Tag: NASA
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Cassini orbiter’s team turns Saturn crash into cause for celebration – and for science
An artist’s conception shows the Cassini orbiter zooming through the upper layers of Saturn’s atmosphere, heading for a fiery breakup. (NASA / JPL-Caltech Illustration) Twenty years after its launch to Saturn, NASA has set the Cassini orbiter on a course for certain destruction on Friday – but there’s a decidedly positive spin to the $3.3…
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Hours before its doom, NASA’s Cassini probe takes its parting shots at Saturn
Saturn and its rings star in one of the last raw images sent back by the Cassini orbiter. (NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute) The final pictures from NASA’s 13-year-long Cassini mission at Saturn are flowing in – and they’re good to the last drop. Or even better, good to the last moonset. Raw images,…
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Six hours after launch, U.S.-Russian crew hooks up with International Space Station
Two NASA astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut arrived at the International Space Station tonight for a five-month tour of duty after a quick six-hour trip on a Russian Soyuz craft. With Russia’s Alexander Misurkin as commander and NASA’s Mark Vande Hei and Joe Acaba as crewmates, the Soyuz was launched from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in…
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SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk shows off Dragon spaceship and the suit for the ride
We’ve already gotten our first peek at the spacesuit that astronauts will wear when they’re riding in SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spaceship, but SpaceX CEO Elon Musk set hearts racing once again today when he sent out a picture showing the spacesuit being modeled next to the Dragon 2: https://www.instagram.com/p/BYyvO2WA3Ra/ The picture emphasizes the classic black-and-white…
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SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk shows off Dragon spaceship and the suit for the ride
We’ve already gotten our first peek at the spacesuit that astronauts will wear when they’re riding in SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spaceship, but SpaceX CEO Elon Musk set hearts racing once again today when he sent out a picture showing the spacesuit being modeled next to the Dragon 2: https://www.instagram.com/p/BYyvO2WA3Ra/ The picture emphasizes the classic black-and-white…
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Next-generation weather satellite shipped to launch base in California
Technicians perform final checks on JPSS 1 in the cleanroom prior to shipment to Vandenberg. Credit: Ball Aerospace A new weather observatory that will track storms across the globe as it orbits from pole to pole has been trucked to its launch site in California for a long-awaited ascent into space this November. The first…
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Trump’s choice for NASA chief, Rep. Jim Bridenstine, is likely to boost moonshots
Rep. Jim Bridenstine, R-Okla., addresses the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs in 2016. (Tom Kimmell Photo) The White House has confirmed long-running rumors that President Donald Trump’s pick for NASA administrator is U.S. Rep. Jim Bridenstine, R-Okla., an advocate for commercial spaceflight and missions to the moon. Bridenstine would be the first member of Congress…
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Space station trio returns to Earth: NASA’s Peggy Whitson racks up 665-day record
NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson is helped out of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft just minutes after she and two fellow spacefliers landed in a remote area Kazakhstan. (NASA Photo / Bill Ingalls) NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson and two other spacefliers capped off a record-setting orbital mission today with their return from the International Space Station. The…
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NASA data relay craft successfully blossoms in space
CAPE CANAVERAL — NASA’s new communications satellite, launched to a preliminary orbit August 18, has ascended to geosynchronous altitude more than 22,000 miles up, deployed its giant antennas and extended twin solar arrays to begin in-space commissioning. The $408 million Tracking and Data Relay satellite-M, was successfully lofted to a high-perigee geosynchronous transfer orbit by…
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Johnson Space Center closed as major flooding hits Houston area
The gates to the Johnson Space Center have been closed to all but essential personnel as heavy rains from Tropical Storm Harvey inundate the Houston area. Flight controllers remain at their posts inside the Mission Control Center and continue to monitor the health of the International Space Station as usual. An earlier view of then…