NASA test pilot Joe Walker is killed when his Lockheed F-104 makes contact with the No. 2 North American XB-70 Valkyrie in flight, gets caught in vortices coming off the Valkyrie’s wingtips, and rolls through the XB-70’s twin tails. XB-70 copilot Carl Cross is also killed and the Valkyrie, one of only two built, is destroyed.
A new Space Force partnership with Blue Origin to expand payload processing capacity at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fla., will allow the launch range to support as many as 16 more missions per year.
