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Blue Origin completes successful suborbital space shot
Blue Origin launched its New Shepard suborbital rocket to the edge of space Tuesday from the company's remote desert test site in West Texas on an experimental flight to test precision lunar landing technology for NASA.
VideoCrucial first fueling test on tap for SLS core stage later this month
If all goes according to plan, engineers in southern Mississippi later this month will load cryogenic propellants into the core stage of a rocket NASA says will launch astronauts back to the moon, exposing its tankage and internal plumbing to extreme operating conditions hundreds of degrees below zero for the first time. The fueling test -- a major milestone in its own right -- is a precursor to a high-stakes eight-minute test-firing of the Space Launch System's four shuttle-era main engines planned as soon as November.
NASA lays out $28 billion plan to return astronauts to the moon in 2024
NASA officials released a nearly five-year, $28 billion plan Monday to return astronauts to the surface of the moon before the end of 2024, but the agency's administrator said the "aggressive" timeline set by the Trump administration last year hinges on Congress approving $3.2 billion in the next few months to kick-start development of new human-rated lunar landers.
NASA challenges companies to mine lunar soil
NASA announced Thursday it plans to purchase lunar soil from a commercial company, an effort the agency's top official said is intended to set a precedent for the transfer of ownership of extraterrestrial material and stimulate a market harvesting resources from bodies throughout the solar system.
SLS booster test-fired in Utah
Northrop Grumman test-fired a five-segment solid-fueled booster for NASA's Space Launch System Wednesday at the company's test facility in Promontory, Utah.
Penultimate piece of NASA’s first SLS rocket arrives at Kennedy Space Center
One of the final pieces for the first test flight of NASA's huge Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket recently arrived at the Kennedy Space Center, joining other elements already at the Florida spaceport awaiting shipment of the SLS core stage once it completes testing at a NASA facility in Mississippi.
NASA chief still hopeful to get more money for moon landing effort
House lawmakers this week proposed to fund NASA's human-rated lunar lander development program at less than one-fifth of the level the Trump administration wanted, but NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said Wednesday the House budget bill is just the "opening salvo" in an appropriations process that now goes to the Senate.
VideoSLS booster segments arrive in Florida, but stacking on hold until core stage test
Fueled segments of the solid rocket boosters that will lift off on the first flight of NASA's Space Launch System have arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, but officials will hold off on stacking the boosters until the SLS core stage completes a crucial test-firing later this year.
New NASA spaceflight chief makes no guarantees about 2024 moon landing goal
Kathy Lueders, NASA's newly appointed head of human spaceflight operations, said Thursday that without a crystal ball, she could not give a yes-or-no answer when asked whether she believes NASA can put astronauts back on the moon by the end of 2024 as called for by the Trump administration.
Kathy Lueders named NASA chief of human spaceflight
Two weeks after the successful launch of two astronauts to the International Space Station, the director of NASA's Commercial Crew Program has been promoted to chief of the agency's human spaceflight directorate, a portfolio that includes the Artemis moon program, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine announced Friday.