Free Republic

It’s known as the Haas 2CA, the latest in a series of rockets being developed by the New Mexico-based aerospace company. If all goes as planned, this rocket will be the first SSTO rocket in history, meaning it will be able to place payloads and crew into Earth’s orbit relying on only one stage with one engine. The rocket was unveiled on Tuesday, March 28th, at their company headquarters in Las Cruces. The rocket is currently seeking FAA approval, and ARCA is working diligently to get it ready for its test launch in 2018 – which will take place at...

SPACEPLANE SHELVED? For 16 years, Aviation Week & Space Technology has investigated myriad sightings of a two-stage-to-orbit system that could place a small military spaceplane in orbit. Considerable evidence supports the existence of such a highly classified system, and top Pentagon officials have hinted that it's "out there," but iron-clad confirmation that meets AW&ST standards has remained elusive. Now facing the possibility that this innovative "Blackstar" system may have been shelved, we elected to share what we've learned about it with our readers, rather than let an intriguing technological breakthrough vanish into "black world" history, known to only a few...

FORT STOCKTON, Texas - NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, the U.S. Air Force Flight Test Center and Blacksky Corp. joined forces on the prairie lands of West Texas to fly small aerospike rocket nozzles. The effort, called the Dryden Aerospike Rocket Test, provided the first known data from a solid-fueled aerospike rocket in flight. Two 10-foot-long solid-fueled rockets with aerospike nozzles were flown successfully on two consecutive flights March 30 and 31. Under perfect skies and calm winds, the rockets ascended from the King Ranch launch site at the Pecos County Aerospace Development Corp. Flight Test Range in Fort Stockton,...

A team from California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), in partnership with Garvey Spacecraft Corporation (GSC), successfully conducted a static fire test of a 1000 lbf ablative annular aerospike rocket engine in the Mojave desert on June 21, 2003 using LOX and ethanol propellants. This test represents an important milestone in the team's efforts to ultimately perform the first powered flight test of such a liquid-propellant aerospike engine. Aerospike engines have received considerable attention by NASA, Rocketdyne and other aerospace organizations over the last forty years because of potential performance advantages over conventional rocket engines equipped with bell-shaped nozzles. These...