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VideoBezos’ Blue Origin completes first test flight of ‘New Shepard’ spacecraft
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.
VideoRussia gives up on Progress supply ship docking
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.
VideoRussians scramble to restore cargo ship communications
A Russian Progress supply ship loaded with more than 3 tons of supplies and equipment bound for the International Space Station apparently spun out of control shortly after reaching orbit Tuesday, putting the resupply mission in jeopardy while flight controllers scrambled to come up with a fix.
Astronomers hopeful Hubble will make it to 30th anniversary
More than five years after a final shuttle servicing mission -- and a quarter of a century since its launch in April 1990 -- the Hubble Space Telescope is operating in near flawless fashion, and engineers are optimistic the observatory will remain on the forefront of astronomy at least through 2020.
Fixing Hubble’s blurry vision
The second report in our series marking the 25th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope's launch looks at the observatory's flawed mirror and the Herculean effort to fix it.
Hubble Space Telescope marks 25 years in orbit
Suspension of disbelief has been called for time and again throughout Hubble's history, starting with its launch 25 years ago April 24, the discovery of its famously flawed mirror, the MacGyver-like repairs by spacewalking astronauts and its subsequent rise from the ashes of disaster to the pinnacle of scientific success.
Blue Origin’s sub-orbital ‘New Shepard’ poised for test flights
Blue Origin, the historically secretive rocket company owned by Amazon-founder Jeff Bezos, has completed development of a new hydrogen-fueled engine and plans to begin unmanned test flights of its reusable New Shepard sub-orbital spacecraft later this year, company officials said Tuesday.
Kelly settling in aboard space station
Astronaut Scott Kelly, settling in aboard the International Space Station for a marathon 342-day stay in orbit, said Monday he is looking forward to serving as a test subject for medical research on the long-duration effects of weightlessness, data he said would help pave the way for eventual flights to Mars.
Space station crewmen head off on 342-day mission
A workhorse Soyuz booster thundered to life and climbed into a dark Kazakh sky Friday, carrying NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko on a four-orbit voyage to the International Space Station to kick off a marathon 342-day mission, the longest flight ever attempted by an American.
Kelly, Kornienko braced for marathon mission
Shuttle veteran Scott Kelly first heard about NASA's plans to send an astronaut to the International Space Station for nearly a full year shortly after he completed his third space flight in 2011, a 159-day stay aboard the orbital lab complex.