Launch Report

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Highlights
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NASA is taking heat from its OIG for giving Orbital Sciences more than $600
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The FTC is investigating whether ULA ran afoul of antitrust laws with its
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Proba-V satellite has successfully demonstrated that it can capture data on
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Satmex Chief Financial Officer Juan Garcia said Satmex 7 “is fully funded”
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Initial contracts are now being let and the principal partners to the 20-
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Sierra Nevada Space Systems got a nearly $2 million NASA contract from NASA
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Sky Perfect JSat of Japan, on June 12 said it had selected Space Systems/
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The Cooperative Research and Development Agreement allows SpaceX and the Air
Featured Video
China's three-person Shenzhou 10 crew blasts off at about 4:30 a.m. Eastern time on June 11 from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center for a rendezvous and docking mission with the Tiangong-1 space station. Credit: China Central Television via SpacevidsTV
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Commentary | Bring Back Project Pilot
Matt Bile writes:
Most people have never heard of Project Pilot, the U.S. Navy’s maverick air-launched orbital booster program of 1958. Those who have call it an interesting failure. The project probably put one satellite in orbit in six launch attempts. It had minimal effect on the future: The designer of today’s only air-launched booster, the Pegasus, was unaware it existed.
I propose that we bring it back.
Bring all of it back: the shoestring budget, the small team and the lack of structure, reporting and paperwork. If we can’t do all the things in the outlandish concept I’m about to lay out, then let’s at least talk about which parts we can do. We know that no effort since 1958 has given us a cheap responsive launcher, so let’s consider something so crazy it just might work.








