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Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
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Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
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In August 1908, a white mob attacked Springfield, Illinois’s Black community, destroying homes and businesses and lynching two Black men. National outrage over the violence helped spur the movement that created the NAACP the following year.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
 Scale model demonstration flight of TGALS | |
| Function | Autonomous air launch to orbit multivehicle system |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center |
| Size | |
| Stages | Three, two reusable |
| First stage | |
| Burn time | 20 seconds[1] |
Towed glider air-launch system (abbv. TGALS) is a NASA-designed two-stage air-launched reusable launch system currently in development at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center. The system uses a glider, tow plane, and rocket and is designed to carry small satellites to orbit.[2] Both the glider and tow plane are reusable.[3][4]
The system, compared to other designs such as Swiss Space Systems' SOAR spaceplane and Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo vehicle, is launched from a glider. This design emulates an air-launched multistage rocket with two recoverable stages: the tow plane and the glider itself.[5]
The system comprises three large components: a tow plane, a glider, and a rocket. The tow plane, a conventional small aircraft, carries the glider up to about 40,000 feet (12,000 m) before releasing the towline and flying back.[3] The glider, carrying its own hybrid or solid rocket motor, will ignite its engine to glide higher than the tow plane's maximum altitude. Following burnout of its rocket, the glider will jettison the third (exclusively rocket powered) stage of the system. This rocket stage will then carry its satellite payload into low Earth orbit.
NASA's concept aims to create a platform that can launch 15 times the mass of the glider, compared to 0.7 times for other air-launch reusable spaceflight systems. According to Aero News, the advantage of the system is that gliders don't carry engines with them and have longer, lighter wings, resulting in lower total mass.[6] NASA discussed the advantages of this system in a report:
The TGALS demonstration's goal is to provide proof-of-concept of a towed, airborne launch platform. Distinct advantages are believed possible in cost, logistic efficiency, and performance when utilizing a towed, high lift-to-drag launch platform as opposed to utilizing a traditional powered 'mothership' launch platform. The project goal is to examine the performance advantage, as well as the operational aspects, of a towed, airborne launch system.[4]
According to Gerrard Budd, the development manager of NASA Armstrong Center's air launch program, "[NASA] thinks that [the glider] is the optimization for air launch", comparing the design of the system to other air launch systems in development.[1]
Original testing of the glider was performed using NASA Armstrong DROID Aircraft. Due to a combination of the projected mass, and thus drag of the glider with a rocket aboard, as well as the operating altitude required for testing, a larger tow aircraft was built. Dubbed the "Micro Cub", it is a heavily modified Hempel 60% Super Cub using a JetCat SPT 15 turbo prop.[7]
The glider design is based on a twin fuselage. NASA engineers plan to suspend the rocket stage below the center section of the glider wing.[3] The glider will carry its own small rocket motor which will light for about 20 seconds after release from the tow plane to maintain velocity while climbing. The glider will then glide at a 70-degree angle.[1]
![[icon]](viewer.php?source=wikipedia&q=File%3AWiki%20letter%20w%20cropped.svg&result=0#selected-result){kind=small} | This section is empty. You can help by adding to it. (May 2026) |
On 21 October 2014, NASA conducted the maiden test flight of a one-third scale model of the twin fuselage glider using NASA Armstrong's DROID aircraft, an autonomous airplane.[8] The flight was successful.[9]
NASA plans to test the feasibility of releasing a small unpowered rocket from the one-third scale glider, followed by mounting a small rocket motor on the glider to test the feasibility of a rocket-assisted glider design. Further plans involve the construction of a full-scale platform. The project has obtained funding for NASA's 2015 financial year through the Game Changing Development program following the first successful test flight of the one-third scale glider.[5][10]
Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
SpaceX has privately funded the development of orbital launch systems that can be reused many times, similar to the reusability of aircraft. SpaceX has developed technologies since the 2010s to facilitate full and rapid reuse of space launch vehicles. The project's long-term objectives include returning a launch vehicle first stage to the launch site within minutes and to return a second stage to the launch pad, following orbital realignment with the launch site and atmospheric reentry in up to 24 hours. SpaceX's long term goal is reusability of both stages of their orbital launch vehicles, and the first stage would be designed to allow reuse a few hours after return. While development of reusable second stages for Falcon 9 was later abandoned in favor of Starship, SpaceX developed reusable payload fairings for the Falcon 9. The program was announced in 2011. SpaceX first achieved a successful landing and recovery of a first stage in December 2015. The first re-flight of a landed first stage occurred in March 2017 with the second occurring in June 2017, only five months after the maiden flight of the booster. The third attempt occurred in October 2017 with the SES-11/EchoStar-105 mission. Reflights of refurbished first stages then became routine. In May 2021, B1051 became the first booster to launch ten missions. The reusable launch system technology was initially developed for the first stage of Falcon 9. After stage separation, the booster flips around (an optional boostback burn reverses its course), a reentry burn sheds gravity-induced speed to prevent stage overheating as the spacecraft reenters the thicker part of the atmosphere, and a landing burn accomplishes the final low-altitude deceleration and touchdown. SpaceX planned since at least 2014 to develop reusable second stages, a more challenging engineering problem because the vehicle is traveling at orbital velocity. Second stage reuse is considered vital to Elon Musk's plans for settlement of Mars. Initial concepts for a reusable Falcon 9 second stage were abandoned by 2018. As of 2023, SpaceX is developing the Starship system to be a fully-reusable two-stage launch vehicle, intended to replace all of its other launch vehicles and spacecraft for satellite delivery and human transport—Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and Dragon—and eventually support flights to the Moon and Mars. It could theoretically be used for rapid point-to-point transportation on Earth.
An expendable launch system (or expendable launch vehicle/ELV) is a launch vehicle that can be launched only once, after which its components are destroyed during reentry or impact with Earth, or discarded in space. ELVs typically consist of several rocket stages that are discarded sequentially as their fuel is exhausted and the vehicle gains altitude and speed. During the Space Race, all launch vehicles were expendable. Reusable launch vehicles (RLV), seeing early development with the Space Shuttle, gained prominence from the 2010s with the American private spaceflight vehicles Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and New Glenn. As of 2024, the ELV share of satellite and human spacecraft launches continues to shrink. There remain many instances where a ELV may still have a compelling use case over a reusable vehicle. ELVs are simpler in design than reusable launch systems and therefore may have a lower production cost. Furthermore, an ELV can use its entire fuel supply to accelerate its payload, offering greater payloads, and many RLVs operate expendable configurations for some launches. ELVs are a proven technology in widespread use for many decades. As of 2026, ELVs remain the most powerful operational rockets of the space programs of the US (Space Launch System), China (Long March 5), Europe (Ariane 6), Russia (Angara A5), and Japan (H3).
Towed glider air-launch system (abbv. TGALS) is a NASA-designed two-stage air-launched reusable launch system currently in development at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center. The system uses a glider, tow plane, and rocket and is designed to carry small satellites to orbit. Both the glider and tow plane are reusable. The system, compared to other designs such as Swiss Space Systems' SOAR spaceplane and Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo vehicle, is launched from a glider. This design emulates an air-launched multistage rocket with two recoverable stages: the tow plane and the glider itself.
Rocketplane Kistler (RpK) was a reusable launch system firm originally based in Oklahoma. It was formed in 2006 after Rocketplane Limited, Inc. acquired Kistler Aerospace. NASA announced that Rocketplane Kistler had been chosen to develop crew and cargo launch services. However, having missed financial milestones, NASA terminated funding for the project. It filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2010.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Joe Louis.