Rocket

It costs a lot of money to assess rocket engine parts using professional-grade testing equipment ... and, like most of us, aerospace company XCOR doesn’t have money to burn. So, when it came time to test the bearing components of their new rocket propellant piston pump, the XCOR engineers got creative – they put them in the engine of a motorcycle, and sent it on a road trip.  Read More

North Korea confirmed the failure of its rocket (or missile, depending on your interpretation) which launched at 7:39 this morning, local time. The United States, South Korea and Japan all reported that the rocket broke up shortly after launch.  Read More

NASA launched five rockets in five minutes early on Tuesday morning, as part of its ongoing ATREX mission to study the winds of the upper level jet stream. The rockets carry an onboard chemical which, when released, form clouds revealing wind patterns at outer reaches of Earth's atmosphere. And as you can see from the resulting photography, some striking cloud formations occurred.  Read More

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) new Vettore Europeo di Generazione Avanzata - or Vega - launch vehicle lifted off from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, at 10 a.m. GMT on February 13 on its maiden flight. Designed for launching small payloads, Vega is intended to complement Europe’s existing family of launchers that includes the Ariane 5 heavy-lifter and Soyuz medium-class launchers. The maiden flight saw the first Vega successfully carry nine satellites into orbit.  Read More

SpaceX, the California company that is developing the reusable Dragon spacecraft, recently test-fired its new SuperDraco engine. Presently, the Dragon capsule is equipped with less-advanced Draco engines, which are designed for maneuvering the spacecraft while in orbit and during reentry. The SuperDraco, however, is intended to allow the astronauts to escape if an emergency occurs during the launch.  Read More

All those missile shooting games on your iPhone not realistic enough for you? Brando's iLaunch Thunder is a missile launcher that pairs with your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch over Bluetooth, and allows you to shoot missiles at unsuspecting victims up to 25 feet away.  Read More

Launched from Black Rock Desert in Nevada on September 30 in an attempt to win John Carmack's 100kft Micro Prize, Derek Deville's home-built Qu8k rocket reached an altitude of 121,000 feet (36.8 km) after 92 seconds flight ... and captured some excellent video footage along the way.  Read More

SpaceX, the space transport company that made history by building the world's first private reusable spacecraft, is now embarking on a quest to build the holy grail of space engineering - a reusable launch rocket. Elon Musk, the company's CEO and Chief Technology Officer, announced recently at the National Press Club that computer simulations show their design to be technically feasible. This, Musk seems to suggests, is great news for those who have been considering moving to Mars.  Read More

With the curtain coming down on its Space Shuttle Program, NASA has set its sights on the future with the announcement of a heavy-lift launch vehicle that is designed to take man beyond the moon to explore near-Earth asteroids, Mars and its moons, and beyond. Dubbed the Space Launch System (SLS) its configuration harks back to the Saturn V rocket-based systems employed to propel Apollo astronauts to the moon but also incorporates technology developed in the Shuttle Program.  Read More