Vote! Top Space Stories of the Week - June 26, 2011

Countdowns
By Space.com Staff
published

SpaceShipTwo Rides Again

Bill Deaver/Deaver-Wiggins and Associates

SpaceShipTwo, a privately built rocket plane designed to take tourists on suborbital flights, continues to chalk up more flight time as it glides through the skies over the Mojave Air and Space Port in California.

Another successful glide of the first SpaceShip Two craft, christened VSS Enterprise, took place June 23, marking the 14th glide flight test of the vessel — an 8-minute, 55-second free fall after midair release from its mothership. The test came a week after VSS Enterprise proved it could be flown on back-to-back days. [Read More]

Asteroid Coming Monday?

NASA

Last week ended with the news that a small asteroid was headed for a near miss of Earth on Monday, June 27.

The asteroid 2011 MD is small, as asteroids go - about the size of a tour bus. It will pass within 7,500 miles of Earth on Monday, but poses no risk of smacking the planet. [Read More]

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Space.com Staff
Space.com Staff
News and editorial team

Space.com is the premier source of space exploration, innovation and astronomy news, chronicling (and celebrating) humanity's ongoing expansion across the final frontier. Originally founded in 1999, Space.com is, and always has been, the passion of writers and editors who are space fans and also trained journalists. Our current news team consists of Editor-in-Chief Tariq Malik; Editor Hanneke Weitering, Senior Space Writer Mike Wall; Senior Writer Meghan Bartels; Senior Writer Chelsea Gohd, Senior Writer Tereza Pultarova and Staff Writer Alexander Cox, focusing on e-commerce. Senior Producer Steve Spaleta oversees our space videos, with Diana Whitcroft as our Social Media Editor.