The modified 737 aircraft “Cosmic Girl” lifts off from Mojave Air and Space Port in California carrying a LauncherOne rocket on June 30, 2021.

By Michael Sheetz

• Virgin Orbit is assembling a fleet of rocket-launching 747 jets, the company announced, ordering two new modified cargo airframes that CEO Dan Hart says “unleashes us in a few ways.”
• The added jets open “up all sorts of possibilities for supporting different customers in different places,” Hart said.
• Virgin Orbit expects to take delivery of the first of the two new planes next year.

Virgin Orbit is assembling a fleet of modified 747 jets, the company announced Tuesday, ordering two new modified cargo airframes to help launch more rockets into space.

The company is acquiring the two additional airframes through L3Harris, which will modify the jets to carry and launch Virgin Orbit’s rockets. Virgin expects to take delivery of the first of the planes next year.

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have found that solar power might be the ideal solution to power prolonged — or even permanent — visits to Mars. 

Until now, many engineers and scientists believed that nuclear power would be the better solution; however, advancements in photovoltaics show that solar could prove better if not comparable to nuclear power. 

For the study, the team looked at a six-person mission to Mars that included 480 days spent on the surface, a likely scenario that would reduce the time it takes to travel planet-to-planet. 

The researchers found that for sites on about half of the Martian surface, especially around the equator, solar power would be better than nuclear power, especially when you consider the weight and efficiency of solar panels. Of course, this is contingent on the power source’s ability to produce hydrogen gas to be used in fuel cells that will power the settlement at night or during sandstorms. Dust is a problem on the red planet and the main reason solar fell out of favor. If you recall, it was a dust storm that knocked the solar-powered Opportunity rover offline in 2019.  

BY TYLER DURDEN

Space is no longer only a place for the world powers but a new domain for private businesses to capitalize on. The latest example is an out-of-this-world space hotel set to open in low Earth orbit at the end of this decade. 

Orbital Assembly Corp., a California-based startup, bills itself as the “world’s first large-scale space construction company” and is slated to open the Voyager Station in 2027, equipped with restaurants, a cinema, spa, and space pods (rooms) for 400 people. 

“The goal has always been to make it possible for large amounts of people to live, work and thrive in space,” Tim Alatorre, Orbital Assembly’s chief operating officer, told CNN.  

The company plans to use robots to construct the celestial hotel shaped like a Ferris wheel. The 650-foot-wide wheel-shaped structure will spin with an angular velocity fast enough to generate moon-like levels of artificial gravity for guests.