Tag: NASA
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NASA Awards CAPSTONE 02 to Advanced Space for Cislunar Navigation Demonstration
The mission builds on the original CAPSTONE, short for Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, which became the first U.S. commercial mission to the Moon and the first spacecraft to operate in a near-rectilinear halo orbit, a nearly stable orbit maintained by the gravitational pull of both the Earth and the Moon.…
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Rocket Report: Lightning strikes in China; Starship launch on deck
Welcome to Edition 9.04 of the Rocket Report! We’ve had to wait an extra week for SpaceX to get its 13th Starship test flight off the ground. A last-second abort on July 16 led engineers to roll the booster back to its hangar in South Texas to swap out engines. Starship is now back on…
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Boeing Directs All Space Investment to Defense as Starliner Recovery Continues
The comments come as Starliner has drawn nearly all public attention within Boeing’s space portfolio. A crew flight test with NASA left two astronauts on the International Space Station far longer than originally expected after thruster failures, and the capsule ultimately returned to Earth uncrewed. Parker said Boeing is directing all of its space investment…
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Northrop Grumman Launches Robotic Servicing Vehicle Toward Geosynchronous Orbit
The Mission Robotic Vehicle carries the Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites payload, a pair of robotic arms with an array of tool attachments developed at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory with financial backing from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Following deployment, the vehicle and its pods will spend a year traveling out to geosynchronous…
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International Space University to Restructure After Strasbourg Campus Liquidation
The International Space University (ISU) is preparing to restructure its operations after the French courts ordered the liquidation of its central campus in Strasbourg, a decision that has disrupted academic programs while prompting the organization to reassess its long-term business model. The liquidation has affected current students enrolled at the Strasbourg campus, with some completing…
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NASA Cancels $73M Draper CLPS Lunar Lander CP-12
NASA Cancels Draper’s $73M CLPS Mission — What Happened to CP-12? NASA has terminated a $73 million Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) task order with Draper after successive lander redesigns pushed the projected lunar landing to 2030 or 2031 — six years behind the original 2025 schedule. Of that $73 million, NASA confirmed it paid…
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Russia Extends ISS Commitment to 2030 in Isaacman Deal
Will Russia Stay on ISS Until 2030? Bakanov Says Yes After Baikonur Talks Russia has formally committed to International Space Station operations through 2030 — closing a two-year gap in partner alignment that had persisted since other ISS partners locked in that date years ago. Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Bakanov made the commitment directly to…
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Isaacman at Baikonur: ISS Crew Arrives, US-Russia Space Talks Resume
Did Isaacman’s Baikonur Trip Reopen US-Russia Space Diplomacy? NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman stood at Baikonur Cosmodrome on July 14 — the first NASA administrator to attend a launch there since October 2018 — as a Soyuz-2.1a rocket lifted off at 10:47 a.m. Eastern carrying Soyuz MS-29 to the International Space Station. The spacecraft docked with…
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A most improbable astronaut just went to space
Anil Menon, a NASA flight surgeon, felt crushed nine years ago as his hopes and aspirations collapsed around him. For the fourth time, he had diligently applied to become an astronaut at the US space agency, seeking to fulfill a lifelong dream. Although he made it to the final round, NASA had once again rejected…
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NASA Artemis III Demo Will Fly Two HLS Landers in 2027
Does NASA’s 2027 Artemis III Mission Actually Land on the Moon? No — and that distinction matters enormously for anyone tracking the Artemis Program schedule. NASA’s Artemis III, currently planned for 2027, is a crewed rendezvous-and-docking demonstration in low Earth orbit and cislunar space, not a lunar surface landing. The actual crewed Moon landing is…