Tag: Space
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NASA believes it understands why Ingenuity crashed on Mars
Eleven months after the Ingenuity helicopter made its final flight on Mars, engineers and scientists at NASA and a private company that helped build the flying vehicle said they have identified what probably caused it to crash on the surface of Mars. In short, the helicopter’s on-board navigation sensors were unable to discern enough features…
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Ranking the 25 coolest things in space so far during the 21st century
There is, of course, no quantitative way to rank amazing things that happen in space. We cannot measure their absolute magnitude nor assign them a numerical value, and trying to do so is something of a fool’s errand. Are we fools? Maybe. But we’re fools who like to have a little fun. Understandably, then, this…
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In a not-so-subtle signal to regulators, Blue Origin says New Glenn is ready
Blue Origin said Tuesday that the test payload for the first launch of its new rocket, New Glenn, is ready for liftoff. The company published an image of the “Blue Ring” pathfinder nestled up against one half of the rocket’s payload fairing. “There is a growing demand to quickly move and position equipment and infrastructure…
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After critics decry Orion heat shield decision, NASA reviewer says agency is correct
Within hours of NASA announcing its decision to fly the Artemis II mission aboard an Orion spacecraft with an unmodified heat shield, critics assailed the space agency, saying it had made the wrong decision. “Expediency won over safety and good materials science and engineering. Sad day for NASA,” Ed Pope, an expert in advanced materials…
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Rocket Report: NASA delays Artemis again; SpinLaunch spins a little cash
Welcome to Edition 7.22 of the Rocket Report! The big news is the Trump administration’s announcement that commercial astronaut Jared Isaacman would be put forward as the nominee to serve as the next NASA Administrator. Isaacman has flown to space twice, and demonstrated that he takes spaceflight seriously. More background on Isaacman, and possible changes,…
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How did the CEO of an online payments firm become the nominee to lead NASA?
President-elect Donald Trump announced Wednesday his intent to nominate entrepreneur and commercial astronaut Jared Isaacman as the next administrator of NASA. For those unfamiliar with Isaacman, who at just 16 years old founded a payment processing company in his parents’ basement that ultimately became a major player in online payments, it may seem an odd…
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Falcon 9 reaches a flight rate 30 times higher than shuttle at 1/100th the cost
SpaceX recently hit some notable milestones with its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket, and even in the full context of history, the performance of the vehicle is pretty incredible. Last Tuesday, the company launched a batch of Starlink v2-mini satellites from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a Falcon 9 rocket, marking the 400th successful mission…
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After Russian ship docks to space station, astronauts report a foul smell
It should have been a routine mission to ferry about three tons of food, fuel, and supplies to the International Space Station, but when Russian cosmonauts opened the hatch to a cargo spacecraft on Saturday, they got a surprise—a toxic smell. “After opening the Progress spacecraft’s hatch, the Roscosmos cosmonauts noticed an unexpected odor and…
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A former Orion manager has surprisingly credible plans to fly European astronauts
It would be easy to be cynical about a German-French startup named The Exploration Company, which aims to build an increasingly sophisticated lineup of spaceships that could one day launch astronauts into orbit. After all, European space startups don’t have the greatest track record, and even with billions of dollars, one of the world’s leading…
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Rocket Report: Next Vulcan launch slips into 2025; Starship gets a green light
Welcome to Edition 7.20 of the Rocket Report! This is a super-long version of the newsletter because we did not publish last week, and there is just a ton of launch news of late. Also, I want to note that next week’s report will appear a day early, on Wednesday, due to the Thanksgiving holiday.…