
Orion


NASA lays out $28 billion plan to return astronauts to the moon in 2024
NASA officials released a nearly five-year, $28 billion plan Monday to return astronauts to the surface of the moon before the end of 2024, but the agency’s administrator said the “aggressive” timeline set by the Trump administration last year hinges on Congress approving $3.2 billion in the next few months to kick-start development of new human-rated lunar landers.

Penultimate piece of NASA’s first SLS rocket arrives at Kennedy Space Center
One of the final pieces for the first test flight of NASA’s huge Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket recently arrived at the Kennedy Space Center, joining other elements already at the Florida spaceport awaiting shipment of the SLS core stage once it completes testing at a NASA facility in Mississippi.





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.


Back in Florida, Orion capsule nears readiness for Artemis test flight
The Orion spacecraft slated to fly around the moon on an unpiloted mission next year has arrived back at the Kennedy Space Center following an environmental test campaign in Ohio, ready for a series of final checkouts before officials pause launch preparations this summer to await readiness of NASA’s Space Launch System.