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Editorial Team

Space Travel Editorial Team

Editorial Team

The Space Travel Editorial Team produces Space Travel's coverage of human spaceflight and access to space. We report on launch, crewed missions and space tourism, and the propulsion, vehicles and human factors of getting people to space. Articles reflect our team's collective editorial process, source verification, drafting, technical review, and editing, rather than a single writer's work. Space Travel takes editorial responsibility for content under this byline. For more on how we work, see our editorial policy.

Korolev R-7 Rocket Leads The Field For Reliability

Moscow (RIA Novosti) Mar 06, 2007 - The famed R-7 Semyorka rocket (known in the West by its NATO reporting name, SS-6 Sapwood), designed by the legendary Russian engineer Sergei Korolev, has proved so dependable and sought-after that even fifty years after its first launch, it continues to be used for many jobs. One will be to launch payloads from a facility now under construction at the Courou space center in French Guiana.

Mar 6, 2007

The First US Hall Thruster Is Operational In Space

Natick MA (SPX) Mar 06, 2007 - Busek announces the historic launch and successful in-space operation of its BHT-200 Hall Effect Thruster. The Busek Thruster, part of the Microsatellite Propulsion Integration (MPI) Experiment, was integrated on the Air Force Research Laboratory's (AFRL) TacSat-2 satellite, under the direction of the DoD Space Test Program, which launched December 16, 2006 from the NASA Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, VA.

Mar 6, 2007

Homemade Suit For Chinese Spacewalk

Beijing (AFP) March 5, 2007 - China is on schedule to have a man walk in space for the first time next year after engineers finished the design of a home-grown suit for the mission, state press reported Monday. The launch of Shenzhou VII, China's third manned space flight, will take place in 2008 with two of the three astronauts likely to take the nation's first-ever spacewalk, rocket engineer Huang Chunping was quoted as saying.

Mar 5, 2007

China To Prioritize Three Areas In Space Program

Beijing (XNA) Mar 05, 2007 - China will prioritize three areas of space technology including satellite navigation systems in the next two decades, according to a report released by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The other two areas are remote sensing and space communications, according to the report on high technology development released by the Academy.

Mar 5, 2007

Space Shuttle Atlantis Rolls Back

Cape Canaveral FL (SPX) Mar 05, 2007 - Space Shuttle Atlantis began its roll back to the Vehicle Assembly Building this morning at 8:47 a.m. from Launch Pad 39A. The vehicle is being roll backed due to hail damage that occurred on the tank during a severe thunderstorm that happened on Feb. 26. The trip back takes approximately 7 hours and should be hard down inside the Vehicle Assembly Building around 4 p.m.

Mar 5, 2007

Fuel To Be Removed From Space Shuttle

Cape Canaveral FL (UPI) Mar 02, 2007 - NASA officials decided to remove propellants from space shuttle Atlantis before returning the spacecraft to the Vehicle Assembly Building. The decision stems from a Monday severe thunderstorm that pummeled the shuttle with golf ball-sized hail, producing as many as 2,000 divots in the shuttle's external fuel tank's foam insulation and damaging about 26 heat shield tiles on the shuttle's left wing.

Mar 2, 2007

Impossible For Great Wall To Be Visible With Naked Eye From From Space

Beijing (XNA) Mar 02, 2007 - Chinese scientists have reopened the debate on whether or not the Great Wall is visible from space with the human eye, labeling it impossible. In a report published in Chinese science magazine Science and Technology Review, Dai Changda, Jiang Xiaoguang and Xi Xiaohuan, all researchers with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), argue that the claim, made by American and Russian astronauts, defies the laws of biological science.

Mar 2, 2007

Japanese Instant Noodle Pioneer In Final Blastoff

Tokyo (AFP) Mar 01, 2007 - Thousands of people bade farewell Tuesday to the Japanese inventor of instant noodles in a sci-fi funeral befitting a man whose creation has gone round the planet and into space. Momofuku Ando, who died on January 5 at age 96, was symbolically blasted off into space at a ceremony in a baseball stadium in the western city of Osaka. Ando triggered a revolution in 1958 when he created a dried noodle cake that could turn into a meal by adding hot water.

Mar 1, 2007

Russia May Open New Space Launch Site

Moscow (RIA Novosti) Mar 01, 2007 - Russia may open a new launch site for manned space missions, the head of the Russian space agency said Wednesday. Russia currently launches manned space mission from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan. Another launch site in Russia's Plesetsk only handles unmanned space missions.

Mar 1, 2007

Aerojet Tests Next Generation Safety Capability

Sacramento CA (SPX) Mar 01, 2007 - Aerojet recently conducted an internally-funded static firing of a key Launch Abort System component. Orion's Launch Abort System is a new capability that will allow the astronaut crew to safely escape in the event of an emergency during launch. Aerojet's test of an abort motor reverse flow nozzle increases the technical readiness of the Launch Abort System concept.

Mar 1, 2007

Astrophysicist Hawking To Try Out Weightlessness

Washington (AFP) March 1, 2007 - Paralyzed British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, author of the blockbuster A Brief History of Time, will get a brief plane trip to weightlessness next month, a US company announced Thursday. Hawking will experience the zero-gravity sensation of outer space in a flight he hopes will lead to a 2009 rocket voyage into the cosmos, Zero Gravity Corporation said.

Mar 1, 2007

No Adjustment To ISS Orbit Due To Atlantis Launch Postponement

Moscow (RIA Novosti) Mar 01, 2007 - The orbit of the International Space Station will not be adjusted March 2 as planned, because the launch of the Atlantis space shuttle has been postponed, Russia's Mission Control said Wednesday. Corrections to the space station's orbit are conducted periodically before launches of Russian cargo ships and U.S. shuttles to compensate for Earth's gravity and to ensure successful dockings.

Mar 1, 2007

Space Station Safety Report Released

Washington DC (SPX) Feb 28, 2007 - The International Space Station Independent Safety Task Force's final report is now available online. The report was released simultaneously Tuesday to Congress, NASA and the public. The Congressionally-mandated task force was chartered last year under Section 1281 of the NASA Authorization Act of 2005.

Feb 28, 2007

Late Noodle King Of Japan To Be Blasted Into Space

Tokyo (AFP) Feb 28, 2007 - The Japanese inventor of instant noodles will symbolically blast off into space next week at his funeral at a baseball stadium officiated by three dozen monks, his company said Friday. The funeral for Momofuku Ando, who died on January 5 at age 96, took place on Tuesday at the Kyocera Dome in Osaka, which can hold as many as 55,000 people, said Nissin Food Products, which Ando founded.

Feb 28, 2007

How Long Does It Take To Rebuild Bone Lost During Space Flight

Washington DC (SPX) Feb 28, 2007 - Are bigger bones stronger bones? Not necessarily, according to a recent NASA study that seeks to ensure healthy bones in astronauts. A four-year study of the long-term effects of microgravity on the bones of International Space Station crew members showed that the astronauts, on average, lost roughly 11 percent of their total hip bone mass over the course of their mission.

Feb 28, 2007

US Space Agency Looks To The Moon And Beyond

Washington DC (VOA) Feb 28, 2007 - A memorial service marking the 40th anniversary of the 1967 Apollo 1 accident. A fire in the cockpit during a routine test killed all three astronauts onboard. NASA's Space Operations chief, William Gerstenmaier, says the agency continues to learn from its mistakes.

Feb 28, 2007