Space and Astronomy News

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Man Accused of Stealing Meteorites in North Carolina

Police have arrested a man accused of stealing 100 stolen meteorites taken from an astronomical research center in North Carolina, according to media reports.

On Saturday (Dec. 29), Brian Thomas Koontz, 29, of Balsam Grove, N.C., was charged in relation to the theft of meteorites and electronics equipment from the Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute on Christmas Eve, the Asheville Citizen-Times reported.

Based on surveillance footage, authorities believe another man, Robin Morris Baldwin Jr. of Hendersonville, N.C., was also involved in the theft. Most of the stolen goods, which include the meteorites, 10 large-screen television monitors, as well as Blu-Ray players, a microscope, and overhead video projectors, have been recovered from one of the houses of the two alleged crooks.

The electronics equipment alone was worth more than $100,000, the Asheville Citizen-Times reported, and a value has not been set for the space rocks, which were on loan to the science center from three private collections.

Meteorites can fetch high prices, especially rare types such as those that originated from the moon and Mars. For example, three seed-sized pieces of the moon that were brought back to Earth by a Russian robotic probe in 1970 were sold at auction 30 years later for $442,500. Meteorites are often sold by auction houses and even online at sites like eBay and Craigslist.

Just last month, some stolen moon rocks originally collected by Apollo astronauts were finally returned to the possession of the state of Alaska, to which they were given after the first manned moon mission in 1969.

The meteorites stolen from the North Carolina science center ranged in size from about the width of a quarter to one as large as a basketball, according to the Asheville Citizen-Times.

'We're pleased that progress is being made,' Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute vice president Dave Clavier said, according to the newspaper.

'Any of them that we get back will be a great relief,' he added.

The crime occurred at about 3 a.m. on Dec. 24, and took about 45 minutes, police officials said. Koontz has been charged with felony breaking and entering, conspiring to breaking and entering, felony larceny, conspiring to commit larceny and misdemeanor injury to personal property. Baldwin is still at large.

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Mars Rover Mission Marks 9 Years on Red Planet

As the world rang in the Near Year this this week, NASA was looking forward to a big milestone of its own - nine years and counting on the surface of Mars for an overachieving Red Planet rover mission.

The golf-cart-size Spirit rover landed on Mars on Jan. 3, 2004, PST. Its twin, Opportunity, touched down at another Martian locale three weeks later, joining Spirit on a 90-day quest to search for signs of past water activity on the Red Planet. Together, the two robots make up the Mars Exploration Rover mission, the precursor to the huge Mars rover Curiosity, which arrived at the planet last August.

The two NASA robots found plenty of such evidence, helping scientists confirm that Mars - now a frigid and seemingly bone-dry place - was warmer and wetter billions of years ago. Spirit even stumbled onto an ancient hydrothermal system, where heat energy and liquid water may have created conditions capable of supporting life as we know it.

Both rovers kept on chugging long after their warranties expired. Spirit finally stopped communicating with Earth in March 2010 and was declared dead a year later. Opportunity is still going strong, exploring clay deposits on the rim of Mars' Endeavour Crater. [Latest Mars Photos From Rovers Spirit & Opportunity]

Together, the two robots have covered 26.82 miles (43.16 kilometers) to date, with Opportunity racking up the lion's share (22.02 miles, or 35.44 km). While Opportunity is showing some signs of its advanced age, such as an arthritic arm, the rover remains in good health and continues to return interesting data to its handlers back on Earth.

'Every day is a gift at this point,' rover mission principal investigator Steve Squyres, of Cornell University, said last month at the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union. 'We're just going to push the rover, and push ourselves, as hard as we can.'

The nine-year anniversary may bring some attention back to Opportunity, which ceded the Mars rover spotlight to its car-size cousin Curiosity last summer.

The $2.5 billion Curiosity rover landed inside Mars' huge Gale Crater on Aug. 5, 2012, on a mission to determine if the area has ever been capable of supporting microbial life. The 1-ton robot - which weighs five times as much as Spirit or Opportunity - has already discovered an ancient streambed where water likely flowed continuously for thousands of years long ago.

Curiosity's surface mission was originally slated to last about two Earth years, but NASA officials recently announced that they would let the robot roam as long as it was scientifically viable. If the performance of Spirit and Opportunity are any guide, Curiosity could be roving for many years to come.

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100 Billion Alien Planets Fill Our Milky Way Galaxy: Study

Our Milky Way galaxy is home to at least 100 billion alien planets, and possibly many more, a new study suggests.

'It's a staggering number, if you think about it,' lead author Jonathan Swift, of Caltech in Pasadena, said in a statement. 'Basically there's one of these planets per star.'

Swift and his colleagues arrived at their estimate after studying a five-planet system called Kepler-32, which lies about 915 light-years from Earth. The five worlds were detected by NASA's Kepler Space Telescope, which flags the tiny brightness dips caused when exoplanets cross their star's face from the instrument's perspective.

The Kepler-32 planets orbit an M dwarf, a type of star that is smaller and cooler than our sun. M dwarfs are the most common star in the Milky Way, accouting for about 75 percent of the galaxy's 100 billion or so stars, researchers said.

Further, the five Kepler-32 worlds are similar in size to Earth and orbit quite close to their parent star, making them typical of the planets Kepler has spotted around other M dwarfs. So the Kepler-32 system should be representative of many of the galaxy's planets, scientists said. [The Strangest Alien Planets (Gallery)]

'I usually try not to call things 'Rosetta stones,' but this is as close to a Rosetta stone as anything I've seen,' said co-author John Johnson, also of Caltech. 'It's like unlocking a language that we're trying to understand - the language of planet formation.'

Kepler can detect planetary systems only if they're oriented edge-on to the telescope; otherwise, the instrument won't observe any star-dimming planetary transits. So the researchers calculated the odds that an M-dwarf system in the Milky Way would have this orientation, then combined that with the number of such systems Kepler is able to detect to come up with their estimate of 100 billion exoplanets.

The team considered only planets orbiting close to M dwarfs; their analysis didn't include outer planets in M-dwarf systems, or any worlds circling other types of stars. So the galaxy may actually harbor many more planets than the conservative estimate implies - perhaps 200 billion, or about two per star, Swift said.

The new analysis confirms three of the five Kepler-32 planets (the other two had been confirmed previously). The Kepler-32 worlds have diameters ranging from 0.8 to 2.7 times that of Earth, and all of them orbit within 10 million miles (16 million kilometers) of their star. For comparison, Earth circles the sun at an average distance of 93 million miles (150 million km).

Because the Kepler-32 star is smaller and less luminous than our sun, the five planets are likely not as heat-blasted as their tight orbits might imply. In fact, the outermost planet in the system appears to lie in the habitable zone, a range of distances that could support the existence of liquid water on a world's system.

The new analysis also suggests that the Kepler-32 planets originally formed farther away from the star and then migrated closer in over time, researchers said.

Several pieces of evidence point toward this conclusion. For example, the team estimated that the five Kepler-32 worlds coalesced from material containing about as much mass as three Jupiters. But models suggest that this much gas and dust cannot be squeezed into the small area circumscribed by the planets' current orbits, researchers said.

'You look in detail at the architecture of this very special planetary system, and you're forced into saying these planets formed farther out and moved in,' Johnson said.

The new study was published today (Jan. 2) in The Astrophysical Journal.

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Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Quadrantid Meteor Shower Tonight: How to Watch Online

Stargazers around the world are hoping for clear skies when the first meteor shower of 2013 peaks tonight, but if foul weather does spoil your view, don't fret. You can also track the meteor shower online.

NASA scientists at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., will provide a live webcast of the Quadrantid meteor shower tonight through Friday (Jan. 2 to 4), to capture the peak of the annual 'shooting stars' display.

You can watch the meteor shower on SPACE.com here, courtesy of NASA's webcast.

'Peaking in the wee morning hours of Jan. 3, the Quadrantids have a maximum rate of about 80 per hour, varying between 60-200,' Marshall center officials explained in an announcement. 'Unfortunately, light from a waning gibbous moon will wash out many Quadrantids, cutting down on the number of meteors seen by skywatchers.'

The Quadrantid meteor shower occurs every year in early January when the Earth passes through a stream of dusty debris cast off by the asteroid 2003 EH1, a space rock that astronomers suspect is actually a chunk of a centuries-dead comet. The shower appears to originate in the eastern sky from the outdated constellation called Quadrans, which is located near the northern tip of the constellation Bootes, the Herdsman, NASA officials said.

The Quadrantid meteor shower is known for putting on a reliable display, but the moon's interference may make that difficult this year. [Amazing Quadrantid Meteor Shower Photos]

According to NASA, the Quadrantids will peak between midnight and 3 a.m. (your local time), with the best views expected for stargazers in the Northern Hemisphere, though the display should be visible from anywhere on Earth north of the latitude 51 degrees south.

'To view Quadrantids, go outside and allow your eyes 30-45 minutes to adjust to the dark. Look straight up, allowing your eyes to take in as much of the sky as possible,' NASA officials advised. 'You will need cloudless, dark skies away from city lights to see the shower.'

If you do venture out to see the Quadrantids, here are some other useful tips:

Dress warmly: Since the best sky show will be in the Northern Hemisphere, where winter is in full swing, you will want to wear extra layers to ward off the chill during your observing period.

Get comfortable: A comfy reclining outdoor chair or blanket may be just the ticket for a long night of meteor-watching. Your neck will thank you in the morning.

Look straight up: NASA scientists have said the best way to watch a meteor shower is not to strain your eyes at the shower's radiant - the patch of the sky where it appears to emanate from. Looking straight up is the best method to see any meteors or fireballs during the night.

Editor's note: If you snap an amazing photo of the Quadrantid meteor shower and would like to share it with SPACE.com, send images and comments, including name, location and equipment used to managing editor Tariq Malik at spacephotos@space.com

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Cosmic Pancake Spotted Around Andromeda Galaxy

A giant pancake-like structure made of dwarf galaxies has been spotted orbiting the Andromeda galaxy, the nearest neighbor of our own Milky Way, researchers say.

A similar galactic disk, which current galaxy formation models have trouble explaining, may even exist around the Milky Way, too, scientists added.

The Andromeda galaxy, named after a mythological princess, is a spiral galaxy much like the Milky Way. At about 2.5 million light-years away in the Andromeda constellation, it is the nearest spiral galaxy, and is the most distant object in the sky that one can see with the unaided eye.

Andromeda and Milky Way are each surrounded by a swarm of smaller galaxies. These dwarf galaxies, which seem rich in mysterious, invisible dark matter, appear to each be about 10 million to 100 million times the mass of the sun, while the Andromeda and Milky Way each total nearly 1 trillion (that's 1 million million) times the mass of the sun.

'These dwarf galaxies shine from a few hundred to millions of times fainter than large spiral galaxies like Andromeda or the Milky Way,' said study author Nicolas Martin, an astronomer at the Astronomical Observatory of Strasbourg in France. [Andromeda's Collision With Our Milky Way (Gallery)]

Now Martin and his colleagues find that about half of Andromeda's 27 known dwarf galaxies are apparently arranged in a disk around it spinning in the same direction as Andromeda. These 13 ball-shaped dwarf galaxies make up a pancake-like structure less than 42,000 light-years thick that extends at least 1.3 million light-years away from Andromeda.

Satellites of Andromeda

The astronomers detected the disk using the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in Hawaii as part of the Pan-Andromeda Archaeological Survey.

So far, it remains uncertain if current models of galaxy formation and evolution can explain the existence of this vast disk.

Dwarf satellite galaxies are thought to be remnants of the material that came together to form the giant galaxies they surround. While it makes sense that a disk of such dwarfs might emerge early after they formed, after a few orbits these dwarfs should veer off and live relatively independently, dispersing the disk in the process.

'Either something about how these galaxies formed or subsequently evolved must have led them to trace out this peculiar, coherent structure,' Martin told SPACE.com. 'Either way, we do not understand the reason for this structure, making it very exciting.'

'The presence of this thin, rotating disk of dwarf galaxies around Andromeda suggests a strong connection between the host galaxy Andromeda and its satellites,' Martin added. 'There is currently no satisfactory scenario that can explain all the properties of the satellites in the disk, but they all require a strong interplay between Andromeda and the satellites themselves.'

Astronomical illusion or reality?

Critics might wonder if these dwarf galaxies are coincidentally moving together, and only seem to make up a disk.

'It could be argued that we are seeing a statistical fluke, but this would be an exceedingly rare statistical fluke indeed - about one chance in 10,000,' Martin said.

Other mysteries abound regarding this new discovery. For instance, this disk of dwarves appears tilted at about a 50-degree angle in relation to Andromeda's disk. It is unknown why that is.

'It may relate to the dynamics of the process responsible for the creation of this rotating disk,' Martin said.

Intriguingly, the Milky Way's pole apparently lines up with Andromeda's disk of dwarf galaxies. It remains unclear why that is as well.

'It may indicate that the Milky Way is somehow involved in the shaping of this plane of dwarf galaxies, but it could also be a chance alignment,' Martin said.

In addition, about half the remaining dwarfs orbiting Andromeda, which lie above the spiral galaxy, also seem to make up another disk. This one seems tilted by about 13 degrees in relation to Andromeda's disk, said Brent Tully at the University of Hawaii, who did not participate in this study.

The researchers now hope to investigate the properties of dwarf galaxies in this disk to look for any differences from dwarf galaxies outside the disk that could enlighten them on the disk's origin. They would also like to see if similar disks exist around other galaxies to check if they are common features of galaxy formation.

The scientists detailed their findings in the Jan. 3 issue of the journal Nature.

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Moon May Outshine Quadrantid Meteor Shower Tonight

One of the best displays of 'shooting stars' will peak overnight tonight and early Thursday morning (Jan. 3), but unfortunately will run into some stiff competition this year from a bright moon.

The celestial fireworks display is the Quadrantid meteor shower (pronounced KWA-dran-tid), which kicks off the annual meteor shower schedule every January.To paraphrase Forrest Gump: The Quadrantids are like opening up a box of chocolates; you never know what you're going to get! Indeed, the 'Quads' are notoriously unpredictable.

This year, the meteor shower is peaking while the moon is in its bright gibbous phase, just days after the recent full moon on Dec. 28, which may interfere with the cosmic light show.

The Quadrantids provides one of the most intense annual meteor showers, with a brief, sharp maximum lasting but a few hours. Adolphe Quetelet of Brussels Observatory discovered the shower in the 1830's, and shortly afterward it was noted by several other astronomers in Europeand America. [Amazing Quadrantid Meteor Shower Photo of 2012]

The meteors are named after the obsolete constellation Quadrans Muralis the Mural or Wall Quadrant (an astronomical instrument), depicted in some 19th-century star atlases roughly midway between the end of the Handle of the Big Dipper and the quadrilateral of stars marking the head of the constellation Draco. (The International Astronomical Union phased out Quadrans Muralis in 1922.)

NASA will provide a live webcast of the 2013 Quadrantid meteor shower each night this week through Friday (Jan. 4). You can follow the meteor shower on SPACE.com here courtesy of the NASA feed.

Difficult to see

Unfortunately, many factors combine to make the peak of this display difficult to observe on a regular basis:

A brief peak period: The Quadrantids' meteor rates exceed half of their highest value for only about six hours (compared to two days for the Perseid meteor shower in August). This means that the stream of particles that produce this shower is a narrow one - apparently originating from a small comet within the last 500 years.

The parentage of the Quadrantids had long been a mystery until astronomer Peter Jenniskens, a meteor expert with the SETI Institute at Mountain View, Calif., noticed that the orbit of 2003 EH1 - a small asteroid discovered in March 2003 - ''falls snug in the shower.'' He believes that the 1.2-mile-wide (2 kilometers) asteroid is the source of the Quadrantids. The asteroid, in turn, is possibly the burnt out core of the lost comet C/1490 Y1. [Quadrantid Meteors in the Night Sky (Video)]

You have to be an early-bird (or extreme night owl): As viewed from mid-northern latitudes, we have to get up before dawn to see the Quadrantids at their best. This is because the radiant (the part of the sky from where the meteors to appear to originate) is down low on the northern horizon until about midnight, rising slowly higher as the night progresses. The growing light of dawn ends meteor observing usually by around 7 a.m. So, if the 'Quads' are to be seen at all, some part of that eight-hour active period must fall between 2 a.m.and 7 a.m.

It's winter in the north: Over northern latitudes, early January often sees inclement or unsettled weather.

The moon interferes: In one out of every three years, bright moonlight spoils the view and unfortunately, 2013 is one of those years. According to British meteor expert Alastair McBeath: 'The waning gibbous moon causes severe problems for detailed observations of the Quadrantid maximum in 2013.'

It is not surprising then, that the Quadrantids are not as well-known as some of the other annual meteor showers.

Quadrantid meteor shower viewing tips

According to Robert Lunsford of the American Meteor Society, here is what to expect during the Quadrantid meteor shower's peak: 'A bright gibbous moon (will be) located near the Leo-Virgo border. Activity can be still seen from the Quadrantids if your skies are clear and transparent. It would also be wise to keep the moon out of your field of view by facing the north to east quadrant of the sky.'

In 2013, Western North Americawill be favored to view of the peak of the Quadrantids. Maximum activity this year is expected on Thursday morning, Jan. 3 at 5 a.m.Pacific Standard Time. For those in the western United States, the meteor shower's origin radiant will be about two-thirds of the way up in the east-northeast sky.

The farther to the north and east you go, the higher in the sky the radiant will be. To the south and west the radiant will be lower and the meteors will be fewer.

Quadrantid meteors are described as bright and bluish with long silvery trains. As McBeath and Lunsford have pointed out, the moon's presence will make seeing the maximum number of meteors problematic. Without the bright moon, western observers likely would see as many as 60 to 75 meteors per hour; a very dark sky might even yield 100 or more per hour.

But this year, the moon will be the big obstacle. For every magnitude of naked eye stars hidden by moonlight or light pollution, the number of meteors is cut by roughly 60 percent.

You can check how bright your moonlit sky is by looking for the Little Dipper star pattern. The four stars in the bowl are of magnitudes 2, 3, 4 and 5 (the lower the number, the brighter the star). So, if you can see only three of the four stars in the bowl, your limiting magnitude would be 4, meaning you would see only about one-tenth the meteors you would if you were under a very dark, moonless sky.

Quadrantid meteor rates will be lower across the central and eastern United States, as well as other places north of the equator where the peak of the shower will occur either after sunrise or with the shower radiant very low in the sky. Observers south of the equator will have little chance of seeing any 'Quads' since the radiant will not clear the horizon before morning twilight interferes.

Editor's Note: If you snap an amazing photo of the Quadrantid meteor shower and would like to share it with SPACE.com, send images and comments, including name, location and equipment used to managing editor Tariq Malik at spacephotos@space.com.

Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for The New York Times and other publications, and he is also an on-camera meteorologist for News 12 Westchester, New York. Follow SPACE.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook & Google+.

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Private Space Travel to Make Giant Leaps in 2013

Private companies building new spaceships to soar through orbital and suborbital space are looking forward to an action-packed year in 2013, with new flight tests, launches, wind tunnel tests and rocket technology trials all planned during the new year.

Of the many spacecraft being developed only one has already flown in space, the Dragon capsule built by Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) in Hawthorne, Calif.The unmanned cargo ship has flown in space three times so far, and carried supplies to the International Space Station twice in 2012 - first in May during a test and then again October.

SpaceX's next cargo flight to the station is set for May 2013. But a new astronaut-carrying version of Dragon is also in the works. The crewed capsule will be different from its robotic predecessor in several key areas, with SpaceX set to advancing technology for the new ship in 2013.

SpaceX's new Dragon

"Dragon Version 2 won't look like [today's Dragon]. I think it looks pretty cool. Dragon one, we didn't really know what we were doing so that's why Dragon looks similar to things that have happened in the past," SpaceX founder Elon Musk told an audience during a talk at the UK's Royal Aeronautical Society in London on Nov. 21. Musk described Dragon version 2 as having "legs that pop out" and added that it uses parachutes and its eight SuperDraco thrusters for a "propulsive landing". [SpaceX's Dragon at the Space Station (Photos)]

The SuperDraco thrusters, located around the base of the Dragon, also act as the pusher launch abort system to move the capsule (and crew) clear of its rocket during a launch emergency.

While Musk was unavailable for to discuss SpaceX's plans for 2013, company officials did provide SPACE.com details on its expected activities.

In March the company will review its Dragon pad abort test that is planned for later in the year December; in May SpaceX will perform its human certification plan review for the capsule; in June the crewed Dragon on-orbit and entry design review is expected to occur; July would then see an in-flight abort test review;

A safety review is slated for October; and before the December pad abort test, November will see a flight review of an upgraded version of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, which launches Dragon capsules into orbit.

NASA needs private space taxis

SpaceX is developing the seven-person Dragon 2 capsule to compete for NASA's International Space Station (ISS) crew transportation contract. NASA's commercial crew program is helping industry develop competing space transportation systems to win this ISS contract. Ed Mango is the commercial crew program manager.

"2013 will be a huge year for us. In the first couple of months we'll kick off work for our certification contract and we'll award that shortly," Mango told SPACE.com.

Companies selected for the certification contract will get $10 million each and have 15 months to demonstrate, with data, that their rockets and spacecraft can be considered for the space station transport mission. "The [contract winners] are not just making spacecraft and launch vehicles they are also doing it to meet a NASA mission, our mission to the [ISS]," Mango said. [NASA's Private Space Taxi Plan (Video)]

In the second half of 2013, NASA will start the bidding process for its commercial crew contract that will lead to the certification of one transportation system to take astronauts to the space station. That contract will not be awarded until early 2014, and a few years later NASA astronauts could travel to the station on the successful launch system.

Private spaceship contenders

In theory, while any U.S.company can bid for those two contracts, Mango suggested that the three companies that have won funded space act agreements under the commercial crew program will be the likely contenders. Those three companies are: SpaceX; Boeing; and Sierra Nevada Corporation.

Boeing's spacecraft is the Commercial Space Transportation 100 (CST-100) capsule and is designed to launch atop the Atlas 5 rockets built by the United Launch Alliance's (ULA). The CST-100 capsule can carry up to seven astronauts and, like Dragon 2, it is expected to land on land. Its design includes airbags to cushion landing, as well as a pusher abort system.

Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser space plane is based on NASA's HL-20, a spacecraft the agency studied 25 years ago. It is also designed to launch on an Atlas 5 rocket.

In 2012 a Dream Chase prototype was used for a captive carry flight test using a helicopter. In the first half of 2013 an unmanned Dream Chaser will fly low speed approaches and landing tests at NASA's DrydenFlightResearchCenterin California. [Dream Chaser Space Plane in Photos]

"These flight tests are similar to the approach and landing tests that NASA conducted on the Space Shuttle prior to the first launch of the Shuttle. The [Dream Chaser] program is also continuing significant hardware testing throughout 2013 to continue to advance the design of our subsystems,' John Roth, Sierra Nevada Space Systems vice president of business development told SPACE.com.

Because the Atlas 5 is the launcher for CST-100 and Dream Chaser, the rocket's provider ULA is heavily involved with the Boeing and Sierra Nevada work.

"We're contracted to support Boeing and Sierra Nevadato support their milestones, we're directly supporting almost all of them," George Sower, ULA's Human launch Services vice president, said in an interview.

In 2013, ULA will be continuing to develop the dual engine Centaur upper stage its Atlas 5 needs for launching these manned spacecraft. For satellite launches, the unmanned Atlas 5 has only used a single engine powered Centaur. In April and May, ULA will test ducting to provide propellant for the new Centaur's two engines. ULA is also planning wind tunnel tests to understand the different aerodynamics of having Boeing's capsule and Sierra's winged Dream Chaser on top of the Atlas 5.

Rise of suborbital space planes

While the orbital commercial human spaceflight providers are aiming for operational missions after 2015, the suborbital tourism companies are seeking revenue flights well before then. These suborbital spacecraft are designed to launch beyond the Earth's atmosphere, but not to enter orbit around the planet. Instead, they will return to Earth to be readied to fly again.

In 2013, XCOR Aerospace is building its Lynx I, which will not fly beyond the 62-mile (100 kilometers) border line between the atmosphere and space. This Lynx rocket plane is a prototype for the planned Lynx Mark 2, which will fly into suborbital space.

"We're looking at 2013 as the time for our test flight program and in early 2013 we'll get started. For the Lynx Mark 1, our prototype craft, we'll be doing test fights throughout the year from early 2013 and then go into commercial flights," XCOR spokesman Bryan Campen told SPACE.com.

After 2013, the Lynx Mark 2, which will fly higher than 62 miles, will be manufactured in Floridaat or near the KennedySpaceCenter, XCOR officials said. The company is also setting up its new headquarters and research center in Midland, Texas.

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo

After 22 gliding tests between October 2010 and August 2012, Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo has been edging closer to having its hybrid solid rocket motor added and making its first rocket powered flight. In May 2012 Virgin Galactic was awarded an experimental launch permit by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees commercial human spaceflight. At the time Virgin Galactic was anticipating a rocket-powered SpaceShipTwo flight by the end of the year.

By Sept. 20, the SpaceShipTwo rocket motor had been fired on the ground 17 times. On Oct. 19, Virgin Galactic released an image of the oxidizer tank being fitted to the first SpaceShipTwo, called the VSS Enterprise.

The oxidizer flows through the hollow center of the solid fuel rocket and when ignited will burn with the fuel to generate thrust. The first rocket-powered SpaceShipTwo flight is now expected in 2013.

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