low earth orbit

First proposed in 1895, and popularized by the Arthur C. Clarke book The Fountains of Paradise, space elevators have a rich history in the culture of space travel. Unfortunately, the history of their engineering success is far less impressive. But if the results from this week's Space Elevator Games are any indication, that might be about to change.

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After six months of testing and very careful calibration, the European Space Agency’s GOCE satellite is sending back its first data sets as it now begins precisely mapping tiny variations in Earth’s magnetic field. How does one go about mapping the Earth’s fundamental force? As it turns out, very, very carefully.

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Ever wanted to launch your own satellite into low earth orbit, then track it on ham radio for a few weeks before it burns up on re-entry? Well, 52 years after the launch of Sputnik, you can. Interorbital Systems is offering YOU the chance (by the end of 2010) to send up a TubeSat Personal Satellite Kit for the low introductory price of just $8,000.

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We previously showed you construction of Virgin Galactic’s WhiteKnight Two, the mothership that will help launch SpaceShipTwo into sub-orbit. However, Flight Global was able to sneak in some exclusive photos and video from inside the cockpit.

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A mere three years after Burt Rutan´s SpaceShipOne skimmed the edge of space to capture the $10-million Ansari X Prize, more than half a dozen companies are furiously building and testing spacecraft designed to take paying passengers on suborbital journeys and beyond.

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Late this month, if everything goes according to plan, Space Exploration Corporation, or SpaceX for short, will launch its privately funded two-stage rocket, Falcon I, into low-Earth orbit, carrying with it the U.S. Department of Defense’s TacSat-1 satellite. The ride costs just under $6 million, a price that undercuts the competition by up to two thirds. â€We want to be the Southwest Airlines of space launches,†says SpaceX CEO and PayPal founder Elon Musk.

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Ever since he returned from the ultimate getaway—six months aboard space station Mir—Alexander Poleschuk has not had much patience for the mundane. Even today, 10 years later, there’s a kind of contained restlessness about the former cosmonaut as he sits, drinking tea and fingering his cigarette pack, in a Toyota dealership on the bleak, block-housing-lined outskirts of Moscow, waiting for his car to emerge from the service bay.

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Hawks in the the Pentagon and other government agencies may have been elated when the Bush administration announced its plans to gear up for armed conflict in space, but former astronaut Sally Ride had a different reaction. She called the plans "disastrous," because destroying enemy satellites and other objects in space means creating more space debris.

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