Tag: NASA
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Crew Dragon Endurance returns to Earth on Crew-5 mission
The Crew-5 astronauts returned to Earth on the evening of Saturday, March 11, after spending the last five months aboard the International Space Station. Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada of NASA, Koichi Wakata of JAXA, and Anna Kikina of Roscosmos undocked their Crew Dragon, C210 Endurance, early on Saturday at 2:20 AM EST (07:20 UTC).…
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NASA’s economic impact report card for Washington state highlights Blue Origin
The marquee of Blue Origin’s HQ in Kent, Wash., glows on a rainy morning. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle) Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture leads the list of NASA’s Washington state contractors in a newly released analysis of the agency’s economic impact. The analysis came out today when NASA released data showing how many…
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NASA´s William Hartwell updates on Artemis I and future ESMs
NASASpaceflight interviewed two speakers and subject matter experts about Orion, the European Service Module (ESM), Artemis I, and other space cooperations between the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA as part of the Moon Media Day of ESA and Airbus. In the previously released interview, NASASpaceflight talked with the ESA Director of Human and Robotics…
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Crew operations training gears up for Starliner and Orion
Operations to support the upcoming first crew flights of Starliner and Orion are increasing around the Kennedy Space Center as both vehicles head toward that major milestone. Starliner operations have included United Launch Alliance (ULA), NASA, and Space Launch Delta 45 teams, as well as the crew for the vehicle’s upcoming Crew Flight Test (CFT),…
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Blue Origin wins an order from NASA for launch of Mars magnetosphere mission
An artist’s conception shows ESCAPADE probes at Mars. (Rocket Lab / UC-Berkeley Illustration) Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture has won its first NASA order for a New Glenn rocket launch, with Mars as the mission’s ultimate destination. The task order calls on Kent, Wash.-based Blue Origin to provide launch service for NASA’s Escape and…
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Perseverance completes sample return depot, Ingenuity continues flights
As the two-year landing anniversary of NASA’s Perseverance rover and its small scouting helicopter Ingenuity draws near, the pair continue to explore Jezero Crater and unlock the many secrets of the red planet. Perseverance recently completed a significant milestone as part of an effort to one day return Martian samples to Earth. Meanwhile, Ingenuity continues to defy all expectations as it flies…
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Using Hubble, researchers measure the mass of a single white dwarf for the first time
Of the trillions of stars scattered throughout the universe, one of the most common are the white dwarfs, which are the dormant, burned out, and leftover cores of low/medium mass stars. For decades, scientists have only measured the masses of white dwarfs within binary star systems. While these measurements provide insight into the true masses…
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NASA flight software for SLS navigates through clean first launch
The NASA-developed flight software for the agency’s Space Launch System (SLS) vehicle successfully flew the program’s first launch on the Artemis I mission on Nov. 16. The vehicle’s Integrated Avionics and Software conducted the final countdown and first eight minutes of launch, commanding the Core Stage, RS-25 engines, and Solid Rocket Boosters (SRB) to orbital…
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Astronauts conduct second EVA to lay groundwork for final iROSA arrays
Astronauts Koichi Wakata and Nicole Mann have completed another spacewalk, continuing work to enable the final set of upgraded ISS Roll-Out Solar Array (iROSA) “solar wings” to be installed on ISS sometime this summer. Following US EVA-84 on Friday, Jan. 20, Wakata and Mann conducted US EVA-85 on Thursday, Feb. 2. US EVA-84 On Friday,…
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Arriving at Titan: How Dragonfly’s Entry, Descent, and Landing will differ from Mars missions
Since the focus on Martian exploration ramped up in the mid-1990s, most of the familiarity with the Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) sequence of landers and rovers to the surface of other planets has taken place against the backdrop of Mars. But when NASA‘s upcoming Dragonfly mission arrives at Titan for its own EDL, it…