Armadillo Aerospace was an aerospace startup company based in Mesquite, Texas. Its initial goal was to build a crewed suborbital spacecraft capable of space tourism, and it had also stated long-term ambitions of orbital spaceflight. The company was founded by John Carmack, co-founder and former chief technical officer of id Software.
The Ansari X Prize was a space competition in which the X Prize Foundation offered a US$10,000,000 prize for the first non-government organization to launch a reusable crewed spacecraft into space twice within two weeks. It was modeled after early 20th-century aviation prizes, and aimed to spur development of low-cost spaceflight.
The Canadian Arrow was a privately funded, early-2000s rocket and space tourism project concept founded by London, Ontario, Canada entrepreneurs Geoff Sheerin, Dan McKibbon and Chris Corke. The project's objective was to take the first civilians into space, on a vertical sub-orbital spaceflight reaching an altitude of 112 km.
The Centennial Challenges are NASA space competition inducement prize contests for non-government-funded technological achievements by American teams.
The Lockheed Martin X-33 was a proposed uncrewed, sub-scale technology demonstrator suborbital spaceplane that was developed for a period in the 1990s. The X-33 was a technology demonstrator for the VentureStar orbital spaceplane, which was planned to be a next-generation, commercially operated reusable launch vehicle. The X-33 would flight-test a range of technologies that NASA believed it needed for single-stage-to-orbit reusable launch vehicles, such as metallic thermal protection systems, composite cryogenic fuel tanks for liquid hydrogen, the aerospike engine, autonomous (uncrewed) flight control, rapid flight turn-around times through streamlined operations, and its lifting body aerodynamics.
The pressure-fed engine is a class of rocket engine designs. A separate gas supply, usually helium, pressurizes the propellant tanks to force fuel and oxidizer to the combustion chamber. To maintain adequate flow, the tank pressures must exceed the combustion chamber pressure.
Masten Space Systems was an aerospace manufacturer startup company in Mojave, California that was developing a line of vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) rockets, initially for uncrewed research sub-orbital spaceflights and eventually intended to support robotic orbital spaceflight launches.
The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) was a robotic spacecraft operated by NASA. The mission was conceived as a low-cost means of determining the nature of hydrogen detected at the polar regions of the Moon. Launched immediately after discovery of lunar water by Chandrayaan-1, the main LCROSS mission objective was to further explore the presence of water in the form of ice in a permanently shadowed crater near a lunar polar region. It was successful in confirming water in the southern lunar crater Cabeus.
The X Prize Cup is a two-day air and space exposition which was the result of a partnership between the X Prize Foundation and the State of New Mexico that began in 2004 when the Ansari X-Prize was held. This led to plans to build the world's first true rocket festival. Three X-Prize Cups have been held: in 2005, 2006 and 2007. Each X Prize Cup hosts different events and demonstrations, such as rocket-powered bicycles, rocket jet packs; but particularly notable are the Lunar Lander Challenge and the Space Elevator Games. 85,000 visitors attended the 2007 X Prize Cup. Although there was no X Prize Cup in 2009, there was a Lunar Lander Challenge.
Launch Complex 39B (LC-39B) is the second of Launch Complex 39's three launch pads, located at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida. The pad, along with Launch Complex 39A, was first designed for the Saturn V launch vehicle, which at the time was the United States' most powerful rocket. Typically used to launch NASA's crewed spaceflight missions since the late 1960s, the pad is currently configured for use by the agency's Space Launch System rocket, a Shuttle-derived launch vehicle which is currently used in the Artemis program and subsequent Moon to Mars campaigns. The pad had also been leased by NASA to aerospace company Northrop Grumman, for use as a launch site for their Shuttle-derived OmegA launch vehicle, for National Security Space Launch flights and commercial launches, before the OmegA program was cancelled.
Vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) is a form of takeoff and landing for rockets. Multiple VTVL craft have flown. The most successful VTVL vehicle was the Apollo Lunar Module which delivered the first humans to the Moon. Building on the decades of development, SpaceX utilised the VTVL concept for its flagship Falcon 9 first stage, which has delivered over three hundred successful powered landings so far.
A space competition is an inducement prize contest offering a prize to be given to the first competitor who demonstrates a space vehicle, or a space exploration apparatus, which meets a set of pre-established criteria. It spurs pioneering development in private spaceflight.
Antares, known during early development as Taurus II, is an expendable launch system developed by Orbital Sciences Corporation and the Pivdenne Design Bureau to launch the Cygnus spacecraft to the International Space Station as part of NASA's COTS and CRS programs. Able to launch payloads heavier than 8,000 kg (18,000 lb) into low Earth orbit, Antares is the largest rocket operated by Northrop Grumman. Antares launches from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport and made its inaugural flight on April 21, 2013. Antares 100 was retired in 2014 and series 200 was retired in 2023 due to component unavailability. As of January 2024 Antares 300 is under development.
Cygnus is an expendable American cargo spacecraft used for International Space Station (ISS) logistics missions. Cygnus was developed by Orbital Sciences Corporation, partially funded by NASA under the agency's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. To create Cygnus, Orbital paired the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module, built by Thales Alenia Space and previously used by the Space Shuttle for ISS logistics, with a service module based on Orbital's GEOStar, a satellite bus. After a successful demonstration flight in 2013, Orbital was chosen to receive a Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract. A larger Enhanced Cygnus was introduced in 2015. Orbital Sciences was renamed Orbital ATK in 2015 and Northrop Grumman purchased Orbital in 2018 and has continued to operate Cygnus missions.
Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) are a series of flights awarded by NASA for the delivery of cargo and supplies to the International Space Station (ISS) on commercially operated spacecraft. The first CRS contracts were signed in 2008 and awarded $1.6 billion to SpaceX for twelve cargo Dragon and $1.9 billion to Orbital Sciences for eight Cygnus flights, covering deliveries to 2016. The Falcon 9 and Antares rockets were also developed under the CRS program to deliver cargo spacecraft to the ISS.
A space tug is a type of spacecraft used to transfer spaceborne cargo from one orbit to another orbit with different energy characteristics. The term can include expendable upper stages or spacecraft that are not necessarily a part of their launch vehicle. However, it can also refer to a spacecraft that transports payload already in space to another location in outer space, such as in the Space Transportation System concept. An example would be moving a spacecraft from a low Earth orbit (LEO) to a higher-energy orbit like a geostationary transfer orbit, a lunar transfer, or an escape trajectory.
Aircraft have different ways to take off and land. Conventional airplanes accelerate along the ground until reaching a speed that is sufficient for the airplane to takeoff and climb at a safe speed. Some airplanes can take off at low speed, this being a short takeoff. Some aircraft such as helicopters and Harrier jump jets can take off and land vertically. Rockets also usually take off vertically, but some designs can land horizontally.
The DARPA XS-1 was an experimental spaceplane/booster with the planned capability to deliver small satellites into orbit for the U.S. Military. It was reported to be designed to be reusable as frequently as once a day, with a stated goal of doing so for 10 days straight. The XS-1 was intended to directly replace the first stage of a multistage rocket by taking off vertically and flying to hypersonic speed and high suborbital altitude, enabling one or more expendable upper stages to separate and deploy a payload into low Earth orbit. The XS-1 would then return to Earth, where it could ostensibly be serviced fast enough to repeat the process at least once every 24 hours.
Firefly Aerospace is an American private aerospace firm based in Cedar Park, Texas, that develops launch vehicles for commercial launches to orbit. The company completed its $75 million Series A investment round in May 2021, which was led by DADA Holdings. The current company was formed when the assets of the former company Firefly Space Systems were acquired by EOS Launcher in March 2017, which was then renamed Firefly Aerospace. Firefly's stated purpose is to increase access to space, similar to other private spaceflight companies.
Orbital ATK Inc. was an American aerospace manufacturer and defense industry company. It was formed in February 9, 2015 from the merger of Orbital Sciences Corporation and parts of Alliant Techsystems (ATK). Orbital ATK designed, built, and delivered rocket engines, military vehicles, firearms, autocannons, missiles, ammunition, precision-guided munitions, satellites, missile approach warning systems, launch vehicles and spacecraft. The company was acquired by Northrop Grumman on June 6, 2018. The former Orbital ATK operations were renamed Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems and operated as a division until January 1, 2020 when a reorganization merged the operations into the company's other divisions.
