Spaceflight

The Airbus-built Solar Orbiter satellite has been successfully mounted on top of an Atlas V 411 launch rocket and is ready to fly, Airbus announced on Tuesday. The European Space Agency (ESA) mission is designed to study “how the Sun creates and controls the giant bubble of plasma surrounding the Solar System and influences the […]

The hardware for NASA’s Artemis 1 lunar mission is beginning to come together. According to NASA, the engine section of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket is now assembled and ready to be joined to the rest of the SLS core stage. As shown in the video below, the engine section serves as the attachment […]

SpaceX’s Starhopper launch vehicle prototype completed what is likely to be its last test flight on Tuesday evening. The hover test lasted about a minute and the vehicle reached an altitude of approximately 150 meters (about 500 feet) before touching down on its landing pad. The test, which took place at SpaceX’s facility in Boca […]

NASA completed a successful test of the launch abort system (LAS) on its Orion spacecraft at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Tuesday. The Ascent Abort-2 (AA-2) test involved launching a test version of the Orion crew module on a modified Peacekeeper missile to an altitude of approximately 31,000 feet, at which point the […]

NASA officially reopened the newly restored Apollo Mission Control Center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, on Friday. In time to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20, the historic center has been restored to appear as it did during that time period. In order to help […]

NASA has announced that it is opening the International Space Station (ISS) to commercial businesses. To qualify for a spot on the ISS, the agency says commercial activities must show that they require the station’s unique microgravity environment, have a connection to NASA’s mission or support the development of a “sustainable low-Earth orbit economy.” The […]

Snoopy may have been found and Elon Musk has been challenged to go and positively identify the long-lost lunar lander. Nick Howes, a fellow at Britain’s Royal Astronomical Society, said he and his colleagues believe they found the Apollo 10 moon lander that served as rehearsal platform for the successful Apollo 11 landing in July […]

Reuters is reporting that Stratolaunch Systems, the rocket launch company founded by the late Paul Allen, will be closed after unsuccessful efforts to sell it. Allen, who died at 65 last October, teamed up with Scaled Composites founder Burt Rutan to create the launch system, which was to use a massive six-engine aircraft to carry […]

NASA announced on Thursday that it has selected Colorado-based Maxar Technologies to develop and demonstrate power, propulsion and communications capabilities for its Lunar Gateway project. The contract begins with a 12-month base period followed by a 26-month option, a 14-month option and two 12-month options. During the base period, Maxar will be expected to design […]

Although originally planned for 2028, NASA says it can accelerate the next Moon mission to 2024 and it wants more money to do it. NASA and the White House have requested a $1.6 billion budget amendment to fly the so-called Artemis mission four years sooner than planned. The project is named after the Greek goddess […]