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Bezos' Blue Origin bracing for large job cuts after years of expansion

The magnitude of the job cuts wasn't immediately clear, though one of the people said it will be at least in the hundreds of jobs and potentially reach one thousand or more employees

Updated On: 13 Feb 2025 | 9:17 AM IST

Boeing to lay off about 400 workers on its SLS moon rocket programme

The US aerospace company cited revisions to NASA's Artemis program and cost expectations

Updated On: 08 Feb 2025 | 7:21 AM IST

Defence ministry to sign Rs 10,200 cr Pinaka rocket deal with Solar, MIL

DRDO is already in the advanced stages of making a 120 km strike version of the Pinaka rockets and is expected to carry out its first test in the next financial year

Updated On: 06 Feb 2025 | 1:05 PM IST

Bezos' Blue Origin calls off New Glenn rocket launch mins before countdown

Blue Origin called off the debut launch of its massive new rocket early Monday because of technical trouble. The 320-foot (98-meter) New Glenn rocket was supposed to blast off before dawn with a prototype satellite from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. But launch controllers had to deal with an unspecified rocket issue in the final minutes of the countdown and ran out of time. Once the countdown clock was halted, they immediately began draining all the fuel from the rocket. Blue Origin did not immediately set a new launch date, saying the team needed more time to resolve the problem. The test flight already had been delayed by rough seas that posed a risk to the company's plan to land the first-stage booster on a floating platform in the Atlantic. New Glenn is named after the first American to orbit Earth, John Glenn. It is five times taller than Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket that carries paying customers to the edge of space from Texas. Amazon's Jeff Bezos founded

Updated On: 13 Jan 2025 | 2:40 PM IST

Bezos' Blue Origin prepares for inaugural launch of its New Glenn rocket

The mission, the culmination of a decade-long, multi-billion-dollar development journey, will include an attempt to land New Glenn's first stage booster on a sea-fairing barge in the Atlantic Ocean

Updated On: 13 Jan 2025 | 12:17 PM IST

Tamil Nadu startup launches country's first hybrid reusable rocket

Sets new standards for rapid space missions; the rocket launches three Cube satellites into orbit to study atmospheric conditions

Updated On: 25 Aug 2024 | 12:08 PM IST

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin suffers fiery setback building new rocket

The previously unreported incidents illustrate the hurdles Blue Origin is grappling with while ramping up production of New Glenn

Updated On: 22 Aug 2024 | 8:53 AM IST

China's iSpace rocket fails soon after launch, losing 3 weather satellites

A Chinese rocket start-up has suffered yet another launch failure, resulting in the loss of three satellites as part of a commercial constellation being assembled for global weather forecasting and earthquake prediction. Hyperbola-1 a 24-metre (79ft) high solid-fuel rocket produced by iSpace lifted off on Thursday from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in China's Gobi Desert. The rocket's first, second and third stages flew normally, but the fourth stage suffered an anomaly and the launch mission ended in failure, the company said, adding that the specific reasons for the failure would be announced as soon as possible after detailed investigations, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported on Friday. The relatively small Hyperbola-1, which can deliver a 300 kg (661 pounds) payload into a 500 km (311 miles) sun-synchronous orbit, was carrying Yunyao-1 weather satellites 15, 16 and 17 for the Tianjin-based Yunyao Aerospace Technology company. The satellites did not re

Updated On: 12 Jul 2024 | 4:38 PM IST

China's Tianlong-3 rocket crashes into mountains after launch during test

A powerful Chinese rocket crashed after an "accidental launch during a ground test on Sunday due to a structural failure, a private company responsible for the rocket said. Space Pioneer, also known as Beijing Tianbing Technology, said in a statement that the Tianlong-3 rocket was unexpectedly launched during a static-fire test at a facility in Gongyi county in Henan province. Luckily it landed in a hilly area of the city of Gongyi and the company said there were no injuries as people in the area were evacuated in advance of the rocket test. The nine engines of the rocket, stated to be the most powerful in the country, fired in the afternoon on Sunday were lifted off because of a structural failure at the connection between the rocket body and the test platform, the company said. Space Pioneer is one of several private aerospace companies that are developing medium-lift, reusable rockets to help China assemble its satellite constellations comparable to SpaceX's Starlink. Residents

Updated On: 01 Jul 2024 | 8:12 PM IST

Chinese rocket Tianlong-3 crashes after accidental launch during test

Incident occurred when the first stage of the Tianlong-3 rocket detached from its launch pad due to a structural failure

Updated On: 01 Jul 2024 | 6:52 AM IST

Isro Chairman inaugurates HAL facilities, boosting rocket manufacturing

ISRO Chairman S Somanath inaugurated state-of-the-art propellant tank production and computer numerical control (CNC) machining facilities at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited's Aerospace Division here, boosting rocket manufacturing capacity . HAL said the facilities would provide a major boost to ISRO's ability to meet its growing production needs, particularly for the Launch Vehicle Mark3, India's heaviest and most powerful rocket. Currently, the existing capacity allows for only two LVM3 launches per year, whereas ISRO's requirements stand at six launches annually, according to an HAL statement on Wednesday. The facilities will address this gap, enabling HAL to manufacture enough critical components to support the production of six LVM3 rockets per year, it said. Somanath was quoted as saying in the statement that HAL has enormous capacities and this potential should be explored in the larger interest of both the organisations. "HAL will play a larger role in ISRO's future missions

Updated On: 05 Jun 2024 | 5:39 PM IST

Japan to launch upgraded observation satellites on new rocket's flight

Japan's space agency announced Friday a plan to launch a major upgrade to its satellite imaging system, as a new flagship rocket is put to the test for a third time. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency that an H3 rocket will be launched from the Tanegashima Space Center, on a southwestern Japanese island, early afternoon on June 30, with a launch window that runs through the end of July. The rocket will be carrying an Advanced Land Observation Satellite, ALOS-4, tasked primarily with Earth observation and data collection for disaster response and mapmaking, as well as with monitoring military activity, such as missile launches, with an infrared sensor developed by the Defense Ministry. The ALOS-4 is a successor to the current ALOS-2 and can observe a much wider area. The launch will be the H3's third, coming after a failed debut in March 2023 and a successful launch on Feb. 17. During the first attempt, the rocket's second stage engine did not ignite and the rocket had to be ...

Updated On: 26 Apr 2024 | 3:01 PM IST

Skyroot Aerospace successfully test fires Stage-2 of Vikram-1 rocket

Skyroot Aerospace, a space-tech company, has successfully test-fired the Stage-2 of Vikram-1 space launch vehicle, called Kalam-250, at the propulsion testbed of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), at its Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. The city-based firm in a press release on Thursday said Vikram-1 launch is slated to be a landmark event for the Indian space sector as its first private orbital rocket launch, and follows the remarkable suborbital space launch of India's first private rocket - the Vikram-S by Skyroot in November 2022. The test, done on Wednesday, which lasted 85 seconds, recorded a peak sea-level thrust of 186 kilonewtons (kN), which will translate to a fully expanded vacuum thrust of around 235 kN in flight, it said. The Kalam-250 is a high-strength carbon composite rocket motor, which uses solid fuel and a high-performance Ethylene-Propylene-Diene terpolymers (EPDM) thermal protection system (TPS). Pawan Chandana, ..

Updated On: 28 Mar 2024 | 4:31 PM IST

SpaceX's Starship successfully lifts off, but crashes before last stage

SpaceX came close to completing an hourlong test flight of its mega rocket on its third try on Thursday, but the spacecraft was lost as it descended back to Earth. The company said it lost contact with Starship as it neared its goal, a splashdown in the Indian Ocean. Until then, most everything had gone well following liftoff from the southern tip of Texas near the Mexican border. The ship has been lost. So no splashdown today, said SpaceX's Dan Huot. But again, it's incredible to see how much further we got this time around. Two test flights last year both ended in explosions minutes after liftoff. By surviving for close to 50 minutes this time, Thursday's effort was considered a win by not only SpaceX's Elon Musk, but NASA as well as Starship soared higher and farther than ever before. The space agency is counting on Starship to land its astronauts on the moon in another few years. The nearly 400-foot (121-meter) Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, headed o

Updated On: 14 Mar 2024 | 11:36 PM IST

Ananth Technologies claims crucial role in 55 modules for launch system

For the satellite INSAT-3DS, ATL has supplied complete power control system, solar array generation system, power distribution system, DC-DC power converters, star sensors

Updated On: 17 Feb 2024 | 10:34 PM IST

After new rocket's successful launch, US moon lander faces malfunction

"The team is responding in real time as the situation unfolds and will be providing updates as data is obtained and analysed," Astrobotic posted on the social media service X

Updated On: 09 Jan 2024 | 12:12 AM IST

China's LandSpace Technology pulls off 2nd methane-fueled rocket launch

The rocket, ZQ-2, took off at 7:39 a.m. Saturday Beijing time from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the northwestern Gobi Desert, the company said in a statement

Updated On: 09 Dec 2023 | 2:21 PM IST

China launches Long March rocket with spy satellite over Taiwan zone

In order to enable a suitable response, it continued, it had deployed its joint intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance system to track the ballistic dynamics, trajectories, and other data

Updated On: 06 Oct 2023 | 11:14 AM IST

SpaceX can't launch its giant rocket again until fixes are made: FAA

SpaceX must take a series of steps before it can launch its mega rocket again after its debut ended in an explosion, federal regulators said Friday. The Federal Aviation Administration said it closed its investigation into SpaceX's failed debut of Starship, the world's biggest rocket. The agency is requiring SpaceX to take 63 corrective actions and to apply for a modified FAA license before launching again. FAA official said multiple problems led to the April launch explosion, which sent pieces of concrete and metal hurtling for thousands of feet (meters) and created a plume of pulverized concrete that spread for miles (kilometers) around. SpaceX founder Elon Musk said in the accident's aftermath that he improved the 394-foot (120-meter) rocket and strengthened the launch pad. A new Starship is on the redesigned pad, awaiting liftoff. It will fly empty, as before. During the initial test flight, the rocketship had to be destroyed after it tumbled out of control shortly after liftof

Updated On: 08 Sep 2023 | 9:54 PM IST

L&T, HAL vetted to potentially bid on India's rocket privatisation

BENGALURU (Reuters) - Larsen & Toubro and Hindustan Aeronautics are among companies vetted to potentially bid in India's efforts to privatise its small satellite launch rocket, a source told Reuters, as the government seeks more investment in the booming space market.

Updated On: 25 Aug 2023 | 3:53 PM IST