NASA – Page 18 – Spaceflight Now

Cargo Dragon docks at space station

June 6, 2023 William Harwood

Closing out an automated 18-hour rendezvous, a SpaceX Dragon cargo ship loaded with 7,000 pounds of supplies and equipment, including two add-on roll-out solar blankets, caught up with the International Space Station early Tuesday and moved in for a problem-free docking.

SpaceX launch sends upgraded solar arrays to International Space Station

June 5, 2023 Stephen Clark

SpaceX’s 28th resupply mission to the International Space Station lifted off Monday from the Kennedy Space Center, carrying new solar arrays, fresh food, and experiments to sustain research and upgrade the power system on the orbiting laboratory.

Third set of upgraded solar arrays ready for ride to International Space Station

June 2, 2023 Stephen Clark

Two more roll-out solar arrays will ride a SpaceX cargo ship to the International Space Station this weekend, continuing a years-long mid-life station upgrade as NASA plans procurement of a final set of new solar wings to fully reinforce the lab’s power supply.

Technical snags force another delay for Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule

June 1, 2023 Stephen Clark

Boeing and NASA officials said Thursday the first launch of astronauts on Boeing’s delay-prone Starliner crew capsule won’t happen in July after engineers recently discovered a problem with the spacecraft’s parachute system and identified flammable tape around wiring harnesses inside the vehicle.

NASA awards Blue Origin $3.4 billion Artemis moon lander contract

May 19, 2023 William Harwood

Blue Origin, the rocket company owned by Amazon-founder Jeff Bezos, has won a $3.4 billion NASA contract to build an Artemis lunar lander that will provide a downstream alternative to the Starship variant already being developed by SpaceX, the agency announced Friday.

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter has now flown more than 50 times

April 27, 2023 Clive Simpson

NASA’s pioneering Mars helicopter Ingenuity continues to outperform its design specifications, having now notched up more than 50 record-breaking forays across the Red Planet’s surface, 10 times as many flights as originally planned for.

How SpaceX’s Starship stacks up to other rockets

April 17, 2023 Clive Simpson

SpaceX Starship is set to propel itself into the record books today on its maiden flight, becoming the tallest, heaviest and most powerful rocket ever launched by humankind into space, topping a role call of famous and history-making heavy-lift launch vehicles including the mighty Saturn 5 that first took humans to the moon.

SpaceX launches Intelsat satellite with NASA air quality sensor

April 6, 2023 Stephen Clark

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral shortly after midnight Friday with Intelsat 40e, a communications satellite destined to beam broadband internet signals to airplane and cruise ship passengers across North America while hosting a NASA instrument package to monitor air pollution.

NASA air quality sensor ready for launch with Intelsat satellite

April 5, 2023 Stephen Clark

A $210 million NASA mission to improve air pollution monitoring over North America is set to launch Thursday with an Intelsat communications satellite blasting off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral.

Artemis 2 commander chats with Spaceflight Now

April 3, 2023 Stephen Clark

Reid Wiseman, a veteran U.S. Navy test pilot and former chief of NASA’s astronaut corps, will lead the four-person crew assigned to the Artemis 2 mission to carry people to the vicinity of the moon for the first time in more than 50 years. Wiseman says he views the crew’s job as making sure NASA’s Orion spacecraft is ready for more demanding missions later this decade to support moon landings and assembly of a space station called the Gateway in lunar orbit.