Tag Archives: Flight Opportunities Program

Virgin Galactic plans to conduct its first spaceflight launch from its Spaceport America complex in New Mexico as part of NASA’s Flight Opportunities Program focused on Earth imaging and space-based research data collection.

Blue Origin’s New Shepard vehicle has launched two Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory experiments as part of an effort to assess the capacity of commercial technologies for suborbital tracking.

Virgin Galactic has completed a flight test of a company-built manned space vehicle carrying four NASA technology experiments to suborbital space. The agency said Thursday SpaceShipTwo‘s payloads were designed to examine the behavior of dust particles on planetary surfaces, the effects of microgravity on life support systems and plant growth, …

NASA will immerse 15 new potential space technologies in low-gravity simulating experiments using commercial aircraft, high-altitude balloons and suborbital rockets as part of the Flight Opportunities program. The space agency said Wednesday the effort will help mature the selected technologies for future space operations. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine noted that …

The Federal Aviation Administration has conducted a flight test of a Near Space Corp.-built drone to evaluate how FAA’s surveillance tools could help the agency detect and monitor the return of commercial spacecraft through the National Air Space. NSC used a stratospheric balloon platform to launch and deploy the High …

NASA has tested the future Mars rover’s camera-based navigation system aboard a rocket-powered test platform built by Masten Space Systems. The agency said Tuesday Xombie carried a prototype of the Mars 2020 rover’s Lander Vision System 1,066 feet into the air to perform a precise landing at a predesignated target. LVS works to direct a spacecraft to …

Blue Origin has received a spot on NASA‘s contract for suborbital reusable launch vehicle flight and payload integration services with a maximum combined value of $45 million. NASA said Friday Blue Origin will work to integrate payloads into its New Shepard suborbital rocket and fly the spacecraft near the boundary of space as …