Tag: NASA
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Launch Roundup: SpaceX, Rocket Lab, and Firefly set to launch amid busy launch manifest
This week, a busy launch manifest saw SpaceX launch the Crew-10 and two Starlink missions from Florida and the delayed SPHEREx/PUNCH and Transporter 13 missions from California. Outside of the United States, Rocket Lab flew an Electron from New Zealand. A Chang Zhang 8 rocket launched from a new commercial pad in China which also…
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NASA officials undermine Musk’s claims about “stranded” astronauts
Over the last month there has been something more than a minor kerfuffle in the space industry over the return of two NASA astronauts from the International Space Station. The fate of Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who launched on the first crewed flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft on June 5, 2024, has become a…
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NASA, SpaceX launch SPHEREx observatory and PUNCH heliophysics mission from California
SpaceX and NASA successfully launched the agency’s newest space telescope and solar research mission Tuesday evening. A Falcon 9 lifted off from California with the SPHEREx near-infrared observatory, with the PUNCH heliophysics mission flying as a rideshare. During its mission, SPHEREx will complete surveys of the entire sky in optical and near-infrared light, observing over…
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The Starship program hits another speed bump with second consecutive failure
SpaceX’s Starship launcher spun out of control minutes after liftoff Thursday, showering fiery debris over the Bahamas and dealing another setback to Elon Musk’s rocket program after a failure under similar circumstances less than two months ago. Starship and its Super Heavy booster, loaded with millions of pounds of methane and liquid oxygen propellants, lumbered…
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Intuitive Machines’ second attempt to land on the Moon also went sideways
Inside a small control room, during the middle of the day on Thursday local time in Texas, about a dozen white-knuckled engineers at a space startup named Intuitive Machines started to get worried. Their spacecraft, a lander named Athena, was beginning its final descent down to the lunar surface. A little more than a year…
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Blue Ghost successfully starts lunar surface mission while IM-2 lands sideways
NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program is now seeing more results from the work done by providers to fulfill its task orders in the past few years, though not without challenges. Two robotic lunar landers from different US commercial providers landed on the lunar surface, with one successfully landing upright and starting its mission,…
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Yes, we are about to be treated to a second lunar landing in a week
The Apollo 17 mission landed on the Moon on December 11, in 1972. From that point on, literally for decades, NASA and the United States did not go back to the surface of our nearest planetary body. It was not until February 22, 2024, that another American-built spacecraft made a soft landing on the Moon.…
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Butch Wilmore says Elon Musk is “absolutely factual” on Dragon’s delayed return
Three NASA astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut are due to return home on a Crew Dragon spacecraft in a couple of weeks. For two of the crew members, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, it has been a long, strange trip. To recap: Wilmore and Williams launch on the first crewed flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft…
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Launch Roundup: Starship and Ariane 6 launch after scrubs
SpaceX launches Starship’s eighth flight test, Arianespace’s Ariane 6 launches from the Guiana Space Center in French Guiana, and China sends another Chang Zheng 3B/E to space. Ariane 6 kicks off the week by launching high-resolution reconnaissance satellites for the French Space Agency, followed by Starship’s eighth flight test. Then, Chang Zheng 3B/E takes another…
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Firefly’s picture-perfect Moon landing shows the way for lunar exploration
Firefly Aerospace became the first commercial company to make a picture-perfect landing on the Moon early Sunday, touching down on an ancient basaltic plain, named Mare Crisium, to fulfill a $101 million contract with NASA. The lunar lander, called Blue Ghost, settled onto the Moon’s surface at 2:34 am CST (3:34 am EST; 08:34 UTC). A…