28, 2009 under Spacecraft |
Press Release Image - Credit: Mike Mills
Virgin Galactic EVE Test Flight
WhiteKnightTwo (also known as “EVE”) completed its third successful test flight yesterday - the longest and fastest to date with a duration of over two and half hours, maximum speed of 140 knots and an altitude of over 18,000 ft. EVE is a jet-powered aircraft designed as a launch platform for SpacShipTwo being built for Virgin Galactic by Scaled Composites. The company belives the craft has the potential to launch an unmanned rocket capable of putting a satellite into low Earth orbit.
Commenting on the flights, Burt Rutan, Founder of Scaled Composites said:
“WhiteKnightTwo really is an impressive vehicle and it represents the apogee of the application of carbon composites to aerospace, all of us at Scaled are tremendously excited by its capabilities. I believe the vehicle will be developed and sold for a variety of launch applications beyond the initial requirements of Virgin Galactic.”
The URL above leads to the company’s press kit for the sucessful flight. Towards the bottom of the page are a dozen photos from the flight along with a flight video.
Posted by SpaceSightSeer on March 19, 2009 under Spacecraft |
Andøya Rocket Range
Andøya Rocket Range (ARR) is a premier provider of space-related services for the science and aerospace communities world wide. Launching sounding rockets and long duration balloons since the early sixties, it is the world’s northernmost permanent facility for launching sounding rockets and balloons. AndøyaRocket Range is an operational unit in the Norwegian Space Centre. This site includes features a photoblog featuring rockets and rocket launches.
Posted by SpaceSightSeer on March 4, 2009 under Spacecraft |
Starchaser
Starchaser’s contribution to the Ansari X-Prize competition was nicknamed “Thunderbird” and in 2006 displayed a prototype Thunderstar capsule at the X Prize Cup. This gallery contains a collection of images showing their ongoing work including the Skybolt sounding rocket.
Posted by SpaceSightSeer on February 22, 2009 under Spacecraft |
Haas Orbital Rocket Launcher
Stabilo Suborbital Manned Program
The Romanian Cosmonautics and Aeronautics Association were participants in the Ansari X-Prize Competition and remain active in the annual X Prize Cup. Their ORIZONT and STABILO are billed as Europe’s most advanced private manned space programs. This gallery includes images of these craft along with their X-Prize Demonstrators. The Demonstrator 2B rocket, equipped with world first composite materials reusable monopropellant engine ever to fly, was successfully launched on September 9, 2004 from the Cape Midia Air Force Launch Site on the Black Sea shore. STABILO, a two stages manned suborbital air launched vehicle completed three flights until now. The first stage is world largest Solar Montgolfier balloon and the second stage is a rocket powered manned spaceship. First low altitude flights of Stabilo were completed in 2006. In the same year, Mission1 was completed at an altitude of 14.700 m. In 2007 Stabilo’s Mission2 was launched at an altitude of 12.000 m above the Black Sea. The team received flight data via a communication satellite. The landing point was located at 30km (16.2miles) from the launch site.
Posted by SpaceSightSeer on February 15, 2009 under Spacecraft |
Bristol Spaceplanes Limited
Bristol Spaceplanes Limited was working to develop the Ascender using off-the-shelf technology to compete for the Ansari X-Prize. This image gallery contains photos of the flight test model. The full scale craft so far has never been developed.
Posted by SpaceSightSeer on February 2, 2009 under Spacecraft |
Lockheed Martin Photo Gallery
Lockheed Martin Flickr Photostream
Lockheed Martin has been involved in building some of the best-known machines in the space program including Cassini and the Hubble Space Telescope. These galleries of press release images includes photos and artists conceptions of a variety of air and space vehicles and probes.
Posted by SpaceSightSeer on January 28, 2009 under Collections, Deep Space Imagery, Manned Spaceflight, Spacecraft, Unmanned Missions |
Planetary Photojournal
This site provides easy access to the publicly released images from NASA’s various Solar System exploration programs. The site includes an excellent variety of images with intuitive navigation. There’s a bit of everything, spacecraft, deep space images, and views of the planets as well as the panoramic Marscapes sent back by the rovers. New images are added just about every day.
Posted by SpaceSightSeer on January 25, 2009 under Spacecraft |
Silver Dart
Canadian Arrow
PlanetSpace’s Canadian Arrow was among the top competitors for the Ansari X-Prize. Once the prize was won by the Scaled Composites team in 2004, PlanetSpace hoped to complete the craft and begin offering suborbital flights to space tourists. The company is also continuing to develop an eight-man lifting body spacecraft known as Silver Dart. It was expected that this craft would be used for crew and cargo flights to the International Space Station. The links above conain both press release images and artists renderings of the two spacecraft.
