Future Heavy 2017 launched on 24 June.
Four missile tests (three confirmed) from Russia in recent weeks. A suspected Yars failure from Plesetsk on August 25. A successful Topol test from Plesetsk on September 9. Two Bulava missiles salvo launched from a submarine in the White Sea on September 27. One of the Bulava missiles "autodestructed" after launching from the missile tube. It isn't clear if the destruction was planned or not. http://russianforces.org/ - Ed Kyle
HIFiRE 4 is also known as HyShot V.http://hypersonics.mechmining.uq.edu.au/hifire
In 2014 this flight was scheduled to use VSB-30 rocket serial V12, but scheduled launch date was May 2015! www.unoosa.org/pdf/pres/stsc2014/tech-44E.pdf
ARLINGTON: A brand-new ICBM may cost the nation more than $85 billion, but keeping the geriatric Minuteman will cost even more. That’s according to Boeing, the aerospace giant that began building the original Minuteman I in 1958 and has maintained the much-modified Minuteman III since 1970.
Sure, the company can reset the odometer on the Minuteman with yet another service life extension program (SLEP), Boeing strategic deterrence chief Frank McCall told reporters this morning. But it’s still a 1950s design upgraded over six decades with a mix of technologies it was never intended to accommodate. While parts of the guidance and propulsion systems date to 1993, for example, some parts are so old the original manufacturers have long since gone out of business. That forces the Air Force to expensively reinvent the wheel – or, say, a 1961-vintage mechanical coding device.So for about the same price as a rebuilt Minuteman, McCall told us, Boeing would rather build you an all-new missile. That’s what the Air Force calls the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent. (Lockheed and Northrop are also competing). GBSD would get you better performance, he said, including against modern, precision-guided missile defenses, which didn’t exist when the Minuteman was designed. (Back then, cutting-edge missile defense destroyed incoming warheads by detonating a nuclear weapon over your own territory). It would be flexible for a wide range of scenarios, whereas the Minuteman was optimized for a massive exchange with Russia across the North Pole. And even sticking with low-risk, proven technology, it would be decades more advanced than Minuteman.
Aug. 13, 2017RockSat-X Successfully Launches from NASA WallopsThe RockSat-X student payload was successfully launched on a NASA Terrier-Improved Malemute suborbital sounding rocket at 5:30 a.m., Sunday, Aug. 13, from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.The payload flew to an altitude of 94 miles during its suborbital flight. It descended by parachute and landed in the Atlantic Ocean where it was recovered.The payload will be returned to Wallops later today, Aug. 13; the experiments will be removed and returned to the student teams.More than 100 students from 15 universities and community colleges from across the Unites States participating in RockSat-X were on hand to witness the launch.The experiments were flown through the RockSat-X program in conjunction with the Colorado Space Grant Consortium. RockSat-X is the most advance of NASA’s three-phase sounding rocket program for students. The RockOn launches are at the entry level then progress to the intermediate level RockSat-C missions, culminating with the advanced RockSat-X. The three-tier program introduces secondary institution students to building experiments for space flight and requires them to expand their skills to develop and build more complex projects as they progress through the programs. RockSat-X experiments are flown approximately 20 miles higher in altitude than those in the RockOn and RockSat-C programs, providing more flight time in space.The next launch from Wallops is a NASA Black Brant IX suborbital sounding rocket in mid-September carrying a technology development payload.
RockSat-X team.Students with the RockSat-X group pose in front of their rocket prior to launch operations. The RockSat-X mission successfully launched from NASA Wallops Aug. 13.