Tag: Space
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The Artemis II mission has ended. Where does NASA go from here?
The Artemis era well and truly began Friday evening when a shiny spacecraft that had traveled 700,000 miles around the Moon, carrying four astronauts, splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California. For NASA, for its international partners, and for all of humanity the successful conclusion of the Artemis II mission marked…
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Here’s what to expect from the fiery, 14-minute return of Artemis II
Death, taxes, and the gravitationally bound return of the Artemis II mission on Friday evening. These are the only certainties in life. Even if the four astronauts on board the Orion spacecraft discovered a serious flaw in their spacecraft today—and to be clear, from recent images reviewed by NASA experts, everything looks just fine—there is…
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Rocket Report: Chinese version of Falcon 9 fails; Artemis depends on rapid heavy lift
Welcome to Edition 8.36 of the Rocket Report! Thank you for your indulgence of our missing the report last week, as we focused on the launch and progress of the Artemis II mission. And we are so thrilled it has been going smoothly, with brilliant imagery of the far side of the Moon. Of course,…
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Finally, Artemis delivers some exceptional, high-quality photos of the Moon
NASA’s Artemis II mission, carrying four astronauts on an out-of-this-world journey, flew around the Moon on Monday. The crew members took turns describing the stunning landscape below and captured images of Earth rising behind the Moon, in communications with Mission Control in Houston. What they did not send back in real time, due to a…
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Why is NASA bothering to go back to the Moon if we’ve already been there?
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla.—The first time NASA launched humans toward the Moon, in December 1968, the United States was a deeply fractured nation. The historic flight of three people into the unknown brought a measure of solace to a country riven by assassinations, riots, political discord, and a deeply unpopular foreign war. If history does…
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This is my third Orion launch, but it feels totally different
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla.—This will be the third time I have observed NASA’s Orion spacecraft take flight. But with this one, for the first time, am I genuinely hopeful about the future of the space agency and its plans to build a station on the surface of the Moon. The two previous flights, in 2014…
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No one is happy with NASA’s new idea for private space stations
Most elements of a major NASA event this week that laid out spaceflight plans for the coming decade were well received: a Moon base, a focus on less talk and more action, and working with industry to streamline regulations so increased innovation can propel the United States further into space. However, one aspect of this…
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NASA kills lunar space station to focus on ambitious Moon base
WASHINGTON, DC—NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman on Tuesday laid out a sweeping vision for the space agency’s next decade during an event called “Ignition” in which he and other senior leaders set out their exploration plans. Isaacman and his colleagues shared a number of major announcements, including outlining a nuclear-powered mission to Mars that will release…
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Orbital data centers, part 1: There’s no way this is economically viable, right?
Editor’s note: This is the first of three feature articles Ars is publishing to explore the financial, technical, and competitive dimensions of orbital data centers. Although the idea of putting data centers into space has long been discussed on a theoretical basis, the technology has rapidly become a red-hot topic. This series will attempt to…
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A private space company has a radical new plan to bag an asteroid
It may sound fanciful, but a Los Angeles-based company says it has conceived of a plan to fly out to a smallish, near-Earth asteroid, throw a large bag around it, and bring the body back to a “safe” gathering point near our planet. The company, TransAstra, said Wednesday that an unnamed customer has agreed to…