NASA’s Orion spacecraft will fly a two-orbit, four-hour mission for Exploration Flight Test No. 1 in Earth orbit to test systems. This map shows the track the United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy launch vehicle and Orion will follow.
NASA’s planned rocket to send humans back to the moon and the agency’s solar system exploration program were big winners in a $20.7 billion budget passed by Congress and signed by President Trump on Friday.
Rocket Lab’s commercial Electron booster fired into orbit from New Zealand on Sunday, carrying a flock of 13 CubeSats on the company’s first mission chartered by NASA, and closing out a landmark year for the new smallsat launch provider as Rocket Lab aims to grow its flight rate to at least one per month in 2019.
Fresh off a 64-day test flight to the International Space Station with astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, SpaceX’s first human-rated Crew Dragon spaceship is back at Cape Canaveral for inspections, refurbishment and upgrades before flying to the station again with a four-person crew next spring.