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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.
NASA shakes up moon program management
In a major shakeup at NASA Headquarters, agency Administrator Jim Bridenstine said Wednesday that Bill Gerstenmaier, the widely respected director of human spaceflight, has been replaced in the midst of an ambitious push to meet the Trump administration's directive to send astronauts back to the moon within five years.
Firefly to build U.S. version of Israeli Beresheet lunar lander
Firefly Aerospace, a Texas-based company which is already developing a small satellite launcher, has signed an agreement with Israel Aerospace Industries to build lunar landers in the United States and carry NASA science instruments to the moon, officials announced Tuesday.
Newly-released videos show SpaceX payload fairing coming back to Earth
New videos released Wednesday by SpaceX show the payload fairing from the company's Falcon Heavy rocket plunging back into the atmosphere after launch June 25, trailing a wake of haunting blue super-heated plasma before unfurling a parafoil and landing in the net of an offshore recovery ship.
Mars lander’s ground team begins inspection of stuck instrument
In a bit of interplanetary troubleshooting, the robot arm on NASA's InSight Mars lander has lifted a support structure to reveal an underground thermal probe that got stuck soon after it started hammering into the Red Planet's surface earlier this year.
More photos from SpaceX’s first Falcon Heavy night launch
The predawn launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center of a Falcon Heavy rocket June 25 was the first nighttime liftoff of SpaceX's heavy-lifter, the most powerful launcher currently operational anywhere in the world. The Falcon Heavy's two side boosters returned to Cape Canaveral less than nine minutes later.
SLS mobile launcher moves to pad 39B for final exams
A towering mobile platform for the agency's Space Launch System arrived at launch pad 39B Friday at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a sequence of water and propellant flow tests, swing arm checkouts and other rehearsals that should conclude with managers declaring the spaceport's ground systems ready to support the first SLS launch campaign by the end of the year.