NASA on Aug. 25 was on track to begin the two-day launch countdown for its first Space Launch System rocket, leading to a launch attempt at 8:33 a.m. EDT on Aug. 29 from Kennedy Space Center.
Boeing is aiming to launch its third CST-100 Starliner spacecraft—this time with a pair of NASA astronauts aboard—in about six months, managers told reporters on Aug. 25.
Amid growing orbital threats from China and Russia, U.S. Space Command is calling on industry for innovative solutions to form a global space domain awareness sensor network that will be interoperable with systems used by international allies.
NASA has chosen three companies to continue the development and environmental testing of prototype vertical solar arrays that could be positioned at the Moon’s south pole to provide electrical power for a range of future human and robotic operations.
Following an 11-hr. flight readiness review, NASA on Aug. 22 cleared the first Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft for a launch on the kickoff mission of the Artemis program, a U.S.-led initiative to establish a permanent human presence in deep space.
Startup Relativity Space successfully completed a full-duration, 20-sec. test run of its Terran 1 rocket with its nine first-stage Aeon liquid oxygen/liquid natural gas engines at Cape Canaveral on Aug. 22, clearing a major hurdle toward a planned debut launch attempt in the coming weeks or months.
Frank Rubio, the first NASA astronaut scheduled to travel to and from the International Space Station under a new launch seat exchange agreement between NASA and Russian space agency Roscosmos, has praised efforts by the two agencies to continue their cooperation in space.
NASA is asking the aerospace industry to describe a commercial strategy for the planned deorbiting of the International Space Station, which is currently planned for the end of 2030.
As NASA gears up for the kickoff mission of its Artemis lunar exploration initiative, the agency on Aug. 19 identified 13 regions on the Moon’s south pole that are under consideration to become the Tranquility Base of a new generation.
SpaceX’s 25th NASA-contracted Dragon resupply capsule departed the International Space Station on Aug. 19 and was headed for a parachute-assisted splashdown in the ocean waters off the Florida coast.
Sierra Space has completed a test readiness review of its carbothermal reactor, a system designed to extract oxygen from the Moon’s soil, and plans to proceed to a physical test of the technology.
NASA’s Artemis I initial test flight of the Space Launch System and Orion crew capsule will be carrying a rich array of secondary science and technology payloads intended to demonstrate new space technologies and pave the way for a permanent human presence at the Moon and subsequent human exploration of Mars.
A Russian spacewalk outside the International Space Station ended well ahead of schedule on Aug. 17 when Cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev experienced a sudden voltage fluctuation in the internal battery that powered his spacesuit’s life support system.
The first Space Launch System rocket, topped with an Orion deep-space capsule, was rolled out to Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39B on Aug. 17 in preparation for an Aug. 29 launch attempt.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has selected Microchip Technology to develop a High-Performance Spaceflight Computing (HPSC) processor with “at least 100 times the computational capacity of current spaceflight computers.”
