Tag: Mercury
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Chris Kraft, legendary flight director, dies at 95
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION Flight director Chris Kraft at his console inside Mercury Mission Control. Credit: NASA Former Johnson Space Center Director Christopher Columbus Kraft Jr., the man who created the iconic role of NASA flight director during the Mercury and Gemini programs and whose no-nonsense, uncompromising management style defined control room…
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Bye-bye, BepiColombo: Rocket’s red glare kicks off a marathon mission to Mercury
An Ariane 5 rocket rises from its launch pad in Kourou, French Guiana, sending the BepiColombo probe on the first leg of its journey to Mercury. (Arianespace via YouTube) A mission to the planet Mercury got off to a flashy start with tonight’s launch of an Ariane 5 heavy-lift rocket, but there’s a long way…
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Ariane 5 boosts BepiColombo mission enroute to Mercury
Arianespace has conducted the opening part of the BepiColombo mission with the launch of the spacecraft on a flight to study Mercury. The launch was conducted by an Ariane 5 that lifted off at 01:45 UTC on Saturday from the European Spaceport at Kourou, French Guiana. BepiColombo is a joint mission of the European Space Agency and…
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BepiColombo arrives at launch site for final pre-flight processing
After years of development, build, and testing, BepiColombo is arriving at Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, in South America for final preflight integration and checkouts. The joint mission between Europe and Japan is now in the home stretch of ground processing ahead of launch. The mission is slated to begin No Earlier Than 5…
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BepiColombo Mercury mission tested for journey into ‘pizza oven’
A view of the BepiColombo spacecraft stacked in launch configuration at the European Space Agency’s ESTEC test center in the Netherlands. The sunshield cover for Japan’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter is pictured at lower right. Credit: Airbus Defense and Space Three spacecraft built in Europe and Japan have completed their final joint tests to ensure they…
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John Glenn remembered
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION Members of the public pay their respects to former astronaut and U.S. Senator John Glenn as he lies in repose, under a United States Marine honor guard, in the Rotunda of the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus on Friday. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls In an emotional remembrance, John Glenn was…
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John Glenn, first American to orbit the Earth, passes away at 95
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION Credit: NASA John H. Glenn Jr., a decorated combat veteran and test pilot who gained worldwide fame as the first American to orbit the Earth, went on to become a U.S. senator and, in the autumn of his life, returned to space aboard the shuttle Discovery,…
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On this date…Second American in orbit
WATCH: Scott Carpenter launched atop an Atlas rocket to become the second American to orbit the Earth today in 1962, flying for 4 hours and 39 minutes aboard Aurora 7 while making three revolutions of the globe.
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Transit of Mercury: How you can watch an astronomical rarity despite the clouds
A multiple-exposure photo shows Mercury as a speck making its way across the sun’s disk. (Credit: NASA) For the first time in a decade, we Earthlings can watch the planet Mercury’s black speck pass across the sun today – even in Seattle, where the skies are partly cloudy at best. “This is one of the…
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Messenger mission ends with plunge into Mercury
Artist’s concept of the Messenger spacecraft flying over Mercury’s surface displayed in enhanced color. The crater ringed by bright orange is Calvino crater. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington NASA’s Messenger spacecraft closed out a successful four-year tour in Mercury’s orbit Thursday with a cataclysmic crash into the scorching planet after…