Convair 990 Coronado: How a Failed Airliner Found a Robot Tank Buddy at NASA
17 Nov 2023, 22:41 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / This is the story of the Convair 990 Coronado, a failed commercial passenger jetliner that had a miraculous second renaissance working for NASA.
Vulcan Centaur: United Launch Alliance's First All-New Rocket Launches Christmas Eve 2023
15 Nov 2023, 20:22 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / This is the Vulcan Centaur, and it's here to prove that SpaceX and Blue Origin aren't the only names in town in heavy-lift American booster rockets
Embraer E-Jet: The Brazilian Narrow-Body Airliners That Made Boing and Airbus Sweat
15 Nov 2023, 14:06 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / The story of the Embraer E-Jet family is one of a perpetual underdog. One of Brazilian national pride that'd go on to define South America's largest economy.
This ’44 Beech D-17S Staggerwing Is the Ancestor of All Modern Private Jets, It’s for Sale
13 Nov 2023, 20:35 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Today, this D17 looks this fantastic thanks to a full engine-out restoration by Rare Aircraft Ltd in Faribault, Minnesota.
NASA's Two Most Important Space Telescopes Team Up To Find Record-Breaking Black Hole
7 Nov 2023, 20:39 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / While Chandra observed the more apparent X-ray blasts emitted in the foreground of the above composite image, JWST used its infrared sensors to fill the blanks.
NASA Can't Make its Mind Up Over Who Builds the Next Lunar Rover, Delayed Four Months
6 Nov 2023, 18:30 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Had all gone according to plan, NASA intended to have the contracts signed and production orders put in place for the Artemis program by November 27th, 2023.
Sierra Space Completes Construction of Dream Chaser Tenacity, First Launch Due Next April
6 Nov 2023, 16:30 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Should all go according to schedule, Dream Chaser Tenacity is due to launch its first orbital test flight to the ISS out of Space Launch Complex 41 in Florida.
James Webb Space Telescope Snaps Newborn Star Throwing Cosmic Temper Tantrum
6 Nov 2023, 15:35 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / The peculiar stellar object in question snapped by JWST is known as Herbig-Haro (HH) 212. As a cosmological mish-mash of stellar dust and stars.
This Culver PQ-14 Radio Target Plane Was Too Nice to Shoot Down, Now It Can be Yours
5 Nov 2023, 18:37 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / With only 75 hours in the air since its restoration and an award list that includes accolades at the EAA AirVenture Oshkosh event, what's not to like?
SpaceX Wants To Launch Starship's Second Test Flight This Month, FAA Has Final Say
4 Nov 2023, 17:15 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / As per the latest report from the Starship section of SpaceX's web page, the second flight of Starship could take place as early as November 13th.
Some People Think the International Space Station Is a “Waste of Space,” They’re Wrong
4 Nov 2023, 00:19 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / As we blow out 25 candles for ISS this month, it's essential to integrate its minor downsides into the same story of its considerable upside.
Long Dead NASA Probe Discovers Exoplanet System Scorched by Savage Mother Star
3 Nov 2023, 18:39 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Say hello to the Kepler 385 system. It has more in common with the modern conception of hell than any resemblance to our own Solar System.
European Space Agency Wants to Cultivate Meat in Space, Won't Replace the Bagged Stuff Yet
3 Nov 2023, 03:25 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / At its core, the basic principles of cultivated meat in space mirror that of the same practice here on Earth for us non-astronauts to eat.
Twin NASA X-Ray Telescopes Snap Tendrils of a Cosmic Space Monster, It's Just a Pulsar
2 Nov 2023, 22:23 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / It's because Chandra and IXPE capture X-ray signatures from such vast distances away that we can observe these gusts of pulsar radiation.
NASA’s Juno Probe Detects Potential Organic Compounds on Ganymede, Is It Ancient Life?
2 Nov 2023, 18:44 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Previous observations of by the Galileo space probe and the Hubble Space Telescope from low-Earth orbit have insinuated the planet was hiding something.
Avro Canada Jetliner: How the World's First Jet Airliner Almost Came From Ontario
31 Oct 2023, 03:11 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Had it not been for the demise of the CF-105 Arrow the C102 Jetliner would have been the greatest missed opportunity in Canadian aviation history.
T-28 Trojan: The American Trainer Plane That Could Outclimb a Mustang
27 Oct 2023, 17:50 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Thanks to its antiquated and relatively easy-to-maintain engine, operating costs for a T-28 are far lower than newer turboprop military trainers.
20 Years Ago Today, the Concorde Supersonic Airliner Bid Its Final Farewell
24 Oct 2023, 18:32 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / Concorde made its final flight from New York's John F. Kennedy Airport across the Atlantic to London's Heathrow Airport twenty years ago today.
This Avro Anson Once Hunted German Submarines for the RAF, Now It's for Sale
24 Oct 2023, 17:47 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / First flown in 1935 and designed by Avro's chief engineer Roy Chadwick, the Anson didn't serve nearly as glamorous of a role in the RAF as a Spitfire.
Airbus A340: The Story of the Wimpiest Quad-Jet in the History of Aviation
24 Oct 2023, 00:02 UTC · By: Benny Kirk / The story of the A340 is one rooted in the larger history of Airbus itself, and the decades long crusade to stick it to the airliner aristocracy.