NASA and Boeing Delay Their Joint First Starliner Astronaut Mission to 2023
NASA and Boeing are now targeting early 2023 for the first crewed flight of Boeing’s long-delayed Starliner spacecraft, officials said during a joint press conference Thursday. Launch officials say the mission could take off as early as February, according to Steve Stich, the manager for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. Starliner had been slated to get […]
Upcoming Global Lunar Missions of Different Countries
As NASA prepares to send humans back to the moon through its long-awaited Artemis program, it’s taking big steps to encourage commercial lander development. First order of business: CLPS. NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program is funding 14 separate lander concepts from Astrobotic, Deep Space Systems, Draper Labs, Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines, Lockheed Martin, […]
Moon Day: July 20 of Every Year
The General Assembly of United Nations declared International Moon Day, a United Nations-designated international day to be observed annually on 20 July, in its resolution 76/76 on “International cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space” in 2021. International Moon Day marks the anniversary of the first landing by humans on the Moon as part […]
The Phoenix Space LaunchPad Challenge
The Phoenix Space LaunchPad Challenge offers upper high/secondary school and lower-level undergraduate university students the opportunity to develop and present a creative, idea-based solution to a space science-themed problem. This competition affords students an opportunity to apply their classroom learning and research to solving scientific challenges, leverage creativity, and develop presentation and teamwork skills while […]
International Mars Competition to Design a Telerobotic Mars Expedition
ONE WEEK LEFT to Register for Telerobotic Mars Expedition Design CompetitionThe Mars Society announced in April the launching of a new international space contest of mars competition to design a telerobotic Mars expedition. There will be a prize of $10,000 for first place, $5,000 for second, $2,500 for third, $1,000 for fourth, and $500 for […]
Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft successfully docked with the International Space Station
Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft successfully docked with the International Space Station on May 20, 2022. The spacecraft docked with the forward docking port on the Harmony module of the station at 8:28 p.m. Eastern. Controllers reported a hard docking securing the spacecraft to the station about 20 minutes later, although hatches separating the spacecraft from […]
Sanctions on Russia Causing Some Ripples in Collaborative ISS Activities
While operations of the International Space Station continue without “serious interruptions,” sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine are starting to have an effect on some activities, NASA’s safety advisers said. At a May 12 meeting of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP), members reiterated past comments by agency officials that the day-to-day operations […]
DARPA Going Ahead with the Development of Nuclear Powered Spacecraft
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency on May 4 issued a solicitation for proposals for the next phase of a demonstration of a nuclear-powered spacecraft. The project, called Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO), started over a year ago when DARPA selected a preliminary design for a rocket engine reactor developed by General Atomics, […]
Virgin Galactic Postpones its Commercial Suborbital Tourism Flights to 2023
Virgin Galactic is again postponing the start of commercial service of its SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplane from late 2022 to early 2023, blaming the latest delay on supply chain and labor issues. In the company’s first quarter earnings release May 5, Virgin Galactic said it expected to start commercial flights of its VSS Unity spaceplane in […]
May 7, 1992: Space Shuttle Endeavour Launches on its Maiden Voyage
On May 7, 1992, the space shuttle Endeavour launched on its first flight. Endeavour was the fifth and last space shuttle that was ever built, and STS-49 was the first of 25 missions to fly on it. The purpose of this mission was to retrieve a satellite called Intelsat 603, which had failed to reach […]