Sierra Nevada Corporation’s winged Dream Chaser is bound for NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. Prior to Dream Chaser’s first autonomous free flight Approach and Landing Test (ALT), the craft will continue a series of tests, including runway tow, ground resonance, and a captive carry flight. The flight tests will [...]

Frederick  ”C. J.”  Sturckow, a four time space shuttle commander and pilot, has become the first from NASA’s astronaut corps to join Virgin Galactic as a test pilot for SpaceShipTwo and WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft operations, the emerging commercial suborbital passenger launch service announced Tuesday. Sturckow and Michael “Sooch” Masucci, a former U.S. Air Force test [...]

  NASA has signed a $424 million contract extension with Roscosmos, the Russian federal space agency, to assure the launch and return of U. S., European, Japanese and Canadian astronauts to and from the International Space Station aboard Soyuz spacecraft through 2017, while Congress and the White House debate funding levels for the space agency’s [...]

UPDATE: For the first time ever, SpaceShipTwo fired its rocket engine in flight! A major milestone in commercial human spaceflight. According to a Virgin Galactic report: “Wheels stop—SpaceShipTwo safely on the ground after a triumphant day in the sky. So proud of our team!” SpaceShipTwo pilots Stucky and Alsbury confirm: SpaceShipTwo exceeded the speed of [...]

Kay Bailey Hutchison, retired long time U. S. Senator from Texas who helped to shape and fund NASA’s future over nearly two decades as a Washington legislator, was honored Friday as the 2013 recipient of the Rotary National Award for Space Achievement and the National Space Trophy in Houston on Friday. The award was presented [...]