William Harwood – Page 55 – Spaceflight Now

Falcon 9 rocket destroyed in launch mishap

June 28, 2015 William Harwood

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon cargo ship loaded with more than 4,000 pounds of supplies and equipment bound for the International Space Station — including a critical docking adapter needed by future U.S. crew ships — broke apart in a shower of debris shortly after launch Sunday.

Shuttle memorial honors crews, orbiters

June 27, 2015 William Harwood

In the first memorial of its kind, NASA and the families of the 14 men and women who lost their lives aboard the shuttle Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003 have joined together to remember the astronauts with pictures, personal mementos and, in an emotional first, iconic wreckage from both orbiters.

New Horizons in good shape approaching Pluto

June 23, 2015 William Harwood

Now just three weeks from its historic flyby of Pluto, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is close enough to detect objects smaller and dimmer than the dwarf planet’s smallest known moon and so far, nothing has been spotted that would pose a threat to the probe as it barrels through the system at more than 30,000 mph, scientists said Tuesday.

Comet lander wakes up!

June 14, 2015 William Harwood

The European Philae comet lander, out of power and presumably lost after bouncing into heavily shadowed terrain last November, phoned home Saturday after finally getting enough sunlight on its solar panels to transmit data to the Rosetta orbiter for relay to Earth.

Jack King, ‘Voice of NASA,’ dies at 84

June 11, 2015 William Harwood

John W. “Jack” King, the calm, reassuring “Voice of NASA” who held the world riveted as he counted down the final seconds of the Apollo 11 launch to the moon, died Thursday after a long illness. He was 84.

U.S.-Russian-Italian crew returns to Earth

June 11, 2015 William Harwood

A Russian cosmonaut, a NASA astronaut and an Italian wrapping up her first space flight boarded a Russian Soyuz ferry craft early Thursday, undocked from the International Space Station and plunged back to Earth, landing safely on the steppe of Kazakhstan to close out an extended 200-day mission.

Three station fliers set for return to Earth

June 10, 2015 William Harwood

Three space station crew members packed up for a fiery return to Earth Thursday, wrapping up a nearly 200-day mission that was extended one month at the last minute because of a Russian rocket failure in April that threw a wrench into the lab’s crew rotation schedule.

Huge parachute shredded during Mars entry experiment

June 8, 2015 William Harwood

Flying more than twice the speed of sound 34 miles above Hawaii, a flying saucer-shaped test vehicle successfully inflated a doughnut-like airbrake, technology needed to slow heavy payloads down during descent to Mars, but a parachute ripped apart in the $230 million program’s second straight failure.

Hubble shows Pluto’s moons don’t know which end is up

June 3, 2015 William Harwood

As NASA’s New Horizons probe closes in on Pluto, the Hubble Space telescope has been scouting its retinue of five known moons, discovering that at least two are tumbling chaotically in the complex gravity of the dwarf planet and its large moon, Charon, researchers said Wednesday.

NASA marks 50th anniversary of first spacewalk

June 3, 2015 William Harwood

Two-and-a-half months after cosmonaut Alexey Leonov became the first human to walk in space, NASA astronaut Ed White floated out of his cramped Gemini 4 capsule 50 years ago Wednesday to become the first American spacewalker.