T/Space has unveiled an engineering mock-up of its CXV proposal for NASA's Crew Transfer Vehicle. The four-to-six-crew capsule would be orbited on an AirLaunch QuickReach two-stage booster, carried aloft and released from a large carrier aircraft that would be designed and built, like the capsule, by Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites. T/Space says the CXV could fly crewed by December 2008 for $20 million per flight.
Source: Flight International
China’s AVIC has secured a contract from the China Manned Space Agency to develop a winged, reusable spacecraft called Haolong.
The UK Space Command’s first owned earth observation microsatellite has been launched, providing the inaugural element of a planned space-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) constellation.
Orbital launch pioneer SpaceX is being contracted by the American space agency NASA to develop a so-called “US Deorbit Vehicle” that can safely return the International Space Station to Earth via controlled re-entry.
