Space Flight

MSN.com is reporting Virgin Orbit is laying off most of its staff and ceasing operations after failing to raise enough money to keep trying to build an aircraft-based space launch business. In a call with staff on Thursday, CEO Dan Hart said 675 of about 775 staff will be cut. Company founder Sir Richard Branson […]

Citing a ground systems issue, NASA and SpaceX scrubbed Monday’s planned launch of the Crew-6 mission to the International Space Station (ISS). According to NASA, the decision was made in order to allow an investigation into “an issue preventing data from confirming a full load of the ignition source for the Falcon 9 first stage […]

NASA and SpaceX are targeting Monday, Feb. 27, for the launch of the Crew-6 mission to the International Space Station (ISS). If all goes according to plan, the mission will depart from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center at 1:45 a.m. local time, carrying NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Warren Hoburg, United Arab Emirates astronaut Sultan Alneyadi […]

Former NASA astronauts Roy Bridges and Mark Kelly will be inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame as its class of 2023. A retired U.S. Air Force Major General, Bridges piloted the Space Shuttle Challenger for the STS-51F mission in July 1985 and served as director of NASA’s John F. Kennedy Space Center from […]

Retired NASA astronaut Walter Cunningham passed away last Tuesday at the age of 90. Selected for NASA’s third astronaut class in 1963, Cunningham went to space on the Apollo 7 mission, which was noted for being the first crewed flight test of the Apollo spacecraft. Before joining NASA, he served as a fighter pilot in […]

Three Russian Cosmonauts spent Sunday relaxing and watching the World Cup finale on the International Space Station as the smart people who put them there figured out how to get them down. The station’s remote robot arm will take photos of the coolant leak that will likely make their Soyuz capsule unuseable for the trip […]

NASA has finalized a contract with Boeing to continue the manufacture of core and upper stages for Space Launch System (SLS) rockets for the agency’s Artemis missions. According to NASA, the SLS Stages Production and Evolution Contract will cover production of the core stages for the Artemis III and IV missions, procurement of core stage […]

Lockheed Martin’s Orion space capsule is on its way to San Diego after a flawless re-entry and splashdown capped an almost equally successful shakedown mission around the moon. The ship, which will ultimately be used to carry astronauts to the moon and perhaps Mars, hit the surface of the Pacific off Baja Mexico at 12:40 […]

NASA’s Mars helicopter, Ingenuity, logged its 34th successful flight last week, staying in the air for 18 seconds and reaching a maximum altitude of 5 meters. The brief flight was the helicopter’s first with its latest software update, which is expected to add capabilities including hazard avoidance during landing and the use of digital elevation […]

NASA’s Orion spacecraft, launched last Wednesday (Nov. 16) atop the Artemis 1 Space Launch System (SLS), sent back compelling images of the Earth and made a low pass over the dark-side surface of the moon on Monday. “Low” is relative, of course, but descending to within 81 miles of the moon’s surface yielded some breathtaking […]