Lifeboat Foundation

It’s finally happening. Nearly 8 years after the final space shuttle flight, a crew-capable spacecraft is once again ready to launch from Kennedy Space Center, Florida. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon is scheduled to blast off for a 6-day, uncrewed test flight on 2 March at 02:49 EST (07:49 UTC). If all goes well, the spacecraft will dock at the International Space Station (ISS) on 3 March around 06:00 EST (11:00 UTC) and stay there until 8 March, when it returns to Earth and splashes down in the Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast.

If successful, the flight will be a major milestone for the burgeoning commercial spaceflight industry.

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule will launch atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

RD: Is that because the focus right now is so much on getting there? EM: Yeah yeah, you need to get there. That’s a big deal. I think Starship will also be good for creating a base on the moon. We’ll probably have a base on the moon before going to Mars.

The SpaceX CEO on food, fuel, and the risk of vaporization.

Global Winner ISDApp was created by a team called iNON in the Philippines (“isda” is the Filipino word for “fish”). This community app is designed to empower fishermen with daily information useful for fishing and safety. #SpaceApps #SpaceAppsPH

A virtual reality (VR) exploration of the Moon; an educational, problem solving, and collaborative VR game for kids using NASA and planetary data; and a tool to express the wonders of satellite imagery through audio are three of the six apps chosen as Global Winners in NASA’s 2018 Space Apps Challenge. The six Global Winners were selected from 1,375 apps created during an intense 48-hour global hackathon last October.

AMAZON chief Jeff Bezos dreams of creating a new space race of humans across our solar system – with a population of one trillion.

The billionaire tech mogul revealed the lofty goal during a speech about Blue Origin, his groundbreaking space transport company.

According to Bezos, who has a net worth of £103billion, increasing the population dramatically across space could give us countless creative geniuses.

The company’s long-promised goal of commercial spaceflight is one step closer to reality.

Virgin Galactic sent three human beings on Unity for the first time in Friday’s supersonic test flight, which reached three times the speed of sound on its way up. Just before the flight, Richard Branson’s space tourism company told CNBC that astronaut trainer Beth Moses is on the company’s spacecraft Unity, along with the two pilots.

“Beth Moses is on board as a crew member,” a Virgin Galactic spokeswoman told CNBC. “She will be doing validation of some of the cabin design elements.”

@VirginGalactic take off tweet

Continue reading “Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic reaches space again, this time with first test passenger” »

NASA on Friday gave SpaceX the green light to test a new crew capsule by first sending an unmanned craft with a life-sized mannequin to the International Space Station.

“We’re go for launch, we’re go for docking,” said William Gerstenmaier, the associate administrator with NASA Human Exploration and Operations.

A Falcon 9 rocket from the private US-based SpaceX is scheduled to lift off, weather permitting, on March 2 to take the Crew Dragon test capsule to the ISS.

Continue reading “NASA greenlights SpaceX crew capsule test to ISS” »

NASA has given the green light for Elon Musk’s SpaceX to launch the first unmanned test of its seven-seat Crew Dragon capsule on March 2 after passing a full day of reviews, bringing the space agency one step closer to replacing the retired Space Shuttle program after years of delays and ending its dependency on contracted Russian Soyuz rockets.

The test flight was originally scheduled for January, but was later delayed to complete hardware testing and other reviews. Per Space.com, NASA and SpaceX officials have now completed an in-depth review of the Crew Dragon’s capabilities called a flight readiness review, with NASA Commercial Crew Program manager Kathy Leuders telling reporters they needed to verify the craft “can safely go rendezvous and dock with the space station, and undock safely, and not pose a hazard to the International Space Station.”