Space Flight

The FAA announced yesterday (Sept. 17) it has proposed fining SpaceX $633,000 for allegedly failing to adhere to licensing requirements. Elon Musk responded on X (formerly Twitter) that he plans to push back in court. “SpaceX will be filing suit against the FAA for regulatory overreach,” he wrote. Musk’s company is also on the FAA […]

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is drawing criticism from both industry stakeholders and members of Congress regarding its handling of commercial space launch licensing During a House space subcommittee hearing this week, industry officials and  lawmakers called out the agency on its implementation of new launch licensing regulations known as Part 450. According to SpaceNews, […]

Technology entrepreneur and space/aviation enthusiast Jared Isaacman launched Tuesday (Sept. 10) on the SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission. Powered by a Falcon 9 rocket, Polaris Dawn is the first of three privately funded flights. Isaacman is joined by fellow crew members Scott “Kidd” Poteet, a close friend and retired USAF pilot, along with SpaceX engineers Sarah […]

Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule suffered a sixth thruster issue and a temporary blip in its guidance system on its way empty from the International Space Station to the New Mexico Desert on Saturday. The capsule is scheduled to launch next August and questions remain about whether it will be crewed. Meanwhile, a week after Boeing […]

NASA confirmed Boeing’s Starliner will undock from the International Space Station and make its return to earth on Friday evening without astronauts onboard. Boeing and NASA expressed confidence that Starliner would not encounter any issues before making a planned parachute landing at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico. However, astronauts Suni Williams and Butch […]

In space no one can hear Starliner pulse anymore. The cause of the strange pulsing noise in one of the speakers on the Boeing crew capsule reported by astronaut Butch Wilmore on Saturday has been found and turned off. “The feedback from the speaker was the result of an audio configuration between the space station […]

SpaceX planned to launch two rockets with internet satellite payloads this morning from sites in Florida and California. The California launch was postponed after the first stage from the Florida launch broke apart on landing on a SpaceX droneship several hundred miles northeast of the Cape Canaveral launch site. But the second stage of the […]

SpaceX has pushed back to Wednesday the launch of a private mission that is planned to include the first civilian spacewalk. The Polaris Dawn mission will take four private citizens to a maximum altitude of 870 miles and see two of the crew members exit the Crew Dragon capsule while they’re more than 400 miles […]

As was widely anticipated, NASA has decided it’s too risky to send test pilot astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore back to Earth on the Boeing Starliner spacecraft that took them to the International Space Station in June. Instead, what started as an eight-day shakedown mission for the two veteran astronauts has turned into an […]

As NASA brass debate the future of its crew capsule, Boeing is said to be trying to get out of the space launch business. Reuters is reporting that Boeing and Lockheed Martin, who jointly operate United Launch Alliance, are in talks to sell their rocket business to Sierra Space, a subsidiary of Sierra Nevada Corporation, […]