NASA – Page 81 – Spaceflight Now

Take an aerial 4K video tour of the Crew Dragon atop Falcon 9

February 26, 2019 Spaceflight Now

Take an aerial 4K video tour of the Crew Dragon atop the Falcon 9 rocket on launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center during earlier pre-launch testing.

NASA, SpaceX clear Crew Dragon for critical March 2 test flight

February 23, 2019 William Harwood

NASA managers held a flight readiness review Friday and cleared SpaceX to press ahead with work to ready a Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon commercial ferry ship for launch March 2 on an unpiloted test flight to the International Space Station.

Israeli moon lander prepared for launch

February 21, 2019 Stephen Clark

The privately-funded Israeli Beresheet lunar lander is ready for its historic mission to the moon, aiming to become the first space probe to land on another planetary body without government funding.

New Horizons finds Ultima Thule has an unexpected, flattened shape

February 20, 2019 Stephen Clark

Images taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft when it flew by an object the size of a large metropolitan area at the frontier of the solar system Jan. 1 have revealed the miniature world has a more flattened shape than the flyby’s initial pictures suggested.

NASA orbiter spots Chinese lander on the moon

February 18, 2019 Stephen Clark

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has spotted China’s Chang’e 4 lander and rover on the far side of the moon in new images, as the Chinese robots explore the floor of Von Kármán crater.

SpaceX files protest of NASA’s Lucy launch contract awarded to ULA

February 15, 2019 Stephen Clark

SpaceX has filed a protest challenging a nearly $150 million NASA contract awarded to United Launch Alliance last month to send a robotic asteroid probe into space.

NASA declares Opportunity rover dead after 15 years on Mars

February 13, 2019 Stephen Clark

Eight months after last hearing from the Opportunity rover, NASA officials announced the end of the craft’s 15-year mission Wednesday, closing out an ambitious chapter of Mars exploration that proved the Red Planet once harbored running water and demonstrated the promise of mobile robotic scouts to survey other worlds.

CubeSat deployed from space station to test sample return technology

February 13, 2019 Stephen Clark

One of five CubeSats deployed from the International Space Station last month is testing a steerable drag brake that could find use in future smallsats to return experiment samples to the ground from low Earth orbit, or on low-cost micro-probes to explore other planets.

NASA’s first interplanetary CubeSats fall silent beyond Mars

February 6, 2019 Stephen Clark

After a successful mission that pushed the limits of small satellite technology, ground controllers have lost contact with two briefcase-sized CubeSats beyond Mars, NASA said Tuesday.

First unpiloted test flight of SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule reset for March 2

February 6, 2019 William Harwood

As expected, NASA announced Wednesday that the first unpiloted test flight of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and a Crew Dragon astronaut ferry ship has slipped from later this month to March 2. The first unpiloted flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule is now targeted for the April timeframe.