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Rob Ferl

American - (BO)

Occasional Spaceflight


Rob is a distinguished professor and director of the Astraeus Space Institute at the University of Florida. He has spent his career studying how living organisms respond to extreme conditions, especially microgravity. He and his colleagues have worked with NASA astronauts to conduct numerous experiments on the International Space Station that have shown that plants turn certain genes on and off in response to changes in gravity. They were also the first to prove that plants could grow in lunar soil collected during the Apollo missions. Ferl is also a national leader in space policy, having recently chaired a National Academies of Sciences committee on the direction of space biology research over the next decade.

New Shepard | NS-26

Blue Origin | United States of America
Corn Ranch, Van Horn, TX, USA
Aug. 29, 2024, 1:07 p.m.
Status: Success
Mission:

Twenty-sixth flight of New Shepard carrying six passengers.

Suborbital NS-4 - Flight Proven ( ) Corn Ranch, West Texas
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CEO: Jeff Bezos

Blue Origin is an American privately funded aerospace manufacturer and spaceflight services company set up by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos with its headquarters in Kent, Washington. The company is developing technologies to enable private human access to space with the goal to dramatically lower costs and increase reliability. Blue Origin currently launches its New Shepard sub-orbital vehicle from its West Texas launch site, they are currently constructing a launch pad for their orbital vehicle New Glenn at Cape Canaveral LC-36.


Long March 8A
Success
1 day, 14 hours ago
SpaceSail Polar Group #14
Commercial LC-1 - Wenchang Space Launch Site, People's Republic of China

20 Low Earth Orbit communication satellites with Ku, Q and V band payloads for the G60 constellation operated by Shanghai Spacesail Technologies with…


Falcon 9
Success
1 day, 17 hours ago
Starlink Group 10-50
Space Launch Complex 40 - Cape Canaveral SFS, FL, USA

A batch of 29 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system. The Falcon 9 1st st…


Long March 6A
Success
2 days, 18 hours ago
SpaceSail Polar Group #13
Launch Complex 9A - Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of China

18 Low Earth Orbit communication satellites with Ku, Q and V band payloads for the G60 constellation operated by Shanghai Spacesail Technologies with…


Pegasus XL
Success
3 days, 19 hours ago
Swift Boost Mission
Kwajalein Atoll - Air launch to orbit

Contracted by NASA under the Small Business Innovation Research Phase 3 contract, Katalyst Space Technologies' LINK servicing spacecraft will rendezv…


Atlas V 551
Success
4 days, 23 hours ago
Amazon Leo (LA-08)
Space Launch Complex 41 - Cape Canaveral SFS, FL, USA

Amazon Leo, formerly known as Project Kuiper, is a mega constellation of satellites in Low Earth Orbit that will offer broadband internet access, thi…