Tag: NASA
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NASA lays out how SpaceX will refuel Starships in low-Earth orbit
Some time next year, NASA believes SpaceX will be ready to link two Starships in orbit for an ambitious refueling demonstration, a technical feat that will put the Moon within reach. SpaceX is under contract with NASA to supply two human-rated Starships for the first two astronaut landings on the Moon through the agency’s Artemis…
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NASA still doesn’t understand root cause of Orion heat shield issue
NASA officials declared the Artemis I mission successful in late 2022, and it’s hard to argue with that assessment. The Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft performed nearly flawlessly on an unpiloted flight that took it around the Moon and back to Earth, setting the stage for the Artemis II, the program’s first crew…
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News from the Press Site: Boeing Starliner gets go ahead for Crew Flight Test
In this week’s edition of News from the Press Site, Spaceflight Now’s Will Robinson-Smith is joined by Tariq Malik, editor-in-chief of Space.com, and Passant Rabie, space reporter for Gizmodo. The panel discusses the arrival of the NASA astronauts who will be the first to fly onboard Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner, the reestablishment of contact with the…
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NASA astronauts arrive at Kennedy Space Center ahead of Boeing Starliner Crew Flight Test
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore (left) and Suni Williams (right) pose by their mission patch following their arrival at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in the run-up to the Starliner Crew Flight Test on May 6. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now For the first time since the end of the shuttle program, a trio of T-38 jets cruised…
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Recoding Voyager 1—NASA’s interstellar explorer is finally making sense again
Engineers have partially restored a 1970s-era computer on NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft after five months of long-distance troubleshooting, building confidence that humanity’s first interstellar probe can eventually resume normal operations. Several dozen scientists and engineers gathered Saturday in a conference room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, or connected virtually, to wait for a new signal…
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New solar sail technology launches on Rocket Lab flight
A potential new way to travel through space launched aboard Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket from Launch Complex 1 located on New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula. The mission, named “Beginning of the Swarm,” put two payloads into a Sun-synchronous orbit. The flight lifted off at 22:32 UTC on April 23, 2024. One of the two payloads aboard…
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Rocket Lab launches NASA, Korean payloads on Electron flight
An artist’s concept of NASA’s Advanced Composite Solar Sail System spacecraft in orbit. Graphic: NASA/Aero Animation/Ben Schweighart Rocket Lab completed its fifth launch of the year, which was a rideshare mission between the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and NASA. This was also the company’s 47th Electron launch to date. Liftoff from…
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New Frontier Aerospace and HyBird get in on innovation research grants from NASA
Artwork shows two views of the Bifröst orbital transfer spacecraft. (New Frontier Aerospace Illustration) Two Washington state aerospace companies — Tukwila-based New Frontier Aerospace and Spanaway-based HyBird Space Systems — are among 95 ventures that have won project development funding from NASA through its Small Business Innovation Research program. The Phase II SBIR grants are…
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Launch Roundup: SpaceX lands its 300th booster, NASA tests a solar sail, and China launches three more taikonauts
During the last full week of April, planned launches include two Starlink missions and another Falcon 9 flight lifting customer satellites. The first Starlink mission of the week saw another milestone reached with the 300th landing of a Falcon 9 booster on the Group 6-53 mission. The delayed WorldView Legion 1 & 2 mission, which…
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Juno observes lava lake on Io, provides insight into Jupiter’s water abundance
In December 2023 and February 2024, NASA’s Juno spacecraft, currently in orbit around and investigating Jupiter and the Jovian system, made several close flybys of the innermost of the Galilean moons, Io. During the flybys, Juno came as close as 1,500 kilometers from the surface of Io, during which extensive data and imagery of the…