Exploring The Frontier Of Space
After nearly a week of frustrating technical and then weather delays, a United Launch Alliance Delta IV rocket finally got off the ground today and successfully deployed the Air Forces AFSPC-4 mission to geosynchronous orbit. Once again waiting out the typically fickle summertime Florida weather, the launch vehicle thundered off the pad at Space Launch […]
Following a one-day delay to fix a balky water valve on its launch pad, the Delta II launch vehicle returned to service early Wednesday morning with a fiery nighttime ascent from California on a mission to deploy NASA’s first spacecraft dedicated to studying atmospheric carbon dioxide. The Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 (OCO-2) will join a […]
NASA officials are calling today’s near-space test flight of the agency’s Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) a success despite the fact that an experimental supersonic parachute failed to deploy during the test, which occurred off the coast of the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii. The June 28 test was the first of […]
NASA has selected 12 proposals for study under Phase I of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Program, which aims to turn science fiction into fact through pioneering technology development. Seedling investments may provide the breakthrough technologies needed to support NASA’s plans for exploration beyond low-Earth orbit, into deep space and to Mars, as outlined […]
NASA and the National Space Grant Foundation have selected five universities to design systems, concepts and technologies to enhance capabilities for deep space missions for the 2015 Exploration Habitat (X-Hab) Academic Innovation Challenge. The selections are the first milestone in a yearlong design and development effort for these five projects. Throughout the 2014-2015 academic year, […]
With just six months until its first trip to space, NASA’s Orion spacecraft continues taking shape at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Engineers began stacking the crew module on top of the completed service module Monday, the first step in moving the three primary Orion elements – crew module, service module and launch […]
Orbital Sciences Corporation announced that it has updated its Antares launch schedule for the Orb-2 mission to a date no earlier than (NET) July 1, 2014. Orb-2 is the second of eight cargo resupply missions to the International Space Station under the company’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract with NASA. The new launch schedule reflects […]
This is NASA’s Exploration Systems Mission Directorate quarterly update highlighting progress made in early 2014 toward the flight test of Orion EFT-1 and ongoing work to upgrade the ground infrastructure at Kennedy Space Center as well as progress being made on the Space Launch System.
NASA successfully beamed a high-definition video 260 miles from the International Space Station to Earth Thursday using a new laser communications instrument. Transmission of “Hello, World!” as a video message was the first 175-megabit communication for the Optical Payload for Lasercomm Science (OPALS), a technology demonstration that allows NASA to test methods for communication with […]
With two companies now providing commercial cargo launch services for the International Space Station, NASA is issuing its final report on the now-complete Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program that laid the groundwork for those flights. The report, titled “Commercial Orbital Transportation Services, A New Era in Spaceflight” (NASA/SP-2014-617), documents the work of NASA’s Commercial […]