SpaceX launches astronauts into orbit on historic flight
NASA astronauts launched from American soil for the first time in nine years and accomplished the history-making event aboard a commercial SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft soaring from the Florida space coast and bound for the International Space Station (ISS) – to the cheers of tens of thousands of spectators gathered from around America and three …
Trio of American companies to develop Artemis lunar landers
Marking a significant step forward in landing Americans on the Moon by 2024, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine announced the selection of three U.S. companies – Blue Origin, SpaceX and Dynetics – to design and develop the critical human landing systems (HLS) under the agency’s Artemis lunar landing program. Blue Origin won by far the largest …
‘Apollo 13: Home Safe’ documentary gives inside look at mission
Apollo 13 suffered a catastrophic explosion en route to the Moon but has since become known as “a successful failure” because the three-man crew was able to safely return to Earth thanks to the round-the-clock heroic efforts of the entire NASA team to devise a solution to save the trio. NASA’s third planned manned lunar …
James Webb’s primary mirror passes test before pandemic suspends work
The team building NASA’s mammoth James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) recently accomplished a major milestone – fully deploying its 21 foot (6.5 meter) primary mirror into the same configuration it will have when it is carrying out astronomical observations in space. However, NASA has also suspended virtually all future testing of the Webb Telescope – …
SpaceX Crew Dragon closing in on first launch with astronauts aboard
The United States is drawing closer to launching humans from American soil once again with the arrival of the newest SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The capsule is slated to launch with a crew of two NASA astronauts on the Demo-2 mission sometime this spring, marking the first time …
Finalists selected for naming NASA’s next Mars rover
After conducting a nationwide contest where kindergarten through 12th grade students across the United States submitted essays to “Name the Rover,” NASA has selected nine candidate names as finalists to come up with a fitting name for NASA’s Mars 2020 rover. The nine candidate names were selected from more than 28,000 essays submitted since the …