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Virgin Galactic’s VSS Imagine is its shiny, next-gen spaceship
Virgin Galactic's SpaceShip III will start ground tests later this year. It’s an eye-catching vessel, finished with a mirror-like material that’s meant to reflect its surroundings. The coating also offers thermal protection.
Virgin Galactic will livestream its SpaceShipTwo cabin reveal on July 28th
Virgin Galactic will reveal the SpaceShipTwo's cabin interior on July 28th.
SpaceX isn't moving Starship development to southern Texas (update)
SpaceX's decision to construct its Starship test vehicle in Texas may have just been the harbinger of things to come. The LA Times has claimed that development and assembly of Starship and its Super Heavy booster system will take place in southern Texas, not the Port of Los Angeles. It'll maintain existing design, manufacturing, launch and recovery operations in the area (plus Vandenberg Air Force Base), but that's only a partial consolation when existing projects like the Falcon 9 rocket have a limited lifespan.
Sierra Nevada spacecraft completes first test flight in 4 years
If Sierra Nevada is going to fulfill supply missions for the International Space Station and the UN, it'll have to prove that its Dream Chaser spacecraft is ready to fly... and it just took a big step in that direction. The company has revealed that Dream Chaser completed a glide test flight on November 11th, launching from a helicopter and landing at California's Edwards Air Force Base. Notably, it's this vehicle's first flight in 4 years, and its first successful landing demonstration -- when this ship last flew in 2013, stuck landing gear forced a rough touchdown.
Virgin Galactic to conduct first powered spaceship tests in 3 years
Virgin Galactic is determined to put its private space travel plans back on track following its tragic 2014 crash. Richard Branson tells Bloomberg that the company is about to resume powered test flights for the first time in close to 3 years, ending a series of glide-only tests that began in December. The company will fly in the atmosphere every 3 weeks, and plans to return to space (or at least, the edge of space) by November or December.
Mysterious Apple device turns out to be a... badge reader
The frenzy to uncover pre-production Apple devices is not what it used to be, but folks still go to great lengths to find secret Cupertino info. That's why a recent FCC discovery about a mysterious NFC and Bluetooth-equipped Apple device caused some internet frothing. The filing showed a device with Bluetooth and NFC wireless capability, but no other details or pictures. Along with the screw positions on the label, that led to speculation that the long-awaited 4K Apple TV could be coming soon.
Apple's spaceship campus will open in April as 'Apple Park'
Forget 'Campus Two," "Spaceship" or "Doughnutsville," because Apple's new headquarters has been officially named Apple Park. The company has announced that the multi-billion dollar building will begin operations in April, with 12,000 employees moving in across six months. Apple has also revealed that the building's 1,000-seat auditorium will be christened the Steve Jobs Theater in memory of the late co-founder.
ICYMI: SpaceX redeems itself with a showstopper rocket launch
try{document.getElementById("aol-cms-player-1").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: SpaceX is back in launching mode after the FAA grounded the company following an unfortunate explosion last September. The rocket company successfully launched satellites from its revamped Falcon9, then the motor completed its landing on a SpaceX floating pad.
NASA demonstrates EM Drive theory, but don't get too excited
A fuel-free engine is the stuff of science fiction for now, but scientists at NASA Eagleworks have published a peer-reviewed paper that suggests the ideas behind an EM Drive are worth testing further. Researchers at Eagleworks, a small NASA team tasked with testing humanity's wildest theories of spaceship propulsion, were able to produce thrust without any kind of propellant, in a vacuum, as they published this weekend in ARC.
Virgin Galactic poised to start its new spaceship's test flights
Virgin Galactic is ready to put its SpaceShipTwo replacement through a series of test fights, and according to Bloomberg, it will begin sometime in August. The private space corporation launched Virgin Spaceship (VSS) Unity in February to replace SpaceShipTwo, which crashed into the Mojave Desert back in 2014. It was named by Professor Stephen Hawking, shares a similar design with its predecessor and was created take paying customers on a short tour of outer space to the tune of $250,000 per seat.
Apple's reportedly getting a second 'Spaceship' campus
Apple's new 2.8 million square foot California HQ hasn't even been built yet, but already the "spaceship" campus has achieved iconic status. Tim Cook and 12,000 other employees hope to move in late next year, but that won't be the end of the company's expansion in the area. BizJournals reports that Apple has signed a new deal for Landbank Investments LLC's planned Central & Wolfe campus in Sunnyvale, which is roughly a five-mile drive from its current Cupertino home.
'Star Trek' virtual tour will recreate every deck of the Enterprise
You've probably seen a few attempts at recreating worlds in game engines, but never at this level of detail. Artist Jason B is working on the Enterprise-D Construction Project, an Unreal Engine-based virtual tour that aims to reproduce all 42 decks in the Enterprise from Star Trek: The Next Generation. While it's not quite photorealistic, the attention to detail in this digital starship is already uncanny -- the bridge, shuttle bay and other areas feel like lived-in spaces, just waiting for the crew to return. Jason is drawing on as much official material as he can to get things pixel-perfect, and he's only taking creative liberties in those areas where there's no canonical content.
Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo crash was due to co-pilot error (updated)
After nearly 9 months of investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board has an official explanation for Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo crash. As suspected, the accident happened when the co-pilot triggered the "feathering" system (moving the tail wings to increase drag for reentry) well below the intended Mach 1.4 speed -- the premature resistance led to the suborbital craft breaking up and plummeting into the Mojave Desert. More details are forthcoming, but Virgin Galactic says that it welcomes the findings. Hopefully, the lessons learned prevent future accidents and keep private spaceflight on track. Update: The NTSB has published the full ruling, and says that there also wasn't enough done to either prevent this mistake or educate pilots about what would happen. Even the FAA is partly to blame, since it didn't check to make sure that the requirements behind a hazard waiver were implemented properly. In other words, the co-pilot's slip-up was the last piece of a larger puzzle. [Image credit: AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu]
LightSail solar spaceship ends test flight in fiery descent
And just like that, LightSail's inaugural flight is over. The Planetary Society has determined that its experimental solar sailer likely entered Earth's atmosphere (and met a fiery end) near the South Atlantic Ocean at 1:23PM Eastern on Monday. Don't bemoan the fate of the Carl Sagan-inspired spacecraft, however. While LightSail ran into more than a little trouble on its 25-day run, its mission was ultimately a success -- the only real goal was to deploy the ship's namesake sails and prove that the vehicle was spaceworthy. The real challenge comes late in 2016, when the Society expects to fly a second model that will actually use its photon-powered sails to get around.
The LightSail solar spacecraft is in dire straits once again (update: it's back!)
Unfortunately, the LightSail spacecraft's recovery wasn't quite as miraculous as its creators first thought. The Planetary Society reports that it hasn't heard back from its sailer since Wednesday, shortly after the vehicle deployed its solar panels. The ground crew suspects that the failure might be due to a battery glitch, since the energy cells largely stopped drawing a current after the panels deployed. Attempts to wake up LightSail with "blind" commands (that is, without confirmed contact) haven't helped, so there's no simple fix.
Russia's latest ISS supply ship is spinning out of control
The International Space Station has yet another problem on its hands. Russia's Progress 59 supply ship (you're looking at Progress 47 above) appears to have suffered a communications breakdown shortly after entering orbit, and it's been spinning out of control ever since. As you can see in the dizzying video below, it's not about to dock with the ISS any time soon. Ground control had originally hoped that it could get things in order for an April 30th rendezvous, but it's scuttling those plans unless it can rein in this wayward spacecraft. It's safe to say that the station crew would like a recovery as soon as possible. When Progress 59 is carrying 6,000 pounds of food, fuel and other essentials, a significant delay could cause more than a few headaches. [Image credit: NASA]
Apple invests in a solar farm that can power 60,000 homes
Apple makes much ado about using clean energy sources to power its buildings these days, and it just put its money where its mouth is... a lot of money. The company is investing a whopping $848 million in a First Solar plant in California's Monterey County that, according to Apple chief Tim Cook, should generate enough electricity to power 60,000 homes. Apple will get a 130-megawatt supply from the solar farm to light up buildings such as its future spaceship-like campus, while the remaining 150 megawatts will go to Pacific Gas & Energy's grid. Reportedly, this is the largest commercial deal to date in the solar industry -- it certainly eclipses many of the other green energy initiatives we've seen in tech, which tend to "only" require tens of megawatts.
PAX South 2015: Notes from a Star Citizen town hall
Star Citizen is such a big fancy deal that instead of having a panel or booth at PAX South 2015, Cloud Imperium booked a theater down the street and hosted 10 straight hours of forums and chit-chats with backers. That's right: There wasn't enough room in the PAX convention hall to accommodate all the Star Citizening Star Citizens needed to Star Citizen, so they had their own one-day mini-convention dedicated just to their game of choice. One has to respect a development team willing to spend the entire day with its community (for a nominal fee, of course). I'm sure Star Citizens were absolutely amped to pay the same amount of money as a PAX day pass to hang out with CI all day. Unfortunately, I attended only the evening town hall with Chris Roberts, which I would describe as impenetrable to anyone without a license to pilot one of Star Citizen's $350 ships. I did take some notes. I will try to parse them here.
The Daily Grind: What's the most exciting bit of MMO news you've heard lately?
Wednesday's blurb about Star Citizen's release schedule caught me a bit off guard. I guess I lost track of time because the thought of getting to see the game's persistent universe this year took me aback. It makes sense, though, since Star Citizen boasts a big dev team and an even bigger developmental warchest, and they've been going at it in some form or fashion since 2012! So that's a bit of exciting and unexpected MMO news for 2015, at least in my book. What about you, Massively readers? What MMO news has tickled your fancy of late? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Star Citizen's persistent universe alpha scheduled for 2015, launch in 2016
Chris Roberts recently spoke at the BAFTA LA Games Masterclass, and apart from the usual Star Citizen geekery, he had some interesting things to say about the crowdfunded space sim's release timeline. In a nutshell, Cloud Imperium is looking to publish a beta of the game's FPS component as well as a "planetside/social" beta this spring, followed by the debut of multicrew ships in the currently playable Arena Commander module this summer. Fall 2015 will see the first episode of single-player lead-in Squadron 42's campaign released, while backers will get their first taste of the persistent universe alpha before the end of the year. You can watch the BAFTA presentation on Twitch; click forward to the 39-minute mark for Roberts' bit. [Thanks Mohoc!]
