The X-Prize Foundation, has been established to find private benefactors, to provide $10 million funding to award to the first private team, to build a re-useable space craft to carry three people on a sub-orbital space-flight, "...doing for space what the Orteig Prize, "won by Lindbergh" did for aviation", say the organisers. The X Prize will be launched in St Louis, Missouri on 18 May.
Source: Flight International
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.
BAE Systems has completed its acquisition of Ball Aerospace, with the move further strengthening its US business presence.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has retired its Mars helicopter Ingenuity after the craft suffered damage upon landing.
