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VideoNASA chooses SpaceX to land next astronauts on the Moon
NASA has selected SpaceX to build a spacecraft to land the first astronauts on the moon since 1972, choosing Elon Musk's space company over competing proposals from Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin and the aerospace firm Dynetics, officials announced Friday.
VideoLive coverage: Soyuz crew lands in Kazakhstan
Russian commander Sergey Ryzhikov, flight engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, and NASA astronaut Kate Rubins climbed into their Soyuz landing craft and undocked from the International Space Station at 9:34 p.m. EDT Friday (0134 GMT Saturday). The trio touched down on the barren steppes of Kazakhstan at 12:56 a.m. EDT (0456 GMT) to wrap up six months in orbit.
VideoWatch a live view of the Falcon 9 rocket on the launch pad
Bad weather offshore has forced SpaceX and NASA to delay Thursday's planned launch of the Crew Dragon by a day. Better conditions are expected on Friday for a 5:49 a.m. EDT (0949 GMT) liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center.
VideoLive coverage: Soyuz launches with next space station crew
Veteran Russian commander Oleg Novitskiy, rookie flight engineer Pyotr Dubrov, and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei launched into orbit Friday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 3:42 a.m. EDT (0742 GMT). The crew members rode a Soyuz capsule in pursuit of the International Space Station, where docking occurred at 7:05 a.m. EDT (1105 GMT).
VideoLive coverage: SpaceX crew capsule moves to new space station docking port
Four astronauts strapped into their SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft Monday and rode along for an automated maneuver to relocate the capsule to a different docking port outside the International Space Station. The relocation maneuver, which concluded with a link-up with the new docking port 7:08 a.m. EDT (1108 GMT), was the first of its kind for a Crew Dragon spacecraft.
VideoLive coverage: Rocket Lab launches small satellites from New Zealand
Rocket Lab's second mission of 2021 lifted off at 6:30 p.m. EDT (2230 GMT) Monday from New Zealand carrying six small satellites for customers in Australia and the United States, along with a test platform for a NASA small satellite mission to the moon launching later this year.
VideoLive coverage: NASA completes eight-minute Space Launch System hot fire test
NASA fired up four hydrogen-fueled main engines on the core stage of the first Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket Thursday in on a test stand in Mississippi, a redo of a crucial hot fire test that was cut short in January by technical issues. The engines burned more than eight minutes in an apparently successful test.
VideoLive coverage: Space Station cargo mission arrives at destination
The 15th resupply mission to the International Space Station by a Cygnus cargo freighter lifted off at 12:36 p.m. EST (1736 GMT) Saturday aboard an Antares rocket from Wallops Island, Virginia. The Northrop Grumman-owned spacecraft is carrying more than 8,000 pounds of experiments and provisions for the space station and its seven-person crew. Capture by the station's robotic arm occurred at 4:38 a.m. EST (0938 GMT) Monday.
VideoRussian space station cargo freighter moved to launch pad in Kazakhstan
The Russian Progress MS-16 cargo freighter rolled out to its launch pad Friday at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, its final stop before blastoff Sunday night with more than 5,000 pounds of fuel, food, and water for the International Space Station.
VideoLive coverage: SLS core stage engines shut down early during critical hotfire test
A critical test-firing of the Space Launch System's core stage engines cut off about a minute into a planned eight-minute burn Saturday on a test stand at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. The rocket's four engines ignited at 5:27 p.m. EST (2227 GMT) for a test that was to pave the way for the core stage's shipment to the Kennedy Space Center for launch preparations.