Tag: NASA
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NASA puts Alabama center in charge of moon lander program, drawing Texans’ ire
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine is dwarfed by a 149-foot-tall liquid hydrogen structural test article for the heavy-lift Space Launch System as he announces Marshall Space Flight Center’s leadership role in developing the human landing system for Artemis moon missions. (NASA Photo) NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine announced today that Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama will…
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Halfway through all-sky survey, NASA’s planet-hunting TESS mission gets extension
Artist’s concept of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. Credit: NASA NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, fresh off a two-year extension to keep operating through 2022, has turned its cameras to image the northern sky after cataloguing nearly 1,000 candidate planets around other stars in the first year of its mission. The TESS mission reached the…
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Mars 2020 rover on track for launch next July
In this image, taken July 19 in the clean room of the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, the rover’s 7-foot-long (2.1-meter-long) arm maneuvers its 88-pound (40-kilogram) sensor-laden turret as it moves from a deployed to a stowed configuration. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech The launch of NASA’s Mars 2020 rover is less than…
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Blue Origin gets in on three partnerships with NASA to boost missions to the moon
Jeff Bezos shows off a mockup of the Blue Moon lunar lander in May. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle) Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ space venture, Blue Origin, has been selected to participate in three partnerships with NASA to advance technologies that could come into play for Artemis missions to the moon — and eventually for…
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As Ball completes design review for IXPE, SpaceX launch contract points to growing mission profiles
NASA’s award to SpaceX for the launch contract for their future X-ray telescope, the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), points to SpaceX’s growing launch profile options for customers. This spacecraft would normally be a Pegasus mission due to its orbital requirements. However, SpaceX offered the capability via Falcon 9 and at a lower cost. IXPE…
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Kids re-enact moon landing in robot challenge at Univ. of Washington — and win trips to NASA sites
Students with the W.O.W. (Women of the World) team from Forks, Wash., test their rover in the practice space at the University of Washignton. (University of Washington Photo) Middle and high school students from across Washington state competed in a robotics challenge last week at the University of Washington to mark the 50th anniversary of…
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With 2024 in mind, NASA picks Northrop Grumman to build moon-orbiting habitat
An artist’s conception shows the Gateway platform’s Habitation and Logistics Outpost, or HALO, attached to the Gateway’s power and propulsion element. (NASA Illustration) NASA says it’s choosing Northrop Grumman to build the habitation module for its future moon-orbiting Gateway outpost, because it’s the only company that can do the job in time for a 2024…
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NASA taps Northrop Grumman in sole-source agreement to build Gateway habitat
Artist’s illustration of the Gateway in orbit around the moon, with the Power and Propulsion Element, a habitation module, and a visiting cargo resupply craft and Orion crew capsule. Credit: NASA Racing against the clock to meet the Trump administration’s 2024 deadline to land astronauts on the moon, NASA plans to select Northrop Grumman to…
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Pence delivers a promise, and a warning, to NASA and its contractors
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION Vice President Mike Pence speaks Saturday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: Office of the Vice President Despite appearances and a presidential tweet suggesting otherwise, the United States is “100%” committed to sending astronauts back to the moon in 2024 and establishing a long-term, sustainable presence…
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Chris Kraft, legendary flight director, dies at 95
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION Flight director Chris Kraft at his console inside Mercury Mission Control. Credit: NASA Former Johnson Space Center Director Christopher Columbus Kraft Jr., the man who created the iconic role of NASA flight director during the Mercury and Gemini programs and whose no-nonsense, uncompromising management style defined control room…