NASA

Russia may reconsider its involvement in the international partnership that keeps the International Space Station (ISS) aloft, according to a statement from Dmitry Rogozin, who is the head of Russian space agency Roscosmos. Rogozin said that the agency is taking the position due to economic sanctions enacted by the U.S. in response to Russia’s invasion […]

NASA has awarded Lockheed Martin a contract to build a lightweight rocket designed to carry samples from the surface of Mars back Earth. The Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) will be part of the NASA’s Mars Sample Return program, which is working to retrieve rock, sediment and atmospheric samples collected by the agency’s Perseverance rover. If […]

NASA has selected teams from four universities to participate in the agency’s University Leadership Initiative (ULI). Three teams will work on research aimed at lowering or eliminating aircraft emissions while the fourth will focus on autonomy research in support of NASA’s Advanced Air Mobility campaign. The teams are joining the initiative from the University of […]

NASA announced Wednesday that its Ingenuity Mars helicopter reached a total flight time of 30 minutes during its 17th flight on Dec. 5. The 117-second trip brought the total time in the air logged by the rotorcraft to 30 minutes and 48 seconds. As previously reported by AVweb, Ingenuity became the first aircraft to operate […]

NASA has chosen ten candidates for its 2021 astronaut class, the agency announced on Monday during an event at Ellington Field in Houston, Texas. Selected from among more than 12,000 applicants, the candidates are the agency’s first new astronaut class in four years. They are scheduled to report to NASA’s Johnson Space Center to begin […]

Northrop Grumman has been awarded a contract to build boosters for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. The Booster Production and Operations Contract (BPOC), which is valued at $3.19 billion, will support nine SLS flights through Dec. 31, 2031. Along with support for NASA’s first three Artemis missions, for which Northrop Grumman has already produced […]

NASA and Lockheed Martin have removed the X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology (QueSST) research aircraft from its jig system and are moving toward final assembly, according to a recent announcement from NASA. Part of the agency’s low-boom flight demonstration mission, the goal of the X-59 QueSST design is to reduce “the loudness of a sonic boom […]

NASA is pushing its plans for a crewed mission to the Moon back until at least 2025, the agency announced in an update on its Artemis program on Tuesday. Originally aiming to land “the first woman and next man” on the Moon in 2024, the Artemis team still needs to complete a planned uncrewed mission […]

NASA has chosen Pratt & Whitney to develop advanced high pressure turbine technologies for single-aisle commercial transport aircraft as part of the agency’s Hybrid Thermally Efficient Core (HyTEC) project. HyTEC, which is part of NASA’s Sustainable Flight National Partnership, is looking to “enable breakthrough innovations and help accomplish the aviation industry’s … goals to significantly […]

NASA and Boeing have announced that the next launch of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft has been pushed back to next year while the company works to correct an oxidizer isolation valve issue on the vehicle’s service module propulsion system. The problem was discovered last August when unexpected valve position indications caused the cancellation of an uncrewed […]