collection: space exploration locations
started by tacopolis
mojave air and spaceport
from space travel, spaceport, new space posted in technology by elvis_crabs
Opened as a small airfield serving the gold and silver mining industry in 1935, the Mojave Air and Spaceport (also known as the Civilian Aerospace Test Center) is one of the leading test facilities for the new commercial space flight industry (or "New Space" movement).
Mojave was the first facility to be licensed in the US for horizontal launches of reusable spacecraft, being certified as a spaceport by the FAA on June 17, 2004.
Scaled Composites has their headquarters here. Their spacecraft, SpaceShipOne, won the Ansari X Prize (a $10 million prize) by conducting the first privately funded human sub-orbital flight on June 21, 2004.
Not all companies at Mojave are subsidiaries of massive aerospace companies. Masten Space Systems is startup company with 12 employees that specializes in vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) spacecraft.
Other private spaceflight companies based at Mojave include XCOR Aerospace, Firestar Technologies, and Orbital Sciences Corporation.
view full location details...stratolaunch systems
from space travel, new space posted in technology by paul
space exploration technologies
from space travel, new space, spacex posted in technology by elvis_crabs
Founded with $100 million by PayPal and Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk, Space Exploration Technologies (more commonly "SpaceX") has grown from its initial investment size in 2002 to become a company with nearly 1,700 employees and an estimated market value of $1.3 billion dollars (an IPO is possible at the end of 2013).
SpaceX became the first private company to successfully launch and return a spacecraft from orbit on December 8 2010, after its Dragon capsule returned from a two-orbit flight.
SpaceX has been specializing in rocket design and manufacture (the "Falcon" series) and capsule design and manufacture (the "Dragon" series). The company will have the first commercial resupply spaceflight to the International Space Station on May 19, 2012.
The company has a launch manifest on their website that gives a hint to the commercial viability to this industry. The US Air Force and NASA are already negotiating contracts with SpaceX.
view full location details...planetary resources
from new space, space travel posted in technology by prof_improbable
Formerly known as Arkyd Astronautics, Planetary Resources is an asteroid mining company headed by Space Adventures CEO Eric Anderson and X PRIZE founder and chairman Dr. Peter Diamandis.
Planetary Resources has a roster of advisors and investors that any tech company would envy: filmmaker James Cameron, Google inventor Larry Page and CEO Eric Schmidt, and billionaire heir Ross Perot, Jr.
The mission statement of Planetary Resources?- "Harnessing valuable minerals from a practically infinite source will provide stability on Earth, increase humanity’s prosperity, and help establish and maintain human presence in space."
view full location details...space adventures
from space travel, new space posted in technology by pete_nice
Founded by Eric Anderson in 1998 (two years after he graduated college), Space Adventures specializes in space tourism. Specifically, the company books passage on Russian spaceflights for space tourists and organizes all the necessary training.
Space Adventures had the world's first space tourist, entrepreneur Dennis Tito, as a client in 2001. They continue to plan for zero-G flights, suborbital and orbital spaceflights, and hope to provide the world's first private lunar mission.
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