Miscellaneous

In November of 2015, Blue Origin launched a vehicle into suborbital space and then returned the rocket to earth and landed it upright... Then they did it again with the same launch vehicle.

Meanwhile, Space X actually delivered a payload into orbit with its reusable rocket before its historic landing.

These developments have the potential to drastically reduce the cost of launching stuff into space which would be a game-changer for the future of space exploration.

Does this mark a new era in our access to space? What upcoming space project has you excited and why?

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A NASA Terrier-Black Brant IX suborbital sounding rocket launched the Diffuse X-rays from the Local galaxy, or DXL, mission from the Poker Flat Research Range (PFRR) in Alaska, on 19 January 2018. The DXL investigation aims to study the sources of X-rays that hurtle towards Earth from elsewhere in the Milky Way galaxy.

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A NASA Terrier-Black Brant IX suborbital sounding rocket launched the Advanced Supersonic Parachute Inflation Research Experiment (ASPIRE) from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility inVirginia, on 31 March 2018, at 16:19 UTC (12:19 EDT). ASPIRE was designed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, to test a parachute for possible future missions to Mars. The payload, a bullet-nosed, cylindrical structure holding a supersonic parachute, is expected to reach an altitude of 32 miles approximately two minutes into the flight. The experiment will splash-down in the Atlantic Ocean 40 miles from Wallops Island and will be recovered and returned to Wallops for data retrieval and inspection.

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One Space Technology launched it’s first rocket, OS-X0 or the “Chongqing Liangjiang Star”, on 16 May 2018, at 23:33 UTC (17 May at 07:33 local time) from the company’s test field in Northwest China. The rocket traveled 273 kilometers at a speed five times faster than sound, flying along its preset trajectory for 306 seconds.

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Daredevil and Flat Earth theorist Michael "Mad Mike" Hughes died Saturday in a rocket crash. Hughes, 64, wanted to prove the Flat Earth theory by taking photographs of the Earth from a homemade rocket. CBSN Los Angeles reports.

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A Qased launch vehicle launched the Noor satellite from Iran, on 22 April 2020. According to official sources, Qased (قاصد) is a “three-stage, solid-propellant launcher” and the Noor ( نور) satellite was placed in a 425-km orbit.
Credit: Ministry of Defence, Islamic Republic of Iran

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A Qased launch vehicle launched the Noor-3 (نور ۳ ) satellite from Iran, on 27 September 2023. According to official sources, Qased (Ghassed, قاصد) is a “three-stage, solid-propellant launcher” and the Noor-3 satellite was successfully placed in a 450-km orbit.
Credit: Ministry of Defence, Islamic Republic of Iran

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