The United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced the selection of Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) to provide launch services for its SPHEREx mission. The SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer) mission is meant to help scientists gather data to help them understand the […]
SpaceX’s latest Starship prototype launched on Tuesday, soaring miles above its South Texas facilities in a successful flight demonstration before exploding during the landing attempt. It’s the second failed landing in a row, after a previous prototype, SN8, launched and failed to stick the landing in December. This week’s launch demo one of many in […]
Virgin Galactic announced Feb. 1 that the company will launch its SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplane in mid-February, two months after a technical problem aborted an earlier launch attempt. In a statement, Virgin Galactic said the window for its next SpaceShipTwo flight will open Feb. 13 at Spaceport America in New Mexico. The exact date of the […]
SpaceX has smashed a record for sending spacecraft into orbit. The company successfully launched its Transporter-1 mission carrying an unprecedented 143 satellites, including 133 commercial and government customer vehicles and 10 Starlink machines. The Falcon 9 rocket, which supported Crew Dragon Demo-2, landed aboard a drone ship in the Atlantic. This was SpaceX’s first dedicated […]
Virgin Orbit is gearing up for its second demonstration flight this weekend. The spinoff from Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic venture aims to launch payloads into space not with rocket liftoffs from the ground but by air-launching its LauncherOne rocket from the Cosmic Girl Boeing 747-400 aircraft at high altitude. The goal is to increase the […]
NASA is edging closer to sending a spacecraft around the Moon, and it’s about to conduct a crucial test to ensure that mission goes forward. As Reuters reports, the agency is conducting a hot fire test for the Space Launch System’s rocket core stage at 5PM Eastern, with coverage available on NASA TV starting at […]
SpaceX posted a longer video of its Starship SN8 high-altitude test flight. Its high speed impact and explosion is just a footnote, as this two-minute video marvels at the spectacle of a 12-story-tall vehicle executing a controlled fall and landing flip maneuver. SpaceX has already rolled its next prototype out of the hangar so we […]
Amazon revealed the design of the antennas its customers will use to tap into the company’s upcoming massive satellite constellation, Project Kuiper, designed to provide broadband internet coverage from space. “Project Kuiper is a new initiative to launch a constellation of low Earth orbit satellites that will provide low-latency, high-speed broadband connectivity to unserved and […]
The Lunar Gateway, NASA’s outpost that can orbit the moon as a part of its upcoming Artemis program, might be provided with exterior robotics from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), NASA introduced these days. The fruits of an previous partnership round Artemis, NASA’s first primary program to carry astronauts to the moon in part a […]
A Virgin Galactic test flight Saturday ended prematurely as the spacecraft’s rocket motor failed to ignite and it then glided down safely to its landing site in southern New Mexico. Both the craft and the crew are “in great shape,” and there are backup motors on hand. Still, the company could only promise that it […]
This morning, SpaceX launched its latest batch of cargo and supplies to the International Space Station, but the company is using a slightly different spacecraft for this flight than resupply missions of the past. SpaceX is flying its newly upgraded Dragon capsule to transport the goods to space the same vehicle that the company has […]
NASA just made contact with Voyager 2 for the first time since March thanks to a key technology upgrade. The agency has revealed that it sent commands to the probe on October 29th using the recently upgraded Deep Space Station 43 dish in Canberra, Australia. The instructions were part of a test for new hardware, […]
NASA on Monday said it has, for the first time, discovered water on the sunlit surface of the Moon. Scientists from NASA’s Ames Research Center, the University of Hawaii and Brown University in mid-2018 proved that water ice exists on the surface of the Moon, albeit at the poles and in lunar craters where sunlight […]
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has landed a $149 million contract to build missile-tracking satellites for the Pentagon. SpaceX would build four satellites in its assembly plant in Redmond, Washington, the US Space Development Agency (SDA) said on Monday, per Reuters. The plant is where SpaceX builds satellites for Starlink, a constellation of satellites designed to beam […]
Elon Musk now says the flight with the SN8 prototype will top out at 15km, or close to 50,000ft, instead of the 18km and 60,000ft he’d mentioned earlier. It’s not clear what prompted the lowered expectations, but Musk added that the rocket would get its nosecone and front flaps “next week.” He also showed current […]