NASA

NASA’s Perseverance rover touched down on Mars on Thursday afternoon, 203 days after it launched from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station aboard a ULA Atlas V 541 rocket. The 2,263-pound rover is on a two-year mission to look for signs of ancient microbial life along with collecting samples of rock and regolith from Mars’ […]

NASA has assigned astronauts Kjell Lindgren and Bob Hines to its SpaceX Crew-4 mission, which is expected to launch in 2022. Along with additional crew members to be assigned by NASA’s international partners, Lindgren and Hines will be headed to the International Space Station (ISS) for a long-duration stay. Lindgren will serve as spacecraft commander […]

Aerion Supersonic has announced that it will be partnering with NASA to study technology that would support the development of “high-Mach” passenger aircraft capable of cruising in the Mach 3 to Mach 5 range. According to the company, teams from NASA’s Langley Research Center and Aerion will focus their research on the suitability of a […]

NASA is observing its annual Day of Remembrance on Thursday, paying tribute to “members of the NASA family who lost their lives while furthering the cause of exploration and discovery.” As part of the event, NASA acting administrator Steve Jurczyk will lead a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Virginia’s Arlington […]

Construction of NASA’s X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology (QueSST) aircraft has reached the halfway point, according to an announcement from the agency last week. The X-59 is being assembled by Lockheed Martin at the company’s facility in Palmdale, California. NASA also announced that it has awarded Lockheed Martin a $40 million contract to provide support for […]

NASA has chosen 18 astronauts who will train for missions on and around the Moon as part of the agency’s Artemis program. The Artemis Team was introduced by Vice President Mike Pence during the eighth National Space Council meeting at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday. The program aims to land the first woman and […]

The FAA announced on Tuesday that it has finished the second phase of its Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS/drone) Traffic Management Pilot Program (UPP). UPP Phase 2 objectives included “testing of Remote Identification (RID) technologies and operations with increasing volumes and density.” According to the agency, program results will be used as a proof of concept […]

Urban air mobility (UAM) company Wisk has announced that it is partnering with NASA to explore the “safe integration of autonomous aircraft systems into Urban Air Mobility applications at a national level.” According to the company, its work will initially focus on safety scenarios related to autonomous flight and contingency management including collision avoidance and […]

The propeller designs for NASA’s all-electric X-57 Maxwell have now undergone two weeks of wind tunnel testing, the agency said on Monday. The propeller assemblies, supplied by California-based contractor Empirical Systems Aerospace (ESAero), logged 14 hours of powered operation during testing with wind speeds up to around 90 knots. The tests took place at the […]

NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft successfully made contact with asteroid Bennu on Tuesday. The purpose of the brief touch-and-go, the first of its kind accomplished by NASA, was to collect a sample from the asteroid’s surface. Sample collection was conducted using a sampling arm, called the Touch-And-Go Sample Acquisition […]