Space Flight

SpaceX’s Resilience Crew Dragon capsule splashed down safely in the Atlantic off Cape Canaveral Saturday evening, capping a three-day orbital mission carrying an all-civilian crew. The Inspiration4 mission, with space rookies Commander Jared Isaacman, pilot Sian Proctor, medical officer Hayley Arceneaux and mission specialist Chris Sembroski, orbited the planet as high as 400 miles. “Thanks so […]

Called “the world’s first all-civilian human spaceflight mission to orbit,” Inspiration4 launched successfully from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at 8:02:56 p.m. EDT on Wednesday. The three-day orbital flight, which is using SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 launch vehicle, was booked by Shift4 Payments founder and pilot Jared Isaacman earlier this year. As previously reported […]

The Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) is reviewing the FAA’s ability to keep spacecraft and aircraft from trading paint and the FAA says it’s welcoming the probe. The announcement came a week after the agency started an investigation into a course deviation involving Virgin Galactic’s first passenger flight carrying its founder, Sir […]

Virgin Galactic says nobody was in any danger, including its founder and CEO Sir Richard Branson and three other passengers, aboard the landmark July 11 flight of its Unity spacecraft despite an FAA probe into the flight. The agency announced on Thursday that it was banning any further flights until it completes an investigation into the […]

Astra, a California commercial space launch company, had an unusual third attempt at reaching orbit on Saturday when its rocket seemingly recovered from a launch pad mishap only to tumble out of control a couple of minutes later. Astra is a Silicon Valley startup with a potentially lucrative list of military and commercial customers and […]

Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule is heading back to the factory for a deeper dive into valve issues that scrubbed a critical shakedown flight earlier this month. The spacecraft was supposed to have launched to the International Space Station Aug. 3. It was a re-do of an uncrewed test flight that ended with an unplanned landing […]

The upset of the International Space Station a week ago was a lot more dramatic than was first revealed and there’s now a call for an independent investigation of the incident. As we reported last week the ISS was knocked off its normal attitude when a Russian module that had just docked with the station […]

NASA and Boeing have postponed Friday’s planned launch of the Starliner crew capsule to the International Space Station to Aug. 3 after a mishap briefly upset the ISS on Thursday. An uncommanded firing of the thrusters on a Russian science research module tilted the entire orbiting structure about 45 degrees before automatic systems on the […]

The FAA has brought Sir Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos back to earth with a new rule that says they’re not actually astronauts. Last Tuesday, while Amazon founder Bezos was celebrating his latest accomplishment, the FAA ruled that going along for the ride doesn’t make one an astronaut worthy of the official designation by the […]

The FAA opened a new field office in Houston, Texas, on Monday designed to expand its oversight of commercial space operations in Texas and New Mexico. According to the agency, the Space Safety field office will allow it to more efficiently monitor testing programs and commercial space tourism operations conducted by companies including SpaceX, Blue […]