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SpaceX aces last Dragon parachute test before crew launch
SpaceX completed Friday the last drop test of the Dragon crew capsule's parachutes before the first launch of astronauts on the human-rated ship May 27, while technicians at Cape Canaveral have mated the spacecraft's crew module with its unpressurized trunk section.
NASA identifies risks in SpaceX’s Starship lunar lander proposal
SpaceX's proposal to land astronauts on the moon using the company's reusable Starship vehicle could be "game-changing" for space exploration, but comes with risks and complexity that "threaten the schedule viability" to achieve NASA's goal of returning crews moon by the end of 2024, agency officials said.
Companies release new details on human-rated lunar lander concepts
The next time astronauts land on the moon, they will ride to the lunar surface in a spacecraft that looks a lot different than the Apollo-era landing module last used in 1972. Lander concepts proposed by SpaceX, Blue Origin and Dynetics -- which won a combined $967 million in NASA funding Thursday -- take wildly different approaches to carrying crews to the moon.
Blue Origin wins lion’s share of NASA funding for human-rated lunar lander
NASA has selected Blue Origin, Dynetics and SpaceX to move forward with development of human-rated lunar landers, committing nearly $1 billion in funding for a range of moonship concepts that include a variant of SpaceX's next-generation Starship vehicle, officials announced Thursday.
Citing coronavirus, NASA urges public not to travel for launch of astronauts
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine on Thursday urged space enthusiasts not to travel to the Kennedy Space Center next month to view the first launch of astronauts from the Florida spaceport since 2011, and asked people to instead watch the launch on television or online.
Photos: Space station crew back on Earth
A scaled-down team of technicians and medical personnel -- wearing facial masks as a precaution against the global coronavirus pandemic -- met a three-person space station crew on the steppes of Kazakhstan Friday after their landing aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
NASA, SpaceX set May 27 as target date for first crew launch
Nearly a decade in the making, NASA and SpaceX have set May 27 as the target launch date for the first crewed space mission to launch into orbit from U.S. soil since the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011.
Soyuz with crew of three lands safely in Kazakhstan
A Russian cosmonaut and his two NASA crewmates undocked from the International Space Station and landed in Kazakhstan early Friday, returning to an unfamiliar world in the grip of a pandemic that will force them to extend the social isolation they were hoping to end.
VideoLive coverage: Station crew lands in Kazakhstan
A Soyuz spacecraft undocked from the International Space Station on Thursday to bring home NASA flight engineer Jessica Meir, astronaut Andrew Morgan and Russian commander Oleg Skripochka. The Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft departed the station at 9:53 p.m. Thursday (0153 GMT Friday) and landed on the steppes of Kazakhstan at 1:16 a.m. EDT (0516 GMT).
NASA awards robotic lunar landing contract to Masten Space Systems
NASA has awarded Masten Space Systems, a small company based in Mojave, California, a $75.9 million contract to deliver nine science and technology instruments to the moon's south pole in 2022 with its XL-1 robotic lunar lander.