Star Trek actor William Shatner is now the world's oldest man to go to space, courtesy of Blue Origin. Amazon creator Jeff Bezos (owner of Blue Origin) was present to greet the crew of this flight as they landed back in the Texas desert on October 13, 2021.
Today we're taking a peek at the TOSY Flying Duo - two flying toys from RoboFi that roll with LED lights aplenty. The TOSY Flying Disc and the TOSY Boomerang make up the TOSY Flying Duo, sold together in a package originally crowdfunded with Kickstarter. We've been playing with both of these devices for a couple of weeks, and they're surprisingly great.
There's an early access program coming to the likes of the Parrot ANAFI Ai 4G LTE-connected drone. This is the sort of program you get in on if you're a hardcore drone user, if you're the sort of professional who uses drones for high-level visuals or 3D scanning, and for those that wish to be the first users of the Parrot ANAFI Ai 4G robotic UAV. Parrot does make clear that this is for "professional drone operators"... but that's you, right?
The Top Gun expansion which was expected to be released this year for Microsoft Flight Simulator has been delayed, after movie studio Paramount earlier confirmed that it was delaying the upcoming title. Top Gun: Maverick will no longer be released on Thanksgiving weekend, Paramount announced recently.
The latest Blue Origin launch took place this morning at approximately 9:35 AM (EDT) with a live broadcast that is now available to watch in replay mode. This launch was made into suborbital space as the 17th flight of the Blue Origin New Shepard craft. Onboard were 11 NASA-sponsored experiments included in a total of 18 commercial payloads.
Each year the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) holds a massive air show in Wisconsin called AirVenture. At AirVenture 2021, the Volocopter 2X eVTOL aircraft had a very successful and important milestone flight. At the show, the aircraft had its first-ever public crewed test flight of the fully electric vertical take-off and landing air taxi in the US.
Today was a big day for Blue Origin, as the company launched the first human flight on its New Shepard rocket. Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos was on this initial crewed flight, joined by his brother Mark Bezos, an 18-year-old student named Oliver Daemen, and 82-year-old Wally Funk, one of the Mercury 13 and - after today - officially the oldest person to fly to space.
NASA's historic first flight of a helicopter on Mars was celebrated this week by Google's search engine. If you head to Google now and type in "Ingenuity" or "Ingenuity NASA", you'll find yourself on the business end of a fun little animation of sorts. Make sure you're using a Chrome web browser to do it, and it'll most likely work best if you're on a desktop computer.
Did you know that pieces of the original history-making Wright Brothers' "1903 Wright Flyer I" have orbited the Earth and been to moon? Now, NASA collaborated with Carillon Historical Park and the Wright Brothers National Museum to send another piece of the flyer to Mars to take part in another of humanity's historical achievements. The Perseverance rover rolls on Mars now, holding the helicopter craft Ingenuity, onboard which is a piece of the Wright Flyer I's wing fabric.
On February 5, 2021, the China Academy of Space Technology relayed details of Tianwen-1 and its journey to Mars. Per the Fifth Academy of the Aerospace Science and Technology Group noted that the engine ignition of Tianwen-1 "successfully completed the fourth midway correction of the ground fire transfer section to ensure that Mars capture was implemented as planned." This craft also took a lovely photo of the red planet with its grayscale navigation camera.
Today Axiom revealed the first private ISS crew in the history of the world. According to the company, this Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1) will be "the start of a new era." In the mix are two Mission Specialists, one Mission Pilot, and one Commander.
The update the game was destined for was released today: Microsoft Flight Simulator now works in virtual reality. This update brings the game out a brand new door, allowing users to transport not just a rectangle of their reality into flight, but their entire audio/visual experience. This update works with a wide variety of VR headsets, starting with (but not limited to) Windows Mixed Reality headsets.