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SpaceX aborts Starhopper test flight, could try again Tuesday
SpaceX aborted an attempted flight Monday of the company's Starhopper test rocket, a prototype for the company's next-generation Starship vehicle. The hop test was to fly to a height of around 500 feet (150 meters) over SpaceX's launch site at Boca Chica, Texas.
NASA directs Alabama space center to manage lunar lander program
Despite protests from Texas lawmakers, NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., will manage the agency's plans to build a lunar landing system that will carry the next man and the first woman to the surface of the moon in 2024, agency Administrator Jim Bridenstine announced Friday.
NASA opts to go ahead with full-duration SLS core stage test-firing
After considering canceling a planned full-duration test-firing of the Space Launch System's core stage in Mississippi ahead of the heavy-lift rocket's first flight, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine announced this week that the agency will press ahead with the test next year, citing safety and reliability benefits for future astronauts riding on the launcher on missions to the moon.
SpaceX’s Starship prototype aces first untethered hop test
An early test model of SpaceX's Starship vehicle, which billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk says will carry people and cargo to the moon and Mars, briefly left the ground on its first untethered test flight Thursday night powered by the company's new methane-fueled Raptor engine.
NASA taps Northrop Grumman in sole-source agreement to build Gateway habitat
Racing against the clock to meet the Trump administration's 2024 deadline to land astronauts on the moon, NASA plans to select Northrop Grumman to build a pressurized habitation module derived from the company's Cygnus cargo craft for living quarters for crews transiting to and from the lunar surface.
First moon-bound Orion crew capsule declared complete, major tests remain
Teams working at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida last week connected a U.S.-built Orion crew module with its European-made power and propulsion element for the first time, a significant accomplishment ahead of the spacecraft's shipment to Ohio this fall for testing inside the world's largest vacuum chamber.
Pence delivers a promise, and a warning, to NASA and its contractors
Despite appearances and a presidential tweet suggesting otherwise, the United States is "100%" committed to sending astronauts back to the moon in 2024 and establishing a long-term, sustainable presence there as a stepping stone to eventual piloted flights to Mars, Vice President Mike Pence said in an interview with CBS News.
Soyuz crew docks with space station; Pence reaffirms commitment to moon missions
Fifty years to the day after Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the moon, a NASA astronaut, an Italian flight engineer and a Russian commander blasted off from Kazakhstan Saturday aboard a Soyuz spacecraft, chased down the International Space Station and glided in for a picture-perfect docking.
NASA boss pleads for funding to ensure 2024 moon landing
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told a Senate panel Wednesday that a budget impasse and subsequent spending freeze later this year would be "devastating" to the agency's goal of sending the first woman and next man to the moon by the end of 2024.
Final assembly and test milestones on tap for NASA’s first Orion moon ship
The pressurized crew module and European-built service module for NASA's first Orion spacecraft to travel to the moon will be joined together for the first time in the coming weeks at the Kennedy Space Center, with preparations -- at least for Orion -- on a pace to be ready for launch on an unpiloted test flight next year.