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VideoExoMars rover leaves British factory, heads for testing in France
The European Space Agency's ExoMars rover left its Airbus factory in Britain on Wednesday, heading for a round of testing in France before integration with its carrier and descent modules on pace for launch toward the Red Planet next July.
SpaceX launches Starship “hopper” on dramatic test flight
SpaceX launched its sub-scale Starship "hopper" spacecraft on a brief unpiloted up-and-down test flight at the company's Boca Chica, Texas, test facility Tuesday, a dramatic demonstration of rocket technology intended to pave the way to a new, more powerful heavy lift booster and, eventually, crew-carrying interplanetary spacecraft.
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.
Astrobotic lunar lander to launch on ULA’s first Vulcan rocket
Astrobotic, a Pittsburgh-based company developing a robotic lunar lander, will launch its first moon mission under contract to NASA on the debut flight of United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur rocket in 2021, officials announced Monday.
Chandrayaan 2 arrives in lunar orbit, targets moon landing next month
India's Chandrayaan 2 spacecraft braked into orbit around the moon Tuesday, positioning the robotic science mission for a landing in the moon's south pole region Sept. 6.
ExoMars parachute failures could jeopardize 2020 launch date
The European Space Agency has confirmed a parachute for the ExoMars rover mission set for launch next July failed during a test over Sweden earlier this month, the project's second parachute test accident since May.
NASA’s first interplanetary smallsats may struggle to stay under cost caps
The first set of proposals for a new class of small robotic probes NASA wants to dispatch across the solar system came in with higher cost estimates than agency officials expected, a NASA manager said Sunday.
VideoMars 2020 rover on track for launch next July
The launch of NASA's Mars 2020 rover is less than a year away, and the steady pace of work inside the craft's pristine assembly hall in California is keeping the mission on schedule for liftoff from Cape Canaveral next July, despite growing costs, according to mission managers.
NASA terminates lunar lander contract with OrbitBeyond
NASA has terminated a $97 million contract with OrbitBeyond, a New Jersey-based company with plans to build robotic moon landers in Florida, just two months after announcing an agreement to send science instruments to the lunar surface as soon as next year.
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.