Tag: Space
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White House may seek to slash NASA’s science budget by 50 percent
Although the Trump administration will not publicly release its budget request for at least a few more weeks, senior agency officials are starting to be briefed on the president’s priorities. This includes NASA. As expected, the president’s plan for the space agency includes some significant shakeups, including a desire to move elements of NASA headquarters…
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Rocket Report: Starship fails for a second time; what’s to blame for Vulcan delays?
Welcome to Edition 7.34 of the Rocket Report! What a day in space Thursday was. During the morning hours we saw the triumphant second flight of the Ariane 6 rocket, a pivotal moment for European sovereignty in space. Then Intuitive Machines had a partially successful landing on the Moon. And finally, on Thursday evening, SpaceX’s…
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Intuitive Machines’ second attempt to land on the Moon also went sideways
Inside a small control room, during the middle of the day on Thursday local time in Texas, about a dozen white-knuckled engineers at a space startup named Intuitive Machines started to get worried. Their spacecraft, a lander named Athena, was beginning its final descent down to the lunar surface. A little more than a year…
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Yes, we are about to be treated to a second lunar landing in a week
The Apollo 17 mission landed on the Moon on December 11, in 1972. From that point on, literally for decades, NASA and the United States did not go back to the surface of our nearest planetary body. It was not until February 22, 2024, that another American-built spacecraft made a soft landing on the Moon.…
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Butch Wilmore says Elon Musk is “absolutely factual” on Dragon’s delayed return
Three NASA astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut are due to return home on a Crew Dragon spacecraft in a couple of weeks. For two of the crew members, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, it has been a long, strange trip. To recap: Wilmore and Williams launch on the first crewed flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft…
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The modern era of low-flying satellites may begin this week
The idea of flying satellites in “very” low-Earth orbit is not new. Dating back to the dawn of the space age in the late 1950s, the first US spy satellites, as part of the Corona program, orbited the planet as low as 120 to 160 km (75 to 100 miles) above the Earth. This low…
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Long-time advocate of SLS rocket says it’s time to find an “off-ramp”
The lights may be starting to go out for NASA’s Space Launch System program. On Wednesday, one of the Republican space policy leaders most consistently opposed to commercial heavy lift rockets over the last decade—as an alternative to NASA’s large SLS rocket—has changed his mind. “We need an off-ramp for reliance on the SLS,” said…
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Amazon Web Services focuses on optimizing artificial intelligence in space
Amazon Web Services demonstrated data processing in orbit in 2022, using a payload on D-Orbit’s ION satellite carrier, shown in this artist’s conception. (D-Orbit Illustration) Artificial intelligence and machine learning are turning into requirements for space operations, and Amazon Web Services is optimizing its products to reflect that view, according to the former Air Force…
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Asteroid 2024 YR4 is going to miss Earth, but the story doesn’t end there
It was only a few days ago that a certain fear-mongering website named, ahem, Ars Technica published an article about the prospect of a killer asteroid striking the planet Earth in the year 2032. At the time, the odds of a small asteroid first discovered late last year—and designated 2024 YR4—hitting us were non-negligible. There…
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Mere weeks after Starship’s breakup, the vehicle may soon fly again
A little over a month after SpaceX’s large Starship launch ended in an explosion over several Caribbean islands, the company is preparing its next rocket for a test flight. According to a notice posted by the Federal Aviation Administration, the eighth test flight of the Starship vehicle could take place as early as February 26…