Tag: NASA
-
Atlas rocket bids farewell to California as ULA readies for Vulcan
The Atlas rocket family, a staple of the US launch industry since June 11, 1957, ended its West Coast operations on Nov. 10 with the launch of an Atlas V rocket with the JPSS-2 weather satellite. Liftoff of the mission from Space Launch Complex-3 East (SLC-3E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, is scheduled for…
-
SS Sally Ride Cygnus arrives at ISS on NG-18 mission
Northrop Grumman launched the second to last Antares 230+ rocket from Wallops Island, Virginia for the NG-18 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) at 5:32:42 AM EST (10:23:423 UTC) on Monday, Nov. 7 Despite one of its solar arrays failing to fully deploy, the cargo vehicle successfully arrived at the ISS for berthing two…
-
Lucy completes its first Earth gravity assist after a year in space
A year after its launch, NASA’s Jupiter Trojan asteroid explorer Lucy has completed its first of multiple Earth gravity assists on its journey to explore nine asteroids. Lucy is a first-of-its-kind mission to visit several Trojan asteroids in Jupiter’s L4 and L5 Lagrange points. The mission’s closest approach to Earth occurred on Oct. 16 at…
-
SpaceX Crew-4 returns to Earth with Atlantic splashdown
After living and working aboard the International Space Station (ISS) for close to six months, Crew-4 and its crew of international astronauts have undocked from the orbiting laboratory and made their return to Earth. The four-person crew, consisting of NASA astronauts Kjell N. Lindgren, Robert Hines, Jessica Watkins, and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Samantha…
-
Expedition 68 underway as Crew-4 prepares to return home
September saw the end of Expedition 67 aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and the handover to Expedition 68. While the expedition number has changed and crew rotation is underway, this has not changed the significance of the work performed by astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the orbiting outpost. At the start of the month, the…
-
SpaceX Crew-5 mission docks with ISS
SpaceX and NASA have launched a group of four astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) as part of the Crew-5 mission. The crew flew atop a Falcon 9 rocket and the Crew Dragon Endurance spacecraft from Kennedy Space Center’s historic Launch Complex 39A on Wednesday, Oct. 5 at 12:00:57 PM EDT (16:00:57 UTC). With…
-
Florida spaceports brace for Hurricane Ian
The Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station are bracing for the arrival and effects of Hurricane Ian, a major tropical cyclone in the Gulf of Mexico that made landfall near Cayo Costa, Florida at 3:05 PM EDT (19:05 UTC) on Wednesday, Sept. 28 with maximum sustained winds at 241 km/h (150 mph). Updates…
-
DART probe hits bull’s eye on an asteroid and strikes a blow for planetary defense
An image from NASA’s DART spacecraft shows the asteroid Didymos at lower right and Dimorphos, a moonlet that orbits Didymos, at upper center. (NASA / JHUAPL Photo) Ten months after NASA’s DART spacecraft was aimed at a mini-asteroid, the probe hit the bull’s eye today in a practice round for planetary defense that got an…
-
NASA decides to roll its moon rocket back to shelter as Hurricane Ian nears Florida
NASA’s Space Launch System returns to the Vehicle Assembly Building on Sept. 27. (NASA Photo) With Hurricane Ian bearing down on the Florida coast, NASA has decided to move its multibillion-dollar Space Launch System moon rocket to safety. For days, NASA and weather forecasters had been watching the storm take shape in the Caribbean Sea,…
-
Brace for impact: DART successfully slams into asteroid
NASA and Johns Hopkins teams have successfully tested the world’s first dedicated planetary defense mission: the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART). DART impacted Dimorphos, a moonlet of near-Earth asteroid 65803 Didymos, at 7:14 PM EDT (23:14 UTC) on Monday, September 26, while traveling at an approximate speed of 22,000 kilometers per hour. DART’s collision with…