Boeing’s Orbital Express spacecraft has conducted a “fully autonomous fly-around-and-capture of its NextSat client spacecraft.” In April the company’s Autonomous Space Transport Robotic Operations servicing spacecraft demonstrated the ability to transfer propellant and a battery from one spacecraft to another. This time ASTRO separated from, circled around, and re-mated with the Ball Aerospace NextSat.
In 1941, Gen. Henry H. “Hap” Arnold of the then-U.S. Army Air Corps, personally reviewed a jet engine patented by Sir Frank Whittle flying on a Gloster E.28/39 aircraft. Impressed by its design, Arnold arranged for a Whittle engine to be brought back to the U.S. and tasked General Electric…