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42 articles
Launch companies, range teams reassessing Cape Canaveral weather rules
Launch companies and U.S. Space Force range officials at Cape Canaveral are reassessing long-standing weather rules, looking at beefing up rocket defenses against lightning, and considering strategies to prepare for two different launch windows on a given day to guard against weather delays, something SpaceX may demonstrate with a Falcon 9 launch early Thursday.
Biden backs Artemis moon program; watchdog says it’ll cost $86 billion
The Biden administration supports continuing NASA’s Artemis program to return astronauts back to the moon, the White House said last week, without stating whether it will back away from the program’s already-in-doubt schedule for a lunar landing by the end of 2024.
SpaceX wins contract to launch first pieces of NASA’s Gateway lunar outpost
NASA announced Tuesday it has awarded SpaceX a $331 million contract to launch the first two pieces of the Gateway lunar outpost in 2024 using a modified version of the Falcon Heavy rocket to hurl the massive core of the deep space station toward the moon.
SpaceX test-fires Starship prototype with three engines
SpaceX fired three Raptor engines on a prototype of the company’s Starship vehicle Tuesday, accomplishing another milestone on the road toward testing of the methane-fueled rocket at higher altitudes.
NASA selects proposals to demonstrate in-space refueling and propellant depot tech
NASA has selected 14 companies for contracts of more than $370 million to advance technology for human missions to the moon and Mars. Most of the money will support flight demonstrations by SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, and other companies that could lead to in-space refueling and propellant depots for reusable lunar landers and deep space transportation vehicles.
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.
Elon Musk offers update on SpaceX’s Starship mega-rocket
SpaceX founder Elon Musk detailed progress on the company's next-generation Starship program Monday, saying the huge rocket could "probably" attempt its first launch into Earth orbit next year, and adding that the Starship will fly hundreds of missions before SpaceX puts people on-board.
ULA, SpaceX win landmark multibillion-dollar launch agreements with Pentagon
United Launch Alliance and SpaceX beat out Northrop Grumman and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin for billions of dollars in U.S. military rocket contracts, and will share the load in launching the Pentagon's highest-priority national security space missions through 2027, officials announced Friday.
NASA signs Gateway habitat design contract with Northrop Grumman
NASA has signed a $187 million contract with Northrop Grumman to complete the preliminary design of a pressurized crew habitat for the planned Gateway mini-space station near the moon, and agency officials have discussed new details about plans to launch first two Gateway modules on a single heavy-lift rocket.
NASA’s chief of human spaceflight resigns on cusp of critical crew launch
The head of NASA's human spaceflight programs has abruptly resigned, announcing his departure from the space agency two days before before he was to chair a crucial readiness review ahead of the launch of the first crewed U.S. space mission in nearly a decade.