Latest Tier 1b Stories

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, a division of Air France-KLM, is teaming up with a commercial space-flight endeavor planning to operate out the Caribbean island of Curacao, according to officials on Thursday.  KLM has purchased a "few" tickets for suborbital space flights through Space Exploration Curacao, a private venture backed by two Dutch industrialists that plans to operate a two-seat Lynx spacecraft currently being developed by XCOR Aerospace in Mojave, California. Gedi Schrijver, a...

Construction on the world's first commercial passenger space terminal is expected to be completed sometime next year, with flights set to begin launching within 18 months, according to a Wednesday evening article by Dennis J. Carroll of Reuters.Spaceport America, as it has been dubbed, will be located near the town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. According to Carroll, a two-mile long runway was completed at the facility in October, and an air-fire rescue center and an over 100,000...

Billionaire Richard Branson said on Friday that Virgin Galactic is planning to compete in the upcoming race to develop orbital space vehicles. NASA plans to issue a solicitation as early as Monday for a follow-up to its $50 million Commercial Crew Development program, which is part of President Barack Obama's plan to revamp the U.S. space program. The program is funding work by five companies as part of Obama's bid to bolster support to private space companies. "There's about four companies...

Virgin Galactic will pass another milestone today in its efforts to bring commercial spaceflight to reality.Billionaire Richard Branson and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson will host a ceremony later today marking the completion of the main runway at Spaceport America in the New Mexico desert. Branson told CNN on Friday that Virgin is "getting close" to sending tourists into space. "The mothership has been finished and flying for a while now," he said. "We'll do...

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo (SS2), the world's first commercial spacecraft, successfully completed its first solo manned flight on Sunday, the company behind the vehicle's development has announced.SpaceShipTwo, also known as VSS Enterprise, completed a 25 minute test flight and reached an altitude of 45,000 feet before landing at the Mojave Air and Spaceport in California, Virgin Galactic said in a statement. Flying the ship was pilot Pete Siebold and co-pilot Mike Alsbury."The VSS...

Exclusive Documentary Coverage of Historic Milestones on Path to Space Tourism WASHINGTON and MOJAVE, Calif., Oct. 10 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- History was made Sunday, October 10, on the path to the launch of the first commercial spaceliner with news of the first successful glide involving the mother ship, WhiteKnightTwo, and smaller spaceship, the VSS Enterprise, which safely separated at an altitude of 40,000 feet before returning to earth. The process of reaching this milestone has...

Virgin Galactic's LauncherOne satellite launching rocket has suffered a setback. The future of LauncherOne, which had once attracted 110 million dollars in investment from Abu Dhabi-based Aabar Investment, is now in doubt after its manager departed the program. LauncherOne was to be air-lifted and launched from Virgin Galactic's WhiteKnightTwo aircraft. The rocket would take satellites weighing up to 440 pounds into low-Earth orbit for 1 to 2 million dollars. Aabar Investment offered Virgin...

Speaking before a business conference in Kuala Lumpur, entrepreneur Richard Branson confirmed that his Virgin Galactic company will be ready to begin commercial space flights within the next 18 months, French news agency AFP reported on Monday."We just finished building SpaceShipTwo. We are 18 months away from taking people into space," the British billionaire told those attending the conference. According to the AFP, he also noted that the cost of the service would begin at...

A special aircraft designed to launch a suborbital passenger spaceship was damaged in an accident on a California runway, according to Scaled Composites, the spaceship's manufacturer.Scaled Composites, in a statement on its website, called Thursday's incident "minor" and noted that SpaceShipTwo was not attached to the carrier aircraft, known as WhiteKnightTwo.WhiteKnightTwo's left main landing gear collapsed on the runway, according to a report by industry trade publication Aviation Week...

The VSS Enterprise, an experimental craft designed by Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic in order to offer space flights to paying customers, has successfully completed its inaugural flight, company officials announced on Monday.On its official website, the company announced that the aircraft, also known as SpaceshipTwo (SS2), completed a 'captive carry' test flight, launching from Mojave Air and Spaceport in California at 7:05am Pacific Time. The VSS Enterprise has been jointly developed by...