Tag: NASA
-
NASA switches Starliner crew to SpaceX Dragon as testing continues on troubled Boeing capsule
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 members stand inside the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on Nov. 13, 2024. From left are Mission Specialist Kimiya Yui from JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), Commander NASA astronaut Zena Cardman, Mission Specialist Oleg Platonov of Roscosmos, and Pilot NASA astronaut Mike Fincke. Image: NASA/Josh…
-
Rocket Report: Stoke is stoked; sovereignty is the buzzword in Europe
Welcome to Edition 7.37 of the Rocket Report! It’s been interesting to watch how quickly European officials have embraced ensuring they have a space launch capability independent of other countries. A few years ago, European government satellites regularly launched on Russian Soyuz rockets, and more recently on SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets from the United States.…
-
As NASA faces cuts, China reveals ambitious plans for planetary exploration
China created a new entity called the “Deep Space Exploration Laboratory” three years ago to strengthen the country’s approach to exploring the Solar System. Located in eastern China, not far from Shanghai, the new laboratory represented a partnership between China’s national space agency and a local public college, the University of Science and Technology of…
-
As preps continue, it’s looking more likely that NASA will fly the Artemis II mission
Late Saturday night, technicians at Kennedy Space Center in Florida moved the core stage for NASA’s second Space Launch System rocket into position between the vehicle’s two solid-fueled boosters. Working inside the iconic 52-story-tall Vehicle Assembly Building, ground teams used heavy-duty cranes to first lift the butterscotch orange core stage from its cradle in the…
-
Trump White House drops diversity plan for Moon landing it created back in 2019
About five years ago, the Trump-appointed administrator of NASA, Jim Bridenstine, revealed the name of the program that would return humans to the Moon. It was to be Artemis, from a Greek goddess who was the twin sister of Apollo. The symbolism was clear. NASA’s second human program to the Moon would be different: We…
-
Can NASA remain nonpartisan when basic spaceflight truths are shredded?
It looked like the final scene of a movie, the denouement of a long adventure in which the good guys finally prevail. Azure skies and brilliant blue seas provided a perfect backdrop on Tuesday evening as a spacecraft carrying four people neared the planet’s surface. “Just breathtaking views of a calm, glass-like ocean off the…
-
Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 concludes successful, 14-day mission on the Moon
Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander captures photo of its shadow on the Moon with the volcanic feature, Mons Latreille, visible on the top right side of the lunar surface. Image: Firefly Aerospace The journey of Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander came to an end over the weekend. The 14-day operation on the surface of…
-
Crew-9, Starliner CFT astronauts return to Earth aboard Dragon
After more than nine months in space, the crew of the Boeing Crew Flight Test mission have returned home. Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams boarded SpaceX Crew Dragon C212 Freedom and undocked from the International Space Station on March 17, and splashed down off the coast of Florida on March 18. They were…
-
SpaceX Dragon Freedom splashes down off coast of Florida, ending Crew-9 mission
Support teams work around a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft shortly after it landed with NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, Butch Wilmore, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov aboard in the water off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida, Tuesday, March 18, 2025. Hague, Gorbunov, Williams, and Wilmore are returning from a long-duration science expedition aboard the International…
-
Here’s the secret to how Firefly was able to nail its first lunar landing
Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost science station accomplished a lot on the Moon in the last two weeks. Among other things, its instruments drilled into the Moon’s surface, tested an extraterrestrial vacuum cleaner, and showed that future missions could use GPS navigation signals to navigate on the lunar surface. These are all important achievements, gathering data…