William Harwood – Spaceflight Now

NASA directs Alabama space center to manage lunar lander program

August 16, 2019

Despite protests from Texas lawmakers, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., will manage the agency’s plans to build a lunar landing system that will carry the next man and the first woman to the surface of the moon in 2024, agency Administrator Jim Bridenstine announced Friday.

Chris Kraft, legendary flight director, dies at 95

July 22, 2019

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 operations and discipline through the Apollo years and beyond, died Monday. He was 95.

Pence delivers a promise, and a warning, to NASA and its contractors

July 22, 2019

Despite appearances and a presidential tweet suggesting otherwise, the United States is “100%” committed to sending astronauts back to the moon in 2024 and establishing a long-term, sustainable presence there as a stepping stone to eventual piloted flights to Mars, Vice President Mike Pence said in an interview with CBS News.

Soyuz crew docks with space station; Pence reaffirms commitment to moon missions

July 21, 2019

Fifty years to the day after Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the moon, a NASA astronaut, an Italian flight engineer and a Russian commander blasted off from Kazakhstan Saturday aboard a Soyuz spacecraft, chased down the International Space Station and glided in for a picture-perfect docking.

On Apollo anniversary, Soyuz crew set for launch to space station

July 20, 2019

Fifty years to the day after Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the moon, a NASA astronaut, an Italian flight engineer and a Russian commander geared up for launch aboard a Soyuz spacecraft Saturday on a six-hour flight to the International Space Station.

NASA boss pleads for funding to ensure 2024 moon landing

July 17, 2019

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told a Senate panel Wednesday that a budget impasse and subsequent spending freeze later this year would be “devastating” to the agency’s goal of sending the first woman and next man to the moon by the end of 2024.

NASA shakes up moon program management

July 11, 2019

In a major shakeup at NASA Headquarters, agency Administrator Jim Bridenstine said Wednesday that Bill Gerstenmaier, the widely respected director of human spaceflight, has been replaced in the midst of an ambitious push to meet the Trump administration’s directive to send astronauts back to the moon within five years.

Soyuz lands in Kazakhstan with international crew

June 25, 2019

A Russian cosmonaut, his Canadian co-pilot and a NASA flight engineer boarded their Soyuz spacecraft, undocked from the International Space Station and plunged back to Earth Monday evening, landing on the balmy steppe of Kazakhstan to close out an action-packed 204-day mission.

American, Canadian, Russian space station fliers set for return to Earth

June 24, 2019

A Russian cosmonaut, his Canadian co-pilot and a NASA flight engineer packed their Soyuz spacecraft for departure from the International Space Station Monday night, targeting a landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan to close out an action-packed 204-day mission.

Trump criticizes NASA over his own administration’s moon program

June 7, 2019

In a head-spinning tweet, President Trump blasted NASA on Friday for its plan to return to the moon, a plan set in motion during a 2017 White House ceremony he presided over, and forcefully endorsed in March on the president’s behalf by Vice President Mike Pence, chairman of the revitalized National Space Council.