NASA – Page 51 – Spaceflight Now

DSCOVR resumes operations after eight-month outage

March 5, 2020 Stephen Clark

The Deep Space Climate Observatory has resumed regular observations after NOAA and NASA engineers uplinked a software patch to the spacecraft a million miles from Earth, restoring data on space weather and a daily series views of the sunlit side of our home planet.

NASA taps SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket to launch mission to metal asteroid

March 4, 2020 Stephen Clark

NASA has selected SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket to launch a robotic mission in July 2022 to explore Psyche, a metal-rich asteroid located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The Psyche probe is NASA’s first mission assigned to fly on SpaceX’s heavy-lift launcher.

SpaceX test-fires rocket, preps for final flight of first-generation Dragon capsule

March 2, 2020 Stephen Clark

The Falcon 9 booster for SpaceX’s next mission fired up briefly on a Cape Canaveral launch pad Sunday in a routine pre-flight test before a scheduled launch Friday night to kick off the final flight of the first version of the company’s Dragon cargo capsule to the International Space Station.

Boeing says thorough testing would have caught Starliner software problems

February 28, 2020 Stephen Clark

The program manager in charge of Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule program said Friday that additional checks would have uncovered problems with the spaceship’s software that plagued the craft’s first unpiloted orbital test flight in December, but he pushed back against suggestions that Boeing engineers took shortcuts during ground testing.

SpaceX swaps upper stage for next Falcon 9 launch

February 26, 2020 Stephen Clark

SpaceX is targeting launches March 6 and March 11 for its next two missions after swapping an upper stage for its next Falcon 9 rocket with another stage already being readied for liftoff at Cape Canaveral.

NASA’s InSight mission shows Mars is a seismically active world

February 26, 2020 Stephen Clark

While one of its two science instruments remains sidelined, NASA’s InSight probe has proven Mars is seismically active through the detection of hundreds of quakes, some of which can be traced to a volcanic region nearly 1,000 miles away.

Phobos sample return mission enters development for 2024 launch

February 20, 2020 Stephen Clark

Japan’s space agency has approved a robotic mission to retrieve a sample from the Martian moon Phobos for return to Earth to begin full development for a planned launch in 2024, officials said Thursday.

Photos: Antares rocket lifts off with station-bound Cygnus supply ship

February 19, 2020 Stephen Clark

Powered by two Russian-made RD-181 main engines, a Northrop Grumman Antares rocket fired into a mostly sunny sky Saturday afternoon over Virginia’s Eastern Shore carrying nearly 7,500 pounds of equipment to the International Space Station.

Cygnus freighter delivers new British-made antenna to International Space Station

February 18, 2020 Stephen Clark

A commercial Cygnus cargo freighter arrived at the International Space Station Tuesday two-and-a-half days after launching from Virginia’s Eastern Shore, delivering a new British-made high-speed communications antenna and more than 7,000 pounds of other experiments and equipment.

Antares rocket lifts off from Virginia on space station cargo mission

February 15, 2020 Stephen Clark

A twin-engine Northrop Grumman Antares rocket climbed into orbit Saturday from Virginia’s Eastern Shore carrying a Cygnus supply ship bound for the International Space Station with a compact electron microscope, a flame combustion experiment, a range of biological investigations, fresh cheese, fruit and vegetables for the research lab’s three-person crew.