Blazing through the evening skies over Florida, a United Launch Alliance Delta IV rocket blasted off at 8:29 p.m. EDT on August 7, beginning another successful mission to delivery a Wideband Global Satcom (WGS) satellite to geosynchronous orbit for the United States Air Force. Forty minutes after blasting off from Cape Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex […]
Spaceflight
Japanese Resupply Craft HTV-4 Is Captured And Berthed To ISS
The fourth Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency H-II Transfer Vehicle, or HTV-4 was installed on its berthing port on the Earth-facing side of the International Space Station’s Harmony node at 11:38 a.m. EDT Friday, delivering 3.6 tons of science experiments, equipment and supplies to the orbiting complex. Flight Engineer Karen Nyberg, with the assistance of Flight […]
Progress 52 Resupply Ship Docks With ISS
The ISS Progress 52 resupply ship docked with the station’s Pirs docking compartment at 10:26 p.m. EDT, delivering 1,212 pounds of propellant, 42 pounds of oxygen, 62 pounds of air, 926 pounds of water and 3,395 pounds of spare parts, maintenance equipment and experiment hardware. Included in the cargo are tools identified for possible repairs […]
One Special Day in the Life of Planet Earth Shining Brightly In The Black Void
Color and black-and-white images of Earth taken by two NASA interplanetary spacecraft July 19 show our planet and its moon as bright beacons from millions of miles away in space. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft captured the color images of Earth and the moon from its perch in the Saturn system nearly 900 million miles (1.5 billion […]
Atlas V 551 Launches Its Heaviest Payload Yet, MUOS-2 For The U.S. Navy
Rattling windows as it pierced cloudy skies above Cape Canaveral, the most powerful version of the Atlas V rocket blasted off from Space Launch Complex 41 at 9 .a.m. EDT today on the 6th mission this year for launch provider United Launch Alliance. An hour later, Atlas successfully deployed the second Mobile User Objective System […]
Eastern Range (ER) and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) Spaceport Concept
Introduction: This concept explores the Eastern Range (ER) and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) being managed as a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)-licensed commercial launch site (i.e., a spaceport). The concept to be discussed is that launch programs (U.S., commercial, civil, and national security space sector launch and test and evaluation (T&E) programs) would contract […]
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 […]
Watch Out NASA, The Next Mission To The Moon Might Not Be Yours
In 1959, the author Martin Caidin (“Marooned”) wrote, “The mysterious Moon may well be Man’s next outpost in the conquest of space. How will he reach it? What will he find there? Will we be the first to land on the Moon or is Russia likely to beat us in the race for space?” Ten […]
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, […]