Space Flight

China’s latest piece of uncontrolled space junk hit the Pacific Ocean 620 miles off Acapulco in the Pacific Ocean on Friday, but the most serious impact was on the other side of the world. Spain briefly closed large areas of its airspace on Friday morning when a Chinese booster rocket used to propel a section […]

NASA has awarded medals to six Northrop Grumman Corporation employees for their contributions in designing and building the James Webb Space Telescope. Webb Telescope team vice president and program manager Scott Willoughby and director and chief engineer Charlie Atkinson received NASA’s Distinguished Public Service Medal; Webb director of vehicle engineering and sunshield manager Jim Flynn […]

The NASA SpaceX Crew-5 mission docked with the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday evening, beginning a six-month stay for NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Koichi Wakata and Roscosmos cosmonaut Anna Kikina. The mission, which used SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft, Endurance, launched from the […]

NASA wrapped up its first-ever planetary defense technology demonstration on Monday evening, crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid with the goal of altering its orbit. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) targeted the asteroid Dimorphos, which measures 530 feet (160 meters) in diameter and orbits a larger asteroid named Didymos. The 1,260-pound (570-kilogram) spacecraft hit […]

NASA has waved off its third attempt at launching the Artemis I uncrewed flight test of the Space Launch System (SLS) and the Orion spacecraft. Scheduled for Sept. 27, the launch was postponed due to weather conditions related to the approach of Hurricane Ian, which is currently forecast to make landfall in Florida on Thursday. […]

The FAA has grounded Blue Origin’s space tourism flights after one of its rockets blew up a minute after launch on Monday. The rocket was on an uncrewed suborbital mission when something went wrong at 65 seconds. The rocket was enveloped in flame while the crew capsule, which was carrying 36 scientific and technological payloads, […]

NASA is considering Sept. 27 for its third attempt to launch the Artemis I uncrewed flight test of the Space Launch System (SLS) and the Orion spacecraft. According to the agency, the date, which is still under review, will allow time for a cryogenic demonstration test to be conducted no earlier than Sept. 21 as […]

The prickly turf war between the NTSB and the FAA over commercial space accident investigations has been settled with a carving out of territory that appears to keep both agencies in their respective lanes. The new memorandum of agreement, which replaces a 22-year-old version, gives the NTSB its traditional role of investigating fatal accidents and […]

Following two scrubbed tries, NASA says it is standing down from further Artemis I launch attempts in early September. The first launch attempt, which took place on Aug. 29, was called off after one of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket’s four RS-25 engines failed to reach the proper temperature range for liftoff. On Sept. […]

NASA has signed on with SpaceX for five additional missions to transport crew to the International Space Station (ISS). The missions are a modification to NASA’s Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contract with the company, which originally covered nine missions. The fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract modification is valued at $1.4 billion. “The amount includes ground, launch, […]