NASA announced Thursday it is adding some additional milestones to agreements with three U.S. commercial companies that are developing spaceflight capabilities that could eventually provide launch services to transport NASA astronauts to the International Space Station from U.S. soil. NASA is supporting the development of these capabilities through its Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) initiative. […]
NASA
Stephen Hawking – “Why Go To Space?” – NASA 50th Anniversary Lecture
MODERATOR: Good afternoon. Welcome to the campus of George Washington University in downtown Washington, D.C., for what promises to be a very remarkable afternoon. My name is John Logsdon. I am the director of the Space Policy Institute here at GW’s Elliott School of International Affairs. We are a very happy co-host, along with Lockheed […]
NASA Announces New Grand Challenge Aimed At Finding Asteroids
WASHINGTON, DC – NASA announced Tuesday a Grand Challenge focused on finding all asteroid threats to human populations and knowing what to do about them. The challenge, which was announced at an asteroid initiative industry and partner day at NASA Headquarters in Washington, is a large-scale effort that will use multi-disciplinary collaborations and a variety […]
Educational CubeSat Demonstrations Take To The Skies Aboard Prospector Rocket
Four tiny spacecraft soared over the California desert June 15, 2013 in a high-altitude demonstration flight that tested the sensor and equipment designs created by NASA engineers and student launch teams. The satellites, known as CubeSats, lifted off from the Friends of Amateur Rocketry launch site in the Mojave Desert aboard a Prospector 18 rocket, […]
NASA’s Space Launch System (Finally) Enters Preliminary Design Review
NASA is beginning a preliminary design review for its Space Launch System (SLS). This major program assessment will allow development of the agency’s new heavy-lift rocket to move from concept to initial design. The preliminary design review process includes meticulous, detailed analyses of the entire launch vehicle. Representatives from NASA, its contractor partners and experts […]
Mars As You’ve Never Seen It Before In A BILLION Pixels!
PASADENA, CA. – A billion-pixel view from the surface of Mars, from NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity, offers armchair explorers a way to examine one part of the Red Planet in great detail. The first NASA-produced view from the surface of Mars larger than one billion pixels stitches together nearly 900 exposures taken by cameras onboard […]
NASA Commercial Crew Partner Boeing Completes New Spacecraft, Rocket Milestones
HOUSTON, TX – The Boeing Company of Houston, a NASA Commercial Crew Program (CCP) partner, recently performed wind tunnel testing of its CST-100 spacecraft and integrated launch vehicle, the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket. The testing is part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) initiative, intended to make commercial human spaceflight services […]
Another American High Frontier First: 3-D Manufacturing In Space
WASHINGTON, DC – In preparation for a future where parts and tools can be printed on demand in space, NASA and Made in Space Inc. of Mountain View, Calif., have joined to launch equipment for the the first 3-D microgravity printing experiment to the International Space Station. If successful, the 3-D Printing in Zero G […]
Data From NASA Rover’s Voyage to Mars Aids Planning
PASADENA, CA – Measurements taken by NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory mission as it delivered the Curiosity rover to Mars in 2012 are providing NASA the information it needs to design systems to protect human explorers from radiation exposure on deep-space expeditions in the future. Curiosity’s Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) is the first instrument to measure […]
NASA’s GRAIL Mission Solves Mystery of Moon’s Surface Gravity
PASADENA, CA – NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission has uncovered the origin of massive invisible regions that make the moon’s gravity uneven, a phenomenon that affects the operations of lunar-orbiting spacecraft. Because of GRAIL’s findings, spacecraft on missions to other celestial bodies can navigate with greater precision in the future. GRAIL’s twin […]