Astrophysics – Page 3 – Spaceflight Now

Q&A with Sara Seager, deputy director of science on NASA’s TESS mission (members only)

April 15, 2018

Sara Seager is an astrophysicist and planetary scientist at MIT, and she serves as deputy science director on NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, which aims to find planets around stars relatively close to the sun, searching for worlds that are ideal follow-up targets for missions like the James Webb Space Telescope.

Q&A with George Ricker, principal investigator for the TESS mission (members only)

April 14, 2018

George Ricker, an astronomer and pioneer in space imaging sensor ships at MIT, leads the science team for NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite.

SpaceX rocket test-fired at Cape Canaveral for NASA telescope launch

April 11, 2018

SpaceX’s launch team loaded super-chilled liquid propellants into a two-stage Falcon 9 rocket Wednesday and fired the booster’s nine first stage engines at Cape Canaveral, marching toward liftoff Monday with a NASA observatory built to find planets around other stars in our galactic neighborhood.

Webb telescope’s launch delayed until 2020

March 27, 2018

Blaming a slew of technical snags and “avoidable errors,” NASA officials said Tuesday that the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, already years behind schedule, will be delayed to 2020, potentially pushing the mission’s development cost above an $8 billion cap mandated by Congress.

Space Launch System, planetary exploration get big boosts in NASA budget

March 23, 2018

NASA’s planned rocket to send humans back to the moon and the agency’s solar system exploration program were big winners in a $20.7 billion budget passed by Congress and signed by President Trump on Friday.

Exoplanet telescope selected as ESA’s next space science mission

March 22, 2018

A mission to investigate the atmospheres of planets around other stars has been selected by the European Space Agency for launch in the late 2020s, officials announced this week.

Exoplanet-hunting satellite arrives in Florida for April launch

February 16, 2018

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite has arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for final testing, fueling and attachment to a Falcon 9 launcher for liftoff in mid-April, a delay of nearly one month to allow SpaceX additional time to prepare the rocket for the mission.

Trump budget aims to kick-start lunar exploration, cancels space telescope

February 12, 2018

The White House’s $19.9 billion NASA budget outline released Monday would continue development of NASA’s heavy-lift Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule and begin the deployment of a mini-space station around the moon as soon as 2022, but the proposal would cancel WFIRST, a flagship-class astronomy mission planned for launch in the mid-2020s.

James Webb Space Telescope completes critical end-to-end test

January 15, 2018

NASA’s $8.8 billion James Webb Space Telescope has completed critical end-to-end testing in a giant vacuum chamber at the Johnson Space Center, proving the telescope will work properly in the deep cold of space, bring starlight to a sharp focus and precisely track its astronomical targets when launched in 2019.

Jupiter’s moons, black holes, exoplanets among JWST’s first scientific targets

December 4, 2017

The James Webb Space Telescope should start returning its first scientific results by the end of 2019, and scientists recently announced a slate of observations selected to whet the appetites of astronomers who will use the multibillion-dollar facility well into the 2020s.