Spaceflight

SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket successfully completed its second launch and first operational mission on Thursday. After a 24-hour delay due to weather, the rocket launched from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at 6:35 p.m. local time. The Falcon Heavy’s payload was the Arabsat-6A, a telecommunications satellite that will deliver television, radio, internet […]

NASA says the space debris released by India’s destruction of one of its own satellites threatens the International Space Station. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine called the action unacceptable and a “terrible, terrible thing.” India destroyed the satellite intentionally last week in a test of anti-satellite technology it has developed. NASA said the satellite shattered into […]

Famed Apollo astronaut Michael Collins will be the featured guest at EAA AirVenture 2019’s commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11’s landing on the Sea of Tranquility. Collins will be joined by Joe Engle, another Apollo alumnus, but who never flew in that program. Engle did fly on the Space Shuttle and is the […]

This being the year of the 50th anniversary of that one small step, you’ll be seeing a lot of nostalgic babble about how great it all was and what a shame it is that we sorta stopped serious space exploration in 1972. What you won’t hear as much is that the entire moon thing was […]

The FAA has proposed a new rule that aims to “streamline and increase flexibility” in federal commercial space transportation regulations. The FAA says the rule would “consolidate and revise” existing regulations along with defining safety requirements and how to get and maintain a vehicle operator license for commercial space travel. The rule (PDF) was developed […]

Vice President Mike Pence upended NASA’s self-imposed 2028 schedule for a return to the moon on Tuesday when he directed NASA to accomplish the task within the next five years. “We’re actually being told the earliest we can get back to the moon is 18 years after the Space Launch System (SLS) was started, and […]

The SpaceX Crew Dragon’s first test mission to the International Space Station (ISS) has come to a successful conclusion with a trouble-free, on-schedule splashdown at 8:45 a.m. EST on Friday. The mission netted the Crew Dragon several “firsts” for a commercially built and operated American crew spacecraft, including becoming the first to launch from American […]

SpaceX celebrated the successful launch of its Crew Dragon capsule followed by the successful autonomous docking of the spacecraft at the International Space Station on the weekend as a prelude to the resumption of manned U.S. space flights, possibly in the next year. The crew capsule was unmanned but carried a life-sized mannequin named Ripley […]

NASA’s latest mission is to watch the weather. Space weather, that is. Planned to launch in August 2022 to the International Space Station, the Atmospheric Waves Experiment (AWE) will “focus on colorful bands of light in Earth’s atmosphere, called airglow, to determine what combination of forces drive space weather in the upper atmosphere.” “Space weather […]

Virgin Galactic sent its first passenger to the edge of space Friday although it wasn’t a paying customer. The company’s astronaut trainer Beth Moses rode in the passenger cabin of the spacecraft Unity on the flight Friday morning from the company’s base at Mojave, California. “Beth Moses is on board as a crew member,” a […]