Latest news with #Kuiper
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Launch delayed for Decatur-made rocket meant to send Amazon satellites into space
DECATUR, Ala. (WHNT) — Decatur's United Launch Alliance rocket, meant to help Amazon satellites reach Earth's orbit, has been delayed. ULA was originally meant to send Amazon satellites to space in the Kuiper 2 mission on June 16. The launch was set to be from Cape Canaveral, Florida. CLICK HERE for News 19's Interactive Radar 🌩️🌦️☔ However, play-by-play status reports from Launch Control announced that the launch of the Atlas V 551 was delayed 'due to an engineering observation of an elevated purge temperature within the booster engine.' The rocket used in this mission was manufactured here in North Alabama. ULA in Decatur began preparations for the Kuiper 1 launch on Feb. 24 when the company stood up the Atlas V first stage aboard the mobile launch platform. In the days following, five side-mounted solid rocket boosters were fixed to the rocket to provide 'maximum launch performance.' Kuiper 1 launched into space on April 28. The rocket itself stands at 205 feet tall. The full put-together Atlas V rocket features a longer length payload fairing than standard to carry as many satellites as possible. ULA said this first launch was only the ninth time in 102 launches of Atlas V to use the larger fairing. Decatur ULA rocket launches Amazon internet satellites into space You can view photos of the rocket provided by ULA below. 'This launch begins a new chapter in the commercial launch industry as Amazon partners with ULA to deliver a majority of its satellites into orbit. The Kuiper 1 mission is the first of 46 launches by ULA for the Kuiper constellation using eight Atlas V and 38 Vulcan rockets,' ULA said. A new launch date is not available as of June 18. 'The team will evaluate the hardware, and we will release a new launch date when available,' Launch Control wrote. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
When is the next Blue Origin crewed launch from Texas? What to know about New Shepard
A new group of people are about to join more than 60 others who have previously boarded a Blue Origin spacecraft for a brief voyage treating them to stunning views of Earth few have seen. Blue Origin, the commercial spaceflight company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, is preparing to send six more people to the edge of space as early as Saturday, June 21. The impending launch would come just three weeks since the company's last human spaceflight from its private facilities in West Texas. Blue Origin also made headlines in March for a highly-publicized launch featuring an all-woman crew that included pop star Katy Perry and broadcast journalist Gayle King. The six people selected for the upcoming mission, known as NS-33, would join a growing list of celebrities and influential civilians who have had the rare privilege of serving as passengers on the company's New Shepard spacecraft. During a trip that lasts a matter of minutes, the New Shepard takes its passengers more than 60 miles high to experience weightlessness and spectacular views of Earth. Here's everything to know about the upcoming mission, which would be New Shepard's 13th human spaceflight and 33rd overall. Billionaire Jeff Bezos, best known for founding Amazon, is the founder of the private space technology company Blue Origin. Bezos himself even boarded Blue Origin's New Shepard for its maiden crewed voyage in July 2021, which came after the spacecraft flew on 15 flight tests beginning in 2012. For nearly four years since its first crewed mission, the New Shepard spacecraft has served as a powerful symbol of Blue Origin's commercial spaceflight ambitions amid a growing space tourism industry. In addition to sending space tourists on brief joy rides to the edge of space, Blue Origin has also increasingly sought to compete with Elon Musk's SpaceX. Blue Origin's massive New Glenn rocket, which flew on its inaugural flight test in January, is also being developed for future spaceflights. At 320 feet tall, the spacecraft rivals SpaceX's 400-foot Starship in size. Even Amazon is competing with SpaceX by developing its own Kuiper internet satellite constellation in a direct challenge to Starlink. Blue Origin's next crewed launch, known as NS-33, could get off the ground as early as 8:30 a.m. CT (9:30 a.m. ET) Saturday, June 21, the company announced Tuesday, June 17. Blue Origin New Shepard rocket launches take place from the company's private ranch facility known as Launch Site One. The facility is located 30 miles north of the town of Van Horn in Culberson County – more than 140 miles east of El Paso near the U.S.-Mexico border. The passengers on the next mission, whose names Blue Origin announced Friday, June 13, are a group mostly conservationists and business leaders. When the New Shepard gets off the ground again, the six people selected to board it will join 64 others who have flown on the spacecraft across 12 previous human spaceflights. Here's a look at the passengers: Allie Kuehner, an environmentalist who serves on the board of Nature is Nonpartisan, a nonprofit organization advocating for bipartisan solutions to environmental issues Carl Kuehner, who chairs Building and Land Technology, a real estate development, investment and property management firm Leland Larson, a philanthropist and former CEO of School Bus Services and Larson Transportation Services – both family-owned public transportation businesses based in Oregon Freddie Rescigno, Jr., CEO of Commodity Cables, an electrical company he founded in 2001 Owolabi Salis, an attorney and a financial consultant Jim Sitkin, a retired lawyer from California Each spaceflight on a New Shepard vehicle lasts about 11 minutes from liftoff to capsule touchdown. Named after astronaut Alan Shepard, the first American in space, the 60-foot-tall New Shepard rocket is topped with the gum drop-shaped crew capsule. The spacecraft operates completely autonomously, meaning no pilots are aboard. During its ascent, the spacecraft reaches supersonic speeds surpassing 2,000 mph before the rocket booster separates from the crew capsule. At that point, those aboard the capsule become weightless as the spacecraft continues toward its highest point on its brief voyage above the Kármán Line – the 62-mile-high internationally recognized boundary of space. While experiencing a few minutes of microgravity, passengers have the opportunity to unstrap themselves from their seats to gaze out the capsule's large windows and take in a stunning view of Earth. Meanwhile, the rocket booster heads back to the ground while firing its engines and using its fins to slow and control its descent to land about two miles from the launchpad. The capsule itself eventually begins what Blue Origin refers to as a "stable freefall' – plummeting back to Earth as three massive parachutes deploy and the capsule makes a soft landing in the desert, sending up plumes of dust. If you have dreams of blasting off to orbit on a Blue Origin spacecraft, you likely need to either have very deep pockets or a name that's recognizable enough to get you invited as an honored guest. Though Blue Origin does not publicly list prices on its website, a form to reserve a seat requires customers to agree to a $150,000 deposit alone. And if the price of the first ticket sold for a Blue Origin spaceflight in 2021 is any indicator, seats likely cost in the millions of dollars. The $28 million ticket price was the winning bid in an auction that included 7,600 people registered to bid from 159 countries. However, a select few passengers over the years have had their seats aboard New Shepard paid through grants and other funding methods from large institutions. Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@ This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: When is Blue Origin's next mission from Texas? Crew, liftoff, launch
Mint
5 days ago
- Mint
Digital twins of aircraft: A big leap for civil aviation?
Next Story Mint Editorial Board Why do we still rely on 'black box' data troves kept aboard planes? Information and communication technology enablers now largely seem in place to link aircraft exhaustively—and in real time—with their digital shadows on the ground. An entire plane could have a digital twin fed with all manner of real-time readings for a comprehensive system to process, simulate scenarios and offer cues. Gift this article Expertise is a wonderful thing that allows an expert to achieve what a non-expert cannot. At the same time, it can also be a bane, obscuring new avenues of excellence in the expert's own area of specialization that seem visible from afar. Expertise is a wonderful thing that allows an expert to achieve what a non-expert cannot. At the same time, it can also be a bane, obscuring new avenues of excellence in the expert's own area of specialization that seem visible from afar. It is in this light that some thinking aloud ought to be done on why a few obvious digital technologies have not fully been put to use in civil aviation. One field of concern relates to the flight-data and cockpit voice recorders that commercial aircraft carry. The contents of these 'black boxes' are analysed by air-safety experts to identify the causes of an aviation mishap. To ease recovery in case of a crash, they are typically stored in the tail section of a plane that's considered least prone to damage. Also Read: The geopolitics behind Air India's Airbus-Boeing orders Given today's advances in digital communication, why should these boxes and the data they capture be kept only aboard aircraft? Locating black boxes after an accident has often been an expensive hunt—in terms of time, money and human emotion. Why shouldn't all that data be transmitted to ground locations? After all, airlines do offer inflight access to the internet at high altitudes. Some of it is happening. There have been two technical constraints. One is effective communication from a plane travelling at a speed close to that of sound. This has been overcome. The other is the ability of satcom networks to handle the volume of data that a plane would generate. This constraint grows ever less binding. Starlink has placed over 7,500 satellites in orbit around the planet and is ready to roll out new services enabled by their coverage. Eutelsat's OneWeb, Amazon's Kuiper and others have big plans too, while China may soon have its own network through a constellation of low-earth-orbit satellites. On the ground, server farms and data storage facilities have proliferated. Links exist, but a leap can be taken by the global civil aviation industry. Should planes encounter a transmission squeeze, they could send just the most important flight parameters to a digital cloud. To speed things up, satellite network operators could be obliged—as a condition of their operating licence—to allot a portion of their capacity to aviation data. The second aspect that calls for thinking aloud relates to the Digital Twin technology that GE uses for engine maintenance and Airbus for monitoring the performance of some of its aircraft. A 'digital twin' is the virtual representation of a physical object, system or process that constantly absorbs and deploys data from its real-world counterpart for purposes of simulation, prognosis and optimization. Why should every aircraft not have a digital twin for each of its systems, assemblies and parts? Sensors aboard planes could constantly relay information on their status to digital twins kept under the watch of engineers (or AI). An entire plane could have a digital twin fed with all manner of real-time readings for a comprehensive system to process, simulate scenarios and offer cues. Live interaction between the physical and digital entities could conceivably sort out several problems. The kinks that cannot be ironed out digitally could be flagged for pilots and engineers. Again, the challenge lies in relaying and crunching data. Thankfully, Digital Twin technology has been evolving and the aviation industry has already deployed it in bits and pieces. The task now is to take this concept to its technological conclusion. Air India and TCS, both under the Tata Group, should be able to find a viable solution. Topics You May Be Interested In Catch all the Business News, Market News, Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint. Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Who will be on the next Blue Origin rocket launch from Texas? Here's a look at the crew
Another six space tourists are preparing for Blue Origin's next human spaceflight, which will send the crew on a quick trip high above Earth's atmosphere. The spaceflight company, which billionaire Jeff Bezos founded in 2000, has announced the names of the people selected as passengers for the next launch of its New Shepard rocket. The spacecraft is the same one that has so far transported more than 60 civilians, including some celebrities, on brief trips to the edge of outer space. In March, a group of famous women that included pop star Katy Perry and broadcast journalist Gayle King made headlines − and some controversy − for their highly publicized spaceflight. But since then, the last two Blue Origin human spaceflights have not included any household names. The passengers on the next mission, whose names Blue Origin announced Friday, June 13, are a group mostly conservationists and business leaders. Though a target date for the launch has not been made public, the mission was announced less than a month after the last Blue Origin human spaceflight got off the ground May 31. Here's everything to know about the upcoming mission, which would be New Shepard's 13th human spaceflight and 33rd overall. Billionaire Jeff Bezos, best known for founding Amazon, is the founder of the private space technology company Blue Origin. Bezos himself even boarded Blue Origin's New Shepard for its maiden crewed voyage in July 2021, which came after the spacecraft flew on 15 flight tests beginning in 2012. For nearly four years since its first crewed mission, the New Shepard spacecraft has served as a powerful symbol of Blue Origin's commercial spaceflight ambitions amid a growing space tourism industry. In addition to sending space tourists on brief joy rides to the edge of space, Blue Origin has also increasingly sought to compete with Elon Musk's SpaceX. Blue Origin's massive New Glenn rocket, which flew on its inaugural flight test in January, is also being developed for future spaceflights. At 320 feet tall, the spacecraft rivals SpaceX's 400-foot Starship in size. Even Amazon is competing with SpaceX by developing its own Kuiper internet satellite constellation in a direct challenge to Starlink. Blue Origin New Shepard rocket launches take place from the company's private ranch facility known as Launch Site One. The facility is located 30 miles north of the town of Van Horn in Culberson County – more than 140 miles east of El Paso near the U.S.-Mexico border. However, Blue Origin had not yet announced a target launch date at as Monday, June 16. When the New Shepard gets off the ground again, the six people selected to board it will join 64 others who have flown on the spacecraft across 12 previous human spaceflights. Here's a look at the passengers: Allie Kuehner, an environmentalist who serves on the board of Nature is Nonpartisan, a nonprofit organization advocating for bipartisan solutions to environmental issues Carl Kuehner, who chairs Building and Land Technology, a real estate development, investment and property management firm Leland Larson, a philanthropist and former CEO of School Bus Services and Larson Transportation Services – both family-owned public transportation businesses based in Oregon Freddie Rescigno, Jr., CEO of Commodity Cables, an electrical company he founded in 2001 Owolabi Salis, an attorney and a financial consultant Jim Sitkin, a retired lawyer from California Each spaceflight on a New Shepard vehicle lasts about 11 minutes from liftoff to capsule touchdown. Named after astronaut Alan Shepard, the first American in space, the 60-foot-tall New Shepard rocket is topped with the gum drop-shaped crew capsule. The spacecraft operates completely autonomously, meaning no pilots are aboard. During its ascent, the spacecraft reaches supersonic speeds surpassing 2,000 mph before the rocket booster separates from the crew capsule. At that point, those aboard the capsule become weightless as the spacecraft continues toward its highest point on its brief voyage above the Kármán Line – the 62-mile-high internationally recognized boundary of space. While experiencing a few minutes of microgravity, passengers have the opportunity to unstrap themselves from their seats to gaze out the capsule's large windows and take in a stunning view of Earth. Meanwhile, the rocket booster heads back to the ground while firing its engines and using its fins to slow and control its descent to land about two miles from the launchpad. The capsule itself eventually begins what Blue Origin refers to as a "stable freefall' – plummeting back to Earth as three massive parachutes deploy and the capsule makes a soft landing in the desert, sending up plumes of dust. If you have dreams of blasting off to orbit on a Blue Origin spacecraft, you likely need to either have very deep pockets or a name that's recognizable enough to get you invited as an honored guest. Though Blue Origin does not publicly list prices on its website, a form to reserve a seat requires customers to agree to a $150,000 deposit alone. And if the price of the first ticket sold for a Blue Origin spaceflight in 2021 is any indicator, seats likely cost in the millions of dollars. The $28 million ticket price was the winning bid in an auction that included 7,600 people registered to bid from 159 countries. However, a select few passengers over the years have had their seats aboard New Shepard paid through grants and other funding methods from large institutions. Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@ This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Who is on next Blue Origin rocket launch? See crew for Texas mission
CNBC
6 days ago
- Business
- CNBC
Amazon Kuiper second satellite launch postponed by ULA due to rocket booster issue
United Launch Alliance on Monday was forced to delay the second flight carrying a batch of Amazon's Project Kuiper internet satellites because of a problem with the rocket booster. With roughly 30 minutes left in the countdown, ULA announced it was scrubbing the launch due to an issue with "an elevated purge temperature" within its Atlas V rocket's booster engine. The company said it will provide a new launch date at a later point. "Possible issue with a GN2 purge line that cannot be resolved inside the count," ULA CEO Tory Bruno said in a post on Bluesky. "We will need to stand down for today. We'll sort it and be back." The launch from Florida's Space Coast had been set for last Friday, but was rescheduled to Monday at 1:25 p.m. ET due to inclement weather. Amazon in April successfully sent up 27 Kuiper internet satellites into low Earth orbit, a region of space that's within 1,200 miles of the Earth's surface. The second voyage will send "another 27 satellites into orbit, bringing our total constellation size to 54 satellites," Amazon said in a blog post. Kuiper is the latest entrant in the burgeoning satellite internet industry, which aims to beam high-speed internet to the ground from orbit. The industry is currently dominated by Elon Musk's Space X, which operates Starlink. Other competitors include SoftBank-backed OneWeb and Viasat. Amazon is targeting a constellation of more than 3,000 satellites. The company has to meet a Federal Communications Commission deadline to launch half of its total constellation, or 1,618 satellites, by July 2026.
