Lifeboat Foundation

Since the beginning of the Space Age, scientists have relied on multi-stage rockets in order to put spacecraft and payloads into orbit. The same technology has allowed for missions farther into space, sending robotic spacecraft to every planet in the Solar System, and astronauts to the Moon. But looking to the future, it is clear that new ideas will be needed in order to cut costs and expand launch services.

Hence why the ARCA Space Corporation has developed a concept for a single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) rocket. It’s known as the Haas 2CA, the latest in a series of rockets being developed by the New Mexico-based aerospace company. If all goes as planned, this rocket will be the first SSTO rocket in history, meaning it will be able to place payloads and crew into Earth’s orbit relying on only one stage with one engine.

Continue reading “ARCA Unveils the World’s first Single-Stage-to-Orbit Rocket” »

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will deliver SES-10, a commercial communications satellite for SES, to a Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO). SES is a world-leading satellite operator, providing reliable and secure satellite communications solutions across the globe.

The SES-10 mission will mark a historic milestone on the road to full and rapid reusability as the world’s first reflight of an orbital class rocket. Falcon 9’s first stage for the SES-10 mission previously supported the successful CRS-8 mission in April 2016.

Continue reading “Ses-10 Mission” »

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A new propulsion engine with dime-size thrusters could be used to propel a host of spacecraft, from small satellites to crewed ships designed for interplanetary exploration.

The new propulsion engine, called Tile, could serve as an efficient and lightweight way to keep constellations of small satellites in orbit. Spaceflight companies — including OneWeb, Boeing and SpaceX — want to launch hundreds of thousands of these small satellites to provide broadband internet to everyone around the globe. And because several Tiles can be connected to produce more power, the engine has the potential to propel astronauts to Mars, according to Accion Systems, the company that designed Tile.

“Our technology starts on a nanometer scale, and then we can array that and scale that up to serve satellites,” said Natalya Bailey, CEO of Accion Systems. Bailey described the propulsion engine to an audience here at the New Space Age Conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Sloan School of Management on March 11. [Superfast Spacecraft Propulsion Concepts (Images)].

Continue reading “Dime-Size Thrusters Could Propel Satellites, Spacecraft” »

Estonia will receive a 100th birthday gift next year that will be truly out of this world – as part of the country’s centenary celebrations in 2018, ESTCube will unveil its second satellite while its team embarks on a mission across Estonia to educate young people about opportunities within the space industry.

ESTCube-2 will be three times larger and far more complex than its predecessor, ESTCube-1, which turned Estonia into an unlikely space nation when it entered orbit in 2013.

ESTCube-2 is planned to blast off in 2019 and will operate at approximately 680 kilometres (423 miles) above Earth, which is almost twice as high as the International Space Station. However, the satellite is being designed to boldly go much further.

Continue reading “Estonia’s mission to the moon could revolutionise space travel” »

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Launching small satellites with big storage capacities using the highest levels of security. Sensitive information is securely stored off-planet.

Arsenal including electromagnetic railguns and microwave weapons aims to neutralize web of satellites that give US its main strategic edge.

It costs $80k to send a Nano- Satellite into space! To send the materials to build a lunar base is going to be expensive!

This week it was announced that NASA found a forgotten satellite in Lunar Orbit, which got me thinking about an idea to recycle existing Space Junk in the construction of an International Lunar Base with cost savings. We could use a modified version of my Google Deepmind NEO tracker to source the Space Junk and the ideas listed below to capture and redirect the Space Junk.

Continue reading “Recycling Space Junk for a LunarBase” »

Several companies will collectively be launching about 20,000 satellites over the next few years. SpaceX, OneWeb, Telesat, O3b Networks and Theia Holdings — all told the FCC they have plans to field constellations of V-band satellites in non-geosynchronous orbits to provide communications services in the United States and elsewhere. So far the V-band spectrum of interest, which sits directly above Ka-band from about 37 GHz to the low 50 GHz range, has not been heavily employed for commercial communications services.

* SpaceX, for example, proposes a “VLEO,” or V-band low-Earth orbit (LEO) constellation of 7,518 satellites to follow the operator’s initially proposed 4,425 satellites that would function in Ka- and Ku-band.

Continue reading “Massive commercial space push and a variety of new robotic capabilities could self supporting and rapidly growing space economy” »