New Mexico's 2021 Space News Archives
New Mexico Space  News 2021 Archives
December 10: Astronomers using the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array near Socorro, New Mexico, discovered a corkscrew-like structure within a galactic jet ejected from a supermassive black hole.

December 7: 184 middle school students from the Albuquerque area launched 20 rockets in a field near Rio Rancho, New Mexico, as part of the TECH Mission program conducted by the Air Force Research Lab located at Kirtland Air Force Base.

November 29: One antenna at the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) successfully sent data to the Commensal Open Source Multimode Interferometer Cluster (COSMIC) system. Ultimately, the system will utilize all 27 VLA antennas to gather data for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI).

November 24: The New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology was awarded initial funding toward the construction of three telescopes and two scientific instruments at the Magdalena Ridge Observatory. The project will improve detection and characterization of objects at Geosynchronous Earth Orbit and beyond.

November 9: SpinLaunch, a Spaceport America tenant, conducted its first successful test launch using kinetic energy as the primary method of thrust. The projectile was flung from a one-third scale version of the ultimate launch mechanism and reached an altitude "in the tens of thousands of feet."

October 7: Tenant AeroVironment, Inc. (NASDAQ: AVAV) is expanding its footprint at Spaceport America, bringing two new unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) projects to New Mexico for testing and training. Operations for JUMP 20 medium unmanned aircraft systems (MUAS) and tactical unmanned aircraft systems (TUAS) have begun out of the Spaceport's Vertical Launch Area.

September 14: A balloon launched from Fort Sumner, New Mexico, carried the High-Altitude Student Platform or HASP, with its 11 student experiments and also 23 student experiments through the RockOn! Program. The NASA balloon flew at a float altitude of 122,000 feet for 14 hours before descending and landing on Sept. 15. More than 110 undergraduate students from 11 institutions worked on the HASP experiments. From those teams, 50 students were able to support the HASP Integration and System Test at the NASA Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in early September.

August 11:  For the first time, Los Alamos National Laboratory partnered with a private company to perform a suborbital flight experiment involving a Los Alamos-developed diagnostic and communication payload. An 800-pound rocket sped more than 60 miles into the atmosphere at six times the speed of sound, sending back flight diagnostics like temperature and acceleration that will be used to develop national security technology.

July 11: Virgin Galactic flew Richard Branson and five Virgin Galactic employees to an altitude of 53.5 miles from Spaceport America.

July 1: Virgin Galactic announced that Richard Branson will be aboard a test flight of SpaceShipTwo from Spaceport America on July 11. It will be the company's first flight following approval of its license approval for carrying commercial passengers.

June 6: A sounding rocket launched a White Sands Missile Range carried a Cosmic Infrared Background Experiment (CIBER) instrument in the second phase of an investigation into the structure of the universe. The objective is to resolve differences in other studies that estimate the number of stars that exist in the universt. This launch was the first of four that will gather data over the next few years.

June 2: The Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico will be the base of the Next Generation Very Large Array (ngVLA). A "dense core" of the 244 new 18-meter (59-foot) dish antennas will be installed at the current VLA, with others scattered around American properties from Hawaii to Puerto Rico, along with sites in northern Mexico and Canada.

May 22: Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo reached space on a test flight at Spaceport America. The ship carried a pilot, a co-pilot, and two crew members to an altitude of 55.45 miles. In addition to testing the performance of the spacecraft itself, the flight also carried revenue-generating scientific research experiments as part of NASA's Flight Opportunities Program.

April 10: Students at New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology launched a rocket they had designed and built. The 8-foot rocket released a payload at nearly 15,000 feet altitude after its launch at Spaceport America.

March 16: C6 Launch Systems symbolically inaugurated its new rocket test platform at Spaceport America by launching a small rocket. The company will begin actual rocket engine testing on the facility next week.

February 19: Technologies developed for space exploration have found many applications for down-to-Earth humans for decades. An Albuquerque company is developing a crop-boosting agricultural technology for use on long-duration space voyages.

February 1: Virgin Galactic announced that its next powered test flight to space will take place in a window starting February 13 at Spaceport America.




For previous news postings, visit the News Archives page.


Photo Credits
Robert Goddard towing one of his rockets to the launch site near Roswell about 1931, courtesy of NASA.

WhiteKnightTwo carrying SpaceShipTwo at Spaceport America runway dedication flyover, photo by Loretta Hall.

Unless otherwise credited, all material on this site is © Loretta Hall 2010-2021.
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Photo Credits
Robert Goddard towing one of his rockets to the launch site near Roswell about 1931, courtesy of NASA.

WhiteKnightTwo carrying SpaceShipTwo at Spaceport America runway dedication flyover, photo by Loretta Hall.
Photo Credits
Robert Goddard towing one of his rockets to the launch site near Roswell about 1931, courtesy of NASA.

WhiteKnightTwo carrying SpaceShipTwo at Spaceport America runway dedication flyover, photo by Loretta Hall.

Unless otherwise credited, all material on this site is ©Loretta Hall 2010-2020.
December 10: Astronomers using the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array near Socorro, New Mexico, discovered a corkscrew-like structure within a galactic jet ejected from a supermassive black hole.

December 7: 184 middle school students from the Albuquerque area launched 20 rockets in a field near Rio Rancho, New Mexico, as part of the TECH Mission program conducted by the Air Force Research Lab located at Kirtland Air Force Base.

November 29: One antenna at the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) successfully sent data to the Commensal Open Source Multimode Interferometer Cluster (COSMIC) system. Ultimately, the system will utilize all 27 VLA antennas to gather data for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI).

November 24: The New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology was awarded initial funding toward the construction of three telescopes and two scientific instruments at the Magdalena Ridge Observatory. The project will improve detection and characterization of objects at Geosynchronous Earth Orbit and beyond.

November 9: SpinLaunch, a Spaceport America tenant, conducted its first successful test launch using kinetic energy as the primary method of thrust. The projectile was flung from a one-third scale version of the ultimate launch mechanism and reached an altitude "in the tens of thousands of feet."

October 7: Tenant AeroVironment, Inc. (NASDAQ: AVAV) is expanding its footprint at Spaceport America, bringing two new unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) projects to New Mexico for testing and training. Operations for JUMP 20 medium unmanned aircraft systems (MUAS) and tactical unmanned aircraft systems (TUAS) have begun out of the Spaceport's Vertical Launch Area.

September 14: A balloon launched from Fort Sumner, New Mexico, carried the High-Altitude Student Platform or HASP, with its 11 student experiments and also 23 student experiments through the RockOn! Program. The NASA balloon flew at a float altitude of 122,000 feet for 14 hours before descending and landing on Sept. 15. More than 110 undergraduate students from 11 institutions worked on the HASP experiments. From those teams, 50 students were able to support the HASP Integration and System Test at the NASA Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in early September.

August 11:  For the first time, Los Alamos National Laboratory partnered with a private company to perform a suborbital flight experiment involving a Los Alamos-developed diagnostic and communication payload. An 800-pound rocket sped more than 60 miles into the atmosphere at six times the speed of sound, sending back flight diagnostics like temperature and acceleration that will be used to develop national security technology.

July 11: Virgin Galactic flew Richard Branson and five Virgin Galactic employees to an altitude of 53.5 miles from Spaceport America.

July 1: Virgin Galactic announced that Richard Branson will be aboard a test flight of SpaceShipTwo from Spaceport America on July 11. It will be the company's first flight following approval of its license approval for carrying commercial passengers.

June 6: A sounding rocket launched a White Sands Missile Range carried a Cosmic Infrared Background Experiment (CIBER) instrument in the second phase of an investigation into the structure of the universe. The objective is to resolve differences in other studies that estimate the number of stars that exist in the universt. This launch was the first of four that will gather data over the next few years.

June 2: The Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico will be the base of the Next Generation Very Large Array (ngVLA). A "dense core" of the 244 new 18-meter (59-foot) dish antennas will be installed at the current VLA, with others scattered around American properties from Hawaii to Puerto Rico, along with sites in northern Mexico and Canada.

May 22: Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo reached space on a test flight at Spaceport America. The ship carried a pilot, a co-pilot, and two crew members to an altitude of 55.45 miles. In addition to testing the performance of the spacecraft itself, the flight also carried revenue-generating scientific research experiments as part of NASA's Flight Opportunities Program.

April 10: Students at New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology launched a rocket they had designed and built. The 8-foot rocket released a payload at nearly 15,000 feet altitude after its launch at Spaceport America.

March 16: C6 Launch Systems symbolically inaugurated its new rocket test platform at Spaceport America by launching a small rocket. The company will begin actual rocket engine testing on the facility next week.

February 19: Technologies developed for space exploration have found many applications for down-to-Earth humans for decades. An Albuquerque company is developing a crop-boosting agricultural technology for use on long-duration space voyages.

February 1: Virgin Galactic announced that its next powered test flight to space will take place in a window starting February 13 at Spaceport America.



For previous news postings, visit the News Archives page.


Photo Credits
Robert Goddard towing one of his rockets to the launch site near Roswell about 1931, courtesy of NASA.

WhiteKnightTwo carrying SpaceShipTwo at Spaceport America runway dedication flyover, photo by Loretta Hall.

Unless otherwise credited, all material on this site is © Loretta Hall 2010-2021.
Unless otherwise credited, all material on this site is © Loretta Hall 2010-2020.