VTVL'S MAKE PROGRESS: MORE ARMADILLO, MASTEN TEST FLIGHTS

John Carmack of Armadillo Aerospace has reported that they have made their first free flight with the methane/oxygen-powered VTVL rocket vehicle at Caddo Mills Airport in Texas where Armadillo has a hangar. Armadillo are operating under revised Federal Aviation Administration rules on amateur rockets, as discussed in a previous issue of NewSpace Digest. The vehicle reached a maximum altitude of 51 metres, with all systems "nominal". Carmack said that they intended to "double the altitude on each flight for a while".

Neil Milburn added that they intend to incrementally approach the FAA waiver limit for their test site of 1500m altitude, which will allow them "to do a LOT of valuable testing on our home turf".

RRegular tethered test flights are continuing at the Masten Space Systems facility in Mojave, California. The most recent and longest flight of the Xombie VTVL test vehicle (flight 8 on the test roster) was 60 seconds in duration, and included computer-commanded lateral translations and vehicle rotations. The vehicle performed nominally. A Masten spokesman said "The overall performance was very encouraging. The team is excited about the progress we have been achieving and the rate at which improvements have been working."

UK STUDIES MICROGRAVITY SCIENCE PROSPECTS

In a surprise move, the British National Space Centre has announced that it is evaluating the prospects for a UK-based programme of microgravity research using commercial suborbital providers:

"BNSC is interested in gauging the interest among UK researchers in using microgravity facilities. If there is sufficient interest, we will consider ways of bringing together users with providers of parabolic and suborbital flights.

Several companies now provide or are considering providing flights for experimenters to carry out experiments in zero gravity. If there is sufficient interest in the UK, it may prove worth while operating services here and BNSC is looking into how it might facilitate such operations.

If you are interested in such an opportunity, please let us know as much as you can about your needs by completing the online questionnaire. If you don't yet have all the information, please let us know what you can.

In addition, if you are a potential provider of such services, we'd also like to hear from you."

More information is available on the BNSC website: http://www.bnsc.gov.uk/7324.aspx

NewSpace Digest is compiled by Duncan Law-Green. For more information and a UK perspective on commercial space developments, see his blog at http://www.rocketeers.co.uk/