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Europe’s ATV space freighter bids final goodbye to space station
Europe's fifth and final Automated Transfer Vehicle departed the International Space Station for the last time Saturday, closing out one of the European Space Agency's flagship programs as the bus-sized spaceship heads for a destructive re-entry Sunday.
Europe’s last ATV set to depart from space station
A European supply freighter is set to undock from the International Space Station on Saturday, heading for a destructive dive into Earth's atmosphere about 30 hours later after a power system failure forced the cancellation of an experiment to observe the dynamics of the re-entry of a large spacecraft.
Commercial Dragon supply ship returns to Earth
SpaceX's Dragon supply ship wrapped up a 29-day stay at the International Space Station on Tuesday, departing the complex with nearly 3,700 pounds of research specimens, a balky spacesuit and experimental 3D printed parts before re-entering the atmosphere and splashing down in the Pacific Ocean.
VideoVideo: SpaceX Dragon departs space station
The SpaceX Dragon capsule is released from the International Space Station's robotic arm to fly home Tuesday.
NASA presses Congress for more commercial crew funding
The Obama administration has requested more than $1.2 billion from congressional appropriators next year to meet NASA's funding commitments for Boeing and SpaceX's commercial crew ferry spacecraft, and anything less could delay flights of the capsules past 2017.
SpaceX nears pad abort test for human-rated Dragon capsule
SpaceX is finishing up preparations for a major test of a rocket-powered abort system for the company's new Dragon crew ferry spacecraft, targeting launch from Cape Canaveral in March after a pair of Falcon 9 missions in February.
SpaceX confirms first Crew Dragon flights will return to ocean landings
The human-rated Crew Dragon spacecraft being developed by SpaceX will return to Earth under parachutes for splashdowns in ocean, and not execute helicopter-like propulsive touchdowns on land, a SpaceX official confirmed Monday.
Boeing, SpaceX on track for commercial crew flights to station in 2017
NASA expects to spend some $5 billion underwriting development of commercial spacecraft built by Boeing and SpaceX to carry astronauts to and from the space station, ending reliance on the Russians for crew flights and lowering the average cost per seat to around $58 million.
VideoVideo: CATS out of the bag
The CATS payload launched to the International Space Station aboard the most recent SpaceX Dragon cargo craft was installed onto the exterior of the lab complex this week.
NASA outlines why it passed over Sierra Nevada
NASA cited the complexity of Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser space plane and an uncertainty of when the proposed crew transport craft would be ready to fly astronauts to the International Space Station as the primary reasons the agency picked Boeing and SpaceX for lucrative contracts to develop commercial space taxis.