2015 – Page 61 – Spaceflight Now

A taste of Italian culture makes it to the final frontier

May 4, 2015 Stephen Clark

Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti got a taste of home Sunday when she tried out a new espresso maker that is part creature comfort and part science experiment.

OTD…May 4 and STS-30

May 4, 2015 Justin Ray

#OTD…Launch of Atlantis in 1989 to send the Magellan space probe to Venus

New name for Space Launch System gets backing of lawmakers

May 3, 2015 Stephen Clark

A push to give NASA’s Space Launch System a new name is garnering support from lawmakers, who have written into legislation provisions that would order NASA to rename the heavy-lift rocket through a competition among schoolchildren.

House bill backs exploration at the expense of Earth science

May 3, 2015 Stephen Clark

A draft policy outline passed on a party-line vote by a House committee last week calls for redirecting funding from NASA’s Earth science programs into the space agency’s heavy-lift rocket and Orion crew capsule programs, an outcome NASA’s administrator said will set back climate change research.

Next round of U.S. optical spy satellites to start launching in 2018

May 1, 2015 Justin Ray

The covert follow-on satellite program that will serve as a replacement to the nation’s surveillance “eyes” from space begins launching in 2018 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Messenger mission ends with plunge into Mercury

April 30, 2015 Stephen Clark

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 consuming its last gasps of fuel.

Bezos’ Blue Origin completes first test flight of ‘New Shepard’ spacecraft

April 30, 2015 William Harwood

Blue Origin, a rocket engine and spacecraft development company owned by Amazon-founder Jeff Bezos, carried out an unpiloted maiden test flight of the company’s New Shepard sub-orbital launch vehicle Wednesday, the historically secretive company revealed early Thursday.

Progress failure probe narrows in on separation from rocket

April 29, 2015 Stephen Clark

Something went wrong with a Russian Progress cargo spacecraft moments before it deployed into orbit Tuesday on the way to the International Space Station, and investigators are analyzing whether the stricken supply ship may have lost control after a botched separation from its Soyuz rocket booster.

Surface markings show up in newest Pluto imagery

April 29, 2015 Stephen Clark

Alan Stern, chief scientist on NASA’s New Horizons mission, said Wednesday he had an emotional “meet Pluto moment” when new imagery from the faraway space probe arrived on Earth showing the mysterious world in more detail than ever before seen by human eyes.

Russia gives up on Progress supply ship docking

April 29, 2015 William Harwood

Russian flight controllers have given up attempting to salvage a Progress cargo ship loaded with 3 tons of supplies and equipment intended for the International Space Station. Astronaut Scott Kelly, on board the lab for a year-long mission, said Wednesday the Progress will not be docking and instead will plunge back into the atmosphere.